Dont know how he found out the pushback amount.
I can tell you that any increase in pushback is going to cause most crouch mk~elec combos to whiff completely. It didnt work on much of the cast already, and any increase will likely reduce that number significantly. This is bad for me bc due to the ball being shitty, I have only done elecity combos for like 4~5 years. Ball combos hurt more, but elec is safer, and I like to be safe. Sadly, for many characters, blanka bnb elec combos other than jab/short ~elec or the neutral mp links just wont work. IE: any bnb based on low mk will change or go away completely. Also, trying to link low mk~low mk was a sick joke. If you did it, you had to do the ball input on second mk. Couldnt hit low mk~low mk~stand jab.
the close standing mk was as good as we hope, though perhaps not rose level. Since airborn is active on frame 3, but the move hits on frame 5, you can get hit from frames 3-4, at which point an airborne state is caused, ie, like being hit out of a backdash. It goes over low shorts/throws like a pro, and really opens up blankas close game. However, the startup of 5 frames was kinda tricky for me to do meaty, so I’m gonna have to work on the timing.
More importantly, and also incorrectly, the MOD kinda makes a mess of wakeup delay. Soft and hard wakeups are delayed (real version should just be hard knockdowns). Also, there is not a slow and a fast timing (from what we could tell), but rather a gradual range that you can control that I think lasts at most an additional delay of 11 frames. I am not sure if this is how it will work in the final game, but frankly gameplay with delayed wakeup was awesome. All my typical setups just didnt work anymore because my opponent kept varying his wakeup. This forced me, on wakeup, to play a more flexible, “think fast on your feet” game. Canned setups memorized and implemented perfectly are simply a thing of the past, and flexbility and mind-reading became much more important. Overall, the play was much more fun because I could never just do a setup and get the responses I wanted. I really had to work and think and do different things. I know the final build will not have a delay on soft wakeups, but even with the delay just on hard I could tell this was fundamentally going to change the game, and imo, for the better.
Finally, low mk~ultra was as easy as anything. Might have missed it twice all night after hitting it 10+ times. (also, I use Ves’s plink trick with the 3ppp and RH). Unfortunately, that increase in combo easiness was “balanced” by the low mk pushback. low mk~low rh on ch was super easy, but also now whiffed a lot more than usual bc of the pushback. Even low mk~low mp (ch) would miss fairly frequently too. So basically, your distance to make this combo work is a bit closer than before, but on ch its also a lot easier (though I didn’t have too much difficulty in AE with this combo). It felt like I could get it a lot easier on reaction though, whereas in AE I felt like I had to setup/anticipate the ch low mk to have a high link success rate.
Also, in the corner, I had a fairly far away, ch low mk, where I did ultra, and it whiffed completely due to the pushback. Corner pushback on low mk was a serious fucking annoying issue.
However, when my low mk traded with opp, I was frequently and easily able to link ultra. I see why the devs have to try and balance the pushback due to the ultra, but frankly I don’t think blanka is such a powerful force that this nerf (the pushback) is really warranted.
The +1 frame on dash was really good for focus. If they had a 3 frame jab, I would actually throw them once in awhile (though only if I had the distance correct, or the jab would beat my throw). Vs 4 frame short/jab people, I felt like I could really apply pressure with focus. Also, due to delayed getup, the +1 frame wont hurt a lot of setups, because frankly, those kinda setups will not be as important as people have to play more flexibile and less “setupy.” Or, because the dash is faster, we will find other setups that can try to compensate for regular wakeup and delay, and the faster dash will let us do more things during the setup.
Super dirty nasty ass secret that I am kinda scared to share here but its so obvious everyone will figure it out eventually: HP ball knocks down from everywhere, which everyone knows. What you may not know, is that blanka now has the most ghetto, yet fast/high dealing dmg vortex that is fucking hilarious. So you get a low rh or a slide, or ultra knockdown. When opponent wakes up, you can do crossup HP ball. You recover and have enough charge time to do ANOTHER crossup HP before opponent wakes up. (delayed or non delayed getup). This will likely not happen a lot in tournament, because delayed ghettup will mess up your timing. but if capcom institutes a signal so that you can see the delayed ghetup a little earlier (cvs2 had shadows to indicate this), then I can see someone get REALLY REALLY good at a HP knockdown blanka vortex. 3 of them would take almost half life. So against a friend, I came back from over half life down by doing low mk~ultra…crossup wakeup hp ball, crossup wakeup hp ball crossup wakeup hp ball. My friend and I looked at each other and were like…wtf??? Highly unlikely to hit, but if you are desperate and opponent is unlucky, it really can work.
FA ex upball does exactly what we though it would. Costs a lot of meter, but keeps it safe. Felt like ryu uppercut timing to cancel, so very standard feeling.
Finally, I do not think the low mp frame change was implemented. I could not notice a difference.
Overall, I felt like my close game was impressively scary. I could go low, setup and overhead, go for the close mk. My opponent couldnt stay on autopilot vs blanka up close, and so my throws had more effectiveness due to fear of close mk (which was extremely effective in punishing throws/shorts.