I honestly apologize if I am posting in the wrong place, but I am new to posting on this site. Mods feel free to move, please.
I have had it up to here with the willful ignorance of Capcom towards Blanka’s shortfalls in the Street Fighter 4 series. I made a thoughtful post on Capcom-Unity, and it went ignored. So I’d like to repost it here.
I’m not happy with Ultra.
I say this as a Blanka player. The changes that were made to Blanka are, for lack of a better word, lackluster. After the dust has settled, I do not find enjoyment in playing my favorite World Warrior, and while certain changes were welcome (HP roll knocking down on hit) they were not enough.
Blanka is clearly underrepresented in the tournament scene. Everyone knows why-- he flat out cannot compete at a competent level. Why? Because nearly all of his attacks are UNSAFE, punishable on hit, and he’s at frame disadvantage on his focus attack. He has no way to open turtles up outside of completely gimmicky, easily shut down tactics.
To remedy this, I suggest the following changes to Blanka:
– Every rolling attack should knockdown on hit, except light punch. It is insane that you clearly recognize that being punished on hit is an issue, and you leave EX roll and mp. roll exactly as they are. As an ancillnry change, the rolls that cause knockdown should also cause a juggle state, keeping the combo possibilities intact.
– Every version of Vertical ball needs to knockdown on hit. It’s great we can focus cancel out of them, but if we don’t waste 2 or 3 bars, we are still susceptible to being punished for scoring clean hits.
–** EX rolling attack needs to be projectile invincible until he lands**. Characters with slow projectiles can cause a check mate situation, where they are baiting out EX rolling attack, and both characters are on low health. Blanka scores a clean hit and is K.O.'d in the process of landing. This is not fair. (Blanka should not be invincible if rolling attack was blocked)
– Remove the extra frame added to Surprise Forward’s recovery. This change was added to the entire cast to stop unblockables, but it renders Surprise Forward useless. There are times where I cancel cr. lp into hop only for Blanka to stand completely still allowing for full punishes from mashing players.
(I would really enjoy if Surprise Foward could have the same exact properties of Abel’s roll)
– Change the motion for Shout of Earth (U2). This is extraordinarily overdue. This attack is far, far too difficult to pull off under pressure. The damage is really bad already so it’s insane that it’s that hard to pull off. I constantly mistakenly use U2 anti-air when I’m trying to use Ultra 1, because the silly input is too close to the motion for U1. On PS3 SSF4: AE, I was 16th place in the rankings as Blanka, and I’m currently 1st on Ultra (PS3). I say that because I want to stress that I know my character, and even I have a tough time pulling this attack off under pressure. Change the motion to 2 qcf or 2 hcf.
– Increase positive frames on Blanka’s focus attack. Why Blanka is not at an advantage after using it is…inexplicable.
– River run (slide) should be focus cancelable. When creating the character of Hakan, Capcom thought it was a great idea to give him the exact same move as Blanka, make it better by allowing it to combo, able to break focus, and making it able to be focused out of. Why shouldn’t Blanka be able to focus cancel it? This would help against his huge weakness: focus attacks, and light punch mashers.
– Make Rock Crusher a normal overhead. These kinds of issues are what make me angry with Capcom. Why does Blanka have to charge his overhead attack? This is why he has trouble with turtling characters— he has no legitimate way to open up a defensive character. This would be a step in rectifying this issue.
– Rainbow roll should go across the screen after hit or block, a la Ibuki. This move is nearly useless against competent opponents. After hit, block or focus, it should bounce Blanka safely to the other side.
– Give Blanka an air throw. This one may sound a little silly, but air throws are silly anyway. Blanka can barely fight characters with slow projectiles and/or air throws, i.e. Guile, Poison, Chun Li, etc. If he jumps over the projectile spam, at least he’ll have some type of defense when they choose to follow their projectile.
– Decrease start-up frames on EX electricity, or make it completely invincible, but not mashable. Blanka has terrible reversals, as they are far too slow to make an impact, hence why Ryu and Ken constantly use j. lk to beat every single one of Blanka’s anti-air attacks-- including light, medium and hard Vertical Ball. Allowing EX electricity to be a 3 frame reversal, or invincible reversal helps Blanka stave off relentless pressure. To make sure it isn’t overpowered, it can’t be sustained by mashing like the other electricity attacks.
– All roll attacks trade with attacking players. In other words, you can’t jab Blanka while he is rolling in the air, unless the hits trade or he is hit by a special attack, such as Shoryuken. Blanka is the only character in the game that flings himself across the screen as a special move, that is completely stuffed by weak normals and mashable moves. Honda either trades or completely beats attacks with headbutt, as does Bison’s Psycho Crusher. This is unfair because this locks Blanka down against good opponents, as they just walk forward and tap light jab. If you try to slide, they focus the attack and punish heavily.
In conclusion, I believe these changes would make Blanka more competitive and address the glaring issues the character has. It will not significantly alter his good match-ups (of which there are FEW), but would be a great help vs. his bad match-ups, of which, there are too many.
His changes in Ultra did not buff him-- they were merely slight fixes to a character that clearly has a tough time with good opponents or characters.
Thank you for reading.