Interviews after the very first location test reported that players were satisfied by Honda, Chun-li, vega, (…) changes…
But clearly Capcom had too much fear to “unbalance” the game (SSF4 anyone?)… so they nerfed again those PG (and others)…
So, keep calm: USF4 will be exactly unfair and unbalanced as other iterations… (do you remember the declarations of capcom at the announce of USF4? “All PGs will be buffed!!! All will have chance to win at high level!!!”… soooo crap!.. 
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The “only little problem” is that while Capcom nerfed Honda (YES… I think that the differential buffs(ridiculous)<>nerfs(heavy) is now negative!), they buffed so many other PGs that some matchup will become simply a knightmare, for the sumo-man!..
I tried the PC mod where hondas EX HHS where +5. God, it was so easy to link it to cr.lp. I did combos close to 400 damage with a single meter(WITHOUT A JUMPIN)!
The combo was St Cl.HP -> Cr.LP -> EX HHS -> Cr.LP -> HP HHS -> St. HK.
Anyway, regarding the defense nerf(EX Headbutt and EX Command Grab), I do not think this is going to get reverted. The reason I think so is because almost the entire cast got their defense nerf, so why should Honda be an exception?
This is just my speculations.
Yes and yes. I think this definitely is the case.
Honda should have good defense. < Period. This is why having an ex headbutt nerf and no other invincible fast options blows. “Good defense” doesn’t mean equal to others. It means better than most. Blanka is a great exapmle of this, he has mediocre offense but good tricky defense(ex upball) and (ex rainbow). E honda also has mediocre offense but good predictable yet safish defense( ex headbutt) and without meter (reversal slam). With nerf he now has slightly better offense and bad unsafe defense (bad on block ex hb) (ex oichio beating throw) (reversal slam). The scales have been tipped to make his offense better but not enough ti make up for his defense drop and not even close to moving him from bottom tier.
I think you’re really underestimating Honda’s offense now. His offense skyrocketed and he’s currently up there for being one of the dangerous frametrap characters.
cl.HP (counter hit or not) is now an amazing frametrap tool that leads into c.lp xx ex hands-> loop on almost all characters for sick damage. cl.HP also sometimes trades with jab shoryukens and other reversals. It even beats stuff like Juri’s ex senpusha clean or trades in your favor to combo from it.
Now that characters need to be a lot more wary of Honda’s cl.hp (which also got buffed to be a better AA and shuts down people who neutral or backjump), you can also incorporate normal throws and cl.mp a lot easier.
Not to forget, but c.lp xx hands from max range is sometimes punishable ON HIT by some characters, I don’t think EX hands has this problem.
Also EX hand loop obviously helps you push the opponents to the corner, lol.
do you really use CL ST FP that often? I feel like its so dangerous to stick that out that close, takes years to start up. i should get that into my game. i saw the discussion about it beating DPs. i love cl mp (the 2 hitter) into hands. feels sick. i should experiment with it as a meaty on wakeup. my meaty timings suck.
There’s hardly any use for it in AE. It only combos into c.lp xx fierce HHS on 2 or 3 characters (and not even full hits), but ex hands works on everyone else.
Comboing in turn from ex hands is just too hard in AE (1fr), but this is not the case in ultra and is very much worth the meter since it gives 350~ish dmg without a jump in and good stun. (480 with a jump in)
Not to forget, but c.lp xx hands from max range is sometimes punishable ON HIT by some characters, I don’t think EX hands has this problem.
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- Cl hp startup is 8 frames, the most frame advantage honda has on a normal or special is +4. Anything other than a meaty move/jumpin will have at least a 4 frame hole if you frame trap with cl. hp. <-- bad.
- Cl.hp to hands is good on 2/3 characters because you can either get hk or another hands afterwards. If you are willing to spend meter there are much quicker moves to frame trap with that lead to better meter based combos. Ex: Cl. St light punch then cr. lk heavy hands~ex hands~cr.lp hhs~hhs/hk(362/402dmg and you net spend 5% of a bar), this also only has a 2 frame hole instead of 4 and also works on 2/3 of the characters in the game.
This button is ok to good not great as you make it seem. It will be buffed as an anti air in the next game and that is all. You can’t counter my statement that honda’s offense will be only a bit better(far hp + 10 dmg, jump mp better hurtbox, ultra 2 instant and goes further, far hk hits farther away, ex hands now +5 on hit so easier to combo, j.mk +1 active frame) by saying “Cl. Hp skyrockets his offense” when in reality it is just a good button not great.
In short to me these: (far hp + 10 dmg, jump mp better hurtbox, ultra 2 instant and goes further, far hk hits farther away, ex hands now +5 on hit so easier to combo, j.mk +1 active frame) on offfense and these: (far hk on block (-7F->-6F),ex oichio grab immune,ultra1 is 10 frame startup now) on defense don’t outweigh this:(ex hb bad on block,ultra 2 is now 720). Arguably some of his buffs can be used on offense and on defense(like ex hb can be used both ways) but overall these are the way they will mostly be used.
Honda is low to mid tier at the moment. This means he is LOW| HONDA |MID, somewhere in between bad and mediocre. He needs to be BETTER overall so at the very least he can be MID| HONDA |MID, unarguably mid tier. In this build he is still the same as he is in 2012 so he needs to get at least a little bit, straight up, undeniably BETTER.
P.S. Not trying to be a jerk but now I have gotten my point across clearly.
It is not a final build. Please suggest it to capcom or tell combofiend.
Nope, they changed it from 1+0 to 0+1. (basically a punish only ultra. range is still there though.) at least its starting a bit faster. and you mentioned the 720 is a nerf, we were having a discussion about this earlier about how it is actually a more reliable input. there are shortcuts, and you can just slam the gates. I have a hard time inputting it right now and I was fuckin around with zangief’s u1 and i found it much easier to do when doing something like FADC into it but had a pretty hard time doing it standing. It’s useless standing anyway so it doesn’t really matter. I think it’s something I could master with little practice even if they do revert it to 1+0.
I am finding the best way to actually use U2 is to stand at your opponent’s poke range, fadc fwd through their (hopefully) slow normal and raw u2. Crumple into u2 is fairly unreliable and the scaling is horrendous. It can deter people from doing meaties on your wakeup too.
Back to the EX Headbutt Nerf, What kind of punishes are we realisticly going to see on block? We really only need to discuss bad matchups (and 5-5’s to some extent) here. thing is it should still be not that punishable because it is just -7 and is out of range of command grabs still. So ultras that can punish it will remain unchanged.
From what I can tell, Only very far range buttons can catch it. I actually don’t think Sagat’s kara tiger uppercut will be able to catch it. It’s got to be 3 fr + 5 for the dp im pretty sure which is not enough to punish.
I saw Emmanuel write that chun li can do something like mp into target combo, i’m not entirely sure how much damage that does. And anyway, she can punish with u1 as is so that really doesn’t change a whole lot about that matchup dynamic.
From what I have seen I don’t believe Guile could punish it with anything. He can’t even punish HP headbutt.
At first I was thinking Balrog could get a big punish off with it but i actually don’t think he’ll get anything off it at all. He can’t sweep it or mk (which wouldn’t be the end of the world anyway) and theres no way that jabs are goign to hit it. im not convinced dash punches are going to hit it either, still 6 fr startup plus travel time. This is one of the few matches I actually use ex on offense when time gets low.
dhalsim - is this really going to change anything? he could already punish with st lk. i dont think he will get anything else out in time and dhalsim punishes are poop anyway.
evil ryu’s cr mk is 7 fr and will punish it, and from what i know he can combo into a fireball from full range so i’m not sure what combo potential lies from max range like that. this is the one im most afraid of.
akuma’s sweep is not such a big deal now that we have delayed wakeup.
ill talk more about this later… need to get working.
I should’ve specified I was having meaty moves, jumpins and indeed the 4frame hole in mind with cl.mp. The 4 frame hole on its own really isn’t that bad, that only means that it can’t be used on: Ken, Sakura, Cammy, Cody, Guy and Fei (if you consider their 3fr crouch tech). Additional exceptions are ryu, dudley, akuma, oni, yun, sagat, Eryu, Rog, Adon and Rose (if you take plinking a jab into crouch tech into account). In total, you can still perfectly frametrap more than half of the cast with a 4frame hole. Also trading with cl.hp is massively in Honda’s favor and can for example usually lead to U1 as a combo.
Problem is that I forgot that cl.mp > cl.hp doesn’t work because cl.mp creates too much pushback, silly me ^^’.
Honda’s offense didn’t really improve that much.
I guess it’s pretty clear that I have no idea how U2 actually works. Right now, it punishes moves that are -1 but it can be jumped out of. How can it start up any faster yet still be beaten by jumping on the flash? I was laughing to myself a while ago how Honda essentially went from having no ultras that matter to wanting both ultras in just about every matchup due to how versatile both options would be after the buff. I guess it’s gone back to Honda’s ultras being mostly a non-issue again.
At least now I won’t get ex grab as often when I’m trying to punish moves with U2, but now Honda won’t ever get walkup-punish a fierce uppercut against characters like Fei where I’d want U1 rather than U2. In my request post, I asked for all 720 motions to work as well as the double half circle. I see no reason why Honda shouldn’t be able to both easily mash out a 720 when he needs it fast or be able to do a slow, deliberate double half circle motion when he has time to prepare himself.
Does U1 actually move any faster across the screen? If it doesn’t it’s still lousy at punishing fireballs on reaction, the one frame faster startup doesn’t change that in the least. When you compare Honda’s U1 to most of the cast’s fireball punish ultras, it doesn’t stack up at all. Chun’s, Dudley’s, Ibuki’s, Abel’s, Adon’s, Vega’s, Rufus’, Blanka’s, and Makoto’s projectile punish ultras are all faster than Honda’s U1 but also don’t have to slowly travel across the screen to eventually reach your target. Then you have ultras like Seth’s U1 which is as fast as Honda’s U1 but hits pretty much the whole screen immediately and Bison’s U2 which, in fairness has twice the startup time of Honda’s U1 except that’s it. It’s already where you are at 22 frames, it doesn’t look like a damn ox with a plow behind it plodding slowly across the screen, it’s already there. There’s not a Honda player on Earth who doesn’t occasionally throw out his U1 in reaction to a fireball and get his ultra blocked.
You cant catch someone by surprise with u2. You can’t catch a normal with it and hope the timing lines up. You have to FADC through something and get them in recovery when you are in their face. You can even do it vs. Ken’s who like to abuse step kick. You can FADC through a DP. Could do it through a rekka (risky) using the focus attack is actually an amazing ability, not so much for the crumple property but to go through the amount of slow moving moves in the game.
i catch guile doing sonic booms all the time with u1 but i use it very sparingly as well… its not something i throw out every match so i see what you mean by its not good (like the rest of the ultras you use every single game i.e. dp FADC) keep in mind we are doing grappler damage and most of our u1s are on counter hit… it makes sense its just hard to utilize.
Doesn’t U1 only increase by 15 dmg if we’re full stocked?
I don’t think you understand the scope of how punishable ex hb is going to be. Let me start with with a few other things though.
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This will be the only thing I can’t prove and won’t come back to later with a source. Ultra 2 is instant. I played the ultra build at nec and it was instant just like every other 720. They may have changed it since then but when I played it could not be jumped out of post flash.
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Ex hb is -8 on block and the distance traveled away depends on how it is blocked. Either way I will cite some footage showcasing how close it leaves the opponent to us. At -8 and at the new range I believe it will leave honda, it will be punishable by the entire cast no matter what. Also accoding to combofiend everyone in the game should be able to ounish it moderately well. He put it as " you can get something nice if you block it."
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Guile gets a free flash kick at minimum and yes he can punish hp headbutt and mp headbutt with ultra 2 on block.
4.Balrog should be able to sweep it as it is faster than 8 frames. The real question is howfast is his ultra 1 with kick startup and could he headbutt it on block.
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Being able to get away with headbutt against chun before she has an ultra/super is great. Sad I am losing that.
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If close enough dhalsim gets a free heavy slide which is a hard knockdown into a tp fireball mixup or him just running away. Not too bad but not nearly as crappy as a st lk. He may be able to tiger knee an ultra 2 which would suck.
I am going to reference all of this as soon as I get home tonight. I think being -8 as close as when I last checked will be a big nerf to ex hb.This would’ve been mitigated by having ex oichio being invincible perfectly as even though both moves would be very unsafe to the same set of guesses like a dp or nuetral jump or empty back jump. You couldn’t just sit there when pressuring me because hey i might just throw you instead of always relying on a hit reversal. Now that option is gone again but we are also stuck without the safety net of a blocked ex hb.
it’s hard to say if u2 has been changed 100% but it said something about it starting up “post flash”. This was from the latest build at Taiwan. the wording was a bit ambiguous.
Ok so basically what you are saying about Ex HB is going to leave you so close that a flash kick can punish it. U2 won’t be able to punish it because its 10f (although i think being buffed to 8) HP Headbutt leaves you hella close as is. so the fact that HP cant be punished by flashkick but ex can is just retarded. Are you sure you’ve got your facts right on this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNuso81fUPU Right here at 1:01 you will see it is definitely close enough for a flash kick. I am not gonna say the timing looks easy but -8 at this distance is definitely punushable. Maybe even by a dp, and if by a dp then timing won’t matter because you could just mash it on block and go straight into fadc ultra. I just wanted to put this out there so that there will be no misconception: Ex Headbutt is ASS on block.
I will time tag when I get on a pc.
There’s no way Sim can get a hard knockdown with his slide if Honda’s ex heabutt is blocked.
You are right heavy slide is 10 on startup. Sorry about that. You think he is close enough for cr mp yoga flame? It looks like he can do a tiger knee’d ultra 2 though. It says startup is 0+5 so he has a 3 frame window.