The sad part of being a Cody player is that he’s the character who have the most hate from scrubs, and I’m afraid they are listening to them.
Well. I think Cody don’t need a better back walkspeed, he’s a rushdown character and have to move foward and this is what the devs think, that’s the why they never buff his defensive game, the changes I think he needs are:
Full projectile invencibility on Ex Ruffian
Better hitbox on st.MK
HK Ruffian hitting crouching opponents
st.MP special cancelable
Reduce the recovery from fake stones
Don’t lose the knife when doing a tech throw, throwing and with the focus atk
If the first hit of the wrench in U2 doesn’t hit, he’ll stop. Preventing being punished by landing U2 on juggle
The truth is, cody is not type that gives you a false sense of protection with a invencible reversal or let you keep spamming projectles the entire fight, besides, i dont want any of that. I just wanted:
HK Ruffian hitting crouching so i could FADC Ultra 1 better
St.mk better hitbox so i can stuff bad spaced crouching shoto mk, or at least trade with them
Give more viable ways to utilize lp bad stone with its +4 frame advantage on block, right now i only use it in the corner, this after putting a lot of mind game.
-If i could get something abusable i would wish that close hardpunch comboing with Ex bad stone, without conter hit.
Something to make lk ruffian kick a viable poke tool
Ulra 2 Full conect
Normal Zonk throw invincible or at least giving better hitbox on the ex version because some normals like dhalsin sweep can stuff it
Actually, you can space st.mk so that it will always beat a shoto cr.mk, except for E.Ryu’s. So that’s fine.
If st.mp would be cancellable, it would be broken, seriously. That would be the best normal in the game. They’d have to decrease start-up/range in that case.
I definitely want fake stone to have less recovery. I have been hit many times with wake-up ultras when I’ve tried to bait them with fake stone.
The U2 ultra dropping is so stupid. You should really be able to use that against focus spammers.
The HK Ruffian hitting crouching opponents feels a bit too easy to get U1. You can still get it from a cr.lp cl.mp cr.hp, so I’m not in favor of that.
Did anyone see Kingblacktoof vídeo mod on cody changes?
Crounch medium kick and the backdash buffs looks too good to be true. The knife thrw, zonk fadc and Super correction are useless. The ex criminal upper is doomed and the bad stone i really dont get since i only care for the frame advantage. The ultra 2 range is useless too since cody cannot hit with the wrench at max distance.
I only use fake bad stones to bait at a safe distance, never used point blank. About HK ruffian, dude, is very hard to say something is too easy for cody.
I was just comparing with other characters, Makoto’s st.MP is godlike and special cancelable, but she needs this because of her walkspeed (besides her godlike dash and ability to maintain pressure).
Some shotos st.MP are special cancelable, but don’t have a good hitbox as Cody’s st.MP, but they have other good normals and a good walkspeed, and comparing with Ken’s st.MP, he have so much advantage that he can link on his sweep.
What I’m sayin is, if you don’t have a good walkspeed you need good normals, and I’m don’t think they’ll buff his walkspeed. And I think a tweak on st.MP hitbox in exchange of being special cancelable is a good trade.
And about HK ruffian hittin’ crouch characters, I think that wouldn’t be necessary anymore if the Zonk FADCable could be combo’ed.
It was just an idea, because everyone here is saying he’s too weak, because I’m happy with him the way he is. On the neutral game I’d like to take some risks and read my opponent using Crack Kick to beat lows or Zonk to beat highs, with these changes they are so much safe and spammable lol! And the changes on cr.MK, if they change the adv on hit too (doesn’t make any sense being -2 on block and -3 on hit) and make it linkable on cr.LK on CH when used at the max distance would be fine.
honestly cl hp and cr hp both force stand and most fadc to ultra combos that are worth it involve fiercies, hk ruffin AAs, or ex zonk.
the only relevent combos i can find that dont work are cr lp, cr lp, cr mp and f +mp, cr mp/lp/lk. for the few matchups u1 is actually good i dont consider it a big deal.
The main reason you pick u1 is so you can ruffian fadc dive kick chars or ex zonk fadc adon’s jag kicks otherwise U2 all the way.
there are more important buffs than ruffian hitting crouchers [in my opinion, although i would welcome it]
Ruffian being faster startup. Ruffian being faster recovery. Ruffian having a better hurtbox/hitbox. Any one of those would be significantly more useful IMO than Ruffian hitting crouching opponents. Hell, even if they made Ruffian ABLE to hit crouching opponents it’d still whiff on a number of characters like Cammy/Sakura/Honda/Blanka/ect due to the hitbox position alone.
I just dont use Ultra 2 because i dont know the link with cl.mp. Ruffian FADC on dive kick chars are very umpredictable, most of the time they fly far beyond cody´s hand after the FADC. Well, if in the end the normal zonk FADC connects with ultra 1 its another story.
I do like the knife, i use it a lot against zangief and thouse shoto who likes to stay crouching.
You can also link U2 from max range F+MP. Counterhit sHP. Counterhit F+MP. Counterhit sMP. Counterhit crHP. LP Badstone. EX Badstone. Counterhit sHP - EX Badstone - Ultra 2 does a pretty damn good amount of damage.
Cody’s U2 is surprisingly easy to combo into in specific situations. 7F startup is fairly fast for an ultra.
@Luis_Lopes_AC When I’ve been hit by it, I’ve stood at the max distance of Sagat U1, so maybe half screen away. It was obviously done too late, but it still felt really stupid to be hit with a wake-up ultra from half screen because of a fake rock.
My real problem is against people who neither stick some skin to get frametraped or, when i alternate to throw them, they tech it like some psichic. I do know that there is a OS for that but de guy doing it a entire fight and not get throw or countered makes me real frustrated. Fake rocks doesnt work on guys like that because they stuck their ass on the ground forever just waiting. I do know that cody packs real firepower, feels like a real bad ass brawler in every sense of the word,theres nothing better than when you hit a close.Hardpunch (counterhit) – crounch hardpunch, however, when i met some flat footed scrub i find myself thinking “how much rewarding is to be so coward and Capcom gives more tools for that” and " i will never backdown like that". If capcom made the knife a more viable tool because the chip, i think it would be a solution against turtles without being abusable, we could even talk about a “two style character” lol.
Let me just explain IMO from a design perspective what Cody’s knife does, as well as where it falters.
Cody’s knife is essentially a stance change like Gen but never available on demand like Gen’s. At any moment Gen is able to switch from one stance to the other to gain the advantages of his alternate stance’s strengths (Better walk speed, different jump arcs, different normals, different focus attacks, different specials.)
Cody’s knife is a lot more like Gen’s stance change than it is like Vega’s claw or Hakan’s Oil. Things like Vega’s claw or Hakan’s oil fall more into the category of “power ups” like Yun/Yang’s Super or Juri’s U1. They take the existing move set and simply make them better / give them new properties. Having Vega’s claw is ALWAYS straight up better than not having it. Hakan being oiled is a core part of his strength and completely alters how he functions as a whole but the move themselves are the same, it’s just better properties.
Cody’s knife however removes access to many of Cody’s attacks. He loses badstone, he loses all of his standard punch attacks, he loses 2 of his command normals. This is more of a sideways change than a straight buff. Rather than simply taking Cody and making his existing moves better, it takes Cody and removes some moves and gives him completely different moves that can’t be really compared. More like the difference between Gen’s Mantis and Crane stance.
Here comes the issue though, not only does Cody not have the ability to switch into “Knife Stance” at whim like Gen, he loses the knife based on things out of his control (being hit, teching a throw) and loses access to core system mechanics (throws / focus attack / focus cancel) things not tied to his knife in any way but rather core parts of the game. On top of that, Cody is one of the slowest characters in the game and the knife can only be accessed by going to it’s location on the stage and potentially making yourself predictable in your movement.
That is issues with the knife from a design before we even get into the actual way the knife functions once you have it!
The knife, isn’t strictly better. As a matter of fact, in many ways it is worse. Cody loses access to many important options such as his ability to do high damage whiff punishes (crHP - criminal upper or crMP - LK Ruffian or F+MP - crMP - whatever) as some of his normals are not only slower, and offer less frame advantage, but also NONE of his knife normals are special cancelable. Not having a special cancelable punch attack whatsoever is a big deal once you realize, Cody’s only special cancelable kick attacks are his close MK and crLK. His close MK can’t even be hit confirmed into as 2jabs and you are out of range for close normals and Cody doesn’t have F+MP anymore either.
This means Cody must rely on his crLK for special canceling which means he loses the ability to combo into a large number of attacks. He can’t combo into EX Zonk or any zonk, he can’t combo into LK Ruffian, he also scales any combo by 10% additional damage that wouldn’t have been needed if he could have special canceled the normal he hit with.
Then we come to the issue of frame advantage. Cody has no way to combo into crHP or crMP except another crHP, that is a pretty big deal given their 7F startup.
Lastly as a raw poke tool (which it could be good for) it has larger hurtboxes than his other pokes. While the hitboxes are also significantly larger in most cases his hurtboxes are also larger making them more prone to trade which in turn causes him to lose the knife. As a tool to get people scared to block it isn’t particularly effective either as the chip damage is fairly low 5chip damage on a light 8on a mid and 10 on a heavy attack is nothing. Cody’s EX Badstone alone does 29 chip damage, that is 3 heavy attacks blocked or 6 lights. LP Criminal Upper is 35chip damage.
Also knife throw is too slow to ever be useful given it loses to projectiles and pokes. It’ll only be really useful vs Sagat and maybe a couple characters with no fireball of their own that Cody can take advantage of the blockstun frame advantage being much better than badstone so he can use it as like a meaty.
I’ve been saying this for a while - nice to see someone agree with me! I don’t mind the mechanic of picking the knife up, but the fact that it’s a nightmare to hold on to is just plain stupid. Everyone mentions teching, throwing and focusing, but I’d like to see him keep the knife if he ends the round holding it (or possibly have to press some button combination post-KO/pre-round start if you want to drop it). Maybe even go so far as to be able to switch between knife/no knife even after you’ve picked it up. If you’re applying pressure and the opponent is just down-backing/teching all day, it would be so sweet to be able to draw the knife and get to work chipping them down a bit
Basically the only time you should ever drop it is if you take damage, throw it, or deliberately drop it should such a command become available.
Just sharing my thoughts on some of what you said.
The knife is a footsie tool, imo, and strictly a footsie tool. It is a raw poke tool. Great for keep away (against Hawk for example) and great for completely outclassing an opponent in footsies (Dudley). Knife st. MP is his best poke in the game, knife or not. Great for whiff punishing, decent damage, long range, hard to whiff punish, good frames. It isn’t for combos. It’s for winning the neutral game. Once you’re in, even if you can get some good frame trap work going with Cody’s knife, you should drop it and use your normal pressure unless you need chip. Cody has great combo options as it is. He doesn’t need more combo options.
Even if they made Cody’s knife like Gen’s stance, it still wouldn’t be applicable to every match. Just like every footsie tool isn’t applicable in every match. You’re not gonna whip out the knife vs Sagat or a fireball happy Ryu. You’re gonna use the knife in matches where you are battling for space and are forced to play footsies…Fei…Chun…Dudley…Makoto…Zangief…
Yes, you lose stuff like F+MP and B+MP as a footsie tool and an anti-air (respectively). But you gain st. MP, cr. HP, cr. MP, st. LP as pokes, and you still have great anti-airs available to you (st. HK, HK Ruffian, cr. MK and cr. HP). And, there has to be some negative to switching to a new set of normals. It can’t all be good, or it’d be derpy.
Also, I can’t say I ever really combo into EX Zonk or Regular Zonk to begin with. There’s simply no reason to outside of flash.
I’d just rather see Capcom focus on making it an even better footsie tool that Cody can lose, but not at the drop of a hat. I’m okay with Cody losing the knife if he throws. I don’t agree with him losing it for a tech. I’m okay with him losing it when he’s knocked down, but not when he’s hit. He shouldn’t lose it when he focuses.
And considering Capcom is giving knock down set-ups and vortexes a beating in USFIV, a better mid-range game is what Cody is going to need to compete with the buffs others are getting.
