Maxima (Console)

[marchefelix]

This was already in the front page, but it deserves to be in here

KoF XIII : Today's Maxima ～Guard Point Report～

[DeaTh-ShiNoBi]

I made a post about Maxima's Neomax doing more damage than expected, but foolishly didn't read the rule about Max Cancels (which makes the super not increase the hit count used in the formula).  Disregard this post.

[LouisCipher]

Maxi's Neomax is an anywhere juggle. So he can activate HD, jab you out of the air and lay waste to ya'.

[Reiki.Kito]

Been a while since I posted in here, but since I've been up for a while, I really wanted to share something I think will be useful for Maxima players.

Maxima has a cross up he can perform on crouchers that leads into full combo, looks relatively ambiguous. Works on everyone in the cast too.

From point blank, do d.A and quickly hyper hop forward. Before you cross over, press B. You should cross the opponent up. As far as I know, you can't use any other normal to cross someone up. It's relatively fast for a cross up set up too.

Mix this in with your d.A pressure game and you can start to open people up more liberally with Maxima.

[Diavle]

^Nice, I'll try that. My usual go to crossup for him is with jC, but thats with a normal jump not a hop.

Also, I skimmed through the wiki a little and are these accurate?

Now, for Maxima, he has 6 normal moves with guardpoint. Those are st.C and st.D (Close), st.C and st. D (far), d.C, and CD (Blowback). His C vapor cannon has guard point on start-up. EX Air Vapor Cannon has 360 degree guardpoint as well as his EX M19 Blitz Cannon (dp+BD). His regular DM has 360 degree guardpoint. Learning when and how to use guardpoint is a very important aspect. For example, only 1 normal move (d.C) can guardpoint low moves. Far D and close D can guardpoint mid area moves like fat fireballs. Far D can guardpoint multi-hit moves like Joe's Screw Upper or Ash's Thermidor as well as C Vapor Cannon. st.C (Far or Close) can stop jump-ins and can hit confirm into DMs. You can guardpoint attack grabs like Kyo's Kototsuki You (hcb+k) and any move that requires a hit. You can't guardpoint grabs like Leona's V Slasher DM or Vice's Splash.

I've never seen those two guard point low hitting attacks (one's you have to crouch to block). Both in matches and by experimenting in practice, they always lose to lows. The only ground move that has upper and lower guard point is Ex Dp+K. Other than that he has no moves/normals that guard point lows from what I can tell.

The most d.C will do is go over a low normal and hit the oppponen because of the way it hits and Maxima's arm span but never guard point.

Also, is it possible to guard point too late with Maxima? I've tried parry timing with his sC and d.C in practice and it always seems to work no matter how late I do it, seems his guard points are the closest thing to parrying in this game.  

[Reiki.Kito]

Could have sworn it GPed lows, atleast in arcade. Well, that explains why I keep getting hit by sweeps  .

For Double Vapor Cannon, it visually has 360 degree guardpoint, but you're right. It does not have GP low (Which is misleading).

I'll make the necessary changes right now.

EDIT: In terms of guardpointing too late, it depends on when the move is active, when they recover, and when you started your move.

For example, if using far st.C or far st.D, pressing it off timing with the opponent's attacks will be fatal. You have to press it just as they're about to hit, but before the frames for the move become active. When the move becomes an active hitbox, the guardpoint frames are done (Which leads me to believe that you can only GP during startup of your move).

Also, you cannot guardpoint when the move becomes active if your hurtbox overlaps with it. You need atleast a frame to get the startups going. I don't know if it's in the first frame of the move that it starts to guardpoint, but you won't guardpoint any meaty moves after being knocked down.

You can also GP a move, but the time it takes to become an active hitbox could be slower. For example, Maxima uses st.D to guardpoint a hop CD from Mr. Karate. If he does it really late to the ground, he'll land much faster than my guardpoint becoming active. Even a guardpoint cancel might go right over him. You'd have to cancel immediately into a real fast EX special.

So because of these two instances, you can narrow down guardpoint active frames into the startup frames. However, if gp becomes active in the first frame of a moves animation (1st frame of start up), I don't know. Then it would be an actual parry with a HUGE buffer time.

[mechanica]

On that note, I've been messing with guard point OS.

Examples:

Qcf+D~qcf+C: far D into DM if guard point activates. Great for ground game and counter hit leads to huge damage. However, if they take to the air this is fairly useless and the DM is too slow to connect. You can use EX for that.

Same concept works with stand C pretty well (qcb+AC is faster than level 1 DM - maybe that will work better for one bar). Nice part about DM though is its really difficult to punish (may not be possible outside of GC roll if you're not Andy/mai/Robert using neomax).

The most consistent is probably EX dp+K, if they're hopping around a lot. Too far and especially grounded and it won't connect though.

Sometimes just to see if they're paying attention I'll cancel to hcb+D slow cmd grab. Always amusing when it works.

- Stand B is super underutilized.

- I have a question: under what circumstances does the second hit of close C whiff? I was practicing against chin trying to find the best (consistent) HD confirm. Cr.B cr.A late activate (auto close C) seemed really consistent. Is it just spacing? Would it be better to use df.C after the first hit?

[Reiki.Kito]

On that note, I've been messing with guard point OS.

Examples:

Qcf+D~qcf+C: far D into DM if guard point activates. Great for ground game and counter hit leads to huge damage. However, if they take to the air this is fairly useless and the DM is too slow to connect. You can use EX for that.

Same concept works with stand C pretty well (qcb+AC is faster than level 1 DM - maybe that will work better for one bar). Nice part about DM though is its really difficult to punish (may not be possible outside of GC roll if you're not Andy/mai/Robert using neomax).

The most consistent is probably EX dp+K, if they're hopping around a lot. Too far and especially grounded and it won't connect though.

Sometimes just to see if they're paying attention I'll cancel to hcb+D slow cmd grab. Always amusing when it works.

- Stand B is super underutilized.

- I have a question: under what circumstances does the second hit of close C whiff? I was practicing against chin trying to find the best (consistent) HD confirm. Cr.B cr.A late activate (auto close C) seemed really consistent. Is it just spacing? Would it be better to use df.C after the first hit?

There are actually some characters that can duck the second hit. At a particular range, I think the second hit doesn't have a hit box that is lower body so people can go under it with low B's or just a straight duck.

If you check out the video "Maxima guardpoints everything" there's a number of cool guard point sequences that can turn around the tides. It's very specialized so you can kind of get an idea of which you'd like to use in what situation, but if you have the situational awareness, GP countering is VERY useful!

[mechanica]

Do you know if close C (1) xx df.C is more consistent at that range? Just trying to decide which HD confirm would be better to commit to muscle memory.

[Reiki.Kito]

Do you know if close C (1) xx df.C is more consistent at that range? Just trying to decide which HD confirm would be better to commit to muscle memory.

st.C(1), df+C is pretty good because one st.C has really negligible push back. I use that for my hitconfirm, but if you're punishing a really unsafe move, you should do st.D. Off a ground poke though, d.A, df+C is a much more reliable HD hit confirm because it's fast and long reaching.

[mechanica]

Yeah after playing some Maxima last night and getting successful reads off air EX vapor cannon into close C and having it whiff on the second hit frequently, I'm definitely gonna use df.C more. Thanks for the input!

[DJMirror949]

this is somewhat left unnoticed but this simple/quick Maxima guide by SoCal's own Dirty Sanchez (Follow him on twitter @MechaMacGyver) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=541VLRpc-LQ