Light Dash Punch: Able to move faster after connecting with this attack (-2F->-1F)
Light Dash Swing Blow: Damage has been reduced (80->70)
Light Dash Swing Blow: Stun has been reduced (100->70)
Light Dash Swing Blow: Less advantageous when this attack hits the opponent (10F->0F)
Light Dash Swing Blow: Less disadvantageous when the attack is blocked (-5F->-2F)
Light Dash Swing Blow: Charge time has been reduced (55F->45F)
Medium Dash Swing Blow: Charge time has been reduced (55F->50F)
Medium Dash Swing Blow: Less disadvantageous when the attack is blocked (-7F->-6F)
Medium Dash Swing Blow: Less advantageous when this attack hits the opponent (10F->2F)
Turn Punch: Charge time for levels 2~5 has been reduced to 2 seconds, 4 seconds for each level after that
Violent Buffalo: If the player holds punches for the last hit, Balrog performs a straight. If he holds kick, Balrog performs an uppercut
Dirty Bull: Command has been changed (63214×2+PPP->720+PPP)
Dirty Bull: Recovery has been reduced when it does not connect (58F->48F)
Dirty Bull: Reach has been extended (1.09->1.3)
Dirty Bull: Damage has been reduced (399->250)
Old changes[details=Spoiler]Changes:
**- Light Punch Dash Swing Blow 0 on hit, -2 on block.
Medium Punch Swing Blow now +2 on hit, -3 on block.**
Now boxer has a safeish overhead, but he can’t combo afterwards. I assume that the fierce and ex versions still the same (+10 on hit). Thats a great buff imo.
- Last hit of his Ultra 1 can either be Punch or Kick now.
I guess this fix the last hit of his ultra whiffing when Boxer is too far from the opponent, i.e punishing fireballs. Another buff (I think).
- Dash Straight now -1 on hit, -1 on block.
Spam that all day, at any distance now, even against 2 frame grabs. And since its -1 on hit, I assume you can FADC and link into low jab (like MP and HP).
- EX Dash Ground Smash is now -1 on block. (changed from -3)
If they didn’t change the push back, this is probably impossible to punish now.
So far Boxer only received buffs, what you guys think?
[/details]
Lets see:
Akuma can not longer use palm OS sweep/U2 because of the delayed wakeup mechanic. Akuma has increased recovery on air fireballs. Without a vortex, this matchup just got even (at least).
Gief: Dashstraight is safe. You can even use EX ground smash now and it’s safe.
Seth: His mixup game is getting nerfed. But, this will probably still be a shitty match.
Sim: Might be really harder now with his st.MK beating EX moves and focus.
Ryu: Ryu is still in this game? lol. This match is over for ryu; he can’t punish straights, can’t punish ground smash, can’t punish the new overhead.
Cammy: She is done. She can’t use divekick anymore, so cr.HP,st.MP all day long. Delayed wakeup will hurt her too.
Not going to list all, but there will be many changes to boxer’s matchups and all are going to be better than this current version.
Seth, Sagat, Sim, and Guile (maybe Chun) seem like they’ll be the only problems for the big bad boxer.
Here are his real changes that I could translate from this picture taken from the actual location test here.
NOTE: My Japanese sucks, so these may not be 100% accurate. I do however know basics and did use cross-referencing to check for accuracy.
LP Dash Straight:
-Hit (dis)advantage changed from [-2F] -> [-1F]
-Block (dis)advantage changed from [-3F] -> [-1F]
LP Dash Swing Blow:
-Charge time changed from [55F] -> [35F]
-Damage changed from [80] -> [70]
-Stun changed from [100] -> [70]
-Hit advantage changed from [+10F] -> [0F]
-Block (dis)advantage changed from [-5F] -> [-2F]
MP Dash Swing Blow:
-Charge time changed from [55F] -> [40F]
-Hit advantage changed from [+10F] -> [+2F]
-Block (dis)advantage changed from [-7F] -> [-3F]
EX Dash Ground Smash:
-Block (dis)advantage changed from [-3F] -> [-1F]
Dirty Bull:
-Input motion changed from [HCBx2+PPP] -> [360x2+PPP]
-Recovery changed from [58F] -> [48F]
-Grab range changed from [1.09] -> [1.3]
-Damage changed from [399] -> [120]
Violent Buffalo
-Final attack can be registered with a §unch button [Dash straight], or a (K)ick button [Dash Upper].
So it seems as if they made Balrog into a less damaging, but much safer and well rounded character. It’s looking like I may have found a new main if they keep it up.
We should definitely wait until the final changelist is presented before we really pass judgement but, i’ll give my two cents so far:
I’m not really happy with the changes thus far, nothing ground-breaking. The ONLY change i feel is really good is making dash straight safe. The modifications to overhead are hella experimental, without reducing the startup significantly, Balrog is still stringing into a normal cancelled into overhead. Making them safer on block and nerfing their damage doesn’t do anything really IMO. It seems as if Capcom’s idea was to make Balrog be able to mix up high and low dashes and then mixup light overhead with heavy/ex overhead which presumably is still +10 on hit. IF the gap between a hit/blocked normal cancelled into lp/mp overhead is still more than 5f its almost just as useless.
IF they’d done that type of mashable safe to lp.headbutt i feel it would have been much more useful, even with less or no invincibility, even with increased charge time etc.
Also i feel that nerfing U2’s damage made it incredibly more useless. I use U2 A LOT and have stunned off of it a handful of times, 120 damage (versus 400) is zero reward for actually landing the ultra. There’s mention of reducing its recovery which doesn’t give enough information, in the event the reduced recovery allows more oki or even a “setup” after landing then maybe this change is for the best, but if the recovery is only useful on whiff etc, Balrog can’t event dash forward (or more than twice) safely in ten frames and it made a bad Ultra even worse.
Since they changed U2 to 720 input and drove the damage into the ground, is it possible it’s an instant grab now? That would make it a lot like a normal grab only its untechable and has more stun.
120 damage on U2? What the fuck is the point of using it then? ALL of his basic B n B’s do more damage than that. 700 stun is nice, but 120 damage? I was initially excited about the range being improved on, but if the damage is that weak and it’s changed back to two 360s I have zero interest in using Dirty Bull. More like Dirty Lame Calf!
I will be at the USF4 location test at NEC in Philly next weekend and aside from the announced changes, I will test the following:
Startup and recovery of Dashing low punch (all versions)
Startup and recovery of LK rush upper
Startup and recovery of u2. (I want to test if you can still jump out of it and I want to test how much time you have for Oki after landing it)
Damage and range of new Ultra 1 ender
startup of new LP and MP deadly swing blow
recovery of TAP past level 1 TAP (they didn’t really explain the changes to TAP)
Recovery of buffalo headbutt (perhaps they reverted it back to how it was in Vanilla/Super)
If you guys saw my post on Capcom-unity you’ll notice that some of the changes implemented so far were based on a lot of the changes I suggested. Right now Capcom is obviously just experimenting with these changes but if you guys want an idea. Here’s that post for you guys that haven’t seen it:
For those of you that won’t be able to attend the location test, let me know on here what you want me to test and I’ll do my best to answer all your questions.
Awesome, there’s been talk about buffs to cr.mp, also I suppose it’d make sense to see if j.hp was returned to any particular glory it had in vanilla (e.g. in the corner, cr.hk, fwd.dash, jump back j.hp or Ultra, 1xbwd.dash, 3xfwd.dash jump back j.hp).
Very interested to see if there’s any possibility for oki after U2, but with the damage nerf it’s kinda useless IMO.
Combofiend just said on capcomfighters’ stream that HP and Ex overhead were untouched, so Balrog still can combo after an overhead.
Now I think your opponent gonna have to think before trying to punish Boxer’s overhead, because if you throw a jab one and they try to punish it, you can use ex rush, ex headbutt, ultra 2 etc. it’s really hard to tell which version of overhead Rog does (besides ex one) thus making your opponent confused if it was a punishable overhead or not. Just one little mind game for Rog’s strategy.
We’ll see what happens, imo -2 on block doesn’t give rog an advantage. -2 means Rog is safe if he doesn’t press a button, but generally means that his jab gets beaten by everyone with a 3/4f normal that’s in range. Like Dictators scissor kicks being -1 on block make people afraid to press buttons because of the pushback and the fact that his fastest normal is 3f so anyone with a 4f normal will always trade with dictator’s follow up cr.lk. -2 means that all Balrog can do to theoretically punish people is a U2 read. Also coupled with the fact that overhead on block should have no or very little pushback if he buff in 2012 still stands. It’s very possible that the lp/mp versions have more pushback on block than the hp/ex.
Alas this is all theory fighter, my scene had an impression that Zangief would be total ass with his changes and Snake Eyez debunked that theory.
Edit: On the upside it gives him another -2 for frame traps (now meterless), prior to his only other -2 was ex.ds which is now a meterless -1 along with ex.smash which is another -1. Also think about ex.dl (*fixed) which is -3 but virtually unpunishable due to pushback.
Another random idea, how positive is Balrog on lp/mp.OH FADC? if the recovery is identical for hp/ex it’s possible that he’s still positive enough for medium normals like cr.mk or at least a cr.lp
120 on U2 and reverted back to 720 motion? Unless they made it like Alex’s Stun Gun Headbutt in Third Strike I really don’t see a reason to touch this Ultra ever again. Then again, SGH did quite a bit of damage.
EX Dash Straight is -2 on block currently not -3 and (as far as I know) has never been -3 in any version. One thing I did notice in the usf4 location test is that Rog’s far standing jab seemed to be hitting a crouching Makoto. It could have been due to fuzzy guard where Makoto happened to start crouch guarding at the same time rog pressed far jab but this is something I will definitely test when I get my hands on the game this weekend. The few times I saw UsF4 rog on the stream, they weren’t trying out any of his new changes so I don’t know too much about the new rog yet. I’m also going to ask Combofiend some questions if he’s at NEC.
