^Hugo is way more fun though 
Alex is almost the worst character in 3s imo. Heās like an incomplete design. His movement isnāt as cumbersome as Hugoās, but Hugo has better normals. His best super is worse than many characters second best supers. Heās not even really a grappler. I could go onā¦
Hugo WAS an incomplete design at one point. :V
But Hugo > Alex in my heart <3
Thatās a decent summary. Iād only add that if youāre confident that you can keep a step ahead of the opponent, sometimes a useful Hugo strategy is to let them get on top of you and take their own gambles, because if you have Gigas charged, the risk/reward is brutal.
Damn, some Alex hate going on. People love hating on Alex I guess. Iād say heās mid tier, and you can laugh but I think heās got a decent chance against Chun. Both Alex and Necro are pretty solid characters.
Thatās not true. The only command grab with throw invulnerability is Abelās. The otherās have equal or faster startup time and so will beat a normal grab. Makotoās command grab is 5 frame startup (LK) I believe (talking ssf4) and she can be grabbed out of it by a normal throw.
You have to consider range too. Alexās range is greater than a normal throw so if he starts it and they try to throw it by reaction he will most likely throw the.
power bomb is hard to land on itās own. As a mix-up it has value and you can combo it after a fierce flash chop which is very hard to land but not impossible.
Alex totally is not a grappler either. His DDT and air grab thing arenāt really throws at all so if you take those away, he has as much āgrapplingā as E.Honda right now in SSF4. One super and one command grab. Thatās not a grappler to me. Hugo is the only real grappler in the game. Alex is a grappler in theme but in mechanics he is not a traditional grappler at all. But who really is a traditional anything in 3S aside from the characters from SF2ā¦
Alex is a hybrid character.
Weird, I have never been able to grab makoto out of her karakusa with a throw despite this even when i see it coming a mile away. EX TT and EX SPD are definitely throwable however throughout its animation. Yeah your right reg SPD is throwable but only for one frame, the startup frame. So people donāt risk this in SF4 as much. Seems braindead easy to throw people out of command grabs in 3s once in range.
AS far as grapplers go, since his gameplay isnāt centered around the grab but more the mixup of the grab, I still would consider him a grappler. I really see him like a shitter version of sf4ās Abel.
Parrying
The more i look at it, the more i see parries and sf4ās focus attacks achieve the same thing. Make people afraid to stick shit out. lol
So is parries the reason why people generally consider sf3 more guess/risk dependent than other sf titles, or some other combination of elements of the game engine???
Frame wise, i cant parry unless by accident at this point. I understand frames well, is there an associated frame value to parries that might help wrap my head around this? For example, to tech a throw you have 9 frames, this helps me in cr. tech situations in sf4 ALOT.
To be honest man. Youāre far too beginner to be worrying about frames and shit right now. Just play the game and get a feel for it.
No offense.
Nah man, 3s beginner. I understand frames very very well and it has helped my game tremendously in sf4. A week in 3s Iām seriously getting tired of being pushed into the corner in under 15 secs by characters like urien because i cant parry a telegraphed shoulder.
3s and sf4 are apples and oranges.
At your level, frames only really matter when you take into account whatās super unsafe on block. For example kens sweep.
Frames have nothing to do with parrying a telegraphed shoulder. This means you donāt have a feel for the game.
Everyone was at your point once.
then why not worry about learning to read your opponents options instead of worrying about frames? I donāt mean to sound condescending but Ryan, lbr, is right. After a week you will not have seen everything a certain character can do and will do. If Urien is pushing you into the corner then you arenāt punishing his tackles properly or arenāt avoiding them with much success. Most of the shit in this game can be stopped before it happens.
Look, i take no offense to any of this but all Iām asking is what is my āwindowā to parry. I associate this with frames because Iām a frame data head.
You create your window to parry in this game. If Urien is full screen and apparently charging, walk up and tap forward when he twitches, so long as you donāt walk into low forward range. Now you donāt have to worry about the tackle. If you continue walking and are at max low forward range, tap down then tap forward. The down will negate a low forward and the tap forward still prevents the tackle. Itās kinda like the developing your knights in chess. Fighting for that middle section of the board in the beginning by covering your ass three-four times over. Donāt treat this like anything more than suggestion for an almost unforeseeable event. You have no way of knowing if heās going to low forward or tackle but there are small indicators like his positioning and seeming attempt to charge for a tackle. Try to find these for every move in the game and then move on to frame data and see if you really care to use it for more than just punishing blocked special attacks and sweeps. This is not sf4. Here you are playing against the player not the game. Also, if the player is rather versed in the art of 3s, he will look to deceive you by laying out these indicators for you to bait and catch you. Also, parrying a tackle doesnāt mean you got him. He can still cancel into EX super, or jab super if you try to grab after.
How is Japan? Iām still trying to get out there somehow. 3s still going strong over there?
Iām back in usa now for a little while. See you at denjin Saturday.
The whole point Iām trying to make is it doesnāt matter what your parry window is. Forget about the frames. Iām trying to help you.
Also tackle isnāt safe on block, it varies from character to character. See what you can punish with and block it for now.
You donāt really have to parry Tackle considering quite a few Supers are able to punish it on block, even Qās SA1 which has one of the slower startups(5-6 frames). But donāt try to take into consideration frame data when parrying. Thatās just complicating things too much. You see it, you tap forward at the right moment. Itās just up to you to try and practice the timing for it.
And yeah, parries are the reason why players consider SF3 to be more guess/risk dependent than other SF games. Itās not so much JUST parrying, itās that quite a few characters can land huge damage after what many players interpret as ārandom guessingā. But you did bring up the solution that many players still donāt seem to realize: ādonāt stick shit outā. Look at Justin Wong, heās done quite well for himself with mainly whiff punishing and counterpokes for years.
If I had any advice for you OP, Iād say, once you pick a main, stick to it. Donāt try to āmasterā every character there is. PLay through arcade mode with them all to get a feel for them, but once youāve decided on a main, practice with them and try to learn everything there is to know about THAT CHARACTER.