So for those that care here are my Thoughts/Review of the Characters i play Cammy, Karin, Vega.
I will talk about where i feel they place in the rankings and their viability against the overall cast, this is a long post so if your not particularly interested in reading about all the characters feel free to just jump to the character you want. Many Thanks
Cammy:
After the huge nerfs she sufered in the last build she is back to her normal self for the most part, most of her stuff got put back the way it was with the exception of a few things here and there, more noticebly her b,Mp anti air, which was left nerfed, and quite so infact, in comparison to other anti airs that are more effective hers saw its hurt box extended, meaning it will trade more often, and the hit box is not as big... Now its still an anti air and it works as such, but whilst before you could throw it out late and still win now you will trade/lose depending on how late you put the button out there, this however is not a problem to her gameplay and i believe in the highest lvl of competition for this game she will not suffer at all from having a more shallow anti air, considering her DP is still great and its a way better form of anti air.
Overall she is still among the top A rank characters of this game in her current state simply because her button configuration is made for success, the ability to outpoke and outrange pretty much everyone in the roster will outline her as a force to be feared at all times. It has to be noted however that those looking for an airborn Cammy will be dissapointed considering her game plan no longer relies on the Dive kick / cross up heavy play but in a more outpoke grounded one. While you can still use her Dive kicks to some effect they are obviously nothing like their SFIV counter part, and her jumping attacks seem more meant to keep other ppl out of the air then jump ins with the exception of her H that are ok but still not hugely great...
Karin:
Karin oh dear Karin, This character was made to be good, extremely good in fact. from her buttons, to her special moves to her frame data everything about this character screams TOP...
With the Nerf to some previously Top characters that disputed her place among the best ( i Will talk about said characters in my Vega Review) She has now found her place in the Top 3 of SFV. Everything about this character is fantastic and there is little to be said other than newbies beware she will be the pain of you SFV existance... But lets delve a little deeper onto why she is so good.
With her button design being very similar if not a carboon copy of Cammys, she could only be great, her priorities are amazing meaning even tho it will seem like you should have traded she will infact win everytime. Her frames are amazing and they almost remind me of how relentless Fei Long was. Her specials outside of the obvious Unsafe after Rekkas are extremely good... Now while i dont feel her Overhead/Low Rekkas will play a big part in a high lvl situation, its still amazing that they are there, Even if they hit only once in a match its already a plus, so when you consider the constant threat of having high/low that could come out at anytime from near full screen away!!! Yeah she is good!!!
There isnt much to be said here honestly she is amazing and even the more new to the series will see success with her due to how simple she is to understand and win with... Its extremely eazy to go into auto pilot with her and just destroy an opponent in a few seconds...
Vega:
sigh. Vega, my main, soooo i have talked about Vega here and some know quite well how bothered i am with his current situation, But lets go back to phase 2 for a moment and discuss how he stood.
In Phase 2 Beta it was almost undeniable that Vega and R.Mika dominated the rankings of characters... They where extremely good and had near all the tools for success in a Street Fighter Game, While Karin players where still figuring out the character Mika and Vega had a bit more time in and where fun to play... So we saw a lot of praise being thrown at their direction, some even placing R.Mika as a true top character and Vega Closely following... but this tale of woe saw a most unwellcomed mid section, as almost by the design of a now boring and over used template we had our heroes stripped of their powers and beaten to near death.... Now i might be over exagerating and for those interested and reading this They are not horrible characters by any means, but with this being said they are a shell of their former selfs but lets continue more in depth..
While Vegas nerfs are not as blunt as Mikas, they affected the character in all the right places to make him now stand among the more complicated characters to play in SFV ( from hero to zero as they say). Vega hasnt been in the upper exelon of a street fighters game in a very long time, ever since maybe alpha... So when he was released i was extremely pleased with the changes to his character and the overall strenght of the character, His buttons felt extremely good with nice frames and advantages, Stance change gave him a much needed form of offense and pressure, his jumps reached pretty far which made him a force to be reckon with from ranges most characters cant poke at. All in All and extremely solid character that could compete with any in the roster. Now lets come back to the reality of Beta Phase 3, As Soon as a picked up the character i felt something was off, couldnt quite tell right away what it was, but i was strugglin to repeat past success with my gameplan, so with this i took to the practice room to figure out what was going on...
After a mere 20 mins of trainning i noticed that anything that made him good was Toned down from 10 to 5... His jump, shorter, His Buttons now with a more reduced hitbox, and his specials with more recovery and block frames... So as the weekend moved along and i saw more and more flaws in Vegas design it truely hit me, Vega no longer has the tools to compete in the highest lvl of SFV, Now before anyone says this is me crying over my characters nerfs, please keep in mind i am a loyalist and i will continue to play him regardless of his rankings in the game, but after taking out the proverbial blindfold of pleasure that was seeing my character with new tools and new power i figured out what Vegas true problem has always being, and that is that, without extreme range in his normals to put opponents where you want them, characters like Ryu/Karin/Necalli and many more can run laps around Vega and there is little you can do about it because *drum roll* he has no proper DP or anti air... While before the nerf you could put your opponent in a range where you could Anti air him with cr.HP (which is probably among the worse anti airs in the game) now you cannot, because if they jump at you, you will 90% of the time lose, added to the fact that he no longer has his scarlet flip, or his back flips to escape danger makes him a sitting duck for anyone that feels like jumping into Vegas face...
Well but like in every other game Vega has always had Shitty (pardon my french) defence, and from a dev. standpoint i believe that to be a balanced way to design the character due to his amazing range in pokes (something he no longer has) that made his offense extremely good, So if he has poor defense he must have extremely good offense. Well yeah he had it, in the form of Stance change, that in Phase 2 was extremely good and gave him access to unpresedented means of pushing the opponent to the corner and extremely good block strings, yeah but thats gone 2, so now the character has poor offense and even worse defense meaning he cant keep up with most characters in the roster that excel at atleast one of those facets...
My sincere apologies for the Vega Rant, but i writte this with clean eyes and im not being moved by negative feelings over my characters nerfs, as he stands with no anti air or DP to help him and poor buttons and specials, he moved from a solid A rank to probably the button 5 characters along with Mika.
If you Disagree please feel free to say so, its always good to see things from diferent points of view and maybe find something i was missing in the first place. Cheers.
I'm sure they won't kill everything that's strong in this beta but it'll probably change drastically if history repeats.
