Hoping one of fine people could help me out. I love sfxt, and i have done since it came out, in terms of having a team ive a had a bit of trouble deciding. at the moment, my mains are bison and bryan, bison because ive always wanted to sue him and bryan because he fits my play style. however, balrog is another guy i have always wanted to get the hang of, but ill be honest, he just doesnt make sense to me. i never seem to be able to pull off his different charge attacks. I have great difficulty in doing so. just wondered if someone could give me some tips on how to improve with him and some simple bnbs.
I am prepared for da buffs Rog deserves.
- Headbutt hitting crouchers
- More projectile invincibility for turn punch
- Dudley-esque groundbounce on an air-to-air
- Overhead punch safe on block
It’s a lot to ask but right now he’s considered ass tier by the community.
So looking at his changes we can see that:
-Standard boost combo nerf
-st.mp is now cancelable with 22f on hit 18 on block
-c.lk nerf (why do they hate cross assault?)
-sweep is faster and a frame safer on block (but pushes back less so could be just as punishable?
-no idea what is going on with the specials, but there’s nothing about armor.
-Headbutt now hits crouchers (but jab doesn’t, what is this kof?).
-no idea what is going on with Ex Dash Swing, seems they added more advantage to it on hit, but how much can you add to something that already groundbounces to make it significant?
-like the rest of the cast, specials build meter on whiff, but unlike many, most of them build less on hit too (his mid/low mixup).
Gotta say, these look pretty bad unless st.mp leads to some godlike links or whatever the heck they are talking about on the specials are solid buffs. He definitely received nothing exciting that makes me want to pick him up again, like the rest of the game’s more underrated characters did.
Instead of holding back, try holding down back. You should be crouching and just move to foward with an attack button. Most of his BnB’s are from AE, but you if can’t do cr.jab > dash punch then try putting an extra jab in there. Don’t forget your distance is important also.
What do you guys think of Balrog right now? I’ve been beaten up by a few random Balrog users and I’d no idea what was really going on sometimes. Due to the nature of the beast that is SFxT, I think there’s more than meets the eye when we are looking at SF4 and SFxT Balrog.
Vietnam Generals is the best rog I’ve seen bar none. He plays on PSN but from what I’ve seen there are only a few good ones. Robot Cop is another good one and Reggie-Fils-Aimes or something like that.
Anyone have any suggestions for teammates for Balrog? I’m interested in giving Balrog another shot at some point, but I don’t know who to partner him with. Is Balrog better as point or anchor? He seems best on point from my short experience with him…
From what I’ve seen, he is best on point also. As far as partners, I’ve only seen him paired with heavy hitters and mixup characters (Sagat,Bison,Jack-X, Paul, Heihachi, Rolento).
Yes he is best on point due to footsies and his ability to safe raw tag off his normal throw.
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk 2
I like use him as anchor since i run Rolento/Balrog
and Rol just have dem footsies and easily can combo stuff from rekkas so then comes rog with beastly headbut or super
Another reason to run him on anchor is if you have a partner you can charge tap from the start of the round.
So Balrog didn’t really seem to get any cool stuff in 2013 but he did get a few buffs. Anyone teching with him currently? I think it is going to be very hard to take 2013 Guy off of my point but if I hear interesting things about 2013 Balrog I may have to for the Little Mac/Doc Lewis team.
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk 2
My main is Juri. I do play Balrog or Nina as anchor. I’m casual so I kinda suck at this game (not enough time to practice dem combos).
Juri/Balrog is an OK team, but I have a hard time getting people off of me when I’m getting pressured.
Since V.2013 is out, I need to get the new timing from chain-launch, you get less time to charge your special when Balrog gets in (no more freeze during launch).
I have some flashy combos from balrog’s launch, where I can land a TAP after a senpusha TC (Juri’s pinwheel tag cancel), it’s about 400 dmg (starting from a MK-HK-Launch from Balrog, cost 1 meter).
Balrog’s damage from partner launch is pretty low, but his strength is from footsies. He got some good buttons for the neutral game.
However I don’t know well which button to press when i’m in close range, he got some fast lights but his standing LP doesn’t hit crouchers, which sucks, so I have to rely on other tools and I’m not confortable yet with his pressure tools.
It’s seems his EX Dash Straight/Upper don’t whiff anymore (it used to whiff for no reason if you absorbed a hit), and his headbutt hitting crouchers is a godsend.
Balrog deserves some love, I really like the character in SFxT, give me some tech so Juri’s bodyguard can actually keep her safe 
i’m a balrog/rufus player in sf4
at the beginning of sfxt i used that combo, but switched to rufus/ryu because…yeah
anyways i’m gonna try and come up with some shit tonight
Yep, I plan to do some combo and oki finding tonight too if I find anything interesting I’ll let you know.
If you want to know what to do in his footsie/neutral/close range games, I can write all I know when I get off the bus (which is more theory than practice so feel free to criticize but nevertheless a good starting point.
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk 2
Has anyone found a use for the new cancelable fst.mp? They said it is for Balrog to keep his spacing in pressure but it is just as fast as cr.mp and connects less often. Maybe the added active frames make it better somehow?
Was trying to do some Oki tech but not going so well. All your specials auto correct so it means you can hit a meaty straight/upper/low straight whether they roll or not with the same timing, though Ken and Julia supers go through even if you hit the roll vulnerable part. Problem is you do not really have any benefit of hitting these because of frame advantage and all versions of swing blow are so slow they can easily poke/throw out of it. I might be able to make ex smash work because armor frame but I dunno, I guess I have to screw the OS idea for the most part and just learn to react to rolls with throws.
only thing i found yesterday was his tick throw game is better in 2013 because you can actually throw people and they do a shitload of damage
His tick throw is better to an extent (though weaker light moves make it worse in a way) but so is everyone’s. In short this is what Balrog got in 2013 that I’ve seen so far:
Increased damage output thanks to Buffalo hitting crouchers now. Situational Damage output thanks to EX Dash Swing Blow.
Decent Pandora setups because he can wallbounce off both EX Smash and juggled TAP punches.
Being able to throw punish rolls (something very easy for him on reaction thanks to his effective oki spacing) makes his already strong corner game stronger: opponents are practically forced to jump or DP.
Combine those with what he already has:
Amazing poking game off his buffered st.mkxxSt.HK and st.HP (CH) TAP.
Big Damage off of CH fst.HP and setups to land them
Throws that can be either raw tagged or CH stored safely with the exception of 1-2 frame supers.
2 Player Shenanigans
AMAZING meterless punishes/jump ins thanks to cl.HK, st.HK link (I launch into Bob for 450 damage without a jumping starter).
I’d say he is still a very underrated and effective character in this game. He just isn’t very exciting so it is hard to pick him over other characters. I’ll still be trying him of course but we’ll see.
What pressure tools are you using that you are not comfortable with Duga?
Can anyone list any combos which are recently albe to be used? Or is all his old combo still viable and still works?
His main “new” combo is that now he can safely do his Headbutt juggles regardless of whether or not they are standing. Besides that the only additional combo options he has are from either buffed ex swing blow or Pandora.
Since hitting crouchers with EX dash swing no longer wallbounces you have more juggle points to utilize in your combo. Thing is his only juggles to my knowledge that make this more extendable cost meter (tag cancel or ex Smash) so it may not be worth the resources but swing/smash/jumping attack/c.mp/Low Straight could be nice. Can anyone test if this new buttdown animation is treated like crumple? If so TAP could force a meterless wallbounce which would rule.
As for Pandora, Balrog’s wallbounces should let him be a decent sacrifice and when receiving he should be able to c.mpxxHeadbutt, c.mpxxsuper?
Something I never saw Balrog players do which might have some merit is CADCing. It seems pretty bleh to use as other characters do, by dashing in (except to go for throw which is nice), but the spacing Rog can have while going into a supercharge means that he can either bait players to come in and get stuffed or store a counterhit easily and aim for a fst.HP. could be useful.
I read through most of this, but didn’t really find many combo… Where you have mostly all their comboes listed in the first post or 2… Why doesn’t balrog have a combo thread?