Yeah… The problem about Kens air tatus is that everybody knows that its a good jump in tool. So you cant rely on that everytime because you opponent knows that its coming and hes gonna be wating for you ready to do something. I agree with the fact that if you perform it the right way its very good for Ken. On hit and on block somehow. But you cant do it everytime. In my opinion, in this game, Kens approach and his ground gameplay is so bad that even if you dont wanna perform an air tatsu sometimes, you must do it, because its the only way to get close. And you keep trying to get an good air tatsu like Banana Ken was doing. Its not hes fault, its SFxT Ken`s fault.
Yeah, the more I play Ken, the more I feel like his ground game is ass. I mean, I’m ass, so that’s definitely part of it. But he does lack ways to apply pressure on ground (no real blockstrings, kind of shit at any distance except really close). I just don’t feel very confident when playing against Guile, Ryu, Sagat, etc., when they keep me out of air. I really like his tatsu and its ability to keep opponents on ground for combos. But as I play against better players, I’m starting to notice that they’re giving me less and less opportunity to allow me to even land a ground tatsu. It’s just not easy to land ground tatsu in general I suppose. I’m thinking about using EX-tatsu just to open them up from boost combos (over a launcher finisher) for more damage.
.buYa when this game first came out (and that dumb tier list came out) everybody was free to air tatsu but now more players are getting pissed and putting time in the lab with it and its not nearly as free and now most of the time I have to do that 50/50 on their wakeup cuz everybody either nows how to challenge it or ,even more annoying, just fucking block it. And when I fight other kens I just wait til they step kick out of range or they throw a fb or jump and tatsu. And ya ex air tatsu was fucking unblockable last time I used it but I krep telling people that ken is only mid tier just cuz he has to work so hard on the ground
Other thing that I was thinking these days and I’d really like to see better on Ken’s gameplay is his tatsu’s feint. Like, when you use Ryu you can apply a lot of pressure using his c.MP->hadouken’s feint->some move that comes out fast, it’s very useful. But, imo, this type of pressure fits better Ken’s style of play. Ken supposed to be more rushdown than Ryu. Can you guys picture how useful would be a block string like: Jump in Roundhouse, c.MP-> tastu’s feint->dash->a jab (with 3 frames of startup like in SF4) and continue the pressure like Ryu can do? For me, his tatsu’s feint is almost useless, because his normal moves has bad startup now, except his c.LK, and his dash recovery looks slow too. If somehow Capcom decides to buff Ken, 3 things I’d really like to see: All LP versions with 3 frames of startup to help in frame traps, c.MK with 4 frames of startup for better ground control and footsies, and a better use of tatsu feint to keep the pressure.
Ken is underrated because his tatsu keeps the opponent grounded, allowing your partner to tag cancel for a full ground combo. This alone is HUGE and offsets many of his solo problems. IMO he’s one of the best characters in the game in terms of setting up an optimized tag cancel combo
Here’s what I mean. As Ken, I’m fishing for a cr.Mk into tatsu so that I can bring in Kazuya for his full 5xewgf combo for over 500 damage using one meter.
EDITxx sorry guys, haven’t read the thread properly, I see this has already been talked about in depth.
[media=youtube]4CteZjQLad4[/media]
Yeah, the “keeping there” property of ground tatsu is useful. But not good enough to Capcom sacrifices Ken normals imo. If you pick Ken just for that, there are other chars that have moves with similar property too. Like Chun li, Vega, Kazuya, and others that I dont remeber right now. Thinking that way, Sakura probably will be a monster to do the tag in job, because she has tatsu and DP with multiple hit. The problem about Ken’s tatsu is that it only hits standing opponents. If your opponent is crouching it wiffs. So, its not that good as people say. And about you video, who does the critical job is Kazuya. You dont need Ken to do that damage imo.
Peace
Ya my friend has a 1 meter combo with kaz and vega that does 500 without ewgf and other chars like rufus and hwo can do it to. Iam starting to feel like ken is bad once people actually block the tatsus he has nothin and worse of all his low foward is -5 on block and his fb is -9 wtf this fact alone is making me lose a lot
Yeah man, his fireball blocked is real bad. Sometimes I get punished by a lot of things. Even against slow chars. In fact ,playing SFxT is changing a lot the way a play Ken. To be honest, Im playing much more random abusing of fierce DP, cause for me, its the best tool Ken has, Im playing afraid of a blocked fireball cause its very punishable, Im not poking that much cause his c.MK, far HK, and far MP arent the same, and im missing a lot the timing of my combos when I go to SF4. Cause SFxT Ken is slower. i’m starting to miss a lot his bnbs, like, c.LK, c.LP, LP, c.MK and EX tatsu, Im always dropping the timing of c.MK, because of the difference on LP and c.MK properties in both games.These days Im playing much more tekken chars just for fun and barely using Ken.
Im playing Cole a lot too, he is cool, but cant be touched and dont have meterless big damage combos. Bad thing I cant find his frame data, it would be very useful. I wanna play Bob too. The first time I saw this game I really wanted to play Bob and Julia. Julia has too much target combos. I hate that. And Bob has very slow normals and useless super, for me is the worst in the game. But if he somehow gets a buff on of his LP and LK, I think it would make a real difference in his gameplay. Do you guys are playing which characters besides Ken?
i agree with king d. ken is like really mid tier. you have no idea how hard it is to play footsies with ken once you realize your opponent can actually challenge air tatsu. without that, you’re just waiting for a jump in ( good luck ) and whiffing normals trying to make the opponent do something because ken ground game is so ass.
Ya I went to a local tourney here and I lost to players that I rarely lose to because ken plays so different and its retarded how cl.lp to cr.mk is one frame link. And most of my game now revoles around whiff punish or guessing or dp’ing people but I think the hate and want for this game to be like sf4 has led people to not even have the motivation to figure tatsu’s out and they just mark ken as top tier and I was thinking of using hwo or chun or cammy as my first
what’s up with all the ken negativity? Yes ken def is different from ae ken, but so is chun. Ken has horrid footsies but it isn’t that bad. Ken has a specific role and that is to set up. I still think he’s good because if you use the right moves with your meter you can get some good damage with him. cr.lk.>ex tatsu> lp srk> hp srk bags you a near 40% combo which isn’t that bad for one bar. It’s almost just as much as ryu with his donkey kick. Once ken loses ex tatsu that’s when you really gotta play it smart and lame. you gotta get the life lead and sit on it and that’s it. Whiff a few normals and build meter. Ken is actually really dangerous with two meters as he can ensure some solid damage for his partner when you tc and you can also punish moves that are -2 or more with his super arts. Not to mention ken has the best empty jump in the game. What i don’t do enough of to make the blocked empty jump safe if blocked is ex hado which is -1. Ken has great alpha counter which you can also use to get some damage off of.
Ken is also counters other zoning characters with his fireball and has a nice get off me move which you can use.
Utilizing lp dp is also something a lot of kens should consider. You can get some nifty damage off of that move, get some nice spacing, and eat the clock away.
My only issue with ken is that his wake up game is suspect to heavy bait. I mean your opponent knows what you wanna do. That’s where mind games come into play my fellow players. If ken isn’t working for you you might wanna consider the factors that are making him lose. Are you dping too much? Are you whiff a lot of normals or abusing srk like nobodies business?
Also consider what your opponent is doing to you. Kens who fly all over the place are gonna get messed up. Your mix up as ken is air tatsu, forward jumping air normal/cross up/ super jump tatsu if your opponent doesn’t roll/ or empty jump/throw. I mean he has it good in terms of mix up. The other street fighter characters really good work hard to mix it up unlike their tekken counter parts. Ken has air tatsu. If you get anti air it’s okay. Try it again later when you think it may work. Or play with your opponent when you knock them down and think tatsu is coming but you do jf.hk into a some nice damage.
That’s all for that, oh and i’m leaving to thailand for a few months. I’ll be back. I’m trying to work on my ken and see what i need to do to ensure that he wins the match on his own and not have to rely so much on lili who has no dp or 1000 hp. He’s not that bad, it’s just many people play him to abuse tatsu and people at this point are wise to it. It’s time to adapt to the people who are adapting to you. If you refuse to change your ways the then change will ultimately make you obsolete and easy to read and beat.
Yo actually get more dmg for one meter if u tag cancel. Also one meter to make ur footsies safe is not good in the least and air tatsu is easy to block there’s nothing ken can do to open smart people up. And ken prob has the best defense in the game I give u that but this basically leaves ken to wait for people to do dumb shit or get too aggresive. Also if u want to jump in low use cr.lk xx cr.mp as a hit confirm its only negative 2 and I hella don play this ken like other kens but he just doesn’t have any good offensive actions. But I do agree ken is hella dangerous but it doesn’t mean much if u don’t fuck up. And also ya kens super is good but as soon as u use those 2 meters and get only 300 dmg the opponent is just going to do the same thing that u just punished
I think that this SFxT Chunli is more interesting to play. Imo Chun’s gameplay in SF4 is too much turtle. I dont like lame stuff. And I think she is more useful as a set up char than Ken in SFxT. But Ken has a 3 frames DP. Maybe people prefer him because of that.
Yeah maybe Ken has the best defense. I agree with that too. But I’m still thinking that he’s limited. Imo his ground game is very bad and his air tatsu when you play against good players isnt that useful. I dropped Ken. Trying to play Hwoarang with Bob. Just for fun. Ken for me still useful, but I definitely dont like his SFxT gameplay. Sincerely I rather play Ryu. But I dont like Ryu, the character. Im the type of player that plays a char because of the char, not because of the tier list or things like that. Tier list is important, I certainly play strong chars, but I usually play chars that I think is cool. Like Bob for example in this game. Now I really wanna put Bob in a good level. I have liked Hwoarang too. He has a natural mix up with overhead hard too deal with. And Hwoarang has good tools to tag too, like Ken does. Dont know yet if the team have good sinergy, its early to say. But at the moment im enjoying the 2 a lot.
Peace
Ya imma still play ken every once in a while just cuz I’ve always liked his char or when I want easy when’s against scrubs who think ken is godlike. And hwo is the shit I picked him up the first day and if u could find some useful stuff for bob I would. Play him but he doesn’t have anything going for him imo
Ken doesnt suck in this game. Ryu is just retarded good. Look at it this way. You can only pick Ryu once and Rufus got nerfed. Your best option after that is Ken
Hey Ken players, Hei main here (7.5k BP, fwiw) - I just got done playing a match with an A ranked Ken on XBL, I’m rocking some lv.3 sodium rage, and I’m hoping you guys can help me out. The question is simple - for those of you who have decent matchup experience against Heihachi, does air tatsu beat him free?
For those unfamiliar with Hei, his AA options are 1) Chrome Dome - a headbutt charge move that has super armor but moves him forward, making it useless against crossups (he’ll absorb the tatsu hit, but eat a full combo since ken lands before it recovers), 2) b+mp, where his hand has no hurtbox, but has slowish startup and is useless against crossups, 3) air to air nj. mk or fp, which seems to lose flat out to the tatsu, and 4) backdash/dash under, which is dicey since he may have the worst dash in the game (seriously, go into training room and try it - enjoy the lulz), 5) alpha counter - costs a bar and puts Ken across the screen, which is antithetical to Hei’s playstyle.
I get that there are scores of people clamoring for an air tatsu nerf - I don’t care about that one way or another - I’m just looking to see if any of you have had your air tatsu consistently stuffed or avoided by a Hei player. I’ll post match footage later today when I get home from work if you’d like to have a look.
Thanks in advance
I haven’t had anyone except steve consistently beat tatsu. Couldn’t u use hei’s counter
Hei’s counter only works against grounded attacks - King’s counter works like magic though.
Damn that sucks ur best bet then will to challenge it air to air from certain distances. Its kinda hard to explain but depending on when ken activates air tatsu (usually a little later so it will cross up consistently) u can air to air him and knock him out u want to use a long horizontal move and u want to be quick with ur reactions so he runs into ur active frames or ur just above his air tatsu if u fuck around in training mode u could figure out the sweet spots
I’ll be back from work soon - I’ll post the round from the fight this morning that made me crazy, and hopefully you can point out if there were any gaps in Ken’s offense that I should have taken advantage of.