This is not a thread hoping there will be a version 2013, it is simply a place to discus any changes you would like to see with balance in mind. what problems does blanka have that you would like to see addressed?
I’m quite happy with the balance in 2102 but i think it would pretty darn cool if blanka could fadc ex hori balls at any distance, and the ex hori ball retaining the knockdown and juggle ability upon the focus cancel. It would provide a more substantial fire ball punish for a high meter cost. would that be imbalanced?
I think being able to FADC ANY horizontal ball and EX horizontal ball knocking down at any range will greatly improve Blanka… and i don’t think it will be overpowering…
I think what will be nice is if they improved on his dash and/or hop somehow… he’s got a pretty good FA but his dash sucks so much it makes focus dash forward kinda sucks… on the other hand… hopping imo is quite important to Blanka’s game but it kinda sucks as well don’t know why they made a mediocre movement move and made it worse.
other than that Blanka could use more loving… 2012 imo was great… despite horizontal ball big nerf… his upball big upgrade imo was totally worth it. The horizontal ball nerf definitely made me use horizontal ball much more wisely…
another awesome upgrade will be making his slide able to FADC…
perhaps instead of changing the hitbox we could increase the distance blanka moves forward during far standing jab animation, causing blanka to move forward further upon canceling into electricity, also increasing his kara throw.
While I think this would be a good change, I highly doubt we will ever see something like this…
If only HP Elec had the same hitbox as EX (the 1st active frame, wich has a larger hitbox) would be enough to use in combos after cr.LK, cr.MK and st.LP
I doubt SF4 will change again, but…would really love if Blanka’s upball was similar to hyper fighting where it hits on the way down (like honda’s butt splash still does). That would be bonkers. Imagine meaty fake x-up upball into ultra
I agree about horizontal balls buffs. All balls should makes a knockdown, even vertical on hit whatever the range.
And yes, slide FADC should be nice for baiting and footsies.
Better hitbox for some normals like his far standing strong, and less recovery for others like his crouching fierce.
Neutral jump fierce makes a hard knockdown.
Give possibility of juggles after EX elec or less pushback for all versions.
Better damages for his EX Upball, something like +50.
And maybe a more fast start up for rainbow balls, especially the EX version. Or at least, make all version of this special move hit overhead and break focus… because normal versions just have no use since forever…
This i really like, right now ex hori ball as a fire ball punish is very underwhelming as you get a bit of damage but the situation is reset to neutral. This was the problem i wanted to address in my post but i like your idea much better. For a higher meter costs blanka should be able to shift momentum to his favor off a fire ball punish (and while the slide sort of fills this role, the lack of conventional oki hurts its usefulness in this regard)
So this thread came with some unusual timing, Ono is gauging interest for a new update on twitter.
Im a little bit torn, I REALLY like the balance we have in 2012 but I dont think i would be opposed to a re balance to keep things fresh
I’d like to see amazon slide slowed down a bit. Blanka already has lots of tools against fireballs and what not as it is, and I rather see him more as a combo-oriented character than sporadic character.
Stuff like canceling the ex-balls from any distance would be cool. But I would like to see hp ball lead to juggle instead of just ex ball. Drives me crazy why I would want to use 3 bars just to get an additional sweep, electricity or possible mixup after a ball combo.
I’m not too sure about a more damaging ex up-ball. That move’s already pretty great.
I really agree on hp electricity’s hit-box being better. It’s annoying to know that you’ve mastered a crossup to mp to hp electricity, and that it only works on 2/3s the characters in the game, and instead you have to settle for not including the mp or mk.
I think slowing down slide is pretty counterproductive to Blanka’s character design. His other anti fireball options require meter and lead to a less advantageous situation. If you want him to be an aggressive combo oriented character wouldn’t giving him more incentive to just focus absorb fireballs and build meter be be the antithesis of that? I wouldn’t try to rushdown guile with a bad slide, I’d just hang out and nj fireballs for 90 seconds.
random note: Ex upball does less damage than any other reversal of its kind that costs meter.
I think the hp ball change I mentioned and some frame data tweaks is really all Blanka needs. I think taking an extra frame of recovery off of his moves he uses to start combos and letting him combo to hard knockdown for 2 bars would pretty much fix his problems which basically consist of him not being able to maintain offensive momentum which hurts him vs. characters who beat him in neutral because he doesn’t really do well chasing down a character for 20 seconds, getting a knockdown, then they get out for free.
His really advantageous matchups tend to be against characters who have a multitude of problem matchups(deejay, dan, hawk, gouken) so I think the problems with those matchups tends to be on the other character really. Like spamming upball is only legit against hawk, and that’s because his tools are not that good.
I would kind of like to see normal rainbow roll be useful for something. It’s focusable, not an overhead, massively unsafe, does low damage, and it’s incredibly slow.
I would also like to see level 2 focus attack give one extra frame of advantage on block. It’s pretty impossible to mixup up off of it at the moment which is sort of a shame. Against some characters blanka is actually in a mixup for forward dashing which is kind of dumb considering he’s +1. Making close jab 3 frames would also work here if +2 on block is too strong of a buff.
I honestly would rather a different approach be done with blanka. I don’t want to see improvement on specials i rather see improvement on normals to enhance what i think blanka is good at.
I’d like to see c.MK and c.LK be +2 on block. Maybe his c.MK have more active frames… I’d like to see his c.HP get big buffs like it used to be. Maybe a frame faster, +1 on hit and -5 on block.
I’d like fs.LP be +1 on block and +4 on hit. Things like that would be my preference. Maybe improved range on his c.HK.
I personally think hori ball improvements makes him not what he should be. Just IMO.
ilitirit the cs.MK truly airborne would be like my dream come true LOL. Yeah I love the FA lvl 2 being better. Like chun’s is +6 LO!L!?!?!? Give me something like +2 or 3!
they’ll most likely take out unblockables in this game…
how much do you think this will effect Blanka… lets say nothing else changes…
I’m actually thinking it’s gonna suck for Blanka considering the fact I think he’s got some of the easiest/best unblockables in the game… and some of the match ups like Rufus imo… is heavily effected because of his unblockables…
on the other hand… unblockables on blanka… doesn’t matter as much because Blanka can usually ex upball/rainbow ball to get out of it…
Yeah I really feel the Rufus matchup is the only one that is really unblockable heavy for Blanka.
The b.throw nerf has made it much easier for guile to block, it no longer works on gouken, and the other characters have good moves to escape the situation reliably.
Increase the number of frames where hori ball can be fadc’d / super cancelled. It’d be nice if building 4 bars meant fei had more than a slap to the face to worry about when he rekkas out of place. Etc.
