MF-H Earth Bull 85RSF

tl;dr: this is the standard for defense in Limited, not gb145/230cs.

Excuse the ugly formatting, I have to write posts in word on my laptop and then copy the text to my mobile and post from that, so I am limited to the code I can remember manually and making adjustments is very difficult.

Q&A With Strawman:
Q: OH NO DEFENSE IS TOO WEAK WITHOUT RB, RS AND RDF MY GB145CS/230CS COMBOS AREN'T BEATING ATTACK AND I CANNOT THINK OF ANYTHING BETTER BECAUSE THINKING IS HARD AND I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT DEFENSE COMBOS WBO PLS FIX
A: idk man maybe use a defense combo that is actually good instead of just average \_(Chocked)_/
Q: LIKE WHAT SURELY A TIP WITH PLASTIC IN THE MIDDLE AND A TRACK THAT LETS ATTACKERS GET UNDER YOU AND HIT YOU UPWARD TO REMOVE YOUR GRIP IS THE IDEAL SETUP FOR DEFENSE
A: idk maybe something not like that because that is a horrible idea, u no maybe low track defense with tips that have grip and all that

History of LTDC and why I'm doing this:
Shortly before 230 and BD145 came out, Fyuuor, I think it was, made a thread, in which the final part of the metagame moved to low tracks: Defense. I tried LTDC's back then and was extremely impressed and also concerned because my gravity attack combo could no longer wreak havoc on everything.

Somehow despite me pointing out how good these are in every single post I make in this subforum (the reign of LTDC is something I am really looking forward to in this format) people are still complaining based on GB145/230CS that defense is too weak. So, I've interrupted my holiday/stayed at the holiday house while the rest of my family goes out to test and make a thread on one of the main LTDC's, or more accurately one of the major defensive combinations of Limited. It's not even the strongest LTDC out there - sticking RF on it makes things even scarier (at the cost of some stamina) and I have little doubt Metal Fury Duo will be a beast in LTDC too.

Hopefully, this should change people's mind about defense being too weak and maybe make them stop using GB145CS as their standard for defensive power.

Part Choice:
MF-H: MF-H is used to Get Bulky.
Earth: Earth is super low recoil, which capitalises on what LTDC is all about: A low profile, low centre of gravity, low everything.
Bull: Bull is a solid defensive clear wheel thanks to its weight and in this LTDC I am also making use of its slopes to destabilise opponents slightly. Aquario, Cygnus, or Hades can be used for a likely increase in force smash resistance, Cancer can be used for marginally better stamina while maintaining some destabilising ability.
85: Lowest Track in the game, Earth has no overhang and no scraping issues, though a slight overhang could help against lightning, that's a balancing act.
RSF: RSF is the central defensive tip of Limited despite what you all seem to think. It takes hits well, doesn't move too much (but can move enough to jar flower patterns), and its stamina is pretty bad but not completely awful - it has better stamina than most of the popular defense tips in regular MFB. While it is not a huge amount better at taking hits than CS, I do find its defensive superiority is more noticeable on low tracks. RF could be used instead (though be wary of recoil with libra) if you want even more certainty against attack at the expense of decent chances of being outspun by gravity th220rf.

HOW 2 LAUNCH IT
Unless the matchup comes down to stamina, which with earth shouldn't occur against anything trying to KO you, you shouldn't be launching Earth at the same power you would an attacker. 90% is the best approximation I can give you, basically you still want enough strength to take a hit, but you don't want to be getting too close to the tornado ridge - staying about an inch away at all times is about right.



MF-H Earth Bull 85RSF vs ....
BB-10, One L/R for Right v Right, Two for Right v Left. No grips. Tips cleaned after each battle as RSF quickly loses grip from dirt build up.


MF-H Gravity Perseus (ATK, Counter) R145RF

Gravity Launches Second, Sliding shot. Earth is straight shot.
BB-10.
Any launches where gravity self KO's or doesn't make contact with earth were redone - this is an absolute BEST CASE SCENARIO for gravity, and a worst case scenario for Earth.
Matchup has constant metal on metal hits, R145 is generally the best track for gravity. RF is worn but behaves like a prime RF and has average stamina for an RF, RSF is near mint, from Ray Gil booster.

Gravity Right Spin, Both Launched at Maximum Strength
Detailed Results (Click to View)
Gravity: 7/20 = 35% (all KO)
Earth: 13/20 = 65% (11OS, 2KO)

Notes:
Wow th!nk 65% great counter bro: Yeah, this surprised me because it didn't fit with any of my pre-launch testing. However, I did notice a pattern in the KO's - Earth was near the tornado ridge for every single one, not having enough time for friction to slow it down.
It's also worth mentioning that 65% is more than enough to be a safe choice under tournament conditions, because the strength gravity must be launched with to achieve even 35% results in quite a few self KO's unless you're really good at launching.
Anyway, I figured out the problem, so here's the rematch:

Gravity Right Spin, Earth launched at ~90%
Basically a relaxed, normal launch, strong but not so much it moves outside the lower part of the bowl, as opposed to the craziness of gravity. This gives RSF longer to grip the stadium floor after hits, making it much harder to KO. Don't launch too weak or you will lack the rpm to not get thrown around.
Detailed Results (Click to View)
Gravity: 5/20 = 25% (All KO)
Earth: 15/20 = 75% (2KO, 13OS)

Notes: All of gravity's wins were OHKO's, it charged straight at earth in a direct line to an exit. If earth got a wall save, gravity had no hope to handle it with the second or third hits and was outspun.

Gravity Left Spin, both launched at full force.
Detailed Results (Click to View)

Gravity: 4/20 = 20% (3KO, 1OS)
Earth: 16/20 = 80% (5KO, 11OS)

Okay so Earth netted a number of KO's: RSF seems to move enough to have affect gravity's movement pattern and cause it to self KO after certain hits - Bull might have something to do with it too, given its slopes (I do like it on low tracks). I've never been a fan of RSF but in limited I like it a lot.
Gravity actually felt like it was doing better in Left, seemed like the KO's it got were easier to get, but apparently not.


MF-H Gravity Perseus (ATK, Counter) TH220RF
Gravity Tornado Stalled and Right Spin (this is optimum for gravity). Launches alternated as this is stamina-based (gravity is trying to OS a combo it can't KO), Earth launches first R1
Detailed Results (Click to View)

Gravity: 2/20 = 10% (2OS)
Earth: 18/20 = 90% (3KO, 15OS)

Tips: launch RSF as aggressively as you can as you want to knock gravity off balance with an early hit at high rpm. Obviously launch at full strength (which gives you a slight edge as gravity is more prone to self KO when launched full force)
General notes:
Gravity wants to avoid early contact here and if it can do so it thencomes down to launch strength.
I expected this would be closer to 50/50 or 60/40 in earth's favour. As it is, despite the massive margin by which Earth won in the results, in each match the OS's were quite narrow and as such if the gravity user can launch harder than the earth user, it would likely move closer to what I expected.
Other Heights: TH195 gives gravity a chance to force smash earth, however it presents a greater risk of destabilization and seems overall worse than 220 though I don't have time to do full tests. TH170 doesn't work well at all.




More Q&A with Strawman
BUT THINK YOU USED R145 (ALSO TH220) AND THAT IS NOT THE BEST TRACK FOR GRAVITY TO USE AGAINST EARTH
I did, and still got plenty of metal on metal contact. The reason I used R145 is because it's likely to be the most common attack track in the format and it still works well against lower opponents. Use anything lower and you won't get reliable contact with most 230 defense combos, particularly Chrome Wheel based ones like Reviser ____ 230CS - so yes Lightning 85RF will do better against this combo, but it will get wrecked by any 230/TH170 combo with the smallest amount of defensive ability or luck. There were plenty of hard hits every round in these tests, and I'm pretty handy with gravity.

BUT TH!NK RSF'S STAMINA IS BAD
Yes, yes it is. I'm not sure why you expect a defense type to have decent stamina, because the only stamina target for defense is outspinning attack. Maybe you're used to formats where defense has it way easier than the other types (eg phantom can't be used because a lot of defenders will KO it, Attack can't be used because defense walls it and it can even lose against stamina with mislaunches, Defense has to worry about getting outspun by itself and the rare MF-tipped attack combo that works. Also balance, but every type has to worry about balance.

BUT THINK GRAVITY IS ONLY ONE WHEEL WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS
Gravity is the upper limit of what attack types should be capable of in this format. Quetz might have some chance to force smash this combo but that's rare, MF-H Lightning L-Drago 85RF is probably the best offensive answer to LTDC, but it does poorly against tall tracks.

BUT THINK U R BIAS
I launched gravity as best I could, but yes there could be subconscious bias though I did take every step to make sure gravity got a good flower pattern and didn't tornado stall etc. I did expect gravity to do a bit better, and I still feel that you could probably do better especially in left spin, significantly so if you got lucky with destabilisation+doubletapping, but even then, you have to remember that in a tournament situation attack WILL do a lot worse as people watch their launch strength to avoid self KO and so on.

Things to look at from here:
I would like to see Gravity on TR145, see if that can outspin earth with any reliability. I would appreciate others trying out these matchups to verify my results (just make sure you launch properly) as despite what it may seem, I am concerned about defense potentially being underpowered - but none of the arguments I have read so far have been well informed, mostly just people way too used to the defense-friendly meta of regular MFB.
I'm curious to see how this combo fares against Beat, Cosmic and Jade, (metal fury), but that is more to see if those are overpowered rather than whether or not this combo is good, as if they do better than gravity they shouldn't be legal.
Sounds like Limited's MF-H Basalt _____ 85 CS to me.

I'll have to give Forbidden a shot at this then, IIRC, Forbidden ______ 90 RF was still able to hit non-Hell 230 pretty hard, and was able to deal some damage to Basalt. If anyone has Forbidden, please test as well Smile
Oh My goodness... from doing testing for the "Metal Fury Project" thing today, I can safely testify that this thing rocks. I actually used to use Earth 85CS back a long time ago when I only had access to Hybrid Wheel parts, and it worked well.

The only Attacker I've seen that can take it out is MF-H Cosmic Unicorno CH120R2F, and it completely nullifies Beat.
I did the tests against Gravity on TR145, and it could not OS this custom in left spin (as a matter of fact, it didn't do much of anything against it in left spin). In right spin, however:

Gravity Perseus (ATK) TR145RF vs. MF-H Earth Sagittario II 85RSF
Earth always launched first.
Detail Results (Click to View)
Gravity: 14 (5 OS, 9 KO)
Earth: 6 (4 OS, 2 KO)
Gravity Win %: 70.0%

My arm hurts, lol

To get these results I did launch Gravity really freaking hard, for what that's worth.

Earth was weak-ish launched, and remained perfectly centered when left unperturbed.

The multitude of OSes happened because Gravity was either force smashing Earth into scraping or sending Earth around the stadium from wall to wall until Earth lost all spin. When Gravity got a KO, Earth was sent flying across the room; three of Gravity's KOs occured when Earth exited the stadium over a wall rather than out an exit.

The Earth I used was worn-ish, but the Gravity was literally unused. I'm going to redo these tests again after I've tested with this Gravity some more to see if part wear tolls heavily on Gravity or not.

Did I mention my arm hurts xD It's weird launching Beyblades this light after testing with Synchroms for so long; it's like I've been blading wearing a turtle shell or something!
Those OSes could mean you were launching earth too weak perhaps. Still, very interesting, I will have to get a tr145 myself.
Did some testing.

Earth always goes first then attack. RSF slightly worn. Both launched 100%

Pegasus CH120RF Vs. MF-H Eath Bull 85RSF

P: 20 (20 KO)
EB: 0

So Pegasus kept force smashing and forcing Earth to exit over wall from wall save.

How about at 145 height?

Pegasus CH145RF Vs. MF-H Eath Bull 85RSF

P: 13 (13 KO)
EB: 7 (3 KO, 4 OS)

Pegasus Recoil. However managed to OS or KO.
(Dec. 12, 2013  5:50 AM)Stars Wrote: Did some testing.

Earth always goes first then attack. RSF slightly worn. Both launched 100%

Okay, I get it, I need to make these launching instructions real clear in the OP or people like you just won't get it. Done, can we all launch properly from now on please?

Also, even with that you should not be getting 100% over 20 rounds against RSF with any right spin attack type (or any left spin one for that matter because the walls will occasionally screw you over anyway), unless you're doing something weird.
That combo does seem to perform quite well against this one for an attacker at least* but I refuse to believe that in 20 rounds earth couldn't manage to stay in after bouncing off a wall once and Pegasis never bounced out off its own recoil, especially without a metal face of any kind on it (even with an mf-h, pegasis never recoil KOing off earth once in 20 rounds is pretty unlikely) and earth never bounced off a wall and into pegasis knocking it out of the stadium. It doesn't happen.

*I can explain why, too: CH120 puts pegasis at a height where its leading edge's lower corners hit the stepped slopes of Earth, allowing it to do serious damage with just about every hit - it's not as effective against MF-H Bakushin Leone 85RSF, as while it still has good contact points there which do let it score a decent number of KO's, Bakushin offers a lot less for them to catch on. Secondly, Pegasis generally does pretty well against Earth, but it struggles more than other Attack wheels do against Libra, RF Defense/Anti-Attack and other Attack types, due to relatively light weight, high recoil, and poor stamina.
... I don't know what's going on with those results, but they're pretty opposite what I've been seeing.
It alright not to believe it. Test are test especially height matters.

Just to pull this from back in my day I was able to beat MF - H He'll 230 with just LLD Ch120RF.

Everyone has it own skills. I'm an aggressive attacker which is why I was able to produce a perfect score on 120 height
Skill doesn't have anything to do with what I'm talking about though, unless you're managing to line it up with exits or launching at earth subconsciously, which doesn't work anywhere near as well against real opponents and is generally something you're supposed to avoid when testing - which is really the only reason I'm writing this post, as it's something you need to be aware of.

FWIW, while I don't want to get into an attack skill pissing contest (especially as I really am not anything more than 'competent' with attack types especially under tournament conditions), 'beating' mf-h Hell 230 on just about any tip with lld ch120rf (though there's pretty much 0 reason not to use 145 height in that matchup) isn't nearly as hard as an absolutely perfect 20 rounds with something as recoil-prone as pegasis vs mf-h earth bull 85rsf.
Honestly before 230 and BD145 came around to muddle up the game this was honestly the scariest carp to me, and for good reason. 230 and BD145 could, you know, get beaten by attack beys which weren't super niche and terrible against anything else.

low track defense is honestly really hard to beat if you play properly. Like... can you win with attack vs this? When I get my new stuff I'll test this combo, I've only tested it on CS in the past but I can only imagine RSF is overkill.

Maybe my memory is clouded, but I just remember thinking that LTDC were freaking monsters that ended up getting kinda cut short. I'll test it and maybe the nightmares and hallucinations go away. I hope they do.

What I can say now, though, is that you should just try other wheels too. I know Gravity is legitimately one of the strongest but that does not necessarily excluded it from getting chunked by combos like this where other wheels may not. Just try crazy stuff. blah blah every wheel is different etc maybe you'll be surprised, maybe you won't.


Edit: oh yeah test out MF Lightning LDrago H145RF for me, someone, vs. this.
It is really, really good from what I remember.
like real good


like so good
Well, the Pegasis combo Stars mentioned does do well against it, though I'd want to have an MF-H on it, personally. LLD on 85 probably wouldn't do too poorly, and with tall tracks being largely ignored at the moment it might be quite viable to use LTAC, but I haven't tested it formally. Would like to see if Cosmic can do some more damage to it on specific tracks too, as it has some force smash and so on. And we're yet to see much from Zero G (I intend to change that after christmas if no one beats me to it), so there's that to look into as well.

But on the whole LTDC are really solid, and I'm not sure what any attack wheel that isn't overpowered will be able to do to them while also handling tall tracks etc (pegasis comes close but then there's anti-attack and Libra and so on). That might be for the best though, it's not like this combo and every other LTDC aren't easily outspun by things that aren't attack, so while it's enough to make spamming attack unsafe, it's not so amazing that it makes attack super dangerous to use either.

What I remember of LLD H145 was that it was used to give it enough weight to handle Basalt 230CS while letting it do stuff to low track opponents, and that it was primarily used by people who had no BD145 (i.e. Hasbro people). I also remember it being recoilly as heck and can't work out why no one just stuck R145 on it instead but yeah, if someone who doesn't hate the thing wants to try it out, go for it, maybe I'm wrong.
Idk I've had it KO Basalt BD145CS.

I remember it as a beast, so yeah I'd appreciate someone trying it out before me because I'll have to wait eons to get another H145 and stuff.

I actually despise tall tracks ughhh 230 spin yourself into eternal damnation plz.
No formal tests right now, but after playing around with this some more, and after Stars' post, I have noticed Earth 85 has trouble with a number of Ch120 attack types as they hit the slopes of its wings, which have that stepped design to them that causes quite a bit of recoil, and some 145 height attackers can exploit this too (turns out I was orienting R145 wrong on Gravity, it does pretty well against this when they're under the gaps/slopes so it can hit with its "chins" or whatever). Of course, this thread served its purpose of alerting people to LTDC, but from what I've tried the past few days, MF-H Bakushin Leone 90RSF is so much better than Earth LTDC overall that really, the only reason to use Earth for LTDC is not having Bakushin (though that probably applies to a lot of people).
Umm... Bakushin looks like it could over do this. I've got tests with Bakushin that I'll be posting later. It does look OK. Limited seems to be getting better. But... So far I only see 2 Defence; Earth, and Bakushin. I do think we could use more Defence. Anyways... Happy Bakushin might be a great Defence wheel. Haha, should of done most of this in the Bakushin thread. I also got better results with this against Gravity, witch Earth kinda struggled.
Yeah, bakushin is flat out better than earth for LTDC, as I said, this was before I'd really tried bakushin and I kinda just hastily made a thread for something I knew worked whether or not it was the absolute best setup (for example, there are probably better CW's one could use, perhaps something that could limit how easily contact can be made with earth's slopes without adding recoil itself?), just to make people aware of LTDC and the fact the reason they found defense so weak was that they were using really dumb combos. It worked excellently, so I'm not particularly fussed about it from this point onwards. Of course, this combo and other Earth LTDC aren't bad by any means but bakushin is just so much harder to land solid hits on. Outside of LTDC, though, Earth is generally a better wheel, Bakushin's sides do have recoil while Earth has almost none side-on, and while Earth's underside isn't perfect, it doesn't have an overhang so I'd put money on it being better on 230 as well.

Libra is another viable defense wheel (albeit not on tall tracks, it's too easily KO'd there to be defensive) though really it's best used for Anti-Attack, where its slight aggression is an actual asset rather than a liability. Virgo is worth playing around with as it is quite heavy, but it has that gap in its underside and the slopes on top so it is kinda limited, and then there's heavier flame wheels for tall tracks but tall track defense is pretty pointless in a format where gimmicked 145 tracks and CH120 are the best attack tracks. Reviser may also be worth a shot, it's not bad but it has awful stamina, hoping that MSF-H might help with the stability a little maybe idk. Scythe might also deserve looking into but it has the whole recoily top-side thing that will limit its usefulness.

EDIT: Sagittario II does seem to help a bit with the recoil of Earth's slopes, so if you don't have Bakushin, something like that is probably the way to go. Hades might work well too, as it slopes up at the edge and doesn't look to have anything itself that would cause recoil, but I don't have one, so I can't say for sure.

Also, Dan: H145 does help lightning KO LTDC, but because it's left-spin locked, they can also weaklaunch against it to make it much harder for lightning to knock them out.
Dan, once I get back from Europe, I will test LLD H145RF vs this, but now I'm gonna test this against Dark Knight Wyvang, WARNING: The CS you see I use in testing it the mint RF one.
Fake tests (Click to View)
WBO Committee: It was recently brought to our attention that all tests by Crescent in this topic are fabricated. We urge you to forget their results and that someone trustworthy conduct the actual tests for the sake of this metagame.