I think you’re looking at the knife wrong personally. It’s not meant for combos. As Ramma stated above, it’s a “footsie” tool. It’s basically there to help keep people in check, help out footsies/poke wars when cody’s jab or other normals don’t cut it, and it’s there to scare opponents when they’re taking chip from knife normals. Even if the chip is small, it’ll add up if you’re putting pressure on them and actually whiff punishing normals with the knife. Once they realize they have to be careful, you get in and you pester them with st.lp and st.mp. if you get a fat punish, then go for the cr.HP combos. (cr.HP>cr.HP>st.MP does like 300 alone. close to 400 off a j.HP starter.)
on another note, I played Cody in Ultra at NEC and personally right now he feels overall the same. I’m sure backdash did get a small buff (visually doesn’t look different but I think it’s good enough to actually bait DPs fully instead of getting caught at the tail end of a DP.), crack kick is airborne and does corpse hop, and slide (cr.mk) felt more abusable seeing it wasn’t nearly as bad on block. Someone asked me on twitter to see if you could get a combo off slide but I tried and didn’t get anything. (tried spacing it as much as possible and never got a CH with it to see if it worked then.) EX criminal upper being strike invincible until it comes out is good and I’ve found myself doing more wakeup EX upper rather than blocking just to test it out. Honestly if they address the knife issue with whiff throw/tech throw/focus/taunt/super/ultra/etc and maybe a few other small tweaks (like giving him something else besides FADC on regular zonk), Cody will be alright.
Here is the issue though, as I mentioned in regards to footsies.
When Cody picks up the knife he is losing far more than he is gaining. It replaces specific moves with different moves.
sLP - He loses close LP anti air, one of his better AAs for dealing with dive kicks. Not a huge deal
far LP - loses a 3F normal that is special cancelable for a 4F normal that does more damage has more active frames and reaches slightly farther but has a much smaller hitbox and bigger hurtbox and is not special cancelable. About even, slightly against the knife but close.
sMP - Losing this is is a big deal, it’s his best normal by far. It’s only 6F startup which is only slightly below average. It has a large hitbox that goes well past the hurtbox. It is +4F on block +7F on hit (his only +7F normal) and is special cancelable.
Far MP - One of his longest reaching normals, decently good poke with one of his best hitbox vs hurtbox ratios and does a solid 90 damage.
MP With Knife - 6F startup, hits twice, does 80 damage. LARGE hitbox. Equally Large hurtbox. 0F on block. As far as raw footsie normals go, this is an amazing button. Sad it does less damage than far MP without knife but overall it is def one of his best moves overall with or without the knife. Point for Knife.
sHP - His 2nd most important frame trap normal. For pure footsies though losing this isn’t a huge deal as it’s a proximity required normal and it can’t really anti air.
Far HP - One of his better anti air buttons. The hitbox is exemplary for dealing with jumpins and is ok as just a raw poke though it can be crouched by a lot of the cast. Has 4F active
HP With knife - Hurtbox is HUGE, can’t really use it as an anti air the same way as you could far HP. Does the same damage as far HP (120) and has 1F less active frames. Def better without the knife.
crLP - One of his best moves. His crLP hitbox is way better than his crLP with knife hitbox. It is also faster to recover, has WAY more frame advantage (+2 on block +6 on hit vs crLP with knife’s 0F on block 3F on hit.) and is special cancelable to boot. Doing crLP buffered to MK Ruffian is one of Cody’s most effective and important footsie moves.
crLP with knife - 3F startup gives Cody his only chainable 3F light he can do up close. It has great damage at 40 damage for a jab. Great reach (still not the farthest, actually out reached by several characters such as Honda/Vega/Balrog but overall great.) can’t be used as an anti air due to the lower position of the hitbox. Hitbox is MUCH smaller than crLP without knife. Also cannot be special canceled. Point goes to without knife
crMP - one of Cody’s better pokes. 5F startup, great reach, special cancelable, hitbox goes well past hurtbox and can even be used as an anti air in some situations. Is+1F on block +4F on hit. Overall great button, especially against Rufus or other dive kickers when combined with crouch tech.
crMP with knife - Amazing reach, seriously it’s incredibly far. Other than that it’s mediocre. 7F startup, -2F on block +1 on hit, can’t be special canceled, hurtbox is huge, hitbox is decent but not amazing. Decent poke but has far less utility AS a poke than Cody’s crMP without knife. About equal, very different in where they are useful with crMP overall more useful but the reach on crMP with knife is just amazing.
crHP - 7F startup, 3F active 16F recovery. -1F on block +4F on hit. Has a pretty great hitbox on it and can even be used as an anti air on the last active frame. Special cancelable. Being special cancelable and 100 damage this is one of Cody’s best whiff punish normals as he is able to do A LOT of damage even from a far range by doing crHP - HP Criminal Upper or crHP - HK Ruffian - FADC - F+HK - EX CU. A good button but def risky with it’s 16F recovery.
crHP with knife - 7F startup 4F active 12F recovery +2F on block +7F on hit. His 2nd best knife normal after sMP. The frame advantage on it is incredible. It does 120 damage. The hitbox is very large and reach high up for anti airing. Much better as an AA than Cody’s normal crHP as well. The hurtbox however is gigantic. While the hitbox does reach past the hurtbox it isn’t as much as Cody’s normal crHP does. It also doesn’t have quite the horizontal reach of his normal crHP. Not being special cancelable is a big deal though for Cody’s footsies as he is very slow moving. I’d say it’s about even with his normal crHP, better in different situations worse in different situations. If it was special cancelable it’d be flat out better though.
Now on top of having only arguably 2 normals that are BETTER for footsies than he has without the knife he loses out completely on some of his more important footsies options.
F+MP - Gone. Can’t use with knife. One of his best moves, flat out. It is a forward moving, plus on block, plus on hit, attack with a hitbox that extends past the hurtbox, and can be potentially comboed directly into ultra 2. Losing this doesn’t just hurt his frame traps it hurts his footsies tremendously.
B+MP - Gone. Can’t use with knife no subtitute. Arguably one of the top 5 best anti air normals in the game. Nothing he has with the knife is an adequate replacement for losing this, not even his crHP.
Focus attack - Gone.
Badstone - Gone.
He has no way to cancel out a fireball now, he has to avoid them. He can’t absorb a fireball or destroy it. In addition losing focus means he loses his kara dash and he loses one of his best footsie tools as his focus is core to his footsies due to it’s incredible reach and the fact he is +2F on block after level 2 focus dash cancel.
Simply put, outside of 1-2 specific situations the knife is mostly worse than his normal toolset for footsies. sMP is amazing though.
There is actually 2-3 specific matchups and scenarios that the knife is worth using.
Vs Hakan. Cody’s sMP with knife is incredible against him due to being safe on block, fast, and hitting twice. It effectively shuts down a large part of Hakan’s toolset and all of his FA shenanigans.
Vs Sagat. Situationally useful, the knife throw goes over low tiger shots and can be used to knock Sagat down from full screen allowing you to gain some ground.
Vs Evil Ryu. Cody’s sMP with knife or crMP with knife are good against Evil Ryu’s crMK as they have hurtboxes positioned in a way that they generally can avoid the crMK AND hit evil Ryu if you space it right. It’s limited and difficult to utilize but useful.
Outside of that though? I’d say the knife is not worth picking up.
This is hit/miss for most I guess. s.LP and cr.LP IMO are cody’s best “stop that” button. I don’t mind considering if you can’t s.lp something without the knife, generally you’re picking up the knife to cover what s.lp or his other normals can’t do without trading or flat out losing to begin with. You gain jumpback j.LP as a anti air with knife. (treat it just like Rolento’s jumpback j.LP.)
This is another thing where you’re trading combos and your mixups to just play straight up footsies and whiff punishing. plus for breaking focus. (though stupid that they can focus backdash after the 1st hit if they see it.) Though all of cody’s MP button’s are great so no one’s really losing at this point as a cody player.
cl.HP is again, good for combos/frame trap setups etc. whereas HP with knife is a whiff punish normal. You’re using this to counterpoke a button your opponent throws out. (which does just as good as far HP without the knife if not better.) This isn’t supposed to be an anti air normal when you have jumpback j.LP with knife and cr.HP with knife.
cr.lp being 3 frames and chainable saves cody in the Abel matchup. You’re basically Balrog anytime a blocked stepkick happens. This isn’t even a hard link into cr.lk. This normal is fine even outside of the abel matchup.
This is probably the only normal with the knife I don’t really use much. But that’s only because there are better knife normals that do the same as this one but better. (s.mp, s.hp)
cr.HP with knife is easily a better AA than cr.HP. But here’s that tradeoff again. cr.HP[knifeless] is special cancelable, gets fat damage on CH or not, and CAN be used as a AA but it’s “meh” considering you have better options. (HK ruffian, b+MP, far HP, s.LP)
Then cr.HP with the knife is a much better AA than without the knife, can be linked off of to other knife normals, and is just a downright great utility as a whole considering how it used to be in the past versions of SF4. Links into itself and can link into s.MP, cr.MP, cr.LP, etc. It’s obviously not a gimme for combos but when you get a punish up close, it WILL hurt.
and lets go over the jump normals that weren’t brought up. They’re all good knife or not, but they also need to be considered since they do play a roll in normal switches.
j.LP: if you don’t feel confident enough with cr.HP or just want to reset the position (or simply keep them in check when jumping.) do a jumpback j.LP. Works just like Rolento’s jumpback j.LP in coming out fast, being quick, and beating out pretty much anything coming towards cody. Just as good as Cody’s jumpback j.LP without the knife.
j.MP: this can be use also as a air to air similar to above with jumpback. Use it if you want. Honestly i’d say use j.lp instead since it’s active forever. For awhile I was using jumpback j.MP without the knife on divekickers (mainly rufus) until I saw how much better jumpback j.LP does. both normals are good but the better choices to keep jumpers in check will be the light versions.
j.HP: Your go to punch jump in with the knife. It’s not as good of a jump in as j.HP without the knife but it does have a good downward hitbox like j.HP. adds extra damage to cr.HP combos (and makes it a lot easier to link cr.HP into itself.) Though to be fair, you shouldn’t be jumping towards your opponent randomly unless you know they can’t AA or challenge your buttons anyway. (or an actual punish.)
Basically if you want to bully people play without the knife. If you want to slow it down or help in a footsie battle, pick up the knife and start whiff punishing the opponent’s normals. All the knife’s doing is increasing the range on your punch buttons to allow better footsies. (and obviously helps more in matchups where it’s already footsie based.)
At first I was one saying he should have all his command normals with the knife outside of the overhead. But now the more i’ve used the knife over the past months, he doesn’t need them. f+MP being lost isn’t that huge. chances are if you’re using the knife to begin with, you’re using it because you can’t use f+MP as much anyway as in you’re not close enough to throw it out or it’s getting punished from a distance. Since the knife is already a matchup specific tool, you probably shouldn’t be using f+MP because it’s not going to be so great in said match unless you’re in their face. if you can’t get in their face with you keeping the pressure, chances are you’re playing footsies. Oh look, the knife…
b+MP I honestly don’t miss. Easily Cody’s best AA yes but jumpback j.LP is a great substitute for b+MP. They both do the same thing which is resetting your opponent’s position/keeping them in check for jumping. If anything it’s easier with jumpback j.LP just because you can react immediately to a jump in in the neutral game. (which i’ll remind you, is generally when you’re using the knife anyway.)
Honestly if he had ALL his command normals in knife stance, he’d be a little too good because it just adds to the already huge arsenal of choices he’d have to begin with. (you can’t complain about b+MP being gone when HK ruffian, cr.HP and jumpback j.LP is still an option.)
eh? you still have options such as zonk, neutral jumping, blocking, reading the fireball and jumping over with a j.HP or any other normal. I don’t understand what you’re implying here. You don’t have focus as you only option. But this is another thing where i’m saying the knife is a bit of a matchup specific thing. If they’re chucking fireballs, chances are they’re not playing footsies as much as just trying to zone/space you out. If that were the case you don’t need the knife, chuck rocks at them.
I guess if you want to see it that way. outside of cr.MP which is questionable at times, his knife normals are just as good as without the knife in a footsie battle.
i’d add Abel, the other grapplers (Hawk/Gief) and Vega to that list. Dunno how you added sagat and E.Ryu on there but didn’t even mention Grapplers outside of Hakan or a footsie heavy Vega.
Because Hawk and Gief you want badstone. Having a projectile in that match up is incredibly important. Gief can easily smack the knife away with a sMP any time you hit a button. Vega can remove the knife with crLP easily plus you are generally better off having focus attack for that match because it absorbs any wall dive and most of his pokes have long recovery.
sHP without knife is just as good of a whiff punish poke as sHP with knife.
Plus the thing is that with Cody’s crMP / sLP / crLP / crHP those footsie normals convert into pushing the opponent into the corner because you can buffer any of them into a MK Ruffian or criminal upper. This makes his footsies better overall because his footsies do more damage and lead to better situations. A poke is only a poke. It’s good at keeping people in check for sure, but a poke that combos into a special is much better in terms of winning the match.
My point with the badstone thing was, as I said, that he has to AVOID the projectiles now. E.G. Zonk through, EX Ruffian, Neutral Jump, or just block them. However most of those are much more committal than throwing your own badstone. He is by no means helpless but he loses 2 of his better options.
Even your own posts basically break down to “Well his knife is almost as good or as good in these situations.” other than sMP which we can all agree is a great button. However “almost as good” or “As good” normals aren’t worth giving up the many things he loses as well as having something so difficult to retain. If he could simply switch between knife and no knife any time he wanted like Gen it’d be fine, but the fact it is out of his control and he has to pick up the knife (which is a mechanic I’m fine with) means it should be as good OR BETTER than what he gives up. Not “situationally about equal”
Really Cody needs a couple of changes and the knife would go from “maybe situationally kind of useful I guess” to “A viable tool in many match ups”:
Better walk speed so he can actually retrieve the knife more at whim
Make knife do 20-25% chip damage instead of 8-12%
Make at least 2 of his knife normals special cancelable so he can buffer something during footsies and has the ability to gain positional advantage through it.
Allow Cody to throw, tech, and charge focus attacks (even if he can’t release it, just let him do the charge part to absorb a hit and dash cancel.) without dropping the knife.
Lastly:
Make the knife fall SIGNIFICANTLY faster than it does currently. I’ve recorded and counted the frames, it is 64-72F for the knife to land after Cody drops it on the ground. (Varies based on position he was in when he dropped it. Knife throw is always 67F after it hits the opponent.)
pretty sure I didn’t break it down to “knife is almost as good as knifeless” but to each their own.
my point is that knife normals are better than what most people give them to be. People tend to write it off because their footsies suck aka they get smacked once and don’t bother picking it up again. That and because focus. (I can agree with the focus as it’s dumb to have a main mechanic not work with another mechanic specifically for a character. it’s like saying Juri can’t use focus while U1 is active.) Knife challenges and whiff punishes a lot of normals you’re out of range to use without knife. s.lp has shit range but easily beats EVERYTHING. far.MP is a mini s.LP but slower and not special cancelable. (but more easy to whiff punish). far.HP is a good whiff punisher and AA at times. (generally against dive kickers.) but you’ll swat a lot of normals far HP won’t get or be out of range which knife s.HP can get. On top of that, s.MK hitbox with the knife is increased for whatever silly reason.
Better walkspeed so Cody can actually play a better proper footsie game. We already got a buff on knife pickup range (and the ability to block once he goes for the knife.) what more do you want? Lol
2 I don’t care much on this. helps yea. not complaining if it’s the same.
I’m a little loss on why Cody would need this when you still have cr.LK (which is a 3 frame special cancelable low that’s pretty damn good in the neutral/whiff punishing department).
This is pretty much we can all agree on easily.
while I say the knife is matchup based, nothing stops me from picking it up in other matches. A lot of people (including most Cody players) don’t give the knife enough credit. I don’t really care if I can’t special cancel knife normals but cr.LK is fine enough in the neutral/footsie game to have a normal>ruffian or tornado. I mean when you’re playing footsies 90% of the time you’re not downbacking.
i’d rather they push the hurtbox back on it and have it so it doesn’t get hit as a standing normal. But to each their own again. I get what you’re saying, but if you can react with cr.MP at that range, why not just use cr.LK? (which I hate to say again, is 3 frames, a low, and already the go to buffer move in neutral?)
crLK again still doesn’t combo to LK Ruffian. Also it’s not a reaction thing. Footsies are not ALL reactionary. Why use any button other than crLK then in any situation ever? Because crLK loses to a lot of moves and doesn’t combo into everything. crMP can be used against a number of lows due tot he hurtbox position being off of the ground. If you are playing footsies you are often doing a normal trying to beat another move or gain positional advantage.
There is a reason many players (including the best Cody’s in the world Momochi and Sasaki) go for crLP - MK Ruffian over crLK - Mk Ruffian. crLP has a better hitbox and more hitstun meaning it combos to MK Ruffian from farther away if you catch a limb. Same principle with making crMP or sMP special cancelable. You can turn a poke into positional advantage while still retaining the benefits of a poke.
In addition crMP does significantly more damage than crLK (400% to be precise) when adding on a MK Ruffian to a whiff punish your footsies become far more rewarding positionally and damage wise.
Which sounds better? A better poke that does 80 damage and is a bit harder to trade/stuff. (crMP with knife)
Or a poke that does 200 damage and puts your opponent in the corner and leads to a 4F safe jump? (crMP with knife - LK Ruffian)
or
a poke that does 150 damage and puts your opponent in the corner? (crLK - LK Ruffian)
I agree with a lot of what you said tbh. Like I said though, it’s meant to be a footsie tool. Which is why I think Capcom needs to buff the knife to be a BETTER footsie tool. Again though, you lose b+MP and f+MP and you gain st. MP, cr. MP and a much more versatile cr. HP. I don’t think the trade is necessarily better. I think it’s even. Different tools for a different approach.
The knife is absolutely amazing vs. Dudley, T. Hawk and Makoto. It’s also great vs Adon, Cody (mirror), Gen and Zangief.
The knife needs a lot more to be viable. I fully agree there. It begins, and maybe ends, with not losing it so easily (not while teching, not while focusing, not while being hit). I think f+MP and b+MP being lost is just the negative of having the knife. I could see Capcom giving Cody his f+MP while holding the knife, because it is a footsie tool after all. b+MP being gone is fair. It isn’t like Cody doesn’t have a billion other greator decent anti-airs. At least in USFIV, Cody can use slide to move him forward. The combo options won’t be there still, but it is a space closer. Cody still does have a buffered poke in cr. LK at least.
It’s useable in about 10 of 39 match-ups. I think if Capcom could find a way to make it closer to 20, the knife would be taken seriously.
Idk im just reading the notes from eventhubs. I really hope he keeps throw inv. This seems like the tradeoff for both strike and throw invincibility imo.
If throw invincibility isn’t back then it’s unquestionably much worse than the AE2012 version. EX CU has never been a good reversal but in some matchups the pushback was it’s saving grace.
Did you guys see that dude Majintenshinhan from eventhubs saying that this minor changes where more than enough and if Capcom gives more if would make Cody broken? Its something like that that realy worries me.
Majin is the one that eventhough he plays Cody thought the EX Criminal upper was way and way too good apparantely and he voiced his opinion at dreamhack about Cody to Dawgtanian. Cody actually doesn’t need many adjustments but he does need a few, all of which don’t include knfe related changes.