They need to rework the rework at this point, as much as I feel like a prophet ranting about Armageddon and the end of the world coming I really feel justified in saying that KEN. IS. ASS. or at least in how I was envisioning he’d play, his up close game got a big kick in the nuts and they’ve started to nerf his ranged and zoning game too with the fireball nerf…what do they want him to do? I can’t see anything scary from him now, at least Ryu has some really good buttons and the parry that has unlimited potential in the mind games department.
I think Ken really has one big issue in that his range to hit confirm is relatively small and you can’t do any sort of safe 2 in 1s without meter. Perhaps a solution would be to +5 on hit (only opens up a link to st.mp and cr.hk on CH so no big deal there) and reduce the startup on MK Tatsu to 5 while increasing its frame 1 hitbox so he can link into it. I think you’d only get 2 hits out of it so that’s 152 damage on a hit confirm for a bit further than his current cr.mp -> st.lk confirm but not too far. I’d say just increase his LK Tatsu’s hitbox but then it might get too good as a punishment tool.
Otherwise his run is mainly for combos or once you’ve conditioned them, he’s got an excellent dash, and can keep up pressure after combos.
@Muttonman Yea, they could also revert the st lk range nerf. Or they could leave him like that but let him do some serious damage when he manages to confirm up close. Right now it seems too much work to get in and get a confirm for the damage you get. V-trigger is another disappointment for the cost of 3 bars.
I can understand not wanting to bump back up st.lk for balance reasons I guess; I was just trying to figure out a change that wouldn’t really impact anything but his combos.
I’d also make sure he had his cool SRK juggles in VT; they don’t add a lot of damage but they do add a lot of fun. I don’t think they’ll make his VT 2 bars though; it’s both an install (more damage and special properties on moves) and cancels off of specials rather than just off of normals. Just bump his damage a bit via fun juggles in VT at most. He gets to no sell fireballs with his tatsus in it, his divekick gets to be pretty awesome, and his fireballs rock.
I really can’t. Ryu has it and gets meterless damage off his. Ken has to fish with meter and doing empty cancel EX hadoukens and then confirm it. If he spends meter fishing he might not have it for the other ways he needs it (beating fireballs with EX divekick, EX SRK punishes, or super). His st. LK was a corner stone of what allowed his block strings and confirms to function and with the increased pushback on cr. MP he literally has nothing to make up for it when combined with his st. LK nerf. b. MP is -2 and lacks the range to combo unless very close like on wakeup so it can’t be used for stagger pressure very well.
I understand st. LK was being spammed in the neutral but that is because it was the only consistently usable normal of his. I mean 13f startup st. RH is only so spammable until you get blown up on startup. st. MK is solid, but not a low and outside the corner can whiff st. RH at max range. His cr. MK is a joke of a button in this game. His old sweep was the worst in the game because of its range but now with the buff it might be a tad better for whiff punishing. I will use any good tools capcom gives me, but you can’t be mad at players for using 1 option when all the others fail to handle the situation well enough that the player can rely on them consistently.
2 meter VT but remove all the enhancements and just give it the FADC and make his crossup tatsu without v-trigger have a couple more frames of blockstun and hitstun. That would probably be preferred over what we have now since the FADC burst damage is really the only major draw of the v-trigger. The other things are decent, but not game changing other then his anti-air damage going up massively in v-trigger.
They’re not going to change his VT like that so it’s kind of pointless to comment on it. Otherwise letting him confirm off a cr.mp at a range slightly beyond where he could previously confirm with his st.lk seems like it fixes the whole blockstring issue because you can just go into cr.mp again instead of st.lk.
His footsies are an issue but I think the whole “must have a good low” is a bit stuck in a SFIV mindset. Many lows kind of suck in this game as the counter to someone walking backwards is often to just dash up and throw or go for the sweep. Making sure his Crazy Kicks TC always connects would be a solid buff though.
Basically, I think a lot of Ken is going to end up playing like Dudley. You whiff punish into run with your heavies then get his up close pressure rolling. Let him do something off a second cr.mp after a point blank one and he’ll be pretty golden.
That ‘must have a good low’ i think is an issue with the game, but my issue with Ken’s footsies is his buttons are almost worse then every other character in the game pretty much period until you can bully with st. MK in the corner. Cammy, Chun, Birdie, Vega, Ryu, Nash, Necalli, Karin and probably a few other characters have better normals. Heck I would argue Laura’s are about the same quality and might even be better. Ken is definitely one of the lowest 4 characters normals wise in the game.
I do think Ken’s entire game plan is ‘corner carry as much as possible so i can have a non-garbage gameplan’. Ken has some juice still it just is fairly lacking compared to other characters in how they currently are. He just doesn’t seem to have a space on screen I wish to stand with him where I wouldn’t rather be another character. He doesn’t even appear above average in each space. This is not looking at him in a vacuum.
You can’t play Ken like Dudley, his damage output is too low and he doesn’t have the same post kd pressure. Dudley’s game plan works because a) he hits like a truck and b) once he puts you in frame trap mode you are dead. Ken has probably the most inefficient frame traps in the game.
Even Mika has better buttons than Ken and she is a grappler…
It’s nice to see people finally addressing Ken’s weaknesses instead of only focusing on his “not so terrible strengths”.
He already had some glaring weaknesses in beta 2, but ever since they’ve taken those same weaknesses and amplified them more and more while taking away most of the good things he had. His damage output and combo/set up options are what made him feel alright to me before despite the shitty normals and frame data. Now it feels like you have to work twice as hard to get not as good of damage as before. This definitely puts him at a disadvantage against most of the cast who basically all have much better tools than he does.
The only reason his frame traps aren’t great is because he can’t convert past his st.lk range. Change that and he’ll be a lot better. Perhaps also give him back his st.hp xx run -> TC1, that’ll give him an extra 30 damage or so and a setup off a whiff punish. If you’re then making it so that he doesn’t need a 3f Tatsu to link into you can slow down his LK Tatsu and let it link off of cr.mp at further ranges. Maybe also drop cr.mp to 5f.
a) Block stun in combination with the slow startup of his medium/heavy buttons: The most frame advantage he can get is +2 and his medium and heavy buttons that let you convert (st mk’ st hp) have an 8 and 9 frames startup, which means a gap of 6 or 7 whole frames. Every character in the game has a medium that can beat that.
b) Pushback: On block, he simply can’t press more than 2 buttons, his opponent gets out of range. So even if you score a hit, you have to confirm from 1 button press.
c) No useful links: Say you get that hit, you still can’t link anything after it unless you get a cr mp ch. You have to confirm a cancel from 1 hit.
d) Very low CH reward: Even if you do get a ch cr mp, you can only link another cr mp, so you have to spend meter as the pushback from the 2nd cr mp will only allow an ex tatsu to connect. Ken get’s no other new links due to ch. The only reliable frame trap to CC you have is with cr HP which is crazy negative on block and launches in the air.
e) Damage conversion: We already talked about this i guess… St HP run -> TC1 will help with damage output but not with frame traps. You can’t put st HP in frame traps for reasons i explained. No decent player will ever fall for it, he will either block or get a ch himself.
[EDIT]
cr. mp has had a startup of 5 frames from the start.
[EDIT2]
Most of the above was a result of beta3. Almost every button change Capcom made in that version was geared towards removing utility from his frame traps. Even the st mp hurtbox nerf in beta4 is targeting his frame traps. Not that he was getting any huge rewards in beta2, the frame traps were just functional. But since it was a conscious decision from their part, i don’t think they will do anything to improve that aspect of his game. I can only hope that we are missing something that Capcom knows about the character.
Here I was thinking it was 6f. As a 5f normal I don’t think A has much merit as that means it’s a perfectly tight frametrap (as being a medium it beats 3f jabs) if you do cr.mp -> cr.mp. B and C are linked; you can definitely confirm off a single medium in this game so if you give him a non-cancel link at decent ranges then he’s fine there. I think you could also fix D here as well by making his sweep 6f so that a CH cr.mp links into it if you did cr.mp (blocked) -> cr.mp (CH) -> sweep.
My point was not that he has no 3 frame frame traps (that would be ridiculous), my point was that the buttons that can convert to damage are useless in frame traps.
They could kind of give him some conversion by making st mp a 6 frame move, but instead they nerfed it so that you can interrupt it with lights from further away. Likewise, i can’t see a 6 frame sweep happening no matter how punishable on block it is, as it will also improve his whiff punish game a lot.
B is also really important. It means you have one less button to play mind games with the opponent. It’s easier for him/her to get out of your pressure.
Well, that was part of the intention of making his sweep 6f
But yes, you could also make his st.mp 6f but I think you’d still have somewhat of a deadzone where you couldn’t get anything off a CH while his sweep would still get you the KD into pressure. That and I think they’re having his st.mp be slower as it has the best hitbox of his non-heavy normals and is also cancelable so you can get the most out of it during footsies. You could also just make it so that his LK Tatsu moves fast enough to link into it from a further away cr.mp on CH and then make sure it goes into SRK juggles during VT.
Anyone notice that Ken’s S.MK doesn’t whiff on crouching opponents anymore during that Madcatz tourney with Julio? makes his other target combo alot better. I might be dumb and they changed that during the 4th beta.
It never did, you just need to be close enough for the second, lower hitbox to connect. The second hit whiffs on crouchers, but as the first hit forces standing it doesn’t really matter as long as you confirm it.
That must have been why, I always confirmed into the second hit and the few times I fucked up I must have forgotten/not noticed. Thanks for clearing that up ;p!
EDIT*
Here’s a fun test, go back and watch the Ken reveal/anyone’s reveal trailer and see what they retained and what they lost.
