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[P4AU] News & Gameplay Discussion

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He says and I quote, "Hopefully, you guys enjoyed--there's tons more to discover in this game, trust me...you know, we already have one DLC character announced...um...more to come! Hey."

 

I understand that you may be skeptical at the possibility of another character and that's dandy--just keep it to yourself and try not to ruin the hopes of those who believe it's going to happen. No need to be a stick in the mud about it.

 

Also, that link of yours doesn't take you to the mark; it simply goes about 30-40 mins. back to Pain vs Stunedge.

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He says and I quote, "Hopefully, you guys enjoyed--there's tons more to discover in this game, trust me...you know, we already have one DLC character announced...um...more to come! Hey."

 

I understand that you may be skeptical at the possibility of another character and that's dandy--just keep it to yourself and try not to ruin the hopes of those who believe it's going to happen. No need to be a stick in the mud about it.

 

Also, that link of yours doesn't take you to the mark; it simply goes about 30-40 mins. back to Pain vs Stunedge.

 

No. (Link 2)

 

That link works fine when I've tried it out on Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox, so I'm not sure why you're saying it doesn't.

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Just to be that guy to ruin your hopes of extra characters, that one DLC character on the way is probably just Adachi. First week free or not he's still downloadable.

I'm just saying take things with a grain of salt.

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You know, the thing I dislike about Ken is his 5A. It's like Kagura's 5A. Makes me sad. So much potential there. Oh well, I guess you have to balance him somehow.

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The way Yu brings up the DLC at the end is pretty suspicious. I think we can expect something more in the way of DLC, even if it's not a new character. Here's hoping it is though.

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Just to be that guy to ruin your hopes of extra characters, that one DLC character on the way is probably just Adachi. First week free or not he's still downloadable.

I'm just saying take things with a grain of salt.

But then why would he say we already know one dlc character announced? So obviously he already knows we know about Adachi from all streams and stuff, so why bring it up?

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But then why would he say we already know one dlc character announced? So obviously he already knows we know about Adachi from all streams and stuff, so why bring it up?

With that reasoning, he could honestly mean there's another actual DLC character on the way, I'm just too much of a pessimist to believe otherwise. Especially with the layout of the character select screen when Adachi fills in the roster spot below Yu.

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With that reasoning, he could honestly mean there's another actual DLC character on the way, I'm just too much of a pessimist to believe otherwise. Especially with the layout of the character select screen when Adachi fills in the roster spot below Yu.

 

And all I'm saying is don't ruin or shoot down people's hopes of it being true, because I'd like to hear your guess on what Namba means on "more to come."

 

Also, remember when we had to take Amada/Kujikawa confirmations with a grain a salt, even though we were pretty sure it was going to happen? Guess it wouldn't hurt to go with your hunches on this one. What have you got to lose? (EXCEPT YOUR MIND BUT THAT PROLLY VANISHED A LONG TIME AGO D:)

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Yes. Day 2 Rises and Shos are actually pulling off some sick stuff, Ken's the only who seems stuck on the "Auto combo into dog" mindset.

I agree.  TBH nobody has made a really good case for Ken yet.  He just looks like a nuisance matchup for certain characters.  Maybe he's strong but not flashy, who knows at this point.  

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Welp. Dream is dead. Sorry to all the hopefuls (like me).

You can look forward to the Navis, because I'm sure there's more to come. Yukari got leaked as one and she wasn't announced like Ken and Adachi, so...look for that?

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I agree. TBH nobody has made a really good case for Ken yet. He just looks like a nuisance matchup for certain characters. Maybe he's strong but not flashy, who knows at this point.

I have tl;dr thoughts on Ken but it basically comes down to this: I think he's going to play similar to Labrys in the sense of "not particularly flashy," but Ken doesn't have the drawback of losing momentum while on defence. He has solid normals, left-right mix-ups courtesy of Koromaru, good jump combos, and the ability to pull in opponents but no particularly jazzy supers. His range on normals means he can either go in and lock you down in pressure or hit you from optimal range to make you regret pushing whatever button you just hit. Because he doesn't have to keep momentum for damage the way Labrys does, I suspect he'll be able to dictate the pace of some matches, as once he does tag you and gets a confirm, any combo will be sufficiently damaging to make you think twice before trying that again. His DP's recovery can be covered by smart Koromaru placement, which makes Minazuki's teleports less viable (or he can skip the DP and just hit Minazuki as soon as he lands). Since he can use Koromaru to cover his approach, Ken gets to test the waters before going in himself, which is a huge advantage against zoners, but throw enough projectiles out and he still has to work his way in, since Koromaru halts his approach and is knocked down on hit.

I saw people using Koromaru smartly (desummoming him and then resummoning Koromaru for that air jump-in to catch opponents off guard and add enough hitstun to start a combo), which I think is going to be key. He's not really a puppet character the way Shadow Labrys is, as Koromaru does relatively minor damage but can cause knockdown, so using Koromaru just to eat projectiles weakens Ken's options. It's also not necessary to use Koromaru like that, as Ken has (seemingly) decent options on defence and can go for either a wake-up/reversal super or poke out of pressure with 5A or 2A, which seem to be relatively fast compared to his spear moves. If he does land a hit, a confirm into an AoA is an easy 2k, likely much more if the combo doesn't drop. (I'm looking at the lone YouTube video right now, so while I saw some good combos in stream, I can't pull them up for reference.) Koromaru covers the start-up and recovery on Ken's normals and (if used smartly) can trick opponents into watching the wrong half of the team. (Or into attacking Koromaru, which gives Ken all the time he needs to land a hit and convert into a combo.)

Whiffs are going to be bad, bad news for him and I think he's going to have to be played somewhat patiently in certain MUs. Against rushdown types, I think he'll do very well due to his ability to tag opponents on approach, pull them in for hits, and then push them back out. Gaining momentum as a rushdown character is going to be tricky against Ken, at least until we all adjust to him, because his primary threat is his range. A bread-and-butter AoA combo should be an easy 3k, maybe more. His DP is insanely damaging at 1050, so optimal use of that sets up a nice, quick combo into an easy 2k (at least), and his reach on spear moves makes it easy for him to fish for counter hits and fatal hit starters. His range makes mashing very painful and set play much more difficult, as staying out of his range means putting yourself near the corner (and it looks like he can get ridiculous damage off a corner AoA into jumps and air Fire Breath super), which means you're going to have to choose between trying to fully zone Ken out (good luck), going in on him (... good luck), or playing footsies, and Ken has Koromaru for those.

It seems to me that it goes both ways: if Ken screws up, he's going to really regret it, as whiff punishes are going to hurt; on the other hand, certain opponents are going to have to be much more cautious due to the fact that Ken can let Koromaru take some hits to give himself a nice fatal starter. In MUs where he needs to lock high-damage opponents down, figuring out his block strings is going to be crucial to playing him well, along with knowing which MUs make going for the AoA a terrible idea, since that's Ken's Fatal Recovery and it has some significant start-up. His 2B and j.B are supposed to be very good (think Labrys in terms of range ... ouch), j.A is multi-hit (think Aigis), and it's possible he may be able to do an instant overhead off j.B (similar to Mitsuru). What I didn't see was anyone trying much in the way of high-low mixups with Ken due to "omg how does the DOG work," but I think he's got a solid toolset and is essentially going to be a threat at range before converting into a combo and either staying in for mixup and more damage or forcing you to come to him. There's just no pizazz as with Rise, but so far, he looks good. God-tier ... I seriously doubt it, but I didn't catch any Ken-Narukami, Ken-Aigis, or Ken-Yosuke footage. (I did see Ken-Mitsuru but it was high-level Mitsuru versus "how do I dog" Ken, so who knows how that MU will play out.) It seems like his normals do a surprisingly high amount of damage, probably to compensate for the fact that Ken doesn't have a conventional 5C or 5D, but I don't know how they trade with the rest of the casts' moves. It does seem like he's going to force people to be very protective of their personas, however, as he's learned something from Mitsuru -- he's very good at destroying cards.

And on that note, the fact that Ken himself isn't persona reliant is also a plus, as the recovery on the cards means that should he actually be in persona break, he's not likely to be in a situation where he dies before he regains his burst. Or maybe you just don't want to play a persona-heavy character. I think he's ... interesting. I don't think he's going to be god-tier, at least not right now, but I'm not sure what we're going to learn next. It's likely he has a lot of untapped potential -- in a lot of matches, spear > pull in worked great because no one is used to responding to it yet, but as new tech is developed, I think Ken is going to have to condition opponents to respect his range and what happens if they try to rush him, which ... well, most people were just abruptly taking a hit from Ken because it's unclear what his optimal range is vs. various opponents, so as soon as someone crossed the giant "YOU ARE NOW OPEN TO A B ATTACK" line, they got hit. It's unlikely that's going to work forever.

I think Ken's going to end up keeping a lot of characters honest due to his ability to punish from a distance, and I think he's going to annoy Narukami to no end (yay!), but whether he'll excel at playing patient and punishing mistakes, locking people down at a safe distance with pressure, or landing really painful combos ... he may well be able to do all three. Personally, I'm excited to see what he can do beyond the basics, but I suspect he's never going to be particularly exciting compared to people like Minazuki, Rise, and Yosuke. Blocking and knowing when it's safe to get out of pressure is going to be crucial for Ken, along with saving Koromaru for moments when you need to throw off your opponent's rhythm with a surprise Koromaru summon. I think there's untapped potential with Koromaru, frankly. But we'll see.

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Well on another note, I saw something interesting. Kanji gold bursted Ken, his 2 broken persona cards refilled when it hit. Is that new?

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Well on another note, I saw something interesting. Kanji gold bursted Ken, his 2 broken persona cards refilled when it hit. Is that new?

Yes, and it seems to be universal (I seem to recall a Rise doing the same thing and getting her four cards back).

So that's a new layer of burst usage we should thoughtfully mull over.

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Well, stream is pretty much packed up (or it will be in a couple of minutes)

 

Saw some interesting stuff. Lots of Ken today. No Pless Sho/Sholo sadly :P

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Impressions:

I tried Akihiko and Shadow Akihiko. He feels more stiff, he's lost all fluidity. Imo his neutral took a massive nerf. On the plus side, good kill rush is better. Sonic Punch makes it hard for your opponent to jump out of it, his damage conversion his better than p4u. It feels harder to move around with him.

Minazuki is so fucking powerful. He's loaded with potential, he has everything. There's so much freedom to what you can do with him as far as neutral and pressure. He really is a bully.

From the people I've fought;

Mitsuru is about the same, her pressure is safer for her, but not her persona. Coup isn't as scary anymore and it's easier to punish her 5a on whiff with an iad.

Yosuke is more annoying. Why isn't all his moves fc recovery...

Narukami is about the same except you don't feel this creeping sense of helplessness when you get knocked down. He has to spend more meter to get his high damage so that's cool unless you play him.

Rise has potential to be very annoying, she's a stage hybrid of zoning and set ups. Her defense I think is worse than liz, her dp is a counter, does not paralyze. Does not have a linear hitbox, is crossed up for free, and has fc recovery. Her lockdown potential is high enough to make her idol super viable.

Ken is a puppet character, so his pressure is pretty safe thus far. He has a super from the dog with no start up animation so he cab whiff punish pretty easily. His dp is ass. I think it'll be possible for some characters to IK him as a punish. He's high risk high reward, if he doesn't take care of the dog he can find himself handicapped. But let him have his way and he can be a bitch.

S.Yukiko can easily lvl up her fire to 9, just something to be aware of.

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S.Yukiko can easily lvl up her fire to 9, just something to be aware of.

 

Good...this is what I was hoping to hear.

Hopefully some Yukiko players can play around with S. Yukiko in training and discover how broken she can be lol

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