DF Senpu Bu assist is the truth. Full stop.
Put a few hours into the game now. I have a little trouble defending against good rushdown with her as well, but I’m pretty happy with what she can do.
Messing around with Hsien-Ko in training mode, I have discovered that you can cancel her forwards dash into a backdash. I’m reminded of backdash canceling with Slayer in Guilty Gear, though this is obviously not quite the same thing.
edit: actually, you can FDC into attacks too. 50/50 crossups all day?
edit2: No wait, you can FDC into anything. Throws, attacks, even jumps.
Yeah I noticed that too. Pretty cool, but really risky in most cases. I suppose with the dash’s invincibility frames you could punish certain mid range projectiles with hit confirms into free combos, but whenever I started getting spammy with it I got wrecked. Could be wonderful if used in conjunction with hyper armor, although every time I get that I try to switch out immediately for the assist buff. Also I imagine FDC command grab to Tenrai Ha has its uses.
Having her on point takes a bit to get used to, and you definitely can’t play her like a typical rushdown character, but overall I’m really happy with the way she feels. Her normals are really cool, and with all her limited but interested movement options it seems like you can do some pretty tricky stuff. Also for previous posters having difficulty with getting her launch to connect at the end of a ground combo, try canceling into it out of c.H. I seemed to be able to get c.L, c.L, M, H, c.H, S to work most of the time with proper timing on the last bit.
For launch combo I do something else but ill type it out in next post. Also she has good keep away but throwing it out their her match against herself is a big pain. Playing my friend and keeping away will get you no where. I found some other stuff but I am going to hold back on you guys for now.
What’s up my fellow Hsien-Ko lovers? :lovin:
Just wanted to pop in and say whats up. In case you didn’t see our stream last night, we streamed all night (about 10 hours), during which I played Hsien-A/Ammy-B/Dormammu-B all night. I thought some people might be interested in watching it if they missed the live stream.
You can catch the replay here: Justin.tv - optionselect - Option-Select.com’s SSF4 and MvC3 Stream
If you only want to see me play, I’d kind of recommend watching the parts of the steram backwards (starting from 5 and working down), because as the night went on, not only did I get better, but also people started leaving so I played more towards the end of the night. Although towards the very end of the stream, Simply Ph33r and I played a lot and he bodied me a LOT. A lot of games were lost because he started Wesker against my Hsien, and I literally could not get him away from me long enough to DF and tag her out, and she died before I got to do anything. So maybe start with like part 4 
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Also, if you don’t feel like sifting through all the footage for my matches/highlights (and I wouldn’t blame you), I’m going to try to go through it myself in the next few days and upload some stuff to youtube, so I’ll post here again when I do that.
Here’s my general feeling of Hsien Ko right now: I think DF Pendulum is ridiculous. My general plan was to start Hsien in the first slot with the character I actually want first in my third slot. I’d run away building meter and then as soon as I landed 1 random hit, I’d just launch into knock down, then immediately Sword super, wait for it to recover, DF Super while the opponent is still getting hit by the Swords, then raw tag into my third character (Dormammu), which would put Hsien into my third slot, which is where I want her.
If done correctly, it appeared to be 100% safe, though I need to test this further now that I actually have the game and can go into training mode. I did it what appeared to be perfect one time during the stream, and I was pretty sure the opponent was still recovering from the Sword Super and I was already controlling Dormammu.
The problem with this plan is that it’s so hard to set up. You need to somehow land a hit mid screen, because if you’re near the corner, the Sword Super doesn’t juggle them long enough to make the DF -> Tag safe. Landing a random hit with Hsien is hard enough, let alone a hit mid screen in a good position. Granted, I’m pretty abd at using Pendulum right now, and I think there’s definitely some strong potential in Ammy assist -> Pendulum to start a combo, but again, I literally haven’t stepped foot in training mode with Hsien yet.
Speaking of which, I’ll be streaming in a few hours again, and it will just be me in training mode for the first time, messing with this stuff (and other various things, and taking requests), so if you’re interested or have stuff you want me to try, keep an eye out for the stream in a few hours by following the OS Twitter and/or Facebook because I update those immediately when I go live.
Anyway, so after coming to the realization that banking on the above setup wasn’t reliable enough, I started to experiment to see how close to safe I could get with other random methods. One of the best methods I was able to use once was to throw a stun item, confirm that it hit, then immediately DF Super and tag out while the opponent was stunned. I think this will also be an extremely handy method of getting Hsien safely powered up and tagged out.
The other method I experimented with a lot was random H Gong xx DF, Raw Tag. This worked surprisingly well. Especially if the opponent is already in the air when you do it. There were multiple times I did this on reaction to the opponent jumping at me, and they got hit by the Gong as I tagged, and I was completely safe. This is obviously situational, but I thought it was worth mentioning, because it’s not the worst thing in the world.
Anyway, once she’s powered up, it’s fucking gravy. With Dormammu and Ammy, I have both extremes. I run away and zone with Dorm, and when they finally get close, I call Hsien and block. If they get hit by the assist, it’s an easy hit confirm into Chaotic Flames. If they don’t, I can Dark Hole to continue pushing them away and go back to my lameness.
With Ammy, Hsien assist is even sicker. I try to save my meter for Ammy, and once I’m in good position, I Mist (slow down) Super to basically force them into defense. But with or without Mist, once you’re close enough you can call Hsien, and get a completely guaranteed high/low mixup, because Ammy can instant overhead most of the cast with an immediate j.M or j.H. There was one match where I did it perfectly: call Hsien assist, instant j.H, Hsien hits, j.H again as I come down, then land and combo. It’s not hard at all, but again, I was doing this all freestyle, no training mode.
Finally, if it ever came down to Hsien coming back in at the end, it was hilarious how every single time, my opponent would forget she was coming in with Super armor. Obviously, this is a gimmick that only worked because the game was new, but every time I came in, I just came in attacking, usually just raw Super, because my opponents kept trying to attack me as soon as I came in. Also, in some matches, it came down to only my Hsien vs their last character, and if you have multiple meters stocked, just using DF Super and rushing them down is definitely legit. Hyper armor is serious business.
Anyway, that’s enough wall of text for now. I just wanted to pop in let people know about my experiences so far, and about the matches from last night, because I know a lot of people are starved for footage of her since she’s pretty underplayed for now (and hopefully it stays that way).
I found out you can apply some sort of rush down with sentinel’s a assist. Basically you instant air dash and use your air H (claws) to put in block stun and have sent force back you up. It can be blocked high, but you can also bring a low assist (x23) every now and then, or you can even cancel air H into pendulum to create a cross up where sent force hits the back of the guy. Advancing guard pushes you away, but it’s not like Hsien has zoning issues with gong/anki hou.
If you score a air H, you can land a quick bnb+Tenraiha. If you’re having problems with landing launchers, make sure you use cr. H to get closer. you could also use edoha (f. H) to help land S. Otherwise, if you think you’re going to whiff the launcher, just cancel cr. H into gong xx Tenraiha
Awesome video HunterSFL! I noticed something around 12:00 in Part 4. You DHC’d Hsien-Ko’s Dark Force super off Ammy’s super then tagged in Drommamu free. Perhaps instead of starting with Hsien-Ko, you start with Ammy, build meter to level 2, connect Ammy’s super, DHC to Dark Force, then tag in Dormmamu.
Ah, took me a second to find the match you were talking about because it was part 5, not part 4 :bgrin:. But yeah, thanks for reminding me! Like i said, that was like a 10 hour session, but then it was like 4AM, so I forgot some of the stuff I did, and I had forgotten all about that! I think I’m definitely going to do that, because like I said, one of the major problems I had was starting Hsien against a rush down character like Wesker and getting completely overran before I had a chance to zone or tag her out. I was already saying I was going to try running Ammy first, but I had to think about how to order the team to make it work, and that works perfectly (Ammy/Hsien/Dorm).
But yeah, in the very next two matches, you can see me get completely overran by Wesker two games in a row :shake:.
Oh man, sorry for the confusion. 
Yeah, I hope we can find a way to make Hsien-Ko more useful when actually fighting. I was thinking of Ammy’s assist as well, maybe even Ironman’s Unibeam. If you look at the videos of Maximilian on Youtube, He uses Unibeam as Wesker does a crossup teleport. I think you mentioned using an assist while corssing up with pendulum swing. That could be helpful. Also, when I pick up the game, I’m going to play around with Hsien-ko / Chun-li / Amaterasu. Perhaps the combination of lightning legs and cold star will help Hsien-Ko get in and stay in from both long and short range.
Finally got a full play through if hsien-ko, those pendulum swings to combos are very neat! I like how you can also mix them up keeping the opponent guessing and protecting hsien-ko on those swing backs. I like her trickery or sorts, can definitely be dangerous in good hands.
So I admit I dismissed Hsien immediately after trying her out in training mode. Then I came across Sabr3 online and he made her look really legit. And now after watching Ryan Hunter’s matches and reading his posts I’d definitely like to have her on another one of my saved teams.
Cody players reppin’ Hsien?!
I felt very comfortable with her on point tell you the truth. I just spammed the qcf+attack move. And when they got near IAD Strong attack into combo into whatever.
any suggestions from good players about getting hsien ko out safetly after activating super armor at the start of the round?
Space yourself with gongs/back dash at start and use an assist if you have to. Or could do instant air dash and try to land a combo and just DF upon knockdown. She has long range on her normals (f. C+anki hou/gong) if you need to push away, or you could do what i said earlier with IAD and hope they advancing guard you. Once they push you, activate and swap.
Otherwise, try to build up two meters and then just DHC into your next partner if you really want to use the DF pendulum.
Yeah, I’m starting Hsien-Ko (pendulum) on point with Storm second. My general gameplan is to zone up to 2 meters - mostly with j.421H, falling j.H, and 2M, then DHC 623LM into 214LM to get Storm out safely.
Thanks Ryan Hunter for linking that stream, and since its on Justin TV I can watch it at school. I knew when I saw the trailer for Hsien-Ko I knew I would want her on my team.
That’s usually my plan, with either Storm or Sentinel.
Just note that Dark Force activation is super fast, so you can actually combo with DHC’s after it.
Just B&B or Command Grab into dark force DHC hail works wonders.
It seems really funny to me that I’m going back to the equivalent of glitched juggernaut assist in MvC3.
Cool stuff HunterSFL. I played a ton of Lei-Lei/Dormammu/X-23 last night, and then watched your stream today and noticed we were doing a lot of the same stuff. DFP + Dormammu is ridiculous. Especially if you start mixing in teleport’s and red/blue hand specials. I also am very fond of locking them down with DFP, and using floating bomb KFC floating bomb later in matches. 2 floating bombs with X-factor active is enough to drain about half a life bar on chip alone, and if you can time a teleport you can often get the second one to hit for full damage.
One thing you definitely do a lot better then me so far is using DFP in conjunction with your other character. I usually end up only using X-23 as a fall back for when things go wrong, or for ankle slice assist when Hsien-Ko’s still on point. Your Ammy/DFP strategies were cool, and I think I’ll definitely have to figure out similar pressure games with DFP/X-23.
Keep repping Hsien-Ko. I liked what I saw. And thanks for the link.
i dunno if it was mentioned, but evil rahsaan showcased this strat on frame-advantage.com
[media=youtube]untDMojaTCA[/media]
hsien-ko pretty much has a gdlk assist (IMO, since he never really says so). at the beginning of the match, while hsien-ko leads your team, do Gong xx Dark Force hyper and tag for your point man. with the pendulum assist and the super armor up, you’ll have an invincible assist through out the match until hsien-ko is tagged in. this completely shuts down any lock-down since she’ll be able to interrupt everything.
Don’t forget to mention that she is still able to take damage while she assists, so it’s not completely full-proof. However, if used sparingly, and combined with the fast red recover time, this could see Hsien Ko become a powerful ally (unless she already is, this is the first time I’ve been in this thread and the first time seeing her used, so I don’t know if she’s already considered good :P).