I’m kinda curious who people see potential in …in A groove. Of course this doesn’t include Bison, Sakura, Blanka, Vega. Post the characters and what special ability you think this character has.
Personally I think A-Iori has huge potential. Although I’m not 100% sure, I think Iori has a chip custom that beats out all alpha counters. Easy mode combo, valid mixups, legit custom thats not too hard to master, and gay ass rolls. Though Buk’s Iori style is very strong, I think theres room for a more defensive style Iori. What you guys think?
Heck yeah. There’s an A-Iori in Korea who is just vicious. People say that RC blanka ball kills him but that’s very much a theoretical proposition; Iori only needs one knockdown and things get scary, especially cuz this guy pushes you to the corner, making your safe falls more and more risky. I have a camera…I’ll try to capture some footage of this guy.
i agree on A-iori, i just can’t execute the jab DP guard crush CC, manually is too fast and i mess up the buffering method too much. that seems like a big part of his game to me.
2 characters really jump out at me.
A-chang. after watching bari or kousaka, i realized chang can actually compete. A-groove gives him a much needed easier reversal to use in tight situations. he builds meter so fast just by his play style that a random activate isn’t the worst thing ever. it also gives you one more beastly option in his corner mixups. and in the corner, if you activate and see they’re blocking, punch throw them into the corner and throw out the choi chip super- good damage for a blocked random activate. his ground CC does like 9000+ depending on which level 1 super version you get. also, near the corner, you can get a CC off his hcb + k if the opponent was jumping away or something. just super jump towards them, CC, jumping fierces, etc. sure, he still has some trouble matchups, but A-groove helps him in many ways.
A-maki. AA CC, good ground CC, punch throw in the corner into CC (although the timing is a bit more strict than i’d like), and she has a distinct edge against an A-groove opponent because you can use her KKK move to stuff random activates. i’ve found that playing very patient is best because she doesn’t have run or short jump to put on the pressure, and that jump is just too floaty if it’s not setup properly.
i guess A-todo is okay, i just never could use him well because he lacks a good mid-range poke that isn’t a wave. maybe i’m just missing something key with todo.
A-Todo is disgusting. If I know the guy I’m gonna play uses A-Todo and Sak, I say fuck it and play A-groove. Todo destroys K-groove when played correctly…and he’s really strong in general.
I wanna see this korean A-Iori player. I havent seen an A hibiki or A Todo player in forever. I bet people forgot how scary those characters can be.
However!
I don’t see A-Chang, vice and yamazaki offering anything special that they can’t do in other grooves. On that note, I think Ino used A-Chang just cause hes Ino, he’s gotta establish that uniqueness that is him.
I’ve seen BAS play A-Iori a couple of times. Beastly stuff, you can’t really jump him when he has meter otherwise he’ll meet you with an AA CC. Mixup’s scary too, as he can deal around 8k off of a command grab. One of the best things about A-Iori IMO is that he almost always has meter. Battery and user rolled into one, like Aojiru’s A-Guile but much better.
If anyone can upload vids of that Korean A-Iori, much appreciated :wgrin:
@ topic:
Todo, definitely. RC grab gives him waaaay to much to work with once he gets meter, and I don’t really think he has any problems getting that meter. The only problem I have with Todo, like popoblo says, (at least when I’m playing as him) is that he doesn’t seem to have anything to poke with other than RC jab wave. Other than that, it’s all good though… his CC is really solid, and he has quite a number of resets that can leave the opponent hurting.
Edit:
To add to the list, I think Athena has some (if not a lot) of potential as well. RC grab into CC, early anti-air Psycho Sword into CC, RC Psycho Sword into CC, stuff like that.
gay ass rolls, dive kick into cc, crescent kick into cc, anti air cc, decent chip damage, builds meter quick and a good dash. he has it all, although the damage on his CC is slightly low.
A-Iori is beastly, he just has major issues with Bison/Blanka, like N-Iori. He has a bit of a tougher time with Honda also.
GC CC beats all Alpha counters most of the time, but trades every now and then. I think Rolento and Dhalsim might get out for free also, but I don’t remember right now. I don’t fight many Rolento’s (and when I do, I just like to land the OTG CC’s), and zero Dhalsims.
He has great mix-ups. If I land one knockdown, I can legitimately kill off any character with 1-2 more mix-ups.
Defensive style can work, but even in A, I still think Iori needs to be aggresive to be effective. He can just sit there with meter, and most characters really can’t do shit to him, considering he can activate if you’re even in range to block a DP (which clearly has sick range) and lose 50%. Most smart players won’t come to him.
Plus you have to be pretty aggressive to build the meter in the first place.
RC Ball is annoying, but it’s not THAT bad. The real problem with fighting Blanka is getting in. If you have a Blanka that knows how to fight Iori (ie. not throwing out low fierce EVER, countering RC Rekka with j. RH, looking intently for rolls), it’s a real bitch. RC Ball on wake-up is pretty good against Iori.
For those that don’t know me, my team is A-Iori/Hibiki/Blanka or Bison depending…
A-Hibiki is sick too. I understand why people don’t use her, just because Bison is still such a better choice in the middle, but Hibiki has a lot of shit that people don’t know how to deal with. That’s part of the reason I use the team I do, is because most people just don’t know how to fight it. I took it to 17th place in my first Evo… so that’s cool I guess. I doubt anyone saw me play though, since I pretty much played zero casuals all weekend.
Anyway, A-Hibiki is good as shit… just certain match-ups are fucking horrible. Vega/Cammy namely. A lot of people say Bison is bad for her, but I don’t have much trouble beating most Bisons.
I do have trouble against P/K though.
shhhhh…
EDIT- I also think A-Hibiki rapes C-Groove. Like… C-Anybody. C-Cammy is still a bitch, but you never see her. Vega becomes easier to deal with since he loses safe fall, and is more open to Hibiki’s wake-up bullshit. I guess Rolento can still cause issues too probably, but anyone else… I don’t see the threat.
I regularly play a maki, beni, chang, think theyre all decent. In the same category, I’d add a-Sim.
Of course akyo and aiori, they are chars that Id place over this tier of midlevel a groove chars.
Todo above kyo and iori, because he has their same a-specialized functions, easy combo into high damaging custom. He’s great.
Below the chars I listed, Id start throwing chars like Nak, Vice, Yama. They are playable in A groove, but not so special.
Oh A Joe, about as good as a-maki.
I also stand by the fact Achang is about as good as Ahonda. Honda as a character is better overall, but their agroove incarnations, theyre about even. Achang has some shit yo, Ahonda, not a lot of shit yo. Without super and AC’s at will he’s not as good imo.
AHibiki, personally, I think its worse fighting C Vega than A Vega, because when he can jump around and air throw and air block it gets even more difficult to anti air him. I could care less about vega safe falling, it doesnt really happen that I get a knockdown that he can safe fall too advantageously, and if so, whatever, Ima keep grindin. But, for ALL of her bad fights, fighting with a meter, imo, brings them to even. And she can combo into custom, do good damage outside of custom, so I save the custom for a the kill or neigh-kill and always put her in slot 2, and now I dont fear any more mismatches.
I mean her mismatches really arent that bad anyway, compared to her best matches. Consider this, if you consider, say, vega a mismatch for hibiki, and Ablanka and Csagat more advantageous for the obvious reasons, I’d have to ask you to play Ahibiki for a while, because in my experience its a lot easier to just lose (off one whiff or misplaced AA or something) to the good characters anyway. At least vega has to hit you a hundred times to dizzy you, and cammy has mostly linear attack patterns which I find easier to escape. Even in a fight like Honda, where people assume she does so well because she gets free slash on blocked headbutt and can just slash him up, really, a good honda can knock her down with a well placed RC through a poke and get the business started.
I think A yun is garbage, dude does no damage and has shit normals. I think Cyun or no yun.
A-Yama and A-Vice are trash. Please don’t bring up this “oh they have potential because blah blah blah”…They don’t.
Vice has a sick custom which you can only pull off if you’re a robot or have a programmable joystick.
And A-Yama is just pure trash. I remember seeing some japanese player doing a ghetto custom with him something like cr.mk into knife x 5 or something and it was just like %20 damage.
A-Akuma I think has some potential, and maybe A-Chang.
Wow. You call A yama and A vice trash then go about saying how A Akuma and A Chang have potential. Akumas custom does awful damage and chang gets beaten very very easily.
First off, vice has a custom that does about 8k i think if you can do it right - it involves stand fierce and cr fierce and ends in the super.
Yamas also does about 7k i think full screen and isnt very difficult. That video your talking about is from like 2k1.