-Close standing HK increased recovery frame from 15 to 17, 3 more frames of advantage against standing opponent, 2 more frames of advantage against crouching opponent, 2nd hit is now cancellable into focus, red focus, and super
-Light Hadoken travels slower
-Heavy Hadoken travels faster
These buffs are actually pretty good since they give him something new and make his existing tools better. Cl.hk will now be an easy hit confirm into red focus. I already use it sometimes to catch backdashes but now it sets up an incredibly dangerous and easy frame trap.
I’ve always envied the speed of Ken’s light hadoken, it really made it hard for the opponent to neutral jump over his fireballs. Hopefully Ryu’s will be more like Ken’s. This will make Ryu a better zoner and give him some hadoken setups.
Thinking about some stuff that might be possible with the FB buff:
-Combo into UC2 at more ranges from cr.mk xx LP FB > FADC UC2.
Used to have to space it right so the FB would hit late so you could combo into UC2. Maybe now since LP FB is slower, you can combo it from closer ranges.
-cr.mk xx HP FB is a true block string at more ranges since HP FB is now faster.
The fireball changes are pretty cool and I’m sure they are going to play out really well but I’m looking at the comeback factor of CS.HK. Imagine getting a sweep walk up CH CS.HK confirm the second hit into red focus ultra or super. That’s going to be the online tactic of the week after this update and I think it’ll be godlike.
Now these types of buffs were something that Ryu should’ve gotten from Ultra’s debut. I’m just glad it’s not another “Juggling” buff nonsense. I wished he would’ve gotten more, but these three buffs are actually nice. The only thing now is to wait and see/test how much of a difference the fireball improvements were.
Not much of a buff if second hit doesn’t soft knockdown…
Light punch hadoken was counter to focus dash ins, now ryu has another blind spot where he can’t put out hadokens. He’ll either get jumped on or get focused dashed in on right outside of sweep range…
Ryu still has no real way to combo into red focus lvl one conveniently…
The combination of how long ryu’s hadoken animation is on top of how close the fireball is when it is created requires ryu’s slow fireball to be quite fast. When you are outside of normals range, you need ryu’s slow fireball to still pose a threat to jumpers while still forcing a focus dash cancel to be negative. Slowing down the fireball allows the opponent to confirm the slow fireball, jump it and hit you or he/she can confirm the fast fireball, focus dash through it and punish you.
The slow fireball at correct distances (outside of normals range) used to force the opponent to focus preemptively and be negative on a forward dash forcing them to block your crouch forward hadoken block string (punishing them sometimes as well.) This is because the threat of a faster fireball that catches jumps while the slower fireball moves at a fast enough speed to second guess its speed. Heavy usage of the medium hadoken makes things even more difficult for the opponent to figure out.
Ryu’s medium speed hadoken is fast enough that when focus dashed through, he will more than likely be at disadvantage or punished.
All this is because ryu’s fireball is a footsie tool, not a setup tool…
I like the changes. Always wanted a faster fireball. Cl.hk is also at least +5 now on standing opponents. Only tested a few characters but I was doing cl.hk, c.mk xx fireball fadc, U2 last night. Looks like it’ll work on everyone in the corner. I was also doing c.mk xx ex fireball fadc, U2(no animation). When did they add that? I thought it’d only hit on CH.
that seems like a pretty weird conclusion to make. I mean, you can’t “confirm a slow fireball, jump it, and hit” someone. that’s literally not a possible thing to do, regardless of fireball speed. also, if ryu’s fast fireball is faster, that makes making midrange neutral jumps and focuses more challenging, because the speed difference between fast and slow is going to be larger.
if the argument is that a slower fireball means people will be able to react later, keep in mind this is being backed up by a faster fast fireball, so people will actually have to react earlier most of the time. it’s not just a slow fireball, it’s not just a slow fireball being slower, it’s a fast fireball being faster, so that the difference between fast and slow increases.
this is all speculation from me as I haven’t had a chance to play the new version today - it all hinges on how fast and slow it is, of course!
You don’t understand neutral and the importance of zoning in footsies…
I did not say that you would get punished, I said the hadoken would get jumped. Between burn kicks, divekicks, demon flips, tatsus and more, you aren’t going to AA someone who knows what they are doing when you let off a slow fireball. Playing footsie with the slow hadoken is going to give your opponent an opportunity and anybody who is worth their salt in street fighter will know how to abuse the situation…
As for the close roundhouse buff, lets see how punishable -4 really is before we praise the buff. Once upon a time the mix up (frame trap) was safe, we may be losing a valuable tool in certain match ups…
What does any of this have to do with his slow fireball being slower? Throwing a fireball is always a risk, having a greater speed difference between fast and slow fireballs is only going to make reacting appropriately more difficult. A focus in on a slower fireball is going to leave you at better advantage, also.
Reaction punishes to slow fireballs will be effective, but they were always effective. You can’t visually confirm whether a fireball is fast or slow and THEN commit to some option like burn kick or low altitude dive kick with any kind of quick timing, that’s literally impossible, the whole reason why changing up fireball speeds is effective is because they all look exactly the same until they travel a portion of the screen. Yes against characters you can’t really zone, you’ll always have problems, because you’ve always had these problems. No one is suggesting that characters like C. Viper or Adon are going to suddenly be zonable, but that’s always been a problem.
Also now that I’ve got a chance to play, I just want to say that his fast fireball owns bones, really happy with how that turned out.
For whatever reason I really didn’t expect the faster fierce Hadoken to actually seem faster. I was wrong. It seems quite noticeably faster. I’m truly surprised that Ryu got a buff of any sort. Really didn’t see that coming.
Probably not, the DP fadc being safe alone makes Vanilla better. Not to mention a good boost in damage, better hitbox on cr.mk, and being able to combo into ultra from a trade with light dp.
