You are right, it is not that strong of a trap compared to Sakura’s hurricane kicks and vega’s claw roll. Overall, the SBK trap is not even that useful of a tool since a majority of the cast can just duck it.
However tall characters like Geese still has to deal with this safe low risk move, especially when roll cancelled. Its especially harder to deal with this in K groove since you have to jd all hits or block it and have nothing guaranteed afterwards. The opponent can also change it up with lk and mk sbk to throw off your jd timing.
Damn. I wish we had something like that down here. Even if we do monthlies, it’d be a struggle to get people to show up cause of how spread out we are.
Yea. Tall characters are very susceptible to abusable specials like Sakura’s tatsu and Chun’s SBK. You have to really grind it out in training mode to be able to consistently deal with those types of moves. K-Groove can deal with it better than other grooves depending on the character, but it can be daunting if you aren’t used to being in that position. For example, you can kind of cheat JD timings vs. different strengths of SBK by doing Back+HP/HK every two JDs (the 6-frame window between each hit is not large enough to allow a move in-between).
Nevertheless, you still have to know when the move combos on block and when it doesn’t, and how to adjust timing for RCs or different block strings. That’s the beauty of CvS2 though!
I’m pretty sure other grooves can deal with abusable multi hit RCs better than K-groove. All it takes is an alpha counter or roll thru to avoid and even punish those abusable RCs. You can also counter RC. P-groove only need to parry once since the invincibility wears off right as the first hit gets parried.
Against single hitting rc specials like honda’s headbutt, K-groove does really well.
Be sure you enable macros. Then you select the characters you want on the “main” tab and the groove you want to get a rating for the team. If you want to change things, click on the “clear groove” or “clear composition” buttons.
The spreadsheet says, for example, that the K-groove version of your team is slightly stronger. Of course, those teams would be played pretty differently in each groove, player style is not factored in. It’s something that’s really helpful for people new to the game, trying to figure out what groove to start in.
One of the coolest things about cvs2 is how much you adapt your team as you learn and keep playing. There are very few cvs2 players I know who still play with the team/groove they started in.
You make quite a good point, and adjusting and learning is still something I have a lot of work on doing in CvS2.
Wish I had a decent cab around here. I tend to be terrible with emu…(REDACTED) and the closest cab I ever see is the one we get at FR thats only here once a year. I still have at least something to practice with though with the okayish ports.
I update here and there, but nothing much changes considering the current competitive state of the game. Is there something you had in mind?
Viability is a very general term representing the amount of high-level talent representing the character(s). I’d say you can make any character work if you put in enough work and play well enough. Kyosuke, for example, is pretty bad, but he can actually put a lot of pressure on K-Groove players due to his design. It’s all relative.
In my opinion, the tier list for this game would have to include the collective effectiveness of a character in every groove and in every match-up. This document represents my opinion on the first half of that, but the latter would require a lot more work. It’s worth noting that a character who appears to suck when compared to its best groove doesn’t necessarily suck outside of that groove.
CvS2 is technically a very young game competitively because there is a lot of depth, and it didn’t last as long as a game like 3rd Strike or Super Turbo. There’s still a lot of stuff that is unknown and may have changed the competitive scene for CvS2 if it had lasted longer as a mainstay title.
I love the idea of this spreadsheet for new players. Nice work! The great thing about it is that it’s configurable and can therefore be changed. Renegade and others have some good ideas, and I’m sure the community could come to some consensus. However, it’s basically telling us hardcore people what we already know, and is therefore not too useful for the few that remain here (might work better in the Facebook group).
Well said. I do think Geese is a good character in general and can be played well in pretty much any groove, but C-Groove is one of the weaker variations. Here’s why:
Geese in general has a more difficult time approaching, due to his speed and footsies. C-Groove doesn’t make this better. His roll is no good, and unlike other characters, he can’t use roll cancels to force his way in.
Geese with stored super is deadly (maybe preferable considering his problems approaching), but C Geese has to earn 168 points for a Level 3. Compare that to A-Geese which has many of same options as C, but also gets a super powerful and versatile CC at 144 points. Also, while P-Geese gets Level 3 later than C, P has better approach options and footsies in neutral with the parry.
I think the Geese tier list looks something like this:
K>A=P>N=C
With that said, I do think K-Geese is somewhat overrated (in relation to the other good Geese grooves) and many people don’t talk about his weaknesses enough. Ouroborus makes some good points in regards to that.
Personally, I’ve been playing a lot of S-Geese. I think on paper, he could be really strong (it was talked about a lot in the first S-Groove thread years ago). Rather than derail the topic, I’ll bring it up in the team discussion thread if anyone wants to hear more.
Sorry for the late response! Thanks for the feedback and for checking out the doc!
A main reason for the example you mention about A-Sakura is that I based the criteria of tiers on a character’s combined performance in all of the grooves. In my opinion, if the character only excels in a single groove, there’s no reason to give the idea that having this character on any team will improve the team’s rating. Realistically, I think Sakura is a great character with great tools, but she’s really only hindered in grooves outside of A-groove because of low health and low damage output. I’m guessing a matchup chart would likely be more accurate to what you’re saying than something studying team compositions because a character’s strength may be better measured by its advantages against other characters.
This is mostly subjective though as you said, so it’s good to discuss and learn everyone’s opinions on these things.
Renegade makes some interesting points in his specific suggestions. I agree with most of his base rankings except:
I agree that N Chun should be a 4, that is her best groove and she is arguably N-Groove’s best character (Sagat being her main competition).
C Ken is somewhat controversial - I agree with Renegade’s ranking, but I know that Japan really doesn’t think much of C Ken. Have you talked to Bas at all about C Ken?
