ugh…red focus…i can’t even handle normal focuses…yeah, ex SHC breaks armour. graplers will be harder, especially abel…once he’s in…he’s in for good…
i can’t find any uses for those double ultra’s, but right now, i’m thinking of how scary other people are if they have both ultra’s on vega. especially ones that can punish accidental wall dives
That’s exactly the point : red focus won’t be useful for characters who already have broken fast focuses. We were already forced to stop our strings against those. But for slow focuses… getting out of double hitting moves such as Abels sHP or overhead could be appreciable.
Still, it will depend a lot on precise modalities of this focus : several hits, but from several attacks as well ? Release time ? Charge time ? Crumple ? I can remember very spectacular use of double armored moves already (Guy’s EX run for instance). =)
I do remember reading someone complaining about having to spend one bar to beat mirror match FBA spammers. U1 punish while keeping U2 possibility, how would that sound for that someone ? 
oh thats different! he will switch sides and i’ll lose charge!
Hmmm. That’s right. ^^
Red focus is the worst idea Capcom came up with other than putting El Fuerte in the game. Any random ex.fba means death now. If our roll is blocked, its also death. So the only block pressure we have, lproll is dead. Even if we find a use for it, it doesnt change how bad an idea it is. I hope it costs the whole super meter. Or a bar disappears for every hit you absorb. I don’t know, I hated this.
It costs two bars.
Don’t let the emotion get the best of you, GI. A lot of character’s would rather DP FADC those strings than use red focus, specially top tiers. I don’t see a ryu player giving up DP FADC for this.
However, characters with shitty reversal and little meter use could greatly benefit from it. Even more if their focus is slow. Just think about it, it’s a perfect answer for :
— Frame-trap pressure : ryu’s corner cMK EX Hado pressure into ultra, Cody’s endless strings, Dictator’s spam scissors, chun-li ever positive strings, etc. etc.
— Ambiguous cross-ups. What if you could focus Ibuki’s Kunaï AND first jab ?
So instead of having answers only against throws (ST), we could now answer to frame-traps as well. Dhalsim and Claw may be the two characters whose defense would benefit the most from it. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense, specially considering the meter cost. =)
But lets also keep in mind that we’ll still be taking damage during that red focus, and during the scenarios you just mentioned, the claw will inevitably pop off. Here’s to hoping we can crumple pick claw back up and continue the punish. Otherwise, it’s “Yay a punish for baby damage”. And to do any decent damage on punish, with or without the claw we need meter. Using that meter to get to the punish is still risky. So it will add another level of strategy to the already complex playstyle of Vega. I’m not saying it’s inherently bad, I just need to see it in real combat/try it myself before I can call it a benefit or waste of meter.
red focusing ambiguous crossups are a bad idea. she might land at your back side and well…gg
I don’t see in what aspect. The advantage of red focus being that it won’t be broken by a cLP/DP on landing, so that you can see which side she lands before deciding which side to dash cancel. Only grab would beat it, which would require she to change from standard hitconfirm. =)
Btw they said they’ve removed the unblockables, which is great news regarding fair-play. =)
yeah i guess that’s true, but it’s also an advantage to the other player. flashing red is way more easy to react to just like an ex move. once they see you flash red, instant armour breaking move or grab. dashing takes ~20 frames for most characters, plus the additional frames of absorbing moves and the defender needing to think which way to dash, the attacker has loads of time to find a solution since human reactions is ~23-25 frames. i rather save my meter and just hope i can block. at least i KNOW i can block this time, haha. since ibuki’s normal neckbreaker is reveralable, she can’t be mindless anymore…unless she has setups against people that don’t tech…dammit…
Yeah, neckbreaker will be a soft knockdown, so there will be a way out. If they’ve fixed the others unblockables, the game will really improve. Having to face an unblockable with a 900 stun character really wasn’t fair-play. =D
If red focus is faster than regular focus say goodbye to all of Vega’s poke
pressure. (The rumor I heard).
FBA and RCF are pretty much dead unless they become armor breaking…
If it was faster it would mean characters such as Ryu, E.Ryu or Fei long could get crumples out of normal EX cancels. I don’t see that happening, specially considering their focus speed is already near from broken. =)
The fastest focus in the game is Blanka’s.
Fei, Gen, Ryu, E. Ryu and a lof of other characters share the same 18+11 startup.
The difference is that the first frame of Fei’s focus have a lot of range, while the first frame of Blanka’s is pathetic short… but damn, that thing can crumple through our stLK if frame perfect. All the others that share the 18+11 startup can only crumple crLP. Ken, on another hand, with his 18+12 startup cannot crumple our crLP by any means.
What do characters lose to compensate for the multiple hit absorbs with the red focus attack? EX bars?
Or is this red focus just a free, all you can use move; with no drawbacks other than being grabbed out of it or to have it armor broken?
If so, RCF (and anything > RCF) is dead in the water.
looks like it uses 2 ex bars based on the pictures supplied by Capcom. it’s almost like giving everyone a safer version of a dp fadc to get in on some characters. it can also be baited easier as well.
I like the comparison. Though in fact, it would be a sort of DP FADC without throw invincibility. In other words, an answer for frame-traps which will still work when cornered, provided they aren’t armor break. =)
I still think it will greatly compliment claw’s defense, as frame-traps are the one thing he doesn’t have answer once cornered, specially the ones moving the opponent forward. =)
Thing is, that shit will, most likely, still have a of of startup frames that doesnt have armor. Which means that the counter hit manace is by far not gone.
with tight frame traps no, but at least you still have kara throw tech if their frame traps are equal to more than 4 frames :D. unless they’re dive kicks characters…ugh, corner pressures…the worst…
Good point. Depends a lot on the tuning they will do on location test I suppose. Still most of the time, players do prefer to block rather than trying to counterhit during release, as risk/reward against a crumple isn’t that good. As you said it yourself, it’s only 11 frames long on most of the cast…