@zukuu Ok, I think I was a bit unclear. As I said, I want an anti-air that isn’t stuffed when I react to something. Stuffed means that it loses completely to the other move, that it doesn’t even trade. I am totally fine with it trading, but not fine with it losing completely to some moves in this game. I think it’s moronic that a player can just walk up to a distance where my pokes don’t reach, and just do this move, and I MUST take it, block or not. Neither do I want a Cody bandwagon to start rolling around because of his anti-air game, but it’s stupid the way it is now. If this is not remedied, then his backdash and focus backdash needs to be considerably revised.
Also, regarding divekicks, cr.mp teching is your normal of choice. S.mp loses out to pretty much every divekick in the game. Unless your opponent does it from way up high, in which case you should use st.HP or HK Ruffian.
I don’t think HK Ruffian needs to hit crouching opponents at all, my only problem with it is it’s shitty hitbox/hurtbox. I also think of s.HK as a footsie tool, not an anti-air option.
You’re comparing apples with oranges. “look cody’s ultra reaches almost full screen, has only 7f start up and deals huge damage, Why is XYZ characters ultra not so strong”? If you’d take that approach, every character would be identical in the end. Cammy has an entire different design to Cody and Cannon Spike fulfills more than just an anti air role. Cammy is way better in comparison, no question, still it just doesn’t work this way. You have to look at the character as a whole. Cody has just enough options to deal with anti airs, but barely anything in his defense department. It’s just such a low priority at this point, it flat out doesn’t matter imo. I’d rather give up his HK Ruffian entirely in return of a buff to his backdash, backwalk speed or ex criminal upper, making it viable as reversal. EX Zonk is an atrocious game design. You sacrifice SOOOOOOOO many options while charging, then the fact THAT you have to charge it prior to using it + that it costs meter + it’s incredible slow + it’s unsafe - that move is just terrible as “reversal”. I’d consider that he needs a buff there to be “viable” and not to one of his trillion anti airs. Does the removal of the hurt box on his head really makes him a stronger character? I’d say certainly not. Would a reliable “on reaction” reversal make him more viable? Fuck yeah.
In SFxT Law had an incredible good ground game but hat a glaring weakness: anti air. Now they gave him exactly one like you both would be okay with and now he’s borderline broken. Cody might not have the top notch anti air game, but he is certainly high tier in that department - why buff it on top?
It’s like giving a starving person that sits next to a oasis something clean to drink.
I mean, I see it like this:
A better anti air wouldn’t hurt him, but he just doesn’t need one.
We should focus on things that make him better as character overall, and not only marginal easier to use.
While we’re at it, any shoryuken is really technical broken in comparison to a LOT of characters. I mean a 3F start up full invincible reversal is pretty strong, and yet, Ryu isn’t that much better than Cody. The different tools, dis- and advantages are what makes a fighting game work and fun to begin with.
edit:
I don’t mean insta dive kicks, but ones that hit deeper, where hk ruffian would get beaten out.
I think you are ignoring the fact that I pointed out that HK Ruffian is larger than EVERY other non-invincible anti air special. Not even close to the same size. Plus as I said in my original list (3x no less) I’m providing Capcom with as many possible things to work with and as much information as possible to allow for a proper decision. We don’t know how the OTHER characters will play out in terms of changes.
“In SFxT Law had an incredible good ground game but hat a glaring weakness: anti air. Now they gave him exactly one like you both would be okay with and now he’s borderline broken. Cody might not have the top notch anti air game, but he is certainly high tier in that department - why buff it on top”
Don’t put words in my mouth to try and strengthen your argument. Not only is SFxT a totally different game, but I’m asking for a tool to be SLIGHTLY better at anti airing, not invincible for the entire duration to any air attack while also being safe. Also Cody doesn’t have nearly as dominating a ground game in SF4 as Law had in Vanilla SFxT, he was already considered upper tier and many people were playing him at the start until people started concentrating on the safe boost chain meta game. Fanatiq actually did very well early on with Law as did Valle and a few others. Cody however in SF4 has NEVER been considered higher than mid/low mid tier in any version.
Also comparing two anti air specials (or comparing one anti air special and pointing out how it is deficient compared to EVERY other anti air special) is not the same as comparing 2 ultras which may not even fufill the same role. I wouldn’t compare Gief’s Ultra 1 to Ryu’s Ultra 1. But Comparing Gief’s Ultra 1 to T Hawk’s Ultra 1 is a fair comparison as they fufill similar roles.
Also Cody’s ultra 2 is actually 9F if you hit at max distance. It is only 7F at point blank due to how the hit boxes travel forward as the move occurs rather than instantly appearing on the first ctive frame as one large hitbox.
This whole topic really made me realize that we should focus on IMPORTANT buffs. You can point out hitbox differences to other moves as much as you want, I don’t consider buffing hk ruffians hitbox to be of any importance, not while we could ask for so many better things that would help cody tremendously more. I’d like to see it having a shorter recovery or 1F faster start up or hitting against crouching or something as well, but it just pales in comparison to “ex cu” “ex ruffian” “backdash” “backwalk” and the like.
I’m perfectly aware where you’re coming from, I don’t even disagree that hk ruffian isn’t as good as other moves, but he has other solid enough anti air tools on top to work with instead, that it just doesn’t matter much seeing it slightly buffed. It just doesn’t help him fundamentally, it makes it just more marginal more reliable. Screw the knife, screw marginal hit box changes (except if it gives him a decent new tool ala s.MK being actually really awesome). What looks more impressive, if 50 users post the same 5 changes, or if everone posts a huge ass list with marginal buff and tweaks?
We should sit down and really come up with stuff that helps him to be a tournament viable character. I mean, most stuff is obvious, but I like the notion of your rock suggestions for instance, just like the f.HK tweak opens up new ways to use it. I can see that both are way more gameplan affecting and benefiting him than the anti air matter.
I anti air perfectly fine. ^^
Really, Cody is infamous for having a strong anti air game, you make it kinda sound like he has a terrible one like Bison or none at all. O_o
Seeing how everything has to be translated into japanese, that is rather doubtful. “Well explained” might convince Combofiend to pick a specific requested tweak, but I’m pretty sure that will be slimmed down to a mere line.
I mean, what are your Top 3 buffs you think would Cody help the most? Not more, just 3. If everyone would take that approach, we’d probably get a nice little list together of “must haves” and then enrich it with smaller tweaks.
Also more impressive would be 50 Banes holding a speech!
Or realistically? I dunno really they are all about even for me. One other one I thought to add earlier today that I figured I’d post here:
Make close s.LK a low attack. This would give Cody another good normal to deal with stand teching (since it is 4F and + on block) as well as put the fear of standing up against him up close while allowing him to actually link out of a low attack (which he currently cannot)
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I also really want the badstone startup buff and the fake badstone reduction. Those 2 are tied I think for my biggest.
So true. Cody is constantly playing a meta-game with himself of when/if he should charge EX Zonk! I think a lot of non-Cody players don’t appreciate how significantly this affects the way he has to be played, and consequently his overall viability.
I don’t think even capcom is aware of that. That’s why I like the idea of changing zonk / ex zonk’s input to PPP / KKK like Lariat. That alone would mean SO much. Otherwise, EX Cu buff would be a suitable replacement for the most part.
Well it’s obvious that we think he needs different things. When you play against high level players with vortex games, a good backdash will not save you alone. Tools to play footsies and anti-airing is what keeps them out. If I had to choose between a better HK ruffian and a better backdash and backwards walkingspeed, I too would go for the backdash and backwards walking, though.
I’m not sure about PPP / KKK, but Cody has no dp input moves (is he the only non-charge character that doesn’t?..) or even qcb+K. Being able to zonk on reaction at will would be sweet!
I thought making the ex zonk move only PPP/KKK would be too strong, maybe i was wrong. Also don’t pad players have problems playing Cody then? They use the PPP/KKK for sweep and cl.hp and such right?
If i have to focus only on a few then i would disregard knife and anti-air bufs, he doesn’t need them at all.
-Better walkspeed/backdash
-Ex criminal invincibility frames during startup till active frames.
-Ex ruffian projectile invincibily from beginning
-F.hk airborn/decreased hurtbox from below.
If he gets the EX criminal upper buff the better backdash isn’t as usefull anymore and Cody would benefit alot more from a better walkspeed
I don’t think the buffs i mentioned are anything special or unreasonable.
I think Cody having a faster back walk speed is probably the most important buff he needs. After that, airborne crack kick.
Buffs he could use are making LP CU -3 or -4, extended hitbox on st far MK, making slide safe on hit, and reduced frame recovery on fake rocks. Outside of that, how can you really improve an already solid character? Maybe 50 more HP since it matches the idea of the character? I don’t need, nor want Cody to be top tier. He’s fine as he is.
I think buffing the knife any more is waste. How many Cody players kicked up the knife after the 2012 changes? Unless we are talking about Cody keeping the knife unless he gets knocked down, fk the knife.
Nothing wrong with blocking on wakeup. You were the one talking about not fixing a weakness in a character because it would make them OP (Law) well wakeup, mobility, and safety are Cody’s 3 biggest weaknesses.
Besides, if the vortex / unblockables get nerfed and Cody gets better tools to stay on his feet then buffing his defensive options wouldn’t be quite as big of a deal.
Also, another option to buff Cody’s defense in a unique way would be to allow him to spend 2 bars to perform EX Zonk as a guard cancel (E.G. an Alpha Counter) the move was originally designed to be an Alpha Counter and that is the reason it is so slow and also why it has such long recovery on whiff and uses 99 juggle points on the regular version. Cody’s original design from Alpha 3 was created with the Alpha 3 game mechanics in mind. His anti air game was based around normals and that was ok because of air throw to make up for slow normals. His mobility was low with no way to alter jump arc and that was ok because of air blocking. His lack of an SRK type move was ok because of Alpha Counter / Vism Dodge. His badstone was designed SPECIFICALLY with the mechanics of Alpha 3 in mind. It has a slow startup and fast recovery and the badstone moves quickly and it had a somewhat high arc. That meant that it could deal with the somewhat low jump heights in A3, the fast movement speed meant that it did more damage farther away than other fireballs since in A3 fireballs lose damage the longer they remain on screen, which also played perfectly into how badstone worked. Cody could throw a badstone over another fireball and when the opponent got hit the opponent would take more than double the amount of damage Cody took thanks to the distance.
Fake badstone was originally a universal mechanic as everyone in A3 with a fireball could fireball feint.
Of course back in A3 Cody was just flat out FASTER. His walk speed was faster than Ken’s, his normals were significantly faster even when you take into account other characters normals as a comparison. His c.HP = 6F his far HP / HK both were 7F. All his jabs were 3F. His f.HK was 11F and airborne from 2F - finish. His jumping HP was 6F his jumping HK was 7F his jumping MK was 5F. Overall he was only a smidge slower than Ryu/Ken on normals but faster than Adon, Guy, or Blanka. Now in SF4 he is slower than Zangief times change
It’s unfortunate that a lot of the changes to Cody bringing him into SF4 didn’t take into account the loss of systemwide mechanics. Especially air blocking/alpha counters which were incredibly important for a character like Cody.
times change