Melty Blood/MBAACC/Powered Ciel/Crescent Moon: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:13, 7 December 2022

Additional Resources

Overview

Playstyle

C-PCiel is a character that offers good damage, corner carry, and a very straightforward, but effective setplay that nullifies conventional Wake up options.
Pros	Cons
Lot's of buttons: She offers a variety of (mostly) disjointed normals that complement her ability to combo, poke, anti-air, whiff punish, and even confirm at long ranges. Survivability: Being able to ex-guard, ex-shield, and also having access to the fastest heat in the game (not counting necos) alongside with Hime, that has a pretty generous hitbox, she does better in terms of defense than the other two moons. Horizontal Lightning: The character's defining move, uncharged versions of 214A/B and j.214A/B have their purpose as okay, long range pokes in neutral, while charged versions are used for her okizeme after every single hard knockdown, which is very hard to disrespect. Air to Air: C-P.Ciel j.B and j.C are good air buttons that will secure your needed air CH's to get your game started. Timer Scammer: While not as good as F in that regard, C-PCiel combos still take a while to do, specially in the corner, so opponents will have problems trying to comeback if time becomes a factor for them. Comboable throw: Just like Miyako, P.Ciel offers a combo after every successfull grab anywhere on the screen, giving more reward compared to other throws in the game, and since opponents are unable to burst out, you can make them waste MAX mode with a long combo. Pressure: C-P.Ciel pressure is good, her buttons have large cancel windows to compensate for their lack of + frames, so you can heavily punish your opponent for trying to press buttons.	Unorthodox combos: C-P.Ciel combo routes differ greatly from the majority of the cast, even when comparing her to the other moons, she has to do different things for damage and corner carry, which can be hard/tedious to pull off consistently. Awkward Neutral: P.Ciel has bad mobility in both the air and on the ground, and out of all her moons, C is the one that has the weakest tools for neutral, so being put in an unadvantageous position is more likely to happen. Air to Ground: C-P.Ciel air buttons are serviceable in air to air situations, but they are not the best against grounded opponents, so you are susceptible to being anti-aired, specially against characters that have dedicated buttons for that, like H/F-Kouma's 2B. Mediocre Defense: Even with C-Moon's mechanics, she still has poor health, slower than average abare due to fastest normals being active at the 6th frame, slower jump startup than the rest of the cast, and no good reversals outside of Heat, which can be baited just like any other in the game. Meter Usage: She does have good meter gain but terrible meter dump options that don't help her achieve her goal, so you are most likely to use meter for Heat or burst when you are in MAX. Charged Lightning is weak to bunker: 214[A]/[B] goes away if C-Pciel gets hit, this means that regular bunker, and specially H bunker are a strong option that your opponent has to disrespect your Okizeme, requiring you to have good reactions to Ex-Shield and punish.

Notable Players

Name	Region	Common Venues	Status	Details
ueda (上田)	Japan	Kirisugu	Inactive	The original C-P.Ciel main also known as kuga (くが) , sometimes shows some weird, if not questionable decision making, but he's still the best one to watch in Japan.
ashie (あしぇ)	Japan	KorewaMelty	Inactive	More recent C-P.Ciel player, not that much footage to watch, but i recommend checking him out if you are starting to learn the character.
Starlow (StarlowMora#3060)	South America	Netplay	Active	I edited the wiki, not a lot of matches to be found yet, but if you have questions about the character, i can answer, just DM me on discord. :)

General Gameplan

C-P.Ciel overall gameplan revolves around trying to secure a hit in neutral, getting that hard knockdown, locking your opponents with Lightning Okizeme, starting your offense and forcing them to guess, primarily with your strong Strike/Throw game, and if they make a mistake, you loop the process over and over again until they lose.

Neutral

Getting anything done in neutral can be challenging against some MU's, but you are already struggling in general, since you are the slowest character in the game, so a lot of patience and good decision making is crucial to play C-P.Ciel.

If you want to move in the ground, her dash has a fixed travel distance, that also allows you to dashblock, just keep in mind that you are vulnerable during that extra startup frames. Also in the ground, the most common buttons you will be using are 5B, which is good for poking and anti-airing, for long range confirms and punishes, you have 5C > 236A for a guaranteed combo even at tip range, and whenever you are looking for a whiff-punish, press your magic 3C.

623A and 623B are DP's that retain your air options when the recovery ends, so you can use those as a tool to occasionally navigate through neutral instead of jumping.

You can sometimes try to chip your opponent with 214A/B and j.214A/B, it has increased utility against characters that want to put stuff on the screen, like Nero and Aoko.

In the air you will be trying to fish for counterhits, so you switch between j.B and j.C depending on the situation, and in extreme cases you can use j.A, if you have good reactions you can confirm a regular hit with any of these into Air DP.

j.C is your best jump in tool, but it's not particularly good for that purpose, and smart opponents will try to anti-air you a lot. In order to not become too predictable with your aerial approaches, you do have air dodge, and also j.214A/B for stalling, since it does actually retain your air options.

Pressure

C-PCiel is strong when in this regard, she has good buttons with large cancel windows, a strong, comboable throw, and a workable overhead/low game, how do you use these tools will depend on how your opponents reacts during the match. Most of your damage will come from your Strike/Throw game, and 95% of your pressure resets will be done with your ground dash, IAD resets are not good with this character, and you don't have guaranteed ways to extend pressure with specials or EX moves.

2A > delay 5B > 5A whiff > dash X

2A > 2B > delay 5B

2A > delay 2A > dash 5A

2AA > 2B > delay 6C

2AAA > walk Throw/Button

These are just a few examples to get started on your pressure, the cancel windows on your normals alone can make your opponents think twice before pressing a button, but you might also want to condition them to stop jumping, and granted you can check jumps, sometimes it might be hard get a good confirm out of these, but it's still doable.

Once you condition your opponent to block more often, you can complement your offense with 6[B]/6B>2A to mix your opponent from time to time.

214[B] can be used as a pressure reset, but it might not work against good players without a considerable amount of conditioning, and some character have access to EX moves they can use on reaction to punish you whenever they feel like using meter, like C/H-Ciel's 236C, so you better know what are you fighting against.

Okizeme

You do your combo, get the hard knockdown with the divekick, then OTG with 236B~B, and finally, you put a 214[A] or 214[B] on their wake-up, pretty simple. Since your setplay is based around a projectile, which lasts for a very long time, and gives you a lot of + frames, your opponents have very limited options outside of blocking, we're gonna talk about them now.

Shield: If they decide to do this, they are forced to shield every tick of your lightning, so it's very easy to just punish with a throw, but some opponents might purposefully sacrifice a little bit of health to do it, since shielding your okizeme gives them a lot of meter, and if you decide to punish with a throw, you are going to give them even more. Unfortunately there's no way to prevent C and F moons from doing that, but you can actually punish H moon characters way harder, if they shield your lightning, you run and make them also shield your 5A, this will make them automatically do a shield counter, and since it has a fixed startup, you can ex-shield and punish, doing more damage than with a regular throw.
Bunker: The overview isn't lying, your charged lightnings disappear if you get hit, so regular bunker is a strong option against it. You have a harder time against H Bunker, because it's faster, safer, and gives even more reward to your opponent with a hard knockdown. Luckily for you, bunkers have fixed startup, you only got to look out if your opponent is using H or not, so it's possible to get consistent with your Ex-shield punishes, but you still have to be cautious, since your opponent can always alter their timing when they want to disrespect your okizeme.

Defense

As C-P.Ciel, you don't struggle as much as the other two, but your defensive options are still not good, so a careful use of your system mechanics and the tools in your kit is very important to do well with this character.

You have access to a really fast heat, with a good hitbox, you use it on wake up or against predictable approaches. and it will certainly save you from a lot of bad situations, but use it sparingly, since it's your only reversal, and smart opponents will try to bait it. You can also flip the coin doing wake-up shield whenever you feel like it, but you would want to block most of the time, do ex-guard as much as you can to push them away and have more opportunity to do stuff, and if you are paying attention, you can even start shielding and punish your opponent for fake stuff like F-Miyako's 421A or C-Arc's 236[A], you can also bunker specific multi-hitting stuff, like C/H-Aoko's 63214B.

The easiest option when you notice a gap in your opponent's offense is to jump, which might have increased startup than the rest of the cast, but it still works and is not as risky as trying to press your slower than average buttons.

When you want to mash, you might be tempted to use a lot of 3C as abare, but this button has a lot of recovery on whiff, making it particularly weak against IAD resets, so i suggest mixing it up with 2A, it's not very good, but that faster recovery time might prove useful sometimes. If you are expecting an IAD reset you can always try to use 5A or 623A when you see it.

Speaking of 623A, it's faster than 2A and 3C, but take in consideration the extra time and effort to put the motion. If it whiffs or it gets blocked, you are left in the air and close to the opponent, which is not the best place to be, if the DP actually hits, sometimes you won't get a good confirm, but if you are lucky, you might get a CH trade on your favor, giving you enough time to recover and do a 3C pickup for a combo.

In any gap during your opponents pressure, you can use 623C as a sort of get out of the jail free card, since you don't need meter to do combos or extend pressure, and very few characters can actually punish you for doing it, C/H-Ciel's 236C, H-Roa's 236C and Hime with j.236C.

Combos

Combo Notation Help
Disclaimer: Combos are written by various writers, so the actual notation used in pages can differ from the standard one. For more information, see Glossary and Controls.
X > Y	X input is cancelled into Y.
X > delay Y	Must wait for a short period before cancelling X input into Y.
X, Y	X input is linked into Y, meaning Y is done after X's recovery period.
X+Y	Buttons X and Y must be input simultaneously.
X/Y	Either the X or Y input can be used.
X~Y	This notation has two meanings. Use attack X with Y follow-up input. Input X then within a few frames, input Y. Usually used for option selects.
X(w)	X input must not hit the opponent (Whiff).
j.X	X input is done in the air, implies a jump/jump cancel if the previous move was done from the ground. Applies to all air chain sections: Assume a forward jump cancel if no direction is given. Air chains such as j.A > j.B > j.C can be shortened to j.ABC.
sj.X	X input is done after a super jump. Notated as sj8.X and sj9.X for neutral and forward super jumps respectively.
dj.X	X input is done after a double jump.
sdj.X	X input is done after a double super jump.
tk.X	Stands for Tiger Knee. X motion must be buffered before jumping, inputting the move as close to the ground as possible. (ex. tk.236A)
(X)	X is optional. Typically the combo will be easier if omitted.
[X]	Input X is held down. Also referred to as Blowback Edge (BE). Depending on the character, this can indicate that this button is held down and not released until indicated by the release notation.
]X[	Input X is released. Will only appear if a button is previously held down. This type of input is referred to as Negative Edge.
{X}	Button X should only be held down briefly to get a partially charged version instead of the fully charged one.
X(N)	Attack "X" should only hit N times.
(XYZ)xN	XYZ string must be performed N times. Combos using this notation are usually referred to as loops.
(XYZ^)	A pre-existing combo labelled XYZ is inserted here for shortening purposes.
CH	The first attack must be a Counter Hit.
Air CH	The first attack must be a Counter Hit on an airborne opponent.
66	Performs a ground forward dash.
j.66	Performs an aerial forward dash, used as a cancel for certain characters' air strings.
IAD/IABD	Performs an Instant AirDash.
AT	Performs an Air Throw. (j.6/4A+D)
IH	Performs an Initiative Heat.
AD	Performs an Arc Drive.
AAD	Performs an Another Arc Drive.

All C-PCiel's routes will have a demonstration video if you click on the expand button. Sometimes when you are going for j.C > j.236A~X, due to the hurtboxes of some characters like Hime, Ries, and particularly Nanaya, the divekick will make you switch sides, which really hurts your okizeme with 236B~B, so against those character, i suggest skipping j.C and doing j.236A~X, or do some more advanced corner carry combos.