Character Balance Poll

[MiloDC]

Have you even used Zangief against good Hondas, Blankas and Dhalsims?

Why would I? He dies horribly to those characters. (Well, Honda and Dhalsim, anyway.)

Fuck the top player on XBL or GGPO or whatever.

Of course! If the evidence falsifies your assertions, then simply ignore the evidence.

Main Zangief and try to get around Honda’s turtling, Blanka’s st.Strong and Dhalsim’s Fires and limbs. You will change your tune, I guarantee it.

I’ll do no such thing. Among the top players on GGPO AND HDR XBL, the number one player uses Zangief.

We’re aren’t talking about a great player beating scrubs. We’re talking about a top player trouncing other top players – including top Dhalsims and Hondas. That’s all the evidence any of us should require.

Yes, Dhalsim and Honda have clear advantages over him. So what? On the flip side, he beats Ryu and Boxer – two of the most powerful and tournament-friendly characters in the game.

Try playing Cammy for a while vs. good players (e.g. anyone in the top 100 or 200 XBL rankings), then come back and tell me that Zangief has it rough.

I’m not saying the low tiers should be buffed into monsters, or that counter picking should be eliminated (it’s a part of SF), but saying that they should be buffed a tiny bit more.

I think it would take more than a “tiny bit more” tweaking to make Dhalsim and Honda fights more even for Gief.

I agree that Honda’s Torpedo is fine. That’s his SRK and it shouldn’t be punishable. But his Ochio needs to be unstoreable, his Super can be storeable, and that’s pretty much all the nerfs I wanna see for Honda.

Of course, neither Honda’s ochio throw nor his super are what make him so dominant vs. Zangief.

[MiloDC]

Sirlin reduced the range on fireball destroying jab headbutt because it hits sagats long arms during his fireballs.

Ryu’s dragon punch hits slides/sweeps, Guile’s flash kicks hit most stuff on the ground.

As for akuma, I don’t think he’d be half as bad if he couldn’t do that air fireball to super trap.

Akuma just needs to recoil in the air after throwing an air hadouken.

[MiloDC]

Everything you are saying about Hawk is wrong. Literally everything.

Is there a difference between a literal everything and just everything?

The motion change for the 360 makes very little difference, it’s not like it was ever hard.

Guess that’s why Sirlin made it easier to perform. Thanks for clearing that up!

People have been doing throw loops for 15 years. You say “I’ve seen it done” like it’s some amazing sight to behold or something…it’s like “Ryu can shoot blue energy - I’ve seen it with my own eyes!”

No, that’s how you’re reading it. How I actually wrote it was, “T.Hawk can still tick->grab loop just like he always could, it’s just easier now because Sirlin deliberately made the SPD motion easier.”

Ticking with the 360 was always done by doing the 360 motion while in animation frames and ending in D/B. Zero chance to accidentally jump, you’re never holding up during neutral state. If you whiffed a walk up 360 because you were too far away you’d usually get a jump backwards or straight up, which is no worse than a whiff is now. And if you got a jump backwards because you couldn’t do the motion properly - well you need more practice.

The difference now, of course, is that walk-up tick->grabs are easier because the player can SPD by doing a half-circle after a forward or backward motion. This improves the likelihood that the move will be performed correctly (just like Cammy now gets hooligan rolls instead of accidental backfists), which is pretty important when performing a tick->grab. That it could never be done, or that it always could be done, or whatever, are just irrelevant tangents that you’ve fallen into because you feel some weird need to assert yourself now that people are making declarative statements about a character that you play a little.

Throw loops are not easier now, they are much harder, because a single well-timed reversal will destroy the loop whereas before it would not.

You can’t reverse out of a normal that’s cancelled into a grab, dude. (Not in Super Turbo, anyway.)

[UltraDavid]

You can’t reverse out of a normal that’s cancelled into a grab, dude. (Not in Super Turbo, anyway.)

You got some brass buttons, mang. If I didn’t know what I was talking about to this degree, I’d probably try to not get involved in an argument.

PS Yes you can. Canceling a normal into a grab results in the opponent not getting grabbed anyway, since you can’t grab someone when he’s still in hit/blockstun, but yeah, in going from a normal to a throw, the opponent can reversal out of it.

[VirtuaFighterFour]

You can’t reverse out of a normal that’s cancelled into a grab, dude. (Not in Super Turbo, anyway.)

You’re wrong. This is why T.Hawk’s throw loop was so damaging. It negated the reversal to beat the throw.

How does one beat an opponent who gets successful reversal during a throw loop? Negative edge piano throw inputs.

Hawk could set up a tick, then negative edge piano the 360 and end the joystick motion in defensive crouch. If the opponent failed to use a reversal, they would go for the ride, and then Hawk could safe jump on them and try to reset the loop.

But, if the opponent got a successful reversal, Hawk would end the throw motion in defense crouch, and because he negative edged the inputs for the throw, the reversal would be blocked, and Hawk would have a FREE throw or DP knockdown because his opponent had dragon punched or flash kicked a crouch blocking opponent.

With the throw whiff that option is entirely erased, a thing of the past. Hawk cannot just safe jump throw loop people anymore. A reversal will now HIT Hawk instead of just leave him in defensive crouch even if you negative edge Hawk’s throw inputs.

[jchensor]

Stuff

Man.

This is bringing back some memories, sirs. Makes me REALLY wanna see if I can find that old “MiSTing” post made way back then in agsf2 and read it again. That thing was awesome.

• James

[margalis]

Multiquote post incoming!

I guess Blanka is a stupid design as well?

You’re seriously comparing the Blanka ball to the torpedo? This gimmick of pretending to be dense is wearing thin. The properties on the Blanka Ball and torpedo are completely different and you know it. I suppose next you’ll claim that there’s no different between the Torpedo and Chun-Li’s jab because they both hit people and stuff.

This is bringing back some memories, sirs. Makes me REALLY wanna see if I can find that old “MiSTing” post made way back then in agsf2 and read it again. That thing was awesome.

One of the two parts is pretty easy to find. This battle looks to be a little less epic given that Milo is totally clueless on this topic.

Zangief was given nothing to compensate for Blanka’s improvements.

A properly timed lariat will beat the ball every time and now Blanka takes extra damage from it. If Blanka runs into a lariat with a fierce ball even once it’s going to make him think twice. You have to adjust your strategy, whereas before it might have made more sense to block the ball and advance now it’s better to press some buttons. Running into a lariat with the ball really hurts.

By comparison hitting Honda out of his torpedo with Zangief is much much harder.

You can’t reverse out of a normal that’s cancelled into a grab, dude.

It’s like someone time-travelled to this thread from 1993 and is trying to lay the smackdown with information 15 years out of date.

[Ryu1999]

One of the two parts is pretty easy to find. This battle looks to be a little less epic given that Milo is totally clueless on this topic.

I wouldn’t really pay attention to anything he says. He’s like a budget-ass DSP: Doesn’t really know much about the game but still manages to get some wins (unlike DSP who somehow wins tournaments despite his ignorance lol)

[Vance]

That torpedo beats Blanka ball cleanly is enough to say you really can’t compare the two.

[Kuroppi]

Multiquote post incoming!

You’re seriously comparing the Blanka ball to the torpedo? This gimmick of pretending to be dense is wearing thin. The properties on the Blanka Ball and torpedo are completely different and you know it. I suppose next you’ll claim that there’s no different between the Torpedo and Chun-Li’s jab because they both hit people and stuff.

You’re taking my quote completely out of context. This is what I was referring to in case you’ve already forgotten:

About Honda, he’s always been a poorly designed character. Torpedo and uppercut are in no way comparable. Characters like Ryu and Guile have to choose an anti-air move or an anti-ground move – for Honda those two moves are the same.

And someone needs to explain to me how a shoryuken isn’t an anti-ground move. What does it not beat?

[System_1]

I’ll do no such thing. Among the top players on GGPO AND HDR XBL, the number one player uses Zangief.

Aside from all of the other disinformation your spreading…who is this player you keep talking about?

Correct me if I am wrong, but no Zangief player…ever…has won any major tournament in ST or the few HDR. Not even Pony Gief if I recall.

Seriously, who is this “unstoppable honda/dhalsim crushing” Gief?

[UltraDavid]

Gief at number one on XBL does not mean he’s a Honda/Sim crusher. All it means is that he plays Live a lot and beats the vast majority of people he plays, people who skew way towards matchups that aren’t Gief’s worst matchups, especially towards Ken and Ryu, who are among Gief’s best matchups. I doubt he’s played too many Sims on there.

[SweetJohnnyV]

This monster Gief he’s referring to is “Jodim” on GGPO and “Haru Tejyo” on XBL. I’m 95% sure that he’s actually Gunze. He has played quite a few sims on GGPO for sure and I assume he’s played a decent bunch on XBL.

I know a lot of people are gonna disagree with this, but honestly I just think he’s better than most US players. Even most of the really good ones. People can blame it on it being online play if they want, but he consistently does well against people. It’s not a fluke where they missed one reversal due to lag or something.

Anyway, back on topic, I don’t think him winning alot actually means much in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, he makes Zangief look good when he plays a lot of our really good players, but I don’t see him winning tons of tournies in Japan. That’s why I think a lot of these xyz is overpowered arguments are silly. Most of us aren’t really good enough to actually gauge this stuff to begin with.

[margalis]

Blanka’s horizontal ball is crappy anti-air and even his vertical ball is situational. It’s worse against both ground and air attacks than the torpedo by a longshot.

And someone needs to explain to me how a shoryuken isn’t an anti-ground move. What does it not beat?

Blocking. Or standing a character width away.

[Ryu1999]

Blocking. Or standing a character width away.

Plus Flashkick (even the hk version) still has problems hitting some low moves and both FK and SRK aren’t safe on block 100% of the time like torpedo

[System_1]

Jodim isn’t Gunze

MiloDC - check this out:

[media=youtube]6i1TPQQ_AVA[/media]

Also I don’t know if you’re interested but if you have a bit of time to kill I recommend perusing this thread. There a “view 10,000” posts at a time feature somewhere on SRK I think (edit e voila). You could just scroll through that while you’re at work or whatever? The modern state of american ST knowledge comes in large part from NKI and if you haven’t read that thread you’re way behind.

[Cronopio]

Could Jodim be that legendary Gief you mention in your blog? He plays very differently from Gunze, I’ve never seen anyone playing a Gief like that, ever.

Oh, and I remember him doing pretty well against Kuroppi’s Honda at GGPO. And Kuro is one of the best Hondas in the world.

[SweetJohnnyV]

Jodim isn’t Gunze

You sure about that? His style and Gunze’s seem remarkably similar to me.

EDIT: Either way, Jodim/Haru’s a fucking beast!

[fatboy]

Gief at number one on XBL does not mean he’s a Honda/Sim crusher. All it means is that he plays Live a lot and beats the vast majority of people he plays, people who skew way towards matchups that aren’t Gief’s worst matchups, especially towards Ken and Ryu, who are among Gief’s best matchups. I doubt he’s played too many Sims on there.

Have you played Jodim/ or whatever his New Xbox live name? He’s toasted (huge win streaks) the likes of Giga-MSX, Calipower, AfroCole, G.Wolfe, and whom ever you name in on GGPO and XBL. He has equally been as beasy on XBL. I suggest (not flaming) you try and play him, then you may actually be able to better understand the player we are all reffering to.

[System_1]

Changing Honda’s jab headbutt opens up a can-o-worms. Even the haters of it acknowledge that the entire character would have to practically be redesigned if he lost the invulnerable hitting on it.

He also would become like Bison and Sim as having no attacking reversals that have invulnerable hitting frames.

Making away his defense would mean he could not turtle at all.

That would encourage him to jump all over the place to avoid attacks, except Honda sucks while jumping, so he would not be Honda anymore. Or effective.

Honda haters might as well just say they don’t want him in the game.

Also the butt-bomb is too punishable when it lands, and doesn’t escape him like devil’s would. If he used it on a tick, he would just be raped on landing since other graplers could just block and throw against it.

You could give the butt-bomb some overlap and invulnerable hitting frames on the way up, making it into a “real” SRK, but look everyone got a DP in ST. Vega didn’t need one, but he got one. Chun-Li didn’t need one, but she got one, Rog didn’t need one, but he got one. Honda shouldn’t have his butt-bomb turned into one too. Make Honda rely on one and they could just call ST “Street Fighter II - hurray for SRK’s!”

Anyway, invulnerable hitting reversal frames on a charge move aren’t unprecidented - any one with upkicks has it. If Honda had an SRK butt-bomb, he would still be nasty, because he could wait and hit most of the same moves with the short butt-bomb as he could with the jab headbutt if it gained an invulnerable hitting frame or two.

If he doesn’t have any invulnerable hitting wake-up, and loses stored-no whiff oicho he becomes a bitch character like HF bison or Vega that could be attacked with impunity. Only he doesn’t have the air game to run with.

People don’t seem to realize how hard it would be to re-balance Honda by taking away his defense - he’d need to gain offence - do people really want that? And would he even be Honda any more - or a totally different character that uses his sprites?

Finally, nerfing Honda falls well, well under that “having solved all other problems” catagory - there are many bigger fish to fry as far as ST or Remix balance goes.

Like I said elsewhere, they should toss Hawk a bone and give him hitting frames on his command throw now that he has a whiff - it’s only fair.

(if Honda gained a whiff - he should also get hitting frames - so it’s not like Honda won’t still be a nasty thrower - fact is: Honda=grappler=command throw=superior to all non grapplers at throwing.)