Ken General Thread: Go with the Flow

Ken Army! Stay motivated! and Keep owning those newbies in the beta with our brethren Ryu. Our time will soon come, and we shall once again reign supreme on the waves of the flowcharts! The crimson warrior will rise in fiery brilliance and aura , and this thread will dominate every other character specific discussion. They are already trying to hit Team Blondie with the nerf stick already! Charlie has too many options they say! Cammy shouldn’t have such easy links from lights they say! Ken has too much damage potential off target combo they say!

I feel pity for them. When the army rises, the only word SFV will be known for is once again…

**SHO-RYU-KEN
**
Dance away, in a ballet of flames!

ARRR YAAAWWWRRRR

just imagine the salt discharge if Ken ends up being like 3S again , Lel

I’ve only been playing Cammy trying to get better at rushdowns instead of playing with Ryu. D: Hopefully he’ll be in the next beta…

I actually missed out on 3s, was too much into JRPG’s during the PS2 era to take fighting games serious outside of some casual SP at my house. Was so disappointing he was top tier in that and then vanilla SF4 came and Sagat was just owning me lol…Would be nice if he is top tier again, classic Ryu vs. Ken in semi-finals would be nice to see.

is it just the types of normals Necali is using or does Ken’s Fierce DP have good priority now? He was using it as an Anti-air.

maybe this was the loop or just too easy a link for such a long combo?

St.HP > V-skill > Target Combo > V-Trigger > Target Combo > LP SRK > EX SRK

St. HP > V-skill > Target Combo > V-trigger > Target Combo > FB > Critical Art

I hope Ken can still get fancy with the second hit knocking down.

New ken gameplay.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BVh9VD2VL5s

wow…he really made Ken look incredibly weak. Even in the other vid though, Ken looks bad man. Everything is unsafe on block. I seriously don’t get his game plan.

Some new ken fights

41:35
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dIwgiGRild8

13:55 and 30:47
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fkjnbx43hIY

Ken cant combo into mediums or hards after the run though?

Some nice Ken Gameplay towards the end

Man, is it just me ? or you wanna intergrate that tatsu in his gameplay nao ? shit looks safe on block

Reminds me of 3S Akuma’s tatsu

^^^ Ken fights start at 38:10
ken has a CC on 3 different normals now. S.hk Cr.hp and S.hp

Marc’s use of V Reversals is really satisfying.

I would rather use V-trigger.

I’d probably go for a mix of both, personally. I see where they come in handy, but I’m not sure why he only stuck with Reversals.

Think they were both just new to the game. He hardly tried to use step kick or target combo, and Ken seems like he should be ending combos with tatsu. For being new to the game though, he definitely put on a nice show, but I would say over-used counters because Ken is really good with V-trigger activated. Some things I noticed with Ken. Still not sure what his kick target combo is useful for atm. The first hit completely whiffs on crouches still. Right now, it just looks pretty lol.

  • His sweep may have the same recovery on block, but it has a faster startup than Ryu, and looks generally like a better punish whiffer and footsie tool
  • After Anti-Air with c.HP you can run/dash for mix-up
  • After Anti-Air with c.HP you can lk tatsu
  • EX Srk start-up is crazy
  • Ken’s st.HP will be very important, it seems like how you open up people with counter hits and start his combo and v-run mix-ups
  • mp links with st.lk, not sure why he didn’t use lk like ryu does, lk -> FB is really good. So maybe Ken doesn’t have as much active frames
  • lp SRK might be safe on block in V-trigger mode?
  • Tatsu seems safe on block at times?

^^
lp srk in v trigger and tatsu are both unsafe on block. Lp srk in v trigger just recovers faster.

Ex srk looks like a 3f startup, looks very good for punishing/countering moves on the ground however as an anti-air it does little damage and sometimes the second hit whiffs. So it is best to stick with mp srk and cr.hp for anti airs.

Ken atm is very gimmicky a lot of things can be punished but people are still not used to it.

St.hp is definitely the way to go in terms of run mixups/combos however you need to be upclose.

Ken is still lacking a safe way to get in. This game has a lot of anti fireball moves so you can’t zone outside of sweep range plus kens fireballs are bad. And his normals on top of that are very short. If they just make his step kick -2 on block it should fix this problem Imo. Its not like his step kick is as fast as sf4 and you can’t srk fadc on block to be safe after step kick anymore so i don’t see the problem to be honest.

Yeah, It was a little disappointing his V-skill was a run and not a roll like alpha games. That could have been his anti-FB move since most of the cast seems to have one. His overheads seem good, but yeah, Step kick requiring that start-up should definitely not be unsafe. I mean, you see Ken start to run, getting hit with step kick is almost a mix-up lol since your opponent will mostly likely be blocking. Current build his only safe normal on block besides lights is st.hp and the first hit of target combo? Gotta tighten him up a bit. Ryu, feels so much more complete that Ken, but also a little too simple, I say he should have Donkey kick.

^^
After reaching level 32 with ryu in the beta I can definitely say he is much more complete then ken.
However he is extremely boring lol

His frametraps suck because after 1 blocked st.mp the second one whiffs lol and his cr.mk has the same range as st.lk which I found funny as hell.

Ryu having a donkey kick will definitely make him more fun but mixed with parry and his v trigger he will be broken.

Unless they redesign him all ryu needs to be perfect imo is to return cr.mp back to its former glory and slightly extend the range on his cr.mk

Ken has less range on his cr.mk than ryu and I think they already increased the range on ryus in the latest build.