VesperArcade continues his series looking at the changes that will be coming to members of the Street Fighter V cast in the upcoming balance update–set to be released in late April–by turning his focus to the final Season 1 DLC character, Urien.
The “Dominating Light” is currently seen as one of the most powerful characters in Season 2 of SFV, having received a large amount of buffs, with nary a nerf in sight. He made quite the splash when Alienware’s Nemo won TOPANGA League 7 with him, in appropriately dominant fashion. According to Capcom’s CFN website, he also has the highest online win rate of the entire cast for February 2017, and was the 4th-most-used character behind the Shotokan trio of Ken, Akuma and Ryu, with him being selected in 5.208% of February’s bouts.
Unfortunately for his plans for global conquest, Urien will be receiving some nerfs in this forthcoming patch, such as his crouching medium kick going from +2 to -2 on block.
This normal was initially changed in Season 2, it went from +1 on hit to +4. It means he’s now able to convert off of it. You can easily confirm into a crouching light punch, for example. You can even do better if he gets a counter hit, he can go into a medium for more damage. But that’s not the main reason why it was crazy. They also made it +2 on block from -2. This was one of the most requested changes for Urien, especially since there are so many long-range normals that were made minus on block in Season 2, like Karin’s st.MK, Rashid’s st.HK. I’m sure Capcom wanted Urien to have a threatening, long-range low that could convert when the opponent’s stuck in Aegis Reflector. I’m glad Capcom kept the +4 intact and just went after the block advantage.
Urien will also be getting a single buff in this update, as the hitbox of his jumping light kick has been expanded downward–it was reduced in Season 2.
Urien was given a cross-up in Season 2 with jumping light kick , but like most cross-up light attacks, the range is quite poor. So if I’m not jumping at the right angle, it’ll just miss entirely. But at the same time, I have to jump-in really deep as well, because the hitstun on light attacks is very low as well. But by expanding the hitbox downward, Urien doesn’t have to jump-in as deep as he does right now, which means I can hit the button earlier and get the hit, so it’s a better cross-up overall.
Urien’s final change is that EX Chariot Tackle will go from 0 to -2 on block, with reduced pushback.
This is a pretty bad number for Urien to be at in general, since he doesn’t have a 3-frame light attack. Urien’s fastest normal is 4 frames, so being -2 is worst than most characters. If he tries to challenge with a light attack, Urien can be beat by nearly anything from the opponent. If EX Tackle is blocked, Urien is on the defensive now and he has to be guessing what the opponent will do next.
In closing, VesperArcade gives his final thoughts on Urien:
My final verdict on Urien is, overall, nerfed. Even though Urien is definitely the hardest-nerfed character in all of the April patch notes, his V-Trigger, combo potential and damage output remains unchanged. He still has all of his previous setups, his combo potential is still much better than Season 1. I feel Urien still remains a top tier character and Capcom did a good job of keeping his core character intact and fun to play.
You can see the full Urien video above, as well as his prior coverage of the patch notes so far in the links below:
Sources: VesperArcade; CFN Portal