Overview
Carl is BlazBlue's resident puppet character, behaving similarly yet arguably more defensively or neutral-oriented to his Gear counterpart Zato-1/Eddie.
Upon BBCT's initial release, Carl was considered to be by far the worst character in the game. Many pointed to his awkward mechanics, dash and normals as being too crippling for him to even hope to compete against the likes of Hakumen or Tager, let alone the rest of the cast. A few setups appeared later which did little to change people's minds, but then came the legendary Clap Loop, and Carl instantly shot from the bottom to the topor "Mid" circa 2009 . The Clap Loop is a simple concept: combo the enemy into the air, airthrow them, and then have Ada use 8D beneath them. Sounds easily techable, but for whatever insane reason 8D in this game is fully air unblockable even against Barrier, and always comes out after startup even if Carl is in the Throw Reject animation, so the second they tech they instantly get hit and combo'd back into the situation they were in before.
This is what Carl does in this game. His mix-ups, set-ups and all that other stuff are mostly just for show or to land his hit into the big one. It's the Clap Loop that put Carl on the map. The only universal way out is to spend your Burst, otherwise Carl instantly kills you by turning a single hit into a long, nearly (or even fully) inescapable uncombo Refers to the act of resetting an opponent mid-combo with particularly difficult or even impossible-to-avoid resets to where it might as well be considered an extended combo string. An example is Carl's corner unblockable resets. loop. Despite the initial hype however, Carl still does suffer a bit in neutral on his own, and yearns for death when pitted against the other top tiers above him. But for what it's worth, he'll destroy everyone else.Carl Clover is a puppet character that claps you out of the game harder than War Machine's Jumping Fierce.
- Clap Loop: The only thing about Carl that really matters. One or two hits and the round can be Carl's, it's that simple. Getting a Clap Loop started is surprisingly practical, and the applause never ends.
- Questionably Effective Range: Carl can command Nirvana to attack from wherever she is on screen, even from behind the opponent while he remains safe. Fishing with her attacks at range might let Carl convert into the loop.
- Mixups & Funblockables: Thanks to his side-switching special, comboable instant overhead j.2C, and Nirvana also having high/low/throw mix-up, Carl is able to run strong mix-ups and even unblockable resets in his pressure and combos. This allows him to land a hit to convert into the loop.
- Awful Everywhere Else: Carl was considered the worst character in CT before Clap Loop for good reason. You could fill this entire cons section with nearly everything in Carl's kit.
- Rachel and Arakune are also in the game: If you wanted setplay and explosions, these two still did it better than Carl. He also can't get to loop either of them worth a damn, so his character entirely returns to nothing versus them.
Unique Mechanics
Carl's Drive revolves around controlling Nirvana, who moves and acts independently of Carl but is controlled at the same time. The main details are:
- Hold the D button to activate Nirvana, release D while not holding any direction to deactivate.
- While active, she can move forward by holding any forward/backward direction (including diagonals). Nirvana is solid to both Carl and his opponent while active
- Nirvana will attack when releasing the D button while either holding a direction or after completing the inputs for one of her special moves. Nirvana will remain active afterwards if you are holding D as the move ends.
- Note that the directional inputs required for moves is based on Carl's current facing, not necessarily Nirvana's. For example: If Carl is facing right and Nirvana is facing left, pressing D, inputting 623 and releasing D will give you Con Brio.
- Similarly, opponents always face towards Carl and thus input moves and block attacks based on his location, not Nirvana's, even if Nirvana is attacking from behind them.
- Nirvana has a health bar that gets consumed when she attacks or gets hit while active. While this health regenerates rapidly if she is left inactive for a short period; If Nirvana runs out of health, she will be disabled and regenerate more slowly, only becoming usable once she has fully recovered.
- If Carl gets hit or blocks something, Nirvana is interrupted in most cases and reverts to her inactive state.
- Nirvana cannot Rapid Cancel.
Normal Moves
5A
Sub-par standing jab but it hits crouchers & is 1 frame faster than other mash-out options so there's that. Leads to very marginally better damage than 2A but still pretty pathetic.
5B
- Pressing 5B again will automatically string into 6B
Carl's robot stabs in front of him with a lance. Decent reach and speed. Pretty easy to punish on whiff.
5C
Carl's robot stabs the floor with a lance while sitting on a horse. Probably the longest reaching move you have. DIO (Japanese Carl) likes to use this a lot for poking.
2A
Terrible 2A. It's one frame faster than most characters' mash-outs, but it's very short range, can't self cancel and leads to unbelievably puny damage as a starter. In exchange, it hits low. Does gatling to 5A if you need a bit more confirm time or to mix up timing before a low/overhead and you also want the subsequent combo to do no damage.
2B
Carl's robot sweeps the floor with a lance. Reaches about the same length as 5B except with less recovery. Use this for closer range poking if you need something faster than 5C. Frame advantage is good to end block strings with.
2C
Carl's robot's horse does a hind kick into the air. Hit box is pretty vertical on this one so its only useful in 2C8D loop. Don't try it as anti air, it has no invincibility.
- launches on hit
6A
Carl's robot does an upwards strike while shifting him backwards. While this anti-air does have really good head invulnerability when it works, for some reason if the opponent hits their jump-in deep enough it can go through the invuln and hit Carl (???), so he can just die for attempting to use this too late even if he was right. The hurtbox also doesn't retract until late into the startup. In many cases this can be horrid for defensive use or trying to escape pressure.
- Launches on ground hit.
- Hurtbox retracts on frame 10.
- Launches on hit
6B
Carl's robot sweeps the ground with a lance for a standing low, part of your basic combo. One of his farthest normals. On CH, it will pop the opponent up a bit in the air and towards you, untechable until they hit ground. In pressure strings with opponent in between carl and nirvana, using this will put carl closer to his opponent so the pressure is harder to escape, but it doesn't hurt the guard gauge as much as 5C so the choice is yours. On IB, this is punishable if timed well.
- Launches on counter hit, vacuum effect, untechable
6C
- Can be charged by holding C
- Crumples on hit
6C is a slow but safe on block overhead. Can be difficult to use due to short range even if the opponent is cornered thanks to Barrier, but might be okay in sandwich situations with Nirvana. Half charging can be useful for timing simultaneous high+low unblockables with 3D as well.
Only chains from A normals, so it's predictable in pressure. If this hits, the opponent is put in crumple stun for a while, long enough to follow up with 5B/2B.
- 6[C]
Jesus christ, look at that frame data.
After 90 or so whole frames, 6[C] becomes an unblockable (even in air and to Barrier) and deals more damage. Incredibly long startup makes this pretty impractical to use in a real match outside of unblockable setups with Carl's lockdown supers (632146C and 236236D). Might be usable in a fake manner with Nirvana specials in a sandwich situation or in corner but he most definitely has better mix to work with while meterless.
6C:
- Staggers on hit (27)
- activate 5F after button release
- holding 92~95 becomes the maximum version
6C (MAX):
- Staggers on hit (29)
- slowest start up 100F
3C
- Jump cancellable on hit
Carl's sweep. Low profile, but unsafe on block or whiff. Use mainly as part of combos or if you are confident you will slide under their attack. Also one of Carl's main ways of converting into a juggle combo to start the Clap Loop; when 3C connects, he can jump cancel into IAD j.2C > allecancel > OTG 2C while also summoning Nirvana with 22D in the middle of the air dash to put themselves into position and start the rally.
- Knocks down on hit, untechable when hit on the ground
j.A
Carl's robot punches again. 5F startup so you can try to use it as your anti air, but its reach is really short so it is a risk to take.
j.B
Carl's robot swipes in front with a lance. Pretty good range. Use this preemptively to prevent people from jumping in.
j.C
Carl's robot swipes vertically downwards. Your main jump-in attack. Not so good as an airdash-in attack because the hitbox isnt too big under nor in front of him and this sometimes whiffs on certain crouching characters.
j.2C
- Bounces off the opponent on connect
Carl drills straight down with his knife first. The post-hit situation is pretty awkward due to the bounce, and on whiff Carl hits the ground with horrible recovery.
If j.2C is performed close to the ground and canceled into j.214C, Carl won't bounce and instead drops to the floor but with no recovery. This is known as an "Alle-can" (Allegretto-cancel) and turns j.2C into an amazing instant overhead option that can start solo combos, albeit with very short range. This technique is so good that you're going to want to Alle-can basically every time this connects with the opponent while Carl is close enough to the ground.
j.2C can also be kara-cancelled into air throw with j.2C~B for a "Glide Specifically refers to a technique in the early BlazBlue (and by extension P4A) series where a character cancels their air dash into a series of actions that alters their trajectory downward instead of following the full airdash trajectory." effect during an airdash, which will cause him to land faster after an IAD/IABD to bait anti-airs and get better positioning faster.
- Carl bounces off opponent on hit or guard
- Bounce duration 26, counter hit vulnerable until 11F, and can cancel to jump A, B or C during 9~11F
Drive Moves
5D
Pressing down D will activate Nirvana and allow her to walk forward with any forward direction or backward with any backward direction. Releasing D while holding a specific direction will perform the corresponding move below, or without a direction will deactivate her without using a move.
2]D[
Nirvana will slam her fist down on the ground. Slow overhead that ground bounces opponent high into the air for follow up combo. Proper use with Carl creates an unblockable.
- Floor bounce on hit
- uses 380 points, continuously uses 110%
6]D[
Nirvana does a punch forward. Decent startup and range. Your main move for pressure strings/loops, an example being {({clr
> 5A > 5B > 5C > 6D) × N
- Staggers on counter hit (79)
- uses 300 points, continuously uses 150%
.
}}
4]D[
Nirvana does a 2 hit spinning move. Quick startup and first hit has super armor throughout. 2nd hit wall bounces and allows Carl to do follow up, including gear super.
- 1st hit launches
- 2nd hit wall bounces
- guaranteed start up even Nirvana gets hit
- uses 420 points, continuously uses 110%
3]D[
Nirvana spin sweeps the ground for 4 hits, but only the first one hits low. Lots of active frames, useful for punishing wakeup options (or lack thereof) and also lets Carl perform unblockables in the middle of combo loops and pressure in conjunction with j.2C Alle-can.
- Hitstop 2F
- uses 420 points, continuously uses 150%
8]D[
- Completely air unblockable, even against Barrier.
- Shockwave still exists even if Carl gets hit.
The Clap, the entire reason why Carl is good in CT. Fully air unblockable assist that legitimately kills you.
8D activates Nirvana and makes her claps her hands in the air above her, which creates a circular shockwave. It's a 2 hit move; 1 hit near her hands, and a second hit on the shockwave. On its own, it doesn't replace Carl's weak anti-airs but it's still somewhat useful for denying air space or to punish air techs if Nirvana is positioned well, which is especially strong thanks to its properties. In the latter case, it can be very sneaky as the opponent air teching near the top of the screen after a ladder combo or air-to-air will probably make them unable to see Nirvana's 8D starting up until it is already hitting them. A very important note is that the startup is guaranteed after Nirvana activates and Carl getting hit or teching a throw will not stop this, which can allow Carl to do weird things like punish the opponent for teching his air throw (and this also enables his dreaded Clap Loop).
On hit, 8D is Carl's best prorating starter and has unbelievably long untechable time on hit which lets him easily get into position for followups into just about anything he wants (this just means that he can do 2C loop or Clap Loop). His main confirm into 8D is with 3C > OTG j.2C > Alle-can > 2C
, and from there Carl tends to loop 2C and 8D with each other 2~3 times for guaranteed damage before going into the Clap Loop.
- 2nd hit has projectile property
- guaranteed start up even Carl gets hit
- uses 240, continuously uses 140%
La Campanella
22D
Nirvana teleports behind Carl. Relatively quick to move Nirvana, can be performed during numerous other actions without commitment and cannot be interrupted once startup is over.
- Guaranteed successful teleport after 1F
- uses 210 points, continuously uses 100%
Con Brio
623D
Nirvana extends her "nails" at an angle. Aerial Unblockable, quick startup and far range makes it a good "prediction" anti air. Has super armor. Not so good as a reaction close anti air because the angle is not high enough. Useful in combos.
- Launches on hit
- Nirvana has armor against head attribute attack
- uses 270 points,continuously uses 120%
Con Anima
63214D
Nirvana's "command grab" where she walks forward a very far distance and grabs the opponent. Slow startup and long recovery, and the throw is actually techable regardless of if it connects during hit/block stun. Don't use without a plan since its recovery is really long.
- Attack has 7F start up after getting in range
- 2nd hit floor bounce on hit
- uses 380 points, continuously uses 100%
Con Fuoco
41236D
Nirvana's arm drill. Slow startup and long recovery but moves quite a bit and lots of blockstun/chip damage if it lands. Use with caution as it can be jumped over and then you'll be alone without Nirvana for a good while. Can be interrupted before startup.
- Hitstop 4F
- uses 530 points, continuously uses 100%
Universal Mechanics
Forward Throw
5B+C
- Knocks down on hit, untechable when hit on the ground
Back Throw
4B+C
- Floor bounce on hit
Air Throw
j.B+C
- Floor bounce on hit
Counter Assault
6A+B while blocking
Counter assault that manages to be about as small as Arakune's even though his is just his throw. Can be utilized for the classic dangerous defense (read: comboing off CA into Nirvana) and is your only real reversal or defensive option in CT, but keep in mind that you need to be close enough to count the pores on the opponent's face before you press this.
- blasts away on hit
Special Moves
Vivace
236A/B
Command Dash N' Dodge, A version is short and fast, B goes further and lasts longer. Both are capable of switching sides, and are one of Carl's ways of mixing up the opponent on block by pairing it with a Nirvana move as he slides through for a cross-up.
- 236A
- 236B
A longer distance roll (about 2/3 of the screen) that passes through opponents and Nirvana. 18F of head invincibility makes it a good escape mechanism for jump-ins. Recovery is still horrible so don't use it if it will stop in front of your opponent.
236A:
- 1~18 goes through opponent
236B:
- 1~24 goes through opponent
Cantabile
623C
Mid hitgrab, has no close-up hitbox so it's very prone to whiffing from close-up yet it's also slow enough to not combo in a number of situations if you try to space it out more. Does 100 damage unscaled. Barely enough time to link into 5B and get an air combo after without doll.
Little use without Nirvana present but it's also one of the only things Carl can do on his own. Does absolutely no favors for his damage output in typical use but can confirm into Clap Loops.
- Launches on hit
- recovery 13F quicker on hit
- first hitstop 0F
- only hit opponent on the ground
- 2nd hit has throw property
Allegretto
j.214C
Multi strikes with Carl's knife. Slow startup but good range and priority once its out, so you can use it for preemptive air dashes. Despite this, its main use will rather be to perform Alle-can to end air combos with. On hit, knocks pretty far away with lots of hitstun, and if Nirvana is positioned to intercept with 8D it can be used to convert an air-to-air or ladder combo into an extension.
- Launches on hit
Distortion Drives
Laetabilis Cantata
632146C
Carl's gear super. Does not have any invincibility, does not hit directly in front of Carl, so don't use on wakeup unless you're planning to trade hits with a far poke. Great to bait bursts as it stays even if Carl is hit. Carl recovers slightly before the super ends so it can be used to set up unblockables in the corner. Blasts away on hit allowing for follow up combos if opponent caught in between Carl and Nirvana.
- Blast away on hit
- projectile property
- hitstop 1F
- onBlock based on blocking back to the wall
Rhapsody of Memories
236236D
Nirvana's 11 hit punch sequence. Has super armor throughout and does about 2k damage only but very quick startup. Quick enough to be used as a good wakeup option if Nirvana is nearby. Lots of guardstun so you can do a lot of mixups during this 11 hits. 11th Hit wall bounces and allows you to follow up with an air combo or gear super. Can be used to burst bait since it will result in opponent blocking if they burst. Does not combo in the air. Mix-up options described later.
- 11th hit wall bounce
- Carl's duration 69F
- Nirvana attacks even Carl and her gets hit
- uses 0 point, continuously uses 100%
Fermata
214214D
Nirvana's "BIG BANG UPPER" that hits vertically upwards. Links off Carl's 2C and 3C if timed right. Good way to finish off your opponent since it can hit through bursts and it does good damage even at the end of a big combo.
- Launches on hit
- Carl's duration 52F
- air version start up 2+38, duration 53
- guaranteed startup even Carl receives attack
- uses 0 points, continuously uses 100%
Click [★] for character's full frame data
Essentials
• Controls •
HUD •
FAQ •
The Basics
• Movement/Canceling •
Offense •
Defense •
Gauges •
Universal Strategy •
Detailed & Advanced Information
• Damage/Combo •
Attack Attributes •
Frame Data & System Data •
Misc •
Archived Information
• Archived Fan Wiki • Tier Lists •
- Advanced Input
- Attack Attributes
- Attack Level
- Astral Heat
- Auto Heat Gain
- Burst
- Barrier Block
- Barrier Gauge
- Bonus Proration
- Clash
- Combo Rate
- Counter Assault
- Counter Hit
- Counter Hit Carry
- Danger State
- Distortion Drive
- Guard Crush
- Guard Bonus
- Hard Knockdown
- Heat Gauge Cooldown
- Instant Barrier
- Instant Block
- Negative Penalty
- Purple Throw
- P1, P2
- Rapid Cancel
- Same Move Proration (SMP)
- Starter Rating
- Super Flash Buffer
- Throw Reject Miss (TRM)
- Ukemi/Tech (Air)
- Ukemi/Roll/Emergency Tech
- Untechable State