Pretty much wasted a dollar to test this, but I asked a ryu to mash shoryu on block on HP roll. Shoryu whiffed entirely, and this shoryus are 3 frAmes. Forgive me if this always happened
At 1 min and something seconds he did the patented Evil0 Trick! Ultra right after a blocked or whiffed Oga. Old school Genanigans ftw!
that was EX up ball. you can punnish him on hit in super if he does it on wake up
That was an upball, and you can already punish it on hit
Day 2. I think I’ve done all I can without being able to beat up on a dummy with a cabinet to myself.
I finally got about to using U2 Mantis as an AA. A Shoto jumped in with an early j.hk, and i threw it on reversal. The Ultra connected for FULL CINEMATIC and did the 450 damage (maybe plus CH?) It did a fuckton of gray bar damage on the 1000 hp Ryu at full life. Please, someone test this more. ::UPDATE:: It cannot AA for full cinematic. I just hit him in the landing frames, it seems.
There’s supposed to be a video of me doing it, so people can analyze it. I’m not sure who the player was who was recording a few of my matches tonight, but I’ll keep an eye out for them. There’s a video showing me doing s.mp->tc->hands or gekiro.
Mantis S.Hk is an amazing poke. I’m using it with great success against the yun/yang dive kicks.
On hit, mantis j.mk->s.mp->tc->gekiro does a little over half a bar. It does a little less than half on block. TCs are amazing. I really have to adjust my game around landing them.
Crane c.mp->hp roll was not punishable on block by shoryu (shoryu whiffed entirely). I think that the final hit of Jyasen(roll) pushes back further on block. Don’t expect to be safe from SPD, however… Zangief range on his new SPD is fucking obscene. I think this match-up is much better on the whole, however.
Gen seems to be very good against Yun/Yang, but a lot of these players I beat today (including J.Wong) are very new to the character and may not have very good matchup experience. Honestly, Gen has all the tools to zone out the twins and with his improvements to his punishes, I think we have 5-5 and maybe even 6-4 against them. Just don’t fall for their launcher->reset->crossunder mixup in the corner. Gen’s AA are very effective against them, and can outpoke them. (Be careful against Yun’s godlike shoulder… it has a long window of hit invincibility even on non-ex.
No one mashed out a reversal on my Crane U2. I can’t say anything about being hit out of it. It’s so fucking fast. I baited and punished a Makoto on backdash with a TK U2.
Mantis U2 still whiffs for minimal damage after mantis super if you do it too late.
Crane nj. hkx2 will not combo into Crane U1. The angle of his U1 did not change. Wont hit people point-blank nj on you.
However, SecretCharacter came by and had a Gen mirror match on me where he comboed into Gekiro, dropped a later hit, and landed U1. He was way too low for it to hit in Super (my body was about level with the bottom of his feet), but he still picked it up. This could mean either Gekiro landing frames are reduced (which may be right… I’m not getting punished on whiff as easily but opponents may not be timing it correctly), or U1 active frames are sooner or hitbox is lower. I’m absolutely NOT sure that this was just a fluke. U1 Crane may be exactly the same. Please test this… (it’s for style mostly… both Crane super and U1 get scaled to shit in combos).
Crane S.hk seems like it recovers faster and doesn’t whiff as much. I even feel like I had more frame advantage afterwards… it felt like I was frame trapping into throws with it. Again please test this as I’m completely unsure if this is just opponents fucking up.
I have an update about TC’s and Gekiro: Mantis cl.lk->cl.mk TC combos into HK Gekiro.
However!!! I was wrong: I tried comboing both new TC into HK Gekiro on Guile and both Gekiros whiffed. I still needed to use TC->lk Gekiro to get it to hit. It seems that the character specific bullshit whiffs are still in. Maybe they did fix some character’s hurtboxes, but didn’t fix all of them. Gekiro still hits in a lot of situations it didn’t before, so it’s probably a mixure of them fixing some character hurtboxes and fixing some combos into Gekiro, but not all. Sad, sad news. We have more shit to remember.
Also, I don’t know who said that you could do Mantis super-> crane j.hk… but it probably was on a cornered opponent AND character specific. If you look at the fall speed of Balrog or T.Hawk, it’s a lot slower than other characters (like shotos). I’m pretty sure you could hit Super->crane j.hk in Super on certain characters. Think about character specific corner combos on Balrog (Crane c.lk->nj. hkx2->Ultra). Anyway, you can’t do this mid-screen and even if you could land the nj.hk, U1’s angle will not combo it outside of the corner… so U1 Crane will probably not combo except on specific characters and on a cornered opponent. SecretCharacter and I talked at length about this… but I don’t think people should get their hopes up. You cannot Mantis Super-> jump forward crane j.hkx2 (not enough time, too high).
I really think Mantis super -> Crane U2 will not work because of the set height the ultra puts you at. I missed this 4 times, and each one was TK’d. Maybe character specific? I dunno.
Focus seems to have the same range, and Crane U2 is easy as hell to combo into off a crumple… even level 2 crumples. (Probably even lvl 1 ch crumples?) You probably don’t even need to TK it. I recommend back-dash U2.
I’m happy to hear about the meter building from TC’s and mantis U@ apparently being actually useful against jump-ins, and I’m REALLY glad Jyasen in not punishable by shoryuken on block. Because I hardly ever find myself using Jyasen against shoto due to the fear of it being blocked.
Someone needs to still test other reversals, but yeah, Ryu’s lp and ex shoryu whiffed punish on jyasen on block. SPD will still punish, I’m sure of it.
Vanesco pretty much covered everything I know of.
I did want to mention tho that it looks like Crane C.HK has either better hitbox, start-up or active frames. A DeeJay jumped in deep on Vanesco and He hit him with C.hk when Deejay was literally 1 inch from the ground. Cant say for sure if this is really improved but both Vanesco and I noticed how low Deejay was so its probably been improved somehow.
t also looks like Gens meter build is all around good. Not just the added hits to his TC’s.
It seemed like even when Gen was blocking his meter was building faster. Ill check it out in Super and see if it really is a difference. Either way Gen does build meter faster. Maybe not as much as Vanilla, but probably in between Vanilla and Super.
Final thought; A.E. is Gen’s best SF4 version. From here on out it will only be easier to win. You can expect Gen to move up the tier list for sure.
I honestly think Gen is going to have more 6 - 4 match-ups and his worst match-ups from Super are probably 5 - 5. I think Gen is just solid all around. Plus, Yun and Yang seem like the characters to beat and I think Gen will be the Yun/Yang killer. I guess the student will not be beating the master in A.E.
I saw a video of a random Gen that did 2 whiff gekiros, it built quite some meter. Well that was my biggest complaint personally.
I’m glad you guys feel that this is the best SF4 gen so far, makes me happy I stuck with him (well, for the most part) during super. crane c.hk should’ve more active frames imo, so hopefully that is improved aswell. Looks like Capcom tried to make him more like alpha and finally succeeded. The only remaining question I have atm is if mantis U2 can be used reliably as an anti-air (and connect fully). Thast is huge for me personally, and with the much improved crane U2 I will be much more inclined to pick U2 set against fireball characters.
Cheers.
EDIT: do you guys feel that Gen will still be low-tier (but go up a notch or two) or actually feel that he is now mid-tier? From the sound of it, he has become much more of a footsie/poke monster aswell which is 75% of my whole game.
I threw Mantis U2 against a non-safe jumped J.HK by Ryu and reversal’d him for really good Gray bar damage. It did go to full cinematic and it looked like it AA’d him before he landed. He threw his hk at the peak of his jump. I need someone to keep testing this so that it’s conclusive that you can get cinematic on AA. ::UPDATE:: IT CANNOT AA. It still knocks away. I just hit the guy in his landing frames, it seems.
Gen is solid mid-tier. He still has problems against rushdown and mix-up (there’s no answer for ibuki/akuma/zangief/fuerte vortex other than just to guess right). He does have very good footsies and pokes, and I think his changes also allow for more aggressive play (which is my style). I felt a lot more comfortable and confident in my mindgames, high-low, and TC really help damage and meter output. I can answer a lot about his rushdown now, but his footsies are again very hard to talk about without access to a practice cabinet, frame data, or hitbox data.
If I have time later this week, I will go testing again. I spent about 20 dollars so far testing his changes and I was at the arcade for about 10 hours yesterday and 7 hours the day before. I’m a little AE’d out, hahaha. I really want to know personally if it’s easier to Oga->Crane U2, if SPD will punish roll, if other reversals will punish roll, and if Mantis U2 really can be used as a reliable AA for cinematic damage. I’m pretty sure Mantis U2 can AA now, but I want to be 100% certain.
Enjoy the changes. He’s definitely not top-tier, but Gen has some very good match-ups against some of the higher tier in AE. The problem with placing im in tiers is that most of the shit-tier got incredible buffs (Makoto, Dee Jay). I think Seth is much lower now. Blanka, Dan, and Hakan are low too. Gen will be moving up, but he’s still not noob friendly so don’t expect bandwagoning (until I place top 8 in a major hahaha)! I’m so glad I stuck with him through Super nerf fighter IV. If there’s any confusion over anything I’ve said, please ask me and I’ll try to answer.
-Van
Nice to know that mid tier is a possibility now, thanks. I don’t think there’s anything you haven’t covered, aside from stuff that needs frame data, which is kinda impossible for now.
Ty very much for the test results. Really glad that Roll doesn’t get reversal’d by LP/EX Shoryu any longer
[media=youtube]cqE1L0ByCi8[/media]
Looks like there’s still no projectile invincibility on mantis U1. Also, c.hk hurtbox still seems bad (lost flat out to dive kick?). It looks like Akuma may have been too high. Needs more EX Gekiro.
Update:
Also, I just remembered that I did try out Mantis s.mp->c.mp-> hands yesterday. It feels very natural, I’ll probably switch to this combo into super when AE drops (when TC combos are out of range). If anything, it’ll help me not get accidental focus cancels on my s.mp->s.mk->hp hands while doing the slide method too quickly. I like it a lot.
Update part II:
Because U2 Crane is so fast now, it takes much different timing to catch your opponent jumping back. People who learned this in Super will have to relearn the timing in AE. You travel so fast that you will sometimes not intersect their jump trajectory and Gen will land first if you throw the ultra too soon. When people adjust to it, this will be a very strong tool because it has great potential to punish run-away. Or fireballs. Or back-dashes. Or anything with bad start up and invincibility, really.
Nothing wrong with the hurtbox of c.hk, he just totally mistimed it. I trade with people doing divekicks all day with c.hk.
yeah, looks like the active frames still suck
I forgot to post earlier.
When I was playing against Gief, I was throwing out mantis S.Hk to see if I could counter his C.Rh. It actually beat it flat out. It seemed Giefs c.Rh fell short and mantis s.Hk was in range. This will help that match alot. You still have to worry about green hand tho, because grief can punish on reaction. Either way this is a huge buff in that match-up IMO
i’m getting interested in this mantis sHK now
i mean in ssf4 there is no really use of it since its 1 frame slower than cHP and has less range, both have very good hitboxes
now in AE is sHK gettin faster than cHP or with more range?.. why whould you choose to use sHK now, which one is better?
I think SecretCharacter frame trapped s.hk after a s.mp on me during our first mirror. He tagged me with it. It might be faster, I dunno, but you can definitely tell it has lower body invincibility. You can’t react to it, but you can psychic punish shoto c.mk with Mantis s. hk.
Mantis s.hk is fucking serious business now, but c.hp is still a great AA and random poke. I think c.hp has a longer horizontal range, especially because he moves so far forward on startup.
this sound good and all but until i see some good footage I’m still not thoroughly happy. so far the gen I saw are not really using the new the new buffs that much.