6

Necalli is a rush down central.

7

I didn’t bother to mention him cause I see like 1 Necalli player every 2 days of playing (meanwhile I see like 50 Kens, occasionally a couple of Karin or Cammy players and maybe a surprise special guest appearance from 2 or 3 less popular characters like Laura or F.A.N.G). The Necalli players I do run into are usually playing him defensively, though that may be because I play Karin and so I keep them in the corner.

8

There are 2 traditional rushdown characters in the game: Necalli and Ken. There is also Nash, although his fireball lets him play a little differently. There are two speedy grappler characters as well in Laura and R.Mika who have a much tougher time getting in or playing footsies but are demons once they are in. Characters such as Cammy rely much more heavily on footsies and aren’t anywhere close to as scary once they’re in.

9

Necalli is a defensive character. He can’t go ham like Rashid, Ken and even Nash.

10

I’ve seen it sugguested that Ken would be better placed at mid-long range as well.

And his fireballs are -10 on block except for EX.

11

Every Necalli I have come across have gone balls to the wall attack.

12

Hm, well I guess I’ve just been running into too many Kens that they kinda all just melt together into one big scrubby pot of mashers. I’ve rarely run into a Ken who actually knows what they’re doing, but when I do it’s usually someone who is heavily offense-oriented. I suppose it’ll differ with higher level play though, since I consider myself intermediate at my best and a novice at my worst.

13

While an interesting video, that actual ideas in it other than “your anti-airs are really good” and “you can hop fireballs in VT with HK Tatsu” are pretty bad. Confirming into a Tatsu off a single cr.mp? Really?

Ken, Nash, and Necalli are meant to be played at two ranges. At the edge of their long poke (generally st.hk or in Nash’s case f.hk) where they try and force a mistake to get in and then right in your face where they can mix up throws, strikes, and overheads due to having very strong frametrap games.

The hell? Necallis goes the most ham of all the characters in the game. If you try and play him defensively against any footsie character you’ll just lose flat out as he can’t compete.

14

How is Ken rushdown?
Run cancel is not something you can just throw out.

I feel like Ken is more of a whiff punish and poke->confirm kinda guy.
He has the ability to capitalize on stuff for big damage and he kind of lacks the ability to really easily crack people open from up close imo.

Compared to Ryu his close range game feels like way more of a risk.

15

ken is careful rushdown at choice times, not retarded press buttons shit like nash

16

Whiff punishing, yes. Poking, not so much in this game because his normals are pretty stubby, especially compared to Ryu. With Ken IMO you should work for a good counter-poke > punish setup and then get right in their grill and just start mixing things up ham. You have a good three things (back throw, heavy/EX tatsu especially when in Heat Rush, step kick if you are good at spacing) that have stupid amounts of corner carry. It’s also not a mistake that combos ending in tatsu finish with you basically standing over the opponent.

Then once you have them close, you have a pretty fast MK overhead (-4 on block), a cr.MP thats probably his best poke (+2 on block), an HK overhead (-4 on block) that also has a feint version that can be crazy mind games if you have good meaty timing, two target combos that can be mixed in either by themselves or as part of a string (both -2 on block if you stop on the first hit), a neutral jump HP and cross up MK that can both lead to solid confirmable combos using either target combo…

He has a lot of mostly safe options once you are close; it’s just all about not pushing too many buttons and trying not to get thrown.

17

I don’t agree really.
To each their own but in my (of course limited) experience, he does not have the kinds of normals for that kind of pressure gameplay.
If you want rushdown you want Necalli. Ken cannot safely press advantage. Jabs don’t link to low strong, low strong at anything but point blank does not connect with back strong. Back strong is -2 on block. These things don’t add up to the ability to just press buttons and keep pressuring.

18

This is a stupid article written during the beta, where Ken was trash.

In the live version:

Ken has the fastest dash in the game.
Ken has the fast shoto walkspeed like Ryu.
Ken has true blockstrings after V-Trigger.
Ken has set play after MK tatsu.
Ken has long range confirmable whiff punishes from s.MK.
Ken has a 10 frame V-Reversal (fastest in game tied with Chun IIRC), which is +2 on hit and even on block.
Ken has a 3 frame LK tatsu that is -3 on block.

Why in the hell are you ending blockstrings in Hadouken? This isn’t SFIV.

19

There’s a lot of different things about Ken rn and I think a lot of us are still trying to really learn him.

As someone who mains Ken, I can tell you that Ken isn’t someone who can easily pressure as say Karin or necalli, and you kinda have to play a little safe and wiff punish here and there. But once you are in, you are in. Any good Ken knows how to utilize his good dash in with St. Or Cr. Strong and mix it up with run grab, overhead kicks, and his dive kick-like ex air tatsu to pressure opponents.

20

He’s got a fast dash for keeping pressure up and does really good damage off a close hit confirm. A solid throw game rounds that out along with what is probably the best divekick in the game.

I’m not judging based on how good he is but rather what he’s designed for. Ken’s poking game outside of st.hk is abysmal. His whiff punishing game isn’t that special. Where he shines is if he can either land a close range cr.mp for loads of damage or anything into a MK Tatsu which lets him do some setplay.

Also, if you have meter you can do b.mp xx hp xx EX Hadoken for a full frametrap that leaves you at advantage. Really nasty in the corner because it effectively acts like a Rekka; technically minus (but for the EX Hadoken) but will catch you pressing buttons, giving him a chance to end it early for the throw or overhead.

21

Yeah he’s not one dimensional or anything he has options.

I just don’t see his pressure being anything near someone like Necalli. His ability to confirm is tied closely to back strong or mk. In both cases you are losing all momentum if they block. That’s not good for a character with no 3 frame normal and the only normal with some + being standing blockable and 5 frames, which again only links to something confirmable if you’re at throw range it seems.

His dash is great and I think that fits with being able to take advantage of whiffs and things to approach where slower characters really cant. Ken can do something like dash and lk tatsu or lp shoryu. These aren’t things you do if someone is just blocking.

I think a lot of this is also how you think of ‘rushdown’ since it’s not a perfectly defined term. In my mind a good rushdown character is one where even if the opponent is blocking and prepared, they are not going to find room to do much. A constant stream of attacks keeps them hemmed in and the defender is often in frametrap situations, unable to do more than take a gamble on some kind of reversal style special.

I’m not talking about how good he is either. It just seems clear he isn’t for ‘rushdown’. He’s definitely an aggressive style character. But not in the way Necalli is. Who, to me, IS rushdown in 5.

Regardless, I appreciate the discussion and I guess we will see how he develops as the whole game develops.

22

Try using his TC1 xx EX Hadoken more. It’s probably the best looping pressure in the game.

Necalli gets a giant toolbox to use for his rushdown; you don’t want him pressuring you because he can do a strike/throw/command throw/overhead mixup and push you to the corner.

Ken’s the mistake forcing rushdown character. He has the tools needed to stay in your face and to prevent you from getting in his. He ability to open people up is more limited due to a lack of command throw or great confirms outside of point blank but he’s good at staying in and has actual oki. He stays in doing safe stuff until you guess wrong then does it again

Nash is more of a setup based rushdown thanks to his fireball. He’s got the easiest time getting in but the hardest time opening people up due to his buttons being slower. I don’t know how good his EX Sonic Boom continued pressure is but Moonsault pressure is pretty fake and we’re already seeing people anti-air it every time.

23

Apparently Ryu is played as kind of rushdown at high levels? Lots of dashing and getting up in people’s ass etc

24

Maybe. I’m just not feeling him that way.

That’s my personal take but I don’t see anything overly rushdown about him except having a fast dash and a command run. Everything else doesn’t work well to pressure someone. I’ve had more success using those tools to position where I want and convert crush counters. Ken just doesn’t have the normals to keep up the pace without taking risks or completely stopping the pressure (ending at -2 with no 3 frame normals seems to be a bad situation). Like crab said, Ryu has some rushdown. His normals work well to keep him at some kind of advantage and keep going and allow him to pressure safely and also convert on hit easily. Ken has the conversion part but he has to stop every time it’s blocked (kicks or punches).

But I think Ken maybe has some flexibility. He has those elements he can mix in that keep people on their toes.

I feel like Karin, Cammy and Rashid can work well in a rushdown sense also.

25

I don’t find Karin to rushdown that well because her throws completely end her pressure. She’s got great buttons but you just don’t have that much of a threat in close. Similar issue with Cammy in that once you’re more than a jab away she can’t really force the throw mixup. Ken and Nash both have looping pressure strings for 1 bar and can get pressure going after a throw. Ken very much has the issue of a huge deadzone (so I’d say he has the + on block going for him but not the conversion), but I don’t think playing him at st.hk range is going to be very effective as a lot of character shellac him at that range.

Personally I was really hoping they’d make his cr.mp +7 on block or his sweep 6f so you had a conversion on CH when you’re outside of point blank but that’s life.