Friendship 729 battle 3

[Lawsy]

I've always used H40 for all of my Chinese rubbers (only in the last few months I switched to H39)

Wow, ok, I was not expecting that... I was almost certain you were going to say 38, or maybe 39, but not H40.

I honestly think that your particular sheet of B3 was not representative. However, I want t to be incredibly cautious here because I do not want it to appear as though I'm accusing you of being disingenuous, that is not at all my intention. I believe your experience was exactly as you have described.

So I'll send you a private message of what I'm thinking, as it's interesting to work these things out, but I also don't want to hijack this thread any further... Cheers!

 

[Zwill]

I think I broke in my B3... It was a bit of an effort and an endurance run. I played with it for 20 hours and now I think it's broken in.
I was kind of swapping around the B3 and Palio The Way on my blade but while the Palio is a pretty surprisingly cool rubber the B3 is just such a beast.

Even as new it produced so much spin, the topsheet is amazingly spinny, I think it's spinnier than H3 or at least it feels a touch more elastic on how it spits out the ball on big hits, but on small touches too and serve is just so much better than H3.

Now that it's broken in (I think) it's managably fast, granted it's on a Cybershape Carbon with 6g weight in handle so overall it's 195g but it doesn't feel that heavy, since it's balanced by the 6g weight.

I have discovered some nice features of the rubber. It's amazing how it converts rotational energy to forward and forward energy to rotational. I think this is the easiest rubber to deal with short and long pips. They push onto me a fast "empty" ball and I can pull it with B3. This is not an easy shot to do.
On the other hand I get a very spinny slow loop and I can counter it with great speed without giving it much of my own swing speed. Just loosey-goosey.
And I did some countering with it and I have to say I can outperform ZLC blades with MXP on them. Sure, In forehand 2 forehand battle I usually win since my FH is great. But still since it can convert and give back energy so well to the ball I use the opponent's energy and my own and I have placement, depth, and angle while the opponent is happy to do a diagonal FH drive with great power and spin.

The biggest hack of this rubber is the serve. I'm not a particularly amazing server. I'm not bad, not great. I mainly do simple underpin and side-under, just side, maybe hide in a topspin or empty serve. I do all of these with pretty much the same motion which is my weapon of deception. I do an OK job at best normally.
But with B3 maaaaan... The topsheet is very elastic on weak touches so the serves are amazingly spinny without needing a big motion. I can "hide" my serve and make it very very spinny at the same time now. I kid you not I am sure I have gained at least 5-6 points just because of this alone.
While before my serve was from OK to being a liability, today on our match I felt it was my sharpest katana. When I played against the stronger guys I maybe lost 2-3 points per match so maybe 1 point per set. That is crazy. It's worth using B3 just for the serve hack, this is like playing Quake and enabling god mode.

That being said my BH has improved about as much with the V>15 extra as my serves so there is that too. I'm pretty sure I improved about 100TTR points in 3 weeks just by changing back to V>15 and now B3. While 100 doesn't sound much, from 2100 to 2200 it is a big deal. I'm beating 2100 like I'm beating local league players from before.

 

[kindof99]

Battle 3 is reported to play much better if boosted with FTL

 

[Zwill]

Battle 3 is reported to play much better if boosted with FTL

That makes sense since FTL is the defacto booster for G-1 in my opinion and it's not that great with H3 or dense sponges. B3 has some pores in the sponge so maybe that's why FTL is better. I also used a very thin layer of FTL on the sponge but not for boosting but to make the sponge stick to the glue. First time I glued on the B3 it literally fell of my blade just by looking at it. And it was the case when the glue was on the blade and the sponge was virgin.

 

[KenTT]

I think I broke in my B3... It was a bit of an effort and an endurance run. I played with it for 20 hours and now I think it's broken in.
I was kind of swapping around the B3 and Palio The Way on my blade but while the Palio is a pretty surprisingly cool rubber the B3 is just such a beast.

Even as new it produced so much spin, the topsheet is amazingly spinny, I think it's spinnier than H3 or at least it feels a touch more elastic on how it spits out the ball on big hits, but on small touches too and serve is just so much better than H3.

Now that it's broken in (I think) it's managably fast, granted it's on a Cybershape Carbon with 6g weight in handle so overall it's 195g but it doesn't feel that heavy, since it's balanced by the 6g weight.

I have discovered some nice features of the rubber. It's amazing how it converts rotational energy to forward and forward energy to rotational. I think this is the easiest rubber to deal with short and long pips. They push onto me a fast "empty" ball and I can pull it with B3. This is not an easy shot to do.
On the other hand I get a very spinny slow loop and I can counter it with great speed without giving it much of my own swing speed. Just loosey-goosey.
And I did some countering with it and I have to say I can outperform ZLC blades with MXP on them. Sure, In forehand 2 forehand battle I usually win since my FH is great. But still since it can convert and give back energy so well to the ball I use the opponent's energy and my own and I have placement, depth, and angle while the opponent is happy to do a diagonal FH drive with great power and spin.

The biggest hack of this rubber is the serve. I'm not a particularly amazing server. I'm not bad, not great. I mainly do simple underpin and side-under, just side, maybe hide in a topspin or empty serve. I do all of these with pretty much the same motion which is my weapon of deception. I do an OK job at best normally.
But with B3 maaaaan... The topsheet is very elastic on weak touches so the serves are amazingly spinny without needing a big motion. I can "hide" my serve and make it very very spinny at the same time now. I kid you not I am sure I have gained at least 5-6 points just because of this alone.
While before my serve was from OK to being a liability, today on our match I felt it was my sharpest katana. When I played against the stronger guys I maybe lost 2-3 points per match so maybe 1 point per set. That is crazy. It's worth using B3 just for the serve hack, this is like playing Quake and enabling god mode.

That being said my BH has improved about as much with the V>15 extra as my serves so there is that too. I'm pretty sure I improved about 100TTR points in 3 weeks just by changing back to V>15 and now B3. While 100 doesn't sound much, from 2100 to 2200 it is a big deal. I'm beating 2100 like I'm beating local league players from before.

Hi Zwill, what sponge hardness you’re using and what do you think about the speed? I have been using 39 deg B3 for 5 months and with 2 layers of booster. I agree with your review and very happy with the B3. However I wish that it can be faster. Speed-wise I think it is same as T05 and slower than D05. I am going to try the 40 deg later.

 

[longle]

I think I broke in my B3... It was a bit of an effort and an endurance run. I played with it for 20 hours and now I think it's broken in.
I was kind of swapping around the B3 and Palio The Way on my blade but while the Palio is a pretty surprisingly cool rubber the B3 is just such a beast.

Even as new it produced so much spin, the topsheet is amazingly spinny, I think it's spinnier than H3 or at least it feels a touch more elastic on how it spits out the ball on big hits, but on small touches too and serve is just so much better than H3.

Now that it's broken in (I think) it's managably fast, granted it's on a Cybershape Carbon with 6g weight in handle so overall it's 195g but it doesn't feel that heavy, since it's balanced by the 6g weight.

I have discovered some nice features of the rubber. It's amazing how it converts rotational energy to forward and forward energy to rotational. I think this is the easiest rubber to deal with short and long pips. They push onto me a fast "empty" ball and I can pull it with B3. This is not an easy shot to do.
On the other hand I get a very spinny slow loop and I can counter it with great speed without giving it much of my own swing speed. Just loosey-goosey.
And I did some countering with it and I have to say I can outperform ZLC blades with MXP on them. Sure, In forehand 2 forehand battle I usually win since my FH is great. But still since it can convert and give back energy so well to the ball I use the opponent's energy and my own and I have placement, depth, and angle while the opponent is happy to do a diagonal FH drive with great power and spin.

The biggest hack of this rubber is the serve. I'm not a particularly amazing server. I'm not bad, not great. I mainly do simple underpin and side-under, just side, maybe hide in a topspin or empty serve. I do all of these with pretty much the same motion which is my weapon of deception. I do an OK job at best normally.
But with B3 maaaaan... The topsheet is very elastic on weak touches so the serves are amazingly spinny without needing a big motion. I can "hide" my serve and make it very very spinny at the same time now. I kid you not I am sure I have gained at least 5-6 points just because of this alone.
While before my serve was from OK to being a liability, today on our match I felt it was my sharpest katana. When I played against the stronger guys I maybe lost 2-3 points per match so maybe 1 point per set. That is crazy. It's worth using B3 just for the serve hack, this is like playing Quake and enabling god mode.

That being said my BH has improved about as much with the V>15 extra as my serves so there is that too. I'm pretty sure I improved about 100TTR points in 3 weeks just by changing back to V>15 and now B3. While 100 doesn't sound much, from 2100 to 2200 it is a big deal. I'm beating 2100 like I'm beating local league players from before.

now I remember why I could not play with B3... I felt that it was too soft because of the elastic topsheet but gladly that you liked it

 

[Zwill]

Hi Zwill, what sponge hardness you’re using and what do you think about the speed? I have been using 39 deg B3 for 5 months and with 2 layers of booster. I agree with your review and very happy with the B3. However I wish that it can be faster. Speed-wise I think it is same as T05 and slower than D05. I am going to try the 40 deg later.

I'm using 40deg. I think Tenergy and Dignics are much faster.
But there is always an asterisk. I use grippy rubbers or bouncy rubbers differently than Chinese sticky rubbers.
With grippy rubbers I try to find friction and stretch the rubber and the sponge so it imparts as much spin and speed into the ball as possible. So the force in my arm is split between grabbing the ball in the topsheet and hitting forward.
With Chinese sticky rubbers I don't care too much about the friction because it's just there by default. I only concentrate on my timing and that I hit the ball with as much forward impact as possible. For sure my arm goes upwards but I try to hit the ball like I am breaking a wall down.
The ball coming out from a Tenergy or similar rubber has a very high curve while from Chinese friction rubbers not so much of a curve, it's a lot more straight and the ball just dips down in the very end.
The ball travel distance is much longer from a high curve than from a more straight path. So I think this causes some illusion that some fast Chinese rubbers are faster than Tenergy or whatever actually fast rubber. But I think Tenergy like rubbers are faster even with the high curve than B3.

Depends on the players technique too actually. In a way I broke B3 in but B3 also broke me in.

 

[Lawsy]

I think I broke in my B3... It was a bit of an effort and an endurance run. I played with it for 20 hours and now I think it's broken in.
I was kind of swapping around the B3 and Palio The Way on my blade but while the Palio is a pretty surprisingly cool rubber the B3 is just such a beast.

Even as new it produced so much spin, the topsheet is amazingly spinny, I think it's spinnier than H3 or at least it feels a touch more elastic on how it spits out the ball on big hits, but on small touches too and serve is just so much better than H3.

Now that it's broken in (I think) it's managably fast, granted it's on a Cybershape Carbon with 6g weight in handle so overall it's 195g but it doesn't feel that heavy, since it's balanced by the 6g weight.

I have discovered some nice features of the rubber. It's amazing how it converts rotational energy to forward and forward energy to rotational. I think this is the easiest rubber to deal with short and long pips. They push onto me a fast "empty" ball and I can pull it with B3. This is not an easy shot to do.
On the other hand I get a very spinny slow loop and I can counter it with great speed without giving it much of my own swing speed. Just loosey-goosey.
And I did some countering with it and I have to say I can outperform ZLC blades with MXP on them. Sure, In forehand 2 forehand battle I usually win since my FH is great. But still since it can convert and give back energy so well to the ball I use the opponent's energy and my own and I have placement, depth, and angle while the opponent is happy to do a diagonal FH drive with great power and spin.

The biggest hack of this rubber is the serve. I'm not a particularly amazing server. I'm not bad, not great. I mainly do simple underpin and side-under, just side, maybe hide in a topspin or empty serve. I do all of these with pretty much the same motion which is my weapon of deception. I do an OK job at best normally.
But with B3 maaaaan... The topsheet is very elastic on weak touches so the serves are amazingly spinny without needing a big motion. I can "hide" my serve and make it very very spinny at the same time now. I kid you not I am sure I have gained at least 5-6 points just because of this alone.
While before my serve was from OK to being a liability, today on our match I felt it was my sharpest katana. When I played against the stronger guys I maybe lost 2-3 points per match so maybe 1 point per set. That is crazy. It's worth using B3 just for the serve hack, this is like playing Quake and enabling god mode.

That being said my BH has improved about as much with the V>15 extra as my serves so there is that too. I'm pretty sure I improved about 100TTR points in 3 weeks just by changing back to V>15 and now B3. While 100 doesn't sound much, from 2100 to 2200 it is a big deal. I'm beating 2100 like I'm beating local league players from before.

That's how I felt, the way B3 improved your game. Having used B2P Blue Sponge for the most part, but also having used G1 (and, since it's on my backhand, GoldArc 8 50, which many say is faster than T05, but I'm not sure I agree with that), B3 just doesn't feel like any of them.

And if I'm honest, I've been feeling a bit crazy over here.
The overall sales of B3 seem to be increasing now (I just bought another sheet, as a spare, and to try the 39, so i saw the numbers have increased by 5x), which I think is well deserved, but I'm not seeing many reviews coming out that highlight how significant the improvement is over the previous generation. Anyway, I thought I was going a bit mental...

The service hack as absolutely real.
I've completely changed how I serve recently, to be much closer to how a proper pendulum serve "should" be done. It's a bit inconsistent at the moment, however, when I get it right, it's absolutely disgusting. My GA8 has lovely grip for serving, too, but it's nothing like B3...

I would not say the top sheet feels soft, it just has a lot more raw mechanical grip, especially once broken in, but I can understand why it feels more elastic. It's like the previous generation lost some CoR to damping (through what mechanism, I couldn't tell you), but the overall sense of how much the top sheet deformed and the amount of "bite" on the ball, was very similar, all else being equal. Maybe on some blades or maybe when boosted, the overall setup "feels" softer, but it's by no means soft.

At least I know I'm not crazy!

 

[Lawsy]

I'm using 40deg. I think Tenergy and Dignics are much faster.
But there is always an asterisk. I use grippy rubbers or bouncy rubbers differently than Chinese sticky rubbers.
With grippy rubbers I try to find friction and stretch the rubber and the sponge so it imparts as much spin and speed into the ball as possible. So the force in my arm is split between grabbing the ball in the topsheet and hitting forward.
With Chinese sticky rubbers I don't care too much about the friction because it's just there by default. I only concentrate on my timing and that I hit the ball with as much forward impact as possible. For sure my arm goes upwards but I try to hit the ball like I am breaking a wall down.
The ball coming out from a Tenergy or similar rubber has a very high curve while from Chinese friction rubbers not so much of a curve, it's a lot more straight and the ball just dips down in the very end.
The ball travel distance is much longer from a high curve than from a more straight path. So I think this causes some illusion that some fast Chinese rubbers are faster than Tenergy or whatever actually fast rubber. But I think Tenergy like rubbers are faster even with the high curve than B3.

Depends on the players technique too actually. In a way I broke B3 in but B3 also broke me in.

Oh, I wouldn't say 09c or T05 are that much faster, at least, not when you start to really swing (09C is, though). Yes, at much lower speeds, they have more catapult. But similar to my GA8 50, T05 especially, they're no faster up top. T05 will bottom out when B3 40 is just starting to party.

And that bite you feel, like you're grabbing and throwing the ball forward, is exactly what you should be doing. That is where you make up the speed, because you simply don't need the same brush angles. This is a vastly more efficient way to play.

I fell into the trap of over brushing the ball as well, since that was necessary with previous setups, but not with B3.

This is why I don't like the genetic terms we use to describe which rubbers are "faster" or not, when in reality, it's more important to maximise speed, as long as sufficient spin is generated as well. However, if you must sacrifice speed for spin, then is that faster rubber truly faster?

I'm not convinced that it is...

 

[Bruschk0v]

Do you guys think the B3 needs boosting? And if not, what is a good hardness to play without boosting?

 

[TheProfessor]

Compared to the Battle II series it's softer, and the top sheet feels a bit more elastic. Battle III works better for players not relying too much on the brush loop kick feature. It's an easier rubber to use than B2. Good grip, tackiness and quite fast as well. The control features are better than with a stiffer B2 rubber.

I agree with this, the B3 is more euro-ish in terms of topsheet elasticity

 

[TheProfessor]

Do you guys think the B3 needs boosting? And if not, what is a good hardness to play without boosting?

Yes and no, depends on the blade. If you find your blade fast, it's fine unboosted, if your blade is just right then boosting it is good.

 

[andzejgolot]

I saw bad reviews about durability

 

[Lawsy]

I saw bad reviews about durability

I don't know what their issues were, but my experience is the complete opposite.

For the topsheet tackiness, I can still pickup a ball and hold it after 50 hours of significant abuse. Yes, I wash with water after every session, but then you would think, according to those claiming that humidity kills rubbers, that mine would be absolutely destroyed given they are in contact with water every other day.
Nope.
Not only that, but where we play get's quite warm and humid, so that can't be a factor, either.

As for the sponge, once broken in, it seems to hold that level and so far, I have not seen the other side of that optimal hump.

My biggest issue is that I will wear a thumb print into the forehand before the topsheet... Yes, I've tried changing my grip pressure to use more of my other fingers, but it's only marginally better. I'm not white knuckling the bat, either, so I'm not sure how this isn't more widespread...

Anyway, in short, my B3 40, and the B3 39 I had previously, both indicated amazing durability and I'm yet to see any credible evidence to suggest otherwise.

 

[Zwill]

I don't know what their issues were, but my experience is the complete opposite.

For the topsheet tackiness, I can still pickup a ball and hold it after 50 hours of significant abuse. Yes, I wash with water after every session, but then you would think, according to those claiming that humidity kills rubbers, that mine would be absolutely destroyed given they are in contact with water every other day.
Nope.
Not only that, but where we play get's quite warm and humid, so that can't be a factor, either.

As for the sponge, once broken in, it seems to hold that level and so far, I have not seen the other side of that optimal hump.

My biggest issue is that I will wear a thumb print into the forehand before the topsheet... Yes, I've tried changing my grip pressure to use more of my other fingers, but it's only marginally better. I'm not white knuckling the bat, either, so I'm not sure how this isn't more widespread...

Anyway, in short, my B3 40, and the B3 39 I had previously, both indicated amazing durability and I'm yet to see any credible evidence to suggest otherwise.

I agree, after about 50 hours the topsheet holds up great. No oxidation, the stickiness is the same or even better than new? I don't even use a plastic sheet on this rubber, just clean it with revolution cleaner.
By this time sticky ESN rubbers look like poop, same with D09c or G09c but at least the Butterfly rubbers still perform well while sticky ESN are ewwwww.

I am unsure but B3 looks like one of those rubbers you can use until it bubbles up or the topsheet stick wears off, but not sure when either will happen. So far it seems the topsheet tack is great and it doesn't wanna bubble up (even boosted), so... probably can last very long.

 

[Lawsy]

I agree, after about 50 hours the topsheet holds up great. No oxidation, the stickiness is the same or even better than new? I don't even use a plastic sheet on this rubber, just clean it with revolution cleaner.
By this time sticky ESN rubbers look like poop, same with D09c or G09c but at least the Butterfly rubbers still perform well while sticky ESN are ewwwww.

I am unsure but B3 looks like one of those rubbers you can use until it bubbles up or the topsheet stick wears off, but not sure when either will happen. So far it seems the topsheet tack is great and it doesn't wanna bubble up (even boosted), so... probably can last very long.

I'm really, really careful with my kit, but since my last post, I've managed to catch the edge of my B3 on something and it's created a small nick in the edge. Now I can't help but see it every time I look at my bat...

Combined with the fact that I'm creating a thumb-hole on it, I have a feeling that I'll end up destroying my B3 in some other way before it actually wears out...

 

[_ak]

I agree, after about 50 hours the topsheet holds up great. No oxidation, the stickiness is the same or even better than new? I don't even use a plastic sheet on this rubber, just clean it with revolution cleaner.

Did they really improve since B2, which had just immediate oxidation and significant loss of tackiness in 1 month?

 

[Zwill]

Did they really improve since B2, which had just immediate oxidation and significant loss of tackiness in 1 month?

I suppose they did, my sheet is 1 month old, I don't use plastic cover on it, I can't see oxidation and it can pick up the ball. It doesn't hold it but it can lift it up easily. Even as new it was pretty much the same.

Actually the Battle 2 and Battle 3 seem to have decreased in pricing. I remember the B2 gold was like 35USD on Ali a few years ago now it's 20USD? But also the Battle 3 is competing with commercial H3N in pricing. I have the memory that it was more expensive a year ago.

 

[Lawsy]

Did they really improve since B2, which had just immediate oxidation and significant loss of tackiness in 1 month?

My colleague uses B2P (I built his bat) and doesn't clean it, scrapes it, and generally doesn't look after it very well.

3 months of this, and it's still fine.

I honestly don't understand what people are doing to their rubbers, but neither the DHS nor any 729 rubbers in my possession have ever had these issues...

 

[_ak]

I suppose they did, my sheet is 1 month old, I don't use plastic cover on it, I can't see oxidation and it can pick up the ball. It doesn't hold it but it can lift it up easily. Even as new it was pretty much the same.

Actually the Battle 2 and Battle 3 seem to have decreased in pricing. I remember the B2 gold was like 35USD on Ali a few years ago now it's 20USD? But also the Battle 3 is competing with commercial H3N in pricing. I have the memory that it was more expensive a year ago.

It seems B2 had much more tack and held the ball several seconds when fresh, now just lifts.

I bought B2 Provincial in March for 24.50 eur, now in the same store it's 4 euro more. (for us they charge VAT right away)