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I’m trying to come up with a training regimen of sorts and I thought I’d run it by you guys. Please tell me what you think:

  • s.LP -> s.LP -> s.LK -> mp.Shouken (3 times on each side). Bread and butter combo, useful for many situations. Buffer the mp.Shouken by pressing forward when you hit s.LK.
  • s.MP -> Furiko Upper (back + s.HP) -> EX Hurricane Kick (3 times on each side). Bread and butter combo when you’ve got meter. Even if you fuck it up the EX Hurricane Kick is safe on block. Massive horizontal movement in your favor so excellent for putting an opponent into the corner or getting yourself out. If you have corner carry add in a lp.Shouken for a bit of extra damage or blow some more meter by doing an EX Shouken for more damage…
  • s.LK -> mp.Shouken (3 times on each side). Used in footsies when opponent is just outside of your reach to catch your opponent’s errant normals and punish them. Do not use too close because if they’re blocking you’ll leave yourself wide open. Trick is to buffer the m.Shouken before the s.LK animation ends so that if you hit nothing but air if the Shouken doesn’t come out, letting you resume footsies.
  • Chin Buster Kick (down-forward + HK) -> s.LP -> mp.Shouken (3 times on each side). Used after scoring a knockdown to punish opponents who like to hit buttons on wake-up or are scared of throws. The trick is to buffer the mp.Shouken by pressing forward when you hit s.LP.
  • j.HK -> s.HP -> HK.Hurricane Kick (3 times on each side). If you get a good read and your jump-in is successful this will set you up for a 50/50 situation. After the Hurricane Kick you can go for a throw or fish for a counter with s.MP and possibly score a combo.
  • j.HK -> s.HP -> V-Trigger -> c.HP -> Tatsu -> V-Skill + Kick -> Shouken (3 times on each side). Standard jump-in punish when V-Trigger is available, also great for when you score a stun and want high damage.

This is kind of the extent of my knowledge for Sakura and I can’t reliably execute all of it yet. If you spot something that can be improved upon or is just plain for - or you know of some other lab work that can be added - please let me know. I wanna get out of bronze!

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Idk if I’m about giving Sak more range on stuff since she’s able to move so fluently. It reminds me of when Cammy or Necalli players would say they needed range increases, but we see that their movement makes it so the range really isn’t the issue.

I would make her s.lk + on hit, change ex shouken knockdown to same as hp shouken, and change mk shunpu hit stop so she goes in like hk shunpu, thus always guaranteeing the c.lp link afterwards. Idk at moment if mk shunpu connects off of s.hp, but it probably should. That and the trigger changes I mentioned earlier.

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Still think the only thing she really needs is cheaper triggers. They’re just not top tier triggers. Everything else about the character is solid. She’s a fundamental character, but in her own way thats different from Chun, Cammy or Ryu. The fact that she can easily walk down anybody who isn’t a big body due to her s.LK and walk speed makes her very dangerous in neutral vs a lot of characters. Especially with any c.MK, standing heavy button or j.HK leading into big corner push.

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So if I have this right, Sakura’s changes are angled fireballs and VT1 regular and charged Hadou now have Sonic Boom recovery, her back fierce has a better hitbox forward, she can cancel into v-skill from her normals, and her c.mp can be linked out of on hit and less pushback on hit and block.

Main thing she lost is one active frame off of s.lk, which also had its hitbox (?) adjusted, and her throw loop has been looked at.

I would say she’s overall buffed, although it will be tough to tell what her V-skill being able to be cancelled into and the relatively low recovery fireballs will add to the overall game.

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I think her crmp is +5 on hit so does that mean she can use mk and hk tatsu ?. Also her EX DP makes opponents go back less, so maybe like HP DP.

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I’m not sure, those moves are pretty slow. Would be really nice since c.mp is fast and MK shunpu leads to big damage. EX Shouken buff is great, it’s a strong move but I never liked how it gives you nothing on hit.

I wonder if c.mp pushback overall getting decreased means she could do something like c.mp, s.mp, s.lk xx shouken, which would be great damage off a plus medium kinda like Karin and others can do. That and the strong recovery on charged and regular tenyo hadou have me pretty excited

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Hello fellow Sakura mains.
I am going to be visiting this thread far more from now on to learn more about her and share tech I may run into.
Capcom took my previous main out of the game. :frowning:

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Videos of some of the new Sakura stuff:

Basically, her juggles off of VT1 fireballs are improved, so she can do way more dmg+stun, and showing off her new c.mp links as well as how her EX Fireball VT cancel will work

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Nice.

Found out EX shouoken gives meaty s.HP or s.HK after knockdown as well.

VT1 all day now baby. Real juggles and plus 10 charged fireballs. The other stuff is cool but stronger trigger stuff is most of what I thought she needed. I really wanted EX fireball VTC. Very solid now.

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I agree, the c.mp stuff is icing on the cake. It being +1 essentially gives her the Karin-like medium, medium pressure against most people without a 3 frame jab, and she also has a longer confirm option on hit.

If you get caught walking back or mashing with VT1 up now, it really hurts. That’s strong, and I think with the nerf to VT damage, I would look at VT1 over 2 as well.

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Yup. I like getting nice combos after making a throw or button whiff during VT1 now. V Skill cancels sound fun too.

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Worth noting now on crouching CH c.mp, Sakura can walk for a frame and land s.mp, b.hp as a link. Pretty sure it only works on crouching CH, but it’s something to think about.

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Scratch that, it seems like c.mp pushback on hit on standing is too much to connect s.mp after. Major bumsville. Guess you’ll have to pay attention for the confirm. Can still hit s.lk though.

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It works standing in corner, but midscreen you’re better off with c.MP, walk forwrd s.MP, s.LK into MP or EX shou. EX shou gives meaty now (not sure on backrise) so that’s not bad.

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Some other random stuff from @Frost for Sak.

In corner -
MP/HP.DP > whiff cr.lp > d/f.hk. Beats both rises

MP/HP.DP > dash > cr.hp xx EX.Hado. Beats both rises.

_Midscreen - _
New! EX.DP > microwalk St.hp confirm into HP.DP

New! EX.DP > microwalk St.hk

EX.Tatsu > dash x2 > St.mp

New Sak b+HP CC combo

https://twitter.com/actualdad420/status/981327272606134272

ALSO

b+HP now combos on regular hit into HK tatsu. Not sure what change made this work, but now you got 7 frame button that CC’s that you can just OS into a combo that standing 50/50s on regular hit or gives you safe minus on block. s.HP still has a bit more range so I’ll still use that from further distances and doesn’t require you to push backwards on the stick to use it.

These were the changes to b+HP so something must have changed. Maybe stealth change that’s not listed.

Furiko Upper
Expanded the forward hitbox for the first active frame
Moved the hitbox forward for active frame 3F
Active frame 3F will no longer trigger a Crush Counter
Reduced the backwards hurtbox

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Happy to see the thread bumpin’ after weeks of virtually nothing. Excited to get some practice in this week to try out all this new tech.

Man, I still hadn’t even mastered the old tech. Being a baddie is rough.

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Her HK tatsu starts up 1f faster, all variations of her HP button can combo into it now because of that.

1 Like
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Yeesh, how did I miss that? That’s really good for her; the situation after HK Tatsu is where Sakura is most effective, but the problem was she rarely was able to get into that situation without a good solid whiff punish or CH s.mp. Being able to get that off of regular s.mp and CH c.mp makes it a lot more of a viable situation.

Big time buff.

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s.HP was already great for HK Tatsu. I use s.HP probably more than any other Sak player uses it so I was getting HK tatsu off of confirms regularly enough. I definitely wasn’t going to wait till AE.5 to get the most out of the standing mix up from it.

s.HP is about the same range as b+HP and certainly more than s.MP, so its still go to for me even at slightly slower start up. Sak has the walk speed to enforce it. Once you learn to hit confirm it you dont have to whiff punish with it. You can just start putting it out there and counter poking stuff. Especially since it true strings into fireball which is great with VT1 active. It’s harder to use vs big boys like Birdie/Gief/Abi, but against most standard characters it has suitable range for neutral.

Its only minus 2 with pushback so you’re relatively safe if they block it and if you end up committing to the HK tatsu there’s only a small gap to interrupt inbetween and you’re safe minus 2 after that any way.

Or you can play like BreastPantyHip and just throw HK tatsu out raw.

j.HP cross up oki.

https://twitter.com/jav1ts/status/962194037183864833

b+HP CC VTC combo (VT2).

https://twitter.com/TheoryFighter/status/981289751390162945

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  1. Jump.Hk–>s.Mp–> b.HP–> HK Tatsu will be my go-to combo for Sakura, slightly less damage than Jump.Hk–>s.Mp–> b.HP–> HP DP, but much safer (if you mess up the linkage to DP, you will be punished badly, but HK Tatsu is safe on block) and the HK. Tatsu leaves you with +2 and in throw range, very often you get a throw for free, that’s 278+130=408 damage without spending any meter.

  2. Her V-skill is finally useful. Anti-air C.HP --> V-skill throw or PPP is a very threatening setup. See the demonstration by Breastpantyhip .
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmSRIU-oUCw&index=6&list=PLB1OQUaqQlzvXZmHaYT2tQdRaK_RHjpEM&t=34s