Nah don’t get it twisted Art I definitely agree with you. In some matches, the shit is ridiculous. In particular, Makoto, Dudley, Guy, Balrog (to an extent), Gief, Rose, Seth, Ibuki, Hakan, Honda.
I particularly like it vs Shotos. Not really T Hawk, but I haven’t found anything stupid in that match to use it with yet. lol
In other matches it just helps to have, Ibuki and Shotos it helps. With Hakan it prevents him from oiling, and he loses his oil by the time Brainless is done. lol GGPO Capcom. I know im forgetting characters but yeah. Shit is cheap enough, but not broken.
EDIT:
I read the rest of your post Art. The armor actually acts as a parry more than an armor. I messed with it one night, and I laughed.
EDIT2 @ Hav:
Gotta mess around in training mode more.
Unless Dudley has a down charge, he cannot armor break it. If he does ANY duck, breathless kills him. If he does MGB, the armor parries the first hit and grabs him.
If Guy does ANY run, he’s killed.
Because Abel is crouching, his run kick becomes a one hit attack and the armor eats it free.
Step it up guys, can’t throw it out randomly.
EDIT3 (in reference to Seth matchup for Art) :
KDZ and Ryder don’t even use it right. They mash that shit out in the match. I use it whenever he dives(to get him off me) and (this is going to make you more angry), it armors the first blade of ex sonic boom, and goes under the other blade, or the usual setup for blocked st fierce.
CoD was -3 in Vanilla. It is no safer now than it was before. Any punishes you used to have still work, unless your moves got slower. CoD getting safer has been false since the beginning. People saw Abel block a reversal Tiger Uppercut back in Feb or something, and thought it got safer… but Abel could do that in Vanilla, anyway.
I agree… Falling Sky didn’t need to be any better. Abel’s AA was already super-strong, IMO. Getting untechable knockdown off AA is overkill for Abel, IMO.
Step Kick on block introduces silly situations, but again… I think this is one of those things that people overvalue. OK, so Abel is in your face at +1. There are things you can do to make that advantage he has much less severe, and make Abel have to make shitty guesses out of that spot. Abel’s moves are slow, so it’s not like he gets any true blockstring there. Backdash (if you’re using Rose) is a really good option, that forces Abel to take a big risk to cover the dash, or let you get away. None of Abel’s real options out of Step Kick cover that backdash. He has to commit to options that just cover the dash, and if you don’t dash, he’s kinda fucked. It’s still a guessing game, yes, but you can make it so that you get the same kind of huge reward he does, and you can tip the odds in your favor. Personally, in a lot of fights, I don’t think Abel’s up-close game even really introduces 50/50 situations. I think it introduces 33/67’s, in favor of the opponent.
As for sweep… I think Abel needed that buff. In fights where he gets zoned the fuck out, it helps… but his sweep is still slow as shit, and he still has trouble in those situations, IMO. I think it helps in the Sagat fight, and a few others, but slightly longer range, still slow-as-shit sweep isn’t that huge of a deal.
Your point about Abel buffs v. others’ nerfs is definitely valid. Both definitely didn’t need to happen. I agree with that, 100%. I remember reading the change logs like… “really?”. It seemed pretty silly to begin with, and in practice… it’s pretty silly. I still think Abel has bad match-ups… more than any other of the top characters… but I do agree with your point that no matter how bad the match-up is, if I land a Step Kick, I can win.
Abel/Seth is pretty silly just because of damage output. Like against KDZ, when he basically killed you with one combo, then 2 guess situations, in 5 seconds. That’s why I could never use a character like Seth though. Nigga just can’t take a hit.
@ Nick T.
I don’t know. Obviously the game is still young, so I won’t claim to have seen it all… but I really don’t think Breathless is that good. Like… how is it “ridiculous” against Ibuki? I use it in the Ibuki fight, and I definitely see use for it, no question… but I don’t have anything in that fight that’s ridiculous. What is it that makes it so stupid?
I don’t really get your Dudley example. It just sounds like you’re saying “If Dudley does some really stupid shit, you can hit him with Breathless”. Why does Dudley need to Duck in this fight ever? Random MGB loses to Breathless? OK… don’t do random MGB? I use U2 against Dud, also, but those examples just seem weak… unless I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying.
If Guy does any run, he’s killed. OK… don’t run. I don’t see the issue. It’s not like Run is so essential in this fight. And hell, if it’s a situation where you have to hold Breathless, Guy can always Run-Stop, and then jump or some shit. I don’t know how fast Stopping is, but I have to guess it’s faster than human reaction + 7F. If you don’t have to hold it, then yeah… it beats running free. I fail to see why that matters.
I cannot belive people are still arguing with you HAV, lol, I am not even that good with Dudley (yet damnit!) but I know a couple of decent Abel players, and yeah, once you know what the deal is with breathless its not all that hard to avoid.
Yes it changes the way you have to approach Abel, and yes it hurts, ALOT.
But lots of characters have ultras like this, Elfs new ultra certainly comes to mind, heck, Dudleys rolling thunder certainly acts in a similar fashion, I could go on.
Many ultras force you to change your gameplan, Abel has to take a risk or punish a big mistake to land his new ultra, I still dont get whats cheap about that.
Its a small thing but I think people are deceived… raw Soulless hurts a lot more than Breathless, and Soulless combos easily surpass how much damage Breathless does. Although I really miss SF4 Soulless… that damage on the last hit was hilarious especially vs. low health characters like no mask Vega or Seth
But HAV. Why are your posts so money? Can I shake your hand at Evo? :lol:
No one who’s hating on Abel ever mentions that his fastest move is 4 frames AND it whiffs on most crouched characters. So, then his fastest move that will hit a crouched character is 5 frames, that is slow in my mind. When you use Abel, you can feel that lack of quickness and know your best option is to block in most situations or get counter-hit.
Even if Abels in your face at +1, you can still beat out most of his options by back dashing or using 3-frame cr.jab and get the initiative back.
Regardless of the reasoning, I cannot see how Abel can create so many cries of “cheap”… He’s not so much better than anyone in the rest of the cast that they don’t stand a chance. Yeah, Seth takes damage like a small woman, but he has EVERYTHING on offense. Seth can’t have everything on offense and have good defense too, he would be broken as hell.
It mystifies me how Abel’s options seem god-tier to some players. If you fear him so much and think he’s a win-button, use him and see if it’s difficult to win or not. I can almost guarantee that you won’t be saying he’s cheap after using him for while. Find out for yourself that he’s not, that’s the only real answer.
right now what you guys are saying is being countered by hard tourney evidence. Abel…while he doesnt always win, has bene placing high in SSf4 tourneys as of late. If Abel was getting bodied then I’d agree with you guys. HAV makes really good points to the contrary but I’m too lazy to write a long counter rebuttal now. It’s not like ppl dont know the matchup either…theres a lot of Abel players. Some are really good (Yipes and Ryder), some just use it to counter bad matchups (Chris), and some are reallllly scrubby, and drop combos and STILL win (Juicebox, Rico) - although the last 2 get caught for mashing when theyre forced to guess and get exposed - check losers finals of valle vs juicebox @ devastion for that.
Saying that abel is put into a guess not in his favor off step kick is a little far fetched though. if anything thats only matchup specific.
Gernburgs: Chris picked up Abel and after losign to abel, he htinks its bullshit. lol
Like I said, Abel being at disadvantage after Step Kick is match-specific. Definitely not a universal thing at all… but it’s there.
And nobody here is saying Abel isn’t very good. I think we all acknowledge him as being top tier. Cries of OP are really stretching it though, and as for the original intent of this thread, cries that Breathless is just too good are, IMO, really misguided.
If you want to talk tournaments, show me tournament matches where Breathless really lands. In the matches I’ve seen, I don’t see Yipes ever pick U2. Ryder stays with U1, mostly. Rico too. I don’t see how Breathless is getting touted as this overpowered monster, when Abel players don’t even pick it most of the time.
sakeido: breathless helped him vs floe. wakeup breathless > safejump | wakeup breathless > you trying to throw abel, heh
Juicebox, you mashed on defense and got exposed mad hard by valle. Thrown 4 times in a row into ex tatsu?
then ex tatsu (midscreen) multiple times into throw the game before that? I have to lol at that, because Valle basically gave you a taste of your own medicine, except that those mixups do far less damage unless youre in the corner. What’s even worse is that you dropped like all your combos vs Valle and still won in the winners bracket. That shit was sad. Team Spooky house was shitting on your gameplay the whole time while that was going on.
What makes it even worse is that vs Marn did ultra, and instead of going for the guaranteed punish you command threw him after u1 and proceeded to lose instead of you winning. LOL.
Just goes to show that scrubs can def get top 3 due to character armor(good thing not enough good players were there)
As for the money match thing @ Evo, sure! Team Spooky will set up a money match room like 1676 @ last years evo, except all matches will be recorded direct feed and streamed (havent announced it yet though,) and I cant announce it on Evo forum. It’s not 100% yet anyway, but stay tuned for it. You’re a pretty animated guy and I’m sure you like to talk shit, so it’s perfect. FT5 for $100 sound good?
Even if I lose, it’s not like I’m going to admit you outplayed me anyway…and if i win I’m just going to talk mad shit. So it’s really not going to prove anything besides entertainment value for everyone.
Well I wanted to see who was better. But it seems like that’s not what you’re after here. Money doesn’t even need to be involved. This is not personal and this has nothing to do with my character… If someone thinks I suck I’ll be glad to play them. If I have to throw a few bucks their way to get them to do it, I’m okay with that.
But if you want to overblow this situation I won’t be a part of it. It’s a videogame, man.