Are there any changes that can be done to his U1 to make it more useful ? I guess reducing the startup frames is an obvious change for anti-air and combo purposes (so that Crack Kick -> U1 would work on more/all chars ?)
I can’t see why we would use Double Ultra with Cody tbh lol…
@Eternal I don’t agree with crack kick being able to hit crouching opponents. Crack Kick goes over lows, closes in, can be juggled and will now be airborne. We really need it hitting crouchers? The tool is already really good.
Also, you want LP Criminal Upper to be -2 and you want MK Ruffian to be safely spaced to 0 on block? And addition to a tool to now blow up stand teching (if they fix the frames), you want a combo-able low as well? Knife chip as 25%? Come on. This list is too much. It’s greedy. Honestly, it’s silly.
This is an honest list:
10% faster walkspeed.
Crack Kick airborne at 5 frames.
EX Ruffian being invincible at 7 frames, not 11.
Better ability to keep the knife and make it a viable footsie tool (possibly giving us f+MP still for footsie purposes)
SLIGHTLY Improved frames on Bad Stone and Fake Bad Stone.
*Maybe also bring up the U2 Dust Juggle thing, but I wouldn’t bother. I don’t think Capcom has any intention of fixing it.
*Maybe ask to make LP CU -4 or -3, this way Cody has no way of maintaining any pressure off of it still, but has some free chip. But again, I doubt it. And the stuff mentioned above is more important.
You show them a list bigger than that and they aren’t going to possibly take you seriously. The list I have will make Cody better and not end up breaking him.
you want someone to be able to stuff you out of your EX moves again because your invincibility ended prematurely? at least now you have a trade into ultra.
As far as the “less pushback on block” is concerned - Thats fine. You’re supposed to be punishable if your reversal gets blocked.
you can’t have the cake and eat it too.
@Eternal I like those changes.
@Ramma There are a few characters in this game that play in a similar fashion to Cody’s; they are best when they are right in your face. They are Sakura, Cammy, Yun, Rufus, Dudley. Arguably also E.Ryu, Ibuki, Balrog, C. Viper.
Ok, let’s examine these characters. Which one of these characters have a way to blow up stand-techers and force the opponent to start simply blocking or crouch-teching? To force your opponent to do this, you either need to have a low confirmable or a move that’s airborne or starts up fast enough to catch the throw attempt. From this list, all characters have both options except for Dudley and Balrog, who only have the option to link from a low. While Dudley and Balrog have this problem, the developers have decided to give them special moves that will be in USF4 safe on block, except against grapplers. Dudley’s already was against all but grapplers, but Balrog’s wasn’t, and this will be changed.
Ok, so let’s examine Cody. From these characters, he has the worst walkspeed. This means that whiff punishing, playing footsies, and getting in is hardest for him. Of these characters, he is the only one that fails in both options regarding opening up the opponents throw attempts. And as it is looking at the moment, will also continue to be the only one.
So, in all fairness, the developers have four options. In the parenthesis, I put the characters who already can do this or who will be able to in USF4.
Make the f.HK start-up fast enough to not being susceptible to stand throws from frame traps. (E.Ryu f.mk, Ibuki f.mk, all dives)
Make cr.lk chainable or linkable. (All characters listed except for Cody)
Make the go-to special safe on block (Cammy, Sakura, Rufus, Dudley, Balrog, E.Ryu, C.Viper)
Make f.HK unthrowable and also make it hit crouching opponents (Sakura, Cammy, Rufus, E. Ryu, Ibuki, C. Viper)
If this issue isn’t addressed, I don’t see why I would continue playing Cody. He already is a weak character, and will be even more weak in the next version.
ex cu should really just have both invincibilities. It requires a bar and it is punishable and it is easily dodgeable / baitable with a mere nj (something you cant do vs a shoryuken, which is not only faster but also meterless).
The less pushback AND fact it has zero throw invincibility is the issue. Less pushback is fine if they return throw invincibility. Cody doesn’t have a good backdash (even after the buff) and no good option against command throws except for EX CU. EX Zonk isn’t a good option because of the charge time and losing access to 2 buttons. LK Ruffian is an ok option but unsafe and can’t be FADC’d.
I offered pretty hefty compensation nerfs. Don’t act like I asked for the entire world with giving up nothing. 20 damage and 50 stun off of crack kick is a big drop. LP Criminal Upper I said reduce recovery by 2F not make it -2F. Recovery reduced by 2F makes it -3F on block just like Yun’s shoulder or Deejay’s new LK Sobat but not as safe as Oni’s LK Slash.
F+HK hitting crouching is not unreasonable whatsoever. Vega’s DF+HK hits crouching, is now +2F on block point blank, has the same startup, and allows for a combo to ultra meterless. Juri’s F+MK is airborne on 1F, hits crouching, and is an overhead, and is airborne. Only -2F on block but can be comboed out of in FSE and she has close MK which is airborne hits crouching and far HK which is airborne hits crouching. Ibuki’s F+MK airborne hits crouching comboable out of and is high off the ground allowing it to dodge more things and +2F on block. Rose’s close MK is unthrowable and hits crouching and is 0F on block +4F on hit. Blanka’s got close MK now airborne and hits crouching and comboable out of.
It’s more and more common and frankly not nearly as big a deal as you are making it if they nerfed the damage down as I suggested.
A safe low hit confirm is something that is literally available to every character now except Cody. Gouken got it (crMP now +3F on hit. sLP is now 3F startup. Also crMP combos to fireball) Makoto got a legit one (crLK - F+LP always comboed but now she can cancel F+LP into EX Fukiage as a legit combo). Asking for Cody to have something systemwide available to everyone is not unreasonable whatsoever.
MK Ruffian to be spaced to be 0F on block would basically have an 18F startup. Why is that so bad when Balrog is getting TAP and Dash Straight at -1F on block without spacing whatsoever? Sagat is getting EX TK 0F on block with no spacing, spaced it can be +5F on block. Dudley’s Machine Gun blow is now only -1F on block.
Again with the knife you took my highest value. I said 20-25% not just 25%.
20% chip on knife =
3 more damage on lights (increased from 5 to 8)
8 more damage on mids (increased from 8 to 16)
14 more damage on heavies. (Increased from 10 chip to 24)
Hell just do 8 for lights 14 for mids and 20 for heavies. That is 20% for lights 18% for mids and 16% for heavies.
@Eternal @Ramma
Eternal like alot of your ideas, i however disagree with a few. The f.hk shouldn’t hit crouchers, it’s utility is already pretty big, anything more and the move would be seriousely braindead. It is mainly used around the sweep or cr.mk range of say Ryu. People tend to play spacing games around that range anyway meaning they’ll be more likely to stand. Also isn’t the move plus +1 on block anyway?
The lp criminal shouldn’t be more safe tbh, it’s impact during gameplay is minimal, you already give up any amount of pressure when you finish a blockstring with this move. If you switch it up and very occasionally use this move it will make people twitch after a cr.mp or cr.lk.
MK Ruffian increased active frames so it is better on block when spaced right, does Cody really need this?
Anyway my suggestions:
-f.hk airborne from frame 5:
Like you guys suggested i also think this is good amount of frames, not too much so it’s braindead. From midrange alot of crouching medium pokes are between 4-6 frames. Cody also has some nice buttons at close range for frame advantage like cr.lp, cl.mp, cr.mp, st.lp etc. With f.hk being airborne from the 5th frame there are plenty of opportunities to use it without getting thrown out of it.
-10% walkspeed increase:
I’m not too familiar with walkspeeds so i trust you guys on this, however if this is almost the same as Ken pre-patch than i think it’s good. Especially because of Cody his buttons. This also helps in baiting out crouch techs and walking in and out of throw range also on top of buffing his neutral game(footsies).
-EX Criminal Upper full strike and throw invincibility till first active frame:
Cody needs a solid reversal, one that he doesn’t have to charge nor takes away his buttons. With it being invincible 1 frame before active frames it will cause annoying trades to happen like Sagat his f.hk. This sometimes in favour of Cody and other times for the opponent. Bad design. Especially because all of Cody his reversals are easily safejumped and baited by neutral jumps and crossups. Furthermore it is an EX move, we spend 1 bar for it and 3 to make it safe. Especially now the pushback on EX Criminal is decreased by 50% the punishes will be much larger. The overall move at the moment is worse than its AE2012 iteration.
Not a priority but will still help:
-U2 unpunishable when hitting airborne opponent:
it happens far too often eventhough if you react/read properly you might get a wierd situation where you hit an airborne opponent. It shouldn’t be full animation on a juggled opponent however it also shouldn’t be punishable for the meagre damage Cody gets from it. Make just the dust hit or the dust and the wrench/pipe part.
-Better backdash: it still sucks, slightly reduce recovery frames of backdash and again slight increase in distance.
-Slightly faster startup on his bad stone and bad stone feint: *Eternal his suggestion (Reduce startup by 3F (29-26F) and reduce Badstone feint from 32F to 27F)
Don’t care about the knife but if Capcom is set on buffing i…
*Knife: *
-don’t make Cody drop the knife when throwing, teching or charging a focus.
-Make st.mp cancelable
-being able to use f.mp when holding the knife.
-f.hp: personal pet peeve, why is it negative on hit for a crouching opponent?. Make it +1
Also Ramma, don’t forget it’s not like Cody’s F+HK is unbeatable. It’s still only 3F active, and the hitbox is completely surrounded by hurtbox and it loses to neutral jumps free. It’s still 14F startup too and from my own testing it’d be able to be low profiled.
Here is a list of moves that would low profile it depending on timing (just tested it)
Ryu - crMK
Ken - crMK
Ibuki - crLK, crMK, slide
Makoto - crMK (also hits F+HK out of the air too.)
Dudley - crHK
Seth - crHK, far HP
Gouken - crLK
Akuma - crMK, crHK (yes his sweep low profiles it)
Gen - crMK (both Mantis and Crane stance)
Dan - crMK
Sakura - crMK (timing is really strict though)
Oni - crMK
Yun - crLK, crMK, crHK
Juri - crLK (only from far away), crMK, crHK
Chun Li - crMK, crMP, crHP
Dhalsim - Damn near everything lol. crLK, crMK, crHK, stretch crLP, stretch crMP, stretch crHP, LK Slide, MK Slide, HK Slide, Stretch standing HP
Abel - crHK
Viper - crLK, crMK (timing is strict on these.)
Cammy - crLK, crMK, crHK
Deejay - crHK
Cody - crMK, crHK (timing is strict on HK)
Guy - crLK, crMK, crHK
Hakan - no normals can but Guard Position and Oil Slide low profile it.
Yang - crMK, crHK
Evil Ryu - crMK
Guile - crMK (VERY strict timing)
Blanka - crMK, crHK, slide
Zangief - crHK
El Fuerte - crLK, crHK
Vega - crHK
Fei Long - crHP, crMK, crHK
Thawk - crMK (only from a distance.)
Rose - crMK, crHK, slide
There you go. Out of the entire cast here are the only characters who would be unable to low profile F+HK:
Honda, Adon, M Bison, Sagat, Balrog
That’s it.
Also, the U2 not dropping is simply a must. At least, it should always be safe against a focusing enemy, that shit is just retarded.
I’m ok with Cody’s U2 being red focusable. I just don’t think it should be punishable if you do it and the opponent backdashes out of the focus and still gets to punish you on hit. I don’t want it breaking red focus, there are plenty of ultras that don’t break focus at all. Just don’t make it punishable ON HIT. hell, make it 0F on air hit so he and the opponent are completely equal and Cody has to gamble if he wants to continue to pressure after. Just don’t make it punishable, especially not by a raw ultra.
@Eternal Exactly. It’s hardly a gamebreaker to ask for Cody’s U2 dust to be safe on hit. I’m fine with it losing to red focus, as I’m fine with it losing to trigger ultras and specials.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND READING THIS HUGE WALL OF TEXT THAT YOU FIND IN THE SPOILER.
[details=Spoiler]Capcom must really be trying to make this character as bad as possible on purpose. Why the heck would they take away Crack Kick airborn from 1f and EX Crim throw invin?? Now this character has absolutely no way to deal with grapplers and command grabs whatsoever. At least with Crack Kick 1f Airborn, this would have gave Cody a way to avoid & counter Throws besides just jumping out of it and then coming down to punish the throw, which is such a basic way to deal with throws and most of the time this will be anticipated by the opponent anyway and some people will even counter this.
And to deal with frame traps, now Cody only has EX Zonk and EX Crim. Never mind EX Zonk though, because this move is not only incredibly slow at 16f Startup, but it’s also very heavy on Recovery, terrible on block, and to top it off it requires you to hold 2 of your Punch buttons for a whole seconds just to charge it. This is a very terrible move to rely on for countering tight pressure, if this is what Capcom really expects us to just settle for. What else, EX Crim with NO Throw Inv anymore and only Strike Inv through the startup frames? This move is so bad that it can get baited by simply jumping up while you’re in the middle of doing pressure strings on Cody, and then you come down from the jump and punish Cody. This is pretty much the same way that EX Zonk can get baited & punished. And just like that, Cody is back to being as bad as Dan, AKA the character that Capcom is trying to make useless on purpose! Not only that, but EX Crim is getting it’s pushback nerfed? OMG. This was pretty much the only good poperty that this move had as a Reversal. I knew this move had an atrocious Strike Inv but I mash it out of blockstrings anyway because when this move gets baited and blocked, at least the pushback can get the opponent off me for just a little while, especially those characters that can just bully Cody with pressure strings all day because he has no reliable Reversal.
To be honest, the only way that a character can be decent in this game is if they have some kind of Jumping gimmick, such as C Viper’s Burn Kick, Ryu’s Tatsu, Makoto’s Axe Kick, EVERY Dive Kick, Demon Flip and/or other moves that change your character’s Jump arc, etc., even Dan Kick makes Dan a halfway decent challenge to fight and block against. If you dont have any of these moves, then you should at least have a very tight pressure game, like Dudley, which Cody does not have due to his slow 4f crJab, and his unconfirmable crLK. And on defense, you need to have a move that can be used as an all-around option vs strike, throw, and point-blank Jump pressure, such as a Shoryuken or Dudley’s Upper. These moves force the opponent to respect you on defense and it evens the playing field even if opponent is playing a character that can destroy your character offensively. But like I said before, Cody has nothing like this since he only has his slow 16f Startup EX Zonk, and his garbage EX Crim which currently is decent vs Tick Throws due to the full Throw INV but is terrible versus Frame Traps and can get baited by Neutral Jump, which is so terrible because characters should never have moves that can get dealt with the same way, they should each present a different challenege for the opponent to bait and punish.
If Cody kept this new 1f airborne Crack Kick, this would’ve been good because Cody would finally have a move that he could mash out that would’ve been a counter to throws, while being a neutral/slightly disadvantage vs Jump and it would’ve been a mystery vs Frame Traps. Yeah, I mean airborne at 1f means that this move would’ve resulted in a air-reset if Cody gets hit with a Frame Trap, but if opponent hits you with a really strong Attack in the Frame Trap then this will definitely blow up airborne Crack Kick. For example, this is the same way that you would punish a Focus backdash on wake-up. You Jump in with a Heavy Normal, which will do around 90-100 damage but will get absorbed by oppo’s Focus Armor. Then you land and do a crJab, which will be very weak at only 20-30 dmg, but this crJab will hit oppo out of their Backdash and then add up with the Heavy Normal that they absorbed & even though that Backdash will get hit out of the air & be an air-reset, the opponent will have to take like 130 dmg and some stun, so you may not get that knockdown which is usually the correct way to punish a move that you anticipate, but at least you get that dmg and Stun.[/details]
I was really hoping that Cody could keep that 1f airborn on his Crack Kick, but now that they took it away, all he’s gonna have is his terrible EX Zonk & EX Crim. And these moves are so bad on block… EX Crim is currently HALF decent on block since it has good pushback, but looks like they’re gonna nerf this too and now Cody is gonna either have to do EX Zonk -> FADC to get out of pressure and be safe on block, or EX Crim -> FADC for this to be safe on block, and both of these options will be expensive costing him 3 out of 4 EX Meter.
At least that 1f-airborne Crack Kick would’ve gave him a decent option. I don’t see why they had to take this away. Was it really that bad for opponents to deal with? One thing that I always see my fellow Cody players complaining about is that this move does NOT hit Crouching opponents. You can bait this move by simply crouching under it, and then punishing Cody if you see him do a freaking karate kick that goes over your character’s crouching head. Is that really so unfair for Cody to have? All you have to do is start a pressure string on Cody, and then crouch-block! That right there is a no-brainer way to bait EVERY SINGLE Reversal that Cody can do, and that includes his EX Zonk, EX Crim, Regular Zonk, and the future 1f-airborne Crack Kick which he’s not even gonna get anyway.
RIP Cody 2014… and it looks like Im gonna be quitting yet another Capcom game that I only started playing a couple years ago (I liked MvC3 too, but quit before UMVC3 dropped. My team in that game was fun but absolutely miserable vs teams that can do DHC Glitch). I get frustrated by SF4 but I respect the game enough to keep playing it. And I really like this character but he is just so damn bad
Stopped reading around here “And to deal with frame traps, now Cody only has…” , you know stand teching blows up some frame traps, as well as, not crouch teching as much.
Also kind of surprised at all the backlash there has been on these changes, no one said they were final, and very few people on here have actually played any of the test builds.
Even the people who played the build only had very limited time with the game. You don’t have to play a build just to see what works or doesn’t work.
And these suggestions are done exactly because the changes are not final, the faster we get our voice heard the earlier we can give feedback when some of the changes are implemented and see if some things work or not. This way we also let Capcom know if they are on the right track.
@GrabMasterFlex No one here is assuming they are final. However, it’s safe to say that the changes made so far are an indication as to where the developers are taking his game.
Also, what’s the difference if some of us haven’t played the test build? I know the character really well, and I know what impact the changes will have on his gameplay. Besides, I have seen videos, and heard from these forum monsters what the changes are. It’s not like the changes are so drastic that it’s impossible to fathom the overall implications on the metagame.
Honestly, the only major change I’m against is EX Criminal Upper losing throw invincibility AND being SIGNIFICANTLY more punishable in exchange for being a mediocre reversal against meaties. Other than that my feeling on the changes aren’t “I’m against them” but more “These don’t really do much for him to make him competitive especially given the other characters changes.”
Lastly, I think we need to stop holding back on our requests so much. I feel I’m being completely reasonable with my first list of changes
My 2nd list I knew wouldn’t be entirely agreed upon by most. However the thing is that we keep holding back and trying to keep Cody weak to keep him “honest” blah blah blah. He’ll still be honest with those changes, he’ll still require thought, he’ll still be basically the same but better at the things he should be good at (frame trapping, forcing jumps, whiff punishing.)
Go look back at the Capcom Unity forums. The characters with lots of requests for big buffs may not have gotten all of those buffs but they got the most buffs. Juri, Yang, Ken, Evil Ryu, Oni, Dudley, Makoto, Vega, Guile, Chun, all got good buffs and all asked for big things. They didn’t get everything they wanted but they got a lot. Meanwhile the characters that asked for less to try and stay “reasonable” got less. Both the over the top requests and the “reasonable” requests received about the same percentage of changes, but the total amount of change for the bigger requested chars was also go figure, bigger. Chars that tried to be reasonable like THawk, Deejay, Cody, Abel, Blanka, Rufus, all sort of fell through the cracks because they were trying to be reasonable. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
I’ve been reading through all the comments and it looks like people already said all the things that I said in my comment before I could even finish writing it. @Zukuu mentioned the fact that people can bait Cody’s Ex Zonk and EX Crim BOTH by just doing a Neutral Jump. Like 50% of my comment was already said by everybody while I was in the middle of writing it Lol.
I think we are all in agreement for the most part about Cody being a terrible character that will become even worse in USF4. But it seems that Capcom does not intend to bring this character out of the low tiers. They just have a boner for Cody’s that use the knife and they wanna make that thing better and better with every update but dammit, it still falls out of your hand when you do Focus Attack and when you try to break throws. You cannot design a character around a gimmick that pretty much paralyzes him in throw range and footsies range. The only time when Cody gets to hold the knife securely is when he is like half-screen away, and this is where the knife has no use whatsoever and you’re forced to Jump over fireballs all day unless you decide to Focus a fireball and then this causes the knife to drop out of your hand.
One buff that always comes to mind but I try so hard to say no to it, is Cody’s crLK not being able to rapid-fire like Ryu or Fei or Cammy. Cody’s crLK has the longest range out of any crLK in the game (I think, but I never tested any other characters) but from now on Im going to demand that he gets a rapid-fire crLK. This is not fair. We need to see where this character can go outside of being one of the 10-12 worst characters in the game. Even if he becomes overpowered and has to be weakened, we gotta demand that our character gets buffed as much as possible so we can give them an actual reason to nerf our character instead of just letting them take away these things for no good reason. All these things that we WANT are things that Cody needs, and we all know this. But we just dont speak up and some of us even disagree with the buffs only because you dont want Capcom to make him too good. Im sorry Cody players but we just dont know how to ask for too much shit like spoiled brats. This is Christmas time dammit! I WANT BUFFS ALREADY. CAPCOM PLS
crLK being rapid fire would allow confirms from crouch tech which is something Capcom is obviously trying to remove / weaken for chars with 3F lights and good footsies. (See: Fei/Cammy getting their lights nerfed to 4F and no longer chainable into itself.) that would be an annoying thing to fight against with Cody IMO. I’d rather they just make it chainable to OTHER lights but not itself or make his close LK hit low.
Cody isn’t “a terrible character.” Cody is a “overly flawed character.” simply put the thing he is good at is something that he doesn’t have all of the pieces of the toolset to do effectively and they gave him a lot of weaknesses intentionally which would have been fine if he was actually dominate at the thing he is good at (footsies/frame traps) but he isn’t even the best at those. He has some really good merits though, almost every single normal he has is useful for something except close MK and maybe close HK. His damage while not #1 is certainly exceptional. The ranges he can effectively whiff punish for high damage are easily top 3. crLK - MK Ruffian or HP Criminal Upper as well as crHP - hp cu or crMP - LK or MK Ruffian are all exceptionally good whiff punishes both in damage and reach. He has probably the 4th best set of normals for anti airing behind Juri, Cammy and Sakura. His command normals are all useful and F+MP and B+MP easily would make the top 20 for “Best normal or command normals in SF4” imo. His focus attack is also top tier, up there with Fei/Evil Ryu/Dudley/Yun/Hakan no question.
I personally don’t see why it’s not like this already.
eh on crack kick hitting crouchers. Defeats the purpose of hopping over lows. Ramma pretty much stated why it’s fine not hitting crouchers. (and you’re +1 on block to add.) airborne on the first frame like in the NEC build was fine.
I don’t understand why people are at this junction that Cody is getting worse or not up to par in USF4 but what’s been done so far. He’s pretty good already in 2012. Just tweak the obvious things (a reversal move, the knife issue, ex ruffian against fireball reads, few other tidbits) and the guy can hang.
Definitely. There are plenty of reversals in the game that are completely invincible, meterless, and can’t be neutral jumped…
I’d say it’s a combination of the drastic buffs other characters have been shown with so far coupled with the fact that the majority of the Cody changes Capcom have demonstrated so far betray a lack of understanding of what Cody needs to remain competitive.