Welp ima do what you guys do to me.
Show me some high level c viper vs Elena in a long set where c viper wins. Even then I’ll make up some excuse as to why Elena still wins. Am I’m close to being like the Elena is bottom 5 crowd?
Viper can still do her bullshit on Elena. You just gotta be mindful of what does and doesnt work on her. Once that’s in place Viper bodies Elena as Elena loses to vipers tools handily(being able to augment her jump, being able to punish all of Elena’s specials on block, high stun, vortex game, etc.) I’ve faced vipers that know the Elena MU and it definitely felt like it wasnt in Elena’s favor.
And there’s no way in hell Balrog has worse MU’s than Elena. I’d really like to know what Mu’s you think Elena wins vs Balrog. It isn’t even close. The only character on that list I’d even say is debatable for Elena being better than is Blanka
Yup yup Elena has nothing going for her. Viper handles her as long as the viper knows the MU same old shit. You guys literally sound like a broken record.
and it sounds like you’ve never played a viper player thats played an Elena before.
All im saying is you have still yet to give a reason why she’s as good as you think she has. You say she has the tools vs the other cast. Please elaborate how her tools are so good that they vault her in the top 20. I mean Elena over Chun? Im really gonna need an explanation on what makes her tools so much better than Chun(considering their playstyles are very similar)
Much more misinformation in your post. Meaty f.mk (which he specified) giving you 13-14 frames to react is hardly “slightly difficult”. If the tell for the attack was the entire screen flashing white on frame one, then you’d still only have about 160 ms or less to switch your block on reaction (assuming an ideal ~3fr total delay in inputs), which would be very difficult. The startup is more subtle than that obviously, so it’s extremely difficult, borderline impossible IMO.
You can c.lk and OS a sweep or slide during hitstop to catch back dashes and link into c.lp on hit. Takes practice, but if you’re claiming that blocking a subtle 13-14fr overhead on reaction is “slightly difficult” this is nothing. Easier if the c.lk is meaty of course, which also happens to fulfill your want of a low that leads to damage in the context of wakeup games.
Balrog c.HK is 8fr startup, doesn’t punish -7 on block lk lynx.
You seem a bit too eager to jump down people’s throats. I know you’re a smart guy and a good player, but this isn’t really conducive to a pleasant and productive subforum.
Na I’ve come across a good viper before it did make rethink the MU. I’ve keep saying it but it keeps getting ignored or people just disagree.
EX MS separates Elena from Chun or Rose or any other footsies character. It allows pokes to be buffered into good damage for a bar. A lot of characters moves will not work properly when it’s at max range. So instead 60 damage from a poke you’re getting 296 from your pokes and a set up afterwards or heal.
Also all of her normals are special cancelable with the exception of cr.hp s.hk and cr.hk. Some characters like fei long for instance his cr.mk and cr.mp neither are special cancelable despite being amazing pokes.
She still has a 4 frame dp with 7 frames of invincibility. Which is a better reversal than what Chun rose juri or poison has to offer. It has its issues but it’s still a 4 frame dp which is something a lot of characters can’t say they have access to.
Then there’s her super which also sits at four frames. Which should punish a lot of shit. I think only Chun Ryu Zangief and T Hawk have faster supers.
She also has pretty good corner carry thinks to SS and RH. She’s not Dudley but it’s still pretty good and her corner control seems pretty strong.
Incoming wall of text
@Lodrak
Really? Well the frame data app said it was 7 su (I’m guessing they used the 1 frame earlier SU and +1 frame recovery). But then again it’s the same one that lists lk SS as 12 frame startup, so it could just be flatout wrong. I apologize for that misinformation.
But saying you react to F+MK is a mistatement. It’s the fact that it’s already started the animation F+MK. Where else are they going to block? It’s like whiffing back+HK on their wakeup and grabbing once the move has finished recovering. Because they know the over is throw invincible after a while they won’t grab. If you see an overhead sitting over your character you’re going to stand. Maybe that’s an oversimplification, but I hardly get hit by it because it’s easy to notice a move is hovering over you on wakeup. And I merely restated what he said in regards to meaty F+MK I didn’t overlook that he said his scenario was on meaty.
As far as the OS goes, I try to stick to either chain buffers or Special Cancel OS that’s it. The risk reward of using hitstop as a buffer is too great IMO, which is compounded by the fact that she doesn’t have much going for her in terms of frame advantage. An easy example they wake up DP and you slide right into it, or even reversal DP you slide right into it. It’s much better from chains, since they are true blockstrings (outside of DJ’s cr.lk chain) they can’t dp out and if they backdash they eat a sweep. So you’re right that you can use hitstop, but I would never even use that. At that point you’re better off using st.HK to simply catch the backdash during the recovery.
But fair enough I’ll try to be less caustic about the whole discussion and I’ll be more constructive from here on out (or at least I’ll try my hardest).
@AlMoStLeGeNdArY
If you faced a viper that made you rethink the matchup, then there isn’t much to say, but the hitbox issues are definitely apparent and then skew the opinion that it’s in Elena’s favor. But all it takes is a little bit of adapting on C.Viper’s part and she’s more than capable if making this matchup a nightmare for Elena. She can still lp thunder knuckle to fish for focus and complete her combos and EX RFC makes those small pokes into major damage. She still has 3 (technically 5) different methods to wake up. Which is a nightmare, especially if she EX Seismo Feints. And her Seismo’s are so annoying to deal with, because it’s honestly a dominating tool. The only saving grace is Elena’s hurtbox and if you’re playing a really dumb Viper who refuses to adapt it’ll be definitely in Elena’s favor, as a lot of Elena’s moves forces C.Viper’s options to whiff, but C.Viper only needs like 5 buttons all of which work consistently on Elena.
Also she’s not top 20 legendary and this is why. (I’ll try to be as constructive as possible)
As far as your cr.mp > EX Mallet point goes I agree it sets Elena apart from Chun and Rose (I still feel Rose just has an easier time overall), and that’s a fair statement. Also she has ways to open people up who only know how to crouch block (unlike the other two), she has an adequate enough walkspeed, you can play at a variety of ranges without truly feeling disadvantaged, and her st.hk B+HK help open up crouch tech happy opponents.
However, what makes Elena not great in my book is the lack of consistency and the lack of damage on really key points that all ground based characters need such as focus breaks, reversals, and anti airs or amazing hitboxes on her AAs to compensate for her AA damage
The AAs having weaksauce hitboxes isn’t just a problem with her it’s a problem with all the new characters imo. Which is a that Rose and Chun Li don’t really have. With Rose I can comfortably whiff a cr.mp (SS Buffered) and if you jump and can easily cr.HP for good damage (Even poison has a reasonably good and damaging cl.hp,cl.hk and cr.hp). The only alternative for Elena is st.mp for 40 damage, which is no comparison, especially considering its speed. And then you have unreliable focus breaks. Her focus break is really not good and you should get more damage than 63 for spending a meter at the very least they should redistribute the damage so you can get more from spending meter. Even mallet smash isn’t that great since it can be backdashed and RF kills it as well especially vs characters who don’t need meter (fuck C.Viper). st.lk xx Lynx tail is an option and stlk xx EX DP, but those run the risk of causing you to get crumpled, which just leaves EX DP and Focus dash backwards, the former is risky unless they are right up in your face and if they backdash it’s only 30 damage, and the latter loses ground. There isn’t much that can be done in that regard either, because anymore changes run the risk of making her broken (outside of invincible normal dps), so that’s always going to be a hole in her game (barring they redistribute the damage) and the only way to get around it is to have her be much more solid in the areas that count.
And all of her normals range from light frame advantage to severely negative despite being special cancelable. I’ve played matches where literally the guy just waited for me to press any button other than cr.mp and cr.lp just so he could mash dp. No matter what option I went with he dp’d out (even just empty cr.mk). The fact that she has no true blockstrings not even cr.lp+3 on block or a chainable cr.lp which only chains into itself (wouldn’t change a thing in terms of combos just blockstrings, in fact it probably makes her combos harder, but blockstrings more solid could be swapped with cr.lk) makes playing as her cumbersome because you’re walking on eggshells anytime you try to pressure an opponent with a meterless reversal. Elena just has a bunch of answers to situations that won’t arise (st.hp, HK Rhino ever being useful outside of niche situations) and the answers that make sense are incomplete feeling (No TBS, ridiculous throw range discrepancy as I’ve never liked throws with a different greater than 0.1, Focus break that whiffs on a bunch of characters and does 63 damage on focus break wtf?).
Her 4 frame dp is ass, and like I’ve said before I’ve found ranges where I can sit and poke safely and she literally can’t do anything, because only the second hit of her DP will connect, which you can’t FADC and my character reels out safely only for you to eat 200 damage for no reason. Why don’t the first 2 hits cause float? We’ve been through this with Ken already. The only other ground character that has a weaksauce reversal is Chun’s EX SBK vs AAs. But the animation of Elena’s DP just makes it nonsense.
And this may be the xT spoiled kid in me, but HP Mallet is so slow why doesn’t it crush lows? I don’t mind every other mallet (including EX) losing to even cr.lks but I just for the life of me can’t figure out why the slowest one has the worst utility.
Anyways TL;DR I feel as though if you didn’t fall out of any of her moves or if they all worked as intended (including her j.MP>j.HP target combo ) I would say top 20 is 100% true, probably even top 15, purely because the a lot of set play has been nerfed with DWU and strong neutral has been rewarded as a result of that. However in her current condition I see her as bottom 10, but thankfully in this game tiers are compressed and the only characters that have a super rough time competitively are honestly the bottom 3 characters. Dee Jay, Dan, and Dhalsim.
Yeah I think I underestimated how effective seismo can be in the MU. I’ve knocked viper out of the start up of lp TK before. So it’s not like it’s going to just dominate. With viper on her wake up i haven’t really tried anything special (safe jumps os) but st. Hk goes over seismo.
Now with her anti air yes they’re weak however I’m not sure if that breaks a character. Let’s take Vega for instance before ultra his AA options where nj. Hk jump back mp or air throw. I think she has good options between st.mp cr.hp st.hp and j.hp. Depending on the MU of course some options will be better. But all in all they’re options their not the best and it could be worse. Whatever that cr. Swipe thingy that poison does is a pretty good AA. That shit is ridiculous. But let’s look at the top characters. Yun Viper E Ryu Fei long Ibuki. Is the top 5 depending on who you ask. Of those only Ibuki and eryu have good normal AA. Now that’s not to say that there’s no good characters who don’t have good normal AA moves such as Sakura Makoto and Dudley. I think it’s not something that breaks a character.
I still got a ways to go with Elena there’s stuff that I’m not doing that I should be doing. I’m also going to adjust my bnb to end with mk sw instead of mk SS. I agree with you on the focus part though. But that’s probably par for the course considering that’s the type of character she is.
@KitL19
I haven’t used the official frame data app, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was full of inaccurate information, unfortunately. There is a nice free app I use that seems to be accurate, here’s the android version. There’s also an iPhone version I believe.
I get your point as far as reacting to meaty overheads goes, but I still think it’s too fast for 99.9% of people to react to with any sort of consistency. When I block stuff like Elena’s f.mk or Dudley’s f.hk (much more possible), I believe most of the time I’m reacting to habits of the player in how they set up the overhead rather than reacting to the attack itself, as it’s so fast. Maybe you really can react to it, in which case props to you, I wish I had your reaction speed haha.
I know hitstop OS feel pretty janky, and I mess mine up occasionally still. When I started trying to incorporate it, it caused far more problems for me than it was worth. Once you get it down, though, it’s a great tool to keep backdash happy players honest, it feels pretty necessary, to me at least. There are situations where I’ll go for a more rewarding backdash punish on a hard read, but on wakeup especially the meaty c.lk sweep OS is invaluable. I still wish Elena had a better option of course, but I think (IF you wish to play this character seriously) this is one you have to learn to use. If I’m not mistaken, a hitstop OS like this functions practically identical to a chain OS, as the OS still only comes out on whiff… only difference is that it’s much more awkward to use and easier to mess up. I know you don’t get the true blockstring and that blows, but that’s another part of playing Elena… you have to be an expert at sniffing out those reversals. On the plus side, she can punish for great damage in most situations and slide is great for chasing down teleports/backflips.
I agree with you for the most part on Elena’s problems, and they are pretty severe. I will say that I’ve been putting more effort into using c.hp as an anti-air since seeing the hitbox on it was better than I expected, and it’s pretty great/reliable as long as you use it at the right ranges against the right characters… though it could really use an extra active frame or two. S.mk is also a great anti-air against certain jump-ins despite looking like it has godawful priority on the hitbox, due to how she dips her head down low to avoid many jump in hitboxes and sneaks her foot up to the vulnerable non-hitting part of their jump-in. S.mk gives you a lot more time to react and is actually a much better late anti-air in almost all situations than any of her other non-EX AA options. Despite saying that, I think I still overuse EX DP for AA despite not needing it most of the time, probably wasting meter in that regard. It’s very reliable, though.
Her terrible armor breaker is a problem, no trying to argue that away. I use mallet smash a lot more against people intent on focus fishing from mid range, but that seems like a suboptimal strategy that won’t work against great players, and as you said obviously it loses to red focus. I would love it if Rhino Horn was changed to hit crouchers and allow a juggle into EX DP if the last hit connected on a grounded opponent midscreen to make it more of a threat.
I think some of the other things that bother me the most are mk Spin Scythe not connecting off a max range c.lp (this isn’t really a flaw just a personal pet peeve), Mallet Smash going over crouching opponents (especially Juri), and lynx tail not connecting against standing opponents at longer ranges. If I could use these specials more reliably at a greater variety of ranges I would have quite a bit more options to pressure my opponent with and not feel so limited by range.
I think Elena is fine for the most part, her DP being sub-par as a reversal against grounded opponents and her up-close pressure game having tons of holes feel like fitting disadvantages for her archetype, but a lot of her other problems just seem like the result of poor hitbox design and a lack of sufficient polish. If she was touched up a bit here and there to make things more reliable at more ranges and give her better options against focus, along with maybe a little more meter gain, she would feel more like a complete character with acceptable strengths and flaws to me.
ITT:
Everyone is racist for playing Elena.
Everyone is racist for not playing Elena.
Elena is not good, sorry, you can get by with her and you can beat people that don’t know how to fight her but she is not a good character.
High low tier at best, the thing is she can fight most matches ok outside of a few, but she is not a good character and everything that should have made her stand out from other characters was nerfed to the ground. Elena before the console version came out was good.
Elena is good.
You guys are trippin…
Strong footsies, good burst damage, good AA buttons and a DP, strong corner carry, good mobility…
She lacks a good reversal which means you have to block on wake-up.
Footsie characters have bad defensive options up close.
I dont get why ou guys are having trouble. Stop going in with her, thats not what shes meant to be.
Shes right outside of top 15.
She does have some bad matchups.
That’s what I’ve been saying but I’ve been getting a lot of arguments. It’s amazing how quiet people got. I guess if I would of said it it would of started an argument. Good job at sj8.
Elena top in BP at jap arcades.
http://kyosuke.kun.free.fr/Ranking/jp/index.php
Nah. Don’t worry I don’t think that it’s that fact that you didn’t say it. I think it’s the fact that he said footsie characters have bad defenses (Bison just to name one), so she should have one too that made me not want to respond lol.
It depends if you’re talking wake up then yeah. But I think he means when being pressured or something along those lines.
Nothing is really wrong with Elena outside you have to Block on wakeup and she has trouble with Dive Kicks.
Shes just not a character you play by herself.
You need alternates.
You’re not going to beat grapplers and dive kick characters so why bother working on her fulltime when there are 40+ characters that you can play.
I rotate between Poison, Hawk and Elena.
She reminds me of Dhalsim, if the person don’t know how Dhalsim works he owns them, if they know how Dhalsim works its down to the player and not the character, also Joe I agree about having alternates to fill the bad spots of the character, I use Elena, Poison, Evil Ryu, Ibuki and Rose, however I don’t have much of a probelm with divekickers when it comes to Elena.
I don’t even know what your point is bro. There is nothing wrong with her, but you should play other characters to back up her flaws?
Also, nothing is really wrong with her? Lol
And I do play other characters if you checked the video thread you wouldn’t even have to say that.
In fact you didn’t even know which BnB was more damaging and you erroneously stated that MK DP ender is best. I think you should reread the combo, general thread, and the frame data thread.
I’m just responding to the most recent comments.
I quoted you on accident. Sorry I guess? Seemed to upset you; That was not my point.
I don’t get why you guys are so defensive. Yes, you need alternates for her, shes not stable enough to play in a full tournament seting.
To my knowledge, I am the only player doing anything with her in an actual competitive atmosphere full time at the moment. Chris G is dropping her after this weekend and Justin is really only playing her for the matchup XP, they are both very far behind from what information is already out there for her, IMO.
Now granted, I can only speak for the Tristate area when it comes for Elena play, I am literally the only Elena next to one other player in Boston and a few handfull in Philly area, but they are not really tournament competitive so I don’t really count them. If you’re reading this and you are an Elena player cool thats awesome; Join the FB Group one of the PandaXGaming members did for Elena, we are trying to share information to the masses but the group is very small, only 12 of us.
I don’t really read SRK character threads anymore since there is a lot of miss information, I just do my own thing when it comes to finding out information. I did not know Medium SS did more damage, Im sorry? I got correct; I posted the information I researched about it, hopefully we can get some things flowing on that whole thing.
There’s a lot of unneeded animosity on this whole discussion board. I came on here to see what other people are doing and so far, I’m just disappointed.
I get it, some of you think you’re hot stuff but the way that some of you speak to other members on this discussion thread is really embarrassing.
Yeah, I don’t think she is a character who can ride it out all the way. I would love it if she could, but its just too difficult. I had to play T.Hawk against OG Bunch and I went from being down 0-1 to 2-0ing him in Top 32.
Elena is a really strong tournament character and her play style is good in that setting, but you still ned alternates so you don’t have to worry about the Hugos, Hawks, Dhalsims, etc.
I’m not offended. I just probably come off that way. But most of what you said has already been stated already months ago. A lot of people agree that she is a pocket character (while some don’t think she is a pocket character, they do think she has flaws they at least understand that she needs other characters to handle her bad matchups).
You can’t discredit this board just because of the general thread (which although it’s pessimistic there is a good amount of information), especially when there’s the frame data thread and the combo thread, which you shouldn’t overlook those important threads because of negative opinions.
The reason the general thread looks pessimistic is because there’s no venting thread, as a result, most people vent here, which is understandable because they are playing a character with obvious flaws that make the game frustrating a lot of times. Additionally a lot of people here play mostly online which magnifies the frustration 20 fold.
Also, I may come off as an argumentative ass, but I can guarantee you that most things I post in terms of combos and set ups is accurate and I’m probably the least helpful person here, which can tell you about the other people who actually do share information,that (IMO) is far beyond what is shown in most Elena videos quite frankly and it’s clearly laid out for anyone to easily understand.
And how do you disagree with me quoting you…? I’m assuming it’s towards the nothing is wrong with her part where I repeated what you said. Then typed “Lol” insinuating disbelief. I believe there is plenty wrong with the character I’ve done several write ups on her flaws (2nd post in the frame data thread as well). I don’t think anyone here believes they are amazing at street fighter either it’s just people have a different opinion as to how she should’ve been handled in SF4.
Sidenote: cr.mk cr.tech beats a lot of divekick attempts, so trip guard into EX mallet.