I won’t say he doesn’t have problems, he’s clearly doing bad against fireball characters at the moment. But let him develop. When Kages implement that VS which beats fireballs, and if timed correctly is invincible to multi hitting fireballs post release, you’ll see the strength of the character. Cr.Mp, St.Mk, Cr.Mk, FHP, St.Hk and his QCB Fireball (if not abused) are more than capable of competing in footsies.
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Big price drops for Tekken 7 and king of fighters 14 on ps store eu.
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Im not saying he’s ryu. It isnt a raw 1:1 comparison. Im saying they share neutral struggle and the damage is blue balled behind getting clean hits or dumping super.
I dont think his pressure or mix ups or vtrigger are good enough to make up for the 900 health and bad neutral. Not enough to bring him up to high tier or wherever people think he is from looking at tech videos
Appreciate the insight. I definitely still need a lot of work on corner defense. It feels kind of rough with Laura in that fight because it seems like you can pretty easily dance around counter pokes if I’m not careful so fighting my way back out without crutching on EX Bolt Charge is tricky. And of course my old friend Thunder Kick reminds me that I need to continue to practice reacting to OHs.
The cr.MK pointer is a good one. I definitely noticed the walk back at certain points. I definitely need to use that and cr.LK, LP more to check walking back. Its funny because where I’m at in the online ranks everyone has like one way they handle defense and most people don’t walk back or backdash during actual pressure so its a learning experience mixing things up mid-stream and not just fall into the same patterns.
Some advice from my end: the main thing that stood out were the blocked MP Bolt punishes. That fucker is -7 which means that Ken should be able to get a really good punish and carry off of it (especially since it can’t help but leave her point blank if blocked).
I hear you about Menat. The times I’ve tried to get into using her I have the same reaction. When it is going great it is great but so much of this game is aggro and if they slip past or get a juicy jump in it really sucks. She is people for more stronger defensive constitution than I.
I feel the same way about Mika too, though at least she gets payoff for her command grabs compared to Laura. I’m just not YOLO enough to really lean into the command grab mix up aspect of those chars (was a lot easier in S2 tell you what). Even with Laura the way I want to play her is more pokey/counter pokey which means I usually end up playing her like a shitty Birdie.
I’m seriously considering switching for S4. I think Laura is in a good spot overall post patch but the more I play her the more I feel like I’m playing against the character. I feel like I need to give up the ghost and actually give Birdie a legit shot if I want to keep a command grab around, or really lean into Kolin and give up on the command grab shit altogether.
Next time we play I may have a much shittier character for you to pummel. 
I think Kage struggles like crazy against birdie.
It’s so hard to get close to him.
I’m at a complete lost against any character that out ranges or out fireballs him. It was a real struggle against characters like Rog and Karin. And on top of that a lot of these characters also have moves to easily get around his red fireball.
Yolo V skills or really making it count when you do get in doesn’t sound like a great formula for winning. I like his move set, but to me he is still built like a regular shoto but without the fireball game to complete the package.
I feel right at home playing Kage since I’m used to Sakura buttons.
Kage has amazing walk speed, v-skill, st. Mk, cr. Mk, cr. Mp, f. Hp, and not only can cr. Hp AA it whiff punishes like a god damn beast. Everything combos into tatsu or ex. FB.
This mans is stronk and only loses to plasma flingers till he walks that ass down.
Seems like DBFZ gets hit plenty.
Good, hope that means the money that was made, can be used for actuall good games.
Still pissed, that ASWs worst game is the most popular one, because of DB in it’s titel.
Birdie has shown since Season 1 that he doesn’t give a flying fuck about weird dudes in GIs, talking about warrior paths or dark powers.
Honestly, I’m sure he bodied every Ryu version since the game came out pretty hard and still does to this day.
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Always felt like birdie beats every shoto minus akuma who goes even. Hate that character.
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Fuck Birdie.
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Ot: @Nck_feroce @Phantom_Miria @stronzolo
We have a whatsapp group full of Italian players. Pm your numbers if you would like to be added
I don’t have whatsapp, sorry.
By the way Kage is being described here, having to rushdown a lot and having a fairly crappy neutral, I expect Falke to be reasonably good at keeping him away with big girl buttonz.
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So the stats for CPT 2018 are out and it doesn’t look as good as many of us would’ve hoped.
2017 > 2018
Prize Pool 370k > 250k
Average viewers 75,250 > 55,862
Peak viewers 121,951 > 94,929
Total views 2.7m > 1.7m
I don’t think any fgc news outlet reported this yet. @d3v
Source:
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That’s pretty much sakura’s neutral but kage beat pre buff sakura in this field easy. Now im not so sure because she does have a half decent fireball and has less recovery on normals.
The only thing to hate about birdie are his yolo moves. Ex bullhorn, ex bullhead and raw bullhorn.
Bullhorn has been nerfed and now his hurtbox doesnt reduce as much as it did and so have the other two moves been hit this season, and you can kill him easier with the nerf to armor. And besides he’s ridiculously unsafe on all of them except for ex bullhead. And all of them are also now throwable.
Ex dolphin dive is ridiculous still.
Other than that birdie pretty much plays as honest as a character can play. And because he has slow mobility you can play hit and run style.
Come to think of it the armor changes are pretty nasty for birdie, considering it’s what he relies on against dhalsim and for defense. Just imagining mena rd just blowing through meaties/frametraps with ex bullhead lol. On top of that they never compensated him like they did with gief.
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Kage has the walkspeed to compensate for the “stubb”, the counterpoke ability, a fast dash, 3 framer, anti airs, reversal, power setups in v trig
Lotta players trying out kage from ryu or akuma are gonna have a hard time with his lack of fireball game, kage appeals moreso to the dudley and cammy players for neutral. Guaranteed low forward fireball on hit
I do think the 900 (950?) health might be unnecessary when you compare his toolset to akuma’s.
If I don’t stick to ken for whatever reason, Kage is a contender for me along with cody, g, and sakura. I don’t think kage will appeal to ryu/gat/guile players, just a different mindset.
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I think that’s only counting Twitch numbers, esc.watch made another graph on reddit showing that the peak was actually at 124k when counting other platforms like Youtube, Openrec, etc.
Still, it’s definitely a decrease overall compared to 2017. Things like the loss of Sony’s sponsorship and Kage getting leaked in the middle of the cup probably contributed to this.
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The website I linked has the twitch only numbers as 75,914 viewers.
Akuma can also has top tier counterpokes and whiff punishes. I think kage is most similar to akuma. Cody and g have solid neutral game as it’s, cody in particular.
I noticed. Weird though, this graph is from the same people of that site.