Recent trend in top level matches with Elena is the turtle-rush down style Elena.
Mix ups of extreme runaways and then healing with SA3, running the clock down til timeout has been very effective.
When they least expect, sudden rushing them with repeated overhead/low attacks till they are stunned.
This has placed Elena in a position where she is able to handle the likes of Urien, Ken, Yun and even out-turtle Chun.
All the people who dont know about this, its because its top level matches in Japan we are talking about here.
Looking forward to you guys seeing this demonstrated in the danisen matches.
I always thought SA3 Elena can be a huge pain in the ass to deal with. She’s kinda’ like a reverse Denjin Ryu, needs one knock down then heal for 30% life.
I’ve been trying SA3 Elena out and I don’t really care for her that much. You’re basically forced to turtle because you can’t really punish a lot of things that you normally would with SA2. You’d have to be good at parrying to really get the most out of her.
Actually, the way I’m thinking is that SA3 Elena players tend to play MORE aggressive. She doesn’t have means of guaranteed damage off SA2, so they try to make up for it by using EX combos.
But all of her combos are based off of crMP, which is an easy parry. And the only way you’d connect that is if: The other guy is dumb or punishing him for a mistake. That’s mostly it. There’s no middle ground with SA3 Elena.
Elena DOES have more than one normal to combo into Specials that aren’t EX Spin Scythe.
Her overall gameplan doesn’t change too much between Supers: poke, high/low mixups, karathrow. She can do pretty well without having to use her Supers that much; it’s just SA2 can give her big damage easier. Granted she may need SA2 against Chun/Yun/certain small characters, but it’s not a terrible choice against most of the cast in my opinion, and even gives her a major advantage over at least two characters.
Not to say that it’s better than SA2, obviously, but it’s not a terrible choice because Elena is good like that.
Whilst I don’t know how SA3 Elena players actually play, I know that if I was playing her that would seem like the most logical way to play her. Bare in mind also that, SA3 makes Elena’s throw game much more problamatic.
These kinds of unquantifiable supers are part of what makes 3s so very cool. i always think of things like healing, aegis, x-copy, makoto’s sa-3, denjin, etc. mostly obscure supers that change elements of the game up considerably and allow for all sorts of weird gameplay.
it just expands the possibilities dramatically as compared to just everyone have some basic super combo.
that and the idea of multiple stock/varying bar lengths and ex is just fucking brilliant imho. maybe they didn’t get the balance quite right but the concept for the balance is absolutely genius. tying all that shit together allows different qualities to matter in different ways to each character. really a stroke of genius.
Here’s a classic FFA/Interface match vid of BuffOtaku’s Healing Elena vs Arlieth Makoto.
[media=youtube]bJQ0GCQEBRQ]YouTube - SFIII: 3rd Strike - Interface SinglesTournament [Part 7[/media]
Granted Elena doesn’t rush down much because it’s Makoto, but you’ll see how Elena makes good use of EX moves.
P.S.- After some digging around in the Elena forum, Roshi needs to step it up with the trolling because he’s getting stale.
