Well
a lvl 3 phoenix arrow doesn’t suck ass much…
i do that super a lot if they are turtling when i’m near end of my rage mode…
also i’m raged a lot because i’m a jd whore
but yea…k groove athena was not as effective as i thought it would be…at least for me…
I don’t like to use the Phoenix arrow super with her because of the faults listed above! I use her shining crystal bit instead. I like to follow up the shining crystal bit immediately with the crystal shoot she does. The damage and the number of hits rise more ^_^!
She reminds me a little of KOF 98 Athena in some ways!
I’ve been testing this out, and I kind of like how it comes about.
For Anti-Air, here’s something I don’t think has been mentioned yet. Tiger kneeing her Phoenix Arrow move, but with the roundhouse kick. Try to position it where she’ll back up and do the trip. I guess its not so useful when they’re jumping in deep, but … yeah. In certain situations I find it too good. Gives you knockdown to mix things up.
Athena stuff…
Not that I’m at all a good player or anything, but I’ve been playing Athena for a while now, and have picked up some nice tricks with her.
First off–I generally play in C groove, some P groove as well. Athena can cross up nicely with her jumping forward, and it has good air-to-air properties as well, as long as it’s out first (it has some startup lag). If you get the crossup with the forward, generally you can do chains and links ranging from the usual c.sh-c.sh-c.fp to stuff as wild as c.jab-c.jab-c.sh-c.fp. It’s sometimes worth it to fake the crossup and use Phoenix Arrow, changes the timing a little, but it’s also fairly obvious after the first couple of times.
What else… I generally try to play a rushdown strategy in CvS2 (thus my teams generally look like Kyo/Iori/Sakura/Athena/Terry/etc.), so I tend to ignore spacing, etc. as much as I can (or maybe I’m just a bad player 
).
A note about Athena’s c.FP: It can, with extremely good timing, go under mid fbs (like Ryu, Ken, Athena herself, etc.) Unlike Charlie/Guile, you don’t necessarily have to hit to have this happen, though that works too.
Should I think of anything else, I’ll post it. Hope some of this helps.
Her lvl 3 SCB do half life in chip damage on big characters. I love that super.
I have mentioned Athena’s jumping foward but honestly its not that good. It doesnt really have good priority and it doesnt really crossup all that much. You would have a better chance of crossing up with the phoenix arrow then the jumping foward. Not to mention its not a good idea generally to jump with Athena unless you are small jumping or facing an opponent with no solid antiair. Unless you use the buttbump, she can usually be beaten out of the air easily. Her airthrow is an excellent antiair as I have mentioned before though, and can be done of the smalljump.
And now her crounching fierce will not go under Athena’s fireball, as it is to big. You are correct about Ken and Ryu and can run under Sagats fireball, but you cant duck Athena’s.
K athena is very good, my main team consists of an r1 K athena, always.
JD gives her free jump-in, because her jumping roundhouse has great range (great angle too, perfect for using after a JDed anti-air).
for anti air usually st.MP is enough for most situations, if not you can always JD stuff. ppl always say st.MK is great anti crossups etc. but i never really tried it; never really had the need to. crouching fierce is a great anti air too against some air attacks, but not all. i havent really figured out what type of air attacks beat it, i think its the ones with less vertical priority/hit frame. (non-crossups)
i don’t recommend throwing a lotta fireballs with athena unless your opponent goes into defense mode or just turtles. her fireball has slow startup and recovery.
straight jump up roundhouse is almost blanka-slap-level-good. same usage as that.
i agree with jaehoon that jumping forward isnt that good. i dont really use it at all. i find jumping roundhouse and butt bounce to be enough for air attacks. butt bounce has godly priority, though not invincible (so loses to shoryukens).
i dont use her sweep at all, her cr.fierce is too good a substitution for sweep. you can probably score 2 cr.fierces in a row if an opponent isnt too familiar with fighting against athena 
her teleport comes in handy at certain situations. some situations where i would use it is, when running away from a flashing lv 3 S/N/K groover, get to the corner, when he comes your way, HK teleport outta there. if you know your positions well, you can always teleport -> command grab. but it’s easy to get thrown out of it as teleport recovers slow and command grab starts slow too.
[edit]
oh, and K athena DOES have an answer for RC blanka balls and the like, that might be something to consider for using her in K groove. JD the blanka ball, run in crouching fierce. works every time. i would think P groove would work too for the same reason, so depends on how good are you at parrying, personally i think JDing is THAT much easier than parrying. maybe im just used to it.
hmmmm…i think u can do more than just a crouching fierce if u jd a blanka ball. i think if u jd and run right after the blanka ball, u’ll be right in front of blanka, free combo…i think. haha it’s funny how i’m not sure, cuz i know i must’ve done it against blank players when i’m athena…
I like athena because she has cheesy CC->Command grab BS.
No one mentioned anti-air CC yet.
CC, towards+mk (1-hit) x whiff d.lk, j.RH j.MK, land, superjump stuff… blah blah DP, j.RH x Air super.
Stupid midscreen guard damage CC
CC, Towards+mk (1-hit) xN… throw in a few jabs or something. phht, whatever.
I like how she can actiavte of a LOT of stuff… Command grab or DP or towards+MK in the corner… but too bad the DP SUCKS!! Any uses outside of combo? I always get hit. It seems to suck in combos too. No range, it’s seems easier to combo low fierce…
Stupid combo
command grab in corner, towards+mk (2nd-hit), towards+mk (2nd-hit). W00t!
More combos
crossup mk, s.mp, d.lk, low fierce
crossup mk, s.lp, s.mp, low fierce
I can link CC off close s.mp (and prolly d.lk x2 too I guess), but I can’t figure out a good way to play off it.
CC, low fierce, towrards+mk (2nd-hit), towards+mk (1-hit) x whiff d.lk, j.RH, j.mk, land, superjump stuff… yada yada. Problem is the first towards+mk whiff sometimes. Any ideas?
cc->command grab is one of her cc’s. it’s probly the most effective one at that.
i dunno if you were joking around with that guard crush cc. anyways, i think u can fierce dp->qcb+rh (in air) x N, then finish off with a super or something. i dunno how much gaurd crush that does, hell i’m not even sure if it’s possible to do it. i guess i’ll give it a try and tell you if it even works…
That combo’s cool. I watched some random Jap dude do it in a match video if I can remember.
I was going to play A-Athena a while back actually. That was before I realized she can’t do a THING against Blanka ball or Honda headbutt… :lol:
Not true, if you block the blanka ball you can run foward and df if your fast enough and Athena’s df cancels Honda’s headbutt.
are you roll cancelling that crouching fierce? if so athena is GOD TIER.
No im not, I just df
no shit, that’s the point- athena can’t just crouching fierce a RC headbutt. if it’s not RC’ed, fine. but who throws out non-RC headbutts (except jab ones for AA, but then you can’t crouching fierce…)?
It depends on how much time she has, Athena’s df cancels any of Hondas headbutts as long as you can get it off. The only way there usually getting an rc against Athena with Honda is if your throwing a fireball anyway. Headbutts are your least concern when playing against Honda, his throw and jumping roundhouse are much much more worry some. Not to mention I seriously doubt he was talking about rc headbutts and blanka balls.
I thought RC headbutts were always the shit to do when upclose… usually. What can Athena do against that? i’ve never played an RC Honda.
How is Athena usually played? As an upclose always-for-the-hit character, or a ranged positioning poke game?
i guess the obvious answer is a bit of both…
Ok, you show me how to run forward and punish a Blanka ball with A-groove Athena, then I’ll start using her. :lol:
Can Athena RC down fierce through LP Honda headbutts as well?
I have seen many Athena players. These Athenas are good from far, but far from good.
1337 tactic: do air qcb+LK/MK for block damage, then do shining crystal bit as soon as you recover. You just hit their counterattack attempt! PSYCHIC
1337 tactic number 2: get ahead on life a bit, then keep jumping back in the corner. If they jump air throw! If they try to get in to do something, wall jump and run to the other wall with qcb+K! It’s like a crappier Mai.
Sometimes they press down fierce
I dont play A Groove Athena I playe N/K Groove Athena, that would be very interesting to see though.
As far as the rc headbutt up close hell you can just do rc uppercut with Athena and it works just as well. Athena can rc just as well as Honda can.
Athena is played however you want to play her. I use her as either an in your face rushdown character in K Groove or a cat and mouse type of character in N Groove, more of a hit and run then the all out assult I do in K Groove.
Gon plays her very defensively and basically turtles his ass off but it works for him.
Peachy plays a weird Athena, all the shit he does seems random but it isnt. Its fun to watch what he does with her.
Athena can be played however you want her to its all up to you, its just finding which way fits your style.