well here are my thoughts:
1 - S.MP 8f -> 6f
not too useful. 1 frame faster than c.mp/s.mp but same damage. less reach than c.mp i think. its hitbox extends outward with a pulled back hurtbox (a very rare case for bison) so they must want this to be used in footsies/whiff punish into sk cancel…
2 - S.MP special cancellable
…however given the lack of range and the fact you’re walking back and forth in footsies i really don’t see a purpose of this buff if they intend intended you to special cancel it in that manner. maybe if bison was a motion character it would be good. maybe i am selling this ‘buff’ short. i’ll have to think about it more but i don’t see too much solid usage
3 - Cr.HP 12->10f
this will help people that were too slow to AA with c.fierce in 95% of the MUs (re: doesn’t help me). while i do very much like that it’s quicker, the reality is that this only legit helps one (maybe 2) match ups in my eyes. zangief will now have a much harder time jumping in on bison since bison will be able to effectively AA him with c.fierce to beat zangiefs low arching jf.mk. this “buff” is very trivial in the larger picture of this game
4 - Scissors LK -1 on block
cannot be justified when considering bison’s other changes. currently a lot, and i mean A LOT of characters already have something to prevent bison from repeating his l.sk twice. i mean they have 3 frame normals that will trade, or normals that will make bison’s c.short whiff, and some even have normals that will stuff c.short (though that isn’t as common). currently the best case for bison is 2 blocked scissor kicks, and after the second one the player has A LOT of breathing room to (in super you could repeat 3 times before opponents could think about challenging c.short). with l.sk being -1, that means bison loses corner push (you can no longer repeat scissors) AND the pressure is reversed if you’re fighting anyone with a 3 or 4 frame normal (which i’m sure is mashable/chainable into a KD of their own). the reversed pressure means bison gets pushed back, meaning the only sk you do get to push someone back with is instantly nullified when the opponent starts their own block string. imagine vs vega, you do a l.sk. your only option is to trade bison’s 30dmg c.short with vega’s 65 damage c.mp, and be put in a range vega is comfortable with. and imagine if you mistime your c.short by a frame… vega combos you for 200 when you tried to get 140. this nerf skews risk/reward so badly as if bison didn’t already have the short end of the stick with his overall gameplan. will people with -1 specials/ultras being to get bison raw now after a single l.sk (zangief u1)?
5 - Scissors LK, MK, HK,EX +10 damage
sure i’ll take the +10 damage. l.sk is getting that damage BACK to what it was before. i think from AE to AE2012 is when it lost 10 damage.
6 - Teleport +5f recovery
i can confidently say that there is no character in this game that cannot punish a teleport by simply walking forward and pressing a button. sometimes that button is a sweep, other time’s it’s a standing jab into a KD combo. why are they making it recover slower? its recovery was already 42 frames and can be option selected. i already consider it a stroke of luck when i teleport and get away safely, now it will be a miracle i guess?
7 - Headpress startup 22->20f
i need to know how this change is done. exhs is actually very very very good for beating out almost any uppercut in this game because of it’s high frame count and high invincibility. if they straight cut 2 frames out of his start up, decreasing the total amount of frames, then i really don’t like this change because that means this is a nerf in it’s best usage scenario. if they keep total frames the same, but convert 2 inactive (startup) frames to active frames, then this is a decent buff. it will definitely help prevent people from walking backwards or under the EXHS from close range, meaning it could be a very viable “excellent chip and bounce far away from the pressure” sort of move.
8 - Devil Reverse EX Followup falls faster
i don’t like this. on the one hand falling faster means less maneuverability in the air when dodging fireballs or baiting out shoryukens or jump-forward attacks. that is potential damage loss. on the other hand you can build meter slightly faster, which is okay, but dr builds very little meter to begin with. most importantly, if the recovery on the ground stays then you’ll be fullscreen ultra’d all the same, and ‘building meter faster’ is worthless if the exact same risk is assumed
9 - Ultra 2 damage 450->420
w/e, barely land the thing against good players anyway.
10 - Ultra 2 charge 55f -> 40f
same as above. a more complete explanation would be that the problem was with start up time, not charge time. personally i think with quick enough reactions that U2 was still pretty usable but overall the chance you’ll get to use it against a good player is going to be small no matter what you do with this ultra. the charge time decrease is trivial, and the biggest scenario i can think of is when i’m faking walking back and forward while buffering my ultra against fireballers than aren’t paying attention. this will make it so getting the u2 charge isn’t as obvious
final thoughts
the majority of his buffs are almost negligible, and the really stand out one (EXHS) is in the air because we don’t know how they are implementing the change, so it could end up being a nerf in some scenarios. other move changes like DR falling faster are give and take (mostly take imo), and things like s.mp being cancellable doesn’t actually do much since it offers no extra damage in the ranges you would normally want to use it, and it’s too short of a range to effectively use it in footsies (where you won’t be able to cancel with it anyway). the biggest nerf is the -1 l.sk, and bison has received no buff significant buff to compensate his main pressure tool being flat out crippled
if i had to take a guess at what capcom/whoever was thinking when “balancing” bison, it would be this:
with the removal of unblockables, promised laxing of vortex character domination, and overall less BS in this game, it would be fair to say capcom is envisioning a more “honest” street fighter game. in this sense more footsie based characters are all getting indirectly buffed, and in capcoms eyes, by a very large margin. logically, bison is already a good footsie character, so these nerfs are pre-emptive because theoretically in UltraSF4, bison being able to corner push AND footsie very well could spell disaster in a much more honest environment.
they want bison to still be able to bully opponents with his normals and walk them to the corner, but they want to slow the rate in which he gets them there, and even cut down his options once he does have them there. in return, opponents will get less of an opportunity to get around and over bison’s head like they currently can by simply jumping at him, thus the buff to c.fierce. instead of bison being a medium-sized wall that pushes you to the corner at a medium rate and holds you there tight, he is now becoming a large® sized wall which advances slower and leaves you with more running room to jump over, but expects you to fail at those attempts more than you did before.