Me personally I love her, she is my favorate SF character. But in all of the SF III series she just seems weak to me. Is she the weakest character in 3rd Strike? If not does she have a combo that gives out hella damage?
I, too, like her, she’s one of the two or three characters I primarily use. She isn’t the weakest character, but the Japanese consider her on top of the bottom tier of characters, I think. I could be wrong, but the general concensus is that sean is the weakest.
Anyways, she does seem pretty bad… doesn’t really dish out the damage, can’t take a whole lot, at least her stun bar isn’t incredibly small. She has some really strong points, though… she has plenty of overheads, she has a pretty good kara throw (toward and medium kick), her long-range pokes have good priority (the low medium kick, for example), her standing heavy kick has really short range but has good priority, many hit frames, and has a version by holding back which helps to evade sweeps and is perfect for anti-air. She has a triple-ex combo that does around a third of an opponent’s life.
The combo starts with a spinning scythe, then a rhino horn, then finishes with a scratch wheel, all ex. It takes some practicing, of course, and it may seem like she doesn’t recover fast enough from the spinning scythe to do the rhino horn, but it is possible, as long as you don’t do the complete version of the spinning scythe. Also, you can tag on a bit of extra damage if you use the spinning beat super instead of the scratch wheel at the end. Note that you’ll probably be using the low strong punch to lead into the combo most of the time. Sometimes, when they’re in the corner as you do the combo, elena might reverse directions and do a lynx tail instead of a scratch wheel. I can never tell for certain which way to do the motion on that last move for certain characters I’m juggling.
It’s so hard for me to pull off combo’s with Elena, which is weird cause I play with her all the time. I think the thing that messes me up is that after I play for awhile my hands get tired and it’s hard for me to do her EX moves.
Do you know the exact number of hits she dishs out with the triple-ex combo? Is it possible to get a 100 hit combo with her?
Elena has low stamina
doesn’t have a low hitting combo that starts with a “meaty” hit (a very good option for wakeup mindgames) there is no real threat of missing a low block, unless you are using the educated guess method of landing super (not as safe as what other characters use, i.e. hit confirm, you’ll end up on the losing end of this guessing game)
no easy hit confirm combo
get’s raped by ken’s sitting strong and double dragon punch
she has to nickel and dime her opponent, other characters can play turtle until they charge super, use hit confirm techniques, repeat. (Elena can to this as well but has only one option for hit confirm, sitting strong xx super, sitting strong can be parried low or high)
alot of peeps use Ken
does not have many “practical” spots to input parries as bait
(i guess i should say obvious spots for parry inputs)
i hate Ken
overheads are slow and can be parried on reaction
if she had better stamina (like shoto average) and her super II bar was slightly shorter, i believe she would be able to compete, on second thought all she needs is better stamina, she’s a good turtle after all. if a top player actually put some time into her she has potential. But Ken (and his derivatives) and Chun’s strengths are so obvious and reliable. why would you use anyone else?
PS- Elena is my favorite 3s character 
At least ken and chun li are not so far beyond the other characters that it’s impossible to beat them with a little effort from the “low-tier” characters.
The biggest problem with the triple ex combo is that you can only do it when you know you have an opening (mostly when your opponent makes a mistake), but when you do land it, it deals good damage (Totals about 10-12 hits depending on whether you cancelled a low strong into it and on how many hits of the super or scratch wheel connect).
She has the low short that cancels into the light lynx tail, maybe there are some more options there.
I might disagree that you can parry her overheads on reaction, at least the toward+forward one, but then again I don’t play against the same people… it’s just that I’ve almost never had that one parried. Though the opponent does tend to anticipate a lot of overheads with elena and gets used to parrying high since she has no beefy cancellable low strikes.
Closet, yeah, peeps who can react to her overheads are rare, but they are there (yes, they are reacting to the initial animation and you can kinda trick them by using fakes, like standing jab, or sitting mid kick over their knocked down body, but that just more work that you have to do, you don’t NECESSARILY have to do that with other more accessible characters, and plus her jab is soo slow that you have to time it perfect otherwise a. it will not look like a fake, b. they will react to the fake with a wake-up move and get you, other characters with quick jabs/ shorts can get away with this type of fake with less risk). this fact plays a significant role when you are playing tourney players, that’s the only reason that i mention it. i was just listing things that i have noticed, that keep her from being a top character, as rare as the situation may be. i have run into it. then again, i have much to learn about this game. Elena can go on good runs against mid-tier skilled players such as my self though. again i say, she really hasn’t been tested in my eyes, no one uses her seriously. i love Elena.
Hey KingRaoh is that Elena in your avatar? If so where did you find that pic of her?
I use Elena seriously. She’s my second rung character, although I’ve been gearing up Urien to replace her as that. My Elena does good enough, although I get owned by Ken players who discover how good low strong is against her.
Anyway, these are damaging combos Elena has:
c.strong xx EX spin scythe, short scratch wheel
c.strong xx EX spin scythe, EX rhino horn, rh scratch wheel (reverse the direction)
c.strong xx EX spin scythe, EX rhino horn, jump strong-fierce (good for resets)
c.strong xx EX spin scythe, spinning beat (doesn’t do much more damage, only use it to kill)
c.strong xx spinning beat/brave dance
c.short xx rh scratch wheel (not great)
Elena doesn’t have much she can do off of a low hit, which is actually good because if she could, she’d be pretty damn cheap. Oh, you can also do healing setups for “damage”. The best ones are the good old throw into healing, and parry/short scratch wheel into healing. Stand forward-low fierce into healing works too, but is not practical to land.
sitting strong xx ex-spinning scythe reset juggle follow ups…
short, forward (air chain)
strong, roundhouse (air chain)
roundhouse (easiest to time)
after above juggle resets…
dash then throw
dash then back+roundhouse
dash then block and punish
dash overhead (not so good to use often)
dash standing jab (wiff), short lynx tail (RDP+kick)
dash down parry
(with the dash you can cross up underneath your opponent)
please don’t use the dash if it will put you in the corner, 'less you are feeling brave.
i like to juggle and reset my opponent rather than letting them fall to the ground after ex-spinning scythe. it leads to more damage and keeps the pressure on.
Elena can begin her offense with one Ex-meter charged and hope to land respectable damage and gain initiative. some characters wait until they have full super before they begin to develop their offense.
Hahahaha, “please!” :lol:
So do you cancel the last hit of the EX spinning scythe into a high jump to do those air chains? I find she recovers pretty slowly to just jump after the move is finished.
sitting strong xx ex spinning scythe, the follow up is a regular jump, no need to super jump. no need to time the jump just hold it in the up+towards position. the timing of the chains is odd but it can happen. BloodUrien of NE actually introduced me to the juggles (tanks). it does take a little bit of timing to hit. if you are not feeling comfortable with your timing just hit roundhouse, that’s pretty easy to time. i don’t think that she can juggle Alex after the ex spinning scythe. she can juggle the shoto’s for sure though.
also, learning her hopping (UOH) link into super will improve your Elena game. it’s easier than most, she stays in the air forever, you can use hit confirm too, which she desparetly needs. remember to hit all three kicks (six button press)for activation of the link!!!
learn the ex spinning scythe follow ups and you can have fun with your opponents mind and smile because you are using Elena. representin’ Sean tier baby.