That isn’t what I meant, I meant with your suggested halving of the startup time plus needing charge I don’t think it would be too much. You were arguing that it would be too much against other characters but if it was then Chun’s U1 would be too much imo.
Would agree that it would still be a pita to react to a boom with it nevermind the charge time but I have to be honest, U2 sucks almost entirely because it is the one of the slowest if the not THE slowest ultra in the game. The reason it had a motion input the begin with imo was because of how slow it is.
Are some of these long posts really necessary? Lol
Bison is pretty good now and if there is an update the top tier will continue to trickle down which will already help him since he is pretty much upper mid tier just outside of top tier already. Sure he’s not easy to use at a high level, but giving him cheap options would go against a balance update.
Any small buff would help him, motion U2, or keep it charge but make the startup faster. Return his damage output to vanilla (at least most moves) are probably his 2 most realistic buffs without breaking most of his match ups. You probably don’t even need both of these buffs together to make him better than he is now.
It’s all gravy except the Guile matchup will forever suck.
<blockquote class=“Quote” rel=“CCiNO”>Are some of these long posts really necessary? Lol<br />
<br />
Bison is pretty good now and if there is an update the top tier will continue to trickle down which will already help him since he is pretty much upper mid tier just outside of top tier already. Sure he’s not easy to use at a high level, but giving him cheap options would go against a balance update.<br />
<br />
Any small buff would help him, motion U2, or keep it charge but make the startup faster. Return his damage output to vanilla (at least most moves) are probably his 2 most realistic buffs without breaking most of his match ups. You probably don’t even need both of these buffs together to make him better than he is now.<br />
<br />
It’s all gravy except the Guile matchup will forever suck.</blockquote>
Bison is not just outside of top tier. He’s solidly middle tier. Alioune correctly ranked him 15 or 16th in the game.
Here are my thoughts. Some of these suggestions are the same as you guys above, but this is my complete list of changes i think would be good for the game"
<b>The antiair situation</b>
This is and always has been one of bison’s main weaknesses. I think it should remain a weakness, but all of the toptier characters abuse this hugely. Seth, adon, cammy, akuma, and rufus can all alter their jumpins for huge damage that characters without invincible dp absolutely cannot deal with. The change I am proposing would be to remove far st. hp and replace it with our current close hp. This both removes a use that rarely gets use with one that we use all the time in frame traps and is slightly better for antiair. I also think cr. hp should have its hittable box lowered. It has a good hitbox which it should since its so damn slow, but it trades way too often for the effort you have to put in to land it. Overall this increases bison’s antiair options so he has to be more like chun li in carefully picking which antiair you need for each situation without buffing him too much.
<b>The damage situation</b>
Another seminal weakness of bison. His footsies are too gdlk, but from a balance (and sheer fun) perspective, i think bison should be able to do a little more damage when he spends resources and actively makes plays. As many of you have suggested, frontloading SK damage to make FADC combos slightly more damaging would be good. This will actually make my ass wanna use fadc combos in matchups where i currently just hold on to 4 ex psycho crushers. Also, I think the juggle potential of hell attack should be increased. As of now we get very little off one hit, and only ultra off two hits. Considering we land our ultra so rarely anyways, it would be fun to reward bison for going air to air a bit more. Combos like 2 hits of hell attack into both hits of crusher would be nice. Speaking of crusher, it should get a slight damage boost across the board. Ideally, bison players should have to make the decision between positioning vs. dmg when choosing which special to end a combo with. As it is now, its just always positioning. The only time you use crusher is to switch sides if you are cornered-ish. If damage was increased by a little bit, then we could actually have to make the executive decision to go with crusher to help the lifelead game which is so critical to the dictator.
<b>normal changes</b>
Bison’s normals are pretty good. All I would do is make cr. hp special cancelable. Maybe im being silly here but I don’t quite understand why its not. Were they too scare bison could whiff punish with. cr. hp xx scissors for too much dmg? I don’t know but I don’t think its unreasonable. It would make the whiff punish/footsie game much more interesting when we get a normal with that much range to buffer scissors. Hell, only HK scissors would probably work at range anyway so its not like we get free pressure. Far st. mp should be a little faster. Right now I pretty much only use it to buffer punishes on dash characters (balrog, rekkas, etc.) and even then rarely . Making it 5 frames would be nice for frame trap and whiff punish situations.
<b>specials</b>
His specials are pretty good. I like psycho crusher the way it is right now, and that it is a pretty risky move as opposed to scissor kicks which are much safer. Headstomp needs to move just a tad faster on the way to the opponent. Skull diver…I’m not sure. Its obviously garbage but I worried about making it a bit too gogd because then bison gets a semi free approach off a headstomp from too far away. I think i would just make it zero on landing recovery so that if the opponent messes up and blocks a headstomp (or if they were knocked down) bison can use skull diver to reposition himself in a favorable position without risking a free punish. This would be nice because it gives bison slightly more incentive to knock someone down and go for headstomp chip. EX scissors should give hard knockdown for obvious reasons.
<b>Ultras</b>
Maybe speed U1 up by 1 or 2 frames. Just to make it very slightly easier to use as an antiair. It should be a true antiair ultra, but if I can already use it to read jumps and punish, it would be nice buff to see the ultra used slightly more often. I expect the same treatment for U2. It is the slowest fireball punish ultra in the game AND its a charge move AND it doesn’t do good damage.
U2 back Bison was never broken heck akuma, and Fei were better than him in super and remained either high or top for the next two versions of the game.Also untechable knockdowns I don’t care where or how.Ex scissor,regular hk scissor,whatever.One theory is speed up ex scissor a little bit so regular people can catch booms.Everything doesn’t have to be done just some ideas.Personally Bison should have weak antiair from the ground but his air to air j.MP should be godlike.As far as the game goes air throws work are retarded in this game.
<blockquote class=“Quote”>
<div class=“QuoteAuthor”><a href="/profile/18585/The%20Beautiful%20One">The Beautiful One</a> said:</div>
<div class=“QuoteText”>Also, it is me, or is it damn near impossible to get an opponent dizzy with Bison?</div>
</blockquote>
Unless they’re bad, yes. I’ve dizzied many dive kick characters once in the corner though haha. They call me a noob just using st.hk when they persist to try and dive kick their way out.<div><br></div><div>U2 Motion back, it’s just useless. The ultra only hits on a smart read.</div><div>His damage sucks, raise it only slightly.</div><div>He’s the only character that doesn’t have a cr.hp.</div><div>Some of his attacks get blown up by dumb stuff too but I’m not getting into that right now.</div><div><br></div><div>Bison is an okay character, that’s all. He just sucks in this game cause of characters like Cammy…</div>
<a href="/profile/52572/jebop">jebop</a> said:<blockquote class=“Quote”><div class=“QuoteText”><div>Bison is an okay character, that’s all. He just sucks in this game cause of characters like Cammy…</div></div>
</blockquote>
Yeah I agree with that. As I said some time before, even though he could use some buff, the metagame itself is what is killing him right now. Nerfing the vortex characters will probably change the metagame in his favor.<br><br>SF4 has basically turned into a guessing game where skill matters very little. I wish they could bring back the old-fashioned spacing game that was vanilla sf4, where skill actually mattered. <br>I think that’s also one of the reasons why Daigo has started losing more than before. Maybe his spacing oriented playstyle doesn’t fit the competitive setting as it used to.<br>
Yep, I’ve been saying it time and time again, and people just laugh. “Bison is a cheap top tier character with no bad matchups… Okay, one really bad matchup but he’s top tier and definitely cheap.”
Yeah, of course. So many unblockables, and his vortex is ridiculous… and have you seen his setups? Amazing… Don’t get me started on his damage output, st.hk needs to be nerfed. One guy arguing with me tried to argue that ex headstomp is an escape tool against Viper.
Oh really now? Almost as bad as me winning a tourney match against Chun using EX Skulldiver on him to cr.mp, cr.mk xx hk sk combo…I took a huge gamble and was lucky he didn’t think I was crazy enough to do it
Yeah, I used to think he was trolling but he wasn’t… He plays Viper so I’m really not surprised.
Skull Diver is hilarious. It’s funny how so many people don’t bother blocking/avoiding it. I go for it a lot of the time vs people I’ve never played before after a blocked headstomp, to see if they bother doing anything.
I’m sorry, but I can’t agree. Overall in mostly all matchups Bison has to do more to win than his opponents do. This is due to the fact that when he guesses right he is rewarded with low damage whereas all his opponents have to do is lame out and when they guess right they do much larger damage. This is true almost ubiquitously. On top of this he has poor defense, both on wakeup, up in his face, and against the air. There really is nothing you can point to that gives him an edge. At the end of the day he has to work harder. By definition that means he does not carry an advantage.
Basically think of it like this. Bison has to get close to you to do damage. He has poor defense so any character has the odds in their favor at S.HK distance for a jump-in. If Bison does not predicatively AA successfully the opponent gets a jump-in combo for big damage. If not Bison gets a knockdown. Eventually he will have to start his pressure which puts things into ambiguous mode. But again if he guesses right he does little damage and if his opponents guess right they do larger amounts.
Even if you want to talk about his hit and run tactics, it still doesn’t really put him at an advantage because if he guesses wrong he loses big.
There is really no general strategic situation where the trade-off is in his favor.
Well… Yes and no. You’re looking at Bison as if he was some kind of mixup character, when he’s actually a pressure-based character.
There are actually some situations where he has the advantage. At some ranges, all he has to do is cr.mp or cr.mk into scissor kick: those normals have exceptional range for being cancelable, especially when the special you’re canceling into is safe on block and knocks down on hit. That’s when the odds are in your favor, since the risk in doing it is very little.
Bison’s gameplan should always be to try and stay in that range, where you can hit your opponent and your opponent can’t hit you. Some characters can’t do much in that situation other than a desperate guessing, especially when cornered.
I think Bison’s weakness is not the lack of these situations, but how easy it is to avoid them (read: getting in).
That’s when damage starts to actually lack, since you have to rely on low-damage pokes and scissor kicks.
I agree with you in regards to C.mk to SK/PC. I use this in footsies and fish to damage all the time with it. Its great for keeping people at bay and afraid to move forward. Case in point, this works well against akumas that want to S. far HK their way in for free combos during footsies or when they think your going to dash.
And I also agree with you that he is a pressure character. However, ultimately the “pressure” side of it exists in the psychology of the players. In terms of the game, the game does not understand “pressure.” All that exists is the rules of the game e.g. the payoffs, tradeoffs, etc. It is true I was coming from something like a “mixup” perspective in my past post, but that is because I am trying to evaluate the advanatge vs. disadvantage of the character based on the rules of the game and not metagame factors. Your appealing to the metagame, which does of course exist, and I agree with you in your characterization. But I don’t agree that the game ought to be evaluated like that when analyzing tiers. Metagame trends vary and evolve, and while some strategies from some characters are more or less determined by the basic properties of the character, it is to easy to apply relative factors that can muddle our understanding.
On other thing on “mixups” and what I am talking about in regards to that. I am not talking about Bison exclusively as a “mixup character.” I would use this reasoning for every character. Any game that is based soley on reaction (like tic tac toe for instance), cannot be won if the rules are followed precisely. The rules of the game dictate that a stalemate is inevitable. Therefore the only way to have a game of skill, as opposed to reaction or randomness (the other nonsensical alternative) is to allow for ambiguousness/guesswork. SF is no exception to this. Sure it has elements of reaction and randomness built in, but ultimately the guess-work far outweighs anything else. Therefore I was talking not on a character specific basis in regards to Bison but in general as it applies to him given his properties.
Going back my initial point on Bison’s lack of comeback potential or damage output given the relative risk accociated with the character, which inevitably must come down to a guessing game (because the whole game is built on this principle), its not something that justifies not having greater damage and some improvements on, say, his air game, in light of no real comback potential.
I think you misunderstand the character at high level. EX PC gets beat out by alot of the cast, or it trades, not always in his favor, and it tends to be highly punishable, by ultras in many cases as well. It isn’t as good as it was in vanilla.
Head stomp for escapes is really very very risky and definitely nothing that case be abused or relied on as your post would seem to suggest. Again it his highly punishable and very easy to beat. You can avoid it on wakeup for instance just by crossing Bison up. If he HS he will be punished, or at worst you have to block depending, but all of that is reaction. Most of how to deal with Bison is to just react to everything he does, which is why his arsenal is extremely limited.
S.HK is of course, an awesome normal, but its not the all purpose godlike normal many people think it is. It is a great poke and pressure normal, but it has little to no AA ability. It can AA from far but anyone who jumps from that distance is an idiot or does not know what they are doing cause there is no need to jump at Bison unless your already inside mid range or unless you have a normal that beats HK or PC or w/e.
The fact that you say he takes “no skill to win” tells me that you either don’t understand the character, don’t play at high level (no offense of course intended here), or are just joking. Bison is a character that tends to be highly effective at low to mid level play. At high level is where the cutoff starts to happen. He can get random victories but overall, unless you are REALLY good at outplaying people you wont be winning consistently.
Here is his problem as I see it. Once you understand how other characters can play Bison in such a way (usually laming him out) that limits like 90% of his arsenal which brings him down to safe pressure, footsies and baiting for punishes, by comparison he doesn’t have the comback potential if your going blow for blow and overall lacks the damage output. The fact that he has poor defense means he needs to keep the pressure on, which opens him up to mixup situations. Here is where if he guesses wrong the odds are not in his favor in terms of damage and a knockdown for him is in reality very bad (EX meter or not). The result is he needs to outplay everyone to win consistently. And even the punishes he can deliver or few and far between against anyone who know to play as safe as possible against him.
You know though, honestly I have been thinking that Bison having a reaction based AA may not be a bad idea after all. Something to knock those idiots who can abuse Bison up close away from him.
I would take an AA, plus fixing his air moves, a bit more on damage.
Also if they could give us the psycho cannon that would be awesome. Make it an AA that you have to charge like it was in EX but have it be very weak if you don’t charge it and overall give it low damage for an ultra.
@exogen
I understand what you’re saying about pressure not being part of the “rules” of the game. If I understood correctly, you’re saying that it’s just a psycological state in opponent’s mind, when in the end it’s all a matter of “options”, like a rock-scissor-paper game.
However, consider the typical scenario where Bison is constantly chipping you with light SK over and over in the corner (the infamous Bison pressure).
Basically, your safest bet is to just block, since your other options are either jump (risky), uppercut/reversal (risky), or try to out-poke Bison (which is not a good idea either).
But even blocking, there’s chip damage. Of course, it’s so little it’s almost irrevelant in a match, and nobody ever died of just chip damage.
But it’s there, and that makes a huge difference because it puts the opponent in a situation where, sooner or later, he’ll HAVE to do something, and that something is almost always risky. Or else he dies of chip damage (which never happened, but you get the point). I’d say Bison has the “theoretical” advantage.
So I think pressure is indeed part of the game’s rules. Not as a “psychological state” in the opponent’s head, but as a theoretical situation as a whole. It forces you to react and do something, not because you’re panicking, but because if you don’t, you’ll lose.
The downside of this concept is only one, but is a very big one: it only works if Bison has the life lead. Because he’ll never regain the advantage with just chip damage, it just won’t work. Blocking becomes the ultimate weapon against pressure, and with a sub-par mixup game, Bison will have a hard time crushing that defense.
Again, I’m not a high-level player by any means (I’m about mid level, I wish I could play more) so correct me if I said something wrong. I just enjoy watching good players, and love the theoretical aspect of the game
