Impact of Kage's Season 5 buffs in Street Fighter 5 analyzed by HiFight
Season 5 of Street Fighter 5 has provided a plethora of changes to the game's overall balance. In particular, Kage's list of buffs is exceedingly lengthy.
As there is a lot of information to digest for Kage players, HiFight has uploaded a video that details Kage's adjustments. More importantly, he's provided an overview of what these adjustments will mean for Kage's overall gameplan.
The patch notes list Kage's heavy Dragon Punch as having "Increased blowback time" and "decreased blowback distance for the 3rd hit." It's been determined that what this essentially translates to is that Kage now has okizeme after hitting. Kage will be +4 on quick rise and +9 on back roll.
As detailed by HiFight, this means that Kage will no longer have to choose between getting okizeme and damage. By ending combos with Kage's heavy Dragon Punch, he now gets both.
The increase of the cancel window for Kage's crouching medium kick means that it's now possible to hit confirm into specials. Combined with the Dragon Punch buffs, Kage's offense is already significantly better than his Season 4 incarnation.
It's also worth mentioning that Kage's EX Fireball is slightly faster. It previously wasn't possible to cancel into this move from a crouching medium kick and have it connect.
Remember that this attack will crumple the opponent. This attack is also now +2 on block, so Kage has a lot of corner pressure that will be difficult to deal with.
Kage's V-Trigger 1 was also buffed so that he can perform air dashes more often. As shown in the video, this can lead to crazy 50/50s.
Click image for animated version
