Oh yeah, I know this, I generally use her great normals to apply pressure or just play footsies. I only use EX tatsu very rarely to mix it up between tick throws; people get hit by walk-up cr.hp xx EX Tatsu quite a bit since they seem to be expecting me to be going for a tick throw. However, I only do that if I have 2 or more bars to ensure that if it’s blocked I’ll still have meter left for tag cancels and such. 130 damage and all red health eliminated or 432/510 damage or at least a +4 on block advantage. If I have the meter to spare (which I usually do) I say it’s worth the risk if you’ve conditioned your opponent to expect a throw. But that’s just me. I don’t end up spending that much meter with her since her strong footsies alone seem to get me pretty far.
And yeah, I need to work LK Tatsu pressure out of my game, I’m so used to it being safe in SF4.
Meh, I still see it as a waste for EX Tatsu. I could do the same with cr.hpxxHp Sho tag cancel and get 500+ damage based on my partner or a safe switch/mix-up. IDK though, I understand what your saying either way.
Your on the right track though. She is very much not like SF4 sakura, and I guess because I’ve played her in various different games it doesn’t really affect me much about LK tatsu pressure(you never pressured with it in CvS2, or Alpha 3). Either way though she did retain a good mix of her Alpha 3 and CvS2 self which does involve her really great normals, and decently good fireball(with the added advantage of stronger throws). She’s a hidden gem in this game IMO. Once people start using her they’ll start to see her potential.
Depends on the situation really. One thing I like about Sakura is her options in certain situations; if her partner is on low life or has a really bad match-up (I use Asuka on anchor…yes I stole Fergus’ team), cr.hp xx EX Shunpukyaku there to get good damage or still maintain the advantage without having to tag your partner in. If her partner is fine on life or Sakura is low on life, cr.hp xx Shooken tag cancel for good damage and get Sakura out of there. Similar thing applies to the footsie game to an extent; st.lk xx launcher if your partner is good on life and you feel you have a good read on your opponent for good meterless damage (veeeerrry risky though), st.lk xx Shooken if you need to get out of there or just want to get your partner in, or st.lk xx EX Shunpukyaku if your partner is low on life and you have the meter to spare (I think this doesn’t combo at certain ranges though, need to double check that).
And yeah, if it wasn’t obvious enough already the only time I used Sakura before this was SF4 Sakura. SSF4 on the 3DS was the first fighting game I ever took seriously. I missed a lot of good fighting games…
Also since you’re on PC abuse HK Tatsu as a combo ender great meter and oki. Once you get the 2k13 patch you’ll miss it… Oh and also the range on her st.lk you’ll miss that too…
Wait, they nerfed the range on st.lk? That’s unfortunate. Well, at least they shrunk the hurtbox as well, I guess.
Does st.lk still out-range cr.lk in 2013? If it doesn’t then I don’t see any real reason to use st.lk over cr.lk, outside of maybe using st.lk if you feel your opponent will try to launch you (and I think cr.lk is fast enough to recover in time so it’s pretty hard to raw launch in the first place).
I still don’t get the meter nerfs to Sakura though. With the nerfs to HK tatsu I don’t see any reason to use it in 2013 over HP Shooken; it looks like HP Shooken now builds the same amount of meter (or a tiny bit less in juggle combos) AND does more damage. At least HK tatsu gave you a ton of meter with the downside of less damage…
Eh, I’ll stick with her regardless, it seems outside of st.lk her strong footsies remain intact. St.hk is still an amazing poke. For some reason everyone gets hit by st.hk xx launcher…either I know my spacing or people just love walking into it.
st.LK has more range but the trade off is too high. cr.LK still lands after 2 reps of lk tatsu and it’s a 2 frame link instead of a 1 frame link. I liked HK tatsu as a combo ender just to switch it up. You can get a jMK tricky cross up after using it as a combo ender. Plus before it was 2 HK tatsus for 1 meter now it’s like 8-10. HP shouken is also around 7-10.
I also put this in the Combo thread but since no one seems to be looking there I’ll post it here;
I found something while experimenting with combos after an EX Tatsu. And I found this combo, which I don’t believe anyone has listed yet;
Jumping HK, cr.hp xx EX Tatsu, jumping HK (delay it), cr.hp xx CADC, cr.hp xx Shooken. 475 damage. Works both mid-screen and in the corner, and even with the CADC your opponent remains in the corner.
That’s 3 more damage than the other combo similar to this one, where you replace the CADC with HK Sakura Otoshi (or LK Sakura Otoshi in the corner), plus it scales one level less than that combo (HK Sakura Otoshi counts one move towards damage scaling while the CADC does not). The timing is weird at first but this combo isn’t really that hard.
You can do that too. You can interchange the st.hp or cr.hp in that combo, it doesn’t seem to matter which one you use. I just prefer cr.hp for some reason I guess.
Is st.hp 3 frames or 4 frames? I know cr.hp is 4 frames, I’m guessing st.hp is 4 frames as well.
cl.st.HP is 3 frames if I’m correct making it her fastest heavy. The only reason I’ll probably never use her CADC, unless it’s to super charge into ch. cl st.Hp, is because of how weird the timing on it is. Seems like it should be faster when in actuality it feels slow at times.
Can Cr. HP and Cr. Lk be linked from Cl.HP xx L Tatsu? For example, Cl.HP xx L Tatsu, Cr.HP xx L Tatsu. I’ve ended up just replacing the Cr.HP part with another Cl.HP. That BnB combo could also be ended with a Cr. Lk in AE, if I’m not mistaken, but it doesn’t want to connect in SFxT. Standing Light is probably the superior move anyways, but I’m just curious if it’s possible to sub in a crouching instead.
Edit: Nevermind, Cr.Lk stated before as a 1 frame link. I’m assuming Cr.HP is in the 1-2 frame range too.
For the life of me, I can’t connect her HP CADC off of the EX Tatsu, no matter how late I throw the J.HK out. Do you have to hit the Cr.HP right as they fall on the very top of the hitbox?
