Hisako in S3

Characters Hisako
21

They said it was mostly about safe jump vortexy stuff. In general, Hisako gets a ton off her hard knockdowns anyway, and her full wrath setups are some of the most dangerous in the game. So I think it may have just been them not wanting her to get too much too easily off a single one of her enders, the same way they removed some of the buffs from other characters’ go-to enders.

And the ability to jump back to return wrath is a really solid way to regain Hisako’s safe-ish pressure options - just jump out of any less than tight pressure when you get pressured, and press the attack again as soon as the wrath refills. She’ll be a little weaker on defense than she already is unfortunately, but so long as he wrath comes back quickly enough in neutral I’m hoping it won’t be too much of a problem.

22

Finally got a chance to sit down with this thread! Thank you, @STORM179, for posting it and placing the patch notes in the OP.

Random thoughts about the changes. Sorry, this is probably going to be a long post, hehe.

  • [-] Low Vengeance Counter is no longer able to catch Mid attacks.

Ouch. So countering lows as basically become either a 100% hard read, or something you do to break out of a block-string. I’m honestly a bit puzzled by this - it’s not like we had Hisako’s blazing their way to top 5 on the back of crazy good counter game.

As an aside, this is actually going to cause me to have to modify the way I orient my hand on the stick when I play Hisako. Which is my main. So meh. :stuck_out_tongue:

  • [-] Added recovery to the landing of Air ORZ making it a bit worse on
    whiff. If you hit too high it’s possible to be punishable, but it is
    also possible to still be +3 or so.

When this was demonstrated @ KIWC, it seemed to matter less then the ORZ was done closer to the ground, so it seems that TK-ORZs will still be really strong. Time to step up that TK game, folks!

  • [-] Slowed startup of Med and Hvy Air ORZ (by 4 and 8 frames) and altered the way they move in the air a bit to compensate.

I’m going to have to reserve judgment on this until I get my hands on the finished product.
STORM pretty much nailed my current feelings on the matter:

  • [+] Improved the hitbox of Hvy Air ORZ so it hits higher up and crosses up easier, making it worth the extra startup.

8 Additional frames of startup is a pretty big kick in the pants, so using this shiny new (and by the sounds of the description, most likely larger) hitbox is a risky proposition in neutral. With this in mind, and considering the trajectory changes to Medium and Heavy AORZ, It seems as though they’re trying to make us more conscientious about which strength of AORZ we use in specific scenarios. We already had to do this for the most part, but it’s becoming more important in S3.

  • [-] Wrath meter no longer recharges while jumping.
  • [+] Wrath regeneration speed is increased by 50%.

Anyone who’s played matches with me knows that this is going to be a pretty significant adjustment for me. My S2 mindset was “Hey, we’ve got ridiculously good air normals, AORZ is really strong, and we regen wrath in the air. Let’s take to the skies and squeeze the juice out of her air game”. I still think it will be very worthwhile to continue to pay due respect to her air game in S3, but I’m going to have to relax a bit and stand my ground a lot more because this change (along with stagger) give her way more incentive to do so. We definitely shouldn’t be salty though - a 50% increase in regeneration speed is really significant.

  • [+] Close HP, Far HK, and Close HK all cause Stagger on counterhit and deal much more hitstun.

This is pretty neat, but I’m not going to get too excited about this until we know how stagger will interact with Possession and Influence (if at all).

  • [+] Standing LP and Jumping LP cause Flipout.

It may sound silly, but I’m really excited about this. I already love Hisako’s light normals, this just made them cooler.

  • [+] You can now jump cancel the 3rd Heavy ORZ if you hit an airborne
    opponent, and using 2nd Heavy ORZ to juggle into the 3rd hit is easier.

This is actually really good. From a jump cancel - with full wrath you can get a recapture, you could spend a bar of shadow to get a recapture with Shadow AORZ, and if no meter is available you can J+LP to flip-out into a ground mix-up. I am curious though - by “using 2nd Heavy ORZ to juggle into the 3rd hit is easier”, were they referencing a change to the hitbox on 2nd Heavy ORZ, or was it an adjustment to frame data? Or both? I guess we’ll have to wait and see! I’ll archive both the hitbox and frame data on the current Rekka so when S3 comes out we can compare.

  • [+] Descent is no longer affected by Kan-Ra’s Curse.
  • [+] Descent crushes highs 1 frame sooner and gets underground 10 frames sooner.
  • [+] Hisako used to be able to cancel out of Descent on frame 48 into
    attacks only. Now she can cancel into movement as well, and on frame 42
    instead.

From those of us that regularly tried to find a home and a purpose for Descent, despite it being horrendously unsafe and way slower than it should have been - THANK YOU.

  • [+] New Shadow Move: Air Shadow On Ryo Zan! Hisako can perform a Shadow
    version of Air ORZ! This version hits rapidly and always recaptures air
    opponents, and staggers grounded opponents.

Seems like something that’s going to be mostly utilized to get recaptures when the Wrath won’t provide for it. It’s also seems pretty mash-breakable (a la Kan-Ra’s Shadow twirly-thingie). Too early to tell how strong this will be, but I see definite application for this in the jump-canceled Heavy ORZ scenario.

  • [+] New Ability: Descent Cancel! Hisako can now cancel into Descent in
    any situation she could Wrath cancel for a Vengeance counter. This costs
    half Wrath just like the Vengeance cancel does.

This is pretty interesting. Too early to speculate just what uses this will have aside from cool looking stuff in instinct.

Another random thought:

The change to combo breakers that places the characters back in neutral (which I love) is supposed to move the player being broken outside of the “effective range” of the player that broke the combo. I wonder what range they’ve deemed “effective” for Hisako… her dash and long normals allow her to put a hitbox on the opposite side of the screen in very little time at all. I kind of hope that breaking combos doesn’t place our opponent in another zip code…

Whew! Once again, sorry for the wall of text.

23

Thank goodness for Low Vengeance not being able to catch mid. Now I can terrorize @STORM179 with Jago’s Close MK, and mix ups. :smiling_imp:

24

Joke’s on you - I always used high counter against you anyway :laughing:

I’m guessing it’ll put you just outside the range of far HP. So not terribly far, but you’d have to actually commit to something to be able to reach the opponent.

2 Likes
25

Well, after watching the extended gameplay stream hosted by @TheKeits, I have to say I’m feeling a lot better about Hisako going into S3. Descent seems fast enough to function as a legit punish to certain things now, and those descent cancels seem like they’ll actually be a potent mix-up tool when used wisely.

The stagger normals should also lead to some pretty solid hard-to-breakables. All in all, I’m pretty excited to try her out now. :slightly_smiling:

2 Likes
26

@STORM179 @Marbledecker
Hey guys, working on Hisako to level 50 , almost there but noticed today that i can barley get in a hit after her throw…were before S3 I always had ample time to hit confirm after the throw and start a combo. Why is the AI able to enter block so quickly now after her throw? Even with full Wrath they are already blocking before you can enter crouching light kick!

Did something change?

27

Not so far as I know. I’ve been able to link after her throw just like always - was hitting medium punch manuals off of it consistently today. You might just be having an off day.

The manual off of her throw is unaffected by wrath, so that doesn’t figure into it one way or the other.

28

It’s manual timing, sounds like you’re off. Suggest you do exercises with it in the lab. Do it 10 times in a row for light and mediums

29

Its weird, I had been hitting it daily before S3, now, the AI is like…NOPE… Im blocking before you can get the crouching light kick out biatchh! Almost like there is not as much stun out of the throw.

After I posted above I was able to get it to work better, but it still feels different. Maybe the damage decrease causes lass hit stun? Maybe I just suck lol

Owell…I got her to lvl 50 last night so prob wont be using her much for a while.

Thanks
@R1stormrider YOU GET THAT DAMN HEADSET YET???

2 Likes
30

yes i got a headset lol. also try doing st.LP or st.MP after you do the throw. doing the cr.lk is likely making you doing it too slow since you have to do 2 inputs instead of one. i understand you used to pull it off, but try what i suggested and do it 10 times. if there is something you cant do, thats the best method in getting it down.

31

I don’t believe Hisako’s throw took any damage adjustments. Not sure any of her enders did actually.

32

How does that make you only do 1 input?

33

You’re pressing only lp, or mp

34

They all did. Every single character did.

35

*shrug * If they did, it wasn’t by much. They touched up most of the more insane damage enders, but Hisako’s for instance was left more or less alone it felt like - I was pretty accurately judging what would kill and what wouldn’t yesterday. I think her damage was already tooled more or less where they decided to put S3’s. Wall splat might be a little weaker, but influence ender felt about the same as before also.

36

Working on a video on flipout tech, but for now, here’s an old OS that worked in S2 and continues to be awesome in S3 @STORM179 @Samish02 @R1stormrider

2 Likes
37

Pretty sure that shouldn’t affect your input as direction can be pressed in advance and you only have 1 button to actually time.

38

Can you explain how you do it I’m not understanding how it works properly.

1 Like
39

Sure thing! :smiley:

So at the moment that you anticipate either a throw or an attack, you tap the 3P and 3K buttons, in that order, one quickly after the other. The timing is close to simultaneous presses, but not quite so, where the 3P button is pressed first.

The reason why this works - you’re feeding both the Parry (LP+MP+HP) and Throw (LP+LK) inputs into the game within about a frame’s worth of time, and the game decides the best outcome predicated on your opponent’s action.

This technically will also work if you hit the 3K button first; however, since low-parry no longer catches mids, your best bet is to hit the 3P button first as your chances of a successful counter go up by 33.3%…

…unless you’re in instinct, in which case, either one will work, but you may as well just get in the habit of hitting 3P first.

40

Huh. Never even knew that tech existed :smiley:

For your flip out tech, I’ve found that a really basic but effective “setup” is to just air-to-air with LP, and then meaty command grab once you hit the deck. I’m sure you already figured this one out, but figure I’d mention just in the off chance that you hadn’t. The spacing and timing can get weird sometimes (with opponents landing late or early or crossing over), but it’s a solid string that will only lose to mash DP or an immediate jump. It’s a great way to start a match I’ve found, and preserves wrath so that if you choose to influence, you actually get the full combo afterwards.

1 Like