I want to start a (hopefully) constructive discussion about some buffs to bison that he will need to give him and SSF4 AE more balance.
First of all I want to emphazise that I dont think that we really need major adjustments and so far I love to play Bison and are totaly loyal to Bison since Vanilla.
If there will be a 2013 patch the final target should be to bring the mid/low tier chars to a higher level.
To achieve this for Bison I am convinced that we only need a couple of things to play in the A Tier level.
Needed buffs:
Decrease start up from c.hp by 2-4 frames
This can go hand in hand with a small damage reduction of c.hp but I would definitely change faster start up for damage.
Less push-back on cs.mk and +1 frame advantge on hit
To make this poke a bit more viable and increase Bisons damage output a bit.
Change U2 back to SSF4 status (+damage nerf)
U2 should be a fireball punisher, I am not talking about making it into a Adon U1 but make it so that Bison becomes a threat to the plasma guys.
Give Skull Diver a bit better hitboxes or smaller hurtboxes
This move is just to easy to counter.
Now the “nice to have” things:
Decrease recovery of forward Teleport by 5-10 frames to make this move somewhat usefull.
Give all PC versions 200 Stun and increase damage by +10 for lp/mp/hp
Dreams:
Let Skull Diver attack from the side your are bouncing away …
Ok, that is all from my side. Please discuss and add your thoughts. I know that it is highly possible that v2013 will never come but it is also not a bad idea to create our consolidated list for v2013. Please only contribute with valid ideas and not things that would change the concept or overall gameplan of Bison.
My biggest beef with Dictator is that both his ultras just aren’t that applicable. Tuning either of them so that they can actually be used outside of hell attack would probably fix a lot of our problems.
^
I think he meant Crouch . Because it is too slow to the point that it is unusable for it is purpose.
I would like Bison to have a strong anti-air to make him considerably stronger (make Cr,Hp 7 or 8 frames start-up). Improve his Hurtbox and his moves Hitbox problems. Also, a few damage buff, better air normals and Ultra 2 back to motion input with a faster start up and he will be ready to take on a tournament.
Hard Knee Press damage from 7060 to 9040.
Knee Press nightmare damage increased by 10 to 350.
Revert the Light Knee Press pushback properties to what they where SSFIV.
The changes above improve his damage slightly. They also give him more versatility when it comes to meter usage. As it stands Bison is nearly always served using meter for EX moves, either as reversals to escape pressure or EX Knee Press to get through fireballs. His FADC and Super combo’s don’t do enough damage to justify using them.
Getting his old Knee Press pressure back would also help him do a little more damage when he gets in on someone.
I wouldn’t give him a huge amount else. I think he be too strong with consistent anti airs. Weak anti air options is a traditional Bison weakness anyway. He’s pretty decent as he is now. It would help Bison in some bad match ups like Zangief and maybe Honda (although I’m sceptical that C.HP could ever beat Honda’s J.MP with its current hitbox) , but it might make him a bit too strong against characters he currently goes even with. Bison has strong escape options in some match ups and if you make it difficult to get in on him, then he might have it too easy.
I’d expect Guile, Chun, Honda, Zangief would get worse for Bison cause overall as they need more buffs than he does.
I’d expect the top tier characters, like Cammy, Akuma, Seth, Adon, Fei Long would get easier as I’d suspect they would get nerfed. Bison already runs them close enough.
The pushback on lk scissors is a double edged sword. Against characters without 3-frame normals, Bison gets less loops and therefore less meter gain. But on characters who have good 3-frame normals that don’t get eaten by scissor kick, it’s actually a plus since you can make their normals whiff.
Hi all, I finally decided to make an account for this forum, yay
I think Bison’s main problem is that his only way to punish fireballs (or even in general, do any damage) is to have the charge stored, which makes him the most charge-dependant character amongst all other charge characters. This makes him very predictable and easy to zone out. If he walks forward, do a fireball. If he doesn’t, it means he’s charging, so don’t do a fireball. Simple as that.
Capcom tried to fix that with U2, making him much less charge dependant. The problem is that Bison ended up being one of the best characters in the game, and so they nerfed him back. It’s not that he sucks now, but he still lacks that ‘something’ that makes him a threat against any high level player.
I would like to see his U2 back to its old input. To make up for it, make it do less damage, and remove its crossup property entirely, so it’s not a braindead “mixup” everytime the opponent is knocked down. If they think this is still not enough to balance it, make it track the opponent so he’ll always land right in front of him, granting a free punish everytime it’s blocked.
Having cr.HP’s startup reduced would be great, but I think he would be broken and I don’t see it happening lol.
U2 back to its old input or reduce the startup so it isn’t the slowest ultra in the game.
Having slightly more consistent AA wouldn’t be too much as long as you don’t go overboard. Honestly just improve cr.hp startup by a little bit and shift the hurtboxes on it slightly down so they don’t completely encase the hitboxes or get rid of standing far hp and replace it with the close version being the only version and you have more consistent AA against raw jumps but not horribly broken.
Pushback on lk sk is more often than not a curse than an aid, but meh they can leave that alone.
I would love to see a slight damage boost or a way to ground combo to U1 but I somehow doubt that is gonna happen. In fact if there actually was a 2013 update I wouldn’t be suprised to see st.hk nerfed again…because people still walk face first into it and apparently that makes it broken lol
im fine with u2 charge motion, feels good to land it the legit way - i would say to decrease startup by 1-2 frames and a overall 30dmg increase and def increase the dmg after hell attack
make crouch hp a 7 frame startup and safer on block, make far standing hp 8-9 frame startup, hopefully these changes would make his antiairs better
give him better incentive to use fadc combos, say +8 on fadc scissors
my biggest gripe would bison is psycho/ex psycho mechanics, it gets stuffed by all tatsus (reg or ex) all headbutts, lariat, divekciks etc and its throwable on startup frames. Wish it had more priority in these cases
Vanilla SF4 damage values. Nothing else. The speed of his attacks are fine as is to compete with the rest of the cast. They’re not adding new moves if they are ever doing a final balance tuning.
And regarding fireballs, Bison does well against the majority of fireball characters in the game. It’s just rather difficult to penetrate Guile, and I would rank Sagat and Akuma right behind him because their fireballs add onto their defensive and offensive zone traps pretty well. You can basically just get in and counter poke or focus past a lot of people’s fireballs already and EX-scissor when it’s handily charged after scaring your opponent from jumping.
I don’t know what it is but I do like some parts of how Bison is played in SFxT because counter pokes actually lead to something worthwhile whereas here you just get some measy damage. And they nerfed it.
Basically what I am saying is for 2013, bring back the VANILLA damage values to Bison’s normals.
Make HK scissor a hard knockdown
Give his normals a bit more meter gauge on block and hit.
I don’t know about that… U2 is pretty useless right now, a damage increase will never happen as it would make U1 pointless. The only way to buff that ultra would be either shorten its startup or change its input.
But now that I think about it, I’m not sure if Bison needs U2 more than an anti-air. A viable AA, even if not broken or too abusable, would make wonders and would probably make Bison tournament viable.
Sorry, I was off for a couple of days. With c.hp I mean cr.hp.
I am pretty sure there would be a way to balance U2 and make it a viable anti fireball punish ultra (motion, start-up, damage adjustment). Currently I am using U1 in 80% of the match-ups.
Bisons AA poking game should not be buffed to a ryu or guile state but should get some minor buff, I like both ideas of having a faster cr.hp or make his s.hp faster.
Then some small damage buffs in his combo game could also be really helpfull. PC should be for damage and SK for positioning, currently I dont see much situations where I am using PC, only for the light PC in hard PC cross up (but nearly everybody knows this). If the fast recovery on PC in the corner would be just a bit faster then you could use this as a better mix-up tool, still dangerous !!! (I dont like putting myself in the corner when I got someone in the corner already).
Another idea is to change the damage on the mk SK, so that the first hit would deal the main damage and would be the number one choice for a FADC combo, similiar to some other characters. Honestly I seldom use mk SK because I normally want the damage or the better wake up pressure.
mk SK --> 90*20 damage to increase damage output from FADC a bit, what do you think?
Also the cs.mk has potential to add more damage output to bison. Adding +1 hit advantage and less pushback would give him:
Better Frame Trap abilities beside the classic cs.hp frame trap, would lead to cr.mk followup on every char and easier cr.mp follow up on counterhit
Bison would be able to link s.hk (1-framer) but this would also increase overall damage output, cs.hp>s.lk>s.hk is just a strange link timing and incredible hard to master
Cross-up j.mk > cs.mk > cr.mk xx SK would be easier and hopefully hit the whole cast (dont know if this would be to much ?)
Admittedly if Bison has a motion U2 (which would be pretty sweet) he would be the ultimate anti-fireball character. Right now the only thing limiting him from that is the necessity for charge. Even with needing charge I can’t say I’ve ever felt I needed to be incredibly patient against fireballs, or I had to weave my way through a net of fireballs just to get in my opponents face.
I think people are so used to Bison being a upper mid character who requires a lot of improvising to offset his weaknesses that it feels a little odd asking for things that other more complete characters have. But SSF4 has got a ton of characters with tools for EVERY situation with very few weaknesses. In fact there are plenty of characters who have things they simply do not need. And there are characters that are absolutely monsters within certain ranges like Abel, Adon, Guy, Rufus, Seth, Cammy, etc). But ,outside of the corner, Bison doesn’t really have an oppressive zone of play and many many characters have an effective corner pressure game. If you’re playing against a player who’s used to countering your dash forwards into cr. lk or cr. lp, Bison’s ground speed is really neutralized.
Bison definitely NEEDS better AA options. The game plan against him is just too straightfoward for too many characters (easy stuff like neutral jumping with fast jump characters like Adon is entirely too effective for how easy it is to do). He also needs better tracking for his EX headstomp, and within certain ranges, it needs to induce block.
And he needs better options for Ultra’ing. Being able to combo into an ultra is a HUGE advantage in this game, and is an important element in pulling off a comeback. AN ultra allows you back into a round. But if Bison gets down in a match, he needs to take RISKS while already down just to get back into things, and when you’re dealing with a medium damage output character to begin with, that’s a double whammy.
Faster cr. HP that at least trades would be great (as it now the opponent’s jump basically has to be anticipated).
More active players that can come up with technology…
No… im serious lol.
on the other side:
Makes his U1 faster (for anti air usage), or make it travel further with more fireball invincible frames (Like his super)
Make U2 faster. Its unfair how slow it is compared to all the other fireball punishing ultras. A few frames faster would be good already. Nobody needs qcf motion, it would make it unfair and broken.
Remake Close St.hp hitbox. Its a good anti air… against neutral jumps in the corner. Make it hit more behind him or…
Far st.hp has to be made a bit faster. Its actually a pretty good anti air (especially against divekicks in my experience). But its just to slow to be viable.
no changes needed for cr.hp. its a good anti air.
Ex scissor must give untechable knockdown! THIS would make so much difference in the corner especially.
now some things I had in mind, not really needed, but cool things.
Ex-headstomp hit in the air. Depending on the height you hit your opponent, it will cost more/less frames to land on the ground as bison. It gives untechable knockdown, yet we cant do shit from it because you wont have an exact frame where they will stand up aka no setups possible afterwards.
Change it ( dont ask me how D: ) so the higher we hit him, the more recovery he gets, always having the same exact frame for bison to do a setup.
Scissor on hit should give just a bit less pushback. This would greatly pressure the opponent to quickstand, because it will open alot of possible setups if they dont.
