to a scrub who beats his friends… he might think he’s a pro at the game… but he’s a scrub to you…
I play only casuals now… I’ve pretty much gotten away from tournament/competitive play for any fighting games for a few years… so i guess to the existing hardcore tournament players they probably regard me as a scrub/casual gamer.
I’m not sure if where you live have a heavy arcade culture… but trust me majority of the player IMO… are casual players… they like to play the game and win… but they aren’t exactly hardcore … i guess i could fall under that category… but since i was once a competitive player in other fighting games i pay attention to fine details.
There are tons of players that loves the game but are really not that good in it… maybe among their friends they are great… but they aren’t really that good.
hardcore gamers is relative… i play several times a week during my lunch break… purposely travel during my 1 hour lunch (travel 10 mins… and 10 mins back) to play for 40 mins… I also play sometimes after work for an hour or two… i consider myself kinda hardcore… but i hardly ever practice in training mode anymore… but to a pro… i’m casual player…
IMO… I consider myself a casual player that likes this game… and is willing to pay money to continue my hobby. I’m sure there’s a lot more people like me than real hardcore tournament players…
MAYBE capcom is a nice company and they wanna stop Blanka being a scrub char and making him a pro char (cant believe im saying this! I’M DESPERATE! WTF?)
they stop his scrubyness by ball nerf
they make him pro char by giving him cr.LK and Overhead and elec-hitbox BUFF!
^^this is not gonna happen. Anybody from a mile a way can see blanka being a shit character AGAIN. look at some of the top chracters in SSF4:
Chun-li, Bison, Balrog, Guile, Honda. All charge characters, all with good fundamentals, all top characters. They could EASILY make Blanka a top-character just as they’ve arbitrarily made the other charge characters good. But they don’t. Blanka is not a great, or even good character in SSF4, and that’s why nobody gets top 8 with him. Its not that people aren’t trying hard enough, its that Blanka fucking “sucks” and doesn’t have the tools to compete. Lol I see more Vega’s consistently do well than Blanka is SSF4. What does Capcom do to respond to this? More nerfs!!! We know what tools Blanka needs to compete, we aren’t retarded, we know how the SF4 engine works. They’re making Blanka worse, not better. It’s HIGHLY UNLIKELY that when the new version comes out (if we even get it), that Blanka will receive some kind of buff that makes him not an ass character to compete with.
I’m telling you, they have a gdlk Blanka tester who fucking breaks him or all the scrubs complained loud and clear to Capcom. Which one do you think it is?
The fact that Blanka can get punished SOOO hard on hit… and like someone else said… even though he’s not the only one… but he’s definitely the only character that gives sooooooo much time to react that it’s ridiculous. Honestly… if they made upball on HIT safe under ANY condition… that might be all that’s needed to make him a viable character… the fact… that even ifyou guess correctly you can still die… that’s just bs… and before it was already bad enough but with the current changes… seriously the problem isn’t c.LK… even if c.LK was 2 frames… i don’t think it’ll change too much … Blanka’s fundamentals are just weak… and that’s the biggest problem.
Lol if Blanka had a 2 frame cr. short, he’d be GOD tier. Like beyond vanilla Sagat tier. That’s how broken he’d be. Nobody could do ANYTHING about his pressure. You do a move that’s safe to 90% of the cast, and he punishes you with a hit confirm into Ultra (cr. lk, cr. lk, cr. mk, Ultra). Cr. lk blockstring would go from 1 frame link to 3 frame link. He’d just be too good. Seriously.
I’ve been playing a lot of top guys recently and have come to a conclusion that if blanka cannot ball that I will still gladly play him. My hardest matchups right now are cammy and fei long. Ball doesn’t work on them anyway and both of them are getting some interesting nerfs. The other matchups i do i really think aren’t gonna change much. I really think i’m gonna be fine with AE blanka. I really wish we could see new frame data for the character. Imagine if they changed the startup on c.HP and gave it less recovery. Then also made cs.MK 5 frames instead of 6 and it gives +4 on hit and +1 on block. I mean really cvs2 blanka can’t ball on ANYONE and he is a monster in that game.
Late to notice that post, but any buff to cr.LK, be it frame data or hitbox, and I will repent and go to church again.
It’s a change so significant that, well, they would have mentioned it on the blog. So I’m calling it unlikely, and that the friend probably just ‘felt’ it.
Yea I think the Blanka train has come to a stop for me. I’m looking at DeeJay right now. Blanka is just going to be terrible. My biggest problem is getting punished on hit. What other character in this game gets punished on it for anything? Ibuki maybe, but that move is not even one of her major moves. What they should do is if Blanka Ball hits, we should be able to control the recoil just like EX Rainbow Roll. On block, make it punishable, but on hit, we should be able to not get punished for it.
I’m not sure ANY change would be that big a deal. If they just made it one less frame, but the same hit/block stun, that would be good, but I wouldn’t be over the moon.
If they made it one more frame of hit & block stun that would be pretty cool, making cr.lk into cr.lk or cr.mk only 2 frames. Even still, I don’t think I’d pick him back up again.
He just needs good options in a more broad sense. If they made cr.lk the most awesome normal in the game, he’d just turn into a light kicking machine.
My opinion should probably be thrown out though. I can’t do walking electricity, so my potential with blanka is crippled. I could probably deal with all his nerfs (useless balls of all kinds) if I could just do electricity on demand.
cr.lk buff: sure you’ll hit comeback U1 off a random knockdown + hop mixup, but bad matchups will still be bad matchups. What hurts blanka is that cr.lk x3 often whiffs, or crossup hop >cr.lk x3 >st.lp >ball isn’t supercancellable unless the opp is crouching etc etc. Cr.lk as a move is pretty crap hitbox wise and hitstun wise. If it’s +6 on hit and i can link into a cr.hk i’ll retract my statement and blanka will have something good to use offensively, however as someone who can link cr.lk x 3 into ultra more often than not (thx for the prompt last month 1f less on startup or more on hitstun wont change his bad matchups for me.
I’ve been a blanka mainers through cvs2 ST and now IV and whilst rolento will get a good crack, as may the twins, blanka is still fun and most likely the character i’ll play. at least now people wont say he’s overpowered and attribute their loss to my character and not my play
I’m actually excited for AE lol. I don’t even care about the changes. Blanka all the way. I’ve decided that the debuffs to my bad matchups make him just as good.
I have only been playing Blanka for the past few days. After reading the patch notes for AE the only thing that comes to mind to me is; no more random balls. And every time most characters do a special move that gets blocked, they get punished, correct? So now Blanka can’t throw random balls out hoping our opponent isn’t smart enough to punish them. All this nerf does is make the player do less balling and more electricity. If you can’t live with the change, and moan and complain this is making him a character just above Dan, then hop on the top Tier bandwagon.
And to getting punished on Blanka ball hit? Live with it. Yes it sucks. Horribly. But then stop using balls in all combo’s. Most top Blanka players I see (even now) RARELY use ball, it’s all about combo S Jab into H Elec. Just work your way around the nerfs, don’t let the nerfs stop you from playing a character.
It’s not a random ball issue. it’s because there are some matchups like shoto/gief/etc that ball is really helpful in. People who believe that it’s because of random ball don’t understand the character.
Also it’s not just that, they are nerfing hop… they take away the ability to ball but then nerf our close range special. If anything you’d think nerf ball but make hop better?
I’m not stating specifically it’s for random balling. I understand the mechanics and use of balling (randoms just for shits and giggles, to pressure/push, to troll etc.) All I’m saying is that we will have to be a lot more careful.
The nerfs to hop is that it’s easier to grab out of. So (hopefully) it will be like Abel’s roll, or even a slightly nerfed version of it. It was stated that the start-up frames are being slowed, not the entire animation. So like most Blanka’s, I wait while my enemy is down and start jumping side to side, hoping I will catch them off guard. But while my enemy is up, I only use it to keep pressure on and making my enemy back himself into a corner.
Once again I state that Blanka players are just going to have to change their strategy due to nerfs, and if they aren’t happy with the nerfs, then they can switch to another character. I plan on attending more tournaments, and hopefully placing Top 8 with Blanka in SSF4 and AE. But am I going to switch BECAUSE he won’t be able to place high in tournaments in general? No.
Perfect example is SF 3rd Strike. Many Japan tournament players placed high with under-rated characters. Why can’t this be the same? I don’t play Counter-pick Fighter, Theory Fighter or Frame Fighter, and I don’t switch characters when they’re nerfed. Christ I played El Fuerte ALL of SF4 and was doing really, really well with him.
All I’m saying is don’t let nerfs detour you from playing a character you enjoy playing. Stick with Blanka, and work with the nerfs.
1f less on startup or more on hitstun wont change his bad matchups for me.