not really considering it’s a group effort at capcom on what stays/goes. (primarely the actual progamming/developing team i’m sure.)
of course that isn’t saying much but still…
Here are Cody’s best new combos that use LP CU with knife. Woo. So useful.
To be honest, I’ve been playing around with the knife this week, and I must admit that it’s a lot more useful than I had thought. The issue with it, though, is how difficult it is to hold on to. Then again, if it would be any easier, I would actually say that it would be a bit broken. But it would be pretty cool, if you could do something like a angry scar for one meter, and let Cody hold on to the knife for eg. 100 damage, or a bit more than a fireball.
The extra damage in combos are useless, total bullshit. And what’s the point with the corner resets? The damage is good, but not as good as you would have done without the knife. The knife is for poking and footsies, not damage or corner-pressure.
What would be broken about it in your opinion?
Hence why the buffs I want are (in order)
Focus charging usable but not focus attacks
throws usable.
crMP = special cancelable
sMP = first hit special cancelable
F+MP usable
Chip damage increased from 8-12% (Heavies = 8% mids = 10% lights = 12%) to 20% across the board. or even 25% but with damage nerfs (5dmg off lights 10 damage off mids/heavies) <-- this makes it way better for pokes because the chip becomes threatening even if blocked. sHP would do 20+ instead of 10 damage which is pathetic chip for a heavy (Sagat’s high tiger = 16 chip, Ryu’s hadoken = 15 chip. Guile’s sonic boom = 12 chip.)
sLP = +7
sHP = hurtbox height reduced so it can be used similar to Cody’s sHP without knife for the purpose of anti airing.
Knife falls faster after being knocked away / thrown. (Should be around 30F not 65F before it hits the ground. Obviously more if you are hit out of the air)
Nothing else. And I’d be more than willing to give up raw damage on normals for this as I stated. Heck I’d be willing to give up 5 on lights, 10 on mids, and 15-20 on heavies to get all of these.
GroundedSF, well, I have only used it against a good E. Ryu that I play with pretty often, and a decent Gen that I came across, and it really shut down Gen in a way that at least blew me away completely. Also gave E. Ryu problems. It’s obvious that neither of them had any major experience in dealing with the knife, but at the same time, I have next to no experience in using it and still just walked over them with cr.HP and st.mp. So yeah, you’re right, I was just overwhelmed with how good it was in the neutral game. But it might just be against those two characters as far as I’m concerned. Maybe not broken, but extremely powerful. Needs more testing 
@Eternal I think cr.MP special cancellable would be too powerful, and first hit of the st.mp borderline too good. I’d rather see knifeless far mp special cancellable. The st.mp would almost be comparable to if Gief could cancel his st.mp.
You’d be wrong then. Hell, in SFxT Cody could special cancel sMP, crMP, sHP, crHP and even after they nerfed him he can still special cancel sMP sHP, and crHP and the knife is hardly used.
The thing to consider is
- Cody doesn’t always have the knife
- Cody’s sMP and crMP are nothing like Gief’s sMP both in hitbox and frame data or mechanically. Gief’s sMP is 4F startup 2F active 10F recovery. That is only 16F which is why Gief’s sMP is so hard to whiff punish (plus the hurtbox retreats quickly). Cody’s sMP is 6F startup (50% longer) 4F active 10F recovery 20F total that is a 25% difference and Cody’s hurtbox is HUGE meaning it tends to trade (causing Cody to lose the knife.)
crMP is 7F startup 4F active 12F recovery (23F total) basically the equivalent of Vega’s crMP but 2x the startup almost (Vega is 4/2/16) and the move is only +1F on hit.
Cody’s sMP is 0F on block and crMP is -1F on block. Gief’s sMP is +2F on block +5F on hit. - Cody isn’t Gief. Cody doesn’t have the threat of an SPD making people fear him. Also Gief still has far LK which is special cancelable and amazing reach and combos out of sMP/sLK/sLP/crLP
- Cody loses the knife on a trade hit which happens A LOT thanks to the knifes large hurtboxes.
Trust me, it wouldn’t be too powerful. It would be good enough that the knife would be useful. As it stands in my mod for Cody in SSF4X I STILL have trouble retaining the knife for any period of time even against the CPU.
And in SSF4X Cody’s knife is WAY better (all do 25% chip)
sLP = +7F and special cancelable
crLP = +4F on hit
crMP = special cancelable and +7F on counterhit
sMP = first hit is special cancelable
crHP = special cancelable hitbox improved for anti airs
sHP = causes a techable knockdown better hurtbox 1F more active 1F more recovery.
F+MP usable
B+MP usable
Can charge focus while holding knife
Can throw opponents while holding knife
Walk speed increases up to 0.0475 / 0.034
Dashes go farther
Knife individual hits slightly nerfed
Can combo into knife throw from crHP
Has an EX Knife throw that ignores strikes/projectiles and causes a free juggle state on hit.
Knife pickup is 25% faster and can be done as a special move from normals (allowing combos)
All that and it’s still difficult to get the knife or retain it for any length of time. It’s VERY easy to simply deny Cody the knife all together though pressuring him or avoiding letting him get near it or trading a blow to knock it away.
Cody’s knife SHOULD be GOOD given the limits on it (difficult to get, difficult to retain, removes access to some options.)
Simply put, your experience has to do more with how little experience your opponents had vs the knife as is often the case. Imagine trying to fight a character you’ve only ever fought maybe half a dozen times ever. How hard would it be to know where you need to stand to be able to play footsies properly? How hard would it be to know what strategies to use? How hard would it be to know what is safe and what is punishable? Having less than probably an hour of experience against something people are of course going to get walked over. You know what they can do still, regardless of how well you know the ranges you have some decent knowledge of the knife but more importantly you know THEIR ranges you know where you can fight and how.
It’s that kind of attitude “That might be too good” that gets Cody these gimmicky knife buffs because no one is willing to buff it to be actually viable.
FYI in Alpha 3 he could special cancel his sLP/crLP/sMP/crMP AND combo his sHP into criminal upper while holding the knife.
SFxT he can chain any knife into another knife attack and he can special cancel sMP/crHP/sHP and used to be able to special cancel crMP until they nerfed the fuck out of him and made him low tier again because he had abuseable boost combos they nerfed EVERYTHING.
The biggest thing to remember is: Cody doesn’t start with the knife and can’t switch to knife at any time. This is a huge deal from a balance standpoint that you really need to consider more. Cody having sMP/crMP with knife at any time A-LA Gen would certainly be too good. If he couldn’t lose the knife from being hit and could simply switch to it at any point he wanted then yeah that would be too powerful. However the difficulty of getting and retaining the knife as well as the fact it’s easy to deny the knife to Cody entirely if he loses it you simply can keep it off screen and prevent him from picking it up at all, these are huge balancing factors that need to be considered.
Yeah, you’re right about the experience part. I’m all for buffing the fuck out of the knife, but I’m afraid it doesn’t really matter anyways because the sad truth is that we probably won’t be seeing any decent changes to Cody. But hey, on a different note, I will be playing tonight in a couple of hours on stream (hopefully) at a local event. Casuals, but still. A lot of pride invested. I’m gona try me some knife then I’ll post the link when I know it.
The knife isn’t BAD but it’s not exactly good and there aren’t many matchups it’s even useful. The ones it IS useful you are still often just as well off not actively trying to get the knife but rather picking it up if you happen to have a moment. Otherwise you’re fine without.
Best of luck with your matches btw! Poke some holes in people.
Can you at least combo c.LK xx LP CU, Knife s.HP raw? and how is the damage compared to a c.LK xx HP CU?
If you watch the video you can see that you can do sLP - crLK - LP CU so logically you could do crLK - LP CU. Of course that is only point blank or near it. You simply cannot do a far reaching crLK - LP CU it has to be done close. (like hitting with Cody’s knee/shin or closer) for example simply doing sLP - sLP - crLK - LP CU puts Cody too far away mid screen to do the followup.
crLK - LP CU - sHP would be easy to calculate too 
crLK - LP CU = 160. sHP = 120. It’s the 3rd hit so 80% scaling.
160+(120*0.8)=256
crLK - HP CU = 180
crHP - crLK - HP CU = 268
sLP - sLP - sLP - crLK - HP CU = 204 damage and gives Cody a safe jump in approach in most cases.
sLP - sLP - crLK - HP CU = 208 damage (slightly better dmg but less stun)
Overall it’s a shit buff. It does slightly better damage with worse positioning and lack of hit confirms mid screen and less damage in the corner and it requires you to be nearly point blank to utilize it. The only good option this opens up is F+HK - EX Ruffian - sHP. THAT IS IT nothing else is worth while. None of the LP CU shit that they keep pushing as being the core idea.
I’ve been a fan of the knife for a long time. I even wrote a guide for it. It’s so incredibly useful in certain matches when used correctly.
It’ll always be limited by the laundry list of ways to lose it.
Either make the knife more viable or focus on improving Cody.
Simple adjustments to his overall game > knife buffs. I’m not really fan of mechanics that only last for as long as I don’t get hit.
Seriously, more walkspeed, let f.HK be airborne and hit crouchers(but reduce damage), EX CU with throw invincibility but lower pushback, and U2 not being punishable if it hits non-grounded opponents. Four simple changes, and I’m a happy camper. I wouldn’t say no to LP CU being safer or the knife being more useful either, of course, but those aren’t quite as important.
I could calculate or I could just ask you.
Let me be lazy for once as well!
Actually think Cody will benefit ALOT from a low hitconfirm, st.lk should hit low and chain into cr.lp or link and make it a 2 frame link.
Crackkick airbonere from say 5 frames is good enough i reckon but it shouldn’t hit crouchers, even if the damage will be compensated. The move is already pretty good with some obvious flaws.
So does his EX CU still have no throw invincibility? The changelog hasn’t mentioned it. It just says they added strike invincibility
Explain why it shouldn’t. Again, just saying something would be too good means nothing. WHY would be too good. Why would one of the least mobile characters in the game having a normal that would lose to focus attacks, still be throwable on startup, have a 14F startup, and only 3F active be too good?
The previous issue was “it leads to a bunch of damage right away.” so lowering the damage is a fair compensation that helps that issue while giving Cody a far better option for footsies/frame traps.
Stop trying to keep Cody bad because you want to feel “I worked for my wins” and instead try and think of how to make him effective at what he supposed to be good at. He would still have plenty of weak areas and nothing proposed has been outrageously good or unprecedented in the game. Again: Dan, Sakura LK tatsu. Vega cosmic heel. Rufus IADive Kick.
Cody doesn’t have a command throw or ability to alter jump arc or a good kara throw or a good walk speed or a safe block string ending special. Other than simply being + on block there is very little for him to work with to make people scared of him once they know the match up well.
If you can explain clearly WHY and HOW F+HK hitting crouching + being airborne on 5 or 6F though 17F (but still being able to be low profiled, being able to be focus crumple, being able to be thrown on early startup frames, and having a hitbox completely surrounded by hurtbox. Also having a completely grounded recovery unlike many hopkicks) in exchange for say a 30% damage/stun reduction would be too good then maybe I could understand and possibly be swayed on that point. At the moment I see little reason for it to not function like every other hop kick in the history of SF and hit crouching opponents when the hitbox intersects with the hurtbox of the opponent.
As of the last location test in japan a week ago he had no throw invincibility on EX CU.
I just don’t want crack kick hitting crouchers.I like hopping over lows or actually not hitting the opponent for the throw or setup. Just make it airborne startup between 1-5 till he lands.
walkspeed buff obviously (forward and back.)
hold knife during focus/tech throw/whiffed throw.
U2 fixes. (not being super punishable when dust hits airborne opponents.)
Which would be fine, but why should it lose to crouching jabs? It’d still whiff on a bunch of lows since they’d low profile it. If you want that then make them move the attack a little higher off the ground but simply put it shouldn’t lose to crouching attacks every time 100% of the time. There is no reason Cody’s F+HK should be unable to hit a crouching Hugo or hit Bison out of his slide.
Also, that is rather gimmicky. Tell me which sounds better: hopping over a low for the potential to have to block an attack if the opponent recovered first (often happens with mids unless you do F+HK well before they do their mid.) and for the potential to have a throw teched and have your situation reset.
OR
Hopping over a low and do ~200 damage and putting the opponent close to the corner? (80 damage F+HK - MK Ruffian = 210 damage. Or you could do F+HK - EX Ruffian gain corner control and a knockdown setup.)
Again, gambling vs consistency almost always falls in the favor of consistency in a game like this. Look at Fei for a great example of how a character with a set of consistently useful tools that aren’t extraordinarily strong but are effective and consistent. Unless the gamble is overwhelmingly high reward like Makoto or Seth (who also have consistent tools but gamble with them. They aren’t gambling on a tool that may or may not work they are gambling that the opponent will pick the wrong defensive option to combat it. There is no “wrong” answer to F+HK.
A character with a 30% chance to do 250 damage and a 70% chance to do nothing or get punished isn’t going to fair as well as a character with a character with a 70% chance to do 200 damage and a 30% chance to do nothing or get punished.