Man, grapplers always gave the divekickers some trouble, but this s.HP armor nerf is like a complete 180 in the divekick matchups. If I had that I know I would never ever let Cammy Rufus Yun etc get in the air, s.HP every time. Only reasonable counter might be some of their two hit air normals, maybe. Now it’ll be kind of a pain in the ass to keep them off you.
Honestly the way Ultradavid described s.HP initially it sounds too good to be true.
However after watching more videos there are definitely moves that beat s.HP clean not to mention if the opponent is going for cross up or is directly over your head it seems like s.HP can’t really do much about that.
I think they took it away because in certain match ups like the Yun video that was posted long time ago where Hugo did like 4-5 s.HP in a row and Yun couldn’t get out was close to watching Dhalsim hitting Hugo with s.MK 27 times.
Perhaps Capcom didn’t want to encourage mindless play.
I wonder how good his s.HK/c.HP anti air, because right now when Hugo doesn’t have meter his anti-air options seems kinda weak unless you pre-emptively do jump back and do either HP or LP.
I still dont believe st. hp lost its armor…
Why let it in for so long and take it out in the very last upgrade right before release??
But if you noticed this happened to many others as well like Guile, Dhalsim, and others. Just some of the changes are more drastic than others…
Even the DP FADC -5 is applied to characters that were initially reported not to ‘suffer’ this nerf… like Dan, Viper, (edit: heck even Guile) probably some of the others as well.
Yes, but what are Hugos going to anti air with? He has no upwards going normal move, just f.hp for far jump ins… I dont want to play a grappler who gets jumped in on for free all the time, backbbreaker isnt really reliable as an antiair tool… 
The st.Hp nerf might actually be really ironic when you think about it: Sim did well against Hugo and 2-hitting mk was really strong. So they removed the 2-hitting mk. Now how is Dhalsim supposed a to fight a hugo that can spam st.hp against Dhalsim to beat all his limb zoning? Better nerf st.Hp.
Here’s the list of Hugo’s anti-air based on videos I’ve seen so far, how effective they are i really have no idea since I haven’t played the actual game.
- ex back breaker - seems like got invincibility in the earlier frames but have a problem if the opponent is directly above you.
- ex lariat - this seems to work just as good if not better than the original s.HP but it cost meter, can follow up with back breaker if high enough.
- jump HP - this covers half the screen, jumping back HP seems like it will win any air to air battle if both you and opponent jump around the same time.
- jump LP (MP?) - this seems to have a good hit box for both jump in and air to air
- f+HP - far range anti-air that can lead to back breaker for retarded damage, I think this isn’t really reliable… the only use of this i can think of is maybe when an opponent is in the the corner, you focus on them, they panic and jump back you back dash into f+HP. The question is can you follow it up with U2 or can you do f+HP after Ultra throw and still be high enough for back breaker/U2
- c.HP - it’s meant to be used as a anti-air, honestly if the hurt box for this move is low enough and it doesn’t start up TOO slow, it might be a reliable anti-air
- s.HP can still anti air might not be that great
- s.HK gives a hard knockdown, might not be a reliable anti-air, i wonder if you can move it forward or backwards by doing f+HK/b+HK
That may be a short list of possible moves, yet all of them have tons of startup frames which was (MY guess) the reason they gave st.hp armor.
So we either spend a meter everytime the opponent jumps or we preemptively anti air…
honestly I really don’t think s.HP was designed to be used as the ultimate anti-air when they thought of giving the move armor. it was probably used as an answer for Hugo’s super slow speed so gives him some more tools to use for footsie perhaps. I think later on when Ultradavid mention how it can be used as anti-air and more of the japanese players started using it as anti-air you can clearly see some characters doing specific air moves to counter it.
I saw this one match where Ryu only jumped in using j.MP against Hugo and don’t bother with the other moves probably because the Hugo the ryu player played before hit him out of all the other options with s.HP. Or when i see Rolento only going in with j.MP as well and nothing else.
Standing HP needed to be done pre-emptively anyways.
Actually no. St.hp seemed to have armor from frame 5 or something. And it should still be from frame 5 if it’s there, but they probably reduced the amount of frames he keeps the armor.
To put that in to perspective: Dhalsims’s b.hk and b.mp both have 6 frames of start up, so if you can anti air on reaction with those, you can anti air on reaction with a 5 frame armored move… only Hugo wouldn’t have to take spacing in to account since armor nullifies the consideration of hitboxes and hurtboxes.
Ah I see what you mean now. Previously the absorption of the opponents hit compensated for the speed of the attack. Whereas now (without armour) the HP will get stuffed in it’s startup frames.
That is exactly what im concerned abou, it doesnt even need to be st.hp, they could even give cr.hp (superman drop) the armor. OR dismiss the armored normal concept and instead speed up a move. I’d be completely fine with that, but right now hugo just seems to lack a reliable and relativly fast anti air.
A good anti air has either speed or invincibility (armor), hugo lacks both atm
Couldn’t you just trade with regular lariat? I imagine Hugo would come out better off in that scenario damage wise. If they are right on top of you then you might just have to block it out.
That could juggle into BB, guess with hugos life it would be possible
Another option (for capcom) would be to let st.hp already hit airborne opponents when the elbow is pointing upwards, so around frame 5-7, where the armor started first and as it transitions to its normal active frames it becomes the regular overhead move
I’d rather they just made his LK air grab like it was in 3S. That could grab the opponent if they were on top of you.
I’m guessing the Ultra version is like the less effective SFXT version where only the EX air grab is fast enough.
Well, I have got to say guys… ex meat squasher is turning in to a crazy move! I just got information that ex MS has infinite armor for a select amount of frames. The infinite armor might only work against projectiles though (This is uncertain), but it should also have at least 1 armor for physical hits like before. If they didn’t change it, ex MS aslo have armor on frame 1, and you can armor cancel it in to backbreaker as an anti air (Really hard), and maybe more armor cancels are possible.
At the last location test Hugo ran through Dhalsim’s u1 + 1 Fireball and grabbed him With ex MS…
Not to mention that you get the Whole restand nonesense and corner carry by landing the MS in the first Place…
If hugo got that^it could be cool, working like Nemesis super did in Marvel, i really liked it. Trade off a chunk of life to get in, and if you can keep up the momentum you can heal it up.
Guys about Ultradavid exagerating the st HP as an AA, in many videos, it knocked down the opponent slightly above hugo, its hitbox is rediculous.
I don’t feel that his st HP is too good, it seems slow, and that you need to do it kinda preemptively. Now you can’t really do st HP just like that to beat out a poke. I hope it trades with divekicks atleast.
Honestly if the infinite armor frames is only projectiles and last really short like it has no armor when it’s used mid range the move is complete Crap. Like the video I posted where it makes no sense at all.
Seriously, why is there so many armor stuff for hugo?? I feel characters with good / safe armor breakers are going to be hell for hugo… does he have a move besides super that is hit invincible?