Month: April 2017

As the end of the month draws ever nearer, VespserArcade continues his series of looking at all of the changes coming to Street Fighter V in its April update.  This time, he focuses on the “Headbutt-Happy Glutton,” Birdie. In their developer comments, Capcom mentioned that Birdie was initially designed to have a powerful neutral game, and though he overall improved offensively, his Season 2 changes veered away from that vision.

In an attempt to correct that, Capcom has eased up on some of Birdie’s prior nerfs, such as expanding crouching medium punch’s hitbox upwards for active frames 4-5.

Capcom is slightly buffing Birdie’s main anti-air. At the start of Season 2, Capcom actually nerfed Birdie’s cr.MP. First, they added a forward hurtbox to active frames 5-8, to stop it from beating out far jump-ins. They also shrunk the forward, back and upper hitboxes on active frames 2-5, just making it overall a weaker anti-air that will trade more with other character’s attacks, especially if they have good jump-ins. On top of this, Capcom made it knock further back in the air as well, so Birdie players had a tougher time mixing up the opponent with follow-ups afterwards. By expanding the hitbox upwards, it should help Birdie players not trade as much with the opponent’s jumping attacks, as long as it’s timed correctly.

While his crouching medium kick will still have a shrunken upper hitbox and an expanded lower htibox, it has now regained its 10-frame startup from Season 1, making it a slightly more effective tool in Birdie’s neutral game.

Perhaps Birdie’s most significant change is his EX Bull Head, both in and out of V-Trigger, going from -2 to -5 on block, making both versions punishable.

This one is kind of strange I think, because in Season 1, EX Bull Head was -10 on block, and the V-Trigger version was -7 on block, but then in Season 2, they made it only -2 on block. Many Birdie players would just randomly throw this out during the match, and would get huge damage (even though it was reduced on both versions) and a knockdown if it landed of course, or it was just simply safe on block. What made this change even more scary, is that when Birdie’s in V-Trigger, his EX Bull Head has Armor on Frame 1, so he can use this as a reversal if he wants that’s safe when blocked.

Finally, EX Bull Horn is now fully armored from frames 1-20, like it was in Season 1, giving Birdie another defensive option. Vesper also gives his thoughts on where the Alpha veteran now stands.

My final verdict on Birdie, is overall slightly buffed. Birdie got three Season 1 nerfs reverted, and a large nerf to his EX Bull Head, making it unsafe now, but not as much as it was in Season 1. Birdie got some great offensive changes in Season 2, especially with the increased range and hit advantage of Standing Medium Punch, and his improved Crush Counter standing heavy kick, but he did lose some defensive options in return.

You can catch the entire video above, along with links to VesperArcade’s previous coverage of additional changes coming to SFV:

• Uppercut changes
• Jump back throw OS removed
• V-Reversal and charge changes
• Alex
• Guile
• Ryu
• Urien
• New moves & Air Force Base changes
• CFN features & Kanzuki Private Beach changes
• Nash
• Akuma
• Vega

Source: VesperArcade