That was incredibly confusing to read.
Simplified version: Lights and mediums don’t have the best stun output.
What I’m saying is that if you use too many lights and mediums, it becomes almost impossible to cross the 800 stun line thanks to scaling.
Damn Doop, that Seth Combo on cammy with cr.mk after exSB was so sexy… and it’s not even that hard, i wuv it!
edit: Leider Geil!
You can do similar things on crouching Vega.
Oh crouching… I always forget those tricks. ^^ Tortured the whole cast and for fuerte it’s by far the easiest to land even 4 ex.sb in a row. Really made my day! Looks cool and the damage is good too. I’ll try crouching tomorrow.
Just played a jillion games with Ultra Seth, giving my first impressions. Gonna start off by saying I think he’s usable.
What I definitely overlooked was the dive kick additional hitstun frame. That change alone made certain matchups crazy for Seth, particularly against characters that don’t have good answers to divekick either standing or on the floor. I can confirm that thing off almost any hit now as long as I’m not hitting the very top of their head, which is obviously great.
Tanden cancel being removed was a huge kick in the balls like I expected. Basically, you have to do your low/bait/spd/DP (lol DP) mixup before you push them out of around 3 jabs range, otherwise you end with a cr.mk into a maybe boom, and it resets to neutral. Sucks, but it is what it is.
Seth doesn’t eat Chun U1 for LANDING stretchy arms now. Awesome.
Walljump nerf is fine. He lost some dumb setups and free safejumps, but it’s still far enough to threaten escape in the corner.
J.mk being the primary air normal now ties in with the main theme of Ultra Seth. You don’t stun people anymore. You land your mixup, you do another, another, another, and hopefully they’re dead. Otherwise if they escape, they reset to neutral. You don’t get a free kill off the remaining 15% of their life even if you guess right 4 times in a row now.
Cr.mp is great. Seth finally gets a real meaty move, and cr.mp, st.hp appears to work universally on all characters at close distance (no tanden required).
DP invincible nerf sucks, I traded today antiairing stuff that I never lost or traded to before. Whatever, it’s fine. DP FADC is still there, you are just now forced to use EX DP. Yep, no super for Seth ever again (I can live with this too).
Stomps buff isn’t anything big, but enough to make it so it seems you can do one universal timing on all chars with DP FADC 2x stomps dive now (still working on 3x stomps for the weird ones).
Overall I think he’s perfectly fine for matchups he was good in before, and he still seems to get wrecked by the stuff he always lost to. All the other characters might shift around on whatever tier lists, and Seth might shift too as a result, but if you lived with 2012 Seth, you can live with Ultra Seth. Interested in hearing how the rest of you guys feel.
Gonna have to get some games in still, but
cr.MP xx HK Hyaku/EX is NG
cr.MP, cst.HP is universal
cr.MP, cr.MP works reliably, but…
cr.LP, cr.MP, cr.MP only works point blank, and…
cr.LK, cr.LP, cr.MP, cr.MP does not work against (at least vs. Ryu.)
cr.MP counterhit, cr.HK is real
j.MK doesn’t really feel exactly the same as j.HK despite what the notes say. Maybe it’s the active frames throwing me off…
edit: got some of dem games in.
I think Seth will be around what I thought (viable, need a secondary for some MUs.) He’s a little better off than I thought actually. Thats not saying much but its something. But holy fuck the amount of times I go for cr.MK xx Tanden/cst.HP xx Tanden/cr.HP xx Tanden. I need to untrain my autopilot hard.
Even if I’m glad to hear he’s not as useless as expected, I’m still pretty down about it. From what you two are reporting, I’m getting the feeling that his gameplay will be incredibly dull compared to before, on top of not being strong.
From watching a fair bit of footage (Kazunoko) I got the impression that he could only really mix people up because they allowed it, or because had made some YOLO reads (dash up EX SRK, for instance.) Do you guys think you can reliably mixup strong/smart players? 'Cause from the way I see it, you need a lot of meter to make the mixups worth the risk-reward (the standard SRK/SPD mixup loses to enemy DP on both options, as you lose DP trades – not that it was ever a good ‘mixup,’ but it’s a potential option that’s been effectively removed by the changes) - do you guys who’ve tried him have any opinion on this?
Also, the DP trading with jump-ins sounds incredibly bad. Very unhappy about hearing that. You already have to use EX DP for almost everything you’d normally use old DP for (strictly in an offensive context, not defensively), but now you have to use EX just to make sure it doesn’t trade/lose to jumps?
Not sure if this is too much for me yet. If anyone has more Ultra footage of Seth I’d like to see it!
After a couple of hours I’m really not digging the loss of Tanden cancels. Three jabs is being generous; most of the time your pressure is fairly toothless after two jabs without burning meter. It’s good that Seth still builds meter fast because he actually needs to now.
j.MK as a cross-up is annoying. It works but you have to adjust for it. I hope I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem like you can use j.HK in situations where j.MK can be ambiguous. Another thing is that j.MK feels way more finnicky than j.HK did after a DP. Might have to start using MP or LP (less recovery > more time to move) so you can still use cross-up vs dive kick.
DP trading sucks (Seth just can’t afford the trades) but most of the time you just have to have better timing. I don’t think I ever flat out lost to a jump when I used DP at least.
Found myself using cr.MP, cst.HP a lot. Trying to use it as a meaty, not so successful.
I ran into a Guy player and stomps buff made corner combos easier. Didn’t have to walk forward at least. Hard to comment on the hit box buff without training mode time.
I was trying to pay attention to DWU to see if Sonic Boom teleport mix-ups were dead or not, but go figure, most people haven’t been using DWU.
Didn’t seem like they buffed the U2 hit box. Actually it didn’t seem like they changed anything at all…they probably did…right? 
I actually did manage to stun some people, but only if they got hit by a j.HK when expecting a dive kick. Every time I stunned someone through other ways they were usually about 5% from dying.
This this this
DP FADC mixup is just flat out never worth it now IMO. Not that I ever used it much, since spending 2 meter offensively to possibly do 220 dmg reset, put yourself at onblock -1/-3, or straightup lose to focus backdash didn’t appeal to me (maybe if they’re cornered). Spending 3 meter to do it? Definite no, considering Seth needs that meter now more than ever for defensive EXDP FADC and offensive boom FADC. If you do do the hard read DP, just go ham, don’t bother FADCing. Low/bait/SPD is a strong enough mixup assuming your reads are on point though, and dependant on how much your opponent fears the grab, though I see less reason than ever to now that you can’t even OS wakeups anymore…
DP traded a few times antiairing, but I don’t think I ever experienced the nightmare, losing while stuck in grounded state. Trading isn’t terrible if you’re not dead, you get stomp juggle a lot of the time and reset being a guaranteed “setup” is nice. If I’m dying to the jumpin though I’ll definitely use EX yeah.
I dunno how much of this is sounding negative to you but I really think there’s no reason not to play him in traditionally advantage matchups and have a sub for the shit matchups (of which alot were nerfed and relied on vortex…good news for Seth?).
I’ve also yet to mess around with red focus, which looks pretty interesting considering Seth’s good focus + his playstyle…we’ll see.
Something that doesn’t seem to work/hard timing now…stomp, j.mk crossup reset, the bounce after stomping with mk hitstun makes it alot harder to land followup cr.lp/st.hp.
U1 not trading on fullscreen fireball now? Definitely digging the onblock pushback…no more eating ultra if you miss AA U1.
Seth is viable.
If you ever get wrecked, get your ass handed to you, get pee’d on. Step away from the stick, take a deep breath, and say “At least I’m not Dee Jay”.
I think he would be solid mid-tier if he was given a health buff to 900. I mean E Ryu got buffed to 950 health wth Capcom.
Thanks for posting your impressions so far guys. I just picked up ultra and haven’t seriously played sf4 since super dropped but wanted to continue to use seth. The game has changed a lot since then but its still good to hear seth is viable atleast. Looking forward to learning more about the new game and how Seth factors into things.
Played two hours straight with seth online last night. He seems better in ultra in a different way kinda a safer approach with him is needed to be taken. i like him alot and I just picked him up last night a real solid choice for anyone who likes to stun xP
Seth I will miss you. Why they gut him so hard? At least he could have keep his stuns.
I’ll still play him for fun but i’m not maining him. Also what do you guys think about double ultra with Seth? Is it worth it?
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh no…The push back from ultra 1 on whiff is nice and makes it harder to punsih…
But yah I’m with you on not maining him. I had some fun playing with him in Ultra but his health is too low for his nerfs, and the 50/50’s we relied on were mostly removed. I was playing Chun Li who could punish my stretch hands on block with ultra 1 (full screen) no dash…
Also trying to play “footsies” by tandem engine without the ability to cancel from your normals is a HUGE risk/guess… Basically also have to have 3 meters for a save uppercut…
Decapper is the future.
ps double ultra is useless
Chun U1 punishing stretchy arms on block is fair. It’s not a huge factor in the matchup either cause stretchy arms already loses to kikoken, and if you do it on reaction to her walk forward she loses charge. The matchup is bad enough for her that being able to punish our full screen zoning tool makes sense. At least we don’t get blown up anymore for actually landing it (unless she manages to get super, but god bless if you haven’t forced her to blow a couple ex.sbks), and most other chars can’t punish the blocked arms now, not even the midscreen yolo arms.
I’ve always loved U1 and U2 equally, so double ultra is easy pick for me. Damage is shit regardless, but the two ultras combined have more than enough utility to make up for it.