The Ken Masters Thread

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter x Tekken
101

I had no idea Ken’s over heads created ground bounce juggle potential. I should probably read the guide. Anyway,

  1. @0:09 a high juggle off of st. hp can allow you to link cr. mk, so it’s a pretty strong combo. Not sure how useful it actually is, though.
  2. @0:27 Thunder Kick ground bounces hard, so idk how good it is for juggle combos after a counter hit far st. hk.
  3. @0:45 Back+MK ground bounces. I put the combo towards the corner so I wouldn’t go into full animation, but, it does work mid screen. I just don’t like to waste time showing full super arts.
  4. @0:56 and @1:22 doing Ken’s close st. hk as a juggle, then special dash cancelling allows your team mate to be able to come back sooner once you juggle with a hp shoryuken. cr. mk to tatsu also juggles, but it just takes some practice to pull it off. It’s also pretty stylish, and kind of a mind f*ck.
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102

Hi peeps.

Just wanted to share my first impressions of Ken so far. I’ve only had about 1 hours play so far so bear with me. I’ve been messing around with a few things in particular.

Best hit confirm
Best 1 bar punish solo and with a tag in.
Thunder kick set ups.

So far, my favoured hit confirm for Ken (without tagging or spending meter) is:

cr.lk, st.lp, cr.mk xx fierce DP.

st.lp seems to be very reliable against standing and crouching opponents and it gives you the required positive frames to link the cr.mk. It seems that cancelling Ken’s cr.mk moves Ken forward quite a considerable amount too, meaning his fierce DP doesn’t ever whiff (on standing or crouching opponents).

I’m still struggling with my timing though so I don’t know how easy this will be in a real match.

So far, my 1 bar punish of choice (no tag out) is:

cr.lk - cr.mk - st.hk xx EX tatsu, st.hp xx jab DP, fierce DP

I haven’t been making notes on damage output yet and getting down to the nitty gritty but at first glance it seems to lower the damage by adding any other normal before the final fierce DP. I also don’t have my guide yet, so frame data eludes me at the moment.

Finally, I definitely think that Ken’s Thunder Kick has potential in this game. I really think that due to the tiny range of normal throws in sf x t, there is really very little incentive to be pushing buttons in your opponents block strings.

I may be wrong because I have yet to play online, but I see the future of this game becoming who can mix up high/mid and low attacks the best and convert it into damage.

With my limited time playing, I can see the ability to store up a counterhit Thunder Kick being quite important, possibly even worth 1 bar, i.e, qcb+kk dash cancel.

Using the EX cancel means Ken can do this on the end of any chain he wants, dash backwards and then immediately throw a guarunteed OH counterhit.

So far, I’ve just followed up the CH thunder kick with a cr.hp xx fierce DP for over 300 damage. It’s hit confirmable and easy to time.

Anyway, just my 1 hour findings so far…

Thoughts?

Peace,

G.

103

good stuff g77! nice to know that you’re around here too, and as for ken frame data, here. but i must warn you, it’s not pretty lol

104

I have been playing around with Ken as well. Hwaorang is really good tag partner for him

105

I love Ken/Hwoarang and I’m determined to make it work. I just have to work on my links and find ways to keep consistent with Ken so I can lay the hurt with Hwoarang once he’s tagged in. ._.

106

cr. LK, cr. LK, cr. MK > EX tatsu hits crouchers

107

I can’t see how Ken can be considered bad. His mp DP is still one of the strongest anti-airs, and he can hit confirm into at least a tag from half a mile away with c. mk>st. HK. His personal combo damage potential is alright, but pairing him with Heihachi/Kaz to really bring the pain is almost criminal.

108

Oh dear.

I played my first online matches today. Although I won them all, they were not enjoyable in the slightest.

Considering that these were all 4 bar connections, I didn’t get the luxury of sound in a single match, I couldn’t get my cr.mk to combo from an airbourne tatsu (which is +10 on hit making the cr.mk a 6 frame link!!!).

The whole game feels like a step backwards in my opinion. I’m so close to trading it in right now. Very disappointed…

Looking at the frame data is also confusing. I can’t work out what the developers were thinking.

When I look at SSF4 frame data, I can see how they wanted Ken to play. Things made sense. There were like 2 moves that confused me (cl.st.mk whiffing on crouchers and st.lp whiffing/hitting certain crouched characters) but everything else made sense.

For me, sf x t seems cobbled together by a child. Ken’s cl.st.lp and far.st.lp have different frame data!!! This makes every single combo with a st.lp unreliable timing wise. Really stupid. Chained normals have different frame data to linked normals. Why shouldn’t Ken be able to do cr.lk, cr.lp, cl.st.mk (chained) and then link the cr.mk and then chain far.st.hk into launcher or straight into a regular special instead of having to waste meter.

If Ken’s only decent normals are the close version of mk and the far version of mp, why don’t we have a reliable way of putting ourselves at the right distances?

Why is Ken’s Fake Thunder Kick so slow again? Surely Capcom had made all these mistakes in Vanilla SF4 and learned over the following iterations how to make them useful. Why go backwards?

Why does Ken have to land his OH as a counterhit to get a ground bounce? The Tekken crew don’t need CH’s to get a continuation, but Ken does.

Why give us +2 on our step kick (up from +1) but then slow down our cr.mk to 5 frames?

Why is Ken’s st.hp faster than his cr.mp? Surely stronger moves should be slower not faster…

So many things are just stupid. I’m really quite upset. It’s not a refined game in my personal opinion.

I’m heading back to SSF4 I’m afraid. Really disappointed…

Peace,

G.

109

Yo I think it’s only Ken that’s wonky in this game. Keep playing. You just need to learn the system better. Ken really shines when it comes to hit confirming sweep-ranged pokes into his launcher or xx into ex tatsu. Ken is a support battery that goes into launchers really easily. You’re not really meant to do the SF4 combos he’s known for. His standing RH is pretty godlike in a chain. It pushes him forward to allow you to xx it or do a launcher. His tatsus are pretty good and allows you to combo from any of them easily. It’s also hard to anti air in this game when you vary your jump arcs. He also has a 2 frame super. You have to play him 3S style to get mileage. Another thing is he has a very easily hitconfirmable DP switch cancel into big damage. When I switch cancel his DP to Hei, I can get almost 400 damage from just a good read.

With all that said, I sadly would have to say Ryu can do most things better, and I’m considering a switch. Ken is still viable though.

110

I understand that this is a different game, I get that. I just think that every move should have a purpose. It feels like the developers only cared about the chain combos and cut corners on the stand alone normals giving them little to no thought what so ever.

Disregarding the problems with Ken for a second though, the online experience was terrible. No sound in a match for a whole hour of full 4 bar connections. Struggling to time a 6 frame link!!! I can hit 1 framers in my sleep on SSF4 so explain why a 6 frame link is so tough…

I’m sad because inevitably, less people will be playing SSF4 now as they move on to the newer game and I was already struggling to find matches before hand.

Anywho. I’m gonna stop derailing the thread now. I’m not jacking this game in just yet, but it’s not what I was hoping for so we’ll see…

Peace,

G.

111

pretty much capcom made half the chars as support chars and half as main chars. so like ryu is the main shoto who has the proper hit confirms and links and can hold his own etc etc, while ken was made as a support char which just sets up ryu with dp tag outs, ambiguous air tatsu’s that link to cr.mk-st.hk-launcher or cr.mk xx ex tatsu etc etc. he doesn’t have any karas or block strings and ways to open the opponent up, if you block all of kens attacks and tech his small throw range and roll out of his oki game, he litteraly is ass in this game. personally i beleive that the support char and main char type look they did is stupid. idk why they love rufus and made him the male rush down char of choice over ken. anyways yea ken got royally screwed by trollono.

also to land cr.mk after air tatsu, there is a big delay after you land not like sf4 which was instant when you landed. everything feels like it has added recovery so you got to do things a bit slower.

112

What I don’t understand is why is Ken’s dash 1 frame longer than Ryu’s, why can’t Ken cancel his sweep into a special like Ryu and why is his walk speed slower too again.

cr.mp starts up in 6 frames too, and is only +4 on hit.
cr. lp is 4 frames and only +3 on hit.

I don’t know how you are meant to pressure or do frame traps with such bad normals.It’s like Capcom purposely want to make him bad

Ken does have a few good things though like his ex tatsu and air tatsus and his target combo is probably the best it’s been since 3s and a 2 frame super with good range.

113

so far i can only do frame traps with normals such as st lp/cl st lp, and st mp. other than that, no other normals give ken decent advantage on block. lucky his standing moves hit crouch so its not that bad. but capcom seriously fucked ken up. if his frame data was just like ssf4 ae 2012 then i would be happy as fuck with ken in this game.

114

Ah, thanks for that.
Can you post his standing normals start up for me please?
And I don’t understand what veryone means when they say Ken has his Kara-throw because I can’t do it?

115

D_wave posted the rest of the frame data up in an earlier post. If you want an image, I can’t post one up, I’m borrowing someones laptop for at the moment so I don’t have the images with me.

116

Thank you.

117

That’s not a Ken thing, that’s a SF thing.

This is a different Ken, you don’t think CVS2 and 3S players were like “Wtf” when they used SFIV Ken? Especially considering how good Ken was in those two games, especially 3S. The list of 3S Ken players who tried Ken out in IV and than dropped him for Sagat or Akuma… massive.

118

Ken has a kara throw, it’s nothing to shout about but it can be performed by pressing (LP+LP+MP). The same way you would do it in SF4 is exactly how you do it here. Also, what happened to Ken’s combos, can he no longer combo into CR.HP?

119

Ken is awesome in this game, I dont know what you people are talking about. Currently maining Akuma/Ken. B ranked. 80% win ratio. I am coming from SSF4 just like everyone else. Dont expect the same ken because its not the same game.

120

Not the same Ken as SSFIV at all. His HP/LP SRks have more invincibility. His tags are really good, he can do massive amounts of damage. While some moves are not as good cr.LP others are miles better (tatsu) his toe kick has a faster start up he can actually combo into it. Throwing is practically useless… overall though, Ken is not bad he’s just not ridiculous