I wish I’ve seen this before making my post on the capcom uinty forums. I posted this:
:)) Oh, so you were the one who made sense there.
I think we can still discuss here and come with more ideas. The thread on capcom unity is still open, we can post more, or edit our posts.
LOL! You’re right, I just remembered that MP headbut’s low invincibility is useless if moves like Fei Long’s crouching LK beat it… I might edit my post to add that.
Wassup Hondas!
I’m here to tell you guys something important and that is that you’re all dropping the ball here on this whole 2013 update.
You’re all spending lots of time talking about plasma invincibility and damage buffs and not enough on something else that’s just as important and that is: OICHO BREAKER!
Let me start off by saying… Stop ASKING for unjumpable 720!
Let Zangief and T.hawk have their fun! Leave empty jump CHEESE to those two guys where it belongs!
Honda nor Balrog nor Ibuki nor Guy need or deserve something like that!
what we got can be just as good or be improved to be something else! something maybe better!
‘well wombat… if we’re not changin it from 0+1 to 1+0 then wtf are you talking about’
I’m talking about the obvious, and that’s buffing it’s Range!
I know it may sound trivial and unimportant but let me offer something to some players in here who may need it
and that’s some PERSPECTIVE!
The range on Oicho Breaker right now is KAKADOODOO and barely serves its INTENDED PURPOSE of being a REVERSAL punish Ultra!
That’s just a fact
If capcom were to go ahead and make the obvious change to buff the range from what it is now, I think 0.9 to something reasonable
1.2~1.3, Heaven itself would open its doors to Honda to all the things which he could punish on block… ALL the things that are -1 or worse including those that are spaced a little; such as:
Fei’s Rekkas
Juri’s light pinwheel
Hayate
Machine Gun Blow
Thunder Knuckle *YES!!!
Galactic Tornado *YES!!!
Jagnuar Kicks
Dash Straight *if they’re remotely deep
Guy’s shoulder
Guy’s Run overhead
Oni’s Slash
Akuma’s Far Roundhouse
etc.etc.etc.
Having a 1 frame decently ranged Ultra Command grab that does 400 damage would have a DRAMATIC effect on a ton of matches!
Lots of characters would have to respect Honda in a whole new way! Not only would characters be reluctant to jump in on you guys or whiff unsafe moves willy nilly, but their specials, they’re main pressure tools will be thrown off the table completely and they will be forced to instead approach honda with SAFER but significantly WEAKER offensive strats!
From the opponent’s perspective, they will feel AS IF they’re respecting ZANGIEF!
Be honest and think about this, taking away jaguar kick from Adon, Taking away thunder knuckle from viper, Forcing balrog to be careful with his dash punch spacings, taking away Yun and Guy’s shoulders, that would be great for Honda!
Their strats will devolve to meer pokes or devolve into throw mixups and be MUCH easier to defend against
WOULDN’T THAT BE AWESOME!!!
But the FUn doesn’t stop there, his Neutral game would be improved by this as well!!!
Honda’s forward dash is somewhat respectable
It doesn’t have the most distance in the world but it comes out in 19 frames which is only sliiiightly below average.
If Honda were to have an Oicho Breacker with maybe1.3 grab range, he would be able to Focus Absorb certain standing normals and Dash Up PUNISH!
Remotely slow recovering normals such as
Bisons’ far roundhouse
Balrog’s far roundhouse
Chun’s far roundhouse
Dudley’s Fierce
Balrog’s roundhouse/sweep
DeeJay’s sweep* I fucking hate this move*
Akuma’s sweep
Honda’s Far Fierce/ far roundhouse *LOL!
etc etc etc.
I hope i’ve made my point now!
No my friends, making Honda’s Ultra II like Zangief is not the answer, it’s perfeclty capable of being the Ultra we all want it to be, it just needs a buff in a different direction.
WIth more range Honda will be able to punish things which he can only DREAM of right now
He’ll become the turtle character that we all want him to be, a turtle that people will be FORCED to respect more!
His neutral game will improve with this focus absorb technique! It’ll be a new strat that will give us a FRESH counter to work with and it’ll be lots of fun doing it!
I hope you guys can see where I’m coming from and will give Honda the love he needs by taking some time to think this over and maybe showing your support for Oicho Breaker range buff over @ capcom unity!
go ahead and comment and leave your thoughts about this and feel free to let me know how AWESOME this would be cause I know your mind probably exploding mid way reading this post 
jk
no but seriously, think about it!
Hmm, that’s an interesting idea, buff the range for ultra 2. I’m interested what other people think, but it looks like this might be an interesting way to make U2 better without reverting it to Super.
Now a sugestion from me:
- far MP: +8 fireball invincible frames
Reason: we all know Fireball characters makes Honda’s life a living hell. We also know that this is his traditional weakness, so we can’t request Hbs to have more fb invincibility. But by giving fb inv. to a poke, Honda could have another option in one of his worst matchup: Guile.
The problem with Guile is not only that he can zone honda to death, but his sonic Boom is also a better option then anything Honda has on ground, forcing Honda to aproach Guile from the air, the match being - jump and hope you catch something (by mixing lp/mp/empty ju).
Giving to MP fb inv. frames would give Honda one more option on ground. Honda wouldn’t need anymore to rely solely on hail mary jumps and psychic reads. Guile would still win the match nonetheless, Honda would still have to navigate through fireballs, but at least when he is in footsie range, he would have a chance. This buff would also help honda in his other tough matches, while having no impact on his good ones.
I would like some oppinions on this buff (someone else sugested this to me) - do you think it might work ? like it ?
Spooky sounds like a great suggestion, but the only problem with that is all those attacks belong to characters who Honda already beats no problem or is already an even match, making those matchups even worse than they already are, except for akuma, chun, and fei long.
I think having one more tool in the Fei Long match is enough to make this buff worthy. I think Spooky’s idea is briliant.
Buffing Ultra 2 range to 1.25 should be enough to make it usefull.
The Honda changes thread on Capcom-unity is an embarrassment. All those people asking for fireball-immune headbutts…If you don’t want to have to be patient and think your way through zoning, play a different character. Nice to see people here have some sense. None of his matchups are THAT bad right now. He just needs a little more reward for getting in on zoners. If EX Ochio gave a longer knockdown and/or kept the opponent in the corner, that would go a long way. 1+0 on U2 might be fun too as another way to give Honda better motivation to get in, but then you’re giving up your anti-projectile Ultra against zoners. I’d probably only take this against Guile and DJ since you aren’t gonna get a non-psychic U1 on them anyway.
Like Mike Robertson said…you want to make Honda win matchups he already wins even harder? As much fun as I think that would be, it just isn’t needed. Punishing Akuma HK reliably would be pretty boss, but I feel like this drastic of a buff would need to be accompanied by nerfs to keep Honda fair.
Invincibility on EX Ochio is in the same vein I think – it makes Honda’s defence even stronger, which just makes him harder to beat for characters that already have trouble with him.It even manages to make his defence stronger without helping against vortexes, which is the one area where his defence isn’t great. This change is basically the worst of all worlds.
Why do you say giving invincibility to Ex Oicho wouldn’t help Honda against vortexes ?
This buff is specifically against Seth and Akuma. One of the reasons Seth destroys Honda and why Akuma beats sumo is because once Honda is down, he is completelly free, because both can completelly option select ala options Honda curently has, and because Honda has one of the slowest reversals in the game (8 frame), which makes him easily safe jumpable.
Now giving Honda invincibility to Ex Oicho would give him another option on kd, and would get rid of safe jumps when Honda has meter. This would be a huge help for Honda in Seth and Akuma matches.
And I think some of Honda’s match ups are really bad. Cuongster called Seth match 2-8. I asked twg Arthur and he said - 3-7, maybe worse. Both of them think Fei match is 3-7.
Guile, Sagat, Dhalsim and Gouken are also worse then 4-6.
But the main problem lies somewhere else, in my oppinion. Right now Honda is a solid character that simply doesn’t work well with this engine. He doesn’t have a comeback factor (outside his super, and is not easy for honda to have super, since Ex meter is very valuable for him), and he has one of the worst oki game (no combo into ukd, terrible sweep, Oicho doesn’t allow safe jumps). He was good in super, but since he was nerfed in AE, his potential was drastically reduced. Honda is the antithesis of a vortex character in a vortex dominated game, he relies heavily on footsies and fundamentals to win, in a game which doesn’t reward enough of these 2. His options, while good, are quite limited, that’s why you never see a honda player winning, despite Honda being quite popular at high level play.
If Honda doesn’t get buffed, he will sink in the next update.
Now, regarding not improving Honda’s good matches - I will just copy paste what I wrote on CU:
While in theory being carefull not to improve your already good matches sounds like a good idea, in practice is almost impossible to achieve this.
If you give any buff to character X, all his good matches will become automatically better. Even if you give him a simple buff like - increasing the dmg for a move - will improve all his match ups, including his good ones. You simply cannot buff someone and be so carefull so the buffs only affect his bad matches. While there are some specific situations where this is possible, 90% of the time is impossible.
So basically you either buff a character and improve all his matches (including his good ones), or you don’t buff him at all. And this aplies to every character.
A quick example: Let’s take Blanka. Blanka vs Hawk is one of the worst matches in the entire game. Any buff that Blanka will receive will make Hawk’s life even more misserable.
Now, if you buff Hawk, who is right now one of the worst characters in the game, then Dan, who already has a tough time with Hawk, will have it even worse.
So what do we do ? we don’t buff anyone ? not even the low tiers ? I don’t think that’s the solution.
I think this can be solved by improving everyone but the top tiers. For example, yes, by buffing Honda we will also affect his good match ups - but don’t forget that Blanka/guy/dee jay will also receive buffs, so we should be less worried about what will happen with those characters (I’m sure their respective mainers will come with enough buffs and ideas) and worry more about Honda’s bad matches.
Another example - Nybb, you say buff Ex Oicho to give more kd. Do you think this buff will only affect Honda’s bad matches ? this will affect all matches, including Honda’s good ones - guy/dee jay/ blanka/etc. So, you will improve Honda’s good matches no matter what buffs you give to Honda. Yes, I know, it would be less of an issue in Honda’s good matches, where he doesn’t have to go on offensive, but it would still help nonetheless, when blanka/guy/dee jay gets a life lead to take it back.
Regarding Spooky idea - I think it is a great one, it would help a lot in Fei Long match. Also, I don’t think OIchos should have longer kd, Honda is not about this, it’s not his archetype (that’s why he has a terrible sweep, too).
And finally, guys, please take a look at this: http://www.capcom-unity.com/street_fighter/go/thread/view/7411/29822783/guile-balance-suggestions?post_num=326#530172761
This is what Dieminion himself requested at Capcom unity. 7 normals buffed !!, both his specials, the Super, and both his Ultras, all received buffs, and we are fighting over if to buff one of our ultra and to give a purpose to an otherwise useless move ? Dieminion outlined them really well, with reasons, so if Capcom will listen one guile it will be Dieminion.
Now, do you think Dieminion thought about Honda when he made those requests ? No, and good for him. He is interested in improving his character, that’s what he should do, and I like his ideas.
We should think about Honda, and come up with solutions for our character. Maybe it’s time to leave the modesty and ask for what Honda needs. Ask for dmg, ask for tools. And, btw, why shouldn’t Honda be top tier once in a while ?
I updated the OP, I included more ideas and made some changes.
Guys, don’t forget that today is the last day you can make requests at Capcom unity, so if you still have more ideas, now is the time to post them.
What setups would it help against? Characters like Seth and Ryu could still just OS their SRKs. Cammy-style ambiguous divekicks/j.LKs would be unaffected. It wouldn’t help with Ibuki kunai mixups and ambiguous j.LKs.
Eh, that’s a matter of opinion. Aside from Guile, Seth, and Dhalsim, I don’t think Honda has anything worse than 4-6. Even those are still perfectly winnable. I just don’t feel like Honda needs very many buffs, unless they buff everybody else a lot.
For sure, but there’s a difference between, for example, making Hawk s.HK reach farther to punish Blanka balls, and making Hawk’s SPDs do more damage. While you are correct that no change can exist in a vacuum, and there will always be repercussions in other matchups, it is possible to make changes that minimize undesired results. This just takes careful consideration and lots of discussion.
For example, I think there could be better ways to help the Fei match than a large buff to U2 range. Making s.HK have one or two frames less recovery so it can’t be Rekka punished might be one. This would obviously buff every match a little, but it’s a subtle change; it doesn’t just allow Honda to suddenly punish a whole bunch of moves for 400 damage that he couldn’t before. Making EX Chicken Wing -1 on block instead of 0 would let U2 punish it (regardless of how U2 is changed), and it would also help out Gief and Hawk against Fei.
Ok, maybe Ex Oicho with invincibility might be too much (I still think it would be ok, but for the sake of balance…). So, I what I think then:
-
Ultra 2 gets +4/5 active frames - this was Arthur’s idea (check it out on the 1st page). The idea is - Ultra 2 would serve as an anti safe jump tool, helping against Seth and Akuma, while being far less powerfull than Ex Oicho variant, since you could use it once or at best twice per round. It would also give U2 a reason to be used, while not making it more powerfull than it already is.
-
Ex Oicho: I still think this move should get something, right now serves no purpose. I think the buff with no crossing up in the corner should be given for all Oichos - Yeah, I’m greedy
, but I don’t think we should spend a whole bar just to keep the opponent in the corner. Considering Honda doesn’t have an easy time cornering his opponents, and still doesn’t give you enough time for a safe jump, I think this buff should be given to regular Oichos, too, just like in ST.
So, for Ex Oicho there area couple of variants:
- Less start up - might be fun, but i’m not sure how helpful would be, so not really.
- More dmg - a significant dmg buff (220 at least) might make it worthy - but even more dmg for Honda… I don’t know
- Mre stun (300 at least) - Nybb’s idea - that would be fun, just like in ST, but Honda in SF4 is not about stuning his opponent, so…
- significantly increase the range - from 1.52 to 1.65. I think that’s the best idea. Ex Oicho wouldn’t have any invincibility, but for one bar you would have much better range.
Ex Oicho would still have much less range than gief’s light spd (1.75) and Hakan’s Ex Oil rocket (1.79), but it would be another tool in honda’s quite limited arsenal. This would mostly be used on offensive, to open up people , so again, it’s impact should be mostly on honda’s bad matchups, and less on his already good ones.
Finally:
- far st HK: reduce the recovery with 2 frames (so block/hitstun becomes -5/-1): that would mean Fei can no longer punish it on block, same for Ryu and Chun on hit with Super. This would be of great help in honda’s bad matches, while having a minimal impact on his good one.
So, what do you guys think of these 3 ideas ? U2 with more active frames, Ex Oicho with morerange and st Hk less unsafe ?
Btw, Druseph finished on 9th at FR with Honda 
, he eliminated Flash. But man, those fadc Hands on hit are painfull to watch. Honda really needs more tools if Honda players use this stupid trick.
Damn, I was away on vacation last week and missed the honda change thread 
Here are my ideas/reasoning regardless.
-Decrease damage of ex headbutt by a small amount
-Decrease damage of all buttsplashes
-make heavy buttsplash punishable on block
+make c.mp an anti-air
+increase horizontal range of ex hands (heavyhands->exhands combo on all chars)
+increase hitstun on ex hands by 1-2 (exhands – c.lp reliable combo)
+increase ultra1 flightspeed
+change ultra2
+Ex grab stays on same side
I think Honda currently suffers from a case of “special move” syndrome. In the past, he has been typically considered very un-fun to play against because of his reliance on very high damage/low risk specials (for low level play, most specifically). Because of this, Honda is forced to take a considerably more defensive position and lacks other fundamental tools and decision making that other characters have.
Honda currently has advantages on characters when he can take this defensive position, but suffers greatly when on the offense. This means he generally has a big gap in his matchups. I think my changes generally reflect on this.
EXHHS
Boosting Hondas damage with meter usage gives Honda a better chance against zoning characters and generally doesn’t change his defensive matches (using ex for headbutt). Increasing the horizontal distance traveled would open up a strong meter combo as well as gives him a metered zoning tool for stale matchups when other characters are zoning honda (like fei, other charge characters, zoning fireball characters). Honda’s options to “get in” right now are currently… jump?
AA
Honda also suffers from a poor normal AA option. I honestly don’t know why this is. When trying to approach people that are zoning Honda, he has a number of matchups that he currently has no normal AA options for (shotos, Dudley, cody etc.). Honda has to preemptively neutral fierce to deal with this, an action that kills nearly all forward momentum, allows people to punish you on reaction, and is generally incredibly frustrating to play with and against. (I mix myself up by walking forward… what?)
Ultra1
Honda currently has difficulty with fireball characters; this won’t really change without massive changes to his kit, and I think most Hondas accept this. However, U1 feels like the tool Honda has to deal with fireballs, and it seems incredibly lackluster despite its difficulty to land.
Ultra2
There are a variety of things ultra2 could do. It’s obviously terrible as is. Honda has difficulty with safejumps and divekicks. Maybe a hakan style u2? Not sure.
Ex Grab
I’d also make this a hard knockdown that honda could safejump or something, just to make it have some use, just to add to hondas options.
^^Strong this.
Could someone explain why the hell do ex hhs even make you go backwards if you hold back? There is no reason for this at all, why would Honda want to lose ground if he lands/gets an ex hhs blocked…
Mike Ross via Twitter gave an amazing idea
"All I ask for the AE update is a delayed wakeup option. That’s right, get rid of your safe jumps, option selects, vortex BS. PLAY LIKE HONDA"
Love it. I feel like that is really all he needs to compete.
Yeah, it would be kinda nice if EX hands moved forward automatically. When I land a jump-in and decide at the last minute to do cr.MK xx EX hands, etc. I sometimes get cr.MK xx EX Headbutt instead, since I was charging downback during the jump and the cr.MK, then I go straight to forward for the EX Hands. Not having to worry about that would be cool, but that’s not really a high-priority request or anything.
I don’t think Honda needs more moves to be mediocre anti-airs. He can get by with early s.HP and cl.HP, and with jump back LP/HK. Only a few characters with the really crazy jump-ins like Cody’s j.HP, Vega’s j.HP, and Sakura’s moves are actually a problem for chargeless Honda. None of the matchups he loses are really decided by his inability to anti-air without charge. You could bring up Seth I guess, since his divekick is annoying to AA, but that is just a property of divekicks in general, and is not specific to Honda, so that’s not really a counter-example.
It’s a throwback to pre-ST SF2, except HHS doesn’t function the way it did back then (it used to be a footsies tool, now it’s strictly used in combos). If EX HHS did a shitload more damage outside of combos and stayed active longer with some way to cancel out of it, it could again be used to chip someone to death, back someone into the corner, start throw mixups and just generally piss on everyone else’s footsies. It would probably need a better hitbox, though.
I think what Ex Hands needs is +1 hitstun. The link is too hard and unplinkable, that’s why nobody is using it in tournaments - not M. ross, not cuongster, not hoodaman, not akimo. They preffer to waste 2 bars for fadc hands on hit than go for an Ex Hands.
I’ve seen Jewelman himself at FR - he went for Ex Hands 3 times - 1st - didn’t go for the link but tried to Oicho, Dieminion backdashed. 2nd he linked cr lp. 3rd - he missed the link and ate a reversal.
So I say make this combo actually doable in tournaments, and reduce it’s dmg. It would be a nice way to increase Honda’s dmg output without just giving him a ton of dmg, and would give Honda players a reason to use meter in combos.
I agree about new antiairs. I don’t think Honda needs more AAs, he already has great antiars with ex hb, lp hb, splashes, far st hp, cl hp. Maybe not the best antiaris but far fro ma problem for honda. And most of the matches he loses it’s not because h lacks antiaris, so giving him more AAs would simply make the life harder for those who already have it hard against sumo.
Btw, Nybb, what do you think about giving Ex Oicho extra range - like 1.65 ? I think that might be the best idea for this move.
Ex Oicho doesn’t have a reason to exist at the moment, it needs SOMETHING, be it range, strike inv… One more move that you get by accidentally pressing two punches instead of one (when waiting for ex headbutt to autocorrect as an example). Who does ex oicho on purpose?