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How on earth do you do anything as Valerie against Rook?

Gameplay and Strategy
#1

He just spams his grab and nothing I can do does enough hits quickly enough to interrupt it, or attacks from far enough away. The Rook in question just stood still waiting for me to approach, so I really don’t know what to do. As soon as I get near, I eat 2 damage, and even if we trade evenly I lose because he has 3 more health than me.

Nevermind the fact that I’m not even sure how to avoid the grab on wakeup. I tried mashing jump but I just eat 2 more damage anyway.

I was having a lot of fun (more than I even expected) with this game until this matchup, so I’m hoping there’s something obvious I’m missing and it’s not just nonsense.

#2

Not sure why mashing jump isn’t working, perhaps the developers could answer you but my guess is that it somehow isn’t registering as a meaty jump. I have never played the game so I don’t know if the grab can be yomi countered. Try some stuff in training mode. You could also set “up” to also register as a jump input, but I’m not sure if that would do any good.

#3

Lord Knight (Valerie) vs Snake Eyez (Rook)

Maybe this will help a bit.

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#4

That’s super interesting but it doesn’t help because this Rook isn’t just cheesing.

#5

I would assume you can jump on your wakeup and bait on his. It’s a guess. Or does nothing do throw or the Yomi counter thing? LK was doing a lot of baiting in Neutral. I haven’t played the game yet.

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#6

I haven’t gotten to try in another match but apparently you can just hold Jump to Jump on the earliest possible frame. By mashing I probably missed the right frame window. I’m still at a loss about how to approach, though.

EDIT: Confirmed this works. Still got wrecked, but at least I know how to avoid throws on wakeup now.

#7

While I’m here I might as well try to figure out how on earth you avoid getting thrown against Dragon Midori? If I block he hits me. If I jump he hits me. What? How is that balanced? How do you avoid his swooping throw?

#8

Against dragon’s air throw, it grabs you out of the air unless you JUST jumped. Try jumping forward when he’s close, he should pass under you and end up full screen. The swoop is not invincible, so reversals and quick jump attacks should work too.

#9

Here we talked in depth the matchup

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#10

Yeah read the thing I wrote about that matchup. I have no problem dealing with Rook in the matchup, as Val. It’s a really really fun fight actually.

2 Likes
#11

Fighting rook as Val gave me nightmares when I started playing online. I could destroy most opponents with some quick bb back b bb forward b spamming but never a rook who halfway knew what he was doing. And it felt incredibly unfair. You do all that work to chip away at his health then he just gets you with a random super then randomly hits you with a special throw on wakeup and its all over.

Well, I ended up matched against a number of competent rooks several times in a row and after a lot of gruelling matches I trained myself to beat them. And guess what? Now my valerie is absolutely unstoppable against other cast members (previously I would just lose to anyone who didn’t die to the spam)

I would say be a little patient and take the time to study the matchup. I agree it seems much harder for valerie but trust me, when you have the matchup down, the enemy rook will literally have no hope but to play super solid and pray for you to mess up. In the end, rook really isn’t a problem for us- he just keeps us honest.

Step 1- don’t spam.
Step 2- don’t mash
Step 3- respect him and his space
Step 4- learn to yomi counter, and learn yomi counter followups to tip the risk reward in your favour.

Also read the rook vs valerie thread for some tips (mostly helping rook beat val, just so you know how much this is in our favour once you get going)

Finally the match lordknight vs snakeeyes… it IS very useful. A rook that is “just cheesing” is far easier to beat than one who is trying…cheesing is basically exploiting holes in the opponents game. if you dont have those holes, cheesing never works. Some move cheesing you out? Ask about it and you’ll hear what YOU need to do to beat that ‘cheese’

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#12

My main issue when I made this thread (which I may not have made clear) is that I didn’t even know what tools Valerie had that could beat the cheese in the first place, so while that video helps for the match in general, it didn’t help for my specific situation at the time. I have since figured that out, and now I’m going to go back and watch that video with interest :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#13

I love this reply! :smiley:

1 Like