That’s where I stopped…and hit that disagree button.
I don’t know what his tier is, but I was more scared of Ken in 3s and SF4.
I could see Ken being top 5 if the players are able to master every small (but important) nuance of ken’s tools. There is so much to grind into muscle memory that I believe his relative difficulty to the rest of the cast is skewing people’s perception of how good or bad he is. Hell, even when watching momochi’s replays I see him botch the single hit-confirm off of b.mp from time to time.
Another example would be ken’s crouching Mp, the decision tree after it being blocked it huge and you have to be able to react to it being blocked, landing, or landing a counter-hit.
If he gets solidified as a top-tier I’d imagine that it would take at least 6 months to a year before we start to really see his potential.
Consider match-ups and a tier list can be nothing like what you expect
Ken is a Capcom conspiracy that entices noobs into playing him so that they can get rekt for not knowing the basics of the game.
And intentionally didn’t read “for what that’s worth” in parenthesis. And also are still refusing to tell me what all characters Ken is better than. Right back you though, boss.
pretty sure Necalli, Karin and Cammy are all worse than Ken but Birdie and Gief are probably better so w/e
dunno bout Bison myself, I think he’s an early days scrub buster character who will drop in rankings a lot as people learn the matchup
edit: and Ryu is definitely better than Ken
Yeah, I think he’ll get buffed though. For his normals to be stubby like Ryu but not have the zoning defensive game, I don’t think it should be this difficult to confirm into damage. I think he’s a little “too” balanced lol for lack of better phrasing. Good example, his fireball outside of V-trigger is whack recovery, but full screen, that doesn’t matter much. and you can still use it as a poke. But he is definitely not designed like Ryu to do the standard c.mk FB anymore. So why is his c.mk so booty? Why can’t it actually be pretty fast 4-5 frame start-up and -2 or -3 on block? I need a reason to use standing strong instead of crouching. And what’s the use for his jumping lk again? I read in a video it’s for opponents who have a higher jumping arc? Um…what? Shoto are not air-to-air masters in the first place, I’m gonna DP that junk, I don’t need no light air attack to “tap” people out of the air with, let me cross-up with lk like Ryu.
Either way, it’s a much better starting point than what we got in SFIV, but I feel like Capcom does this all the time. Ken’s initial version is always too good, gets nerf stick. Ryu is perfect, but discovered later it’s too good lol. Overall I’m satisfied with him, but still feel Ryu is better. Would like to see a better c.mk, one safe on block normal you can run off of, and give us regular jumping lk back. Ken’s current one is so stupid lol.
Still too early to call tiers though. I haven’t had a particular problem with a character versus the player just beating me. Birdie is tough, but if you get creative when you get in close you can own him. Thought Bison was impossible, but same thing, get in close, and he can get wrecked. Sim, Chun, Gief, they are all pretty tough, but haven’t ran into players that really mastered them, so can’t say if they aren’t 5-5 matches or not yet. Still way to early for tier list. I just feel Ken isn’t at the top.
I don’t think Ken is going to be buffed majorly come next patch or Capcom perceive him as weak, quite the opposite personally. He’s a good character, there’s validity in why his normals are stubby. The only change I could see people wanting with valid reasoning behind it is fireball being better on block, maybe around -8/-7. Everything else just requires you to adapt to the “new Ken” because he’s a really solid character with a lot of ways to pressure and confirm damage.
No way would we get safe run pressure, nobody in this game gets anything like that. It seems to be a core tenet of SFV design, best case scenario you are -2 (this is a common quality to any move that moves you forwards, it seems, you end up at -2. ie. Ken s.mk) OR your move has really long startup like Zangief charged punch, Mika charged kick, Bison df+hp and still pretty modest + frames on block, and you are too far out for a throw. Ken’s run isn’t exactly fast but we can cancel it off a large amount of normals and use it to confirm really big damage off far reaching pokes, and it puts us back in throw distance… it is a cool and unique advantage to have.
You also gotta remember Ken has (in my research, which still needs a few more iterations) the only 4 frame medium strength button in the game in b+MP which is an advantage we’ll notice the benefits of more in the long run because of the button priority system.
I think they made c.mk pretty bad on purpose to avoid that c.mk xx fireball sameyness that to casual players makes all the shotos seem like the same character. imo I think making hado -10 on block did enough for that but you know… I think that was Capcom’s idea there. To compensate we got a seriously buff c.mp like holy shit that thing is good. It would be nice to have more reach on c.mk to pin people in down-back for longer but we are living without it so far
The j.lk thing is just bizarre. It even looks dumb. I miss the old one, dunno why they took it away. iirc this j.lk is his old neutral jump lk? It does have 7 active frames, more than any of Ken’s other moves, and it would have seriously reduced blockstun vs. his other jump-in normals so I think there may be some tricks possible with it
I did.
Any tier listing from Eventscrubs tend to amount to…dick.
If we’re talking buffs, what ken seriously needs is to reduce his throwable hitbox on b.mp, and making it 0 on block again shouldn’t be too much to ask for
Hmmm yeah I’ll take that…zero on block b.mp, better c.mk just -3 on block. And let me cancel my run earlier we in there!
No, on hit it’s actually +3 in your situation (because you mentioned Ken would be too far, I’m presuming no V-Skill was used.)
Without Crush Counter:
On hit WITHOUT V-Skill is +3.
On hit WITH V-Skill is -1.
So anyone found a use for jumping lk? He sticks his foot so high above him? I think maybe I’m gonna use it for jumpin or something to see if stuffs anything lol.
Air to air maybe?
Maybe it can be used as a “mixup” with empty jump low or something? You can use it super close to the ground at least.
The overhead game being slow in this system and step kick for pressure being used only on run to get in on a game that caters to defense will hurt ken. Other than that Ken is good.
Yeah, It seems like Feint is slower than SF4, but I still think on wake-up it doesn’t matter, opponent still has to guess, and that’s when I’ll use it for now.
Honestly, I’m starting to think the top 5 characters are Nash, Ryu, Chun Li, Mika, and Ken. And this is only based off of the last three majors and whose been playing who in top 8. And it may be silly to think of tiers like that but compare the event hubs list to the results of actual tournament and it would seem the event hubs tiers are only really based off of online experiences.
Thoughts on this?
At this point I don’t care what tier he is, Ken is pretty hard at high level to excel with.