The one change I am curious to see, is if they will allow follow up on all denjin charge levels, combo’d into or not. I could see a great many uses for it then to force stun on people near the end of a round, or simply turn the lights out. If they make this change, I will freely switch between the two ultras just based on what I’m up against. It’d be a nasty mix-up ultra, and that’s what I wanted out of it from the beginning.
But, the new changes seem rather mild to me. I was most interested in tatsu hitting low and sucking in for all hits, but maybe we got that too. I don’t believe we need hit confirms off of light moves because Gouken is not that type of character. All of his normals are capable of screwing with people so hard, combined with his forward dash and dumb cr.lp xx lp palm pressure, a lot of players I am seeing resort to jumping because they do not want to deal with that, and I’m practicing my heart out on dj.mp xx hk air tatsu and reaction EX tatsu to make them try again.When I’m successful at it, it seems morale dampening so to speak. They play way cautiously, and kind of just let me get away with stuff.
I don’t feel lp palm is useless, I just feel we need more time with it to pick up on what it’s all about. So far in my game, it has meant almost mindless dumb pressure on anyone who hesitates even slightly, and I only have to do it about twice before somethings is baited out, because they don’t want the corner. Honestly, being able to send someone fullscreen from a forward dash and their own hesitation (or latency) is really good. Far standing light kick can really mess with people, and after two chained you can block if you sense a bait, or throw out a safe, max range far st.hk, giving you neutral frame advantage, and free damage, and then you can look for a jump, or poke with cr.lk just to throw off their timing.
I feel like Gouken is a character that messes with you to damage you. If you are being messed with, then you are doing no good. I feel like Gouken is really good up close now with cl.st.mk because of its ability to combo into lp hado on counter-hit which sets up untech knockdown, or you can just lp palm, gflip, etc. Characters like Balrog (if you can react) won’t do any overhead rush punches if you punish with that consistently.
I know in my own game, I have a habit of poking a little too much because I see it is working initially, only to get FA’d because I didn’t cancel a normal in time into gflip, so now I’ve started to just use more light chains. Everyone says they are useless, but I really don’t think so. Far standing light kick, crouching jab, standing jab, and crouching light kick can all be chained in various ways depending on what you are trying to accomplish, and are very good for baiting out mashed attacks, just be more patient and use them to just wear your opponent down. Just setting up a 4 hit chain followed by a 3 hit chain of jabs and shorts (counter hit, maybe?) can do near 200 damage, not to mention the safe frame traps they set up on hit:
(Point blank) Cr. jab > Cl.St.HK (Cr. jab on hit = +3, Cl.St.HK = 4 frame start up, +4 on hit) followed up by: Cr. MP (5 frame start up, used to bait the next move), or Sweep (6 frame start up, untech knockdown for mixups)
Far standing light kick is +3 on hit, setting up Cr. MP, (if in range) Cr. Jab (counter hit sets up frame trap cr.fp) xx cr.lk (for the bait), or cr.lk xx lk or mk gflip > dive kick/throw
(Point blank) Cr.jab > Cl.St.MP xx lp hadoken > Sweep, or Cl.St.MP > Cr.FP xx EX Tatsu, (or even some new setups with the changes to palm)
Of course this is all theory fighter, but I’m incorporating them into my game step by step, match by match. Really focused on my anti-air too. I believe Gouken can hang in tournaments, it’s not so much the character as it is the players understanding of the character. We haven’t figured it all out, we don’t need light move hit confirms. I don’t think the new changes to palm are good or bad, until I mess with them for a while to find new set ups.
