Game isn’t out, people calling OP. Fucking wimps.
Yeah a charge character with no defensive options, I’m sure that is the textbook definition of overpowered.
Got to play F.A.N.G yesterday. Didn’t learn too much about his normals sadly, although plenty of them have 2 hits (s.MP, s.HK, c.MK, c.HP, c.HK).
s.MK seems to be way too high for poking and probably works for ranged AA.
LP poison balls is a great move as if your opponent presses buttons to hit you, the balls drop on and interrupt them, and you can combo from it.
4,6 LP works well at range, but is unsafe if too close. It has 2 hitboxes and will blow through fireballs.
After a few games of ranged shenanigans my opponents started going full rushdown and unfortunately I do not have the knowledge to play up close yet.
EDIT: It just hit me. DP motion means you can use the shortcut for DP and maintain down charge. You can approach with poison balls immediately available! 
He has an invincible EX slide move, I wouldn’t say he’s totally helpless.
Lp poison balls and ex command dash both appear to be defensive options. Poison balls you can just kinda throw out and work as a combo breaker
Oh yeah, that move is not completely invincible. Loses to throws just like Abel’s EX roll.
I doubt LP Poison ball will be such a great defensive close ranged option, considering how wide open it leaves Fang. I say good for week 1 fun but not so efficient after people take a moment to review their options. Certainly not as consistent as poison trap, which basically looks like a backdash with built in cover.
If the opponent throws Fang he probably won’t get tagged by LP Poison ball during the throw animation. It also looks like there would be ample time to land a quick normal cancelled into a forward moving special that will safely slide under.
In the meantime, kudos to Capcom for the very fitting name of Fang’s CA. They really nailed that one.
Correction: Looking at the latest gameplay it looks like Poison trap doesn’t backdash anymore. I guess that’s fine. If you place a shield in front of you you might as well stand your ground.
High level it won’t always work to just throw it out when they’re next to you, but if you’re in a pattern of throwing them there will definitely be situations where they cant touch you without getting combo broken or escaping hit stun from their button.
I’m still not clear on exactly how Fang’s V Trigger works.
Seems to just make the area around him auto-poison if the opponent is close enough. You can see in the video at ~1:12 Cammy hits FANG but doesn’t remove her poison state because his V-Trigger is active and she was within the radius.
Doesn’t actually seem all that amazing, but it may grant some kind of minor defensive buff or something while it is active that we don’t know about yet. Even if not, it’s only a 2 bar V-Gauge and FANG should have a bit of an easier time generating V-Gauge meter than most thanks to his hard to avoid V-Skill. My guess is you’ll wind up spending more V-Gauge on V-Reversals with FANG, but you’ll still have an opportunity to build for a V-Trigger cancel combo earlier in the round compared to most characters if you don’t need them. It will also make any potential corner pressure a bit harder to deal with because even if he doesn’t have a great way to open you up, you’ll be stuck in poison state losing health if you get locked up blocking while he has V-Trigger active (so he won’t need to insert a break in terms of normals or specials for pressure to V-Skill to poison an opponent who’s turtled up).
The more I watch FANG footage the more I am interested to see what his pressure game looks like. Kind of like Bison, the proposition of stacking up grey health is going to be enticing to him particularly because the poison state is going to further increase the chance of you getting a trade or stuffing a button when they try and nullify their poison. I’m interested to see if you can set up that kind of corner pressure like with a really close EX poison wall that you try to throw some normals behind to encourage them to try and block it out specifically to get some grey life stacked, and then maybe go for some kind of frame trap or tick throw or something once the wall expires and they are more eager to clear their poison and escape the situation.
That FANG vs birdie MU. Birdie is getting his shit pushed in hard. It’s almost like FANG can just troll his fatass and still win without even caring.
by John ‘Velociraptor’ Guerrero
*I was recently lucky enough to finally score some time with Street Fighter 5’s final launch character, F.A.N.G. The poisonous charge character was just about everything I imagined: incredibly fun, and a total change of pace from the rest of the cast.
It’s pretty evident that F.A.N.G’s main game will be keep-away, but I still wanted to know what kind of damage he’s capable of when decides to go in.
While playing against Capcom’s Community Manager, Peter “Combofiend” Rosas, I asked him to show me his best Crush Counter punish.
Fiend obliged by using Crush Counter, V-Trigger and special meter to quickly demonstrate the hardest hitting sequence he could muster. Hit the jump to see it.
*
*As you can see, this combo is good for about a third of your opponent’s life bar. You’ll score 335 damage right off the bat, but like most of F.A.N.G’s sequences this leaves your opponent bleeding out via poison.
Alternatively, you can sub the two EX moves for F.A.N.G’s Critical Art, but it’s close to the same result and costs a third bar of meter.
I’ll be putting together a broader impression piece very soon, so stay tuned for more direct details on the Shadaloo’s number two. *
Also they confirmed that the poison is non-lethal.
Gosh, I love this character design so much. I’ve always gravitated towards bizarre / Unorthodox characters in every fighter I’ve played, and he just looks like one of the coolest designs in a very long time. He reminds me so much of a GG character and that intrigues me. Can’t wait to use him!
Made me want to play him even more,
Weird design choice to make a zone character and then give him what I’d basically a Abel roll
So much info in so little time… I love it!