I imagine if Momochi/Kindevu and the other multi-char Grand Masters spend all their time and money on one character like Daigo does with Yun, they’d have BP a lot closer to his.
i agree with that. they may not be at 115k or whatever daigo’s at, but they’d be top 10 on the leaderboard for sure
Kuroda would like to have a word with you…
Huzzah, combos for daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaays bro. (EX ducking will be sexah!)
(I have to admit, Yun is going to be my alt char though, dude has some sexy offense, I need meh juggles yo)
Yeah, current 3S players feel the game is still evolving to this day. sf4 just hasn’t had the chance to do that yet esp with yearly updates. Maybe it will get a fair shake despite the fact that most people believe the game design peaks character capability pretty quick. Also, i look at Cammy and Fei and even Abel. Generally middle of the pack in sf4 but the players behind them slowly buffed them into relevance.
TK strike once she got in was an issue because of Blanka not having a good cr.tech option, it was just straight guessing. It’s still relatively easy for her to get in, but she can’t keep pressuring you the same way unless she burns meter.
TK strike then whatever OS tended to get me blown up, especially in the corner. shrug Guess we’ll see going forward. It still looks pretty bad to me though, just not quite as bad.
Not saying I’m great at that matchup, but it was literally braindead for cammy for the most part once she got you locked into blockstun.
About SF4 cammy and fei, they were not even playable at the jap arcade so nobody there really played/paid attention to them. So that’s why they were not really well known as good characters. As for GM for multiple characters in AE, its probably easier to maintain a good ranking thus GM status when the game is fairly new. When “average” ppl rack up points in the 150-200k it will be more difficult to maintain 2+ character at GM status.
I think that’s really unfair. Hakan can be totally solid in the right hands. Okay he has some gimmicks, but they’re not gimmicks you HAVE to rely on. We’ve already seen some vids of an above average Hakan doing really well in AE, even if it wasnt against the strongest opponents. A master Hakan player in AE would be able to do some serious damage. And okay so he has to block after a divekick, whats wrong with blocking? Wildcat has said he thinks that Hakans strength is in the top ten characters in AE. Alright so not everybody is a Wildcat, but I think that gives you a little insight. People are sleeping on him imo.
Top 10 would put him in Fei, Yun, Yang, Sagat, Ken, Akuma, Makoto territory? yeah I dunno.
I think people need to be more honest about their characters.
oiled hakan might be top 10, but dry Hakan is absolutely bottom tier no matter how you swing it and you have to be able to play both.
remember how high blanka used to be on the tier list when vanilla first came out? he slowly declined as soon as people started figuring out his gimmicks and devised counters. i think that’s the same thing that’s happening with hakan, but in reverse. we KNOW he sucks, but there are still folks who can do well with him, partly because they have actual skill, and partly because folks just don’t know the matchup well enough yet. due to the lack of people playing hakan, the matchup is foreign. as soon as people know when to block, how to block and how to punish, it’ll be lights out for the red oily man.
there will always be people who rise above and take the character to new heights (uryo’s sakura), but for the most part, the character just doesn’t have the tools and moves to compete with a majority of the cast.
The Blanka/Hakan scenario is sort of off. Everyone thought Hakan stunk since day one. People are realizing over time Blanka isn’t as strong as initially thought because his gimmicks are easier to see, and stuff like 50/50 U1 is no longer scary. Don’t really see how those are opposite situations. Wouldn’t the opposite be someone who we thought was lower mid initially rising way up the list like Cammy?
Sakura has a lot of good tools and doesn’t have to rely on gimmicks or anything, I don’t really think thats an exception. She’s actually a strong character and has the best non ultra combo damage ouput in the game.
It’s both. That’s why there was only 1 Grandmaster Guile in Vanilla at the end of it’s lifespan, and maybe only 3 Vegas. It’s was hard enough to reach GM level in that game with the lower tier characters, but to do with with a low tier and another? Highly improbable. It’s happening now in AE, so that tells me this game still has decent balance.
I stand by my opinion that Sakura is one of the most underestimated characters in SF4 to this day. Very high damage output, really good normals, can hit confirm for big damage, highly comboable Ultras, a nice invincible reversal in EX Shou that you can cancel for safety. The only thing she lacks is strong zoning and a reliable way to close gaps.
Hakan is a complex character, I don’t think people are willing to invest the amount of time needed to use him and get to a decent level. It’s true you’d have to invest that time to be able to do play both oiled and dry. In AE he’s stronger, but with such a small player pool the chances of seeing him rise up are so slim. There’s what, maybe 2 known world class Hakans out there. Both of them havent even been classed on AE’s leaderboards. There’s not much we can really figure out yet with maybe 1 hakan in the top 150. I used to think he was absolutely terrible, then I started using him and started to realise what he could do. I don’t think he’ll ever be a popular character, and thats always going to be a problem.
EX shou is really risky without the bar to fadc, but it functions similarly to ex messiah kick when you do have bar and has huge damage followups without ultra. it’s much less safe on whiff though sadly.
She got nothing but a pile of buffs in AE too.
If anyone actually decent played her over here you’d be seeing people gushing over her.
I don’t think he’s that bad, just not that good.
But yeah the lack of a player pool hurts a character. Being underexplored doesn’t help you move up.
This is the main problem. I can’t think of a single top player in the US that uses Sakura, and the only Japanese player I can think of is Uryo. I’m far from a top player myself, but I use her and win the vast majority of the matches I play. I’m very familiar with what she’s capable of, and I think she is perfectly viable for tourney play, especially going into AE.
ahhh, the age old sakura debate.
shes a solid character. dosent really stop her from being mid or low mid.
she does have a decent matchup against fei tho. i think that dude skatan said it migt be in her favor. i think its 5-5, but he plays with 2 of the top 3 fei’s in the world, so i’ll leave it to him
what characters really crush her?
Honda, Chun, Dictator, Boxer and Blanka are her toughest matches. Blanka will be much, much easier in AE now that she can consistently punish Blanka Balls however. Honda and Dictator have likely gotten easier as well due to their nerfs + Sakura’s buffs, but I can’t say with authority what exactly will factor into those matchups.
Uryo and Skatan both make her look scary, but yeah neither is American.
I don’t think personal win rates really matter much in the grand scheme of things in terms of character viability especially if you are going by online play where the skill difference tends to be humongous.
Blanka match in AE is worse, but he can still use jab ball, and balls aren’t why he wins anyways.
Yeah I know my personal win rate means very little. 
I just had to sneak that in there. Anyway, I’m not going to sit here and say Sakura’s sniffing top tier or anything like that, but I do think she’s mid-high mid. Certainly not low or bottom.