Poor Sakura…
On the plus side, Sakura really forces you to play honest. I didn’t realize how much I relied on trickery and shit until I started maining her and now I have to work pretty hard for every win I get, even against much lower-skilled opponents. Like, I didn’t realize that I couldn’t connect lights into a dragon punch before this and I’m hitting them more and more reliably. I actually kind of prefer this, even if that means Sakura doesn’t come loaded with cheap mechanics like a lot of other characters do to help them win or completely turn around a rough round.
Yeah I like her just because she has better fundamentals than a lot of the other cast. Better walk speed than just about everyone in the game, long ass s.LK for whiff punishing stuff that other characters cant whiff punish you back on, ok throw range for her walk speed, generally safe on block CC and hit confirmable, cancelable s.HP that leads to standing 50/50s or free HP DP oki.
Even when Im fighting mix up heavy characters like Zeku or Ibuki I feel pretty confident just because I can play neutral vs them well. V Skill smasher being an overhead is good as you have a shallow demon flip that you can force a grab off of when people stand and expect it to hit. Leaves you plus if they block the smasher for free throw/hit setup.
Yeah I don’t know if I’m all aboard the terrible train. She seems like a version of characters like Cammy, Karin and Chun where they don’t do really fancy things and just get to force their game through strong ground game that leads into advantageous positions. Sakura has some things they don’t and lacks some things that they do, so she’s probably only slightly above average at best, but it’s not a terrible position to be in.
Obviously Sakura doesn’t have a divekick like Cammy or super high confirmable damage like Karin, but her damage is more than serviceable and her j.hk is very strong against most grounded AA moves. I think her unique fireball and HK Shunpu make her stand out, since they are weirdly good options against the fireball type characters that can give pause to Chun, Vega, and other characters who try to get by on the strength of their ground game.
I have a feeling that she’ll level out to above average as well. She’s solid, you know what you’re getting with her, but so do your opponents, so it’ll be good reads and solid play that get you through a match. And as a baddie that’s okay for me, I wanna learn fundamentals and be considered well-rounded rather than someone who abuses a very strong V-Trigger or super ambiguous set-ups.
I wish it didn’t feel like I was shitting on other characters while I talk up Sakura but I guess that’s kind of the game that Capcom built, super high tier characters just get dirtier mechanics.
I feel like it’s half and half. There are characters like Abigail, Rashid, Menat and Urien who are all very strong and have V-Triggers that are extremely versatile and opressive, but then there are the characters like Guile, Akuma, Necalli, and Cammy who are really versatile on the ground and their V-triggers tend to just enhance what they do to 11.
Clearly Sakura falls into the latter category, and with less strength than those four, but I think there’s room in the meta for characters that are very solid on the ground, even if their V-Triggers are somewhat lackluster
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There are characters like Abigail, Rashid, Menat and Urien who are all very strong and have V-Triggers that are extremely versatile and opressive, but then there are the characters like Guile, Akuma, Necalli, and Cammy who are really versatile on the ground and their V-triggers tend to just enhance what they do to 11
That’s an excellent way of putting it! I’ll remember that so I don’t sound like such a dirtbag when I talk about other characters.
Honestly, if I were to selfishly ask for any kind of buff for Sakura, it’s to give her V2 one or two more “charges” so she can do enhanced dragon punches and tatsu just a couple more time since I think that would put her closer to an 11, as you put it.
It may need to be something like that. Honestly another really nice change for VT2 would be to make the V-Trigger Shunpu into a HP+HK input, like her VT1 Hadou Blast move, so she gets to keep her regular Shunpu, which I think ties a lot of her ground game together.
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Ah, yeah. The V-Trigger shunpus aren’t safe on block, yeah? That’s a good point.
They aren’t. Quite unsafe, actually. Idk if losing moves like HK and LK shunpu are worth the (definitely noticeable) damage increase.
On another note, I find her EX Shouken to be quite the move. Invulnerable, 4f startup, and the first hit actually goes quite far. It makes a good punish on sweeps, non-tight fireball blockstrings, and even AA. I always feel like I have meter with Sakura, so I don’t mind going for the occasional punish with it, although the situation afterwards ain’t the best
Nah I think her VT2 tatsu should just be reduced to -6 or -5 on block, -10 on block is way too much. One thing I notice is that she don’t carry you, you are only as good as your hit confirms. frame traps, shimmys and throw game. She comes off as a mid tier character to me. The buffs I think she needs:
Faster V Skill
STMP the same length as STLP
CRMK a few pixels longer
STHK 3 active frames and recovery reduced to 20
DFHK to have a bigger hitbox and +3 on block
Air fireball to have a more active hitbox, so many times have seen people jump through it when it should of hit.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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. 
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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