I’m of the opinion that the “trolls” are, in fact, correct, and that the people in here with SRK in their gamertags who are advocating “neutral jumps as a means to beat turtling DJs and Guiles”, seriously need to give second thoughts to posting [on SRK].
the best way to beat Guile is time a spire over his cr. mk poke (Guile’s best poke). I actually use EX Spire in this match up regardless of him throwing fireballs because it is safe on block and if he is already in the corner (not hard) he will have to start making some tough guesses against that move, even on block.
T.Hawk will not be competitive.
when your two main “Get inside” specials take over 20 frames to execute, you’re not getting in on any competent tourney player.
When you have no confirm able way to knockdown, you not going to pull off many mixups.
T.Hawk is terrible. I don’t see how it’s really debatable at this point other than cold hard denial. It’s incredibly difficult to get in on any character with even a half decent zoning/runaway game. When one of the most valid tactics discussed is getting a life lead and running away to win by timeout, I think it’s safe to say that the character has design flaws, and T.Hawk has a big one: he just can’t get in.
Hawk Dive is laughably bad on block and gets beaten cleanly by many grounded attacks (including many characters’ Ultras) in addition to being air throwable. Whiff Dive has bad enough recovery to be punishable with literally anything if you land close enough to be near threatening. Condor Spire is only safe if done from max range, but from there it can be easily focused or counter-poked. EX Spire can go through fireballs and armor breaks, but it’s hard to space it properly, and even then you can still get poked. Both Hawk Dive and Condor Spire can be DP’d on reaction with ease, and T.Hawk’s jump is so high and floaty that it’s often easy to anti-air his normal jump-ins as well. Speaking of DPs, T.Hawk’s is terrible as a reversal and mediocre to average as an anti-air. It’s comboability is also subpar, as it will often whiff following a cl.MP/cl.MK–T.Hawk’s only special cancelable moves that aren’t jabs. Typhoon is awesome and sets up mixups (which I will discuss momentarily), but you have to get in first, which is T.Hawk’s main problem.
Ultra 1 is decent, but duplicates a functionality served by his super, in other words it has no utility use and is basically his super with more damage. Ultra 2 would be great, but as aforementioned, the hitbox on it is awful. It whiffs in many instances where it seems like it should connect, is impossible to hit grounded opponents with, and can’t be comboed into. Selecting it for “threat potential” is ridiculous, since the Ultra is hardly what one would call intimidating for the reasons stated. His Super is actually not bad, but being a Super, it’s very expensive to use meter wise.
As for T.Hawk’s normals, almost all of his standing normals are not special cancelable/comboable, narrowing down their potential to mere random damage, and several of his standing normals can also be crouched under (IIRC, f.HK, f.MP, f.HP, cl.HK(!), and I think cl.HP). He’s got some good pokes, but that alone just isn’t enough to make him a solid character.
But let’s say your opponent makes a mistake/is a moron and you miraculously get in. This is where Hawk shines, and even then, it’s more of a dull glare. Yes, Typhoon is an excellent command grab, and sets up some decent mix ups using Condor Spire and deep jump-ins. In fact, that’s almost the problem–people are so intimidated by the grab, that they will often try something to escape it: reversal, backdash, or jump. Unfortunately for Hawk, he’s not really that great at dealing with any of these, and it turns into a guessing game for him as well. The instant they get out of the mix up, one lucky guess on their part, and you’re back at square one. All that effort, time, and meter you spent getting in goes out the window, only now they have less life–and that’s if they didn’t punish you severely when they, say, jumped your whiffed Typhoon.
To summarize, T.Hawk is a character who has to play risky just to get to the range where he’s semi-effective–a risk/reward game that’s definitely not in his favor in several matchups. Very high health isn’t a plus but more of a necessity, as Hawk will likely be evened out as he takes damage just trying to get close. High damage/stun normals are nice, but with specials that are wildly unsafe, a “nothing to see here” Ultra paired with a highly unreliable one, and a lukewarm mix-up game, I doubt we’ll see him winning any majors.
Dan doesn’t suck.
Damn, this has gotten so bad that Clydebyrd AND Renegade make an appearance. Might as well shut this one down.
Im just shocked that everyone is making all these wild declarations before we have even had a major tourney with ssf4. It all seems very impatient and immature. something I don’t usually expect from this community. These are questions that cant be answered with any real degree of accuracy right now. Lets at least wait until people have some idea how to play against each other with the new characters before trying to judge them.
Honestly though, I wouldn’t take anything seriously until AFTER evo…
iam shocked that everyone has decided outright that hawk isn’t worth looking at
You people saying “oh we haven’t even seen a tourney yet” are forgetting the simple fact that SF4 has been out for a long time and we have a good grasp on what fundamentals are needed to make a solid character.
Every tourney viable character has a set of strengths via combos, specials, and ultra setups.
Ryu? Ryu has amazing normals, amazing specials (hadouken recovery is pretty much broken), even better EX moves, and a great ultra setup.
Zangief? Lariat was nerfed (as it should be) but it still punishes the crap out of someone trying to get frisky with Gief up close - especially with crossup shenanigans.
Green Hand allows Gief to get in MUCH better than Hawk’s condor spire which for some reason has a ridiculously short range - I’m not sure what the intent of this move was when the HP/EX version doesn’t even seem to go half screen let alone 3/4th where it would actually be useful for punishing projectiles.
Hawk is a lot of fun to play, is perfectly viable online, but has a lot of real problems. One thing to remember is against a lot of characters like Akuma, Chun, Ibuki, Gouken etc. you’re better off getting a life lead then just making them come to you.
It seems lame but Hawk turtles pretty well against the big zoners and can get out of corners pretty easily with hawk dive.
Man ex spire goes far enough dude. Even if it doesnt hit them for going through the fireball, you still land in range for a jab spd. And its fireball invincible the entire time (minus the start up)
You’re taking this thread too seriously. Everyone knows the game has barely been out a couple of weeks, and everything in this thread is merely early observations or speculation. Just remember to take everything with a grain of salt.
darkside has said the truth lol dont get offended the character isnt amazing. he didnt put him down he stated facts. good and bad. has he stopped playing with him? have any of us…exactly.
Foo-- HE CAN’T GET IN, FUCKMOOK. Unless you think poking from fullscreen is “footsies”, no serious Dee Jay is going to go “Oh shit, he’s throwing out st.mp and st.mk, i’d better move forward and drop my charge to go block that!”
I may jump ship. I rocketed to 1500pp and 2000bp in just a couple of days after I picked up Hawk. I didn’t get to play this weekend or yesterday and I’ve come back to find that most players know all of gimmicks and how to avoid him. I was beat by a Ryu player who spammped FB from across the screen, jumped in with HP, cr.mk, FB, then jumped back, FB, repeat etc. I KNOW I am not that scrubby, but just the constant avoidance game that people have to play vs Hawk is unfortunate. I know that’s part of the game and whatever it takes to win is fine, but like others have said it’s difficult for Hawk to get in now. It will only get worse as the routines get more widespread.
I rely heavily on EX moves with Hawk. I don’t think I’m using him in a particularly inneficient way. I try to move in with pokes, and when I do get in close I can usually dish it out, except there’s something terriblly, terribly wrong somewhere. (How descriptive am I? jeesh)
This is very frustrating because he was one of the new characters that I felt completely comfortable with right out of the gate and was having success with- unlike my 3,500 game SF4 Ryu with a 40% W/L ratio. Hawk gave me a 70% W/L! Now it’s down to 50%.
Darkside said ti well. I think Hawk’s high HP was designed to allow him to take a lot of hits trying to get in. I guess that’s obvious, but I think he was designed as intended.
I think Dee Jay is actually a really bad matchup for Hawk. There just isn’t many Dee Jay players right now.
Dee Jay always has been a bad match up. Im sick of trying to explain getting into Jagger because by his logic it seems like anyone without a fireball cannot get in because i mean shit all he has to do is fireball and then slide anti air! DJ is so simple!
Holy shit, how retarded are you?
Obviously not retarded at all if I can beat solid players consistently while youre still having trouble getting around fireballs
Hai, i’m an emo twat! Someone isn’t acting huggybear about the big burly man character i TOTALLY wish was inside me right now, so i’m going to PMS out and exaggerate “Dee Jay can shut T.Hawk down” into “OMG FIREBALLS ARE INVINCIBLE!”
Yeah. When I first experienced this, it made me face-palm hard.
The normal throws in this game are so broken it’s sad… and air-throws that much more.
I still don’t get why 'Gief doesn’t have an air-throw though… 
Don’t feel too bad. I got air thrown out of EX Spire. I really don’t understand why you’re even allowed to normal throw T Hawk. Or why other little piddly ass attacks like jabs and shorts even phase him. Why is he so damn buff? So he can have 100 more health than Ryu?? Sigh…I really need to make a fighting game.