I had some time with Dhalsim today and I’ll try to write down some of my thoughts.
Overall feel:
Dhalsim seem to be pretty strong in this game, since he has a more options when he is trapped in the corner: He can roll out after a knockdown and he can alpha counter. Also, his raw ground teleport seemed to have less recovery for me, but I am not sure about this. He also seem to be doing better when it comes to pressuring the opponent himself, which I will come back to.
Normals: As has been mentioned, his stretchy normals are all command normals now. This is really annoying as I am used to his sf4 version, but I guess I’ll get used to it! This also leaves Dhalsim’s yoga sniper nerfed. You can still do it by jumping back/up, and immediately pressing forward + FP, but it seems to be way harder to hit with, and it’s easy to get mummy in the air (down-forward+FP=mummy).
As for his anti airs, back/neutral mp seems to be his go to normal anti air now. It seems to have a better hitbox infront of Dhalsim and you can cancel it into yoga fire that will juggle the opponent, and probably juggle with super too. You can also anti air with mp and juggle with dhalsim’s slide sweep. Be careful to delay this slightly though, as you will get dhalsim’s short version sweep if you are too fast, because mp chains into the short sweep.
The yoga knee, that was godlike in sf4, doesnt seem to be as good anymore. It was beaten cleanly on several occasions from ranges that should be really good for dhalsim. This might be because of the other character’s jump in normal that was very good, but this also seems to be the case for a lot of the cast (especially the tekken cast): They have a lot of air normals with tons of active frames and beastly priority. You are able to juggle with slide (mk or sk) after anti airing with hk knee, but I didnt test if you could cancel the slide into flamo or fire and juggle (this brings me to the next point)
Dhalsim’s stretchy roundhouse is ok in this version, but seems to have less active frames and range, and doesn’t seem to be as good for pre emptive anti airs anymore. You can anti air with it juggle with standing mp though, so that is fun:P
Dhalsim’s standing FP, seems to go under certain fireballs now, so it might be even better in a fireball war now!
All you guys that played Dhalsim in sf4 will be very happy to hear that his short slide is veeery good now!! You know how annoying it is to do short slide to fire or flame, only to have it not come out because you are too far away to cancel? Well, now you are able to cancel the slide to fire or flame from max distance!
Also, dhalsim’s heavy flame seems to come out much faster, so short slide to heavy flame is a good trick once in a while. I dont think slide comboes to flame or fire in this game either though, but I didn’t test it very well, so I might be wrong (short slide counterhit comboes to ex flame though).
Yoga Tower is in this version too, and the only difference I could notice is that it now has more startup before it can dodge fireballs. This makes fireball wars harder for dhalsim, but if his standing FP goes under all fireballs, this might be a good trade (I need to test this better)
Special moves:
Yoga fires seem to be about the same as sf4 (ex travels full screen)
Yoga flames seem to work the same too, but you can charge them until super. Also hp flame seem to come out faster.
Yoga blasts seem to be much the same too, and they seem to be pretty useless as anti airs still (except for the ex blast, that seem to be even better than in sf4, but doesn’t cause hard knock down anymore). You can also charge the blasts until super, but it still really hard to anti air with them, even with the light version.
His teleports seem to be very similar to sf4 too, but the recovery on ground teleports seem to be slightly faster, and it seems to be harder to get LIAT’s (low instant air teleports)
His drills and mummy seems to be very similar too, and they are punishable if you don’t hit around the ankle area of the opponent.
Dhalsim’s front throw seem to be the same as sf4, but his back through throws the opponent farther away. This is good if you need to tag in your other character, but you can’t do the fireball -> FP trick to punish the opponent for trying to jump over the fireball anymore:(
Supers:
I didn’t like his supers tbh. the anti air super seem to have about 5-6 frames of startup and does minamal damage. The normal super can’t be comboed after flame anymore (I think) so you have to go straight from air hp->b.mk->super now (BnB). I’d rather save the meter for your other character or for alpha counters or even limbs-> tag (you can press tag(focus) as you hit(makes the opponent block)with a stretchy limb to send in your other character pretty safely for one meter)
That is all I can think of at the moment. Please leave questions if you want to know anything specific, and I will do my best to answer!
PS: I only used the pre set defencive gems for dhalsim, and they seemed to be very good for him!
Also, dhalsim’s heavy flame seems to come out much faster, so short slide to heavy flame is a good trick once in a while. I dont think slide comboes to flame or fire in this game either though, but I didn’t test it very well, so I might be wrong (short slide counterhit comboes to ex flame though).