I enjoy making stuff in Excel cause I’m crazy like that, so I decided to do a spreadsheet that gives you stats and ratings for your CvS2 team composition. It doesn’t account for single or double-character compositions, but I’m satisfied with where it is at this point. It’s not perfect, and the information is based on my experience and stuff I’ve talked about with BAS, so veterans may not gain anything from it.
Either way, it’s just something I made to reteach myself stuff I used to do in Excel for work. On a side note, macros must be enabled for the buttons to work, so sorry in advance for anyone turned off by that or restricted from enabling them.
Yep. Even back when I was beginning, I had a Sagat.
If anything, at least learn Sagat.
(Other top tiers include Blanka… in pretty much every groove according to SRK wiki. Then there is A-Sakura and Bison himself).
Everything else (mid-tier and above unless you are managing something on K Groove) is fair game.
I thought about C groove too, but nixed it because C is one of Geese’s worst grooves (probably the worst non-S groove). He has more bad matchups in C than other grooves, due to how hard it is for him to get in and stay in without run/low jump, and how generally useless level 1/2 supers are for him. If the team had pretty much anyone better than Geese (remember Naps using those two with Rolento?), C would probably be the best pick.
Also, I think the spreadsheet (as great of a tool as it is, perfect for people just starting the game) underrates Ken badly.
Yo! What up, Warzard! Glad to see you still hanging around here =)
As much as I like Ken, and think he is solid in a lot of situations, he still struggles to convert damage at effective ranges where many other characters shine. I’d also say that he’s actually one of the better P-Groove characters despite the shortage of that lol, but I really can’t say he’s that good because the best players that I’ve seen only use him in C-Groove and are only mildly successful. I’m stuck in the early 2000s though, so there may have been some players that put him on the map after 2006.
C-Geese is super buff and legit. Having a stored TOD super is nothing to be messed with.
C-groove is a defensive based groove in general and he has a decent zoning game. I don’t see how he has more bad matches in C groove. In fact, I don’t think K-Geese or any groove Geese has any winning matches against any of the top and high-mid tier.
K-Geese is scary because of his damage and guard breaking ability. But the way K-Geese gets in is super risky and predictable. Unlike other K-groove characters, he doesn’t have any mix ups nor is his low jumps anything spectacular.
If anything, being in C-groove makes him less free to A-groove compared to K. He can still TOD you to death with C-groove like he can in K, except he doesn’t need to take as much risks in C-groove nor is he forced to work with a timer on his TOD.
I think the reason K-Geese is considered so strong compared to C-Groove is that he has a huge damage advantage over the stronger female characters (Chun, Cammy, and Sakura) who have some of the lower health values. His low-jump is also one of the harder ones to punish because of how low MK hits. Add a 35% damage boost when rage meter is full, and you end up with an offensive monster (good normals too). Nevertheless, he struggles like any other character against a good A-Groove team, so he really is more of a counter to strong C-Groove or P-Groove teams. Just my opinion though.
The huge damage advantage is not that significant as a whole. First of all, all those female characters have better normals and faster walk speed than him.
Sakura can pretty much pin down and stop Geese in his offense with roll cancel hurricane kicks and theres almost nothing he can do. It doesn’t help that hes a tall target. This is probably Geese hardest match up in the game. Chun can also pin him down with roll cancelled spinning bird kicks and she gets the most damage off her a level 1. Out of the three females, Geese does the best vs Cammy but her normals just shits on his.
C-groove Geese strengths:
stored TOD
access to alpha counters
2-5% damage buff when sitting on 2-3 bars
air block
roll cancelled fireballs. rc double reppuken is a decent gtfo move.
Sup man! Yeah srk is a pale shadow of what it once was, but I still check it every now and then to see if anybody posts. Holler if you need help with cvs2 at evo this year, I hope it goes down again.
Re: Ken, yeah, nobody’s really been able to replicate what Choi has done with the character. The thing is, RC funky kick allows him to hang with the top-tiers poke-wise, and he does have the best crossup in the game, with painful level 2 cancels. His offense is really strong, especially for a C-groove character.
Other grooves lose the lvl2 cancels, but his level 3 shippu super hits really hard to compensate. N groove is just a step behind C, though it’s N so nobody except Daidouraku has made it work. A Ken is legit too (Gunter has him in the top 10) and both K and P Ken are among the stronger characters in those grooves. I don’t think he’s quite top-tier, but he’s on the same level as Todo, Terry and Yun in the spreadsheet. I’m sure he outclasses those characters.
I dunno man, we just don’t see eye to eye on Geese, that’s well-established. My opinions:
Geese’s zoning is poor, because he does get outpoked by top-tiers as you say. Being able to TK air fireballs consistently might help, but air fireball is super unsafe against roll grooves, making this risky.
I can’t say that Geese flat out wins against any of the top tiers; but I do think in K he goes pretty even against all except Sagat and A-Sakura. While he doesn’t outpoke many of them, his pokes are good enough for him to get a chance to get in, where his over-the-top stun and guard crush games can win matches for him. But in any groove, he has to get in to win, he’s not going to win many matches trying to play defensively. And C groove gives him the least opportunities to get in of perhaps any groove. That’s why his matchups all become worse in C, because it turns him into a character that relies on pokes, and there are too many better characters at that for him to do well.
K helps him immensely, with JD allowing him to take more risks in the air, and giving him more chances on the ground to use his buttons. Low jump gives him better mobility, and gives him access to low jump HK, which is a really good poke (especially against tall characters), in addition to his crossup and other good buttons like HP and MP. And of course rage plays to his strengths at stun and guard-breaking.
N at least gives him his mobility options to help him stay in once he does get in. And parry gives Geese free knockdowns/offense to play with, even though losing run sucks. The best thing C gives him is stored, abundant meter. His TOD combo is nice, but even meterless his B&B does some of the best damage/stun in the game, which is what makes him so scary in the first place (particularly against low-stun characters).
Small things:
Sak can’t just do RC hurricane kicks “predictable(y)” against Geese, it’s a manageable fight until she gets meter.
Chun/Cammy are both about even for K Geese. He’s not as free on the ground against them as you say, and the damage and life differences matter. Chun has to get point blank for SBK trapping to be an issue, and she can’t get in for free against Geese.
Both of you guys make strong points, but one thing I want to touch on regarding the SBK trap with Chun is that it’s really not as strong as is thought. All versions of SBK are -2 on block, so you can force Chun to throw tech 100% of the time (if she’s meterless) which pushes you far enough to be in a decent neutral situation. This is something I’ve done against Chuns for years, and it has always been successful. Most of the time Chun players will resort to doing Lv2 Kikosho into Lv1 once they realize they can’t continue pressure, so it ends up being a free bait if you play K or P groove since you can OS throw/JD/Parry.
Just wanted to address that point.
Really, I’m just happy to see some modern discussion on CvS2 lol.
Warzard: BAS hit me up about a tournament this year, but I decided not to attend EVO this year. I know he’s looking for some help in setting it up on-site, so if you’re interested in doing it again I’m sure he’d love the help. He mentioned that he found a converter that allows composite to HDMI or some other HD signal that is completely lagless, so no CRTs needed to run CvS2 at EVO. I’d be amazed if he actually found something like that.
Thanks for the tech! Much safer than going for reversal/timing a jab right out of blockstun.
LOL I’m always down to talk about cvs2. Hope you guys are still playing down in SoCal, we still have our monthly gatherings here.
That’s too bad we won’t be seeing you at Evo this year. That would be amazing if Bas found an adapter like that for ps2. I know there are some decent options for dreamcast with the VGA box, but I can’t imagine too many ppl have DC-compatible sticks these days.
