Vote for JiBbo to play the worst character (Blanka X Hugo)

JiBbo

The reason Sagat was on my team to begin with was because a good friend of my perceived him to be terrible. I'd like to think I've done him great justice and now I'm willing to move on and take apart other characters and team compositions just the same.

Please briefly comment on who you think is the worst character and why. At the end of this week I will tally up and decide which characters to play. The following week I will be posting videos on my youtube channel of strategies and technology that I find with the team of my choosing. When I arrive back in the states I'll bring the team out in my stream and possibly more.

 My goal is to investigate the mentality of our community, further develop discussion of SFxT and more so to teach how to think outside the box.

Thank you for your cooperation!

Edit:  Hugo seems most wanted so far.  Blanka a close second.  Will it be Blanka/Hugo?  6 more days to voice your opinion!

Other mentions:

 - Balrog

 - Bison

 - Ibuki

 - Christie

 - Bryan

 - Cody

 - Elena

 - Lei

 - Raven

 - Cammy

 - Paul

 - Yoshimitsu

cgm

Let's start with the obvious: Hugo.

edit: Reasons: his only footsie tool is massively unsafe now, increased super armor startup, damage nerfed to the extent of no longer being intimidating. He just doesn't seem to have a purpose anymore, Marduk does everything much better.

JiBbo

cgm wrote: »

Let's start with the obvious: Hugo.

Let's start with an explanation :)

What do YOU think is bad about Hugo?

Xgrayninja

I'd love to see what you can squeeze out of Bison. I feel as though he's weak in this game because Capcom did very little to adjust his toolset for the SFxT engine; he has an extremely difficult time opening up an opponent with solid defense and now that boost chains such as st.MK>st.HK are even more unsafe on block, his opportunities to safely hit-confirm from mid-range are crippled. I mean, his role is obviously strictly as a safe point character, but I don't see why anyone would choose him for that task when characters like Chun, Vega and Law exist. He just feels impotent and boring in the SFxT engine, but if anyone can prove me wrong I'm sure it's you.

Oh and I'd love to see you pair him with Hugo as an anchor. I'm pretty convinced that he's likely the worst character in the entire roster, but again, I look forward to you proving me wrong.

JiBbo

Xgrayninja wrote: »

I'd love to see what you can squeeze out of Bison. I feel as though he's weak in this game because Capcom did very little to adjust his toolset for the SFxT engine; he has an extremely difficult time opening up an opponent with solid defense and now that boost chains such as st.MK>st.HK are even more unsafe on block, his opportunities to safely hit-confirm from mid-range are crippled. I mean, his role is obviously strictly as a safe point character, but I don't see why anyone would choose him for that task when characters like Chun, Vega and Law exist. He just feels impotent and boring in the SFxT engine, but if anyone can prove me wrong I'm sure it's you.

Oh and I'd love to see you pair him with Hugo as an anchor. I'm pretty convinced that he's likely the worst character in the entire roster, but again, I look forward to you proving me wrong.

Thanks! Bison/Hugo doesn't sound like a bad team at all. I like the sound of it

SimSimIV

I think Hugo is the worst character because:
-Without meter he can be pressured both by throws and meaties for free on wake up
-Slow walk speed
-Bad footsie normals to get a combo (He can get single hits in, but no way to convert to a combo safely)
-Hard time dealing with fireballs now that recoverable life is not regained as easily, so he can't use his lariat charge that much
-Needs meter to reliably anti air on reaction
-Harder time jumping on opponents because splash was massively nerfed and a lot of teh cast got better anti airs
-Big body, so he can be pressured with stuff like Ogre's hunting hawk that can't be crouched by Hugo, and he gets hit by very ambiguous jump ins because of his size
-His command grabs have long start up and bad range

He has some positive sides still, but I was going to mention why I think he is bad.


I would also like to challenge you in to tapping Lei's potential. I don't necessarily think Lei is that bad, but mastering the use of stances should be key in tapping the real potential that Lei has, and I feel even the best Lei players today, has a long way to go.

pengu

I'd really like to see what you can do with Balrog. All of his moves are unsafe except the lk version of dash upper, which misses on crouching anyway! He also lacks a cross over..

Shooting Star Rockman

Balrog seems to suck when it comes to synergy. Perhaps you could begin with him partnered with anyone.

ilitirit

I vote Blanka for very obvious reasons. Who else in the game is as close to being this bad?

- no reliable standing AAs
- average normal damage and weak priority for a "footsie" character
- pathetic meterless damage
- EX ball so slow to the point of it being nearly unusable for punishing projectiles
- Cannot link cr.lk's like in SFIV - has to use the unplinkable cr.lp's and even then the damage is usually not worth it
- Electricity hit-box is much than his SFIV version - cannot easily apply walking electricity pressure (not to mention that walking electricity is harder cos of boost combos)

Vulcan Hades

Show Mike Ross how Bryan should be played.

Hugo or Ibuki because they are "dead characters".

And I'll mention Elena since I rarely see high level Elena players. I'd like to see how silly she really can be.

JiBbo

These are great responses so far. Thanks! Seems like Hugo is very likely to be on the team. I've been running Poison/Hugo as of late so I would already have a head start with Hugo tech, not to mention I mained him in 3rd strike. The characters I choose all depends on discussion and demand.

Keep 'em comin! :)

Thancruz

Cammy. Imo held back by boost shackles and really feel jab jab jab cross up jab throw is just a gimmick for her. I really think she has hidden potential but no one plays her beyond basic footsies into boost and jab jab jab gimmicks.

Psychoblue

Without a doubt, Blanka.

Jon Slayton

Some combination of Paul, Blanka, and Yoshimitsu. I know Yoshi is good in pairs with certain characters but I still don't think he's good at all personally. Paul... shitty mobility, slow, etc etc. He's like a worse heihachi. Blanka... just because OJ says Blanka sucks and I want to see if he's right.

Viscant

I can't think of a worse team than Blanka/Hugo. Accidental boost chain when trying electricity traps is super exciting and fun!

--Jay Snyder
Viscant@aol.com

Siegvriel

Pick Asuka. I don't think she is the worst character, but she certainly isn't one of the best either.

She had only one good normal to play Footsies: Hyakujitsuko, and it got nerfed, because now it's -3 on block instead of -1. in 2013 they gave her one of the best anti airs, Dragon Wheel Kick, which helps a lot, but most of her normals are still too short and slow.

Comboing into super is so unreliable, you rarely get the full animation, although meterless damage is still pretty good.

You need to be a real psychic to mix up your oponent with her long strings that can be interrupted with CADC at various points, counters, command throws, normal throws etc without getting blown up.

Vulcan Hades

Blanka is close to being really strong tbh.

cl.mk to blow up throw/crouch tech, It's also 2 hits with decent advantage so you can confirm into boost and kill armor with it. I would kill to have these properties on Christie's cl.mk who looks similar but just isn't half as good.

s.hk is better than Blanka players think. It works on a lot of characters except like the Mishimas basically. Can combo with s.lp xx Ball on counter hit. And it has the advantage of being considered airborne, which means you don't eat a full combo on trade or if you lose, you just get reset. As if Up Ball and Electricity weren't enough for AA tools, he also has j.hp that bounds on counter hit but somehow people don't see how that can be useful to control the air.

EX Ball to go through projectiles and wall bounce. This is also his charge move and it's safe on block vs a lot of characters.

Coward Crouch has potential because it can be special cancelled. You can duck under Jack's DP with it and even under Alisa's boot move if I recall correctly.

Hops are still good for mixups. With throws being so scary and rolls being nerfed, this is good for Blanka.

Low Jump arc. Ambiguous cross-up.

The only thing he really lacks imo is a reliable meterless reversal. Right now he needs to spend 1 meter for either EX Electricity or EX Up Ball and I'm not even sure if those moves have good enough invincibility. s.hk being invincible to air attacks would've been nice too of course. Other than that, his damage is meh and he only has interesting combos in the corner which is kinda unfortunate. Not sure why they nerfed his Up Ball damage, it's not like he was shelling out ridiculous damage in the first place.

GLK

I like to so see some Bryan play. After the 1.07 update he went from playable to straight to low tier and since 2013 his combo variety and pressure is quite boring and less effective after the further received nerfs he's was given. I don't think you can make the character work. He just gets bullied by the most of the cast. He was an interesting character that apparently was so much of a sleeper that they had to nerf to the ground.

mohandu

Vulcan Hades wrote: »

And I'll mention Elena since I rarely see high level Elena players. I'd like to see how silly she really can be.

Justin is running Elena/Alisa last time I checked. Also, ReNic has Elena in rotation with Hugo/Abel/King.

Hugo, Sagat, and Zangief are the characters I want to see prove everyone wrong in this update. Actually, I really would like everyone to have their time to shine. Your challenge is exciting and intrigueing. Show us what you can do!

Vulcan Hades

mohandu said:

Vulcan Hades wrote: »

And I'll mention Elena since I rarely see high level Elena players. I'd like to see how silly she really can be.

Justin is running Elena/Alisa last time I checked. Also, ReNic has Elena in rotation with Hugo/Abel/King.

Hugo, Sagat, and Zangief are the characters I want to see prove everyone wrong in this update. Actually, I really would like everyone to have their time to shine. Your challenge is exciting and intrigueing. Show us what you can do!

Wow, I had no idea Justin played Elena. I guess I need to watch more videos lol.

Hugo/Bryan then.

Mr.Martinez

What character do I think is perceived to be low-tier but would like to see more of? Blanka.

I think Raven is underutilized as well.

cgm

Mr.Martinez said:

I think Raven is underutilized as well.

Dieminion has been utilizing the hell out of him recently, looks almost OP.

West

I would say Kuro and Toro, but I believe their size makes them a little too viable.

So I'll say Lei - Blanka

zUkUu

Elena or Christie - just because I have not seen either AT ALL.

If you want just a terrible character, play Cody.

HDTran

Not the worst character, but definitely one of the most interesting ones: Lei Wulong

roknin

I'd lay down a vote for Bryan, Ibuki and Hugo or those three in some combination.  Hugo seemed to have lost a lot of his tools (or have them nerfed considerably), to the point that pretty much everyone that mentions him also follows that up with "waste of a character slot now".

I'm honestly not too familiar with Ibuki despite trying to learn her myself at a couple of points, but the massive opinion on her seems to be that she lost the few things that made her viable in the update and she wasn't that viable before.  I'm really, really curious to see how true that is.

Same case for Bryan, who honestly I don't think is even that bad, but again the prevailing thought is that a ton of characters do what he does better mainly because he doesn't have a lot of threatening lows, and his combo potential was nerfed prior to 1.08.

Iono'.  Truthfully it's hard to say who's the worst anyway since the game is really just now being explored en masse like this.

Vulcan Hades

Oh yeah, I don't think Bryan and Elena are bad at all either. I was just voting for characters I wanna see played at high level. :)

FlyingVe

Bryan is a solid mid tier character, just like before... If anything, he's buffed over the previous version thanks to the EX mach breaker changes.

Personally, I'd rather see a ore unknown character like Elena or Blanka.

GLK

tbh i just want to see him play bryan, is that so wrong?

Mnszyk

Blanka is probably the best SF charge character, you can't be serious. "Nobody knows how to play and has bothered to learn" is not the same as "worst"

I mean, for real, how can Blanka be weaker than a character like Bison or Balrog. Blanka's normals are better for actually dealing damage, electricity is harder to do but still does 35 damage and gives like +11 frame advantage. He has a grounded anti-air if you actually spend fifteen minutes to learn the character, it's far standing medium kick. He's basically unchallengable in the air, his jump is one of the best in the game as opposed to Bison's which is one of the worst. Hop kick on people's corpse during wake-up kills reversal backdash, gives you a reasonable ambiguous cross up, and lets you stand in the place to punish rolls with throws until you attack. His damage problems are the exact same as every other SF cast member. He's got incredible normals with amazing priority, and he can frame trap with standing jab off literally every good normal he has. If he touches you with a medium strength normal, he always gets a combo. EX backball is a free tag-out or escape. His super does good damage. His close medium kicks hop throws, crush low shorts, and if he gets hit out of it he's aerial and you don't get a combo.

Blanka is amazing.

Balrog would be a good pick before Blanka, but Balrog is not just bad but boring.

Wantonx

Vulcan Hades said:

mohandu said:

Vulcan Hades wrote: »

And I'll mention Elena since I rarely see high level Elena players. I'd like to see how silly she really can be.

Justin is running Elena/Alisa last time I checked. Also, ReNic has Elena in rotation with Hugo/Abel/King.

Hugo, Sagat, and Zangief are the characters I want to see prove everyone wrong in this update. Actually, I really would like everyone to have their time to shine. Your challenge is exciting and intrigueing. Show us what you can do!

Wow, I had no idea Justin played Elena. I guess I need to watch more videos lol.

Hugo/Bryan then.

Jibbo has already shown very much how good sagat can be. I don't like using mine in the same lobby as his because it makes me look worse than I already do. 

On topic though, Hugo for sure..... Then I think Sakura or Bryan. Not sure about the last two but I'd be interested to see what you can pull off with hugo

Norieaga

Ibuki x Hugo. Blanka x Hugo. 

If you want an even bigger challenge then go Zangief x Hugo. 

Jani

Vote for: balrog/blanka/bison

Jinkwai

Even though I don't think Elena is bad, I would like your take on her. Justin Wong plays her was a lot of reservation. I'd like to see her played another way.

And for the record, Blanka/Hugo sounds mad boring. I appreciate your intentions, though.

alexlkd

Ibuki x Hugo. Go.

There is no character worse than Ibuki, so she should be a given. Hugo has some major problems so he is also a good choice.

Mnszyk said:

"Nobody knows how to play and has bothered to learn" is not the same as "worst"

Yes. Blanka is not the worst. This also applies to characters that are rare like Elena.

Darknid

Funny how people make these laundry lists for why Blanka is good. Please realize you can do this with every character in the game. Hugo, for instance, is a perfect candidate for one of these BS lists. I'm looking at your attempts to list Blanka's strengths, and if that's all you've got then I'll say it right now: Blanka sucks.

What incredible normals? Do you realize the normals that good characters in this game have? And what does Blanka's medium kick anti-air matter if you never need to jump against him (because of his crappy normals)?

Empryrean

Jibbo please play freebuki and elena. 3rd strike girls get no love outside of 3s. :(

Thancruz

Well I guess this makes my Community X Character development thread irrelevant now :( .

Mnszyk

Darknid said:

What incredible normals? Do you realize the normals that good characters in this game have? And what does Blanka's medium kick anti-air matter if you never need to jump against him (because of his crappy normals)?

How on earth are his normals bad. Who has a light attack that's as strong a poke as his 3 frame far jab? Standing far medium punch is basically unchallengable for a huge chunk of the cast, and has frame advantage on block or hit to boot. Up close he can frame trap with literally every good button. Hits you with crouching medium kick, that's a combo, standing medium, that's a combo, standing close medium kick, that's a combo. And every single one of those options has frame advantage on block, and a 3 frame jab to back it up so you can never safely press a button. Standing far heavy punch and his slide are both great options at extreme range, depending on what you want to do. And his jumping normals combined with his jump arc are best in show. And all of this is backed up by top tier walk speed.

Blanka is nothing but amazing normals. He's basically pre-2013 Cody when it comes to bullying people with a 3 frame normal. You can never hit buttons safely against him.

Higher-Jin

2013 Cody is the worst character as of now. He can't even overhead safely anymore. His c. lk was nerfed 3 different ways(range, start up, frame advantage). His damage is also pretty pathetic. He was overrated before and just terrible now. He has to rely on frame traps except he can't really get any good damage off of them anyway.

FullMetalRoss

Holy shit its Higher Jin....


Okay anywayBryan deff not the worst and def doesn't need to be played by Jibbo to figure out why he isn't the worst...

I can't think of someone worse than Hugo, except maybe Blanka but I don't think that is that interesting...

Interesting characters that would be good choices

Christy
Ogre
Balrog 

I think any of those 3 would be more interesting than Hugo since we all knwo what the changes are and what makes him worse, and we've played against him forever.

Higher-Jin

Lol why is it so surprising that I would post here? :P Just curious.

At any rate, I am inclined to agree with you. I expect to see Cody and Hugo to play as watered down versions of their former selves. I'd rather see Blanka just because I don't think we've seen anyone tap into his potential with cross up hop shenanigans (they seem to have really good recovery in this game).

My vote goes to Blanka/Balrog as team "Old School Charge Characters". Christy would be interesting to watch, but she is definitely not low tier in this version of SFXTk. She was underrated previously, and with her new buffs she's only more dangerous.

FullMetalRoss said:

Holy shit its Higher Jin....


Okay anywayBryan deff not the worst and def doesn't need to be played by Jibbo to figure out why he isn't the worst...

I can't think of someone worse than Hugo, except maybe Blanka but I don't think that is that interesting...

Interesting characters that would be good choices

Christy
Ogre
Balrog 

I think any of those 3 would be more interesting than Hugo since we all knwo what the changes are and what makes him worse, and we've played against him forever.

FullMetalRoss

Well I used to just see you post all the time and read your mvc2 threads and watch your low tier vids back befoer the explosion (I joined in 2003) and then randomly I hadn't seen you post in awhile so ti was just funny you turning up in this thread!

Hawkingbird

I'll like to you tackle Balrog because I've yet to see anything good come from the guy in this game. All his specials are unsafe, previously his AA was ass, doesn't seem to be able to take full advantage of things like wall bounces and has poor synergy with most of the cast. Haven't seen a character so ill fit for a game.

SWAG KING YOLO

I am very tempted to say Balrog since I also picked him up a few days back. The thing is, all of his specials are unsafe, his headbutt is still shit as an AA tool. So what do you have left?

You can fish with fs.HP and his crHP and st.MP are still reasonably good AA tools, so we'll just see you abuse his somewhat "OK" defense, doesn't seem all that exciting to me, but then again I'd like to see you try. 

Gr1nGo

Mnszyk said:
Blanka is nothing but amazing normals. He's basically pre-2013 Cody when it comes to bullying people with a 3 frame normal. You can never hit buttons safely against him.

That's impressive. Do you play blanka in sfxt? I'm dying to see you bully people with normal that is negative on block.

Vulcan Hades said:
Blanka is close to being really strong tbh.

cl.mk to blow up throw/crouch tech, It's also 2 hits with decent advantage so you can confirm into boost and kill armor with it. I would kill to have these properties on Christie's cl.mk who looks similar but just isn't half as good.

clmk is only cancellable on 1st hit. If you really want to confirm, pick Sagat.

Blanka is complete dead in this game. With such an ass framedata and his hitboxes being nerfed I don't see him being somewhat viable.
Of course there are bright sides. His overhead is comboable but it's also 25 and a close normal. With his inability to stop people from pressing buttons there's no way to setup it. Electricity has good frame advantage but the hitbox is short and the pushback is huge.
I want Jibbo to prove me wrong, definitely vote for Blanka.

Vulcan Hades

Gr1nGo said:

clmk is only cancellable on 1st hit.

 I never said anything about special canceling. I said cl.mk can blow up throw/crouch tech/armor + link into boost for 330+ damage without counter hit. Something I WISH my main characters could do. The only other character I use who can do something similar is Juri but she can't link off her cl.mk, she can only special cancel into fuhajin store.  And why would you even need to special cancel Blanka's cl.mk when it's already +0 on block and you have a 3f jab?

+0 when you have a 3f normal is like +1 because most characters only have 4-5f lights. From my experience, if someone blocks cl.mk and they press a button right after they eat a counter hit almost every single time.

The range on his normals are crappy for the most part yeah. Aside from s.mp, cr.hp and slide he doesn't have much compared to a lot of other characters that's true. But it doesn't matter as much as some people think.  He has good enough tools to handle himself at mid-range.

Yoshimitsu has terrible normals too. So someone uneducated looks at him and quickly comes to the conclusion that he's ass or bottom tier because he doesn't have "good footsies" in a game where the mid-range game is so important. But see that's called a theory. But in practice, Yoshi  having terrible normals doesn't matter in the slightest because he counters footsie characters by design. You simply cannot play your normal footsie game against him.

Point is arguing about on paper theories is pointless at the end of the day. What matters is how it all comes together in practice. And what I've found in practice against good Blankas is that they are really intimidating and their short range doesn't matter that much. I've also discovered the hard way that my best air to air normals (that out prioritize almost everything in the game btw) always  FLAT OUT LOSE against Blanka's j.hp. So again,  I personally trust my experiences more than  my own theories. I had some theories about Bob too until I got my ass handed to me by someone who actually made an effort to explore the character further.

Is Blanka top tier? No. Is he horrible? No. He's just ok and good enough imho. Close to being really solid but lacking in some areas. Most of you obviously don't share that point of view but whatever. We'll have to agree to disagree. Or let Jibbo decide. :)

Higher-Jin

I'll say that Blanka is either right in the middle or low middle as of now. Either way, i think he has the most potential for interesting setups. Frankly, I want to see someone abuse Yoshi blocked windmill while hopping around the opponent like a mad man with Blanka.

Shooting Star Rockman

Blanka also has that hopping move which works similarly to Ibuki's teleport which has a lot of offensive potential.  If he has speed gems that would make him harder to predict.

Lord BBH

Xgrayninja said:

I'd love to see what you can squeeze out of Bison. I feel as though he's weak in this game because Capcom did very little to adjust his toolset for the SFxT engine; he has an extremely difficult time opening up an opponent with solid defense and now that boost chains such as st.MK>st.HK are even more unsafe on block, his opportunities to safely hit-confirm from mid-range are crippled. I mean, his role is obviously strictly as a safe point character, but I don't see why anyone would choose him for that task when characters like Chun, Vega and Law exist. He just feels impotent and boring in the SFxT engine, but if anyone can prove me wrong I'm sure it's you.

uhhhh, st. MK - st. HK chain didn't really get changed at all in 2013. Other characters' boost chains got nerfed on block but that one was pretty much untouched. Yes, certain characters can punish it (especially if it's done point blank) but those same characters could punish it in 2012 too, so...

Bison's a better fit for this game than he is in SF4, just by nature of being able to actually do damage without requiring a charge, even if it's just by launching into partner. Yes it sucks that he doesn't have an overhead, but if the opponent is just going to sit there and block, he gets to use his fast walkspeed to waltz up to you and throw your red life away. If he thinks you're going to get nervous about getting thrown, he can go back to harassing you with standing LK. It's really annoying trying to get Bison off you because he has such safe, annoying pressure on the ground.

Yes he has weaknesses (aforementioned lack of overhead, floaty jump, no reliable anti-air...) but he's not a terrible character in the slightest. Despite the teleport nerf, he's a way more dangerous character in 2013 simply because of a couple engine changes that benefit him - throws taking off red life (if you have great walkspeed and a great ground game, you're going to be more likely to land a throw), and forward rolls being punishable (makes people feel less inclined to roll out once they get cornered, which is exactly where Bison wants to put them). It's more a case of him being a bit underused that people don't understand how he could be a threat until they play against him.

Fastlane

Hugo all the way. He is really terrible. They nerfed everything he had to get in and is hopeless when being rushed down without EX. I hate that because he's my favorite character.