Athena Asamiya (XI)

[Monpochi]

What i mean with Kensou 99 like is that she uses no Psycho Power whatsoever... but seeing that she heavily relies on it... and story wise... i doubt that will ever happen.

[Monpochi]

The hell.... just saw in Cyberfanatix.... her LDM is unblockable?.. eh?... Seems like it's her payback from being so nerfed on 2k3... oh no...

[SonicTempest]

Um, what are you basing that info on? For all you know the guy stuck out a limb and got hit by the LDM.

Besides if it were unblockable it'd be blatantly broken.

[Monpochi]

It's by Vice Vecta.. i dunno.... but if that's true, oh my God....... @_@

[Vice Vecta]

Well, concerning that. It's unblockable when it dives, has a lot of priority, can be followed up by his command grab (the one who lift ya' up) and does huge damage (up to 55% in counter).

More info later.

[PenPen]

Yeah I saw that move as well. I think Athena flys off screen. Reminds me of Millia's similar move in Guilty Gear, just that Athena's unblockable when it lands on the ground. =P

Athena sorts of float for a split second before flying upwards if I recall.

And yeah, Athena got her Psycho Grab back as well. It seems to work the same as in 98.

[Monpochi]

Saw it in the Cyberfanatix clips... It seems that Athena's post 2k3 gameplay is back (like her f+B, Psycho Sword/Phoenix Arrow thingie.. or something) .... tsk tsk.. i see lots usage of her again.

[InFeCt|oN]

6B launches! Whoaomgwtf?!

41236P launches! Zomgwtf1337!

Air teleport! LolwtfMillia?!

But no air combos... I'm a sad wittle puppy ='(

And btw she's slooooow.

[brandonall]

sooo...wakeup command grab into LDM?

[Derrace]

sooo...wakeup command grab into LDM?

after command grab, jump and do LDM for nasty damage.

as said, f+B launches. Can jump E after that. I havent been able to get my Jump E to connect if f+B hits twice.

hoping back + down B is alot stricter now.. and doesnt travel as far back as in 2002.

Her style has changed alot. Her fireball isn't effective anymore.....just like how they messed it up in Kof 99 and 2000.

Qcf B teleports a lot further now. U cant down A, short tele, and expect to be just behind the opponent... =(

Being able to air teleport gives her additional mind games. Jump and air tele behind, then command grab... or C, f+B air tele back to ground, then command grab. I wouldnt advise using this often...

Bascially, you cant pressure as much anymore... :'(

[Slapper Joe]

There are no mind games with the air teleport. It is slow to come out and hugely vulnerable. Opponent would have to be looking at the wrong screen to not see stuff like that coming.

It has one use. Jump in, C, f+B, air teleport, qcb+C combos.

[Derrace]

There are no mind games with the air teleport. It is slow to come out and hugely vulnerable. Opponent would have to be looking at the wrong screen to not see stuff like that coming.

It has one use. Jump in, C, f+B, air teleport, qcb+C combos.

eh? u can land the fireball after that? will try that out.. actually, i still think you can confuse the opponent with jump df B and air teleports....I like to do time the funny knee kick to overlap, so the opponent would have to block the other way...sometimes i do air tele sometimes instead and i switch sides with the opponent. I wouldnt say it's the best move she got, but it still has uses. Now I am wonderin if hop back triangle jump, tele is any good.. hmm....

[Slapper Joe]

Problem is that she can't use anything like that unless she has the fear of random LDM behind her. Without that 2 levels of meter I find 70% of my game is d.A and 20% d.C. The opponent should just be smashing up on Athena without regard for self preservation. Who care if she shining crystal bits you on her wakeup? (her only move with the slightest hint of speed/priority) That means less meter for Pheonix Infinity.

Fireball is all risk, no reward. You regret throwing it before it even comes out.
Uppercut has no priority and no horizontal range.
Pheonix Bomb makes you loose all momentum and puts you a distance away from opponent. Athena is mediocre up close on offence, 100x worse further away.
Hop attacks either beat out TPs or gain space. It is a win for opponent either way.

Without continuing on, the only thing she has that is not outright bad is pheonix arrow. And you can't base a gameplan around that.

You don't need any timing to be able to roll though the unblockable part of her ldm. So all she can do is try and use the high priority pixie dust of the first part to randomly stuff a move and do damage (and it is hopefully close to the ground so the dive doesn't miss.) Cancelling off pheonix arrow by itself isn't practical, and I can't even get c, f+b, pheonix arrow, pheonix infinity to come out.

Even Elizabeth has somewhat decent staples to rely upon when up close and she is still a terrible character. Athena has a command grab and followup that doesn't do any damage.

[Tel]

If you thought Athena sucked in 2k3, be even more disappointed. Slapper Joe is absolutely right in his analysis about Athena. Quite frankly, she's horrid in XI. Yes, she plays very much the same as before, but she now has poor air priority, and her Psycho Sword which was never an amazing anti-air to begin with has absolutely crap priority. Most characters can just beat it with a jumping normal. At least in 2k3, she could poke with crouch B>crouch A>f+AC. Her new Millia-like air teleport is useless: There's a pause before she dives back to the ground, and she has to stop and recover upon landing as well. Yes, she has an amazing LDM, but nobody can win a game simply by relying on one LDM. Certainly not if you can't get aggresive to build up your stocks in the first place.

Like Slapper Joe said, at least Elisabeth has decent moves to rely on, even though she's not an amazing character. For Athena, even her Psycho Ball is no longer an option unless opponent was at leat 70% screen distance away.

[Iie-Kyo]

I think we've all been spoiled by 2k2 Athena. 2k2 Athena was GHEY. 99/2000 Athena was ok, she wasn't top tier material, but if she had the same kinda speed that she had in 2k2 it'd be horrible.

XI Athena is basically 2k3 Athena but faster. A lot of the points you made about Athena have been her weaknesses for years on end.

- Air to air, her two best moves was her jump CD (which is back, and has retained its air to air priority from 2k2) and her d. B. You had to take advantage of her high jump height to beat people out of the air. Her Jump C is also a good air to air because of the way it hits, but again, she's a zoner, if you want someone with good air to air, go play Iori.

- Her d. B ALWAYS made her lose momentum because of the "bounceback" factor. You can negate this with either her air teleport or her B Phoenix Arrow.

- Her qcf + B air teleport isn't as "slow" as people say it is. This can be mixed up with her B Phoenix Arrow - one results in a safe blocked combo (+ for Athena) and the other results in a command throw into her Shining Crystal Bit into her LDM, which does good damage even if it's DC'd. If you "train" your opponent to block the Phoenix Arrow enough, you CAN catch them off guard with her command throw, startup or not.

- Her psycho sword was never good anti-air to begin with. You use it to keep the guy off you by doing it early to hit it with some part of the sword. If you're trying to use it like a shotokan uppercut, of course you'll get stuffed.

- Her psycho ball was meant for her to zone, not rushdown like she could in 2k2. You use it to keep the guy at a certain distance, once you "herded" the opponent to where you want, you use her normals and whatnot to poke them from her maximum range (preferably her std C range). One of her psycho ball versions has less lag - this can still be used like it was pre 2k1 (yes, pre 2k1, 2k1 Athena... sucked).

She is not as threatening as her '98 incarnation, but a lot of characters aren't as threatening as their '98 or 2k2 counterpart now. She can still do decent damage, just don't expect results if you're trying to play her like you did in 2k2 and 2k3. Pretend it's 99/2k Athena, you'll get more mileage out of her.