Good thing I’m still following this thread.
In that case, who would you say can beat out kens tatsus? Ogre comes to mind, be he’s not really that great of a character all around.
So basically what I’m asking is what would you consider the counter pick to Ken being?
King I understand what youre saying about his air tatsu. I agree that its easier to use now, and hard do AA, but I still thinking that its use its not the very same. It changed.
If the opponent blocks it, you cant do a good frame trap, and if it hits yeah you can do damage and an easy tag. But in SF4 im used to use LK and EX air tatsu, in this game I found that LK wiffs a lot (maybe now Im doing something wrong…) and you have to do the HK version with a different spacing. No big deal about the EX air tatsu. In fact it seems for me that you have much more time to do something now. It looks like the opponent is frozen for hours when you hit it.
Im not having troubles using air tatsus. I use it a lot by the way. But since I started playing Ken and Ryu together I dont know why, but I found easier to hit an air tatsu crossing up with Ryu. And if the opponent blocks it, I feel much more confortable with Ryu`s too.
And seeing it from the opponent perspective, I dont see this “big trouble coming” when Ken does an air tatsu. As I said before you can wake up roll in this game, you have alpha counter, throws must be done very close, and Ken cant frame trap you when he lands on the ground. So I just cant see why his air tatsu is so feared. I respect much more a Mishima’s jump in than Ken’s tatsu. By the way, playing with other characters, the very important thing I started doing against the Mishima’s now is not jump, no matter what is happening I just dont jump, because I get countered 90% of the times against a Mishima air to air. And if a Heihachi, Kazuaya, or Jin gets a free counter you’re are in pretty bad situation. ^^
King, you said you do a 400 damage combo after landing an air tatsu with Ken, and no metter? Interesting, what combo is that? The thing about Ken’s Super I said before is when you tag in Ken and goes for s.MK, c.MK -> Super, the animation isnt full. Just checked here again in the training room. You hit the Super but the end of it wiffs. Ken only hits the full animation after tagged in, as far as I know, after a single normal move. Like c.MK -> Super.
About the kara thing, I said it about the “these days” Ken. His actual gameplay, his SF4 version, with kara commands, is very important. The old Kens didnt have kara indeed. But I was saying it about the modern Ken.
Juri_kills_friend, his c.LK is useful indeed. But I still think he needs his jabs.
Man, I was looking at Ryu`s frame data today and I found that you can combo after solar plexus and his overhead. Solar Plexus gives you +3, so you can go for a jab, for example, and his overhead gives him +4, and you can do a lot with +4. Not to mention the fact that both on block are very safe. I didnt notice that before. Im speachless about SFxT Ryu, he is unbelievable good.
Peace
Def orge. Ken gets stuffed but ken doesn’t have too many issues against orge and can easily empty jump to bait the forcefield on orge’s wake up. Ken can’t just simply raw air tatsu. Ryu messes up Ken tatsu with cr. hp and ex srk.
I’m actually starting to believe that Ken is actually good.
Damage scaling is so lame in this game that you get way more damage of a random SRK into switch cancel combo. It’s way easier to do this with Ken’s SRK rather than Ryu’s. In this game people jump a lot, so you can get free 400 dmg using this. Sure, AA may not be as reliable as in SF4, but chances are in your favor.
Not only you can use SRK into switch as AA, but also as a punish! 3 frames startup and a ridiculous horizontal range grant you a free 400+ punish with only 1 meter
His air tatsu is great. You don’t need good limbs or a nice fireball in this game because people are always waiting for that chance to jump into a cross up. Air tatsu can get you in there in a pretty safe way.
I use ken and xio, scaling sucks so I don’t use his lights much and usually whiff punish whif cr.mk tag or hit confirm a tatsu into xio’s loop and it does at least 400 dmg that way the most I got was 550 practicly and like 770 with reset. Like people were saying before he is a good set up char and the good thing about tatsu is that most the time u could just do it they don’t have to be waking up cuz most dp’s need to be timed well and most the time it has to be deep
if u do it from past footsie range a nuetral horizontal attack will stuff tatsu but an early Jump in attack will stuff that or and empty jump and punish the recovory. Also I fought a ken that late autocorrected some of my tatsus. And xio’s stances go under air tatsu most the time. And cammy’s dp(which might be the best in the game imo) beats it everytime.
And ya once people shut down tatsu ken is prob the worst char in the game. And ya when I combo I always just do it from a heavy move but iam pretty sure anything more than that does less dmg due to scaling. My prob with his super is that I feel like it has less range tha. His cr.mk. if ken just had a fast walk speed and ryu’s cr.mk he would be really good
A lot? Have you even tested this? the overhead might be +4 on hit but it pushes you way too far to combo a jab.
I think I heard in another thread that you can link jab after the over head only if you hit a STANDING opponent. -__-
The overhead could help to apply more pressure though…
Yeah siegvriel, ken is useful. A good char. But my point is that he changed a lot. You have to addapt if you’re a SF4 Ken player. And Im really missing his links.
I was looking yesterday, on youtube, some Banana Ken’s matches, I think he is a good reference for all of us Ken players, and he rarely does air tatsu with Ken in this game. I think a saw at least 8~10 matches. And he only did an air tatsu, a neutral one, one time. And just to say, I saw other players like Poongko for example, having some fun with Ken too, and nobody uses air tatsus like it is an “unbelievable jump in tool”.
In Banana Ken’s matches I can see how a SF4 Ken player misses Ken’s old links. Sometimes he goes for c.LP for starting a combo, and it looks like he just have forgot that Ken cant do SF4 combos, and he does an improvised jump in or sometimes just walk backward stopping the pressure. Very weird thing to see a Ken acting like that.
And about random SRK, that’s true, when a have meter I dont hesitate doing it if I’m in a disadvantage situation. It really comes out very fast, and can counter a lot of moves. You can get a good amount of damage from it using 1 bar indeed. And if the opponent blocks it, its not that easy to punish the tagged in character.
About Ryu’s overhead I didnt have time to test it a lot siegvriel, but the distance that you mentioned before is a real important thing. But yeah you can combo after it hits. Its not that easy, but its possible. I think that if you go for the overhead with the intention of continue the combo, you must do it close. But if I’m not wrong Ryu has other normals that comes out very fast. Im not sure but, his far, close and c.LP( has 3 frames), close MP (has 3 frames), close MK( has 3 frames) and c.MP (has 4 frames). His c.HP is 4 frames too, but I dont think it reaches after the OH in any situation. I only tested out the far LP. By that you can do “a lot” if it connects.
And if the opponent blocks the OH you’re in just -2, I think. So, unless you facing a character who has an invincible move that comes out very fast, like shotos in generally, or grapplers, you’re pretty safe, you can maybe continue the pressure and dont have to worry about a punishment. This is just a brainstorm, new tech, I have to think more about it.
Peace
I might have to search for those BananaKen videos. But yeah I can see how hard it can be to transition from a SF4 Ken to this game. I completely got rid of SF4 combos when I found out that I can just mash cr. LK intro cross rush, and if they block I can stop at cr. MP which is neutral.
Also Air tatsu is not your only way in. You can jump with MK which is a pretty ambiguous crossup. If they block you can do Target Combo xx CADC which leaves you at +1 and a perfect distance to throw, cr. LK, or do shoryu.
Yeah… Man, Im on training room right now and the thing you said about Ryus OH giving him +4 only against stading opponent is true I guess. Jab reaches the distance, but somehow it doesnt combo when the opponent is crouching. Im wondering now how many frames it gives on block and on hit in this situation…
Peace
I need to also be using ken air tatsu to switch out. That shit is + on block so it would make sense to tag cancel and safely get your teammate in. Srk is still okay because of the 3 hits but Air tatsu is + and + means you can’t get muffed up when said character comes in.
Just bock properly
I play as ken since week ago (and i never played before so i don’t cry like the other members).
For sinergy feels great (ken/za) and i do a lot of damage with 1 crossup conected and 1 bar.
But i have some troubles with footsies. Specially against Kazuya or Camy.
How can i confront this match?? (i don’t know… random pokes? srk?, go for crossup? just block and pray for no-overhead? )
My poor experience says me that attack is the key… but sometimes if they block me an st.hk … i prefer to close my eyes --> OUCH
Help is needed 
Cammy is one of the chars that beat ken her dp beats tatsu consistently and her footsies are better, made advice is try to outspace her and punish her pokes with step kicks and hope that she gets dumb and jumps at u. Against kaz altter ur angle of ur jump tatsus to make his anti air whiff. From wat I remember all of his mixups are punishable by either dp or low foward a lot of times they like to chain a sweep from there target chains but this just makes them more punishable. His reversal can also be grabbed. His special step can also be hit by low foward so try to play the fb game a little and punish his mist step, although don’t throw fb’s in a range where he can jump over them because its easy to react and punish ken’s fb’s in this game. And his target combo. Into his hardpunch is safe so don’t try anything. And if he likes to dash a lot just stick out a cr.mk buffered into chain. Wat i usually do is walk back a lot then tag them with step kick if they’re pushing too hard and hopefully it will get them annoyed to the point that they will want to dash in or jump. And ya never ever use st.f.hk as a poke unless ur trolling and ur fishing for a counter I swear that they just gave ken the worst version of that move ever
Thanks 4 tips!..
and last question:
I play as zangief and for pokes, press st.lk -> st.mp and 98% times it’s safe (except julia super)
Does ken have something similar? or i’m comnemned to press cr.mk -> FB
If it’s -3, Ken can prob punish.
Cr.mkxxfb is know where near safe but I just found cr.lk, cr.mp is -2 on block
For the people who still think that Ken’s air tatsu is unbelievable good and best jump in in the game, right now Laugh and Infiltration(Ryu and Rolento) against Banana Ken and Dieminion (Ken and Guile) on Seasons Beating stream, gave us all a master class of stopping air tatsus, showing what you should do to avoid and punish it. If you guys missed it, you should check that out later. ^^
Its still the best air move in the game. Idk if anyone has been to the lab one it but its a straight mix up at certain ranges, a nj fast move will beat a reg air tatsu but will lose to empty jump or early moves in the air, going over cr.hp’s is beaten by altering the timing of urair tatsu. Banana ken looked like he was used to getting his way and went fucking dumb
I mean… BananaKen did throw it out there a lot. A lot. He really abused it. And while some did get denied, many still went through as well, which imo goes to show the strength of this move.
I think if u don’t space it badly like bananaken did some then ur reward would be way greater than ur Risk. And even if u can’t do tatsu outside of wakeups. Its still not that bad because if we guesst a roll or not u could either jump in low crosup tatsu or non-crossup tatsu