SSF4 Training Continued

Tackling Seth:

- U1 trap is gone. 

- Teleport recovery is worst

- Neutral Jump Fierce has 6 less active frames

- Dive kick executes slower so it hangs in the air more.

This means he lost a lot of his offense even though he still has a lot offense but just no more ambiguous sonic boom mixups which is fine. 

Also lost being able to make people jump with sonic booms then u1 them. Teleport makes it so its harder to follow up after legs now if opponent quick stands cause the added recovery on teleport. Absolutely must throw a sonic boom first.

Other than that he can still use EX legs to go through limbs/projectiles etc. Thats really good especially if opponents back is to the wall because ex legs to u2 is 408 pts of damage. So once Seth has an opponents back to the wall its scary even without u2 he can stomp for 255 and then go for a mixup. Opponent will probably get stunned really fast.

His zoning is still intact. He can still super trap people with sonic booms.

Normals are good or might be better. st mk, rh, fp really good. close st fp is good for anti air and far st mp is good for anti air aswell.

When you anti air someone either boom them for chip damage, or tandem engine for mixups. If opponent is antsy and tries to jump at you again use EX Tandem engine since it grabs them out of the air and pulls them towards you, but you need ex bars for that.

EX SPD is still invincible to attacks on start up so you can use that as well.

To me it looks like what capcom really did to nerf the top characters is make it so they have to use their EX meter more to stay really good but thats not bad cause the rest of the cast has to do it aswell. Look at rufus with EX messiah/snake strike etc. 

I think seth is still good.

 

SSF4 Characters Nerfs, Buffs and Placings.

Tackling Sagat:

Sagat's tiger knee damage has been nerfed and so has its safety. If you block it standing you get a free combo so its a bit risky to toss out when you are zoning now.

Angry scar is useless so far to me. Angry scar fp tu is 180 pts. EX TU is 200 pts

Angry scar however does it make it possible for you to juggle into TU after a TK but only in the corner. Also allows you to hit a TU after a TU FADC but its useless meter. 

EX TK is good still its -1 on block and does 180 pts so its good to use in fireball zoning. It seems a bit pointless to really go for a kara tu unless to anti air. On the ground its not as rewarding unless the combo will kill the opponent. Also during zoning low step kick has to be used more aswell.

st lk no longer being cancellable into stuff from a distance is a pain but just have to get used to his other normals.

Anyway as far as combos. Its best to go for EX TU (meaning you are only using 1 meter for your go to combo instead of 2) But the timing for u1 is a little strict. The trick is that as soon as you land do the command. Buffering it makes it miss sometimes.

Pretty much Sagat like akuma for extra damage has to use his EX meter.

Sagat has to use EX TK, EX TU moreso now than ever for damage.

Regular TK was nerfed but EX TK is really good. TU was nerfed but EX TU is still good. And Angry scar just enhances his EX TU but only by 40 pts so use if you feel like whatever you do will kill.

Ex TK is good for zoning cause its the only safe tiger knee now lol at -1. So if they are ducking you should be at a huge advantage.

Only thing now EX TU to U1 will be difficult for people but its not as hard as people think.

Also for akuma ex dp is the best option after a lk tatsu since it does more stun and does the same dmg as lp dp fadc hp shaku.

I still feel Sagat and Akuma are top tier as well with all these findings.

Akuma Character Specifics U2 combos

Before I go into the combos I want to let everyone know a universal way on making it a little easier when fighting bison.

1. Focus his single limbs like st hk/mk because he can't cancel them into anything.

2. Neutral jump scissor kicks then land on them and punch similar to balrog's dash punches.

3. After blocking scissors kick you are 0 on guard however since bison's cr lk is really good and has a lot of priority it will more than likely beat out your normal attack may have to do a reversal so its best to back dash away. This will force bison to have to do a unsafe scissors kick to hit you, slide or psycho crusher to chase you which are all of course unsafe.

Oh one more thing before I list the combos. The New Replay channel in SSF4 is really good especially when viewing videos from Asia specifically Japanese videos. Daigo, Mago, Tokido, Sako are all on there and with a lot of unknown japanese players (dunno their tags yet) and they are really showing how to properly play the game. Its perfect especially when you may not have someone who plays a character and you want to see how they work so you check out the vids and pick up a few things.

Alright Akuma u2 char specific combos. There are two ways to hit them either crouching fp or standing close fp.

Close fp combo works on: Dudley, Gouken, Zangief, THawk and Hakan even if they are ducking.

Crouch fp to u2 works on: Sagat, Cammy, Seth, Makoto, Abel, Rufus, Balrog, Cody, Adon, Dahlsim, Ken, Bison, Vega, Deejay, Chun Li

Thats it for now I haven't tested all the characters yet but a few I tested didn't work.

SSF4 training

Everyone knows I main Akuma so I found some good Akuma combo's to make up for losing his ability to stand up opponents and perform more damaging combos. 

I believe these combos worked in Vanilla aswell but no one even thought to use them. I found out cause I read in frame data that hk/mk tatsu stands the opponent up. So if you do like cr lp x2 then hk tatsu they will stand up. Cancelling hk tatsu allows you to do more combos.

Requires half meter:

Jump in hk > c.fp xx hk tatsu fadc > cr.mp link s.fp xx lk tatsu > fp dp 

461 dmg / 755 stun

Requires full meter:

Jump in hk > c.fp xx hk tatsu fadc > cr.mp link s.fp xx fireball fadc > c. fp xx lk tatsu > fp dp

487 dmg / 845 stun

Here is a good BNB for his ultra 2.

Jump in hk > c.fp xx hk tatsu fadc > cr.mp link s.fp xx teleport xx u2 

526 Dmg / 670 Stun

These combos work if the opponent is crouching. If they aren't crouching its best to do a poke to fireball fadc combo since if they are already standing its harder to cancel from a hk/mk tatsu into a follow up for combo because of the stun the opponent does when they get hit is different from when they are crouching.

So far akuma is still good right now his toughest match I feel will be ibuki because she can option select his teleport with a knock down and its realllly easy to do. You actually don't even need to option select the teleport you can just see him teleport and do her neck breaker.

The heck I just found out something odd. Akuma's u2 only hits characters who are standing but vs dudley I did close fp to u2 and it all connected and he was still crouching. Yea....lol

Also vs characters where you don't get a jump in you can do two c.lp's into hk tatsu and get them to stand up and go for a combo.

On to hakan:

Been messing with Hakan cause I really to believe he is bottom tier.

He has two command grabs one that works like a regular SPD where it will hit you if you are doing anything but jumping or a reversal which is performed by pressing punch. Another command throw performed by kicks which grabs standing, back dash, jumps but you can crouch it and reversal it.

So his wake up game is either tick to kick throw or punch throw. Kick throw the best one is lk so if they immediately jump anticipating a punch throw they will get grabbed. If you use any other kick you will more than likely whiff. If you think they will duck you have to do the punch throw of course.

When Hakan is oiled up he can fp slide full screen and its safe if the opponent is on the other side of the screen and they block it so in other words he can play full screen footsies with a slide. 

hp, cr mk, f+hk, cr hk are all my favorite pokes right now and I think f+mp. When oiled up he can cancel his focus dashes and immediately go into attacks which is really great for when people are trying to poke you and you focus throw it and hit them or grab them when they are out of range.

While he is oiled up he can also combo his low shorts which if you think about it in regular ways its not a big deal cause he can't combo into anything from his low shorts but its a great way to mix up the timing on when you will do one of his grabs, block, hit one of his normal buttons or focus attack. I think its great for that even his ultra 1 grab. I think his ultra 1 grab will be great for opponents he can rush down while the ultra 2 anti air is great for opponents that try to rush him down and jump in all day. 

Let me not to forget to say hakan's jump game is nice too. Jump f+strong combos to u2 and iirc gives enough time to oil up. Any time Hakan gets a knock down its time to oil up. Always use lk oil up its really useful even when spacing especially when your opponent doesn't want to get knocked down or lose a chunk of life from hp.

Thats it for now I will post more when I find out some more useful stuff.