it does depend on an error in judgement, but think of having a life lead versus one of these characters with ultra stocked. now they have to walk foward and risk eating rekkas without the comfort of being able to use half their specials. besides all that, high level japanese players still manage to get caught throwing fireballs versus chun rog and abel. on your other point, you could DP, but you have to be at a range where you can DP and be able to utilize the invulnerability. the total invulnerability of the ultra would allow you to use it at different ranges and the ultra would net way more damage
I agree with Vaarp and the other guys who said the counter ultra is good if its safe.
@ Nos99 yeah, you could use a Flame Kick but its terrible on block, and doesn’t do that great of damage w/o FADC. Just imagine the fear you would create when you have ultra that can take away a big chunk of life and possibly get the kill just if they guess wrong. I’m pretty sure they would play a lot less bold. That’s when you use the fear to your advantage, it becomes less about actually landing the ultra, and more about punishing your opponents attempts to avoid it.
…but it all depends on whether the ultra is safe if you miss, and what it can counter (jump attacks, armor break, etc.). We just have to wait and see, and hope.
/thread, right?
like my friend said the other day, “there’s always a place for random ultras.” it will make scrubs say he’s broken and in high level play (that’s where we’re aiming for, right?) it might seem less viable, but it will have its place. while I feel afraid that his counter ultra will be the biggest “DON’T PRESS A BUTTON RIGHT NOW” move, how many jump ins will you stuff when they try to empty jump? how many pokes will you not see when you have ultra?
I think it’s more about the mindgame, you have a moved specifically tailored to stop attacks. this game is about attacking to win.
thanks for putting that into perspective, I almost panicked this morning thinking about it. 
edit: and ssf4 is supposed to be more offensive, giving fei long an advantage. let’s not get caught up thinking in sf4 terms (hard not to, I feel ya guys), but how this is a different game.
realisticly, the 1st ultra is like a counter somewhat…u can only land the 1st ultra by FA crumble… 100% safe… and can combo after flame kick or CW for extra dmg… but you can also use it as a counter ultra as well… rog dash punch, ryu cr.mk to hadoken… viper thunder knuckle, and fuertes slam… it all depends on how you use it… i think this counter ultra is going to be really good for offensive fei players like myself… becuase it will drastically change the pace of the game…instead of seeing your ultra fail when the 2nd punch wiffs… when ur not close to ryu on the cr.mk to hadoken… (not good with spelling lmao)
Everyone who hates counter-ultras dont even understand what it brings to the table.
Like stated it can totally shift the momentum in your favor by making your opponent almost scared to attack since he’s afraid of the ultra. Sure you can use fei’s ultra 1 for dash in punches just like ultra 2. But who says ultra 2 isnt more powerful?
Think about wake-up game. What if ultra 2 activates in 0 frames? Meaning no more meaty safe attacks on wake-up. If any active attack frame is in fei’s vicinity when he activates his ultra, it could activate it and deal heavy damage. Ultra 1 wouldn’t punish a meaty jab from Boxer. Ultra 2 possibly could. Boom, opponent is scared to do meaty wake-up blockstrings.
Rushdown characters now feel that they should tone their game down, because of the constant threat of the counter-ultra. Think of high-level play. How many of you play scrubs online that wake-up ultra and you get hit by it and you think, “wow, why would he do that?”. Counter-ultras bring so many mind-games to the table its ridiculous, and at the same time, it prevents agressive characters from being agressive all the time.
Counter-Ultras are in no way as useless as you people make them out to be. If implemented correctly, and given the right properties, they can be just as deadly as any other ultra.
i think this new ultra will fk giefs crossup game very badly…, now fei players can do something about this, instead of guessing for ways to get out…
I don’t get the “but your opponent!” argument. If you pick Seth, you don’t hold meter just so your opponent won’t jump in or throw fireballs. You use it when you know you can. Anyone who says otherwise is theory fighting, or is full of shit. Not to mention, Seth’s ultra suits the character. Fei’s ultra is almost counteractive to his playstyle – and yes I’m basing this on his SF4 incarnation but they’d need to make a LOT of changes otherwise.
Fei has the amount of frames in any given move to react and hit the counter. That can be easy in the form of stuff like Abel’s wheel kick from full screen, or fucking impossible in the case of jabs. All you’ll really prevent the opponent from doing is throwing meaties on wakeup, because with the exception of moves that take the opponent airborne, you can ultra 1 them anyway. But hey, why not pick ultra 1, and just reversal the meaties with flame kick all day? It’ll probably have less recovery than the counter if it whiffs, it’ll do chip damage, and while it won’t do as much raw damage, you’ve still got meter you can use on actual offense. You can even FADC the flame kick into CW, ultra 1. If they fix that to juggle three times instead of just two, you’re golden.
Face it: your opponent can still zone you, they can still poke you, they can still throw you. Short of superhuman reflexes or hilarious predictability, you aren’t going to get that counterhit. Even if they’re rushing you down, all you’re really doing is mashing the input hoping that they drop a link somewhere. You’d need to be psychic to know when there’s a 1 frame window in which you can hit the ultra. I mean, sure, it’ll work, but “MASH QCF+KKK” isn’t exactly a pro strat.
Reason being, the ultra flash is the opponent’s big showy warning to let go of all the buttons and do nothing for a couple of frames, or just walk up and throw. If they’re not mid-attack at the time of the flash, then why would they be afterwards? It might connect once in a while against the console warriors who don’t know any better, but against anyone even half decent, it’ll be a waste of time.
If it worked against throws and projectiles – ESPECIALLY projectiles – then it’d be brilliant. You could remove projectile zoning from the match for as long as Fei has meter, and that would be awesome. But instead, they’re actually insulating Fei against moves which he does just fine against already. So it’s garbage.
I really want it to be awesome but I see no way that it could be. I hope I’m proven wrong, I really do.
Why? If Fei’s got meter and I’m crossing up, I’m emptyjumping instead, letting the counter whiff, and then laughing uproariously before I hit super/ultra/whatever myself. Then I’m going back to crossing up.
ONLY possible way that Counter Ultras could work well is if there was no indication to the opponent that you acquired your Ultra meter to full. That way, only you, the player would know and then the opponent would have to guess when he’s hit you enough to have gained a counter ultra.
So either it would make everyone play very defensive vs Fei, which isn’t always a bad idea since fei is good against some zones but doesn’t have the best pressure tools to mix up on opponents. (though i like his overhead, it should combo or do more damage)
They should give Fei and Cammy a new counter move instead of a ultra… I really don’t see any use of them, especially from those rushdown characters…
My theory: Capcom hates console characters. .
Cammy’s I sort of get, simply because she had a counter move in some of the games. I know she has it in Marvel, dunno what else though.
The current mechanic of the counter ultra as we know sucks, the cinematic freeze comes BEFORE he does the actual parry animation as shown in this vid [media=youtube]_BZRb1KRm2g[/media]
If that’s not a big warning sign not to attack then I don’t know what is. The counter ultra wouldn’t be AS bad if there wasn’t such a big indicator like this showing that you’re attempting the parry/counter, it’s not sudden enough - you’re given at least a 5-10 second notification saying I am gonna try counter you, there’s a big warning prior before he gets into the parry/counter stance.
You could use this argument against any ultra in the game…
When will you people understand that counter-ultras are meant for mindgames? If you don’t like it, Ultra 1 is always there for you.
And for that reason, you generally don’t do empty/random ultras because of that warning signs because that usually results in opponent either avoiding it or blocking it, thus using them mainly for punishment or as a guaranteed followup or in combos, I can pretty much guarantee that you would not randomly throw out an ultra - You wouldn’t randomly throw out ryu’s ultra 1 or ken’s ultra 1 or anyones ultra for that matter, only noobs do that shit. Ask yourself would you risk randomly throw out empty ultras often in the middle of blocked strings or in the middle of your opponents offense? You most likely wouldn’t and yet this method is the only way of actually catching people with the counter ultra through random guessing in anticipation of a possible incoming attack.
The motion in itself already makes it hard to use it to surprise the opponent, but the freeze animation before the parry makes this even harder to surprise your opponents with a counter. I don’t know what capcom was thinking, I mean you wouldn’t often randomly throw empty ultras with the current ones we have now so why on earth would you create an ultra that relies heavily on throwing out empty ultras randomly and praying that it will catch?
There is no real way to actually connect it beside through guesses, the mind game it provides is a WEAK one because it is more dangerous for you to USE the counter than it is for them to be caught in it because like I said you have to do it randomly when you think an attack is coming and doing random reversals/moves is always risky, sure it plays a little mind game on your opponent a bit - making them slightly more careful but they can equally use that against you, baiting you into using the ultra by mistake.
The difference is that counter-ultras hinder an opponent’s playstyle, not yours.
Sure smart players wont get caught with it often, but you also have to think what it does to their overall playstyle. People will be reluctant to use cross-ups, sure they can try to bait an ultra with an empty cross-over, but then you can try blocking. No cross-over attack? Punish with flame kick or normals.
Akuma’s pressure game is hindered. Blockstrings > demon flip > Downwards kick can be countered on reaction.
Cammy - No more random spiral arrows or wake-up cannon spikes.
Just a few examples. I wouldn’t say the mind games go equally between both players. I definitely think the advantage is with Fei or Cammy in that department.
Can’t we just wait until the game comes out? All this theory fighter is making my head go circles.
Well with that being said, despite me thinking its crap, realistically I’ll most likely pick it anyway since ultra 1 in its current state is more crappier than ultra 2, at least ultra 2 provides a little bit more threat than ultra 1 unless they fixed ultra 1, however there isn’t any reports suggesting anything on ultra 1 or fei long in general.
Those scenarios do make it sound good however every scenario where you think counter ultra is good, on the flip side can be turned against you, it can all be baited - opponent can bait you into thinking he’s doing a meatie or continuing a blocked string or a jump in, or mislead you in distance with some moves such as blanka ball or spiral arrow etc, so its pretty much a double edged sword but i think the odds are in favor of your opponent because the room for error is too large for the ultra.
Also the counter ultra won’t completely nullify or shutdown options (like chun li’s ultra 1 for instance how it shuts down your opponent to throw fireballs), it’ll just makes the opponent slightly less incline to use them (at best), such as jump-ins, meaties etc.
But this ultra is the only instance where the flash is actually a warning sign as opposed to part of the cinematic. Realistically, who throws out any ultra unless they know it’s going to connect, or at the very least, cause enough chip damage to take the opponent out? Sure, there are empty jumps into ultra and wakeup shenanigans, but they’re dumb options a lot of the time anyway.
With the counter ultra, there is no guarantee. Short of your opponent doing something really stupid, nothing YOU do can influence whether it connects. You can play all the mind games in the world – if the opponent doesn’t give you something to counter, it’s not going to do shit.
Pretty much my argument since day one.
If Ryu for instance has ultra, he’s looking for setups to land it inbetween his regular play. FADC into ultra from an SRK, EX tatsu in the corner into ultra, trade into ultra, anti-air SRK into ultra, j.MP into ultra, list goes on. What does Fei/Cammy get to “set up” their counte? Nothing, if the opponent’s smart and adjusts their offense. It’s all contingent on the opponent’s actions. Nobody really knows how many frames of recovery there are for this counter, but unless it’s negligible (less than 5 frames) it’s a huge risk for Fei to throw it out. If you guess wrong, you’re fucked. Same can be said for Cammy too, I guess.
Solid defense and good zoning kill Fei Long. Why would they give him an ultra that promotes that EXACT style of play from the opponent?
You can counter everything you’ve stated with a regular ultra. Opponent trying to cross up? Auto correct ultra. Akuma pressure? Ultra. Cammy? Ultra, I’m pretty sure if you can react to a random spiral arrow with a counter ultra, you can do it with a regular ultra.
i think you guys are missing the point i made about taking moves away from charge characters. yes you still get zoned by shotos, and i wouldnt reccomend trying to counter normals because blocking would be infinately more safe. i wouldnt use it against jump ins either because you give your opponent an option of empty jumping. at that point using an anti air is a better choice because you hit them before they make a decision to either empty jump or press their attack. (and about the zangief crossup splash: he can vortex every character in the game except akuma. gouken has a counter, and he still gets zangief vortexed)
but it is undeniable that it has utility against some of the non fireball charge characters who in sf4 fei loses to by a margin of 6-4 in most cases. the ultra will allow you to remove a good portion of their offensive options making those matchups closer to 5-5. if a good shoto/zoning character user like mago, or daigo can get caught by abel or rogs or chuns anti fireball ultras, then im not seeing how the random guys at your local tourney wont get caught throwing headbutt/blanka ball/dash punch/ whatever other special that takes half screen commitment, at an unsafe range or time. (on a side note ultra 1 loses to ex dash punches from rog)
now im not going to say that it will be useful in all situations/matchups because it probrablly wont. but what other ultra options did you guys want. capcom was trying to give the ultra2s secondry uses. so he probrablly wouldnt get another ‘strike type’ ultra for fadc juggles. capcom thinks ultra 1 is ok for that purpose regardless of what we think
the other options were anti fireball ultra (chicken wing ultra woulda been hella sweet), and grab ultra which would have made fei the 12th character of the origional cast with said grab ultra(gimmicky). so capcom went with a new option. would other options have been better? its a debateable matter of opinion, but no matter which way you feel about it, we cant go around acting like a counter is completely useless.
and to be completely honest, ultra 1 would be ok if it was balanced out with the ammount of setups/damage it does. for example, akuma and blanka have no setups for their ultra1’s, but they do gdlk damage. fei has partial setups, so if it did close to the damage that theirs did, almost no one would complain. the main deciding factor on the usefulness of ultra 1 and 2 will be the damage it does in comparison to the easy mode setup ultras. top tier damage on ultra 1 and 2 or bust
I think ultra 2 is going to be pointless unless you play against charge characters…and even though I might still pick ultra 1.
Ultra 1 combos off of a j.rh, you get full ultra 1 off a FA (which albeit, isn’t all that feasible sometimes, but how feasible is ultra 2 going to be? lol), and you get 2 extra hits off your FADC combos. I won’t and can’t list all the moves, but you can also punish things with ultra 1. These are ultra 1’s pros.
Ultra 2 is a counter. Sounds good. But he has a twirl animation + screen flash where he does NOT look invincible. (http://www.youtube.com/watch#v=XPWDCxh-u44&feature=related)(look at 1:04) He loses j.rh ultra and extra 2 hits on FADC combos. Nobody has even posted a good counter ultra on youtube yet.
You can argue “well blanka balls and e.honda’s headbutt and stuff.” But the thing is, if your good, they aren’t going to be doing long range balls or headbutts in the first place, because you punish them. (ball with rekkes, and you flamekick any long range headbutt - both pretty good punishers in and of themselves) So what are we left with? People saying rog’s dash punches? Might help against noobs, but gootecks isn’t going to get hit by ultra 2. At close range - mid range, you will not be able to ultra 2 on reaction ANY BETTER than you will be able to land a lvl 2 FA to ultra 1.
I’m thinking ultra 2 is just going to be funny to use at lower level play. Because once people stop doing attacks so predictably, ultra 2 is out of the window and IT IS just guessing. And this crap about ultra 2 taking away certain options an opponent has…pft…I doubt it. What can a flimsy ass counter ultra take away that hasn’t been “taken away” from punishment already?
Edit: I want people to look at that youtube clip carefully. I mean viper jumps straight up, as predictable as it gets, and does her ultra FIRST. fei long, being the smart player he is, does his fabulous ultra 2 counter! What happens? WATCH!