It works great. Sonicfox used it in a couple matches, and recently online I have been using it. Because Fangs low fp ducks down so low, it gives you an extra moment of time to hit low fp and slap those stupid air lightning legs to shit. Do not let chun li air lightning leg you to death, the low fp counter is fairly easy and solid dmg. Especially offline, people should be able to consistently counter those air legs.
I think a late cancel is a one cause, but another one is what attack string are you doing prior to the Super cancel.
I have noticed that if you do standing lp, standing mk, ryobenda (the spear move) into super, and you are just a little bit outside of the corner, fairly frequently the opp just drops out. I have never had the opp drop out after low mk into the spear thing into super. Random thoughts.
Been watching some of his play, and I THINK that cr.mk-cr.mp-cr.lp is a setup for a perfect MINIMUM range to make poison balls wiff 
but very smart of him to do cr.mk into cr.mp as they have as it is a solid frame trap for everything except 3frame jabs.
side note 3f jabbers have a 3 frame window to nail this counterhit setup.
So I think I’m finally getting a better hang of how I want to play Fang.
I picked him up at first as a hard zoner using hk mine, whichever upballs seemed appropriate, and antiairs with normals when I needed, but that only got so far. I felt like poison almost didn’t matter because I’d rather spend time actively throwing out some hard zoning tool, and if they got hit with something then great, but it was more important to take up space then pay attention to whether the opponent was poisoned.
But that had its limits in a bunch of matchups, so I started to go in more. I’ve been setting up lots of approaches with upballs xx dash, harrassing from between point blank and 1/4 screen away with st hk, cr mk, coward crouch kick, cr lk, cr lp, cr mp xx lp upball, dash up grab/instant overhead jump back mk, that kind of thing. Doing cr mp xx lp upball can control some mashing, but the ball mostly hits the opponent after Fang has been hit, and it’s susceptible to opponents dashing under the balls and grabbing Fang. I’d also do lots of walk back into st hp looking to crush counter mashed jabs, but this often gives up positioning without much benefit and is open to opponents who’ve figured out my rhythms mashing earlier or throwing before I can do st hp. I found that I didn’t know how to stop people from mashing jabs up close either. I also found that there was kind of an uncomfortable range in some matchups that I wanted to escape but didn’t know well how to do it. I could jump backwards, but Fang’s jump is so slow that some opponents would take the opportunity to dash forward twice and get in on me.
So I’m trying to change things up a bit. Here are my thoughts!
Instead of hard zoning, I zone with the goal of pushing the opponent back into the corner or committing to something that I can use to my advantage, like jumping into an antiair, throwing a fireball that I can up ball xx ex dash to punish, or sitting still in a way that allows me to move forward and therefore move them backward. Part of this involves hiding down/back charge a lot. You can hide charge in a st hk, an lk command dash, a cr hk, a jab rush punch, etc.
Instead of shielding myself only with hk mine, I now use mk mine if I think the opponent wants to approach me due to its significantly faster startup that’ll let me be safe from jumps or whatever more quickly. I also use his grounded buttons a bit more. Down-toward+hp and st mp aren’t as bad as I first thought to control grounded movement and to preemptively antiair. I also don’t want to just hide behind mine/upball shields. I want to move forward, and one way to do this relatively safely is with lp upballs into any of lk command dash, sweep, or st hk. Lk dash can move under ex fireballs or something, sweep attacks just in front of the upballs as they come down, and st hk moves just behind that.
Closer in, I’ve switched up the buttons I’ve been using. Lots more cr lk, st lk, and cr mk. To deal with mashers in ways other than just st hp, which kinda gives up my turn, or cr mp xx lp up ball, which opens me to attack, I’m also using cr mp xx lk mine. Lk mine is -9 on block, but it moves Fang backward enough that it’s mostly safe except for matchups like Necalli/Chun with super, that kind of thing. It moves back to a more comfortable range where Fang can antiair or set up ball xx dash etc.
I’m also less committed about the mixup up close, and this is the first way I’ve found to really make poison matter. Rather than dashing in for grab/frame trap/instant overhead, I’ve just been playing patiently if the opponent is poisoned. Maybe I’ll trade some life with cr mp xx lp ball, expecting a punish but being ok with that because I’m poisoning the opponent and I figure the damage differential should even out (obviously barring things like supers and whatever). But if the opponent blocks instead, Fang has huge frame advantage to throw out another upball, throw vskill, move forward with dashes/st hk, harrass with buttons, etc.
This is especially true if I do get the opponent into the corner. From about 1/2 screen away, Fang has lots of control over whether the opponent gets out, enough that you can spend some frames on a vskill while still keeping reasonable control. That vskill actually matters in this situation because the opponent is taking damage in a way that’s difficult to avert.
And while I thought that the vtrigger was only useful for making sweep safe or extending combos before, I find myself actually using it for poisoning now. The vtrigger poison cloud keeps constantly re-poisoning the opponent while you’re in range, so the poison timeout clock won’t start running until you’re at a distance (or get hit). If I have corner control, I can keep moving in and out as above or moving back with lk mine or backdash in a way that can maintain poison.
Gray life comes into play in this pressure too. For example whereas I used to do meaty crossup hk into a frame trap like walk back hp, I think now I’m fine with a simple string of crossup jump hk, st hk, st lp, cr mk, cr mp, down-toward hp. I get some gray life built up, maybe I try a cr mp xx lp upball trap, and if the opponent hits me and gets hit back, they lose that gray too. Hiding st hk in an lp upball shield is a nice way to build gray life too.
These ideas make me a bit more confident with Fang in the neutral and pressure games. We’ll see how they work out moving forward, probably gonna need to evolve more in the future!
Update: I now agree that they need to buff up fang a bit he is way too weak. He sucks right now honestly.
Great write-up UltraDavid. Has your initial forecast of FANG’s matchups improved at all, or are you still waiting for more information to decide?
I don’t think he sucks, but he clearly needs to work harder against an opponent who knows how to handle him.
Lolol fought past the scrubs huh?? That’s good man…now the real journey begins
Yeah I have to see how my opponents adapt to me doing this stuff to really know. I expect it to help, but we’ll see!
Another thing about vskill that’s important is its speed. It’s startup is the same as Nash’s FP boom at 22 frames, but actually recovers faster at 19 frames. By comparison regular versions of up ball take 40+ frames to recover.
For the most part at mid to long range it’s actually pretty decent at baiting a lot of anti zoning tools. For example, against the ryu matchup zoning can be risky if he has full meter -even more so if he has full vgauge. With regular up balls you can ex dash through his CA if he pops it on reaction BUT if he triggers to confirm you eat the super. Ex ball recovers faster but it seems that you can only block if he VTC~CA. With vskill you can bait both scenarios wasting his meter and possibly go for the punish.
Against Chuns CA you’re safe as long as she doesn’t trigger cancel to confirm. I also tested against Nash and if he triggers on reaction to the vskill you can block in time. I tried to do vskill~ex dash but it seems the recording function goofed up inputs during his teleport (or you can’t do it in this situation.
It’s not infallible, and because I’m probably on the verge of old man reactions this may fall apart with further testing. BUT while vskill does not have a hit box it really does seem like a valuable zoning tool because of its speed compared to his other specials. And whether the opponent ignores it (because it’s not an “attack”) or they attempt to avoid it (because they don’t want poison to be refreshed) we can use those mindsets to our advantage when it comes to punishing their approach.
I mean, just don’t do it within dashing distance lol
someone earlier said something to the effect of “imagine if coward’s crouch was throw invincible”
you know, that would solve a lot of his issues vs throws completely creaming his dashes/v reversal. buuut, people would hate this character even more I bet.
I feel like he as a lot of things that if they were slightly better he would be a dramatically better character to me. I wish he got a little more frame advantage on some of his moves with how slow and difficult to convert to any real damage it is.
If you die quickly , poison isn’t such an effective tool.
But if you play slow and smart, Poison does matter. It saves lives !
Yup, poison has very little effect in short rounds since you or the opponent just took a curb stomping. Poison makes a bigger impact on longer hauls.
But one constant is that the instant overhead game is always a threat if your combo failed to kill
Not sure about you guys but I’ve officially been getting called out on these for round enders as of just yesterday. They’re learning…
The only way to perfect fang is to get great at every aspect/category. You have to be equally as good a zoner as a footsie guy, you need good defense and know when to do what. You should be looking to poison your opponent at all times. If he’s not already poisoned, do your V skill , don’t neglect it. You want to know how to provide close up pressure in various forms and constantly mix up your whole Arsenal. Don’t neglect ex slide, it can get you out of a corner as long as he doesn’t grab you out of it. Don’t fall into patterns. If you are zoning and it’s working for you, it’s probably because your opponent isn’t that great. You’ll be able to beat newbs like that but once you face better opponents and your element of surprise is up, they usually figure you out, so it’s of utmost importance to control the pace and distance at all times and mix up your attacks to break their rythym.
Your bnb combos should be the easiest ones to execute. Prefer bnbs that use hp and hk more than lp and lk as they do more damage.
If you are getting rushed down too much, use hp+hk and they will stop coming in because they don’t want to get poisoned. This helps you zone him out for that while. Mix up your poison balls with v skills and ground poison.
Don’t neglect the coward crouch. Use it in combos and to duck under fireballs in projectile exchanges. Duck under a fireball from a shoto character and then immediately do hp poison ball to win those exchanges.
Use st. Hk as a dash when far away from opponent , it shaves off some milliseconds. When you are starting to get footsie pressured, back dash while out of range and do a v skill , and expect them to jump into your anti air. Every once in a while surprise them with an ex lunge from mid range separation to catch them while off guard or preparing to attack. Don’t forget to use crush counter as often as possible and train yourself to do your CA off of it. This will make them scared to footsie you too much.
Use fangs down forward hp as a feeler from mid range just like blankas cr. hp.
When there is too much lag just spam cr lp and cr hk
And do ground poisons often.
No one is scarred of vtrigger poison unless their bad.
I kind of wish his EX slide/teleport was controllable.
V-Trigger to try to get the opponent to back off is a gimmick, it will only work against players bad enough to fall for it.
I’m also starting to feel FANG’s close up pressure is probably living on borrowed time, when players start teching knockdowns consistently we simply won’t have time to get our LP balls or Ryobenda shenanigans going unless we are fishing for sweep counterhits, which I’m not sure is worth it for FANG.
Looking at the option select against his wakeup again I’ve just got one question, does it work with ariel attacks, if not it’s a bit of a pain that we don’t get the jump cancel shenanigans on his ex.dash to play with but we will still be getting out of crossup pressure for free.
This has been my concern from the start. Set play *appears *to be one of FANG’s strengths but the game engine just doesn’t cater to it. EX trap gives us a pseudo hard knockdown in the corner but I’m not convinced that’s enough for FANG, especially given the other things he needs meter for. It’s pretty nice that cr.MK is +2 on block but it’s not like we get any damage off a successful frame trap anyways. SonicFox’s match vs. fchamp at winter brawl reminds me of a lot of my own games; you can pressure them all day with cr.MK/coward crouch and poison balls but the moment they find a hole in your offense they’ll quickly reclaim the lead.
I love the character’s design and he’s fun to play, but I’m not sure what exactly his strengths are supposed to be at this point.