Is s.mk > Hands obsolete in Arcade Edition?

At the recent Esaka Battle Amiyu didn’t even attempt it once. It was all c.mp > Hands.

Here are the videos…

[media=youtube]ob6sNOSyAl4[/media] (Amiyu plays at 8:00 in this vid)

[media=youtube]4LSopq-uNRk[/media] (He plays at 19:00 in this one)

[media=youtube]oLkiNfnocTo[/media] (13:45)

[media=youtube]3BQhBMEusSw[/media] (10:25)

Interesting, isn’t it?

Yeah we’ve been talking about this many times in other threads actually, even before amiyu’s videos came out.
Amyiyu of course knows what he’s doing.

It’s really that simple IMO…

  • sMK and cMP almost have the same range and now in AE the same startup (5 frames)
  • cMP has way better “priority” since in ssf4 they nerfed sMK’s hitbox to shit
  • cMP does more damage
  • cMP recovers faster
  • cMP has more active frames

No true reason to do sMK>hands anymore when trying to poke,
even if saying that kinda makes me shed a tear ;_;

BUT i think it will still be fundamental to be able to do it since any big-damage FADC combo will probably pass through HP xx MK xx Hands xx FADC when you have the opportunity

FADC combos in general should be more useful since the HP-MK target combo provides more damage, stun and meter building… a long FADC punishing combo in AE using HP-MK twice, does more damage than now and builds almost an EX bar back

so, maybe sMK>hands its not really dead, every good gen player will need to do that on some occasions in order to maximize damage out of the target combo… but we’ll see how this works out

Also, and please correct me if I’m wrong, I think you ideally want to finish any blocked TC with hands for chip.

Yeah though, naked mk>hands seems pretty dead.

The only time I like to finish a blocked move with hands is if the move is punishable on block, and the that move can be cancelled into hands. If not, lately I’ve been hit confirming hands, so I don’t use it as much. That way it doesn’t push them way, and I can stay in close so I don’t have to work to get in on them again. I think that is a problem most Gen’s have. They default to hands for almost everything. I’d rather use s.MP, s.MP then wait to see if they do something. Instead of s.MP, Hands or s.MK hands.

yep, “naked” mk>hands poke is dead, unfortunately

about chipping with hands, i think it depends on the matchup, hands do very little chip damage and push you very far from the opponent… so it might be recommended to do that against opponents you want to zone out but not against let’s say guile or dhalsim… yeah it depends

in the Amiyu’s video i’ve seen, if he realizes that he dropped a link into TC, he just ends with sMK or even sHP… which are still not that easy to punish on block on reaction

Chip on hands neglible, like 4 dmg.

I definitely see everyone’s point on spacing. I guess I just usually feel so starved for chip with Gen I’ve been jumping what little presents itself.

I’d recommend, using something like. Mantis s.MP, s.MP, Crane s.MP (overhead)

i wouldnt call it totally dead. the moves have different hit boxes, so there are going to be normals you can counter poke or intercept with mk hands where cr.mp hands wouldnt work because it hits too low.

but as a raw offensive poke it probrablly is dead

as far as push back/chip dmg, hands is useful vs gief or any other character you want to get the hell away from

There’s one reason it still won’t be dead: It moves you forward farther, helping the hands actually make contact. c.MP will easily be better on its own, but there will be bit of a trade off when you’re trying to do a counter-poke into super.

However, that’s literally the only situation I can think of where c.MP isn’t better in every conceivable way.

I played a very tight game vs bison today where we were down to the wire. I went for the chip mk hands and he countered my poke by walking forward and throwing me. I saw the first few frames of mk too!

I’ve found that mk moves gen forward just that little bit that grapple characters can eek out extra range on their throws when I’m just trying to poke away. The randomness of those situations really freaks me out as I’m usually trying my hardest to safely poke.

I wonder if a faster cr mp -> hands will help in those situations.

mk > hands has only one advantage over c. mp hands. I believe the hitbox on mk is higher, so on neutral frames, a heavy jumper could escape c. mp more easily. But aside from a corner situation, I’ve had much more success with c. mp in AE than with mk. Not only that, but the cancel window on c.mp (to me at least) feels larger, and thus easier to cancel out of.