How would you re-balance Third Strike?

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
261

Where did i say anything about recovery? You mean frame advantage?
So, Alex is big and clunky, what about Hugo?
Hugos Moonsault has 2 frame startup and his Gigas has 1 frame just like Demon and Ibukis SA2.
Alex Powerbombs have 7,8,9 frame Startup and his Hyper Bomb has 3 frame Startup.
I just like the Idea of punishing with a HP Powerbomb but then again i can also use mp or mk into EX Flash Chop if I have the meter.
The Powerbomb thing isn’t even that important, it would just help his “game flow” i guess.

It’s more about the SA2 thing and the Spiral DDT.
Look at Makoto, Yun, Yang, Q, Hugo. Everyone of them has a grab that gives them a free combo and doesn’t whiff on crouching opponents. So changing Spiral DDT would not make him too strong if you ask me.

As I already said, i thought about those things for like 5 minutes and some of the Ideas may be crap, but then again, how could you make Alex any worse lol?
He aint good, he aint bad, hes just… another character in the game but a few changes would make playing him feel more comfortable and not so limited imo.

262

Hugo may have a 2-frame 360 and a 1-frame Gigas, but he also has some REALLY slow normals. Alex has slower command grabs, but his normals are pretty fast.

Spiral DDT has its use as part of a high-low mixup, so I don’t see why Alex needs ANOTHER command grab that connects low. He already has three grabs that can throw crouching opponents.

Alex isn’t meant to be a grappler like Hugo anyway. He’s like a party mix, a character who isn’t a specialist in one specific style but utilizes a little bit of everything.

Also, I don’t see why Alex needs a Slash Elbow startup for SA2, neither do I see the reasoning for comparing it to Hammer Mountain. They both don’t have a lot of range(Hammer Mountain can be delayed for more range but it comes at some sort of price), but Boomerang Raid is 2-frames and beats out a lot of shit. Plus Alex’s focus isn’t exactly on his Super anyway. It serves two purposes: EX battery, and the only confirmable way to get decent damage.

263

Incoming wall of text!

You pretty much explained why Alex sucks. At least if you believe in the Tier lists.
But unlike Alex, Hugo is a real grappler. His throws are fast and they hurt.
I also don’t see a problem with Hugos normals. They may be slower than Alex normals, but fuck it, he has the range. Hugos strong is 10 frames, Alex strong is 4 frames and his toward strong is 7 frames. Of course his toward strong is pretty good and has decent range, but Hugos strong has this huge range and, i think, pretty good priority.
Also, Hugos crouching forward is 8 frames while Alex crouching roundhouse is 11.
I mean yes, Hugo is slower in most aspects, but he is faster at the things that count.

Spiral DDT as a LOW mixup? I don’t really understand what you are trying to tell me.
The Spiral DDT will whiff and if the other guy isn’t asleep you will get your ass punished even if only with a throw.

You are right by saying “Alex utilizes a little bit of everything”. Too bad that makes him suck at everything too (kinda).

You said the Hammer Mountain doesn’t have a lot of range yet it can punish a blocked Shoto cr.HK for example. I know you can use EX Elbow Slash (into super) to punish, but Alex needs his meter. If you could punish with super alone you would at least save some for EX moves and still do some damage. You said yourself that he needs his EX moves and his super is the only confirmable way to get decent damage, so it would be nice to be able to punish a few more moves with his super.

I mean look at the guy. He can’t do stuff like cr.lk - cr.lk - super. He can’t do cr.mk - super. He doesn’t really have a crossup like Hugos air down+fierce or Kens jumping forward. He has one target combo that kinda sucks. His powerbombs are slow. His Spiral DDT whiffs on crouching opponents. He doesn’t have a command grab that gives him a free combo or super. His Air Knee Smash is parryable. His super can punish only very few moves and everything else i forgot.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t hate Alex or anything but he really has to work.
No random cr.mk into super or command grab into super for him.
No real comback factor even if you use Hyperbomb.
No ambiguous crossup for him.
No unblockables for him.
I enjoy playing Alex, but sometimes it is really frustrating because you think: “Damn, if i had a real grappler i could have punished that or made a big comeback” or “Damn, if i had Chun or a Shoto i could have canceled into super” or “Damn, if i had Makoto that random command grab would have won the round for me”.
I can’t remember one instance where i thought: “Good thing i can do a bit of everything but weaker than anyone else, good thing im neither an Apple nor an Orange but a deformed hybrid of both, the peel of an Orange and the seeds of an Apple.”

By no means i want to say that Alex is unplayable or anything but as i said before, you just feel kinda limited when you use him.

264

  • Alex’s f.MP beats every normal Hugo has, and I know this from experience.

  • Spiral DDT has a high-low mixup. Alex can mix up DDT with UOH, or can try doing moves that hit mid to bait the opponent into parrying. Its usage is limited, but it is still an option.

As for the other things you said, I can’t say too much. I can understand the limitations of your character can be frustrating; there are times I wish Q could be able to Super through command grabs or have a faster Super. But I think those limitations made me a better player over time because I find OTHER ways to be able to tackle certain situations. That’s what 3S is about, to me: there is a solution to practically everything, and Alex certainly is certainly no exception. I’ve played against and witnessed beastly Alex players where they can tackle any situation off of smart play and start working that momentum.

265

Alex rules. Enough of this jazz. He’s not Ken, he shouldn’t be comboing everything left and right. If that’s what you want you should be using Ken. It’s really just that simple. I don’t understand complaining about a character you voluntarily use. I’ve ended up using Remy because he’s extremely familiar and I’ve played Guile for years. I avoided it because I wanted to do something else but you know what, Remy’s fucking awesome. I never feel like I simply can’t do a thing. Most likely because I’m comfortable enough with his mechanics that I can concentrate on making something out of the situations I create. There’s nothing wrong with Alex either.

If Alex were going to be changed in a new SFIII game I’d rather see things like power bomb having slightly better range so he can throw it out after a wider range of blocked moves so he’s less predictable with it. Maybe flash could be a bit safer on block so with a slightly extended powerbomb he can play some games with that.

He’s fun as hell to use though even if sometimes it feels like it’s absolutely impossible to work your way in.

266

In my opinion all Alex needs is a cancellable low poke.Cr.mp probably.

267

I don’t know how many times i have to say this: I DO NOT HATE ALEX!
Ok, sometimes i get angry with him because he does a stomp instead of a shoulder, but that doesn’t really happen anymore to me.

Seriously, i play with Q and Twelve sometimes and guess what… It’s fun!
Q is a fucking tank and his moves feel kinda brutal, like he really wants to beat the shit out of you.
Twelve on the other hand is fun because hes a little annoying bitch, kinda like that little gargoyle from the cartoon show but on LSD.

Now, about what you guys said:

I am not sure, but i think i can remember my towards+mp got beat by Hugos mp if i don’t do it point blank. Also, i don’t know if it beats or at least trades with his cr.mk or if his cr.mk will go right under Alex punch. Gotta test that.

About the spiral DDT thing… I try to explain this fast. Without a partitioned charge or a charged charge (lol), I’m pretty much limited to mk-flash or mk-DDT. I could use mp into anything but the mp whiffs on a lot of the cast if they are crouching. So lets say i do mk-flash chop. The other guy can just block. Now if i do mk-DDT. He can just block and punish before my DDT hits him or after it whiffed. They could even mash out srk or a super between cr.lk into anything because it doesn’t combo. Don’t get me wrong, you can still fuck with his mind by whiffing a mk then do a powerbomb or do cr.lk then b.hp or a tick powerbomb but lets be honest, his DDT isn’t really a good tool for fucking with your opponents mind. Just the fact that you can duck and it will completely whiff makes this move as much of a threat as a butterfly without wings.

I don’t really complain about him. I said if i had to change anything i would propably change those thing. The fact that i use Alex even tho i could spend the time learning Chun, Yun, Dudley, Makoto, Ken, etc. should proof that i don’t hate him. I said you feel limited when you play him, but Chun players could say the same thing about her anti air options or Makotos about how hard it can be for her to escape the corner (karakusa-SA2 ftw). The only char that doesn’t make you feel limited in any way is propably Ken. Still, i would rather lose 10 games with Alex because i simply enjoy playing him waaaay more than Ken. I still think Alex is just as playable as any other char in 3s.

I don’t think that would help him because cr.mp can be blocked high and low.
You would have to chance it so it can only be blocked low and even then you could pretty much only use shoulder or stomp to cancel into because the rest would whiff if the opponent is not in the corner.

268

chun has some of the best anti air options in the game as long as its not against yun.

you have to accept a characters strengths with what you consider your own strengths. if you want to zone, punish hard, hit confirm. you are playing the wrong guy period. you gotta accept that and re-evaluate what you want to do in your game plan with a character that matches it.

alex capitalizes big off of random hits, he can jump in and be pretty threatening, his guesses hurt people bad. to be honest hes probably closest to dudley but with better throws and less ability to play safe.

if you want a diff set of strengths play a character with those strengths. sounds like you want to punish and zone and there are many characters who do that well.

are you sure you like the actual character and not just his sprite?

269

Yes I do.
Also, connecting Stungun after anti air shoulder gives me pleasure (in a non-sexual way).

Why does everyone assume this? Do ask people that say “Oh, those rims would look nice on my car” the same thing? Like, do you say “You sure you don’t wanna get a new car?”.

As much as a character that can cancel his random hits into a confirmed super?
Im not sure, but i think every character capitalizes of random hits…

True!
Never said anything bad about his guessing game only that DDT whiffs making one move less to guess, thats all.

270

Wow, everyone talking about my main and I didn’t start the conversation. Looking back on everything Alex has -and I think some will agree that his greatest strength is his mixup- and what he can do. He only needs two or three buffs:

Able to cancel with crMP and/or crMK. I’d favor crMK more because it’s better for mixup and a lot of players expect Alex to do crMP to poke them out, and it’s an easy for parry for them. I’d be fine if both moves could be cancelled.

Give SA2 a vortex effect like Ken’s SA3. It’s ridiculous that if you’re just a little bit off that the last hit in his super will not connect, whereas Ken can connect his full SA3 at any distance regardless.

1 Frame startup for SA1. Easy fix. Picking SA1 is all ready hindering your self a bit with a lack of EX attacks, and without EX he can’t punish a lot of things and has a harder time of getting in. So it doesn’t have to be harder to connect to.

Throwing this out here, I could take or leave it so don’t freak out that I’m mentioning this: Make his Air Dive useful. I get that it’s supposed to be an Air-to-Air move, but in a game with parrying it’s kinda pointless. But the move as-is has very little use, and can get easily beaten out by the Shoto tatsu or jHK, and I’ve only done the Air Dive when (A) I’m trolling a terrible player or (B) I’m jumping just before they do a super and they have a fraction of health left.

That’s all I’d do and I’d agree with failfail that it’s weird that his Air Knee Smash is blockable. But his EX Air Knee Smash is pretty good and beats a lot of things, including the Twins’ Dive Kicks and the Shoto’s EX Tatsu’s.

271

Louis, you’d suck even if Alex was broken tier.

272

I knew you would eventually see this and join in.

I can’t really agree on the cr.mp or cr.mk thing. I’d say that cr.lk would be enough because outside the corner your flash chop would whiff if you are not right next to you opponent so you could only use (EX i guess) shoulder and stomp (and DDT lol). You could partition but you can already do this and use cr.lk into shoulder or stomp. It would be enough if that would combo (cr.lk - shoulder or flash chop).

Changing SA2 a bit, i would agree on that.

1 Frame for SA1 too, would make it a bit more of a threat and not only a super to punish stuff like blocked or whiffed supers or srks or after a parry or red parry.

I think his Air Dive is the only air move (except some air Tatsus) that put the opponent in a juggle state, maybe thats the reason they made it so very unsafe.
They might have thought something like “If you land this as an air to air you can juggle for high damage and stun so it should be unsafe”.

Also, EX Air Knee Smash is okay. Not as good as a srk imo but its still usable.
Still i think it sucks that they are blockable. If anything they should be tech-able but not blockable.

I still hope they wont change anything for online edition because capcom aint that famous for good changes but rather extreme changes ( 2nd impact Sean - 3rd strike Sean as an extreme example).

273

oh baited.

274

The reason people ask if someone actually likes the character they use is simple. If you like what the character is good at and what they’re bad at then you have nothing to add. It’s simply fun, handicaps and all. If you’re frustrated by the moves it’s really not the moves that need to change. You need to be more comfortable with them and what they can and can’t do. If you can’t get over those limitations you’re using the wrong character. No matter what character that is.

This thread is great btw. so lively.

275

if you want one frame command grab supers play hugo.

276

Alex’s SA1 wouldn’t really be much more useful if it was 1-frame. It would still take away from his EX game, plus it’s already not THAT difficult to land it if you’re sharp/clever.

A key usage of high damage super grabs is in using them as a threat instead of actually executing them. (That’s why the manner in which Hayao played the second round [media=youtube]cZK55pP3BWQ&t=5m18s"[/media] was so important for the last round, even though he didn’t even manage to work the Gigas in after all.) If your opponent knows you’ve got Alex’s SA1 stocked and you’re good enough to use it properly, then that in itself can be scary (it has shitloads of setups).

277

I kind of agree although it kind of bothers me when command grab supers can be jumped out of on reaction cause it limits you to only really use it defensively. Demon and Gigas are way more dynamic just cause they start up slightly faster. Of course you’d need to change the command of power bomb, and really I don’t like Alex that much anyway so I don’t care, but grab supers that don’t start up right away just seem stupid to me.

278

Yeah it shouldn’t be based on execution, just make it 720 1 frame.

279

I see what you’re getting at, but unlike Gigas Alex’s SA1 has viable combo setups from turn-around states (even if that may be a rare thing). Making it 1-frame (even 720) would make it so easy to land.

Talking about escaping grab supers, Xenozip wrote a blog post some time ago about how he didn’t like that it was possible to do standing/walking Gigas and not give the opponent a traditional indicator such as a lp whiff to show it was coming and give them a chance to escape. He obviously couldn’t make this complaint about Alex’s SA1 the same way because of its start-up. But Alex has an awesome dash which covers a lot of ground very quickly. If he could dash > 1-frame SA1 then the situation may be reversed, and instead of being difficult to land, it then becomes difficult to escape (the insane speed thing being the biggest reason Makoto is a cunt [though Karakusa obviously is more than 1 frame]). Not that I agree with Xenozip about this anyway, I think it’s difficult enough to land a surprise Gigas that it’s a fair reward, but I think landing surprise super grabs should be looked at in the context of the character.

My opinion is that Alex’s SA1 is fine as a 360 with 3 (or whatever) frames of start-up - it just requires a different approach to land than Gigas. But given that Alex is basically a small Hugo wearing Pegasus Boots, that’s good.

280

Really it just comes down to the perception that since it’s a grab super you should be able to squeeze it in out of nowhere and have it connect. That’s not what the move actually is though. Basically what circle masher said, Alex can combo into it and hyper bomb does a shittttttton of damage.

It’s just not a traditional grab super is all. Get rid of that perspective and it’s a lot less strange. There are some cool situations I can imagine if the blockstun of flash was increased. It’d create a hell of a lot of fear if hyperbomb had greater range and flash had longer blockstun. I’m digressing but I think it’s totally fine as is.

SA1 is just a niche super. It’s not obviously useful like SA2. It isn’t BAD it just isn’t easy to use or useful in that many situations. Plus the EX issue. I’d rather have Alex’s lineup of supers than Ken’s though.