I understand how frame-data works, but am too lazy to calculate it. I can do most of the Normal Trial 5’s, but I’m just curious about which one’s are considered “hard”. As an example:
Easy: Ken short x3
Medium: Bison short x3
Hard: Zangief short x3
Very Hard: E. Honda short x3
Of course these are just based on my personal experiences. Basically I want to know which links have a 1, 2, or 3 frame window timing or close to it.
Bison’s c.lk to c.lp is pretty tough as well as close s FP to s lk.
Ken’s c.LKs chains, if you want to link them they are 1-frame links.
M.Bison and Zangief’s “c.LK -> c.LK” are 2-frame links.
There’s A LOT of 1 frame links. Most links have a 1-5 frame window. some examples of 1 frame links:
Akumas far s.LP -> Far s.LK
Sakura’s LK Tatsu -> c.HP.
Seth’s s.HK -> c.MP.
Blanka c.LK/c.MK -> Ultra.
Honda c.LK -> c.LK
Ryu f.HP -> c.HP
Guile c.LP -> c.MP.
Yeah…the difficulty is just determined by the frame data. No 1 frame links are harder than others in theory. In practice, any combo that requires an unplinkable attack to combo is probably the hardest. I can’t even really think of one right now…
abel f+mk dash cancel to close hp
akuma loop
Balrog ex upper to jab
Honda ex hands to crouching jab
ryu f+hp, c.hp
are the only 1 frame links you see a lot off in matches. I would think Abels far jab into f+mk would be harder then a one frame link because you need to make the jab meaty
No one mention Cammy’s s.lk, s.mp, c.mk. I don’t know about you guys but I can all of the stuff listed above but only been able to pull that Cammy’s link once after hours and hours doing the trial.
Thanks for all of the responses, guys. I appreciate it.
Any 1 frame link that you cannot plink, like Vega’s cr.lp -> cr.lp -> cr.lp
The only thing that could be harder than that is a 1 frame link where the delay you have to wait from the previous move is longer (if you have to wait for a longer time it’s more likely you won’t be frame-perfect), however I don’t know any such combo.
So afaik the hardest really useful combo is cr.lp x3 -> cr.mp -> walldive with Vega, even the best Vega players won’t bother trying it and will just do 1 cr.lp
Rose’s cr.lp-> cr.lp-> cr.lp-> Soul Spiral. You have to do it in her hard trial 1. Pretty difficult.
The hardest link in the game is ex handslaps to c.jab in my opinion. Chicken wing to standing fierce is also very difficult.
Any 1 frame link with a giant gap is difficult because when you play sf4 outside of xbox live you will find that every tournament you go to is on a different monitor or different cabinet or different console. All of these factors affect visual cues. One frame links that don’t have huge gaps can be done mostly off muscle memory, but when you have something link like chicken wing into standing fierce you HAVE to hit fierce based on the animation, not off muscle memory.
Balrog ex loop is 2 frames BTW 
Vega c.lp, c.lp. 1f link that can’t be p-linked.
Late meaty 1f links are the hardest. You have to time it so that you connect on the last active frame, and then perform a 1f link. I had a list of Blanka’s meaty links somewhere…
Sagat’s f+lk, c.lp link is the hardest one I’ve tried… long delay, can’t plink.
for bonus points you could do f+lk, c.lp, c.lp xx tiger shot. no plinking possible
Vega’s c.lp. clp. clp
and to my knowledge:
Bison’s shorts with his lks.
Hmm… a few people posted ex hands to cr.lp but for some reason I find that one to be pretty easy. I don’t mean to show of at all. I’m just saying that I find other links (including plinks) to be harder than that. It just feels intuitive.
And if somebody is good at calculations, what’s the frame window on E.Honda’s cr.lk -> cr.lp?
BTW on a side note, is there a trick to do Sagat’s f+lk canceled into Tiger Shot? All I get are Tiger Uppercuts and Knees…
Rufus close c.lk > c.hp. For whatever reason, I just cannot get that timing down. I main Gief and land the c.lk links 8/10 times for the most part, but that Rufus close up link I just cannot get down consistently. Heck, I land Viper FFF easier than this.
You mean LK,HP not crouching right?
C probably stands for close.
So I guess going by those thoughts, last hit of Fei Long’s MK chicken wing hit 1 frame late linked into jab should be pretty hard. Should be difficult to time the chicken wing and then you have a 1 frame link with a pretty long time between executing the chicken wing and pressing the jab button.