Character Balance Poll

I think that is exactly why people are complaining about Honda. The goal/hope was that he would be given a fair chance against fireball characters and non-fireball characters would get a fair chance against him. He has a better chance against most of the fireball characters now. But, all of his matches against non-fireball characters are as bad as they were before. It’s interesting and tricky to rank him because to shotos, “bottom tier” Zangief is more difficult to fight than “mid tier” Honda. But, to Blanka or Dic, Honda is the best character in the game. Better than “top tier” Claw.

My post wasn’t directed at EVERYONE. Just those posting like honda didn’t get any buffs.

Bingo.

Well Blanka isn’t one of the characters that Honda killed in ST, it was just a match he had an advantage in. In Remix, it’s pretty close to even. But yeah, Sirlin definitely could have done a better job helping Gief and Cammy out with Honda too.

With Cammy as my main. Honda match ups is like having a root canal from a dentist. This match up is so F***ed up.

Blanka has a much better time against Honda than he did before. He could fight him in ST but he died if he made a critical mistake. Now Blanka can actually come back from a mistake and still win unlike in original ST where he just got ochio looped to death. Safe Blanka ball allows him to pressure and close the gap more in situations where he would be giving the match away for free. Other than that as long as you’re using the right pokes Honda has just about as hard of a time getting in on you as you do on him.

A lot of lesser players complain about Honda simply because no matter where the tiers are…if you can’t play SF smart Honda players will kill you everytime. They’ll make every matchup look like 8-2 for Honda. I even hear shoto players online complain about Honda being too powerful and I personally think he got nerfed more than he got buffed. He can simply fight good shotos now but everything else got toned. I’m surprised he still even has stored Ochio. Honda messes up people who don’t know how to beat tick throws or use their normals to beat headbutts. Which is basically anyone who doesn’t understand competitive SF basics.

I don’t think Cammy gained anything that helped her in the Honda matchup. I hear the one thing she had got nerfed.

Cammy vs Honda is like hell. It’s a case of get an advantage, run and try and keep it

How DO you beat the headbutt anyway? I keep trying the stand/crouch jab thing and it never works. Well, maybe not NEVER but the % effectiveness is never in my favor when taking into account damage. i.e. I may hit him say, >70% of the time but still come out behind on damage.

I’m assuming it’s similar to beating Blanka Ball but your timing has to be better. You can pretty much just mash on jab and beat Blanka ball everytime. The hit box on headbutt I’m assuming works differently which will force you to have to time your jabs better to beat the headbutt. I’m pretty sure Akuma has a few normals that beat it clean everytime but that’s just cuz he has really crazy normals. Blanka’s s.LK isn’t rapid fire but because the tip of his foot can’t be hit he basically has an “invincible” normal that beats headbutt for free. j.LK and s.MP beats it pretty clean most of the time too.

It’s really dependent on what character you use though. Some characters have a few normals that beat it and then there’s some characters that only have like jab and one other air normal. Cammy being an obvious testament to that.

Thanks. That’s really good to know. I just used electricity to beat head butt, lol.

Nah, it’s not really Honda’s fault per se. But… it kinda really is. The problem is that, well, giving other characters better things to fight Honda makes those characters WAY better against other characters as well! Giving Zangief a better Standing Forward will affect other matches WAY more than it affects his match with Honda. With a better Standing Forward, I think characters like Ryu will have a worse fight against him.

Honda, however, in every match-up he wins easily in, it’s the same problem every time. His turtle capabilities are just tooooo strong. He kills Cammy, Fei Long, Zangief, and T.Hawk all in the exact same way. Hold Down-Back, and you win, pretty much.

So if you can fix THAT aspect of Honda – weaken his Down-Back – you fix ALL of his dominating match-ups. Of course, this weakens Honda overall against his bad match-ups as well, but that’s why you give him better offensive capabilities. Balance it out a bit more. And that way, you really have to work with one character and continue balancing him and not worrying about the crazy domino affect of improving one thing of a character can affect other match-ups (such as the fact that I’ve heard that Honda can now Jump backwards and press Short and pretty much own up EVERYTHING Dictator does, now, because of its better hitbox. It was a fix to help fight Shotos, but it affects other things as well).

By buffing up other characters to fight Honda better, it just affects too many things when it’s much easier to eliminate the main problem in the first place. I’ve always said that Honda as a whole would be far better off being given better weapons for offense and have his defense weakened. Not only would that make him have a much better chance of being more balanced against every character, I think it would also make him more fun to use. I’m not against having an overall defensive character nor am I out to get Honda (again, Honda was my main character from Classic to CE to Hyper Fighting to Super… I stopped using him in Super Turbo because he was boring and I always felt bad for playing him), I just wanted Honda to be more enjoyable to play and to play against… mostly so I could enjoy using him again!

  • James

Has anyone complained about Honda yet?

Oh, I’m not alone! Honda gained everything and lost nothing in the rebalance. He is now more viable against shotos and all of his other matches improved or stayed the same. I think Sim players got screwed the most. At least shotos still have a chance. Seriously, I’m getting sick of facing Honda. After I join a room there is a 75+ percent chance I face Honda on my first match because people see my Sim gamerpic. Constant butt slams and tick ochio throws for everyone! With a little helping of insane block damage from the hand slaps! I think I’ll use projectiles to zone him… oh wait BARF

personally i feel blanka got the rough end of the stick. i only think easy electricity and the forward hop foot invincibility buffs actually help. His RETARDED damage when hit out of a roll was a bit of a nerf. Balls were useful to trade vs vega and sim, usefull to throw out occasionally vs characters that couldn’t hit back on block now it’s pretty damn high risk low reward to go for a ball outside of a combo. People here only think blanka is good because unless you can SRK in an instant, on reaction, blanka is a nightmare to fight. It’s only at high level play that as a blanka player you realise the difficulties of getting in to do damage.I think rainbow roll needs to have no backflip startup. It’d be similar to a juice kick.

I haven’t played any Hondas that really make me feel this match is any worse than 6-4. If you run away and electricity the opponent has to advance, with no charge honda is a fat crossup target so go for the jump in the moment he steps or jumps forward. Watch for sneaky advances using slaps cos the charge will still be there.

The problem with Honda, like J says, is that he can get a lead on life and turtle down and beat any non-fireball character. every non-fb character is forced to rush down Honda, which is nearly impossible due to all of his reversals (and great anti air normals, and punishing lots of things with HHS block damage)

If I were to make one change to Honda it would be to remove any invulnerability/safe frames on buttbombs (especially the strong buttbomb). Jab headbutt is just fine as a reversal. He’s a character who does not need a get out of crossup free card.

For me, as a Dhalsim player, I can say that I just hate the dynamic of this matchup. He’s like Gief and Hawk, except instead of an inescapable trap with a difficult time getting in, he has an inescapable trap with a medium time getting in (lots and lots of get-in options). Oh, and ridiculous HHS chip damage to boot, and an amazing super.

I would not mind seeing him flat out lose the Oichyo either. His normal throws work just fine.

That said, I like the game even with Honda in it. At least he has a counterpick or two unlike Akuma. I can spend a few weeks learning Ken or Deejay or Guile and be good enough to whomp all over 95% of Honda players. My Deejay already wins against all onlindas except those who are solid solid players.

Bottom line is, if they took all the stupid bullshit out of the game (Chun, Honda and Claw) I think it’d be a better game. Seriously, who looked at Claw and said “I think he needs a super high priority reversal to be a viable character.” Bison gets no reversal, but Claw gets one? And who looked at Chun during development and said “Hey, let’s make lightning legs beat almost everything, hit low, and do a shitload of chip damage. that’ll make her competitive and fun and dynamic.”

This is not to say that those toons can’t be played to a competitive level and such, but their stupid mode gameplay sucks the joy out of casual competition. This sounds like bitter whining or whatever, because any tactic should be valid and game-on and what not for competitive gaming. But I’m not whining so much as critiquing. This kind of bullsquat where you can just mash jump short into lightning legs or tick throw and your opponent has to have perfect timing and spend the whole match blocking and praying…ugh. Definitely my least favorite thing about street fighter.

In thinking about it, this pretty much sums up two things I hate about super turbo - mash moves that do ridiculous chip damage (not Blanka, who only gets one hit or so) with high priority, and mash characters in general (db. strong, x infinity -> j.fierce -> strong strong strong -> j fierce -> strong strong strong).

that came out longer than I thought :stuck_out_tongue:

Fei long is broken.

Hahah. This thread is too funny. I have to admit that so far I am pretty happy with the balance, although Honda does seem a little buff, I am all about tough matches. I like to find ways around stuff, but at times those Honda matches just feel really bad. I am Fei/Hawk player, so Honda’s eat me alive if they are any good. The thing that really gets me is that a Honda player generally knows less about the match up then I do and will win with minimal effort, while I on the other hand, know a LOT about the match ups and have to work really hard just to barley lose or squeak a victory by. Obviously it makes those matches really enjoyable because it seems like I have learned a lot and I have to really work hard, but it is lame at the same time. I have to agree with Chensor though, it seems like messing with Honda any more could muck things up pretty bad.

fei long feels really weak right now. he gained two things and lost everything else.

mk/hk chickenwing kicks feels really useless now.

not being able to lockdown vega, balrog, bison, e honda makes the matchups that much harder. he already has a hard time getting in on those characters in vanilla ST but at least he can potentially win the round after locking you down in the corner.

right now the only thing the chickenwing kick leads to are throw/flame kick mixups which arent even that great since he has the shortest throw range in the game and the flame kick loses to every other anti air and not safe on block anymore.

the flame kick is really pathetic right now. easily the worst command anti air in the game after chun lis upkicks. what happened to the range? vega and sim can slide under it making fei whiff like most of the time. following up a flame kick after a max range rekka x3 will also cause it to whiff most of the time.

since the flame kick is not as safe on block anymore, this makes the fight vs bison and honda that much harder. with the old flame kick, you can sorta get away with back to back flame kicks since honda and bison dont have anything fast enough to punish those flame kicks, but now its too easy to punish a blocked flame kick from fei long.

I agree with it. Honda was a lot of fun before ST, I’d like to have Old Honda back!!!

Honda + controller with turbo = ridiculous

Charge ochio, block forever, turbo jab when in block stun. yay.

OMG, I cant believe all the shit I’m reading about Honda being overpowered.
He still loses the matches he lost in ST and he still wins the matches that he won in ST. As simple as that.

Fuck, I was playing Haru Tejyo’s Gief the other day and out of 10 matches I only won 2 with Honda. I was like “WTF, ain’t Honda supposed to win this match”. He’s the first Gief that has caused me problems to that magnitude.

My record against Valle’s Ken is 4-0, I lost of course.
Against Bruce Askew’s DJ is like 4-0, also the loses are on my part. (This was a fkin nightmare match btw)

However, whenever I rape a Guile, DJ, Ryu, you name it, I got msgs tellin me that Honda is for scrubs and that he is overpowered…

So yeah, I agree with some posters above and I think it’s more related to the skill of the player rather than the character he plays.

So, unless a top Honda player like Kusumondo wins 8-2 or 7-3 against Daigo’s Ryu or Muteki Guile I dont think anyone can truly say that Honda is broken or overpowered. He is almost no different than his ST version.