Abel Wish List

So, what do you guys want for Abel.

I think he is fairly balanced, but I do have one wish that would make me very happy.

They need to either increase the hitstun on his crouching jab by 1 frame, or decrease the startup of his crouching strong by 1 frame. If you could link jab to strong without a counterhit, his mixups would become SO FUCKING DELICIOUS. I honestly believe that one change would move him up significantly in the tier list.

What does everyone think?

Any improvement to Abel risks putting him in the top tier. I’m serious.

He’s already got great approach, great pressure, ridiculous damage, and an easy hit-confirmable ultra.

His main weaknesses are his inconsistent anti-airs against disjointed hitboxes and his relative weakness to good footsies.

Block more. Wow, Abel’s good all of a sudden.


I don’t see them doing much, maybe have st.MP cancelable, maybe make wheel kick safer on block (doubtful), maybe make LP CoD safer (doubtful), maybe increase the damage on FS to make it more enticing to use pre-emptively, maybe make HK do more overhead damage (doubtful), etc.

Abel with more functional anti-air suddenly becomes terrifying. I like more damage on FS and overhead close roundhouse though. Maybe widen the link from F+MK to standing fierce, but I guess that would make that link too easy, one of those moves too fast, or both. I don’t exactly envy whoever has to make these calls.

Only 1 or 2 changes needs to be made to Abel:

  • If the first hit of his elbow launcher connects the second should also, always. I don’t care if they half the damage on it. Nothing worse then hitting with first hit and missing with the second. You should be either IN or OUT of range to hit with this move, no half and half. There are very few moves in the game that suffer from this problem.

  • Make his low rekka grab viable. Right now it has too much start-up and isn’t ever worth using. If it serves no purpose they should either fix it or get rid of it.

I disagree with juicebox. Abel will not go from mid-low tier to the top without extensive buffs. I think both of these things could be done and it wouldn’t effect his place in the tier too much.

I also think something could be done with skyfall, but it isnt really necessary. If skyfall were to be improved they would also need to make it more punishable on whiff.

At point blank, you mean. This happens a bit in the Fuerte match.

Eh, I kinda like it the way it is. Its so bad, who would ever use it? :badboy:

Maybe you could make it so that if Abel gets the first two hits of CoD, he can pick either finish for a combo. Punch will do more damage, while kick sets you up better for the post-knockdown shenanigans and does much less damage.

Abel is in B tier of tournament viability. The matchup tiers in this game are rather useless… Zangief is a horrible tournament character, for example.

He’s fine. Once input shortcuts are removed, he’s even better. He has a bad match up with Sagat, but Sagat will probably be nerfed, so it’s a non-issue.

Ok then the last two hits of Akumas FP SRK need to 100% connect, I’ve had too many 2hit wiffs and punishments for connecting the first hit then I can count.

It’s true, I’ve seen it.

Yes, this doesn’t happen all the time, and im not trying to imply that it does. However, i personally feel that it should never happen. I honestly don’t see the point in having a move where if the first hit connects the follow up doesn’t connect 100% of the time. They could take many approaches to change this (make it 1 hit, make it so the 2nd always connects if the 1st does, etc.) but no matter what they do, i personally feel that this should be changed.

Yeah, this idea makes perfect sense to me, i don’t necessarily care what it does, as long as it does something. Every action that you can take in street fighter should serve some sort of purpose regardless of what that purpose is. Anything that is in the game right now but is regarded as ‘useless’ should either be rethought, replaced, or removed.

I can’t compare my tournament experience with yours, because you’ve certainly had much much more than myself. However, I absolutely do not think that small changes such as the ones i have suggested would be at risk of making Abel overpowered or unbeatable.

Abel, as he is right now, is certainly a great character. He’s fun, interesting, and pretty damn good for the most part. I don’t necessarily expect or even want him to be buffed significantly in the next iteration of the game, however I do personally think that there are a few minor aspects of his normals and his Rekka (kick versions only) that should be re-examined.

– edit –

Hey man, fine by me. This isn’t the Akuma topic so i don’t think it needs to be elaborated here but if that exists as a recurring issue it should also be fixed. It’s obviously a similar problem and it doesn’t make sense for either character.

The entire point of what im saying is: if you are able to outwit and outplay your opponent and hit them with an attack, the attack should work. Completely. Not half way, not 1/3 of the amount that it should, not only sometimes. This is a game of opportunities. If you can take advantage of an opportunity that allows you to get your move to hit your opponent it should just work.

lol just use LP if you’re trying to reversal.

I dont really think Abel NEEDS anything besides the c.fp whiff shit. Now it would be nice to add one frame of hit/block stun to his f+mk cancel. I can’t think of anything he absolutely needs though. Even as far as anti air, you run the risk or getting hit/trading with 2nd hit of c.fp into whatever or ultra, thats scary enough. Vs deep jump ins you can EX tornado grab, most other shit is dealt with c.mk and in some matches s.mk. His light attacks set up his grabs well and you can just counter mashers of jumpers by delaying a sec then hitting lp/lk again etc. So I have no clue what he is gonna get other than a new ultra.

Actually I lied, make there not be a gap between c.mp and CoD.

Super edit: Change his super to the one where you can change the ender XD

Nah the OMFG UPPERCUT HAYYEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! ness is much more entertaining with HP.

The easy way to make Abel effective is to give him a verifiable combo into his Change of Direction. This would probably make him really gay though; a damaging command throw that beats other throws, a good cross-up, and verifiable combo makes for an easy mode aggressive character.

The smarter way to do it is to help is defensive options, and to make his high-risk pokes better. This would ultimately make it easier for him to get in. Specifically, he needs a far better anti-air option, and his Wheel Kick should probably either lead to frame advantage on hit, or at least knockdown (leaving him at a frame disadvantage when guarded is a perfectly acceptable abuse deterrent). In its current form, the Wheel Kick only helps him establish short range if it catches an anticipated jump attempt, otherwise it hits grounded enemies while leaving him at a frame disadvantage. Increasing the speed of his crouching HK would also help, at the very least it should be fast enough to punish whiffed moves.

He can do c.lk, c.lp, s.mp or s.fp 3 hit link most the cast after a f+mk, It would be nice, but isn’t necessary imo. Not being able to duck s.fp close would be nice.

Just one extra frame of invuln on EX Skyfall, and one less startup frame for MP CoD. There’s this really weird thing where Standing close MP and C.MP to MP CoD can be blocked very rarely, most likely because it’s a 16 frame hit stun linking into a 16 frame startup move.

I’m going to just jump in and second the idea of making the 2nd hit of cr.fierce NEVER whiff if it’s executed properly (point blank). That is just glitchy and needs a fix.

The anti-air lack of options, though I’ve despised it at first, seems to be part of the character, and the only buff I would like would be for EX fs to not do that BS “trading” animation, and instead grab when executed to counter a jumpin (maybe more invincibility frames? I dunno).

either buff the EX fs as I’ve described above, or somehow make wheelkick more viable other than as a match ender (a favorite move to save till the end for that chip damage).
2nding +frames after a connected wheelkick.

ALSO: speed up his ultra animation a hair! I’ve seen it probably 2000 times now lol (not really exaggerating) and my friends are sick of watching it.

It seems like the general consensus within the Abel community is that he doesn’t need a lot of buffs and certainly isn’t deserving of a nerf. I’m glad we’re all on pretty much the same page. :wgrin: Besides the change to c.FP and maybe some tiny frame differences in a few of his moves he’s pretty much set for the future.

It will be indeed interesting to see what second ultra they give him, if the do indeed give all the characters one. =D

I think that there is ONE POSSIBLE NERF that they might make to Abel, I certainly hope they don’t though.

Change the damages on Tornado throws to:

HP: 200
MP: 180
LP: 160
EX: 180

It’s possible though, if they appreciably improve his normals.

Personally I won’t be too upset if that happens. I wouldn’t say that TT is overpowered, but it certainly isn’t underpowered though either.

If they make his c.FP more reliable and improve some of his other aspects i’ll be completely fine with any minor damage reductions that they make to his TT.

I agree with C.HP, but I also wish they could change the input of falling sky. I know I’m not the only one who occasionally does it instead of the Ultra (usually in the heat of the moment when it counts).