Is Mika worthy of a nerf?

Street Fighter V R.Mika
1

Morning Guys and Girls
First I want to say I LOVE R.MIKA and this is not some type of hate thread etc.
I’m currently maining her and Zangief (I have grappler syndrome) and absolutely love her play-style.
She’s a quick momentum based mixup heavy grappler and I believe she’s one of the strongest characters in the game because of this play-style.
It’s such a strong style I think even in 6 months when the mixups have been seen theres so much variety I think even the top players will still struggle against her.
Theres been many complaints so far about her and alot of negativity relating her corner game, mid screen unblockable setups etc yet people who dont play her only see this. They dont see that she has hardly any tools midrange, super short stubby limbs and a horrible wake up game BUT due to all this negativity do you feel that Capcom will see this as a good enough reason to nerf her?
If so how do you think they can without totally changing the way she plays???
I’m asking for your honest opinions and not just Shes bad unless shes in the corner because no matter what having legit easy to set up unblockables is kinda cheesy and I really fear for her being hit by the nerf hammer.

Unblockable setups btw (Theres alot!) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTgFUDqOhkk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssEMIjXY5yk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvXpUJu6CPU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9k-7cRLGOI

2

I could see a possible change to her throw mechanics to limit or remove some setup types, but:

  1. it’s way too early to talk about nerfs
  2. every character I look at has some really great tools, and some difficult gaps to cover - she’s no different

It’s an overused example at this point, but no 1 character (in my opinion) in SFV is Vanilla Sagat and if you look at how long it took for the core 16 of SF4 to settle down in terms of tiers, we’re a long way off being able to accurately discuss this kind of thing.

She, to me, seems like everyone else in the roster - great at what she’s great at and yeah.

3

I totally agree and no your right. She in no way as buff as Vanilla Sagat.
Everyone is currently great but so much negativity and unblockables make me worry
Thanks

4

She already got nerfed. If anything, she’ll get a buff or nothing. Looking at overall character usage.

5

Her corner game is strong, but every character other than maybe Chun Li (who doesn’t need it because if Chun got in the corner she did something wrong,) and hmm… No I can’t think of a single other character who has problems getting out of the corner really. And Chun Li, like R.Mika, has the flaw of being tied for worst wake up game, but both of them have this weakness because of how greatly they control one their designated area.

Honestly in my opinion R.Mika is one of the best balanced characters in the game right now. If they did do something it’d probably be irt Syngin’s suggestion of throw nerfs and maybe making Lady Mika neutral on block. Either way I think if there are characters that are seriously struggling with R.Mika its either a flaw in the other character that needs correction or its by design and a factor of a ‘good’ match up for her, which lets be honest is in low demand as almost all fights against her are either even or slightly out of her favor (glares at mother fucking bison, that’s right I got V Reversal you bastard.) But that is how it should be really.

As a side note, while R.Mika’s neutral game does suck her knock down game is so strong that I think it is a fairly even trade given how many tools she has to move people to the corner from there so yeah she doesn’t have as many tools to reach at people, she IS still largely a mid range poker while in neutral its only the stubby range OR the move speed (either one would get it up to par with everyone else) that really prevents her from having a decent neutral game. If Capcom changed their mind irt weakening her corner game a bit, that would probably be necessary. (They’ve done crazier things before, so while this is unlikely, if they do change the character like that a little bit if they do that I’d say there isn’t a cause for rioting’.)

6

She has glaring weaknesses and her strengths aren’t nearly as strong as people make them out to be. Some people act like as soon as someone touches the corner against Mika, their character explodes instantly and it’s impossible to guess right once and be safe (and sometimes punish her too). Those players are very bad and post on eventhubs.

Might see the unblockable V trigger stuff removed and good riddance. That’s the closest thing to a nerf you can expect for Mika.

There certainly isn’t anything to worry about. If anything, you can look forward to some minor Mika buffs in the future.

7

I don’t think this is accurate. Chun-Li has a reversal (EX SBK) that is invincible from frame 1. That puts her in what I’d consider to be the second best class of wake-up options (EX Fully Invincible Reversals), where the best class are the meterless fully invincible reversal characters.

As a pet project to improve my gameplay, I took an inventory of every character’s best reversal options. I just wanted to know who could get out of what, what I needed to worry about when, etc… Here were my findings, and the conclusions I drew from them…

Best Wake-Up Tier (meterless fully-invincible attacks aka Characters with a DP):
Ryu, Ken, Cammy, Necalli

Second Wake-Up Tier (EX fully-invincible attacks):
Chun-Li (EX SBK), Rashid(EX Spinning Mixer), Karin (EX QCB+PP)
and
Dhalsim (teleport is a meterless strike and projectile invincible escape - loses to throws)

Third Wake-Up Tier (EX Invincible Escapes):
M. Bison (EX Headstomp, not exactly an attack for wake-up purposes)

Fourth Wake-Up Tier:
F.A.N.G. (EX Command dash) (EX Projectile and Strike invincible escape)
and
Birdie (EX Bullhorn) (EX Frame 1 Armour attack)

Fifth Wake-Up Tier (EX Frame 3 Armour attack):
Laura (EX Elbow), R. Mika (EX Peach)

Worst Wake-Up Tier (no armor or invincibility properties on any specials/EX specials, only CA option):
Vega (literally nothing but CA edit: lol not even CA apparently. Sucks to be a knocked down Vega.)

Not Sure Where To Put Them Tier:
Nash (terrible except for V-Trigger which is fully invincible from the 3rd frame)
'Gief (has a third frame armour EX and also I’ve READ that his V-Trigger activation is invincible on frame 1? I haven’t tested this so I can’t pass judgement)

Vega is the single worst wake-up character in the game. Mika is in the second worst category. Chun is in the second best.

These categories are somewhat subjective, obviously, but I think that the DP tier is clearly the best, Vega is clearly the worst, Laura and Mika (and maybe 'Gief?) are tied for 2nd worst (Frame 3 armour), and that the Second Best Tier (EX Reversal Attacks) are mostly uncontroversial, with the exception of Dhalsim (put him in tier 2 or 3, this was just a judgement call).

8

I agree with you on most of what you said other than ‘spinning bird making her second best wake up’. From what I understand it isn’t fully invincible. At least from when I did wake up testing awhile ago R.Mika can slide underneath and crush counter it, no block neccessary though even on block she can still get a crush counter. At any rate the reason I said Chun Li’s wake up was bad isn’t necessarily ex bird being bad, its more so that due to her throw range being so bad, she can get out thrown and out spaced on the wake up and therefore has one few option that most of the cast has. Ryu gets away with his low throw range because he has a meterless wake up but Chun’s wake up is far more predictable and limited. It is her /only/ response, and it costs meter.

Also I have never seen anyone at higher levels use EX Peach as a wake up. If you have any links I’d appreciate seeing them for the tech.

Anyway, kudos on the data. Now that you mention it yeah I’d agree with Vega being worse off than R.Mika in terms of wake up specifically. Thanks for your perspective it helped me think on things a bit more.

9

we talked about the bodyslam here R.Mika Matchup: 'cus pro wrestling is... the very BEST! @HanDred_Fist i wish this wasnt in 2 diff topics ugh.

10

Lol, Vega’s CA isn’t strike invincible. You can stuff it with a, not so meaty, normal.

Also, Nash’s V-Trigger is Full Invincible on frame 2. You have 1f to stuff it on his wakeup. Birdie’s armor on frame 1 isn’t so bad, either, since I don’t think any character (FANG, VT Chun?) can hit twice before the move is active.

11

No

12

Good point about Vega’s CA. I’d honestly just been working under the assumption that all CAs had startup invincibility, but his seems to be the exception to the rule. So, not only is Vega still the worst, but he’s even worse than he was when I already thought he was the worst. Got it.

About Birdie’s 1F Armour:

EX Bullhorn has a 15f startup. There aren’t many characters in the game who can’t hit twice in that window IF they’re expecting it. Anyone with the chain cancel property on their lights can do it, anyone who can cancel their meaty into a fast enough special can do it. I’d actually be hard pressed to think of a character who couldn’t blow it up (again, assuming they know that’s what needs to be done). Also, the faster characters can do something like meaty s.mp, and actually recover in time to just block the EX Bullhorn and punish it (-9). Cammy and Mika should have no problem doing this. I did not, however, think much about whether V-Trigger Birdie has stronger options.

I don’t play Nash myself so I may have misread the info I was basing his V-Trig invuln on (source said: “invincible after second frame”), but yeah, I hear setting Nash to V-Trigger reversal out is the true test for whether a setup is actually meaty, and not just “good enough”.

13

so are u gonna add the chun li information we’ve discovered to your chart?

14

No?

I mean, the chart is really just supposed to be a straightforward high level summary, not an exhaustive list of what everyone can do and what beats them. That would be an interesting project, but it’s more work than I’m planning to do on this for the time being.

I was also going to post something in the other thread to reply to a comment you’d made. You’re right that it’s confusing that this is split into two places now, so my bad on that, though I do still believe this information most belongs in the Match-Up thread; it just happened to come up organically here, too.

When I describe a reversal option as “fully invincible”, what I mean is that it is invincible from the first frame of start-up and stays invincible until at least the first active hit frame. EX SBK is invincible for its first 8 frames, and has a start-up of 5 frames. The point of an invincible reversal attack (as I see it) is to blow through a true meaty attack or throw attempt, and hit the opponent before their move recovers and they’re able to block.

Like, to address HanDred_Fist’s point about CCing EX SBK by sliding under it with c.hk, sure you can do that if you block the SBK or they misjudge your spacing/you bait them and it just plain whiffs. If that’s the case though, why not go for f+HP CC punish instead? EX SBK is -12. You can even just walk up and s.mp or go straight to PP and it’s a legit punish. Also, if you tried to c.hk as a meaty (that is, you timed it to overlap with their wake-up), EX SBK doesn’t have a hurtbox UNDER it. You’ll slide under them, they’ll be invincible, and the end of your c.rh will still get caught by the last few hits of the EX SBK (it stays out for a while). So, c.hk actually isn’t legit at all even to punish a read on wakeup EX SBK. Also, why the hell would you try to meaty with a move that is -12 and hella punishable if you guess wrong? You definitely want to stick to safe moves with upside on hit for meaties, rather than betting the farm for the relatively meager pay-off of a CC hard knockdown.

Maybe I’ve got blinders on because I’ve been playing SF titles for such a long time that I just assumed people would understand that by “fully invincible” I meant “invincible for long enough to stuff any meaty or throw on wake-up”. No move is truly fully invincible through its entire recovery, and in fact, almost all moves with invincibility are hella punishable when they don’t connect.

15

So in your opinion this doesn’t effect her place on the tier list or anything?

I don’t really agree with that. The point should be, ‘Can R. Mika beat this person’s wakeup options’, and yes, she can beat chun’s so A) It’s not fully invincible and B ) R. Mika has options that aren’t backing the fuck off against Chun. I can’t say the same about the other 2 in that tier so those would stay and chun would drop.

16

Mika was my 2ndary
My friend decided to main her the same time

I would say
Nerf punch throw range just a LITTLE

17

I’m not sure why Chun would be any different than Karin or Rashid? When they have no meter, go ham on wakeup and they just have to eat your mixup. When they do have meter, remember to respect their reversals. Everything I said about CC punishing EX SBK also applies to EX Spinning Mixer and whatever Karin’s EX DP is called. I mean, sometimes your spacing and punishes of choice will vary against the different moves, but whether or how much you respect the EX reversal options is functionally identical. The only salient differences I see are in how you punish them if you bait the reversal, but I think you have to give the same amount of respect to all three of them.

18

Chun is different because as we just discussed, as Mika players, we have options on her wakeup and we don’t need to respect her. Being able to trade/beat out what she’s doing is a big deal.

Karin and Rashid we do need to respect them.

As I have said previously, this would make Chun lower on the wakeup tier list. But that’s my opinion, because that’s what tier lists are.

19

I don’t think we’re on the same page at all here. What beats EX SBK that is also legit as a meaty setup?

AFAIK no such option exists. If I’m right, then you have to respect Chun exactly the same amount as Rashid or Karin. The specific ways you bait, punish, or otherwise beat the reversal may vary (you have options against all three of them), but the fact that you cannot simply apply the same meaties without risking eating an invincible EX reversal remains exactly the same.

Like, here’s how I see it:

Vs. Chun:
Bait EX SBK
Block
CC f+hp
Profit

Vs. Rashid:
Bait EX Spinning Mixer
Block
CC f+hp
Profit

Vs. Karin:
Bait EX DP
Block
CC f+hp (nj.hk/hp actually also works, btw)
Profit

What am I missing?

20

Then why call your tier list a wakeup tier list?