Ex palm combos are ass. You gotta confirm counterhits with ex qcb PP (young zeku).
More damage and stun than combos with EX Hozanto.
You donāt use cr.mp xxEX Hozanto? Itās my favorite buffer with YZ. After training opponents with it mixing up with run stop/run overhead after cr.mp becomes easier.
Agreed with @Dime on OZ changes, looks accurate. The st.mp pushback makes me mad the most. For YZ I would love to have a better utility for EX air grab, a projectiles invincibility to fight Akuma especially. As it is itās just a more damaging combo ender, useless when I can give up ~20dmg to keep meter. The rest is ok, even if an LP Hozanto buff like Froztey suggested would be appreciated.
In general the character is good for me,all depends on what Capcom wants to do with the actual top 10 characters who have still something better than him. The annoying part of Zeku is using a form means giving up the other form resources and the change stance would be problematic in some MU.
Little discover, OZ st.mk is super good against Cammy dives,cover exactly the point she wants to hit with a well done dive. No trades, wins clean.
I buffer cr.mp xx EX.Hozanto in neutral a lot but donāt use it much for hit confirms unless itās specifically from cr.lp > cr.mp counter hit combos
Ah ok, Iām trying to use it also as a midrange buffer to keep people from dashing at me, Iām still unable to confirm the cr.mp CH into slide.
I need to improve my OZ definitely, Iām trying to adjust to his footsies, but coming from Karin way easier ones isnāt easy for me. Then even using more YZ cr.hp CC is in my to do list, I donāt abuse that button enough
Is there a list of zeku changes for sfv AE?
I feel he needs some help with normals speed or range (old), antiairs (young) and recovery frames (both). Also wouldnt mind getting air target combos or a better air grab (it sucks)
@NCK_Feroce i know there is a combo with ex palm that does more damage but it expends more bar. Anything worth for 1 bar? Show me!
Also it sucks that zeku cannot croosup after ex palm. Zeku is like a nerfed version of Ibuki tbh. I feel he is in the same position Ibuki was in season 1.
Forgot to mention but why is (young) s.HK grababble? It looks airbone! But it doesnt work as a shimmy like ibuki f.mk or guile f.hk, he gets grabbed.
His overhead needs a buff too. Ibuki, balrog, necalli, karin, akuma, ken, urien, etc all have confirmable overheads and zeku got left behind. It should be cancellable into vtrigger imo. If you cannot mixup with s.hk shimmy and confirmable overhead for AE it is gonma be difficult opening up people specially if fireball characters are buffed overall.
cr.mp,st.mp-st.hp xxEX Hozanto,HP Otoshi (air grab)= 308dmg/495 stun
cr.mp,st.mp-st.hp xxEX Hozanto,mp Palm =309dmg/540 stun
The 2nd combo is slightly better because of stun and also a slight better corner carry and oki.
I agree with the Zeku/ S1 Ibuki comparison, atm we donāt know nothing about his changes for S3, hopefully Capcom will improve Zeku where he needs the most,but we have to consider also the actual top tier characters adjustments/nerfs. Weāll see.
Yeah those bnbs are pretty good.
I think i should share this (some whiff punish tech)
Noticed there is no matchups thread yet.
So far im troubled with Bison, Balrog, Menat and Chun. Basically characters that can pressure young zeku to dead and also outfootsie him in both versions without taking many risks.
Uhhhhh I did NOT know you could do LP.Hozanto > run-slide
thatās some good damage from jab combo
180 damage from st.lk > st.lk
142 from cr.lk > cr.lp
thatās so high for a jab confirm
Well, this might also blow your mind then:
You can also connect ex airthrow from it 
Even the j.mp juggle in YZ form could lead to funny things like slide,CA or even a reset with st.HP. Isnāt easy btw.
Most problems comes from Chun personally. Bison is manageable,but force Zeku to burn some V-meter with VR when he sticks with his buttons, but he canāt stop YZ pressure. I didnāt face many Rogs atm, vs Menat I choose to play her lame game staying behind her orb, when Iām close enough and the orb is out of her hand I take the risk to get in.
Knew that, just didnāt know slide could juggle from it thought it didnāt have juggle properties
Lol yeah, I need people to start posting in it so i can start adding strats.
@Dime mentiones this unsuns dude thats gonna have skme of his games uploades in tje vid thread.
We definitely need more match up discussion. Chum definitely beats up Old Zeku like sheās playing third strike.
In totally useless knowledge and trivia newsā¦ unsuns is snu snu spelled backwards.
I think I like this guy.
So from looking at the video thread it becomes pretty obvious that YZ is better than OZ. YZ has more range on just about everything and better anti fireball moves.
I think OZ needs better koku, personally. Either a buff on startup or a buff on block. Like as it is there isnāt much reason for HK koku to be -6 up close and -9 from far. It should either be +0 at all ranges or -2 at all ranges given its current speed. A move with that much startup makes no sense to have such a huge amount of negative frames and the same for all the other koku. Make them all 2 more negative as the strength goes down, so mk is -2 or -4 and lk is -4 or -6
Ex Koku should get hk koku range as well.
This is a pretty big deal because as it stands the old guy has troubles applying his koku against the cast.
Iād rather a buff on startup than a buff on recovery, personally, but that would be much harder to balance becaus then the hitstun of his normals would have to be adjusted and itās already perfect and in line with how sf5 works as a whole.
Hk koku could also use a buff to always KD from all ranges. Itās too weak in its current form.
The first buff old zeku needs is making his command jump (bushin jakura) > kick/elbow crossup special an overhead, or make his air command grab to hit crouching characters. No reason to even try the command grab if the opponent learns they have 0 risk by just crouching to that lol
Akuma command jump would be worthless too if his overhead punch follow up wasnt an oh. I fail to understand the logic behind not making that kick/elbow hit an overhead.
Old Zeku cr.mp is 8f startup and has extended hurtbox, that normal also suck technically despite hitbox range so a buff there wouldnt hurt.
Young Zeku lp hozanto needs more inv frames and better hitbox right above zeku, it gets stuffed by some characters and fail to hit characters above zeku sometimes.
The overhead is very bad. Should be vtrigger cancellable. It is reallyyy bad compared to most ohās in the game.
Young zeku s.HK should have airbone frames from frame 1
Both versions of zeku s.HP shouldnāt be punished with extra recovery frames if every other character keep their recovery frames intact for crush counter normals in s.3
Young zeku slide is kinda slow compared to other characters slides
And finally, for current meta, zeku lacks in crossup mixups. The only ācrossupā he got is ex palm, s.Hp, ex hozanto lol and is very negative. Slides should be able to crossup there after an ex palm. A buff that would improve his oki would be increasing combo potential of his j.mp, making it hit after ex hozanto and causing insta air recovery. That would be glorious lol
Another really dumb thing about old zeku is, and this is DEFINITELY by design, all his moves that cancel Kara him forward except for his jabs. This is so that he canāt do āsafeā frame traps from rangeā¦ itās extremely obvious. And this is a point where a lot of people like to throw shit out, like after 2 blocked jabs or a jab,st.mp blockstring.
One who is intelligent might try to use this to their advantageā¦ hey, if they Kara me forward, maybe Iāll just cancel into ex Koku and move back inā¦ but nope. Ex Koku has a decent amount of pushback no matter what and you will always be outside throw range for no mixup.