So I rounded up all the existing Cody tech I could find and then designed some of my own, and put it into one long guide: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=gxWhubsw
I did 90% of it myself but I used this subforum to fact-check when I was done. Hopefully you guys will find it useful or offer me some corrections.
Good stuff man, that’s a hell of a lot of work! 
Had never really thought about rock negating fireball > ruffian or the late super cancel - will have to try that out.
Some notes/corrections from me, although maybe others will disagree with some of them:
- Obviously this is subjective, but I don’t think it’s fair to say Cody is at the lowest level for entry level difficulty. His poor reversals/backdash are beginner-unfriendly and, though he doesn’t have any difficult move inputs, he’s one of the few characters who requires button charging which greatly restricts options in any situation. I like that you mention technical as a weakness though - I think a lot of people don’t appreciate that because they’ve spent 10 minutes in training mode and make assumptions because his bnbs are easy
- I don’t agree that he has the best frame traps in the game and I’d be surprised if anyone else on here feels he does. His ability to react and convert off hits is definitely good, but his strings are not that great. Strings involving f.mp always have huge gaps and are easily interrupted or backdashed out of by most characters. His lack of a meaningful low true string is also a major problem here.
- Kara throw with HK might go slightly further, but I think some people prefer MK to negate the risk of crack kick coming out when karaing forward throw. I think there’s been a discussion about this on here before, but I’m too lazy to look for it
- Continuing pressure after CU fadc forwards on block isn’t that great IMO, unless you’ve established they’re delay teching. Cody is at a slight frame disadvantage and since it’s easy to react to the CU fadc the opponent can essentially stand throw/early crouch tech/fast normal risk free. I don’t know how everyone else feels about this, but personally I think it’s usually a waste of meter to do this unless your opponent has a good punish for blocked light CU and you’re more concerned with saving yourself than keeping the pressure up.
- I don’t think it’s a good idea to charge EX Zonk with all 3 buttons in footsies. It’s pretty difficult to play footsies with Cody when you have no punch normals!
- You cannot cancel knife pickup into mk ruffian. If you watch the clip back the knife pickup is over before the ruffian comes out. You can check this with Ono! editor. I’m also fairly sure Eternal pointed out a while back that you can be thrown during knife pickup and you can’t tech it, although I’m sure he can confirm that one way or another.
- In the notes you said cl.mp > U2 is easy if you plink it. I don’t know about anyone else, but I think it’s pretty tough especially during an actual game. You rarely see even top Codys going for this unless they’re really desperate to make a comeback given that the ultra is horrendously punishable if they drop it.
Most of this stuff is just nitpicking though, so well done all round. The only other thing I’d say is it’s a bit odd you didn’t show the stun values most of the time for a character like Cody, and cutting off the end of the ultra animation instead of the middle means the actual damage values are never visible in the video (I know you have them in the notes).
Oh and thanks for the namecheck at the start!
This is definitely up for debate that I think his frame traps are good, but I think only Dudley and maybe Cammy are competing. As Guile holding down back, those are my bottom 3 characters to block against.
That’s a good point.
I agree but there’s a skill level in SF4 where the longer that you’re subjected to blocking, the more likely you’re gonna take damage somehow. And I think cr. LK into criminal upper is the safe low string Cody desperately needs as you mention later, so I think it’s more good because it fills a niche than it’s objectively good. But even in the context of the guide, I think I say it usually isn’t worth it.
I was gonna remove footsies to rephrase it but I forgot to. Basically any time you dedicate yourself to an upcoming EX zonk FADC. But cody can still anti air with kicks :]
I put in my notes that cody can tech throws but not throw when picking up the knife, like a crouch tech basically. I’m 90% sure I tested this but now I think I have to re-test it.
Risk is one thing but I think the reward for a normal-ultra link with no chain to fuck your plinks over is quite useful on paper. I think this is underutilized by Cody players, comparing difficulty to reward. Combos like this (or Sagat EX DP, U1, etc.) I can execute quite reliably (9/10 attempts) and I think a dedicated Cody player should really try to reach a point where he’s ready to do them if they’re the optimal thing to do. But I think U1 is the better option in most matchups anyway.
I’d rather make people actually open the notes, which is the actual guide I made btw, than subject them to the same animations over and over.
Thanks for your input, it means a lot to me that you watched the whole thing through and offered what I think are really insightful remarks.
Those two characters are way more scary to defend against than Cody though, although not just because of frame traps I suppose. I’d put Sakura in there too for sure. I guess there’s also a distinction to be made between frame traps and counter-hit setups. The only genuine traps (i.e. you can’t press anything other than invincible move/backdash) are low damage off lights (which a wide variety of other characters have anyway) or unconfirmable without fadc, or off rock setups in the corner which many characters can very easily react to before the rock even comes out. Not saying those things aren’t useful, but compared to say Sakura who can create very strong traps while cancelling into a special that’s both safe on block and confirmable on hit… Even the likes of Akuma and Evil Ryu have traps that are 3 frames or better and lead to confirmable big damage combos/essentially safe on block situations.
True, and probably worthwhile if you’re waking up with it, but if you play against Cody a lot it becomes very obvious when they’re charging EX Zonk in footsies when you’re only seeing kick normals. Sometimes it’s even obvious when they’re only using MP + HP to charge.
Presumably the 9/10 attempts is in training mode though! To me the issue is the confirmability. If you’re talking about just doing close mp by itself with no counter-hit and then activating ultra on reaction then the window is pretty tight, especially if you’re online. Counter-hit or spaced f.mp and counter-hit cl.hp are a lot more forgiving. You can obviously do fadc combos into lp > mp > U2, but the added difficulty and scaling reduce the value of it, especially now that red focus will be available in some of those situations. I think I’m leaning more towards U1 these days too.
That’s fair enough, but you if you remove the mid section of the ultra you can produce clips of the same length but that show the damage at the end. Not a big issue though.
You’re welcome. Forget making tutorial vids for the other characters and come back with more Cody stuff!