Have you been playing Street Fighter IV since it came out.
I think it’s time you change the game buddy.
Not change but try out a new game.

Button Notation

BlazBlue uses a four button control scheme. There are two button layouts, which you select upon starting a match. The two layouts are:

Type A Layout
(B) (C) (D)
(A) (x) (x)

Type B Layout
(A) (B) (C)
(D) (x) (x)

A is light, B is medium, C is heavy, and D is Drive.

Note: Preferred Choice for me is “Type B”. The D button being on the bottom helps make combos easier. It’s all in what you prefer really.

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MOVEMENT AND NOTATION

BlazBlue uses many of the same movement inputs as most 2D fighters.

789
456
123

These are the number notations.
If you have a keyboard in front of you, look closely to the numlock numbers.
Each number represents a direction.

9 – Up Forward
8 – Up
7 – Up Backward
6 – Forward
5 – Neutral
4 – Backward
3 – Down forward
2 – Down
1 – Down backward

Here are a few notations that you will need to familiarize yourself with:
236 – QCF
214 – QCB
623 – Shoryuken
421 – backwards shoryuken
214, 1236 – KOF super style
236, 3214 – KOF super style

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You may be wondering, why not just use SF style notations.
Main reason is because there is a B and D button in Blaz Blue.
As you can see that is already taken by SF notation as back and down.
To avoid confusion, it is better to learn the proper Notation.

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BASIC GAME NOTATION

Heat Meter:
Similar to the Tension Meter in Guilty Gear, the Heat meter is the meter on the bottom of the screen on the side of your health bar. Techniques such as Distortion Drives and Rapid Cancel require that you have a certain amount of meter. All characters have a Heat Meter except for Hakumen, who uses a time-based orb meter instead.

Guard Libra:
The red and blue meter unter the timer. The Guard Libra works as a tug of war between you and your opponent; when you guard, it moves towards your side and when your opponent is guarding, it moves to their side. Guarding for too long will result in it to fill completely to one side, resulting in a Barrier Crush, which leaves the guarding player vulnerable for a significant amount of time.

Barrier Guage:
The guage under the health bar labeled “Barrier”. This regenerates over time and allows you to use Barrier Guard.

Barrier Burst:
While the defensive purposes of Burst haven’t changed too much from Guilty Gear, offensive bursts play a completely different role in BlazBlue. Foremost, it’s important to note that under no circumstances will bursting give you meter. Also, using your Burst cuts your character’s defense in half (meaning that if you were to burst at full health, you will effectively cut your health in half and you’ll get knocked out twice as fast), so it’s not something you can use recklessly. Because of this, most people only use their Burst if they’re almost out of health. While offensive Bursts don’t net meter in BlazBlue, they still have their uses. For example, an attacking player can burst during a blockstring, and if it connects with his guarding opponent, it result in Barrier Crush and the attacking player can use this opportunity to combo.

The input for Burst is all four buttons at once (A+B+C+D).

Barrier Guard:
Similar to Faultless Defense in Guilty Gear, Barrier Guard is a defensive technique which prevents you from taking chip damage, pushes your opponent back futher than guarding, and drains the Barrier Guage. Barrier Guard doesn’t protect you from moves that hit you where you aren’t guarding (so if you Barrier high, low moves will still hit you). The input for Barrier Guard is 4 A+B.

Throws:
The mechanics behind throws have changed dramatically from Guilty Gear. In BlazBlue, all throws are commitment-based, meaning that you get punished with recovery for whiffing throws and that you can’t “accidentally” land a throw because the input is unique to throws. While throws can be teched, they cannot be guarded (even if you’re using Barrier Guard). All throws in BlazBlue are B+C (plus a set of directional inputs for command throws).

Throw Reject:
To perform a Throw Reject, press B+C once during the period of time “!!” appears over your character’s head. It’s important to only press B+C once because if the game reads more than one B+C input, your Throw Reject will fail. While command throws are techable in this game, throws that land as counter hits are not. In the latter case, a red X will appear over your character in addition to the “!!”.

Counter Assault:
Similar to Dead Angle Attack in Guilty Gear, Counter Assult is a way to break out of pressure at the cost of 50% meter. The input for Counter Assault is 6 A+B while guarding. (It’s not clear yet how this exactly reduces guardstun, so expect this to be updated in the near future with more details.)

Drive:
Every character’s attacks executed by pressing the D button are called their Drive moves. These differ between characters, so likewise, they all have their different uses.

Distortion Drive:
BlazBlue’s super. A character-specific input that initiates a very powerful move that consumes 50% meter.

Astral Heat:
A character-specific input that initiates a special kind of Distortion Drive that consumes 100% meter. In order for your Astral Heat to work, you have to a) be fighting in the last round of the match and b) make sure your opponent has at least 20% of their health left. In the arcade versions, only a few characters have these, though the console versions may give one to every character (More on this as it develops).

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ADVANCED GAME NOTATION

Counter Hit (CH):
An attack that causes more damage, stun and advantage. Usually achieve when both opponents attack but you end winning the hits.

Rapid Cancel (RC):
Much like Guilty Gear’s Roman Cancel, Rapid Cancels will cut the recovery of a connected move at the cost of 50% meter and return your character to a neutral position. The input for Rapid Cancel is A+B+C.

Air Dash (IA):
Basically tapping 66 while in the air. This causes your character to dash forward. It’s a good way to get in opponents.

Instant Air Dash (IAD):
Usually achieved by doing 96 or 74 on your pad or stick. It is the art of cancelling a jump to a dash quickly. This gives you more air time to do combos before landing.

Jump Cancel (JC):
Moves that are done on the ground that can be cancelled to a jump on block or hit. More pressure when they think you are negative in recovering from a move.

Instant Guard (IG):
When you are guarding, if you time the backward motion properly, you’ll block with a glowing white. This basically means that you have Instant Blocked a move. This is helpful because it lets you recover a slight better than just the normal blocking animation.

Instant Barrier (IB):
Same as instant guard but you have to time 4+a+b. This pushes the enemy further and to make it better, you don’t receive Guard Damage from special attacks.

Air Recover:
This is a useful move to recover from incoming attacks. Just so the opponent cannot continually attack you in the air. Press A, B, or C to recover in the air. Don’t let them juggle you longer than they can.

I may have missed some but for now, if you are starting, you can follow these notations.

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Now that you know the notations, time for you to learn your character.
Can’t decide on who to use, here’s my brief explanation:

Note: The complexity and originality of characters solely depends on their D (Drive) button.
While I can tell you who is the most easiest to use, every character is different.

They maybe easy to use but each of them can be dangerous depending on how broad you want to go through them.

Two easy characters to use are:
Ragna – Uppercut, wall containment, guard break extraordinaire
Jin – freeze opponent for maximum damage. Pretty easy to use IMO.

Just because I say easy does not mean they are not complicated as well. They are easy to pick up.

The rest require a bit of work and study to win:
Arakune – traps and containment

Bang – technical, you get 12 needles to use for poison, web, or just throw.

Carl - He’s good on his own but better if you control Nirvana properly.
Sandwhich combos are dangerous. carl + you + nirvana = ownage if you opponent does not know to get out.

Hakumen – You cannot do moves unless you have meter. His meter accumulates in time. really slow but damage he inflicts makes up for it i guess.

Tager – Imagine the opponent covered in metal. Now imagine Zangief with a magnet on his hand. Pretty strong but pretty slow. All about proper use of D button (Magnetize)

Litchi – Same thing as carl but faster. Control the stick.

Noel – fast like hell. D button is a series of different attacks. Imagine MvC2 Hayato’s b.lp series. She’s fast.

Rachel – traps and technical but fun to use. Top Tier when used right. Yes, you do have to micromanage.

Taokaka – annoying 2a’s, really fast. Low damage at times. Easy to pick up. Annoying voice at times. Start button combos with her. If you want the challenge.

v-13 – short and long range. Sometimes D button does all the work.

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Pick your character and start practicing. Lots of videos in Youtube will assist you with your character as well, so just look them up and see how the pros are using them.

“Practice Leads To Greatness”
NeoRussell