Definitely safe.
What’s interesting to me looking at that is the spacing you’re left at after hitting with shoulder. They’re left standing at poke range, which could be desirable in some cases, and it does more damage than a launcher with no followup (if they’re too far for the fast version or something like that.)
Speaking of SF5 in general, I’m not sure if I like this whole scenario where knockdown feels like a bad idea sometimes. But it’s something people will have to live with.
I’m sorry if this was already covered, but can someone explain how Karin’s rekkas work in this game?
Firstly, can they only be used in her V-trigger mode?
Next, what is their function? Are they a spacing/poking tool like fei longs? Are they strictly a damaging combo ender? How safe are they? Are they mainly used for mixups?
All of the above?
Yes, they can only be used during V-trigger, and they’re probably her max damage ender depending on the situation while it’s active, however her other specials all have some variation to them and Capcom seemed to intend to give them rekka-like decision points. Mujin Kyaku (qcb+K) in particular looks like it’s designed that way, even though its variation comes from different strengths instead of followups.
Unlike Fei Long, Karin has some cancelable pokes with decent range, so you may not need/want to use a raw rekka as a poke. However, in SF5 it does go a good distance forward and it can probably be used for that purpose.
That said it doesn’t really work quite the same. The SF5 version keeps you very close to the opponent, so your safety or lack thereof comes entirely from the options you choose. There are a lot more options to choose from besides 1-2-3 rekkas.
You could say Karin is actually more dependent on the rekka (or its non-VT substitutes) because her Chicken Wing analog is less safe.
We’re all guessing on the specific properties of moves, though, so when I say “what’s their function” we won’t REALLY know that until we have our hands on the character for a while. I have a summary in the OP under special moves, although it’s due for an update (haven’t touched it today, will probably do something with specials and normals.)
VT only
They look like both a poke, combo ender, and a mixup tool.
Thanks for the info guys. It is so dissapointing to me that it is VT only. Fei-long style rekkas are literally my favorite play style. It sounds like Karin incorporates this and more in her rekkas. I am so disheartened that it is only a temporary part of her playstyle, but oh well. It’s better than nothing.
Yeah, I think they felt giving her rekkas 100% of the time would have been too much. They’re already clearly uncomfortable with Fei Long’s in SF4.
As an example of what I was talking about with her non-VT stuff having similar gameplay, she has a command dash (QCF+K) that has an unsafe launcher followup, and a safe shoulder followup that pushes the opponent back on hit. This can be used at range to mimic the “poke and confirm” playstyle you’d get from a rekka.
It would just require you to be on point with 1-hit confirming from the normal you canceled into the command dash. If you practice and react properly, you get to confirm the single hit into more damage. That’s all theory, though.
QCB+K would be the thing you use more often at closer ranges where your goal is mixup.
Thank you very much! If her pokes into command dash work that way, then you really could consider them a form of a rekka. More akin to how Yang’s pokes into rekka work. Still not as satisfying to me as doing raw rekkas, but still greatly enjoyable to me. Hopefully your description is accurate; it makes sense on paper at least.
Edit: The only place where this could fall short is if there’s too much of a gap between her poke-command dash and her followup, to the point that someone can interrupt it and render it innefective.
There’s no mandatory delay like there is with canceling Ken’s run, if that’s what you mean. Of course we don’t know the startup of the followups though.
Chun activated her VT after Karin did and it ended before Karin’s.That’s really good. Hope they dont nerf the timing in the future.
It really depends on how much you use the V-trigger, doing the rekka back dash cancel for for instance takes over a quarter of your bar away (can’t remember what video it was, but I remember specifically that being pointed out).
Kyo is a damn good comparison character, since I’m 90% certain her gameplay was designed around Kyo and Geese. In SF5 she’s lost everything that made her Geese like though.
I’m surprised at how little outrage there is here about gating her core character appeal behind the V-trigger though. I went from being crazy hype at her reveal to “meh” the second I saw that. It would be list EX Kyo in XIII having his Aragmai chains limited to Drive Cancels.
Karin will still be the first SF5 character I play, and probably my main character. but with Guren Ken being locked behind V-trigger, Inashi becoming her back throw, and Yasha Gaeshi essentially being removed by being relegated to V reversal only, she’s less a returning character, and more a new character based on an old one. That would be justifiable if she’d been in enough games to need a breath of fresh air, but she just hasn’t been.
I see her introduction and go
Everyone hating on Karin is one of the following, a shoto scrub who mash’s DP online. Or a narrow minded person who needs to try her out before jumping to conclusions.
I kind of wish the bars would deplete at the same speed and shorten or lengthen the bar size as an indicator as to how long they last. It would definitely make it easier to tell, at a glance, which V-trigger will run out sooner if two are activated at the same time.
Eh idk I mean they did change some stuff from Karin from Alpha so I feel some hate/dislike isn’t unwarranted. Idk if the comparison works as I haven’t played alpha and am a relatively new player, but I’d be pretty upset if they made Yangs rekkas only in V-trigger as his rekkas are a staple of his gameplay (in my perspective). I mean sure his rekkas would probably be scary in VT theoretically, but being locked out of that aspect of his play that I feel is iconic for the character would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Sure maybe karin is still a lot of fun in her own right but she also lost some things that older players really enjoyed from her old gameplay.
However, personally I am really excited to play Karin. I have never played the Alpha games so what they showed for SFV is all new to me and I’m very interested in her gameplay. I do wish she had rekkas outside of VT though but I’m not really upset at it either (Just wish a character in this game has rekkas all the time)
Capcom has made it pretty obvious they are radically changing every character. Look at the way Bison, Nash and Vega have changed. They are pretty much new characters in of themselves. It may not be what you want, but you can’t act surprised.
Why would there be outrage about something that will be used as often as V Triggers? You’re going to be using V Triggers often as they are like KI’s Instinct or Vampire Savior’s Dark Force. It’s not like you’re going to go entire matches without using it.
Her new play style will bring in a lot of new players to like her. She still has a solid footsie based gameplan and her V Trigger will give her some of that counter aggressive gameplay that people are looking for also. Try her out if she’s available at the next beta and see if you get more of a feel for her also.
Watching this video from 30 minutes onwards made me feel Karin’s lost a lot of her tools in SFV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPwfWJMmtFY
I at least hope she still plays as arrogantly.
I wouldn’t say they “aged” Karin, I think her face just isn’t complete yet like a lot of others. It’s the long sleeve and leggings that really sell the older look.
Remember guys being excited for a character and every thing that ever made that character interesting being removed or locked behind v-trigger should make you super stoked! Please. Removing her command grab and locking rekka options behind v-trigger is like removing gief’s spd and locking ex green hand behind v-trigger. How fun! Be happy your Gief made it into the game at all! It is stylistically just a dumb thing to deal with for a person who wanting to play Karin … a character with rekka options & a command grab. This isn’t a ‘jumping to conclusions’ about game play, this is just stylistically dumb. What does she get for the loss of command grab? Another gimmicky dash / run mechanic which 2 other characters have some version of. I don’t care how good these things are. Stylistically it is bland and stale.
Redoing characters is actually quite cool, but i like how they did Ken. His stuff is still the same and they only added stuff to him. Sure his EX shoryuken is shoryu reppa & his HK Hurricane knocks down with a different animation but he still plays like Ken with a mechanic added that is supposed to play to his aggressiveness. Nothing was removed from his utility only changed or added upon.
Thoughts on why changing the other characters how they changed them was ok and different.
Vega is actually very much like vega when his claw is on other then the removal of charges. Capcom doesn’t want wall jump mixups from him which is why they have been so weak, so what do they do? They GIVE him a whole new stance when he doesn’t have his claw. Personally I think that is interesting. You can play as a normal pokey version of vega with claw on or go in with claw off. Only thing I’ve heard against that narrative is that supposedly his hitboxes are kinda weak from what people have been saying when he has his claw on. Again though stylistically they only added options, whether the final gameplay will let him actually do that is based on Capcom’s balancing.
Bison is very similar to Alpha bison so in a way they did ADD to alpha bison. Sure he is very different from SFIV / SF2 Bison but given the alpha vibe of the game choosing alpha bison as a base wasn’t an unreasonable choice and anyone that ever played alpha bison knows SFV bison already has way more options then alpha bison ever had. So with some roundabout logic I’d still consider this adding to the character.
Nash … eh they don’t want him to be a Guile clone because Guile will eventually be in the game. Plus no one really had an attachment to Charlie, so that’s cool. People wanted Karin, no one really cared about Charlie till they changed him up.
Personally I feel v-trigger should be an install that makes your opponent afraid of you for a bit. Or at least opens up interesting possibilities. Given the lackluster properties exposed by people accidently getting out of them by mashing jab or by just crouch blocking … people are a bit concerned. Also when the best option from your rekka enders is to cancel your rekka and NOT do a followup and that costs you the most meter … yeah … that is also concerning. Personally I think that is why it costs so much meter currently, why on earth would I ever do any of the others? They are punishable on block and don’t lead to combos even after forcing them to be locked behind v-trigger. Lets sing bells of praise at how obviously awesome that concept is … or you know … realize there is NO way that concept is good and is gimmicky at its best. Personally what I would have done was give her the gimmicky versions outside of v-trigger then give her much stronger versions in v-trigger. Stylistically and not even gameplay wise there are better ways to handle this then how they are currently doing it.
Who knows how good she’ll be or how interesting she will be. No one knows that shit for any characters because we don’t know what the final version will be. Being annoyed with character design decisions and raising questions about weak or questionable move properties seems reasonable at this stage, before you know … it reaches the final version. I have liked every redoing and was hugely skeptical of R. Mika until I saw her and now I like her. Karin is the only remake I dislike because it is a direct gimping of options with nothing interesting added stylistically for what they took away which is in stark contrast to how every other character has been handled.
Watching A-ism Karin is fun…
Looking back on it, her counter was pretty important in the sim matchup. I should have remembered that from playing xtekken, Lili beat up on sim pretty bad because of her counters.