Cassie:
- df2 is punished midscreen if neutral ducked with b12 into full combo into reset
- she gets free pressure on wake up because f44 nullifies all of Jacqui's options
- Can't pressure her on knockdown if she has meter because of safe ex flip kick (in the corner it's a just frame punish)
- vastly out footsies her
- can't jump in on Cassie but she can jump in on you
- Damage (believe it or not) is actually pretty even, but Cassie gets more opportunity to use hers.
- Cassie's d3 and d4 both outrange Jacqui's d3 and are faster meaning in poking situations it's usually Cassie who wins.
Kitana
- punish neutral ducked guns with tornado
- better up close pressure
- her wakeup game is legit because she can get full combo from it
- really difficult to anti-air, but has legit ways to anti-air you
- much better footsies and neutral game
- doesn't have to approach (if absorb was faster this MU would be much easier) and builds meter quicker in the 'zoning war'
- even when Kitana is negative (e.g. After a blocked fan toss) Jacqui can't poke back because her pokes don't reach. She has to risk armour bf4 or back dash which can both be full combo punished on read and lead to minimal reward.
- Kitana matches/out damages her.
I'm talking specifically about Royal Storm Kitanna and Hollywood Cassie, but assassin Kitanna and brawler Cassie are similarly unpleasant.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on those match ups.
I don't know much about the Kitana MU honestly. I was more asking out of curiosity. So no opinion there. What you said seems to make sense, couple questions though.
- Gun punish, from how far away? only in royal storm? does MB gun make us safe? Can Assassin Kitana punishwhiffed guns?
- In the few games I did play vs Kitana i found that the up rocket covered the float thing that Kitana did pretty well, thoughts?
- the "Much" better footsies to me seems dependent on how far away Kitana can punish raw guns. I'll admit Kitana outfootsies her from what I can tell.
- she may not have to approach, but much like others do to Jacqui, we can just duck and walk, absorb from time to time, maybe even reflect to get in. I dunno, Jacqui runs so fast and it's not like Kitana can just mindlessly throw fans or glaives.
- I feel like Kitana being negative gives Jacqui a chance to use her walk speed to her advantage, walking back and whiff punishing. For a lot of pokes that can't reach, i try and use S4 to counter poke, cancel it into guns. I dunno just a thought, don't really know though. I don't think i'd be using Jacqui's armour in the counter poking game. Backdashing is somewhat unsafe, but on a hard read.
As for Cassie.
I think she wins, not arguing there. I don't think she loses to her THAT badly though. My training partner uses Spec ops, but I know the MU in basically all variations (i'm a bit fuzzy on the tick throw options in brawler, I must admit).
- Zoning
Cassie is one of the top tiers that actually has to deal with guns (unlike a Quan chi who punishes us suuuuuper free on ducked guns). The reason that is important is because the conditioning of ducking and waiting for guns is when Jacqui gets to play her game. If we can control the other character's way in by forcing them to adjust to guns, it gives us the opening to run in and do something, jump in(yeah i know her jump ins aren't great), low rocket, f4/f3 cancel our way in, throw out some up rockets that recover well and cover the skies ect. From full screen Cassie is forced to deal with guns, and work her way in, all that ducking and walking in is our conditioning. She can run in on us, but if she does that too much she's super dependent on stam for her combos and won't get much off of it. I think guns being punished Mid screen is a bit fuzzy for me. Don't get me wrong, B1 and even a slight run B1 covers great range to punish, but I think it's a spacing thing. If I use guns within that range where she can punish, well I can use MB to cover that. If it hits, then Cassie is back to full screen dealing with the conditioning class mentioned above.
- Oki
The risk reward of KD against Cassie is very frustrating I admit. I'm not going to argue there, it sucks. You still have to go for it sometimes.
- Free F44
Honestly with Cassie's excellent and safe (with meter) 50/50s, if she's F44ing me on KD, I'm ok with that. I don't wake up often vs Cassie, and really in spec ops we can't anyways. So yeah F44 beats our wake up options (other than backdash?) but that can be said for most armored wake ups against any character (obviously not in all cases).
- Footsies
Again, for me, it's a matter of how well you use guns and Jacqui's movement. Cassie has better footsies, much better, but that doesn't mean we can't play that game ever.
- Jump ins
We can't jump for the most part. I know, it sucks. We can anti air with up rocket, even though I think you and I disagree on this.
- Damage
In hollywood yes, the damage is similar. In brawler, I don't know, so i'll take your word for it. In Spec ops Jacqui out damages her. So I agree with you.
- Poking
Yeah Cassie's d4 is really good, poking sucks. But if you're within the right range, Jacqui's D3 is pretty fast at 8 frames and does the trick. Blocking poking, walking back and whiff punishing to me is the name of the game.
Where I have a lot of my success is punishing whenever she goes for her Mix ups. Learn how to block correctly (OH low, and Low OH) and punish hard if you make the right read. Other than in Hollywood, both the OH and the Low starters are Fcp. Cartwheel on block can be punished with F1 or run in S1. The low (df1) and OH (f33 or b33 i forget) are both punished with S1. The OH Mixup is a bit more difficult and takes practice, but do-able. One tip on the OH is to block High, low, high and let go of block asap. If you continue to block low, I think you get messed up by the extra block advantage of blocking low. If the Cassie player uses MB flip kick on mixups she's safe, and that sucks, but you're back to the zoning game, which is a good situation for Jacqui IMO.
Cassie wins I agree, but in any MU where Jacqui gets to play her game, she has a fighting chance I think.
I'm only talking about Full auto Jacqui (as I'm sure you've figured out) I don't know much about Shotgun and HT as I agree with you in the sense that I do not believe they are viable variations.
