I think Hawk is better than Blanka too, haha. Maybe not overall matchups, but I think he’s a better tournament character because I think he does better vs. the top characters.
I think Blanka is clearly better than characters like Fuerte, Gouken, and Rose though because they have nothing going for them for the most part.
Like what does rose have other than reflects/absorbs?
I actually use rose as a secondary lol you know my other friends from SC and tekken laugh at me because I tend to make low tier look much stronger and I thought I gotten out of the curse wih blanka but apparently not…
Anyways rose’s ultra 2 does give her a type of offense/defense that is extremely unique despite the fact it doesn’t do tremendous damage but it can lead to decent damage and can turn the tide of the game if 1) your opponent tries to run away from you and loses position and might still end up gettin hit or 2) they try to beat it get themselves hurt 3) they try to stay calm and block it but since focus range is larger than the orbs there’s a threat when you see me barging up paired with a great dash it does give some sort of pressure 4) unique crossups
outside of ultra she’s got one of the best dashes
Got the best anti low moves close s.mk
above average anti air options
One of the best throw games with and without her unique Kara throws
Finally her spirals if used correctly are extremely safe
obviously she’s got tons of flaws but look at how far luffy got to… Yes I know back in super she had a much better u2 but he didn’t get there only relying on that
-LAU
i think too Rose is not weak, watch french player with her : Louffy086.
Where is he in AE? He’s not being dominant like before. He’s been using other characters too now. If arguably the best rose player is shying away from her, there might be an issue yes?
Rose in vanilla had an ultra trap and a super trap, she also had a buff f.hk. She also had a developing unblockable game.
in Super Rose still had the super trap, and u2 was a awesome.
In AE they nerfed her for not a lot of reasons.
Her backdash is good, but a lot of option selects will hit both her backdash and counterhit ex drill(blanka can do this with st.strong if you do a slower safejump)
I don’t think her AA’s are above average at all. cr.fierce is good, but soul throw is easily substandard. She also lacks a good far range anti air so you can empty jump outside of cr.fierce range easily.
Her throw game is nice, but it doesn’t really lead to anything. Like you don’t get a good mixup off of it really.
Her only good frame trap is off of slide, this means that you have to space the slide, then just hope your opponent is cr.tech happy.
She’s just not a scary character. Her super is great though.
Hey guys ultra david as always felt this way. I’ve talked to him and played him online a bunch and he just isn’t a fan of blanka. The points he makes regarding the character are all correct. I also think blanka is a pretty weak character. Beating someone with blanka doesn’t mean that the character is better it just means that you’re a strong player. We have guys here that play blanka well but they are good players… i used to be a really strong rog before i played blanka i’m a solid player. Blanka is REALLY weak in AE. It’s just how it is. If you choose to play him then do so understanding he’s not good at all. Mid levels you will win just based on the fact that no one at those levels knows how to play vs blanka. High levels people know what to do and it’s so hard to get top 8 at a major when you’re gonna face 5 rounds of top players playing characters that you have a bad matchup vs…
If anyone places high with blanka it’s a result of them being absolutely godlike and not because blanka is good.
@Veserius, you’re probably right, but Rose doesn’t receive any good buffs in AE 2012 ? Luffy play other characters, really ? I didn’t know that…
About Blanka, i don’t really think he’s weak, people just don’t know him and how to play him, he is medium for me, not too bad, not too good.
Against good players who know the match up, you need to play the real Blanka with footsies, and not a rushdown style with unsafe stuff.
Maybe i’m wrong but this is my standpoint.
But i have a problem with Blanka, to evaluate him when i play with friends who don’t know the match up, and after vs good players, i feel like : “it’s the same game ? what I was doing before was for naught damn…” Lol, very weird sensation about you and your game…
Blanka is mid tier IMO, not low, not high. Although I take it as a compliment when people say he is so low really, afterall, we have found a way to win with him.
He is all about adapting and finding a way to win/survive, like you would have to do it you were in say…a jungle or something…lol.
He is clearly weaker. He does no damage, he has terrible blockstring options, he has a weak throw game, his reversals are above average at best.
The only thing he has is an excellent AA game and REALLY good normals. Compare him to someone like say Balrog who’s still pretty average in AE. Balrog has just as good if not better normals, far better blockstrings, better throw game, does average/above average damage, but terrible reversals. The one good thing about blanka is that people like to fight and he’s one of the hardest characters to get in on. Borderline impossible if you really are a good blanka. That coupled with matchup knowledge you can turn blanka from low tier to mid area tier. He’s weak though… i put him on the same level as guy… Thankfully in AE the difference in tier isn’t ultra terrible like other fighters can be.
For me, his strenghts don’t make him weak :
His footsies, i mean his mobility, his quick walkspeed and movement options like the hop, balls etc… and like you said, his normals and his AA, his jump are great and have good priorities, it’s very hard to AA him unless you have a DP or an excellent normal AA.
His wake up game is very good with a lot of mix ups, Blanka can really rushdown when his opponent is knock down.
You said he has a poor damage output, it’s true but he has one of the most powerful super in the game, and certain pokes that do a lot of damages like the stand hp.
His Ultra 1, very powerful, fast start up, good for punish everything in close range, and can be hit confirm with his crouch MK for example, and also good don’t forget the ambiguous Ultra crossup and a lot of cheap damage, so one of the best ultra in the game IMO.
His crouching hitbox is also a great strenght.
His “arsenal” anti fireballs (slide, ex balls, coward crouch, U2 etc…) is also great.
And for the blockstring options, you have the electricity for that, after a +10 for example, you can poking your opponent, this is not a true blockstring ?
I really don’t feel him so weak with strenghts like that.
I like pie with vanilla ice cream on it.
maybe it’s like what foxisquick said… the difference in tiers isn’t ultra terrible like other fighters… so i don’t feel the tier difference compared to some of the other games i’ve played…
also everybody keeps mentioning how blanka in AE is worse… i seriously think he’s better… one reason of the few reasons is the NEW ex rainbow… I know many of you think it’s a nerf… but I dunno how you guys use it… but i mainly use it as a reversal… and pretty much everybody i’ve played complained to me that they couldn’t block it … and during those times they do block it… maybe 1/10 times i can feel ‘i messed up’ otherwise i HONESTLY think it’s an unblockable… why does this matter? Let’s hypothetically the way i use the ex rainbow is an unblockable all the time… and since it’s reversal you can’t even focus it… there’s ways to beat it but the point isn’t to list out every single method. Once you have that unblockable option it should make your prior other defensive options much easier to use…
I dunno what i’m missing here but I hardly ever hear any other blanka players mentioning about this… and to me it makes SOOOOO much difference to my game before and now… long story short… i don’t feel as pressured as before when i get knocked down or pressure by some retardedly aggressive character on the offensive blockstring/mixup.
What did blanka player lose in AE vs. super/vanilla? block on ball… oh nooooooo… but seriously any veteran blanka player shouldn’t even be relying on blocked ball anyways. Yes I do think there’s some match up before was a bit easier with it… but you shouldn’t be winning with it.
Ves:
I kinda wanna continue talking about rose, but it is a blanka forum and rose is only my secondary so I’ll just leave it at where you left off.
-LAU
I think too the Ex Backstep Ball is a real buff in AE, i have many tricks with it too but you know, good players will beat that stuff with an OS on your wake up at the end of invincible frames, or beat it in the air also… so, this is not awesome, but yes, this is much better than the old version i agree.
Ex backstep roll is great vs. people who don’t know that you can option select it.
People should be getting in your face on knockdowns and hitting buttons, or they should be corpse hopping you.
I think Blanka is lower middle tier. I don’t think he’s bottom 3 in a game where characters like Gouken and Fuerte exists, but he’s obviously not a strong character. Like you have to literally just throw out reality to not see that. Play against a good player and watch how they exploit your weaknesses. Play the mirror vs. a strong Blanka player.
@foxisquick I think Blanka’s throw game is underrated because his kara throw is underutilized and you can catch crouch techs for the kara throw with ch low forward hit confirm to sweep.
@TheMeth90 Blanka actually doesn’t walk particularly fast for a charge character, the only charge character that walks slower than Blanka is Honda. Blanka’s damage is bad because he can’t really convert into more than 220 damage on the ground without ultra/super, and half full ultra from 3 cr.shorts only does 299 damage.
@Lau-hk Unblockable rainbow is certainly doable. I have lk rainbow setups on both rufus and abel that can’t be standing blocked. The loss of ball’s complementing Blanka’s footsies has really hurt certain matchups. Ken, Ryu, Gief. You can feel it in these matchups. Ken especially.
I’m not sure most people understand how bad the hop nerf is. Blanka used to have a mixup off of a blocked focus if you dashed forward. This was that his hop beat stand techs, throw beat cr.techs that weren’t delayed, and that low forward/st.strong beat delayed crouch techs, now your opponent should pretty much stand tech every blocked lvl2 focus dash forward, or dp you. It’s also much harder to escape the corner now. I don’t know if people weren’t using hop in situations like this, but it really mattered because being able to hop through a grab attempt and punish and switch sides in the corner was a big deal.
The HP ball hitbox nerf which makes comboing to super more strict is a big nerf. It’s just a dumb thing to change.
I can go on and on about how Blanka isn’t a strong character and how he’s worse off in AE, but people won’t listen.
I think Blanka is designed to be a bad character now, but through some luck of hitboxes and such he beats certain characters, some of them very decisively(hawk, gouken). The problem is when you lay his tools out on the table you realize they collectively don’t add up to something solid.
Yes, the hop nerf is bad, and the hitbox ball too but i think each character has weakness… Chun-li has poor AA and all of his combos are chara spe, Guile has nothing to escape from the corner and is more free than Blanka if he is knock down, Claw is also free and has a poor damage output too etc…
Personally, i didn’t use too much the hop in SSFIV, even after a focus lvl 2, i use more it in a knock down opponent, so the nerf don’t hurt me too much in my game…
Chun’s aa isn’t bad, it’s just bad vs. divekicks. Try jumping at a good chun, haha.
Blanka’s combos are also character specific.
Guile has a legitimate FADCable reversal. It’s not the best one, but at least it gives people some pause. People try to get hit by ex upball because it’s a confirm to combo.
Claw does great damage off of his jumpins(much more than blanka sans super/ultra) and his footsie damage is also higher. cr.mp xx ex barcelona, cr.mk, cr.mp xx ex barcelona, and st.lk, cr.lp, cr.mp are all in line or better than what blanka does damage wise in footsies, and this is ignoring cosmic heel, and his better overhead.
The hop nerf might not have hurt your game, but I think if you were playing optimally it should have hurt your game, same with the ball nerf.
Yes, i didn’t know for the mixup with the focus lvl 2 because i didn’t know Blanka come out so fast of the ground in old version ah ah, I knew that when it was nerf lol.
You seems to have a better knowledge of the game than me, so ok, good answer.
I want a real tier list in AE 2012 with Blanka in the lows, and maybe, people will complain less about him lol !
It’s not really like hard to know knowledge. Like Claw’s damage, just do a claw combo, he hits hard, he just doesn’t land a lot of hits. and his mixup isn’t left/right or high/low generally, it’s karathrow/whatever normal/cosmic heel
Yes… OS beats ex rainbow for free… i’m not disagreeing with you… but reversal can be done not just during wakeup… it can be done after block… which is much harder to set the type of OS that beats ex rainbow.
all i’m saying is… ex rainbow makes his other defensive options a bit easier… because they gotta worry about beating your ex rainbow… they might not be able to beat your ex upball at the same time AND punish on landing… (lets not talk about corners… that’s a totally different issue)… anything predictable = easier to beat compared to when you really have to guess… that’s all.
as for hop nerf… i didn’t use hop nearly as much before (because i wasn’t good enough back then)… so to me i don’t notice the difference yet…
i do agree that blanka ball is a stupid nerf… and fucking up a combo sucks… but i pretty much use electricity for most of my combos unless I wanna land a super… or if i’m using it as s.LPxxHP ball punish so… it’s quite rare i fuck up my combos… (super combos aren’t exactly that common and it’s pretty hard to fuck up your s.LPxxBall combo unless you mess up your LP timing)
electricity combos are in general better in every way… you get more damage, knockdown and more stun (yes… more stun… simply because they are knocked down their stun meter isn’t ‘going down’ and it’s not hard to get in and continue your offense after the knockdown… compared to ball… after you hit… you get negative frames and during that time they are recovering from stun)
-LAU
Yea that is true about elec, but ball combos are getting a major upgrade in 2012
i don’t think it’s gonna change much in 2012… ball knocking down… is great… but electricity will probably still have advantage on wakeup…
unless after FADC you can do electricity but chances are i think you can only do slide… at most. and i’m not sure if i will be willing to spend 2 or 3 bars for that extra not even 100 damage.
-LAU