Hey guys, been labbing it up. Some Honda stuff I’ve figured out so far, mostly against the new characters
General:
EX hands link is Easy street now. If you have 1 meter, no reason not to combo into it. Huge damage.
Punishes:
Poison Fireball is slow to recover. U1
Poison Love me tender (NOT OVERHEAD): Super/ u2 punish
Combos:
Standing Elena:
C.jab x hands, c.jab xhands
Crouching Hugo:
c.jab xx Fierce HHS, mash MP ~ Ultra 1 (499 Dmg)
Jewelman combo (jab xx Hands, EX Hands, c.jab hands) works on
Standing/Crouching Hugo
standing/crouching Elena (can do HK ender. Elena is fat)
Standing/ Crouching Rolento (Standing you can do c.jab x hands, ex hands, c.jabx hands, HK)
Quirks/Notes:
Decapre:
Hands doesn’t hit all the way on crouching Decapre. Doesn’t look to be punishable.
I tested this a little bit. close up, cr.jab xx fierce hands whiffs the last ~two hits on crouching Decapre. She can block or DP the s.HK followup if you autopilot and try it, but you can’t be punished otherwise.
but from far away, even more of the fierce hands whiffs and she can punish with DP.
decapre gets ultra 2 off of any blocked headbutt
rolento gets ultra 1 off of any blocked headbutt, and ultra 2 on all except lp. slide punishes blocked hp headbutt.
poison gets ultra 1 off blocked point blank ex headbutt. probably catches other headbutts if honda is in the corner.
elena gets ultra 1 off of blocked close ex headbutt. might have to be blocked standing. hp mp get ultra 1’d on block, lp gets ultra 1’d if honda’s in the corner or if blocked standing
hugo gets lp clap off of blocked hp headbutt, and cr.lk xx lariat off of blocked ex or any if honda is cornered and close
Indeed so, I’m compiling an usf4 combo list for reasons like these.
Bit by bit am I going by all characters. Once I’m doing experimenting ex hands on all characters I’ll post it in the combo thread.
Although I should point out that in Ultra some characters that c.jab starter didn’t work on previously, work now. Rufus can be hit by c.jabxhands > EX HHS now, I believe I’ve done the same with Adon but I’m gonna retest that one.
Dudley, Rose, and Rufus now all get hit by c.jab x HHS > EX HHS. All the other characters (Adon, Dan, Honda, Fuerte, Fei Long, Vega) still have to be hit by s.jab in order for the EX HHS to connect.
That’s interesting, I wonder what they changed for crouching jab to work on more characters now (instead of just standing jab).
Less pushback on cr.jab?
If that were the case, it would affect all the other characters I’d think. USF4: Weird Hitbox edition has some weird things I’ve been discovering haha.
Honda really gets worked as far as combos go against Shotos. Can’t do s.hk unless at certain ranges after jab hands, can’t do EX HHS. The most you can eek out is another Fierce Hands but I’d really rather get that 225 instead of 205 lol.
Its up to the players to make it work man. That goes double for Honda because you just get the feeling capcom/combofiend just don’t like him. I felt the same about fuerte except when CF came they did a better job with him. He was always nerfed/buffed in every version even though fuerte always sucked. Combofiend is doing 70-80% of what he can regarding balance well just some people seem to have gotten the shaft. Dee Jay, Honda and probably some I don’t remember make that list small list.
I’m just tired of the bandwagon so many people have jumped on saying “Honda sux, he can’t win.” Especially since Mike Ross and Hoodaman said it. Because there aren’t any other Hondas, right? I picked up Honda right before Ultra’s release and I am HUNGRY to show people that Honda is a good character and still viable.
Right now I think the Honda players that have been playing him for a while (not the guys on this forum, you guys know what’s up!) are just not playing him correctly in this version. Not optimizing damage, falling back on familiar strategies and not adapting to the new engine mechanics and really not knowing matchups.
thing is i can shit on 90% of players with honda… its that 10% its really hard to win with using him. a lot of top players really know how to exploit his weaknesses. you pretty much just have to turtle up really hard and play a solid footsie game to beat him. dont know if you guys saw snake eyez vs akimo last night but thats basically what happened. thats a match where honda actually should win and he got bopped. akimo is an amazing player and obviously snakeyez is godlike but the fact he could outrange that st hk was huge. he stood at the PERFECT range and just whiff punished all day and walked him into the corner.
the strength of honda is 100% about controlling life lead and walking the opponent backwards. if you are getting cornered or behind, my god you have an uphill battle. a couple of the matchups feel pretty unwinnable because of that.
a few things i think are unexplored
red focus in neutral vs. zoners - if you get a read on something like: guile - boom, dash up, normal - you can red focus that and make a sick comeback
red focus vs. divekicks / jumps - same deal - most of the time you start up too slow with reg focus but you can absorb their string and light em up with red
HHS, Ultra - seems like there are many characters this is working on now, yet to see it in pro play
u1 - i have been able to actually use this as an AA now with the 1 faster frame. crazy huh? need to see better use of this not just for fireball reads
ex hhs - not seeing it enough or seeing it too much (i.e. 3 bars on 1 combo = huge waste) kinda torn on this cause of the damage nerf. would like to see more resets used with it.
st mp - never see this button its actually quite good
thanks