Rentahamster said:
Hmm, the damage nerfs are odd considering the reasons they gave for his damage "buffs" for Super last year. Perhaps they improved the hitboxes a little to compensate?
No. Hitboxes are exactly the same.
Rentahamster said:
Couldn't you already combo into EX flame after back+fierce? If it's easier to combo now, that doesn't really help all that much since the damage on it got nerfed anyways. Besides, like you said, saving for EX fireballs or Yoga Inferno is much more useful.
EX Flame starts up faster so it is possible to combo after a forward/strong attack now. But since the damage on EX Flame was so heavily nerfed (from 180 to 120), it makes no sense to use EX Flame in a combo over Light Flame. And Yoga Inferno being nerfed by 50 means that using it at the end of a BnB isn't always the best move. After the scaling kicks in you end up doing ~90 damage. On high health characters or if the combo won't kill, I find myself saving Super far more often now for AA, crumple stuns, or after a Mummy juggle.
Speaking of which...
Rentahamster said:
If back crouch medium punch helps to counter dive kicks better, then I guess that's ok...
The frame changes to db.mp make very, very little difference in blowing up dive kicks with LK~LP~MP because the hurtboxes for that move are the same. As it is now the hitbox extends from his elbow almost to the end of his fingers. Unfortunately the big hurtbox goes from the top of his head down to his knee, and is extended out to his wrist. Which is why it is very hard to cleanly OS a dive kick, and far more likely that you will trade or get beat cleanly. Check it out:
If they would have just pushed the hurtbox back from his wrist to forearm, and lowered it from above the top of his head to neck level or even nose level, that would have made OS'ing dive kicks a little easier. And considering the extent to which Sim gets raped by dive kicks I am really (not) surprised that they left this untouched. After seeing how fucked Sim is in AE I can only surmise that some on the staff either have a ridiculous boner for Daigo and wanted to make sure he never lost to Sim again, or they themselves were raped pretty badly by some of the Sim gods in Japan and vowed to neuter him into oblivion.
You will notice a lot of the Japanese Sims fishing for Mummy > Super to blow up the twins dive kick and being successful with it. It's something I've always done just because it looks cool, is surprisingly effective (beats Tatsus and things like Psycho Crusher or Honda's Headbutt), and is one of Sim's only juggles. Mummy is a good option because of the weak hitbox on their dive kicks, and also because you get close to full damage from the Super. Against good twin players you will rarely have an opportunity to combo into super, and the only EX move useful against them is EX Blast. So you will find yourself with Super a lot and Mummy is one of the best ways to land it.
But get ready to be violated in a major way.
This video says it all. Go to 21:30 for the fun stuff. It took Champ/Daigo 21 minutes to play out a best of 5 set with Sim/Roo, and it took 5 minutes to play a best of 5 with Sim/Yoon. And trust me, even mediocre Yoons are a huge problem just because the character can do anything he likes to you at all times. It is without question an 8-2 match up that feels like 9.5-0.5 sometimes.
/end QQ
