I honestly don’t feel Elena is that bad of a character. In the end, I think she’ll be mid tier maybe. I just don’t see her as “Dee Jay tier” though.
There’s a lot of that that I don’t feel is correct.
First her damage output is fine. I’m not sure her bnb vs other characters however it seems to be decent. Maybe it’s below average but I don’t believe Adon has this massive damaging bnb.
You’re going to have to adjust her special and her combos depending on the character the hit box the standing or crouching. It may be more severe for Elena than other characters but I fail to see a problem with this. It actually seems to be something that’s normal.
Her high execution stuff brings out massive damage. I’m not even sure how you came to this conclusion. But Elena can do damage especially if she has meter. I’ll ignore the online comment.
Mediocre anti airs? I can dig it her AA’s are situational at best but they do stuff a lot of stuff. J hp is a good air to air s.mp and st.lp and cr.hp all have their uses. Her dp is 4 frames that’s faster than a lot of characters dp. Her ex is invincible for 7 frames. …that’s pretty good.
Cr.mp or cr.mk combo into ex mallet smash which causes force stand. Which opens her combo and juggle potential which lead to bigger damage.
She has an overhead that’s 12 frames. You can’t react to that you basically have to guess. If you’re being read that’s not her fault that’s yours. Being read isn’t a character thing it’s a player thing. I’m not trying to attack you I’m saying how I feel.
I’m not sure of her MU’S yet. I don’t feel that I have a grasp on Elena enough to talk about MU’s nor do I feel I’ve explored any MU properly yet. But I think she could struggle vs other midrange characters with strong pokes like vega Adon bison or Dudley. Juri could be a problem too and those dive kick guys.
IMO it all depends on your opponent and how well that can handle EX mallet smash and her mk over head, once you fight someone that can block and punish ex mallet smash consistently its very hard to win. Imo, she is bottom 10 at that point.
With that said as people get better and better at the game and match up, the lower she’ll go.
I do feel like with all the negatives she has for some reason she still can be mid tier, which say’s alot… If she had everything she had before the nerfs she’s be top 10 for sure.
If you’re playing someone that can block and punish ex mallet smash consistently then change your tactics. I don’t believe it’s a tool to be relied on for opening someone up its great in combos though. Forward MK is different since it’s a fast over that’s supposed to be quicker than human reactions. So if they’re blocking it they’re guessing you’re going to go high. That’s when you go low. Get them conscious of the overhead to put that thought in their head and now you’re setting them up for a low.
Changing tactics are a given, however that is her safest way to chip and second best way to open someone up. Once the effectiveness of Ex mallet smash is reduced it becomes super hard to win with her, more so in some matches then others.
I still don’t understand why light mallet smash is so punishable, you can’t combo from it and you can react to it.
It really should have been her special that could be used for chip, there is zero reason to ever use Light MS…
A 12 frame 50 damage overhead isn’t much at the end of the day it just makes a nice way to close a round. In fact it’s not great because her high low isn’t great, if her lows were better she’d have faaaar better overheads just as a result. It’s sad because there’s honestly very little reason to crouch against her and anything she does to try to stop it is too unsafe.
If you don’t want to read a lot don’t click the spoiler tags.
Damage
[details=Spoiler]A lot of characters can do monster damage. But her damage is situational as fuck, suppose your opponent whiffs a shoryuken and you try to get a max punish with HP xx MK RH you have 2 moves that are highly spacing dependent and may whiff. I’ve had instances where st.HP whiffed point blank during the recovery of shoryuken and if not then there are times when mk RH whiffs. And then you get punished way too easily for something that simple. In comparison to characters with safer ways to get damage that’s not great at all.
She really isn’t special when it comes to damage outside of her unreliable ass combos.
Examples (just from the new cast): Poison cr.lp-st.hp-rekka (245)
cl.StMp,Cr.HP, ex rekka into st.Hp does 510 Stun and 316 damage
Overhead,cr.LP,st.MKxxRekka does (244)
Elena
c.LP, c.LP, c.MP xx mk SS = 214 dmg / 322 stun
s.HP xx mk RH, EX SW = 370 dmg / 494 stun (Standing Only)
c.MP xx EX MS, c.LP, c.MP, mk SS = 296 dmg / 432 stun
Rolento
cr.LP, cr.LP, cr.LP, cr.MK xx Rekka 210/290
st.RH, cr.MK xx Rekka 269/414
Decapre
Her combo thread is messy but her punishes are around 327 to 400 (depending on if you want to spent meter and her BnBs are around 229-269 depending on which combo ender you want.
Additionally all of these characters have either a chain from lk or a link. All of these characters can combo from overhead on CH (Poison and elena can without it but Poison’s is far more rewarding as it hops lows)
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Buttons
[details=Spoiler]Air to airs aren’t the same as anti airs. In fact you state that st.mp (40 damage) st.lp (30 damage) and cr.HP have their uses (aka not reliable) the most reliable one that does enough damage to be considered a threat has an 8 frame startup and even then the hitbox isn’t great And her 4 frame dp isn’t good. The fact that it’s multi hit takes away a lot of potential when it comes to AAs you could spend a meter and get a 30 damage dp ffs what kind of shit is that? At least in xT she had 1 reliable dp for predictions that was lk SW that was upper body invincible until 1st active frame and was 100 solid damage and 1 reliable reversal dp for grounded pressure (EX SW). Here she has not a single good button, which is amazing considering her buttons aren’t proximity dependent. So how is that not mediocre?
Also EX mallet whiffs a lot and she has no threatening lows… From our sets after a while we all just started jumping back when we expected an EX mallet. 1 meter to whiff on top of that ALL of that loses to a focus because for some reason mallet smash can easily be focus backdashed and what crazy player is going to try to use her terrible non crouch hitting EX Rhino horn to try to stop that? The attack doesn’t even freaking go over crouching opponents it just pushes them back with you. It just boggle my mind how Yun got a fullscreen +1 lunge punch because “he had a tough time getting it” (yet he’s designed around divekicks) but Elena doesn’t (and she’s designed around having a ground game). So all that’s left is lynx tail and that’s honestly a shitty gamble not in your favor.
She doesn’t even have frame traps. In xt she had cr.mp > st.lk a true blockstring and that was her entire game in 3s st.lk - kara throw st.lk >st.lk (true block string). How the hell does she not have more than 1 button that is at least +1? Hell if most of them hovered around -3 to +2 I would be happy. In fact name 1 character that is designed around a ground game that doesn’t have frame traps… She’s so negative on so much of her shit that she makes an emo camp in Pennsylvania look like Disneyworld. Often times people mention Gen as the poster boy for previously bad characters that were considered top tier once some work was put in while ignoring why Gen became so highly regarded. Gen thrives off of ambiguous oki and great frame traps; Elena has neither of those (maybe she will have better oki in the corner, but definitely not midscreen).
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No - she’s definitely bottom 10 and that’s a conservative estimate, in my honest and truest opinion she’s bottom 5. I mean I can go on and on because it’s so disappointing, and as lengthy as that is that’s just the tip of the iceberg. (I literally had a 4 hour rant with my friend, who mains Yang, when he asked why don’t I play Elena in USF4).
I’m not sure if you even want to go for chip with the MS. I’m not sure how much chip it does but I’m not sure if that’s worth it. I also don’t believe she’s one of those characters who can safely chip you. I’d rather go for chip with SS than MS.
@kitl19 I didn’t play SFXT so I have no clue what she played like. I have to do more testing but she does have a 4 frame safejump that may or may not be an ambiguous crossup midscreen. Yeah situational is bad chun li had a lot of situational anti air in AE 2012. Finding the more that fits in the right situation is key. Her dp does sometimes do shit damage but sometimes it hits for 160. I think it’s dependant on the timing. Maybe the culmination of all these sketchy tools make her bad. I can start to see what you guys are talking about.
Yeah her lows are pretty bad. As for the lack of frame traps that’s true. She doesn’t really have much in that regard. I can’t think of any character who doesn’t have some sort of frame trap game. I know Dee Jay was pretty weak in that area but when you’re comparing your tools to Dee Jay it’s not looking good.
I basically agree with KitL19’s assessment of her, though not quite as harshly. She has too many flaws and her strengths are not enough to make her a consistent threat in my eyes. All of her nerfs from arcade to console seem unwarranted to me. It seems like a bunch of players were just whining about losing to Elena because they didn’t know the matchup yet, she’s definitely a strange character that takes some adjusting to… so Capcom just panicked and gave her a laundry list of kneejerk nerfs to make sure she wouldn’t be a strong character. Life would be so much easier with a +4/+1 st.lk with 4 active frames and a +5/+2 cr.lk, along with the better jump attacks, higher meter build all around, and considerably stronger combos (mostly punishes). Her damage was extreme, sure, but she didn’t have reliable ways to get that kind of damage outside of baiting huge reversals out of people (if you can call that reliable). Even with all of that, I think she would end up in the middle of the cast honestly, once people figured her out, maybe slightly higher.
I’m really salty about her losing her cancellable cr.HP (forces stand) and damage on so many of her specials… her punishes on things like blocked DPs before were simple and devastating, now we have to try to make use of st.hp which is a complete crapshoot in almost every situation unless you research it beforehand.
I really want to see the hitboxes on all of her attacks, especially her anti-air buttons.
Isn’t part of learning a character knowing what tool to use in a given situation?
What’s the point of learning the given situations where st.HP will come into play when it’s probably going to show up maybe once in a First To Five? You’re basically gambling your potential win away for 40 extra damage.
Maybe it’s just me, but I consider getting guaranteed damage very important. Going for a raw u1 punish against a blocked dp and getting 440 damage when you COULD have done s.hp xx mk rhino horn, u1 for 563 damage meterless could very well be the difference between a win and a loss. It’s not gambling if you know it works.
Yeah I don’t see a point in continuing your just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing.
Not disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing, I just see st.HP as one of the worst normals in the game (at the very least it’s her worst normal outside of jump attacks) so I’d rather just push it out of my mind completely.
I just consider st.HP a false option. Getting rid of the false options and focusing only on reliable options helps me optimize my game.
Oh I agree that it’s absolutely terrible, I only use it in guaranteed situations for the extra damage.
The sad thing is it’s like a heaven and hell difference. If you played her in xT her lows were amazing, her spin scythe was terrible, but the blockstun on her MS was just phenomenal. Worst one was +3 iirc best one was +10, she still had a floaty jump but she also had mp >HP which worked on evey character. Her ground game was really good and the reward you got from B+HK was amazing and the were set ups when you could just barely whiff B+HK (after conditioning them not to throw) whiff at the last second and either throw or pressure with frame traps. Amazing reward for using EX RH +4 on block and 220 damage every time regardless of distance. And the best part most of her moves didn’t whiff from a max range st.lk. Honestly most of her tools were just right (for xT) obviously some of them were excessive for SF4 but if they even had half the utility they would be great.
After looking at her arcade changes I only agree with like 3 changes cr.mp definitely shouldn’t have 7 active frames and slide definitely shouldn’t have 13 active frames, but she didn’t even receive compensation for the things she lost outside of more invincibility for her EX DP. Yet looking at what she had I think she would’ve been a great character probably even top 20 to top 15.
I’m leaning towards the7k on this one. I love it when it works, but the fact that there’s a chance that during a certain part of the shoryuken where it’ll whiff completely is nuts. I wish it had a consistent hitbox. But I don’t even use u1 because I feel her strongest aspect is her healing, especially since I just don’t trust any move other than healing and st.lk (and even that is iffy). I’m hoping they do another patch. I mean between the bugs and the extremely odd changes I feel like Japan’s prank holiday is in June instead of April.
yes, it’s true Chun had situational AA’s in the past, but at least her ground game made up for that. Not only that but her A2A’s at least slightly made up for that fact. At the very least with that tool(2x j.Hp into her juggle combo) would make the opponent think twice against jumping in on her, unlike Elena. This is talking about past versions of the character anyway, past versions that were considered to be low tier by pretty much everyone and even still, had better options than Elena. Elena’s dp, while only 4 frames is pretty awful as an AA, one because it has no invincibility, and 2 it has piss poor priority. So many things can beat her DP in the air if not done very early it’s not even funny. Like Kit said, it’s multi hit so you will probably only get 40dmg out of using her risky dp as well. Her AA normals are likewise mediocre due to their low dmg and the fact that if they ever trade it will never be in your favour.
We can even bring this to Deejay, because in all honesty, even though he’s a bad character, has more well rounded tools than Elena. AA’s are situational like Chun’s, but also like Chun’s they can lead to big damage to at least put it into the opponents mind that it’s not smart to constantly jump and therefore can help persuade the opponent to stop jumping in at you for fear of eating a big punish. Elena unlike Deejay and Chun, does not have that option. She has all their weaknesses of AA’s and none of their few strengths leading to a worse overall package, The only tool that I can give to Elena over Deejay is her EX DP it addresses both the air and the ground, something that Deejay doesn’t have and EX MGU doesn’t do a good job of protecting reversaling ground normals. Past that though, Deejay’s tools are all stronger. He has a slide, like Elena when well spaced cannot be punished,(Actually its harder to punish his slide vs Elenas) sobat being a decent footsie tool which if well spaced cannot be punished either, unless by super or SPD(Something Elena cannot say for any of her specials). His kneeshot makes punishing jumps harder, and his normals, while mediocre are all better than Elena’s due to having a better frame trap game, more positive normals, and actually being able to convert his footsie game into safer dmg, unlike Elena who either needs to rely solely on counter poking with c.mp to convert or take a risk by going inside the range of her normals for her specials to not whiff.(lynx tail). Of course Deejay also doesn’t have the disadvantage of not being too close or too far when playing footsies/pressuring because his specials will not whiff nearly as often on hit as Elena does if you’re not in her sweet spot.
The only thing that keeps me from saying Elena is worse than Deejay at this point is her hurtbox which saves her from being hit by a lot of stuff, and the fact that most people still do not know the matchup against her and she can get away with doing a lot of stuff that can easily be punished. She has her fast overhead, true, but it only does 50 dmg that doesn’t lead into anything. At most that will only annoy the opponent. It’s not something that will frighten opponents unlike Dudley’s f.hk. Another character that in past iterations did her job(high/low game) much better than she could do, had better AA’s and was still considered low tier.
And to answer your argument earlier about being read, yes it’s specific to the character because her mixup is so weak. There is no reason for an opponent being pressured by Elena to ever block low when being pressured. The only thing I can give you are well placed slides in neutral, which is still a risk as it’s very negative on block unless spaced perfectly. Lynx tail will whiff if not at completely point blank range and lk lynx tail doesn’t provide enough of a threat to even bother blocking low. EX mallet smash will only connect if spaced by 3 normals(sometimes not at all, like Juri) providing a very easy read of Elena’s options when she’s pressuring and allowing the opponent to act accordingly very easily. All you have to do if an Elena ever gets close is stand or jump. After 3 normals you know the possibility of a mallet smash is available and can just stand. To put it this way, Elena severely limits the players options when using her, thus allowing the opponent to more easily read what the Elena player will do due to the limited options they can commit to without whiffing a special and being completely open to punishment or commiting to something extremely risky and not in their favour.
I will not be surprised in the least if in a few months time Elena is universally considered bottom 5. It’s not even a situation like Gen where he has so many options that it will take time to simply explore everything.
Is their a reason why we’re ending our block strings with ex mallet smash? I think we can all agree that relying on ex mallet smash is a pretty bad idea.
Dee Jay slide doesn’t go under projectiles. It can be made safe. But it’s not as reliable as you’re making it out to be. But I think Elena having the ability to slide under projectiles is it. Since the opponent can’t safely through projectiles like they normally would.
While not as reliable as chun jump hp she does have the juggle off of j. HK. J. Hp is good her target combo lp mk is good and the other stuff seems like Ok stuff.
As far as her dp is consider the later you do it the more hits you get. EX is fine it has 7 frames of invincibility so you don’t have to worry about doing it early. Another reason to dp late is because it you can juggle ultra from dp trades. Her normals AA do shit damage but it adds up.
Deejay’s slide does in fact go under projectiles and it’s +2 on block when spaced perfectly (VERY unlikely) but -6 on the first active frame though so it’s pretty much meh like Elena’s.
Elena HAD a great juggle off of jHK when the first part had 4 active frames and the second part didn’t automatically hit,but now it has 1 active frame for the first part and a very specific time when you get a follow up juggle.
Her AA’s do terrible damage, but it adds up - SLOWLY look at the freaking risk reward for it. If they jump they take 40 damage of they knock you out of it you lose at least close to 300 if not more. I mean if you jump in on Elena 9 times that’s 360 damage if you jump in on Rose that amount of times that’s 900 look at the discrepancy. Let’s use another character who uses mediums Juri? Cr.mp 630, far mp 720 and her far mk does 30,70 which is pretty high for an mk but when it’s a 2 hit AA button it needs damage on the actual AA portion of the move, because right now it’s just a war or attrition for Elena.
Hmmm I don’t remember being to slide under projectiles with Dee Jay shrugs. That’s good to know. Your right about the damage on her AA’s. I never really looked at it like that.
Sorry for the late reply
I think she will be bottom 10 b/c a lot of charc can do what Elena does better or have multiple options to deal with most if not all of Elena tools. Shoto can do well and cr.MP blows up slide and sliding under a fireball thats anything but the low version is difficult at least online. She’s negative on most her buttons and she needs to first condition the opp in order to get her game started. This is why we see many people get randomed out a lot we usually have an idea that if we condition our opp to be scared of overheads or slides they will just stay away but sometimes we just get the person who likes to mash dp or a get off me move. This means that Elena needs to get all her links to deal good dmge which is kinda tough to do 10/10 times. Again this is my opinion of the charc that doesnt mean its the be all end all but i do think Elena has very real problems that the rest of the cast can exploit. She feels like a tone down Chun Li in terms of normals and spacing and it requires more than what we usually do to compensate for the charc bad points.