Over on NeoEmpire.com, Zak Bennett wrote up some impressions of Balrog (Boxer) in Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition.Basically the two big changes to Balrog (Boxer) in the Arcade Edition are his headbutt, having more recovery (only if it whiffs or is blocked), and his close standing medium punch.
His headbutt having more recovery is a massive issue. Headbutts were always unsafe on block, but now specific areas where you could use it, particularly EX headbutt defensively, are now gone.
For example: Things like rufus trying a crossup divekick… before, an EX headbutt would get you far enough away from him in order to escape unpunished, but now the massive recovery means he can still land, catch up with him, knock you down again, and apply more pressure.
Using it as a “get out of jail free” move is pretty much impossible now. So in that sense, defensively he is now much weaker against things like crossup mixups, Ryu’s crossup hurricane kick, Cammy, and Zangief etc.
The range and hitbox of his headbutts remains unchanged, the hard punch headbutt is still just as good for hitting Ryu throwing fireballs from half screen-ish distance, however the damage as gone down to being quite weak on all headbutts. Hard punch headbutt really doesn’t take much of a chunk at all when put into a combo, which is kinda lame, but at the same time it was necessary because aggressively he has become a lot stronger.
I was playing either as rog or against rog for probably like 5 hours yesterday, and let me say that he's totally over exaggerating the headbutt nerf. It's damage is still fine, and on whiff you're getting punished either way.
Meh.... Balrog. He's still good. PR Rog was owning a lot of people with him at CTF today. The damage nerf is minimal. At least it was one move rather than almost everything like Honda.
He's still gonna be a turtler. Just now he needs a few more hits to ko somebody.
@2
If you're implying that you're giving up on Balrog, you might want to reconsider. Zak Bennet directly states that Balrog has gotten BETTER overall. Yes, headbutt got considerably worse, but really, it's not that bad of a trade off once you look at everything else he got and still has.
But if one move's nerf is enough for you to abandon what is still a really good character then...no offense but maybe you shouldn't have been playing as Balrog in the first place.
Doesn't his jab whiff on crouching opponents now? To me that is a bigger nerf than this. To me his headbutt should be treated like a dragon punch and if you throw it out randomly you deserve to be punished for it.
#6
as i said might, wont know until ae comes out. i dabbled around during ssf4 a few toons and ended up coming back to rog. one nerf isnt enough for me to switch, but changes to the whole cast and the release of new characters might convince me to pick someone else that may suit my play style better.
Being a Rog player I really don't mind the head butt nerf. Seeing as how if you were throwing it randomly anyways, you should get punished for it. Damage nerf on it is fine too. Still gonna use the BnB c.lp,c.lk, S Head butt. Rog didn't really have huge damage on his combos anyways so it's not that big of a deal. Im excited to see how he's gotten better overall though. I'm especially excited to see how much better it is the play him aggressively now.
personally i think the headbutt should be punishable b/c even in past versions of himself in other games, that move was punishable...from what i can understand, even though i don't like balrog, he's still gonna be a good character in AE....it's a shame TKD el fuerte....hopefully someone else will pick him up....
I don't normally talk like this but I'm giving in to the demons: I hate Balrog, I hope he sucks ass, I wish he would just fall off the surface of the fictional Street Fighter world! He just sits there, looking at you, controlling space just by sitting there. That stupid jab and auto-pilot, brainless not to mention meter-less ultra is garbage. He has stupid teeth, stupid hair, and a stupid looking face!
Tried submitting this as a news tip but the form doesn't work:
Jin Hinted at for MvC3?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOZEaT...
That sounds similar to Jin's theme to me. In the video Niitsuma eats 12 donuts but that could mean ANYTHING. I believe the music is more significant.
HAPPY SATURDAY!
this is bullsh*t. the scrubs who play this game and get hit by hb because their 2 dumb to block got what they wanted. the new combos sound lovely though. balrog takes massive amounts of mind games to play effectively,which many people who play this game lack it seems.
Balrog takes an elementary education level and only one hand to play effectively.
I play Balrog only when I'm in an angry mood. Reason being cause I get tired of getting beat so I decide to play rough with Balrog in Ultra II. Seeing this... this could make things much harder for me because I play with Balrog though not as good as other players. I made a quote for him...
"You mess with the dirty bull, you get the horns."
Um why is this scrub using headbutt to get around cross overs and no ex-rush upper? This guy is garbage and should stop talking about the game.
All of these nerfs only affect spamers.Capcom is making AE less beginner friendly forcing these people to step up their game to survive.
...Who spams headbutt? That's another nerf to make it easier for badplayers for sure. Good players were already punishing headbutt.
Wonder how many people will switch in AE
Balrog didn't need more recovery...they didn't add more recovery to Ryu's DP, jesus. lol
Anytime Balrog throws it out he can get punished on whiff, unless he was far away or something. Headbutt is his bread and butter move....it's supposed to be GOOD. This could really mess the character up since it's a very special component in Balrog's game plan. This is just like when they took away knockdown on Gief's EX Hand (another stupid nerf).
I have to imagine good players could spend a few minutes in the training room to get around headbutt. If adding more recovery on the move was necessary, this change is not to suit any good players. Many of these changes are damaging to characters when played at a high level. :/
Gonna read the rest of the article now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP4BC8...
podcast on the balrog nerfs
Neat. even if i'm not into Balrog.