Tatsunoko vs Capcom/Gold Lightan

Introduction

TvC says that Gold Lightan originated from the Golden Warrior Gold Lightan anime (which is true). He, along with PTX, represents the giant characters, who were one of the selling points of TvC. He has super armor, which means he doesn't take hit stun from most normal attacks, however there are exceptions. He has a fairly low execution requirement in his combos, but takes a lot of patience and hard work to get good at. Some people claim that the giants are the worst characters in the game, however, they continue to prove themselves viable tournament characters.

Moves List

Normal Moves

• F+B - Fist Slam - Gold Lightan takes his arm and slams it into the ground. This causes knockdown on the enemy.
• B+B - Kick - Looks similar to his standing B kick, but is slower, has longer range, and does more damage.
• F+C - Normal Throw - Gold Lightan's normal throw. This works different from normal throws for a couple reasons. First of all, he will attempt a throw even if not close to the opponent, secondly it can grab an opponent out of the air.

Special Moves

• HCF+A/B/C - Crouching Karate Chop - Gold Lightan crouches fast and does a 2 hit karate chop. This reflects projectiles.
• HCB+A/B/C - Diving Kick - Gold Lightan will jump and do a diving kick. C version will do Snapback if the enemy gets hit while they're in the air by Gold Lightan's Diving Kick.
• 360+C - Gold Lightan Body Press - Gold Lightan takes the enemy and throw them on the ground. He them body slams them on the ground. This counts as 2 hits.
• Tap down, down+A/B/C - Shockwave - Gold Lightan takes his leg and slams it to the ground, causing a shock wave. This does 2 hits.

Super Moves

• HCB+AB - Gold Kick - Gold Lightan kicks the enemy at the wall (causing a wall bounce), then slams the enemy to the ground with one of his legs, causing a shock wave. This can be used in a combo. Example, Launcher (downwards and forward+C) xx Gold Kick.
• HCF+AB (Can also be done in the air) - Gold Wave -Gold Lightan takes his leg and slams it to the ground, causing a shock wave that travels all the way across the ground (horizontally). If it hits the enemy, the enemy will fly in the air, and Gold Lightan will grab the enemy's "energy" and squeeze the enemy's "energy," resulting in an explosion.
• During Gold Wave, QCF+AB (Level 3 Super) - Gold Throw - During Gold Wave, you have an alternative way to end the super. If you use Gold Throw, Gold Lightan will take his enemy in the air and simply throw them straight (vertically) down at the ground, causing an explosion.

The Basics

Gold Lightan has very simple combos, but the best thing about him is his super armor. If used correctly, Lightan can keep pressure on his opponent very effectively. While his pressure strings will obviously have more gaps than quicker and smaller characters, due to his super armor, they are very hard to exploit. However, how safe you have to play with lightan depends largely on what character you're facing. Against someone like Karas who can grab lightan and infinite, you'll want to play very cautiously, however, against someone like Roll who has very few options against the giants, you can open up with lots of fancy tricks with little fear of retaliation. Lightan has no low attacks, so against an experienced player, the fact that some of his things hit overhead will be worthless. Also, keep in mind that while his command grab does high damage, but is easy to mash out of if the opponent expects it.

Gold Lightan's dash is too slow to use effectively in most situations, so you'll generally be jumping to make up space. Empty jumps or j.A are good ways to make up space between yourself and the opponent as there is little or no landing lag, allowing you to go into close up pressure strings. A j.C can also be useful for a couple reasons, but use it sparingly, usually only on reaction to moves. First off, if you hit a j.C on a grounded opponent, you can cancel it into his HCF+A+B super for large damage. Secondly, you can cancel the landing lag into any special. This can kill your pressure string before it gets started, but can surprise your opponent, and the ending lag is usually better than the j.C landing lag. You can also cancel this into your command throw.

Once you've closed the gap on your opponent, it's time to start your pressure strings. With gold lightan, what this almost always consists of is throwing out low pokes until you get pushed out. There's a couple reasons for this, the most important of which being it does chip damage, secondly it doesn't allow your opponent to escape or do anything remotely worthwhile to you. Once you get pushed out though, it's time to figure out how to get back in. While the most obvious (and most common) thing to do is jump in again, you have another option, your standing B.

Your standing B makes up a lot of space and can be canceled on hit or empty into any special or super. If you don't cancel it, Lightan will return back to his original position, but if you do cancel it, you will be moved forwards right in front of the opponent.

Also, try using a launcher out of a low poke string, it can throw people off due to the delay in attacks and can catch people for large combos.

USING THE GRAB: Ok, so the command grab does a bunch of damage, but what about if they tech it? You stand there like a retard and they take no damage? Not quite. When they enemy techs a throw they go into a special state in which they fall to the ground, unable to block or use normal moves until they hit the ground. They can, however, still hit you with specials. What you can do, however, is megacrash after they break your throw. This will cancel your recovery and give you a chance to midair combo the opponent. At midscreen they'll bee too far away to do anything worthwhile, although you can hit a 4B for a little chunk of damage. If they tech in the corner though, you can unload a pretty serious combo on them midair. Speaking of which,

Lightan Combos. Your BnBs will seem stupid at first. If one of your low pokes connects, continue mashing them until they stop hitting. If you hit with his reflector move, which can be useful for cancelling at times due to its high speed, you can baroque it and mash low pokes until they're almost out of range, and then hit a 4B. If you hit a launcher there are a few things you can do, the most normal is to baroque, then juggle with standing As until they're about out of range, then hit a 5B,4B. If you're close enough to the corner, instead of just baroquing right away, you can hit 3C,63214B,baroque,(5A)xN,5B,4B. Also you can simply go 3C,63214A+B for good damage. If your opponent is in the air (trying to super jump away, teched into the corner), you can go straight into the poke chains and baroque it for a huge chunk of damage like so: (5A)xN,5B,4B,baroque,(5A)xN,5B,4B.

A note on standing poke juggling: You can juggle with more standing As if you delay them so that the opponent doesn't move gradually upwards out of the combo, but rather continues getting juggled and pushed back horizontally. The timing can take a little while to get used to but it's not too hard.