61

can still unblockable rufus, but not all of the unblockables work still.

Blanka still wins neutral IMO. They both do more damage.

62

How is Elena’s b. hk? is it safe on block? In 3s it particularly useful for baiting throws and going over lows if timed right. I figured this would be made into a useful tool just like in 3s.

63

b.hk (round arch) goes over lows pretty reliably. shoto c.mk whiffs entirely under it and gets hit. presumably (haven’t tested) you can combo on counterhit since it’s usually +1 on hit, plus you’re airborne for most frames. 0 on block.

problem is that you have to be reallllllly close to hit with it, and it starts slow (13f). it actually has a great hitbox, but sf4 isn’t like 3s; everyone’s always mashing jabs fishing for damage. seems like a good way to beat slower crouch techs at least.

64

It’s because people don’t know she’s actually unsafe on most of her offense that people think she’s good.

65

In 3S her b+HK was airborne on like frame 1 so she could kill throw games easily with it. I’m sure they figured that would be cheap in this game.

66

Sounds like 3rd Strike all over again.

67

I hate Elenaa because people just do the fucking dash dances all day like they’re playing Makoto and shit. Like wtf, no one wants to see that.

68

Elena was better against divekick offense in 3s than Chun. Back roundhouse seriously shut down a lot of divekick angles or post divekick options. is that intact with her at all in ultra?

69

Yeah, but aside from that, if you wanted to play a ranged spacing/poking character in 3S, you were better off with Chun.

70

I’m curious to see how Rolento does after all the nerfs. Nothing really stands out about him anymore, and losing both of his good reversal tools completely neuters his defense. Nemo also didn’t seem to thrilled about the changes on his twitter.

71

His offense still seems solid but yeah I agree, I think they did go a bit overboard because he was doing so well. However characters with his design are going to do very well early on until everyone figures them out. Sort of like how high execution characters always falter early on and grapplers do well.

72

Fei Long is still a beast, just sayin.

73

I think Elena was designed to have the worst time with Ken…

74

I think makoto is gonna be top tier

75

The following are my inital impressions and are probably way off just like everyone elses, but here goes…

Balrog is mostly the same FWIW. If the meta is more footsie based like capcom wanted he should improve slightly in the tiers, but I have a feeling it won’t be they way capcom intended. He still has no mixups and is totally free on wakeup to guys like Akuma.

I think Elena sucks. Her best attribute is her wonky hitbox.

Hugo has some crazy lopsided matchups right now imo, I know grapplers often do but this guy takes it to the extreme. Some matchups he gets totally kept out, and others he can do no wrong.

Poison and Rolento seem like decent mid-tier characters but I don’t know a ton about them yet. Not really sure how Poison will end up being played, she doesn’t have an obvious niche imo. Kind of reminds me of Gouken.

Decapre seems pretty good but I have no idea how her matchups will be. Her mixups are good, her ultras are good, normals are fine, seeing as they’re mostly cammy’s. A lot of people still aren’t playing her right and doing a lot of unsafe stuff, her jab hands move seems good and she has air mobility which is always nice. I have no idea if her reversal is legit or if it’s easily stuffable like Flash Kick.

Cammy is still good, not top 3 good, but still relevant. Low short nerf not as bad as I thought, but DWU hurts her. She won’t get nearly as many dizzys anymore.

Fei and Akuma are still amazing.

E.Ryu was already really good and I think he’s even better now.

Gief seems better, the greenhand buffs are very useful and RFC will be a big part of his gameplan. The s.mp nerf is minor, it’s still an amazing button. Not sure if people will play W-ultra with him but it’s a good option to have nonetheless.

Guy’s pressure is improved, I’m judging this mostly of what I saw on WNF and NLBC. I think he’ll be a tournament contender now.

Dee Jay needs a gun. He is ass.

T.hawk is better but I’m not sure where he’ll end up in the tiers. Grapplers are so matchup reliant so I can’t predict.

Sim is mostly the same, although he does have better punish combos so he gets a little more damage. Still going to be free to certain rushdown characters but DWU will help him. Still low-tier.

I really have no idea about Ken and Ryu, they seem mostly the same from the matches I played.

I think Makoto and Juri are both really good and we’ll see them contend in tournaments once people catch on. Right now there aren’t a lot of good players with these two characters.

Sakura will (still) be top 10, the tatsu nerfs she got don’t really affect her much but her far s.hp being cancellable is a big addition. Her stun is lower though so she won’t be able to just explode with a few bars like she could in 2012. Seems capcom wanted to get rid of all the easy stuns we were seeing in the last game, too bad they gave everyone new opportunities with RFC.

Yun seems really good just like everyone else seems to think. Not sure about Yang yet.

Honda ex HHS changes are nice, makes for some easier big damage combos, but the headbutt changes are awful. Low tier again I would guess.

76

Rolento is garbage in the console release. He has some okay normals but gets rushed down for free.

-He has no wakeup move at all. They took out the invincibility on his ex backroll and ex patriot circle. PPP has no range, easy to see and punish. ex mekong delta escape would be a great reversal but keep reading.

-mekong delta escape is useless. You can barely control where he hands and he’ll always land within your opponents distance. It is called mekong delta ** escape ** yet he is launching himself back into enemy territory. You can’t even play a runaway game anymore because this move is so useless.

-he has slow movement, crappy dashes, mediocre damage. No reversal wouldn’t be the end of the world but he can’t even weave in and out of opponents attack range. Walk speed, back rolls are super slow. Same with his dashes and they cover no distance. His damage mainly comes from patriot circle combos but since its multi hit, it gets scaled down quickly should you go for fadcs.

-deceptive normals. Standing mp was a great anti air but they chopped the active frames in half. Now he doesn’t have an anti air which doesn’t trade. His jumping hp active frames got slashed in half too making it whiff despite the animation. C.hk is also extremely unsafe on block. The first quarter of his pipe on his c.hp has no hitbox.

In a nutshell he has no reversal, has no mobility nor his signature runaway game, doesn’t have the damage and fraudulent specials and normals.

77

Her stun was untouched. If ANYTHING her stun was BUFFED.

That’s her change list.

Because her far HP is now bufferable and it does 200 stun she actually can do higher stun damage combos from mid screen than before with crMK if she chooses to use far HP (it IS an 8F normal). Also it means that she can do her fireball setup and then hit with farHP instead of crMK (since she spaces it to be meaty she is + enough on hit to combo to far HP) and buffer it to Shouoken.

78

For some reason I thought they nerfed it, maybe they did in the arcade one but reverted it? Idk thanks for the correction though.

79

Nope. Sakura, Viper, and Ibuki have basically been riding the gravy train to buff city since day 1. Very minor nerfs given how strong they already are while also getting noticeably useful buffs like far HP / viper’s crMK / Ibuki’s walk speed and free juggle state TCs

80

call me crazy, but i think fei long is better in this version than he was before