Black Adam and Aquaman counter strategies discussion

[kabelfritz]

ok it seems to be clear what the next task for the community is as deadshot seems to be figured out for now. while the crying about DS was way OD in the first place, BA and AM are some different kind of animals. they are really powerful and dont lack much. they are known, easy to play and have high damage which makes them ideal pocket characters especially this early in the game.

i admit i dont own the game and dont know the exact frame data, which makes it quite moronic to talk about it, but as 20+years NRS veteran and viewer i think id give it a shot to start a discussion at least.

what i figured about black adam: you gotta approach the matchup with the knowledge that you are not on the offense. you need super-solid defense with no risks at all mid and full-screen while you walk him to the corner.
thats where you gotta start relentless harrassment, which should implement a lot of armor and safe setups, as adams wakeup and poke game is also good. he does not have that much health, so you have to make your damage count. tekken master gave us a glimpse of what it can look like, even though he lost to sonic due to bad decisions in the end.

about aquaman i havent thought yet, but you guys are also there, right?
edit: what happened to "aquamans trait not working properly" (aka a wise balance decision that makes it not brainless to use) though? ive seen nobody abuse it at CB, while huge chip setups seem to be logical.

 

[Badboy Takuma]

Lol

 

[Omgzilla]

Adam's wakeup game is not good. It is luke warm at best. df1 might be our best, but them jazz hands don't have much range. Lightning cage doesn't have enough iframes to be worth it most of the time, you can meaty right through it.

 

[RiBBz22]

you need to bully Adam when he gets on the ground, his wakeup game is borderline terrible. His D2 is pretty good overall, but it is not good at defending against cross-ups.

 

[Shaka]

Adam's backdash is not great either.

You can mash low pokes since his long range normals are high etc.

Also get the game asap, the game is amazing, what are you waiting for?

 

[kabelfritz]

Adam's backdash is not great either.

You can mash low pokes since his long range normals are high etc.

Also get the game asap, the game is amazing, what are you waiting for?

lol i have no console and no time. its over, sadly, got other stuff to do. otherwise id love to mop with swamp thing.

 

[The_Tile]

I'm not seeing the big deal about Aquaman, he's a solid character but is very easy which is why he seems to be getting a lot of play right now. Not big about his seems inherently stupid.

Black Adam however is a different monster. He's been giving me a bit of trouble recently, his neutral is so strong and all it takes is one slip up into insane damage and corner carry, and when he's there you have to hold stupid crossup divekick mixups. He's the one people need to focus on countering imo.

 

[Omgzilla]

He's the one people need to focus on countering imo.

BA is good at punishing mistakes, thats what he does best. He has some zone control, but not an insane amount. Beyond that, he doesn't have any true mixups beyond crossups. No oh/low 50/50s to worry about, and as was said before he has a pretty crappy wakeup game. If you don't pressure him, and hopefully get him on the ground, you're going to have a bad time.

 

[GetEmStretch]

Batman and Harley have been the 2 main characters that people counterpick with when I play Black Adam. In Injustice 1: Aquaman, Doomsday, Wonder Woman (ha, not anymore) and Zod shut him down. Now "black magic" will reversal Aquaman's "from the deep" into a full combo a lot easier, should you choose to burn a bar.

Glad I developed with him midway thru the end of Injustice 1 so other players can't say I jumped onto the bandwagon going into the sequel. Before the game even released, I said he was going to be great again when NRS gave him a forward advancing string. Aside from his terrible backdash, they buffed his anti-air capabilities and gave him better neutral. Now that players are more likely to duck within & just outside of sweep range, this opens up his B2 overhead.

I still want to play a veteran Aquaman to see how that matchup goes. A least he can't build another bar doing MB Trident rush, let alone combo without meter. I think IVY is going to be a problem for him though seeing as she can play her game and has that tremendous mid (or high?) to low advancing string that can be staggered.

 

[Omgzilla]

Yea I mained BA back in IGAU and pocketed Flash, seems like it will be much the same for I2. Good thing I still have the mbdf3 >df3 timing down for that sweet sweet double boot-to-face action. I am sad about what Boon did to Flash and WW this time around though.

Edit: words are hard

 

[GetEmStretch]

Yea I mained BA back in IGAU and pocketed Flash, seems like it will be much the same for I2. Good thing I still have the mbdf3 >df3 timing down for that sweet sweet double boot-to-face action. I am sad about what Boon did to Flash and WW this time around though.

Edit: words are hard

Yeah I don't know why they gave Flash that weak ass back dash he initially had. I saw a thread the other day entitled "Test your Backdash" and showed he has the least distance traveled backdash. What a joke! I haven't played much of him this time around but I can't remember the string (B22) seems slower.

 

[Omgzilla]

(B22) seems slower.

Yea his backdash is terrible, that is a certainty. As for his b22, I can't verify if its slower, but it does have less range than it used to. That is what messed up his mid-range punishing ability. He's all about being in your face. His corner game also seems to center around ending in RMS (and rms cancels) otherwise you lose pressure by knocking down the enemy with every combo.

As for being on topic, remember that BA has no true low starter. So for those having trouble with him im sure fuzzy-blocking will be useful as it gets discovered and trained up again.

 

[RiBBz22]

I'm not seeing the big deal about Aquaman, he's a solid character but is very easy which is why he seems to be getting a lot of play right now. Not big about his seems inherently stupid.

Black Adam however is a different monster. He's been giving me a bit of trouble recently, his neutral is so strong and all it takes is one slip up into insane damage and corner carry, and when he's there you have to hold stupid crossup divekick mixups. He's the one people need to focus on countering imo.

Atrocitus gives me the most issues when I play Adam, and I've thought he is really the biggest problem in the game since I picked it up tbh. Good Harley's are annoying against Adam as well IMO.

 

[CrazyFingers]

I'm not seeing the big deal about Aquaman, he's a solid character but is very easy which is why he seems to be getting a lot of play right now. Not big about his seems inherently stupid.

Black Adam however is a different monster. He's been giving me a bit of trouble recently, his neutral is so strong and all it takes is one slip up into insane damage and corner carry, and when he's there you have to hold stupid crossup divekick mixups. He's the one people need to focus on countering imo.

When you take into account that there is literally nothing Aquaman doesn't have you start to understand why he's ridiculous.

 

[ATimeTraveler]

The most elite level Black Adam players on Injustice 1 weren't that threatening because I had 25 thousand wins, but he's somewhat better on this game. Many of the same strats still work against him as well as Aquaman...

 

[ATimeTraveler]

Black Adam players would spam low, long range jump kick into a full combo (if landed), do orbs, then spam the lightning ground pound on wakeup which only went EX if it touched you... Deathstroke could cross it up and cancel out the wakeup if it didn't physically touch his body...

 

[GetEmStretch]

Good Harley's are annoying against Adam as well IMO.

+1

 

[Error]

Harley's annoying in general, but I don't consider her to be a tough MU against Adam.

I'd consider The Joker, Batman and Supergirl to be tough against Adam, Cyborg and Blue Beetle possible as well, but I haven't seen these two match-ups played out.

 

[wsj515]

Adam's wakeup game is garbage, so once you knock him down you can really bully him.

He has a really hard time against characters with a strong air game, and his d2 is pretty bad at catching crossups as it has a much better horizontal hitbox than vertical. You don't get in for free by jumping, granted, as Adam's j1 is a decent A2A, dive kick can A2A into conversion, and d2 isn't by any means a bad normal.

Despite how good f12 is as a punishing tool, I feel like he actually really suffers around sweep distance. F1 is a high, and although the second hit is a mid, it still whiffs on quite a few characters when crouched. If you can stay crouched around sweep, you can scout f12 and punish with a d2. This is further compounded by Adam's really short ranged d1 - if your character's d1 has more range, abuse it, he won't have many options to punish outside of walking back and catching you poke spamming with a lightning hands check.

 

[Tony at Home]

All I can say is I mash d1 like a madman whenever Im out of range of Bladam's b2

 

[wsj515]

All I can say is I mash d1 like a madman whenever Im out of range of Bladam's b2

b2 range is pretty short now. There is a fairly large sweet spot somewhere in sweep distance that makes f12 a gamble, b2 miss, d1 miss, and both dive kicks whiff if ia'ed. If you have a d1 that outranges Adam's d1, you don't even really need to worry about b2, and that sweet spot just gets bigger.

People give Adam too much respect in neutral because they are rightly scared of his damage. Once you start shutting down f12, so much changes.

Edit: Don't want to make it seem like I'm downplaying f12, but iirc the second hit may actually not hit at the very start of it's active frames on a crouched opponent, making it even easier to punish. I'll test it later.

 

[RiBBz22]

Harley's annoying in general, but I don't consider her to be a tough MU against Adam.

I'd consider The Joker, Batman and Supergirl to be tough against Adam, Cyborg and Blue Beetle possible as well, but I haven't seen these two match-ups played out.

Yeah I agree with Cyborg. You definitely have to lame out Batman, and if he knocks you down it is pretty damn bad but I don't mind fighting him that much tbh.

 

[9_Lives]

I feel like Superman does well against him. His f2 is a better tool than that advancing high he's got. Not sure how I feel about full screen since his lightning cloud thing stops straight laser. I guess it depends on how far that dive kick reaches if Superman jumps back. You can really suffocate him in the corner too.

 

[BigMacMcLovin]

Edit: Don't want to make it seem like I'm downplaying f12, but iirc the second hit may actually not hit at the very start of it's active frames on a crouched opponent, making it even easier to punish. I'll test it later.

Can confirm. I just played a long set with a BA as Robin and D1'd the hell out of that string. If my punishing was better then maybe I would've won more than 1 in 10+.

 

[The_Tile]

When you take into account that there is literally nothing Aquaman doesn't have you start to understand why he's ridiculous.

There's a few characters like that though right now tbh. Aquamans comfortable everywhere on screen but he isn't insane anywhere which is okay imo.

Batman is another potential problem though. He makes me want to cry some very salty tears