So, in line with my usual “let’s use the worst character because I’m sick and I like that sort of thing,” I’ve always wanted to dive into Blanka. Just started with him and he’s mad fun, but there are some obvious stupid things that I should get out of the way first.
Stupidly tough links. Seriously, plus they are just so clunky compared to every single other character. Have to rely on st.LP xx f.MP for a confirm most of the time, and they’re nerfing that soon -_-.
On top of those links, electricity has stupid range. I have to jump in to get all up in their ass, and then I’m still out of range for LP elec after cr.MK, st.LP. EX hits, but uses up all juggle points so there’s not even a cool combo you can do after though Blanka recovers way before they hit the ground.
Shitty AAs, which seem to be everybody’s gripe. Definitely not great, although st.HK can still do alright in a pinch, especially since it always causes float. His A2As are also decent. Still very underwhelming. Plus he ain’t getting anything in 2013.
His juggle points. Just stupid all around. Would’ve loved for river run to work on juggled opponents. Would make st.HK give you some nice extra damage and a hard knockdown from anywhere. Already mentioned EX sparks.
Needless to say, I think he’s pretty shitty compared to most of the cast. However he has some really fun stuff, and I generally like how he plays. I actually like how a lot of the old SF cast plays in this game (Abel/Balrog.) Right now I’m pairing up King with him, as I think most any SF character + King is recipe for a top tier team.
Anyways, on to the thread!:
Post any labwork you find interesting here! Who knows, I might compile it if I'm not lazy.
[LIST]
[*]After a st.HK, chained or not, slightly delay a MP horiball. If they quick rise it’ll cross up for a useful tag cancel set up. If not you get a corpse cross.
[/LIST]
Lol, that’s all I got for now. Pretty sure I’ve got a couple other things, but it’s late >.< Oh, and I’ve got a meter set up right now, but I’m sure all speed is godly for Blanka. Also, pandora > EX ball > super does 500 with no gems and doesn’t need pandora extend.
Anyways, Blanka is new to me so I’ve slowly been learning piano-ing and how to fit it in to Blanka’s pressure in this game. At first it seemed super difficult (and it kinda still is ><) due to the chain system and sparks abysmal range.
But, if anyone was having trouble with it, I’ve been using cr.LK, [wait a split second], piano h/mp into st.LP xx [lp, hp] for electricity. Been getting pretty consistently in training. At first I was using the second lp as my st.LP input but its nearly impossible to get it to link after cr.LK in time.
Hopefully that was clear lol. I don’t know why they made his links so stupid difficult. So far though he actually makes a very solid point character for king. Although people online might just not be used to Blanka shenanigans.
I’ll post here soon
Been away from the game for a couple of weeks since my new job started.
But yeah, his lack of AA is really weird since that way always one of his strongest points.
his lk. upball lacks invinc. and his ball-moves seem to have a small hitbox overall.
His strongest point is his aerial game, as long as you’re not facing a mishima
Yup, his AA is pretty shitty. For the most part I just try to keep moving, I feel like that’s Blanka’s best AA tool. Either I’m up close pressuring with jab/fst.MP or I’m dashing and hopping away like a madman. I try to either hop away or if I have to hold my ground I do it at a range where cr.HP will connect pretty consistently. I do wish that they put some air invincibility on st.HK in 2013, I think that would be enough for his AA game.
His jump game is pretty strong, and I think is oki game is overall one of the best in the game. Not many straight high/low mix ups or anything but his hop just makes it so easy to control wake ups. I think hops along with his general/electricity pressure makes him a pretty strong point character with the right teammate.
And speaking of electricity pressure I’ve found a couple decent options afterwards. Jab or st.mp is always good, but I found that cr.MK into hop works well, and especially a LP horiball right after electricity.
Most of this stuff seems like it would be totally obvious to Blanka users already though, but oh well :/. I kinda want to put a list together of characters who can regularly punish LP horiball.
gah, all we need is a good AA and combos and blanka would be unstoppable. you have his hop and if you were to hop and combo, you would be destructive. I found his best AA is to just compete in air, jump backwards with a heavy kick in midair and it’ll protect you from their attack and it keeps your distance since blanka has some great reach between his ball moves and river run it keeps you at an advantage, eventually it’ll turn into a hopping match backwards and that is when you make your move and hop around and get him on a cross up and get that launcher in there for the other tag member to get that combo in there that we wish blanka had.
I would definitely love a little combo variety and a decent AA, but as it stands it seems like he’s just a very solid half of a whole team. His river run and footsies are definitely a bit stronger thanks to a lack of focus attack. But you’re right, his strongest AA option is probably a jump back HK.
The problem with Blanka’s combo’s is that most of them should be in the corner, but you’ll never push opponents in the corner with him.
So the easiest non-tag out combo I’ll use midscreen is j.HK, HK, cr. mp, cr. HP
5% is better than nothing. Still, that’s an unnecessarily pessimistic view. SFxT definitely isn’t at the very top of everybody’s list, but with IPL supporing it, I really don’t think people are that far from coming around to liking this game.
I definitely get that feeling of “those capcom dudes are going bananas” with the balance changes, especially with characters like Hugo, Blanka or Bryan. I think it’s honestly because most people look at character’s changes in a vacuum though. People still haven’t taken into account how much punishable polls will affect every characters offensive game, or how characters will interact with the character you choose to team them with. Sometimes I really think that capcom wants some characters to just be relegated to “specialty teammate.” Or maybe they just don’t know what they’re doing :/. Either way I watched v2013 on the IPL stream and it looked like so much fun. Justin and PR Balrog looked like they were having so much fun styling on dieminion and kbrad lol.
I’m kinda sad about Blanka in this game. I admit i waited much more changes for him and nothing… still don’t understand why his AAs are so crap on SFxT, why?? And it’s just an extract of his issues, i seriously still think he’s terrible in this game and don’t have his place here.
What are you talking about? I have been tinkering with Blanka deeply and he has everything you need. He is a quiet good character. This guy is top tier probably, just because you can’t do 8 hit combos solely by him self doesn’t mean he is no good. His AA is fantastic; his upball he has one of the better AA, and that upball can be tag cancelled to a combo. I sniff hate. Just wait, once you learn how to use him, you’ll love him.
I don’t say he’s bad because of combos or whatever. That’s just my feeling about him, his AA have nothing fantastic if you played SFIV, his cr.mp is pathetic… his only good AA is his jump fierce.
I have been fiddling around with Julia and I found tag canceling off her spiral upper, you can Jumping Roundhouse, then hold the down direction in mid air while doing the roundhouse and then when you hit the ground do a crouching forward (you should already still be holding down) and then use the hard upball. It takes awhile to get down but it is better then the standard Crouching Strong > Crouching Strong xx Upball after most tag cancels. It is simple; it is just J.HK > Cr.MK xx Heavy Upball. You can also put a crouching light kick before the crouching medium if you seem to not be able to pull off the upball because your charge isn’t long enough to execute it. I actually do the Jumping Heavy Kick > Crouching Light Kick > Crouching Medium Kick > Heavy Upball.
I think I saw a cool juggle on one of ssf4evo’s collection, where a Blanka did (after a tag in) EX elec > elec > cr.mk xx up ball. Was the coolest thing ever, but it brings up a weird issue about electricity’s juggle points. Namely that if you do it on a grounded opponent all points are used up, but if you use electricity on an airborne foe you can juggle afterwards.
I think your best bet is executing that in the corner off a tag cancel. I will try it as a cross rush and tag cancel on the mid screen and corner and seen what I can do. I didn’t realize that you could get a juggle off the Electricity or even EX as well, because I thought his active frames and recovery frames would take too long before you could get in another hit. I think it would be better to leave out the Ex electiricty and use normal to crouching forward to upball as it’ll save meter and wasting your meter on a move that is scaled is a waste. I’ll look into this.
Update: Ok so, so far I managed to pull off the Ex Elec > Elec > Cr. Mk > Cr. Mk > Upball, and that was off of a J. HK > Forward > Round house > Rouse House (launcher) from julia all in the corner. I got 402 damage. To be honest, it looks flashy and cool but personally, I would save that bar and just use a Cr. Mk > Cr. Mk > Cr. Mk > Upball instead, it does 20 damage left but personally 1 bar is more valuable then 20 damage most of the time, I could get 20 on chip so meh. Not gonna lie, pretty bad ass, but that is something you would pull off on a D rank for lulz. I couldn’t manage to get this off from a tag cancel off of julia’s upward kick tag cancel so I am going to try ryu’s Shoryu to see if I can it from that tag cancel since the dummy gets more elevation.
I am going to see the results on midscreen as well. I don’t think I’ll be able to pull it off mid screen but heck, we didn’t know how many planets were out there in our solar system until we took a look.
Udate: So It works on tag cancels but I guess you have to try it out in the training room as it seems some moves I can’t get it to work with off of a tag cancel, either way I like the looks though. I managed to get a tag cancel shoryuken from ryu to blanka and then I used the Ex Elec > Elec > Cr. Mk > Cr. Mk > Upball and it gave me 454, I am sure that isn’t worth 2 bars but, It is decent damage. Onto midscreen now though, ok, I just did EX electricity and the dummy flew across the screen xD. It doesn’t work, I didn’t remember that EX Electricity had a knockback like that XD. I tried normal electricity and his knock back was too far as well, I tried hopping but his active frames from electricity and blankas whole frames for his hop wouldn’t let him get a move off in time.
Finalization:
A good analysis over this combo is it looks flashy, cool, good way to go out, but this isn’t very practical as you are using 1-2 bars with the damage of it equivelant to a normal cross rush or tag combo. I believe you can’t pull this off without Ex Electricity as if you didn’t do it you wouldn’t get the elevation of the opponent to pull off the next electiricity to give you time to go into the crouching kicks. It looks cool I must admit though. Good Find swoops.
Yea I figured you could only do it in the corner, although its surprising to know that EX elec knocks away on an airborne opponent, but keeps them in place on the ground.
I don’t think you need EX elec. I’ve gotten launch > elec > cr.mk xx up ball in the corner before. I bet he can get some serious damage in 2013 in the corner. Electricity, st.HP xx up ball
How are you going to cancel a standing fierce to a down charge move? You mean crouching HP? either way, I think that one cancelable move in 2013 can totally change blanka’s damage output to be honest.
also I am doing normal electricity > Crouching LK (or Cr.MK, I just feel more guarenteed with the LK as it’s start up is alot quicker) > Crouching MK xx Upball off a launcher and I am getting higher damage then my Cr.MK > Cr. MK > Cr. MK xx Upball. I may take advantage of that and use that move, good find though.
You could always cancel standing moves with down charge specials. Just requires a bit of timing. Basically, hold down, release to neutral for standing move, then up special. Has to be done somewhat quickly but you have to make sure all of that is done pretty deliberately.
