While the idea of a knock down hori ball seems good to me, but they really keep ignoring blankas true problems.
EX upball needs to cause a knock down on grounded opponents. It’s pretty lame that you can wakeup reversal a balrog and get dash punched. Same for ryu as, if I recall correctly, he can super you off a hit upball (there are more examples, but these are some of my pet peeves). There’s no risk and huge rewards for some characters vs blanka after a knockdown. Giving him this knockdown would in no way make him overpowered either, if anything it would be putting him on par with all other characters in the game.
I can’t think of any other unsafe on hit moves in the game really. Much less a wake reversal that can cause you to get by a super or ultra ON HIT.
The overhead change is nice, but I really don’t see myself using it much. I’ve gotten away with the current one more than a few times, but it’s nothing I would use in a high pressure situation.
Thinking about the changes.
It may be that EX ball and HP ball do different things?
Like maybe ex ball adds extra hitstun for possible ultra combos, whereas hp ball knocks down?
Or some kind of mix similar to that?
Random thoughts
I hope it’s blow-back animation is like Yuns ex.palm complete with yellow explosion off the back wall. The animation sequence is already in stock for the graphic designers, they may as well use it. It’d save money.
Honestly I thought we were going to get nothing. So I’m pretty happy.
Very excited to see what distance I’m left at after a ball kd. Also finally have a reason to try and use that overhead.
Sure we’re not going to automatically get catapulted up any tier lists, but we actually have some new stuff to try out. Blanka is old and dusty and being creative with him and finding new stuff nowadays is damned hard. (Shout outs to Ves, Illitirit and others).
While the game didn’t necessarily get any easier, it did just get more interesting.
After ball expect zero chances for offensive pressure. In no version of SF has he been able to rush down after a ball. Expect blanka’s distance after a ball combo to be approximately the distance after a blocked jab ball.
its likely confirmed bc the same wording is used for vega’s off the wall claw attack. The only thing that would make sense for vega’s off the wall claw would be a knockdown, so its likely blowback = knockdown.
Honostly the changes sound very realistic. The ball change is extremely limited and only will happen in very close ball combos. The overhead seems likely to be fucked up bc capcom will not even realize that the overhead dont work when opponent is ducking. The damage increase is a wash.
In other words, these are the usual minimalistic meh kinda buffs that I think everyone is very used to, hence making them extremely plausible.
Possible to change? Certainly, balancing this shit aint easy, but I wouldnt expect much more, or less, bc it seems about right for a capcom effort.
BUT, if I was a honda player, I would be fucking jumping all over the place in glee and happiness!
Depending on the sakura changes, im checkin her out, reminds me of alpha 2 days, her links arent too hard, high damage, good footsies, and more alpha 2 memories!
Sakura is good, I play her a bit. My biggest problem with her is that sometimes I feel like I can’t keep people out if I play perfectly and with Blanka I always feel like that.
They both feel somewhat similar though in a lot of ways.
similar except that at any moment sakura can do 40% damage with like 1 bar of meter.
But I agree, sakura normals do remind me of blanka, she now has a great crossup, and her lk hurricane is kinda like a lk ball excet its 0 on block, and she has many 3 frame normals, and her close FP is a 3 frame fierce attack, and …
these changes interest me, they address 2 of blankas weakpoints, but in a kinda crappy way
Firstly blanka sucks at punishing for good damage outside of having full meter. If you can punish with jab x ball x fadc > jab x elec he will have something at least, although he still needs charge which he often won’t have. i hope balls don’t knockdown, afterall, they do say you can fadc stuff afterwards. skyhigh claw doesn’t knockdown, but it doesn’t leave vega +frames on hit in AE either, so i hope they’re extending the + frames on both moves so blanka and vega can get momentum when they successfully land the moves.
2nd he’s no good at opening opponents up, if he can combo off the overhead that is something, it’s not great because the overhead is really slow. people get hit by the overhead but that’s mainly because they don’t know blanka even has one. i think utility will be limited because of the speed but it IS something. Can we currently score a knockdown cr.hk and then close in to whiff a overhead in order to bait a reversal? it’s been so long i can’t remember
If you sweep then dash/hop overhead is a meaty. If you sweep then dash/hop and do whiff rockcrusher as a fake overhead you are like +3 or so iirc. So you can block there, backdash, throw out a low, or kara throw(which will throw wakeup crouch tech :D)
ok yeah i remember now. Looks like i might return to the fold if these buffs turn out to be decent. if overhead is +5 then i wonder what our meaty plus frames is, can we get a cr.hk link in i wonder. i love a bit of knockdown looping!
