Elena General Discussion

My stance from the beginning has been that she would be considered bottom 10 to 5 in the months to come, especially so if Capcom does the hurtbox fix. My stance was also that she has the possibility of doing well early on because no one is really accustomed to playing her yet, a positive that will drop off as the game begins to mature. An Elena player doing well with her less than a month in from Ultra would definitely fall under the latter part of my then and current thoughts about the character.

I never said you guys said she was. I only used those analogies to top tier based on Infiltrations placement(winning a major/EVO) and his character usage, relative to how you guys are saying that because jwong/chrisg made top 8 with her she must be mid tier. Pretty much I’m saying that you cannot say that a character is automatically good simply because a player used them a few times in a major and did well.

That’s not the only reason we’re saying it at all, though.

You guys definitely haven’t explained your other reasoning then. Past CEO, all I’ve heard is, “She’s good” and “She’s good and if you think otherwise you’re a scrub and a whiner that just loses all the time”. Pretty similar to those in AE2012 that said Deejay was solid midtier…without really explaining why against those that actually broke down why they thought he wasnt. In all honesty, the only person on the other side of the discussion that has actually bothered explained his reasoning for why he thinks Elena is solid is AlmostLegendary and that was after pushing him to explain himself.

Chris G was shown on stream playing in pools twice and used Elena for every match.

Infiltration arguably has the best Elena in the world. He knew the character so well that if he mis-timed the sweep punish that he would eat an Ultra 1 from Justin.

Elena vs shotos doesn’t even play to where she goes in the tier list. Elena vs Cammy/Yun/Rufus has everything to do with where she goes in the tier list.

No, I definitely explained why both here and the usfiv discussion thread.

How else are you gonna do: f+MP, cr.LP, MK Scratch Wheel, Red Focus, Dash Cancel Forward, HK Rhino Horn into Ultra 1, AKA da best combo in da game?

I’ve stated it you rejected it. Then argued against why should I have to bring up the same stuff you to just make your claims. Then you guy as far as to take one of the most prepared players who brings notes with him on stage and claim he has unfamiliarity with the character. … I’m sorry but unless he tweeted something i can’t even take you seriously.

honestly think the Elena is bad is a meme or some sort of troll at this point.

@prof, fair enough. Lets just agree to disagree then. At the end of the day we’re all playing her because we like the character, so I’ll stop ranting about her. I just want Capcom to not ignore her for the next patch other than fixing her hurtbox.

This post literally doesnt make any sense.

Anyway, as for your last part, That’s fair as I did the same for you long ago, if you wanna play the ad hominem game. As someone that doesn’t even know that there are other projectile invincible specials in the game that do dmg and knockdown I cant take you seriously either.

What are you talking about?

EX RH being a unique tool vs the cast:

Not that I really give a shit that you made the mistake of thinking that this was a move unique to Elena and that other characters can’t do the same thing(proj invincible special that knockdown) but better, but if you’re gonna dismiss anything a person says simply because of a past assessment of play of an individual, I’ll do the same to you.

Elena’s ex RH is projectile invincible from frames 1-35. I think that’s pretty special. But if there’s a ton of anti projectiles moves with that much invincibility then that’s on me.

That ex.rh totally shuts down fireballs from almost full screen. One of her best tools vs shotos.

EX RH does a lot more psychological damage than anything else when it comes to projectile characters. It does little actual damage and unless you’re fighting a character with no reverse (like Poison) it’s not going to do much for your positioning either. I was noticing in the CEO footage when one of the three Elenas would hit somebody during their fireball, the announcers would act like it was something huge, but because of Elena’s Oki game vs the opponent’s wakeup game, she’d just find herself in the same position she was just in within seconds.

I think the biggest thing that was really confirmed with CEO is that Healing is the way to go. I think I only saw one Brave Dance the entire time, and because of how it has to be set up, it was scaled so hard that it seemed to do less than 100 damage.

Also, I’m pretty sure we all knew already, but CEO definitely taught the hard way that you should never, ever jump unless your opponent is jumping too.

With that much invincibility? Only a few, but I don’t think that’s what makes a projectile invincible special good. It’s how fast it goes + invincibility + positioning + dmg.(And admittedly EX RH does go pretty damn fast) By invincibility only Yang(1 -34 frame invincible) and Oni (1st until 3rd recovery frame invincible) match it.

imo Dudley has the best in the game with it going the fastest(although a shorter distance than EX EH) being completely projectile invincible from the 1st frame, plus it doing good dmg and giving you great positioning.

Anyway, I’ll admit I was wrong about Infiltration not knowing the MU well. Fuck the tiers and I’ll/lets just focus on getting Elena as good as can be.

I said that from day one though =(

Also as far as moves that shut down fireballs go Rose’s EX SS, Poison’s EX LMT (flip kick), Decapre slide kick and EX Air spiral all work well and do a lot more damage and work with the same intent as Elena’s EX RH. If anything I think slide has a greater psychological effect than 50 damage, because when I get hit by it I usually just throw more fireballs. In fact I’d argue it’s her worst of meter (I feel EX spin scythe is 2nd) between the damage and the times where it randomly whiffs I’d rather say slide, or even better focus absorb for U2.

Yeah, I pretty much run U2 always except against Gen, Abel and the rest of the usual suspects, but folks at home tend to question my decision to do so. They questioned it in 3S too, where the move was thousands of times more effective, even.

Hey guys been a long ass time since I have even came to this forum, so long it was back in CvS days and just decided to make a new name. I had purchased a while back SSF4 on my ps3 but didn’t really devote time to it. I have a horrible temper losing lol, hmm maybe I should pick Elena then j/kj/k. Well long story short I saw USF4 came out and Elena was in it and honestly she was the only character that interested me. I think part of the reason I didn’t stick with the game was I would jump from one character to the next just trying to find someone that would hold my interest but no one did so I got bored. I saw her and decided to re-download everything and see if I enjoyed her playstyle, and I actually did, so now I am trying to learn everything the past four years I have missed. I think how stupid since SF5 could be a couple years off but whatevs. I have a couple questions for you Elena enthusiasts,

  1. Honestly, after watching the most recent matches and CEO, I still see no real reason to use U2. The fact that there is no set up for it to complete it fully and more often than not the people I see using it gain minimal amount of life. The amount of life gained is almost the same amount as most peoples BnB with an EX move tagged on. I just don’t see the usefulness of this super over U1. Plus to make it safe you have to cancel out of it which to me is a waste of half its supposed usefulness. I guess my question is should I choose U1, or the double super and have the option to use U2, even though U1 takes a hit in damage.

  2. Plinking, I understand the basics of it and the priority sequence (lp>lk>mp>mk>hp>hk) but I am a little confused even after watching the tutorials. Does the p-link have to be the next lowest of the sequence? For example if I want to p-link the c.mp, do I have to use lk, or can I use any of the lower buttons in the sequence such as lp? Another example would be if i wanted to plink hp, not necessarily pertaining to Elena, would I have to use mk to plink hp or could I use any button that is lower in the sequence?

  3. Lastely can some of you USF4 vets give me a couple examples of some plinking combos, one of them being her BnB and another useful Elena combo. Just so I can’t get an idea of plinking in her rotation.

Thank you guys for answering, well hopefully you do ;p.

Tang

  1. U2 does have a few full heal setups, but it only works on about 5% of the cast. U2 is most useful against Gief because you can get off a full heal off backthrow and EX SS. There are a few other characters you can get a full heal off of backthrow, but it’s very small. Check the combo thread for the full list. U2 is still very useful though, especially in certain matchups like Guile(Akimo showed the usefulness of U2 perfectly in that match) I personally almost always go for U2 unless it’s against a character that can punish any U2 setup including cancels(I’m looking at you Yun) or against a character that has a near full screen projectile invincible ultra. Imo I feel that her Ultra W is worthless. The dmg decrease to U1 is pretty hefty and U2 heals for next to nothing even when fully charged(I think a U2 cancel when full charged only heals around 50hp or so). Either pick U1 or U2 depending on the MU.

  2. I do plinking like this:

HP~MP
MP~LP
LP~Select(if your stick is modded)
HK~MK
MK~LK
LK~LP

  1. an example of her basic BnB with plinking notated would be:

LP~Select, LP~Select, MP~LP xx mk SS

or

LK~LP, LP~Select, MP~LP xx mk SS

My stick isn’t modded to support LP~select plinking so I don’t plink any links with LP

I’ve actually had more success with healing than I thought. To be honest. I play Elena very poke heavy, and I try to mix up as much as possible. I started noticing that after awhile most of my matches were close to where if I had healing I would have won, and I am def starting to win more because of it. Even though she has a few ways to land Ultra 1, I have started to favor Healing in quite a few match ups especially against zoners. I use brave dance against blanka, Hawk and Honda (for obvious reasons) also against Abel, Dudley, and Makoto because they can punish healing easily. I use W ultra against chun. While I prefer healing in that matchup, I am not willing to take the chance if she has Ultra 1 stocked…lol. Overall, I really like healing. I do know there are not very many setups where you can get a full heal, but sometimes all you need is a good 20% health regain…lol. Also you can get it more than once in a match especially against zoners. It’s awesome. I’ve timer scammed with healing multiple times against guile…lol.