Agreed. I feel like most of the arguments are based on this. Not just with Abel too. So much complaining going on. Can’t stand it.
It’s what happens when a game comes out completely fresh. It’s a cycle, but it will pass.
After watching BIG TWO last night, I noticed a lot of people (when low on health) would invincible DP while tagging out. I’m surprised more people didn’t bait those, as it’s a pretty good way of getting an almost KO’d character out safely. If you play as Abel and suspect it, just roll when they are about to wake up. If they DP, they can’t tag cancel out of there which gives you the win if you manage to combo appropriately.
It’s a pretty self explanatory strategy considering his origins in SF4, but what the hell… just throwing it out there.
well imo this Abel NEEDS meter, because the temptation to hit him out of stepkick is so big, i mean…its -1 after all. Well you can just EX tt their counterpoke, and from that point on, everytime you stepkick with meter is a huge thread to the opp, knowing they will eat 200 dmg only for trying to poke so eventually they will smart-up and try to jump back or neutral or backdash, and thats where the fun begins. you dont even need to do it 2 or 3 times, just 1 EX TT and they enter into mixup realm.
i’m gonna have to make a educational video soon. Stop using step-kick as an approach, use s.lk to get in. It’s clear nobody realizes this game isn’t sf4, and it’s pretty bad when the most visible abel player in the game is ReNiC and he doesn’t know his ass from his elbow with the character (no offense)
post edited to be less angry, I have strep throat so I’m prone to RAGE!
This is soo sick!
Is anyone else having a problem with trying to do Abel’s CoD while holding down back? When i do the motion for CoD i get that damn charge move 
You slowly move from downback to down then do regular CoD motion, CoD should come out instead of the shoulder dash
s.lk and f+mk fill different niches in the game. its tempting to go for s.lk chain confirms at this point in time but abel has a lot of problems spacing himself out enough to make himself safe. vs chars with no good pokes ending with far fierce works pretty well, if it connects. vs chars with good pokes you have to s.lk, back charge, s.mp, c.rh xx EX shoulder tackle and then either dash cancel or just let it rip to make yourself safe. -2 is nothing in this game but to get a mixup after blocked EX tackle, you need another bar for EX TT
step kick on the other hand is much safer on block. I’m still trying to figure out a solid mixup after it, but i’ve taken to TTing people who don’t know you really can’t get away with that in this game. blocking vs people with 3 frame normals (you are better off not dashing in after f+mk in these matchups, ie. Ryu). neutral jumping with either an early fp (if they jump) or late (if they don’t). s.fp if they have slow normals or I think their timing is suspect. unfortunately CoD is unsafe and doesn’t tag cancel to anything so…
anti-air. c.fp is pretty competent for this. not as buff as a shoryuken or juri c.fp but abel is better off in this regard than most. it gets stuffed by early jump-ins, but most jum ins in this game don’t have enough active frames to stuff a c.fp and still force a crouching abel to block so you can check those with a late c.lp into air reset. you have to think of jumps like KoF jumps … its not just when they will jump, but when they will press their button and which button it will be. even without a counterhit you can easily follow up on a AA c.fp with a sweep. roll seems too slow… I was trying c.fp xx lk roll into juggle but couldn’t get anything to connect. c.fp xx dash cancel into stuff would be solid though but you gotta predict the jump and start your charge early.
s.fp doesn’t work for anti-air at all anymore, it seems. far mp does. move is also a buff poke vs groudned opponents but you have to be careful, it is easy to jump over it and get hit by a full jump in combo. far mk actually seems more useful in this game than SF4 as a pre-emptive way of stopping jumps. don’t use it in chains because it randomly whiffs on standing opps
shoulder tackle gives abel good control of the horizontal space. pushes them too far out for my liking though. not a great anti-air either, even EX will get stuffed clean by jump ins during its active frames. even still, EX tackle deservse respect. just charging up tackles to EX is a solid move. then use your free counterhit to make your next mixup count - close roundhouse 11 frame overhead floorboucnes all day
yeah abel’s reliable anti-airs are pretty much… just j.fp now, but that’s okay because it’s godlike and gives huge damage on a ch which is like 99% of the times it hits.
I realized why people think abel sucks: it’s because he does kinda… alone. I use Hwoarang + Abel and all my bnbs with hwoarang end with abel coming in and using step kick st.fp xx fs. now abel has them knocked down which is awesome for Abel, at this point you have to make reads but there’s a solution for everything. If you think they’re going to reversal, block (lol duh) if you think they’re going to press a button, s.lk on their wake-up into s.fp into launcher. then hwaorang comes out does c.mp xx heavy HH tag cancel into abel who hits them with f.mk, s.fp xx fs off the ground bounce. If they jump quickly jump after them with j.fp and if you get counterhit you know what to do. if you think they’re going to block I usually do jab TT because it can grab some hurtboxes from far away. Basically everything does 400 damage, I basically slowly build meter faster than i use it and the only thing I really use meter for is tag cancels and occasionally ex moves or supers if I feel like styling. This synergistic playstyle has been really consistent and worked well for me, and I obviously have other tech for it as well, idk how much of it is applicable for other characters but I personally think this is how Abel should be used.
This guy knows what he’s talking about.
Step kick has a use WITHIN combos. Less so in STARTING them.
Ya! It’s retarded…
Sometimes… charging back and then doing a command grab real fast ended up with a tackle… WHY couldn’t they have made tackle with a kick or something???
took you a while did it?
I wreck shit with my Abel, but I have yet to find a good partner for him to complement my playstyle with him. I tried King and he falls victim to lame tactics too often, Paul was a no go also. So far Sagat has been suitable but I was hoping for some other than a SF4 character, any good recommendations?
what ever the character… I htink ideally you’d want a character that
A) Doesn’t use alot of meter in their combos
B) Builds meter…
Asuka has long chain target combos that build good meter on block… check her out?
I guess Juri or Kazuya?
Here’s some tech… If u jump in with mk and they block u can hp tt and there isn’t much the opponent can do but take the damage
Backdash… Jump… DP… Seriously?
Stepkick is still useful, as of today i purposely played doing tons of blocked step kicks and then did nothing (crouch block), there are so many kind ways the opp can react to it and Abel can punish almost all of them.
The point isn’t that it’s gonna work 100% it’s something to use on wakeup to make them fear ur tt, once they fear it u have control over the fight and with skill should be able to win, this is week 2 ppl don’t know about this it’s like a 2-3 frame window for them to shoryuken so just block after the jumpin and u got free combo if they fall for it
Switch cancels, a crappy close anti air (close standing hp), and considerably slow startup just make tt a not so scary threat. In many cases it’s not worth the risk. 140-200 dmg for you or 300+ for them. Risk far outweighs reward. Especially with a wakeup roll to hurt your mixup after a knockdown. Not saying it’s not a viable move at all just that there are more creative ways to land it than j.mk.
I still think Abel is strong though.