To make him a “finished product” -> Coward Crouch normal cancel-lable and his Vtrigger normal cancel-lable
To make me happy -> A jab jab special move combo. It can either be the poison bomb or lunge punch.
Other than that, he’s fine IMO. Frame data isn’t the greatest but he’s doable.
Pondering more on what changes I think F.A.N.G could benefit from without being too big of a buff (mostly because it’s interesting/fun to think of all the different ways to buff him), I think there’s some easy modifications they could make to his lunge punch specials to make him have fewer flaws overall.
LP Sotoja changed from 1 hit, 50 damage, and 12 frames of start up (down from 16, to allow it to combo from light attacks). Loses knockdown property, and on hit would be around even or slightly in his favor for frame advantage. Intended to be used from light hit confirms, but loses the knockdown aspect and does a bit less damage than LP Sotoja currently does.
MP Sotoja, still 2 hits, 40-40 damage (up from 30-40), 16 frames of start up down (down from 20, to allow all medium attacks to combo into medium Sotoja). Small damage increase, retains knockdown, an overall buff to MP Sotoja. Basically the Sotoja we WOULD be using right now, with a minor damage increase.
HP Sotoja, identical to current iteration, except damage increased to 50-50 (up from 40-40). Alternatively, lowered to 20 frames of start up (Down from 21) to allow it to combo from s.MK (1 hit).
EX Sotoja, identical to current iteration, except damage increased to 60-60 (up from 50-50). Alternatively, if Light Sotoja being comboable from lights is too strong, I would be content if EX Sotoja had a 12 frame start up instead so we could at least combo into it from lights instead. If that was the case, I don’t think a damage increase would be necessary.
Main purpose here is to give him a reliable combo from light attacks, even if the damage/reward is small, as well as a minor damage increase on his combos. Since the damage would below off a light hit confirm, the poison damage would be more important than usual, which would be a nice change from how it can often feel.
I also would like to see poison’s damage over time go up to 60 or 70 (from 50), but if he can combo off light attacks I could see how this may be too big of a buff. I think F.A.N.G’s damage should be on the low side, just not quite as low as it is right now, and since this affects most of his abilities, maybe buffing it is the wrong way to go. Alternatively, I think V-Trigger activation increasing the poison damage from 50 to a higher value would be fun, and make it more interesting than it currently is. In fact, given the choice, I’d rather this route just to make V-Trigger more appealing!
Another change I’d like to see would be a crush counter s.HP to add 4 more frames of hitstun, so we could command dash and link s.HK for a minor damage increase. I think this would only add 18 damage to the current s.HP (Crush Counter), s.HP, HP Lunge combo, it’d be more fun to execute/observe, and any damage increase for F.A.N.G would be welcomed. I don’t like that Ryu’s crush counter combos do more than ours do even if our poison lasts full duration, but maybe that’s more a fact that Ryu is strong rather than F.A.N.G’s crush counter damage is weak.
c.HK being more consistent with both hits landing would be nice, but maybe that is intentional on Capcom’s part for whatever reason. I wouldn’t be terribly upset if this change never goes through, as I don’t often do c.HK without V-Trigger unless it’s very obvious the opponent doesn’t like to block low.
I agree with most of your ideas, but I would like to add something: For people who don’t want to buffer/OS dashes, I’d like it if st.HP didn’t push back so darn far on Crush Counter. I just like running a quick and easy CC st.HP, st.HP xx VTC, st.HP xx HP Sotoja combo. st.LK ought to be 4 frames, as currently it is only better than st.MK in very specific situations. Some range/hitstun buffs to cr.MP and the first hit of st.MP would make his poke game slightly better.
The big thing he needs is an overhaul of his V-Trigger. Currently, it’s only good for tacking on a paltry amount of damage to combos and relatively low-damage (for a VTC) confirms. There is absolutely no benefit to EVER use his VT in neutral, a problem no other character has. To fix this, V-Trigger will apply a special version of his poison that eats white life separately from regular health. So, if you make them block a lot of normals in VT, they could lose 100 health over 8 seconds: 50 in regular health, and 50 in white life. If poison damage is buffed, this could be buffed as well, such as dealing 70/50 or 70/70 damage, for example. This wouldn’t be terribly broken, as Dhalsim’s Yoga Burner VT already sets up outrageous amounts of damage for a character with slides and 50-50 IAT mix ups.
I like these ideas for reworking Sotojas. I would keep all of that, but increase LP Sotoja damage to 90-100 and remove its poison effect. This way you wouldn’t lose too much damage if you land a combo on an opponent you just poisoned. An interesting buff to EX Sotoja would be to crumple the enemy, so you can follow with a sweep or df.HP. EX moves in combos usually aren’t worth the meter unless they allow an additional follow-up (Karin’s EX Orochi, Ken’s EX Tatsu, Laura’s EX clap, Rashid’s EX Eagle etc.)
For crush counters,st.HP could use more hitstun and less knockback, but I would also like to give F.A.N.G more CC moves - st.HK or df.HP, like Bison.
Counter hit st.HK is already like a crush counter anyways since you can combo st.HP out of it.
Crush counter on df.HP would be nice, even if all we could do was connect another df.HP or c.HK (or maybe walk forward, s.MP, Super). I definitely feel like this move is not really rewarding enough to use. It’s not bad, but I’m afraid to use it more than a couple of times because of the huge recovery. Letting someone get in against F.A.N.G for “free” is pretty ill-advised since the range is about ideal to risk a jump in.
Then again maybe that’s something Dhalsim players struggle with daily, and I’m just a whiner.
I wish his crossup super was worth doing. I was so excited when I heard about it, but it’s just pointless.
d/f hp gets reversal supered on block, thats how bad it is.
I can understand other moves being punished on block, but what purpose does this move serve that warrants him to get supered on block?
Its not an overhead, its not cancellable at any point (sans V-trigger), its not an anti air and its fairly slow coming out.
only use i can think of is to throw it out once in a full moon to keep the opponent honest.
Care to elaborate? Do mean how the super crosses up when blocked point blank or some Vega-ish cross up super?
In my experience, doing it like that is unsafe on hit because the rest of the projectiles don’t hit. It’s only good for closing out the final round, and even then his instant air j.MK costs nothing for basically the same effect.
I thought that you meant there was a way for his super to hit cross up on wake up like Vega can. It might be possible actually, I’m going to lab it tomorrow but even if it is possible I doubt it is practical.
Would the rest of the super even hit in that situation?
I just reached Gold today with F.A.N.G (almost no ragequitters) and at the same time, i unlocked the title I wanted : “For Lord Bison”.
T’was a good day:bee:
anyone have any recent footage of either xian or dieminion playing i recent CPT
My FANG buff suggestions:
Make st.LP xx LP Lunge work.
This is one of FANG’s biggest issues in my opinion. Having no medium>medium non-CH links, not being able to reliably convert off of lights hurts the poison man especially hard.
I understand FANG a kind of character that isn’t supposed to have many +frames, so I can get why he doesn’t have medium>medium links honestly. Giving him st.LP xx LP Lunge would just make him a more complete character, allowing him to punish -4 moves with a little damage and a knockdown. This would also allow for a small conversion off of non-CH cr.MK, which I think would be appropriate.
Make st.HK +2 on block
We’ve all thought to ourselves from day one, “Why is st.HK only +1?” This is a committed move with slow start-up. Even still, FANG pretty much needs this move, because as mentioned, he doesn’t have medium>medium confirms. It would just make sense if he could beat out 3f jabs here imo.
Make both hits of sweep connect consistently from max range. Not much to say here. I doubt the 2nd hit whiffing the way it does sometimes was intended.
Buff poison damage by 10-15 in V-Trigger. Currently FANG’s VT is lacking in my opinion. It doesn’t do anything to his moveset or have any effect besides very slow damage on your opponent. I don’t think there’s any reason to change this aspect of FANG, but the damage is just lackluster. Buffing poison in general could be huge, so buffing it during VT only could be cool.
Make coward crouch throw immune. It just looks like it should be.
Only change I would want is hk being +2 on block, but I’m honestly afraid that would make him really powerful.
Other than the HK buff, all I would like to see is a dmg buff commensurate with the rest of the cast; not a full damage increase to like ken or charlie, but something much closer than currently exists. Even when taking full poinson dmg into account, fangs dmg is lackluster.
Cr. HK missing on second hit is likely by design and meant to ensure its not thrown out randomly from the wrong distance. Capcom always does stuff like this to zone characters.
Coward crouch should not be thrown immune; Blanka’s coward crouch wasnt either, really no purpose for this and even if it was granted it wouldnt change much.
lp combo into lunge is not necessary; lp~lp~lk is actually fairly damaging (for a pure zoner like fang), and likely would be the same damage as lp lunge anyway. Example: currently you can do crouch mk~stand lp~stand lk, which is the same dmg as cr. mk~cr. lp~lp upballs (and the lp balls make minus a lot).
All I want is
-St.hk +2
-V-skill poison to stack
-V-Trigger poison to stack
-St.Hp CC less push back
That would make F.A.N.G good but not OP
After watching this set, it makes me sick to see how many times FChamp didn’t get knocked down from normals and specials…
Did something happen with audio levels in the game? I notice that FANG says “Sotoja!” much quieter than he used to. It’s barely even audible in my game. Everything else - all his other vocalizations - sounds normal though. Is this just on my end or are any other folks experiencing it?
Is anyone else just mentally burned out on how hard to have to constantly be playing to get wins with Fang? It’s just turning me off this game how much I have to have planned coming into a set to keep giving them strange new shit they haven’t seen. I have such minimal success trying to play a footsie game with Fang.