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So here's a question for anyone still lurking around here:  if you go from holding down-back to up-forward and punch how does the game pick between flash chop and baltic launcher?  Most of the time I get flash chop and then baltic immediately afterwards if the button is held down for too long but I'll occasionally get baltic launcher first.  I used to think that the game would prioritize the move based on how long a down or back charge was held but when I sit down and try to actually test this I'll always get flash chop first if I have any amount of down charge.  The game's window for holding charge is pretty big so i can't imagine I'm losing the down charge and not the back charge in the time it takes me to go to up-forward so I'm at a bit of a loss on this one.

Yeah, its grounded f+B and then a hyper hop f+B, I use that one a fair bit but it can't be done corner to corner.  If you're closer than about half screen you leave out the second EX arrow and just do light arrow and follow up or HD bypass the hyper hop f+B.  It's also important to note that you need to do the double EX arrow version ASAP because if they are to low to the ground when you hit with f+B then the ball part of EX arrow will hit and the kick won't which will end your combo early.

Personally I'm still working on command grab into butt loop.  I can do it but there's a lot of judgment calls that go into it and I'd like to find a way to time/space it out to where it's like the non-command grab butt loops and you can always just walk forward and hop or walk forward and hyper hop without any variance.

As a side note, I found a combo video that goes over a lot of different combos from various positions, starters, and amounts of meter.  Pretty sure it's all old news but might be helpful to someone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWwJY5rt52k

In my never ending quest to find an HD starter I like more than the one I'm using, I ran into one that's pretty good.  

c.B, s.B, (late HD) first hit of close C, qcb.BD

This one seems pretty good since I don't have to worry about holding charge before the HD activation and it seems to work from pretty much every range s.B can hit as long as you cancel into ex earring at the first hit of close C.  That said the combo I came up with to make it corner carry is extremely picky and inconsistent.  

From about 2/3 away from the corner it works pretty well at:

above starter, bf.B xx du.C xx bf.D, bf.B, then a regular HD ender from there.

Any further and you have to start jumping through hoops or burning a second bar on du.AC.  So, anyone got any thoughts?  I love the idea of a one bar carry that doesn't require me to be sitting on charge in advance, but so far the actually carry part of my combo is pretty bad.

Hate to say it but none of those safe jumps are real K1.

You can tech all of Leona's knockdowns except the command normal overhead.  So if they roll recover any of those setups they can beat out whatever you're trying to do with anything they want to use.  If your opponent doesn't roll recover then those things work well enough but if they do you're dead in the water.  Next time you load up training mode test out your V-slasher safe jump by having Kim tech/roll recover/quick rise the knockdown if what I'm saying isn't making sense.

I know the command normal f.B overhead gives 3 frame reversal safe jumps, but I've also seen people claim they can safe jump off of Leona's throw, which is very tech-able and your opponent will recover long before you hit the ground if you hop at them.  I'm pretty sure Leona can only safe jump off of that overhead but I've heard people claim she has other setups, that's the stuff I'm curious about.

It's legit in the since that A launcher hits crouches and if your opponent doesn't hit you they get to deal with it.  It's by no means a block string, although the launcher is active after Leona gets hit so if they're late on the punish it may still hit them.  I suppose you could try and do cr. B, cr. A launcher to push them back and get some space away from shorter normals, but anything that covers that gap (like any rekka) will tag her.

And I'm pretty sure nothing into D grand saber is a block string, my local players got sick of me doing stand CD into D saber and started tossing out whatever they had that was invincible when they see me doing it.  It's not fun getting counter hit by Bionic arm.  Doing cr. C into D saber is kinda the same thing.  Just poked around at it and I could do regular throws, cr. B, and stand C before the saber came out as Ex Iori.  cr. C into Ex saber is a block string though and its positive on block too.  In general though, I don't think D saber is the best tool for keeping yourself in.  A lot of characters have some pretty scary damage off of 3-frame, close C normals and Leona's fastest normal is 4 frames.  Against the characters that don't have that advantage though they've at least also got 4 frame normals so its kind of a game of chicken at that point.

Also, I've seen a few people say you can safe jump with Leona from anything other than her command normal overhead.  That's the only move she has that does an un-techable knockdown so are people just saying that you can safe jump a reversal assuming the opponent does/doesn't tech roll or what?

One more little thing i ran across.  You can do qcf, hcb, b+A/C to do V-slasher right off of the backdash. Not ground breaking by any means but it's nice in certain combos/if you really want to punish something with V-slasher for some odd reason.  

What I was working on was either s.A to ex ball or hop back j.A to ex xcalibur.  That way you can cancel into whichever special since they both take a while to get going.

I've recently started to make it a point to find ways to combo into Leona's command overhead (and only hard knockdown).  I find that the thing is pretty unsafe to just throw out, even at range, since it's pretty punishable on block so comboing into would be pretty handy.  So far all I've been able to combo it in the corner after a long series of flash chops xx run chops (i.e. an HD) or after an ex earring bomb.  Unfortunately I haven't found any setups for the earring bomb one that I really like since comboing into bomb requires Leona to be either extremely close to her opponent (so one to two hits in advance) or the standard corner combo with flash chop xx ex bomb instead of run chop (thus burning a drive as well as a bar).

I've also been revisiting the ex ball reset (flash chop xx run chop, d.C xx ex ball).  I've found that if you do it all early enough and sub out d.C for s.A you can actually recover fast enough to block some of the slower reversals like Kyo's heavy DP, but I haven't been able to get it fast enough to beat out Karate's light DP, Kim's ex flash kick, or Shen's explosion (though it can recover in time to block ex bionic arm).  I'm also pretty sure it loses to every instant/invincible command grab for free unless you can walk back far enough to get out of throw range.  

As an alternative to the ex ball, I've also tried doing hop back j.A into ex xcalibur, which actually works fairly well to pin them down and keep Leona away from certain reversals that the ex ball will get tagged by.  That said just about every forward advancing reversal will catch her, and I haven't been able to sight the timing in so that if they block/get hit by ex xcalibur Leona can get a deep enough jump in to combo when she hits the ground without being left open to the faster reversals before her attack comes out.

Anyway, just figured I'd post what I've been working on in case anyone can make the ideas work better or already has working versions of them.

I don't know if this is an issue for any other Leona players out there but it's driving me nuts.

Leona's HD starters feel unnecessarily hard to work with.  If I go for c.B, c.B, s.B, s.HD early confirm starter, the s.B will often be too far away to hit with unless you're standing on them, and trying for it with just c.B, s.B, s.HD will often net me the late confirm. You can't get a s.D late confirm starter so you're stuck with s.C, which is harder to charge for, the second hit (hell, sometimes the whole move) will often whiff, and it will occasionally push them too far out for flash chop to connect.  Going for the d.B, d.B, c.HD late confirm is a lot easier, but you already have to have a charge stored up to get anything.

I've frequently been in situations where a something ambiguous happens and I get a poke in, but can't go for the c.HD late starter because I've lost the charge.  Alternatively, I've also often a bit too far out for the first starter and constantly having to switch between the two isn't doing me much better.  So right now I'm trying to find the best of both worlds and the only answer I've got is to get fast enough to two hit confirm into early HD s.D first time every time.  Anyone got anything better/more practical or is this just a case of choosing a lesser evil?  Better still, does anyone have some crazy way to late confirm in s.D?

Edit:  So you can late cancel into s.D.  If you press B and D at the same time, D takes priority, and if you press B right before C when you late HD, B takes priority.  So press BD and then C and you get a late s.D.  Took me a little while to get it consistent but the range ends up being pretty much the inverse of s.C with the first hit always whiffing and the second one hitting.  Still though, you get more time to confirm with s.D so it's not completely useless, but so far all results are pointing to me needing both starters at all points in the match.

Yeah, i meant as the j.A is going up. It works around the top of her hop arc since it sits out there for a while.

So I thought this was kind of funny.  You can do a near instant over head HD bypass j.A.  If you hop j.A like you usually would for the instant overhead and then activate HD a bit later Leona still do the bypass in mid air as opposed to staying on the ground if you activate HD at the same time as j.A.  Unfortunately it causes the j.A to come out later than normal so it doesn't work on everyone.  Characters that duck low and are narrow like Leona, Ash, King and Yuri can't be hit by it but the bigger characters like Iori, Kyo, Kim, Duo Lon, and Shen can get tagged (haven't tested everyone).  The timing's a bit picky but it's another fun little 50/50 you can break out on someone if you're sitting on 4 bars and HD.

Can anyone reliably hit those meterless HD corner carries in match?  I've been grinding at them for more than a month now and can still only hit one out of every 3 or so in training, I've yet to pull it off even once in an actual match.  As I play the game more I'm noticing how tired I'm getting of grinding out the maximum damage combos and am more interested in getting the important part of the combo (in this case the meterless carry) for as little effort as possible.  Right now I'm trying to figure out how to perform the carry in such a way as to maximize how much time I get to actually charge each of the reps.  Activating with s.C and going in to B run chop off of s.C's first hit seems to help due to how long they sit in hit stun but it also completely alters the timing on everything else so I'm still trying to iron that out.

KoF XIII : Leona Heidern HD combo

Not sure if anyone's familiar with the meter-less carry in that video, but I think I need some help dissecting how to make it work.  I think out of 200+ attempts in the past few days I've successfully done the thing maybe 12 times, and to do that I had to make the second run chop a light one.  Even then I'm really not sure when exactly you have to cancel each run chop or if the objective is just to do everything as fast/early as possible.

I've run into more than a few moments where a meter-less carry that does around 600 damage would have been game changing but so far this thing is looking a bit too difficulty to have as a go to, not to mention if you mess up in the beginning you get a blocked light run chop which is always bad news (you don't have a lot of time to charge either, so canceling to make it safe is pretty tough).

You mean 5.B right? 6.B is the command normal that leaves you in the air so you can't HD there.  Either way though, the problem was never that I can't get the dash up HD activation, it was that while I'm using frame traps, jump ins, or block strings I'll often be too far away for a third hit of B to ever hit unless I started the combo sitting directly on top of them (so c.B, c.B, s.B [whiff] no HD s.D).  Thanks for the reply regardless though, haven't seen any activity on this thread in a while.

So, what's everyone's preferred HD starter?  After months of missing the last hit of c.B, c.B, s.B for my HD starter because my opponent is just a little bit too far away (and being unable to get an early activation for the dash up off of just c.B, s.B on reaction) I think I need a new starter.  Currently looking at c.B, c.B, c.BC bypass but, for now at least, I get c.B at the bypass instead of c.C a bit too much (accidentally tagging B before C I'd guess), and c.C at the bypass will often whiff if I'm not really close to my target. 

Also what are other players using as an HD corner carry right now?  I'm currently using the one in this video:  Basic Leona Combos KoF XIII
Works pretty well, a meter-less one would be better but the only one I've seen I can't do consistently yet.