11

I definitely started playing 3rd strike many years after its prime, but I still have a crapload of hours playing the game over the last 6 years or so, most of which is with Elena. When SFxT came out, I was super hype to play Elena again in a new game, and while she wasn’t great, I feel like she did what she needed to do in the context of that game. She had options and felt like what she could do was thought out and workable.

Now come yesterday I was really hype to play her in an actual relevant game for the first time, and I was met with a completely different character than what I expected, and not in a good way. None of what she has flows smoothly anymore and so many pieces of her moveset and gameplay just don’t make sense.

In 3s, Lynx Tail is a joke and almost entirely useless. In Ultra, they pretended to make it worth something by using that as the one meter option to juggle into ultra instead of ex Spin Scythe, but this is mostly just an aesthetic difference. The normal versions are still worthless in most situations as far as I can tell, so no gain there.

Same goes for Rhino Horn. I’m not sure what they expected anyone to do with this special after the changes from the arcade version. I thought we’d be able to use it something like how it works in SFxT, where it’s good for meterless punishes and corner carry. Unfortunately now without cancelable crouching fierce, there’s no reliable way to combo into it, so the only thing it does is catch neutral jumps occasionally, but it’s not fast enough to be a good option.

I’m not quite sure what EX Spin Scythe’s purpose is supposed to be with EX Lynx being what’s obviously intended to be used for juggles. I also thought the days of not being able to combo crouching Chun with this were gone, but apparently not, because she STILL doesn’t fully get hit by this special. Thanks guys.

2 of her 4 target combos are entirely useless, they didn’t even try to figure out something to do with them. s.HP xx s.HK is negative on hit and you have to make contact with s.HP to begin with, and good luck ever doing that. j.MP xx j.HP doesn’t do… anything at all?

Mallet Smash hopping over people from close range is a total load of crap and contributes to her uselessness while up close to people. Not to mention the fact that it no longer has a hitbox until the very end means opponents can jump very recklessly, because why’s the worst she’s going to do?

Resets were a huge asset for her in 3s, and then in Ultra she has no such thing that I’ve found. The specials that launch or juggle simply don’t have the juggle properties for a normal to hit an opponent during them, even if you are in range. Not that it would probably matter, because if you were in range to land a normal for a reset, that means you’re too close to use mallet smash, thus taking away much of the potential upside of the reset.

Seeing things like this: “When trying to cancel Standing Heavy Punch into a special move and using Heavy Kick, Elena would perform her target combo instead - this has been fixed” listed as a change just confuse me. What world do the developers live in where they take away the ability to cancel crouch fierce, and then go “oh yeah we made stand fierce cancel better!” as if they see stand fierce being used on a regular basis? It’s like they haven’t used the move to see that it whiffs on things completely randomly. Like connecting a level 3 focus crumple it’ll hit (sometimes), but a lvl 2 on the same character and it’ll whiff. I can’t wrap my head around what is even going on with stuff like that, or where it seems to whiff on STANDING characters too at times. Special cancel status doesn’t matter if it barely ever makes contact with anything.

I dunno, I don’t think she’s a bad character, but she’s so terribly awkward feeling and definitely does not feel like a character that was worked on/balanced by someone who played her for years in 3s. So many issues seem like the product of a severe lack of testing or laziness. She just feels like a new character loosely based on Elena, not a new iteration of the character that’s been around for 15+ years

12

How are you to trying to connect the specials? Really its only her bnb that’s problematic based on the matchup, but its becoming more and more evident that the way Elena plays makes it so that that shouldn’t happen much. Lynx, for example should really only be used after a one hit attack string. In fact most of her specials seem to be meant to be used this way. They’ll probably fix it in the next patch, but if you play her correct and watch the spacing it shouldn’t be too hard to compensate

Her hurtbox is pretty damn good as well BTW. A lot of things whiff on her when crouching that would hit on the rest of the cast

13

^ this basically is really true, he is right that a crouching Elena whiffs a lot of move and Elena vs Elena also has that issue…SS falls out of a crouching Elena and so do a long of other moves making her own MU probably 6-4 and not 5-5 like Akumas lol. Back on topic though yea he is right how you do your combos matter for example i do just cr.lp cr.mp into LK SS to make sure my opp do not fall out at all, yea i lose damage and stun but i do it for consistancy and even on block i sometimes get away with it cause i’m spaced a decent amount away unlike mk SS where i get punished always after block which is funny considering that lk SS is more negative on block according to the frame data app. Honestly i think the app is wrong about some of Elena frame data because they also messed up on Fei Long data i mean they said Medium Chicken Wing was +38 on block…

14

Problem is that all versions of Lynx are hugely negative on block, so using it after one normal means you’re not hit confirming it, and you’re just giving away punishes a large amount of time against anyone who knows that they’re negative.

Mallet Smash’s minimum distance thing means it’s super telegraphed where and when it’s available. There’s no real threat of an overhead when you’re close to an opponent, and the huge frame disadvantage on all her lows is even more apparent from up that close, so you sit there having to try to push them away with filler normals first

15

She can combo out of her command OH :stuck_out_tongue:

16

jab to strong being 1 frame is ridiculous considering how often spin scythe stops hitting if you’re too far and to top it off it’s -7. at least make it worth the effort! it’s like playing pre buff rose all over again. shit, even short to jab is 1 frame so it’s difficult to make someone afraid of a low.

the damage she gets off of HK mallet smash cause it forces stand is awesome but it’s slower than balrogs prebuff overhead

i wish they’d fix those things and make stand rh or stand fierce airborne/throw invul (just a wish hah)

it just feels like i’d be better off playing rose instead

17

Stand roundhouse is throw invulnerable.

18

st. hk is also airborne. st.hk, c.mp, c.lp are fine, it’s her other normals that are ass

19

I play Viper so I’m used to slow ass mediocre normals. I honestly think Elena is just a counter poke character. That’s the only justification I can see for her walk speed increase, bad throw range, and very few normals that are advantageous on block.

20

counter poking goes into nothing though, so if that’s her design it’s a very poor one.

And viper has had mediocre normals because of her great specials. A luxury Elena also doesn’t have.

21

Holy shit. I had to log on srk for the first time in years to post this.

I don’t know why the collective of Elena players is so whiny, but you guys should really work more with the character before you dismiss her for being unplayable. I don’t know what you expected, she’s a good character with plenty of potential. Justin wouldn’t be playing her if she wasn’t. She’s a pretty basic character that you have to work with and play real street fighter with to see results, so if you’re looking for an autopilot character you probably won’t find it in Elena. That being said, cr.mp is one of the best pokes in the game. Its like Rose’s but on crack. She also does have reset options. Give it more than a day before you cry your eyes out and dismiss her as a bad character.

It took until 2013 for people to realize gen was a character.

22

you’re welcome to contribute dude. the only things i’ve been pointing out are mechanics; these things are set in stone.

if X is unsafe, it’s unsafe. if you can’t cancel c.mp from max range into anything vs X character, that’s not going to change either no matter how many games justin wins. once we get the things we can’t do out of the way we can start trying to figure out if there’s a gameplan there without them.

23

EDIT: you know what i did write a paragraph kinda telling you off and saying no Elena is shit and i still think Elena is shit in many areas but there is one thing you said that is 100% accurate. We have not worked with the character enough and instead complain and you’re right now i wish you worded it better but this form of tough love is basically what we need so instead thank you cause i will go back into the lab until i find something anything that will make Elena shine she might now have great frame data but every charc has their gimmicks and their specialties so i will find it and exploit it. Just know that if anyone wins with Elena it is not because Elena a good charc cause she is not but because there was a good player thank you and i hope we got some great tech and strategy by the time you come back in a month lol.

24

Not trying to be arrogant at all, I just don’t want people interested in picking up the character coming to srk, checking it out, and thinking its a waste of time trying to make it work. (would have happened to me if I didn’t love her in sfxt so much). I think she def has some problems, and absolutely has some bad match ups, but I’m sure she is still playable. Most of the games I have played Ive been able to get so much milage off of her cr mp and focus. I think her st. lp is also good at dealing with divekicks.

Here is a reset I’ve been using though, I do this every now and then to get a big reset and no one has blocked it yet so as long as you don’t overuse it I think there is some use to it. Off of a hit confirm to ex mallet smash, cr lp cr lp cr mp cancel into hp mallet smash instead of whatever finisher you would use instead. Because its coming in off of a hit cr. mp there is a lot less time to hit something that would knock you out of it.

25

It’s funny how the only person that liked your post was It’sDaveyJay or it’s DJ… =|

Dude I played Elena for 2 years find safejumps anti rolls and other crazy tech in a game that was apparently dead. As far as I’m concerned this is not a playable character. The huge list of nerfs and the non existent fixes since her arcade release definitely made it so. The only thing top tier about her is her hurtbox. Hopefully there is another patch that will reward your perserverance. You don’t even have a focus break against Juri what kind of design decision is that?

I think all of you including JWong are just deluded by how cute her taunt 2 looks. >_>

Damn man take it easy on em! Jesus christ.

I definitely agree with what you said. Coming from SFxT she had a similar playstyle to her 3s iteration without being terrible. Honestly I’d quit my bitch if she got hitbox fixes and better normals and certainly a much better cr.lk make it chainable or make it +4/+5 but the way this character is now it’s ass.

26

Dude you already said your monologue a long time ago just let it go lol >.>
We get it you hate Elena now and went to Poison, we’ll try to figure something out to make her fun you can just being you

27

But it’s nice to vent. Every time I pick my character I see what could’ve been right over her face. And since this thread is mostly venting, I figure it’s appropriate here.

[details=Spoiler]
Also when did I ever say I hated the character? I love the character. I stuck with her in 3s and xT. That’s almost 17 years of history with a character. And that’s where I assume you don’t understand where I’m coming from on a fundamental basis. I’m not sure how long you’ve been playing fighters, but I mean picture it like this that year when all Ryu received was nerfs to his main tools and Daigo switched to Yun. He went from a character that fit him like a glove to an obviously stronger character. And that’s pretty much what sums up how I feel about Ultra’s Elena. I can still win matches with her and hell it’s a lot easier than Poison, but it’s not satisfying.

Each new character works within their design. Hell Poison has juggles off of her fireball which makes her zoning game incredibly rewarding and her corner frame trap game is still strong. Decapre has crazy mixups and great pressure. Rolento still has high mobility and mixups. Hugo has a long reach cr.mk that allows him to play his mixup game well and he lands a ton of damage. But Elena’s archetypical traits are weak. Hell she has 4 different variations of a DP. 3 of which don’t have invincibility. They removed it, which would’ve made her trade dp game strong, but instead it’s a gamble. She had a low that was a 2 frame link into itself, and now it doesn’t. Even little quirks like using cr.mk to make sure mallet smash doesn’t whiff is somewhat useless because you can cr.mp her. Her best asset IMO is that she’ll be a gateway character to better footsies and eventually people will pick up a more successful character once they’ve learned to play footsies well.[/details]

TL;DR I don’t hate the character I hate capcom for the last changes that made her significantly weaker, while ignoring her design.

28

The only fixes I would ask for are her LT and SS whiffing at certain ranges and completely against characters like cammy and yang. Also making cr.lk have at the very least an extra frame of hitstun and giving cr.hp back its cancellability.

I’m still fine with her as is though. There are ways to get around those faults. She will end up being a strong character in the long term, it’ll just take time.

29

I feel like EX Rhino has to hit crouching characters also needs to go with what you said. It is just too annoying because certain frames on focus attacks have a low hurtbox and it just whiffs I was in a match where a guy did RH on my focus and it just whiffed I was in the corner as well. Also make B+HK throw invincible frame 3-6 and airborne like it is now (6-28f) that way it’s a better anti crouch tech option and it won’t be too abusable. Give me those 4 changes and that would be perfect.

30

Yea, I’m slowly coming around on her. I’d be fine with everything you listed and maybe s.mk being a more consistent anti air. She never felt like a bad character just not very complete. I don’t see her being the best but that’s fine with me. She is the only character I find interesting to play with so I’ll stick with her.