Hey guys, I’ve been maining Alex since he was released. I’ve been really enjoying playing him, but at times, I’ve been VERY frustrated, and I find that he lacks alot of the same tools f.eks Urien… its as if they do the same just better, and should’ve maybe been a little stronger to compensate, and now since 2.00 . WOW he’s now slow, nurfed and still not as strong as many of the cast … I’m really close to giving up on him unfortunately… how do you other Alex players feel?
He seems absolutely terrible against Akuma and Urien. They literally feel like 8-2 match ups in their favor. You can’t get them off you and you literally can’t hit any button on than jab without eating continual counter hits. It’s beyond frustrating.
The complaints are killing me. Alex is fine.
- A vast majority of the cast got their mediums nerfed (its universal). So did Alex, what does this mean? His mediums are pretty much in the exact same spot as they were before s2. I don’t even think you can count it as a nerf, more like a change.
- +cr.hp is faster it can be used to AA meaning his knee special gets more use
- +st.hk is now +1 on hit, up from -1 in s1. It now does 10 more damage and 20 more damage from a CH than it did in s1
- +Headbutt recovers faster
- +Stomp has a extra active frame and its more consistent, ex stomp is invincible from 1f
-
- EX knee moves alex further away
- +All air knee specials damage is evenly distrubted, making trades deal more damage
- +st.mp can be combed from a f.hp hit, increasing his combo damage
- +cr.lp is cancelable (minor buff)
- -ex chop does 10 less damage, minor nerf
- +Lariat is now +6 on hit, up from +5
- -CA does 10 less damage (lots of the cast got their CA damage shaved slightly, so this is a universal change)
- -lk elbow distance is shorter has a bit more start up and recovery. MK elbow has slightly more recovery. advantage on block remains the same, push back is a bit less
- +Vskill generates vmeter
Not including his changes to his mediums since they were universal changes, Alex transitioned into S2 with nearly all of his damage in place. In addition to new ways to deal damage and more usage out of his knee special. In addition, meterless dps are gone which greatly changes match ups with characters who had them and most of the cast does less damage, making Alex’s 1000 vitality even more valuable. I would say he is in a much better spot than he was in s1. He is still mid tier-ish though, which isn’t bad at all.
It doesn’t even reset, since he’s still +4 after a dash. He can mixup st.mp and power bomb, and it’s a legit mixup. No meterless DP, no back dash. They gotta take the mixup unless they have a metered DP.
Actually look at the patch notes. Very few characters had their actual long range pokes nerfed at all; generally the only stuff that got any sort of appreciable change where cancelable or CC moves. Ryu didn’t get st.mk nerfed. Chun didn’t have anything but the recovery on st.hp touched. Cammy got buffed. Bison didn’t get touched. Vega got his claw normals buffed. Nash didn’t get cr.mk touched. Rashid got st.mk buffed. Necalli didn’t get cr.mk really changed, just hitboxes standardized. Guile’s got buffed in Upside down kick. Ibuki wasn’t touched. Balrog got buffed. Juri got buffed. Urien got buffed.
So no, the vast majority of characters did not have their mediums or otherwise big pokes nerfed. That’s simply false. And talk about downselling nerfs and upselling buffs. You don’t even mention his st.lp nerf, how Elbows are much harder to safely space along with having larger hurtboxes, you mention the Lariat buff twice, don’t mention the st.lk nerf, the pushback nerfs, the lariat startup nerf which also removes combos, how the cr.mp nerf also removes combos, the VR nerf, or how the universal change to grey life makes EX Elbow way more risky.
Alex got a few nice buffs. cr.lp xx LK Chop. 10f cr.hp. Lariat -> st.mp. St.hk is slightly better on hit. Stomp (and EX Stomp’s expanded projectile immunity) and Headcrush can be made safer. For the most part these aren’t that huge; cr.hp is still a much worse AA than st.lp was and very finicky on conversions, st.hk’s change isn’t much, stomp and headcrush are still super gimmicky. Alex has worse footsie options, worse anti-air, worse horizontal control, and slightly better conversion options off a f.hp or cr.lp.
I’m still using him as my secondary after Necalli, but the idea that he’s in a better spot than S1 is ludicrous.
Yeah, he’s absolutely terrible in certain match ups now. His footsie game has been brutally nerfed. You just get rushed down with no way out. Akuma and Urien beat Alex with total ease. Alex can’t anti air at all anymore. He gets crossed up all day for free.
Apparently I’m not the only one 
https://twitter.com/JayViscant/status/810189250587164673
Forgot to add, all the characters you named who didn’t get their mediums nerfed do not have the range that Alex mediums have. Therefore they do not meet the requirement, can’t believe you named necalli…he has trex arms bro. To quote Capcom again:
“Due to changes to the game, some general attacks have been adjusted for each character. Along with changes 1 and 2, and the other changes to the game, *characters who were able to attack more often and had a **long reach *became significantly stronger. Due to this, regardless of the strength of the character, general attacks for all characters have been adjusted.”
Does Nash c.mk have more range than alex cr.mp? Its also -4 on block as opposed to alex cr.mp which is -1 on block.
Does Ryu’s s.mk have the range of alex c.mp? Nope
Ibuki’s MK got nerfed
But wait…Karin’s s.mk got nerfed. Why? Because it probably fits that requirement of “characters who were able to attack more often and had a long reach became significantly stronger.” Vesperarcade explains pretty well why the changed long range normal. You should check it out.
https://youtu.be/90ypl6chnqQ?t=5m3s
Gotta look at the big picture man instead of trying to do comparisons like every character plays identical.
First of all, I have a shit load of respect for Viscant, but wtf has he done in this game? When has he been relevant since out-thinking everyone at Evo 2011? Don’t get me wrong, the guy is smart and has been around the block a few times, but I don’t think I’ve even seen a Viscant match in SFV.
As has been mentioned in the other thread, there seem to be two types of Alex players. One’s that played the safe spacing game which gradually applied pressure with his normals/Elbows and the others attitude are closer to “Lul, hold this mix up”.
Those of us in the first camp have had all of our best tools removed and as such, Alex is trash unless we completely change our playstyle. I understand that not everyone gets this but the best way I can explain this is if they removed Ryu’s Fireball and gave him a command grab, many, many people would be like “This shit is unplayable” because even if that command grab is 1 frame and unjumpable, it still fundamentally changes the way the character is played.
As has been mentioned by others, apparently some of us were “Playing Alex Wrong” according to Capcom so they decided to make the changes that push the playstyle they want. Well unfortunately it doesn’t fit with my playstyle. To me, they can buff his combo potential as much as they want, it literally means nothing when 75% of my damage would come from counter poking. I even wrote a post back in like, June, saying about how I might Power Bomb once in every 10 games. If that doesn’t tell you everything about how I play Alex and why these changes negatively affect me, then those of us not happy with the changes have no way of making this clear to you.
Urien’s godlike stand mk got nerfed just like Alex’s cr. mp. One frame slower. Now 9 frames.
His godlike st.mp also got nerfed by one frame. Why did you even include Urien in here, when you’re trying to claim that characters didn’t get their pokes nerfed?
Rashid’s most notorious neutral button cr. HP got more recovery.
“Chun didn’t have anything but the recovery on st.hp touched.” Lol, how is this proving your point? Her most troublesome, long range poke got nerfed, and that’s supposed to be evidence that characters’ troublesome, long range pokes DIDN’T get nerfed? What?
Ken st.hk, cr.hk, and cr. mp all got nerfed by one frame. I wonder why.
Birdie’s stand mk got nerfed by one frame. I wonder why.
Karin’s st.mk got nerfed from 0 to -2 on block. I wonder why.
I’ll say it again. Alex isn’t the only character who got overbearing pokes nerfed. That’s a system change. Cray raven linked you the direct quote from Capcom.
And, don’t bring up 900 health, nerfed Cannon Spike Cammy as the ‘exception’. She has 900 health. And a nerfed Cannon Spike.
Takuyasugi said so, too. Takuyasugi was a pixel away from winning a CPT event with Alex this year.
https://twitter.com/UATakuyaSugi/status/811324125545451523
Is that relevant enough?
And, I’m having no trouble whiff punishing and counter poking since the patch. So, that style is still relevant. One frame isn’t going to make that much of a difference, when other characters longer pokes have also been slowed, given more recovery, or have larger hurtboxes on recovery.
No, that is not relevant enough.
https://twitter.com/UATakuyaSugi/status/811127532078661632
So the person that you quoted also agrees with me regarding Alex’s neutral.
I wrote out exactly how and why these changes affect me and how I and others play Alex.
Sigh, I can’t be bothered with this anymore. There are changes and those changes are negatively impacting my ability to play him and my enjoyment of him, regardless of how many times you say “It’s fine because other characters had some nerfs too”.
Seems he posted that after the quote from above, maybe something changed his perspective of S2 Alex.
Yeah, he tried him
Imo overall system Changes help alex for the most part other than the c grab change
system changes are fine, cr.hp 2 frames faster fine, f.hp -> mp fine
what is not fine is 10 frame cr.mk that leads to nothing, cr.hp being wonky as fuck on hit so you never know which knee can hit (if any) because it depends both on height and distance. etc.
Yeah, Alex just seems really nerfed now. Brutal trying to win with him, he just gets overwhelmed because he’s so slow.
I was messing around in training with a friend and he was showing me new Vega stuff like “this is a mix-up” and “this is safe now”, and so on. And then he was like “Okay, so show me the new Alex stuff!”
And I just didn’t have anything to show him, you know? Everything is pretty much the same. Things are technically different, but nothing LOOKS different. When I’m running into Cammy and Urien and Karin and Juri (especially) and more online, I’m seeing them do stuff and I’ll think “huh, wow, I didn’t know they could do that” and it surprises me and catches me off guard.
But Alex…it’s all the same, except now some things are WORSE and the things that are better are still used in similar ways as Season 1. It’s frustrating seeing other players and characters learn and get new things, and then you’ve got nothing. I’m not a strong enough player to say if he’s better or worse, but he personally feels less fun in Season 2. It’s depressing.
I still can’t get over his V-Reversal getting worse. It still feels unreal.
Alex is supposed to do his work BEFORE the opponent gets close enough to overwhelm him.
They can’t jump at him from anywhere further than his cr. mp range because his AA’s are too good in that range.
So, the only way to approach him is on the ground…where he has more range than lots of characters. That’s why they slowed his longest pokes down. Otherwise, lots of characters would have no way to get in on him. And, even though they slowed his pokes down, they are still very good at controlling space.
cr.mk definitely doesn’t lead to nothing if you have V-trigger.
I owe lots of matches to radnom dash up cr.mk > V-trigger > combo/super
His cr.mk is still VERY useful, because it’s a super long range, safe low. Lots of characters only have unsafe sweeps that reach that far as a low. (It might even be the longest range cr. mk in the game, unless someone can correct me.)
EDIT: Looked it up…Birdie’s is slightly longer, but slower startup.
It’s only a few pixels shorter than Karin’s god sweep. That’s why it has the same startup as Karin’s god sweep. So, use it like Karin’s god sweep.
Difference being karin’s god sweep CC’s and nets you a hard knockdown. So she can counter-poke you @ that range and there’s much more reward than risk for using it, as opposed to us.
I started maining Alex in SFV and I’m by any means not an awesome gamer with my scrubby Silver status, but I don’t have the feeling, that Alex is dead at all! His mix up game is unmatched, he has a strong anti-fireball game, is destructable on close range and can dish out heavy damage with short string combos. I love him. Some of the moves got nerfed hard, yes. Is he weaker than in season one? Maybe. Did he dieded? Most definitely not. Gunfight makes pretty good use of him and I can’t see a situation other than being cornered where he has absolutely no chance of putting pressure on his opponent.
In my recent plays with him I figured that he is a lot about reading the opponent, punishing, mix up and pressure games. Seriously. Cammy doing a Cannon Drill? Read the Cammy player, block it, cr.LP into EX Flash Chop and your mind game starts. ANY DP if blocked will be obliterated by double Lariat into st.MP mElbow, EX Elbow, EX Flash Chop, or light Flash Chop into light Head Butt. No light Head Butt because the enemy back dashes? st.MP into light Flash Chop again!
You can say that again.