First off, thanks for your input guys. I'll note some things down and add to the wiki. I should say though, I find it funny that people usually like to point out things about a character after someone has already said something. It's apparent you guys have constructive things to say, yet there hasn't been much discussion in this thread lately. Go figure.
I didn't want to come out and say much specific to XIII because I have very little experience with this version of Leona so far. Also, although I had about 6 years of experience maining her in the past (96-2002...the years and the games *laughs* ), I've been away from KOF for about 8 years (and possibly got a little brain-damaged in that time, but that's a whole different story), so I'm a pretty shitty player right now and don't like to throw out my views on things too freely. Overall, I thought you did a pretty good job of giving a quick overview of what she's like. Just wanted to offer a few points from someone who used her a ton in the past and has used everything I've mentioned successfully (with the caveat that the vast majority of that success wasn't in XIII).
s.A for hops, sure, but cr.A and cr.B are anti-air normals?
You can use them in the same way as Iori's cr.B anti-air. DandyJ's tutorial video explains it better than my words.
I do miss the air throw, but her j.B and j.D are seriously good still. j.B especially. In my experience, worst case scenario, it'll get you a trade.
Good points. I didn't mean to sound like I was saying she's bad air-to-air without the airthrow, but it's something that makes me a bit hesitant of challenging in the air without meter now against certain characters (especially against Mai).
This is very, very dangerous. Like you said, the opponent having meter can make things go horribly wrong. I feel like meter builds quite fast in XIII, so your opponent will generally have a least 1 stock most of the time unless they've been blowing it during the rounds. Coupled with the properties EX moves generally have, you're looking to get hurt real bad.
Yeah, I'll concede that meter seems to build faster in XIII than past games, so oki Baltic Launcher is probably less viable. However, since people thought Kunio's Elizabeth HD guardcrush string was worth knowing in her thread, I didn't think it'd be too harmful to say that the ball can be a useful oki tool IF your opponent has no meter (of course, you should mix things up, not solely rely on it).
I really honestly wanted to find some use in EX X-calibur, but I have yet to find one. I've tried setups on oki (even in the corner), but, honestly, the recovery on the jump back is just too long. If she dropped down like King after EX Venom Strike, then sure, but as is it feels like a waste of meter, IMO.
I tried it a couple of times and had some success, but that's a small sample size against players of less-than-stellar skill. It's not the greatest move of its type, but (maybe because I put Leona last so I have some extra meter in the bank with her) I've never felt like it was a complete waste outside of using it accidentally (from a flubbed attempt at EX V-slasher *laughs* ).
I used to do it during blockstrings, but learned not to. Leona doesn't really have any good blockstring enders. What that means is after your general blockstring of normals, the opponent knows you have limited options to keep the pressure on. Since all of Leona's moves suffer from noticeable startup, the opponent will just mash you out of whatever you thought would be a good idea to try. Her pressure, generally comes from staggering normals and mixing up throws. An experienced opponent will take advantage of the gaps caused by vulnerable startup frames and you will get punished for it.
Like I said, it's a calculated risk, not something you can just put out all of the time. First you train them to not mash with staggered normals, then maybe no more than 5% of the time, preferably even less, cancel into it off of your first or second poke. Used rarely like that, it's less likely to be punished, especially if you've been landing counterhits into combos because you're turning 19 out of every 20 blockstrings into a frame trap, and getting that close with frame advantage is quite nice.
You'd be surprised. Obviously, you generally wouldn't want to do any kind of reversal on wakeup if the opponent is in proximity for a meaty. It still beats jump-in mixups among other things. I could be just biased since I like to do it and it works for me lol. I do agree that EX Moon Slasher is infinitely better. I'll take the wakeup bit out of the wiki since that is probably just a playstyle preference of mine.
Honestly, if you're able to land normal Moonslasher against oki jump-ins, you're playing against people who're mistiming their jumps. Non-EX Moonslasher is not a DP. It has no invulnerability (or at best, extremely limited invincibility). If it's getting clean hits for you as a psychic move, anything else with the same range/speed would be able to get those hits as well.
I feel like she is viable in all spots, but if that's how you guys feel then I can change that in the wiki.
She's viable without meter, to a degree, but she gains soooooooo much from just a little bit that it's hard for me not to disagree with saying she can work well in the first slot. V-slasher is just too potent of a threat, her drive cancel combos hurt pretty nicely since she doesn't rely on multi-hit special moves, and she's a member of that 80% 1-meter HD club.
I mentioned it because there are semi-hybrid characters like K'/Andy/Takuma who are excellent at rushdown but can play a decent zoning game with their projectiles. Leona has a projectile and I thought it was worth noting just so people would know that zoning and spacing is not a particularly strong suit for her.
I pretty much agree with you here.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert Leona player, but what I do know is based on experience. I would like, at the very least, to not have the wiki compounded with info based on theory fighting. Previous incarnations may or may not be fully applicable in XIII, so keep that in mind. Anyway, thank you for the constructive posts. It's kind of refreshing to have some actual gameplay talk again lol. I feel like the character threads have been stagnant for a while now
Again, I'm freely saying that I've had very limited time with XIII, so nothing I'm saying should be taken as gospel (unless good players say it is *laughs* ). Definitely appreciate the effort you put in to do the update to her wiki, I'm just trying to help make it even better
(and I'm assuming the others are as well *laughs* ).
And yeah, outside of a few, the character threads are kind of stagnant. Seems like everyone's waiting for the console ports to come out.
Anyway, you guys try one of those crazy Moon/Grand Sabre HD combo loops yet?
With what little time I've had in practice mode (most of which hasn't even been with Leona since she's the character I'm most comfortable with using in general thanks to past experience), I've tried doing cr.C, Moon, [DC] Grand, Moon (or DM) to give me a decent punish combo. The Moon->Grand cancel isn't too bad (actually one of the few DCs I've gotten a bit of a handle on *laughs* ), but I was having some trouble landing the next Moon. Kept tending to do it too late so it wasn't actually juggling. I think I mostly need to get more familiar with exactly how fast she recovers after landing a Grand and with where the hitbox on Moon shifts to the higher damage version (feel like I'm mostly just getting too greedy for that and delaying the Moon too much).