@Azrael: Aside from perhaps certain console characters and C. Viper, Honda doesn’t have any matchups with a real advantage. What makes him so strong is that he hits so bloody hard, and can turtle extremely well against characters without a good fireball. Honestly though, I think the only thing that he has over Boxer are his command throw, a safer anti-oki move (EX headbutt, which is great as long as they don’t cross him up, or have the ability to punish it, which is fairly rare), and overall better damage output. Boxer has overall better normals, a much better ultra in terms of how easy it is to connect from something, a far superior AA (Honda needs back charge for a reliable AA), and overall more versatility.
Also, Guile does have a definite advantage against Honda and Dictator. Both characters have a horrible time getting in on Guile (His c.HP and air throws are nightmares for them).
Does E. Honda really have that many advantages? I don’t really see Honda having too many advantages over the rest of the cast, but then again I haven’t seen any Japanese Honda players play so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Most of the other stuff Mago wrote seems plausible though.
@Azrael: Thank you for translating it! Even if you’re not exactly sure about what he wrote, every little thing counts
honda’s bad matchups all involve characters that can keep him zoned out, where he just can’t do any damage. His advantage over everybody else who can’t zone him as effectively is the high stamina and high damage.
No offense to Mike Ross, but I think we can see pretty clearly that that is not an example of how to play the E.Honda vs Dhalsim matchup. I mean it was pretty much Art throwing Yoga fires and Mike Ross jumping over the fires to run into a roundhouse. There’s more to the matchup than that
I agree with Mago about Akuma, I honestly think he will be S-Tier soon or maybe even surpass Sagat, even with his low health. He has so many tools to work with and people are still finding new stuff with him, which greatly adds to his future potential.
Eventually, I think people are going to learn some ridiculous resets with his demon flip and also consistently link his standing hard kick into jab that his damage output will put him on top of the tier list. People are doing this now, but if someone could get it with 100% execution they would just rock people.
I’m not very knowledgeable about the honda - zangief matchup, so I made a passing assumption without checking. But are you saying I’m wrong about the zoning?
