Angel is relatively lower in the tier lists. This can possibly be attributed to the complexities of her own unique mechanics, which require you to even know proper positioning to get combos to even work with her. If you are able to do this, her combos can be as damaging as anyone else’s–it just makes people consider using less complex characters that can compete with similar damage.
This combo guide goes a long way in explaining how to make her competitive. While not only going over her best buttons, it also goes over her Unchain mechanics–a set of moves with link into each other similar to target combos, but are varied and require you to not repeat inputs in any way.
The Street Fighter V patch notes were announced in the last week, which has done a lot of shaking to what we already knew about Season 2. While the jury is still out on how this will affect the season going forward, Michael Martin of Yahoo Esports took it upon himself to talk it out with various minds across the FGC and gather their opinions on the patch.
While Michael Martin attributes it to a step in the right direction, he questions the buffs to Cammy, who was already established as a strong character, and wonders why she needs anything else. BornFree also questions it from a marketing standpoint, and with ELEAGUE fast approaching, makes the top 8 potentially less exciting due to the possible inclusion of what he deems a “boring character.” He also talks to Vince Ingenito–formerly of IGN–who praised Capcom’s changes to DPs but criticized them for their lack of addressing whether the inherent input lag is actually intentional or not.
Finally, he spoke with Gerald Lee of Core-A Gaming, who said the patch notes look interesting and praised Capcom for being open about their design ideas, but showed concern that while this will mean little for casual players, the pros will have their game plans going into this Capcom Pro Tour season shaken up.
With Tekken 7 approaching, you may start experiencing flashbacks to previous problems you’ve had in the Tekken series. Considering how Steve Fox is almost always one of the strongest characters in every game he appears in, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of those memories involved a Steve Fox b+1.
With SpaghettiRip’s Anti-Steve Tutorial, you now have a plan of attack for the British Boxer. Covered in here are all the essentials: footsie ranges, duck-able strings, optimal stepping patterns, and even big changes Steve has in Tekken 7 that you can use Tekken Tag 2 to practice for. Steve has weaknesses like any other character, and this video lays them out cleanly and precisely for you to study.
One of the most frustrating parts of any Fox or Falco’s game is their laser games. This can keep you out, while zoning and pressuring you from afar. Most players don’t know how to combat this, and thus see their percentages trickle upward while their opponents wait for the opportune time to kill.
However, against Falco, there is one possibility against laser that a lot of players never consider–eating the laser. If you take the laser from a close enough range, you can actually punish everything Falco might do next just by reading his next attack properly. As such it is much more optimal to eat a laser to get your damage in, which essentially neuters that aspect of their game.
BornFree got a lot of character specific talk out of the Shinobism co-founder in the 30 minute+ interview: everything from why he settled on Ken in SFV despite starting with the (at the time, incredibly strong) Chun Li, and going all the way to his feelings on the newly released Kolin. We even get to learn about some of Momochi’s own creative ideas for SFV design (just frame meter gain!) and his general feelings on the state of the game. He also drops a hint that Shinobism may be opening up for new recruits soon: so if you’re 20 or under, get your applications ready!
Mian is a very unique character within The King of Fighters XIV. With her dive kicks able to change trajectory, she is able to confuse her opponents in which way to block. Even if you take that out of the equation, the amount of damage she is able to do on the ground is scary.
The latter of which is shown in this combo video from The Combonauts, as Mian frequently hits 70% or more in a combo. This also shows off some interesting hitboxes and interactions, as Mian connects a blowback on a rolling King of Dinosaurs, which causes him to stay right next to Mian.
In the patch that added Alex to the game back in March 2016, Capcom increased the vertical and back jump frames for every character except for Zangief, from 3-4 frames, (4-5 frames for Birdie) in an attempt to reduce the effectiveness of this OS without largely altering the overall balance of the game at the time. Before he begins getting into the finer details, Vesper first wants to define what an Option Select is for viewers.
“Option selects allow multiple options to be covered with overlapping commands. They directly conflict guesswork leading to a positive result quite frequently.”
Utilizing Ryu as an example, Vesper demonstrates how to input the Throw Tech OS, also known as “Fuzzy Guarding,” in addition to a simple buffer OS. He points out the Throw Tech OS mainly covers 4 situations:
Throw Techs
Meaty Normals
Shimmies
Neutral Resets
He then shares the three steps needed to perform the OS consistently:
Hold Down+Back (very briefly)
Input Jump Back+Throw
Return to Down+Back
“So this Option Select takes advantage of the really long Throw Tech window, which I think is 7 frames. So even when I’m getting up off the ground, I’m holding Down+Back for that very brief moment. So even if he throws me the second I get up off the ground, I still have time to tech that throw, which I’m doing by jumping back and pressing Throw at the same time.”
After visually demonstrating the various scenarios that this option select covers, as well as teaching players how to practice it themselves in Training Mode, he discusses a few of the current counters to it in the current build of the game, Vesper closes by explaining what Capcom’s intended fix will mean for the option select and what it will mean for SFV’s meta going forward.
“What they did, is they made it so you can’t tech throws while holding Up. So basically, when I’m holding Up+Back and pressing Throw, if the opponent times his Throw right when I’m getting up, he will be able to Throw me. So that pretty much should cure the problem, hopefully, unless people figure out a time window where they can cover that option as well. So if Capcom is successful in getting rid of this with that patch, then I wonder if Capcom’s going to keep the jumps at 4 frames, I’m really curious. But I guess there were some other Option Selects that would create if we brought it back to 3.”
You can see the full video below. VesperArcade will continue going over the remaining patch notes in detail on his channel in the future.
One of the most amazing things to come out of Final Round XX’s Street Fighter V tournament was the run of Razer’s Kun Xian Ho, aka RZR|Xian, through the winners side of the bracket. Xian had dropped his previous main F.A.N.G., bringing out a highly polished Ibuki that caught most players off guard, leading to him eventually winning the tournament.
BornFree took some time to talk to Xian after his win to discuss a few things. The most obvious thing they talk about is Xian’s switch to Ibuki. In addition to this, he also asks Xian on his thoughts about Street Fighter V’s season 2 including new character Kolin, as well as any further additions, mechanic changes, and characters he might like to see. In addition to this, he also asks Xian about other fighting games, including Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite and the King of Fighters XIV (Xian played the predecessors to both games competitively).
Of course, that’s not all they talk about, hit up the interview below for his responses to the above and other questions.
The Predator may have first leapt onto the big screen in 1987–killing Carl Weathers in the process–but 30 years later, his death-dealing purpose and basic modus operandi remain the same. As such, his inclusion in the Mortal Kombat XL roster was a natural fit, and he turned out as a good character to boot.
In this combo video from Pir8, Predator goes through his Hish-Qu-Ten, Hunter, and Warrior variations, showing off his combo versatility in all of them. With some amazing use of his projectiles and grabs, Pir8 shows that you can get upwards of 50% or more on a combo, if it isn’t broken.
“Enter the Tekken tournament, a brutal competition between the world’s best fighters, grapplers, robots… and BEARS.”
Dubbing the Tekken series the “world’s most violent game of hacky sack,” the Bandai Namco series gets an Honest Trailer from Smosh Games. While it’s a satirical, humorous take that tackles the franchise from its roots up, it’s surprisingly accurate. They don’t leave out any of the ridiculous aspects of the series.
It’s nice to see another fighting game getting this treatment, as they usually do this for only the highest-profile games. Two years ago, they also did a Street Fighter Honest Trailer.
