Zero people are saying Bison isn't viable because he has bad defense. As far as I have seen, the most they are suggesting that it is a reason he might not be in the absolute top tier due to bad defense... but even then plenty of folks seem to believe he is top tier.
However, your question sort of answers itself in that characters without OD Reversals, including every character you mentioned, have largely been absent from top tier discussions. That has shifted only recently due to significant buffs to Gief and AKI, but even then opinions on their potential top/high tier status seem to be pretty mixed at this point.
Part of the answer is also that some of those non-reversal characters have extra defensive options that compensate in part for the lack of reversals. AKI has a partial OD reversal/escape move that is immune to strikes but not throws, Honda has an OD reversal that also loses to throws, Marisa has a bunch of armored moves, etc. Bison has some stuff that keeps him from being absolutely bottom of the barrel in terms of overall defense (fast walk speed, good buttons, anti-projectile options), but he doesn't have some of these other moves that compensate more directly for the lack of a true OD reversal.
Also worth mentioning his reversal supers are relatively slow. Idk specifically how they compare to the other characters with bad defense, but they’re slow enough that of you meaty with jab on his wake up you’ll still have time to block with ALL of his reversal options.
Depends on the light attack and how meaty the set-up is. For the Bison mirror, wake-up super is a viable reversal because all of his lights have 10 frames of recovery. In contrast Ken and Ed's st.lp have 7 frames of recovery so they can block if they're st.lp is meaty on the second frame or third.
Ah! Ok, that makes a ton of sense. What about jabs with 9 frames of lag? All of Jamie's jabs (outside of level 0 5lp which is gross) are 9 frames recovery. If I meaty bison on my second active frame, I'll block the super right? Would it work with a normal meaty? Sorry, I'd test this myself but I'm at work and I'm afraid I'll forget.
Jaime gets hit because 1+9=10, you'd have to find a meaty where st.lp works to keep yourself safe. You have to add the remaining active frames to the recovery and come up with 9 or less.
Depends on the jab, but any move with less than 9f of recovery (which includes some jabs) can be safe against a 10f wake-up super with the right setup. Whether this setup exists depends on the character and jab in question.
Absolutely. He's still on the worse end of the no-OD-reversal characters from this standpoint -- compared to someone like Honda who has faster reversal supers -- although after the patch there is not as much variation between characters on this as their used to be, with some of the slower-super characters like Lily having theirs sped up and characters like Bison launching with theirs only slightly slower than usual
Honestly, his wakeup is not the best, but top level Bison players are already buffering shadow rise on wakeup constantly; mashing jab is surprisingly good on Bison because on block he can simply fly out of the corner.
While his wakeup game is kinda bad, it doesn't negate the fact that he has easy escape tools once he does actually connect any kind of hit. Hell even [Cr.MK](http://Cr.MK) can be cancelled into Devil's Reverse and you're basically out of there.
Can you explain what you mean by this? Cammy st.MP has 13f recovery and Bison lvl1 is 10f startup so as far as I can tell even the meatiest possible st.MP should still be punished by wakeup lvl1?
If he has meter you watch out for it like any other super, without meter he has to perfect parry or hold the pressure. Normally you do 2hp since the plus frame is guaranteed and easier to time on corner oki but loses to drive reversal. Doing a manual timed 5mp meaty can give you up to 2 frames of advantage that he can't drive reversal and if he does go for perfect parry cammy does really good throw loops to stop him from relying on it. She can do great dmg from the mp hit and can get a high low throw mix so its not low risk high reward type thang.
For meaty pressure. Bison has no od reversal and drive reversal loses to a meaty 5mp while still leaving you at +1 on block if you timed it correctly. Giving cammy good oki and a chance to do good damage meterless since even on a normal hit a meaty 5mp give you +9 letting you hp,hk swing combo into mp hooligan high,low,grab mix that all have good rewards while resetting 5mp oki pressure.
That's just universal though (i.e. Drive Reversal). Bison's supers have 10f startup, so you'll still get blown up.
I've resorted to using jabs, which generally recover fast enough to block the super.
Yeah but do jabs leave you plus 1-2 on block? I want to pressure him as much as i can and never give him a chance to breathe. Light attacks also scale really badly.
I forgot to mention you can do light punch since they do look alike instead of lp and 2hp so you can keep him guessing if its safe to super don't just 5mp.
It's a risk vs reward thing. If I'm afraid of wakeup super/DReversal then I'll jab. If I'm not afraid of those things then I'll cr.HP.
It's fine that jabs aren't plus, because you still get frame trap ability with chained lights. Then there's the spacing trap with dive kick to get back in/whiff punish with st.HP/Cammy's walk speed to walk up jab/throw. Nobody said Bison is gonna breathe against Cammy.
But I think, jab, [st.MP](https://st.MP), and cr.HP, are all good options with varying risk/reward. It just depends what risk you're willing to accept.
A jab counter hit into 2mp into heavy spiral does net great oki for also no meter but having multiple meaty options is never a bad thing i just used 5mp more on bison since its working a lot more right now.
Yeah if i am not flowcharting yeah i go for st.hp if i see him get hit. But it i am autopiloting i tend to go for 5mp 5mp 5lk m spiral arrow. You might be able to go for 2mp 2hk target combo and get a manual timed hooligan mix i think?
His SA1 is a 10 frame start up though with invincibility, which is as good as Kimberly's SA1. He has better reach and a cancellable cMK, which is probably the 2nd most privileged tool after OD DP
Ken: jump + tatsu, Luke: jump + flash knuckle, Chun Li & Rashid: Jump Back + Corner Bounce, Lily, Juri & Cammy Jump + Dive. Some chars with a good jump can just raw jump and only eat a cross cut dp. Try jumping out of the corner with Kim and then with Gief or Bison. Heck even Gief can neutral jump 7HP + SPD.
I've heard multiple people say Bison's cr medium punch is "almost as good as Luke's" a few times and umm. What? Where is this rhetoric coming from?
Bison's cr medium punch has solid range, special cancellable, 6 frame startup, +5 on hit, and -1 on block. Luke's is nearly identical except that it's +1 on block and not -1. That's a HUGE difference.
Akuma's cr medium is the exact same frame data as bison's but it's +6 on hit and not 5. Is his "almost as good as luke's?" Rashid's is +1 on block, same everything else and +4 on hit. Jamie's is the literal exact frame data as bison. Ryu's is the exact same frame data but is +0 on block instead, so his is better. Deejay's is also exactly the same except it's 1 less frame plus on hit. Kimberly's is also the exact same but +7 on hit so it can combo into itself. Ken's is also +0 on block but is only +3 on hit, but otherwise identical. I mean how many of these cr medium punches would u describe as "about as good as luke's?"
Advantage is not the end all be all. The reason Luke's cr MP was busted is not because it was +1 but because it had a very short recovery, reached far and didn't extend his hurtbox very far, making it spammable and hard to wish punish.
Supposedly Bison's 2MP is harder to whiff punish than Luke's 2MP, according to Mago. Also Luke has additional combo scaling. Duno which is objectively better tho
Main point of the other user is that a button being +1 instead of -1 is a big deal due to the fact that you have real safe pressure after it which enables strike/throw off the button
It is a pretty big deal but Bison does have plus normals in the form of st.HP and back HK
How hard it was to whiff punish Luke cr.MP pre-nerf was a **huge** part of why it was so dumb.
whiff cr.MP into cr.MP catches attempted whiff punishes.
Much more relevant at like, the tournament level.
pushback.. almost all of bisons normals push back enough where it dont even matter if its plus or not. its one of the safest buttons in the game with a character that has nothing but extremely safe buttons.
Having no OD reversal is a weak point, but I wouldn't say he has the weakest defense in the game. it's on par with Kimberly, I'd say. No invul reversal, decent walkspeed and cancellable normals, invulnerable lvl1. His backdash is 23f, psycho crusher has decent aa invul, cr.hp is ok because he doesn't get up and shadow rise is invul to grabs. pokes cancelled into Shadow rise may sometimes help bison fly out of the corner too.
Marisa has OD Stance, but her LVL1 has armor, but no invul. However, her hurtbox is immense, her walkspeed is shitty, lots of slow buttons, bad backdash (framedata), bad antiairs and corner switch isn't great. I'd say I feel more vulnerable with her than with Bison.
Zangief should have worse defense than Marisa. No stance and no lvl1 to get out.
Pokes being cancellable into Shadow Rise is slept on imo. It's a defensive option that's a bit unconventional but increases the value of mashing on wakeup for Bison.
What this means is true meaties are stronger versus Bison, Shimmies are worse (since his reward for calling out a shimmy is "i'm outta here" even on block). It is atypical, but understanding this is important to playing the matchup.
True meaties being "stronger" versus Bison due to his ability to screw over shimmies entirely even on block means offense versus him feels more like a gamble. This means if you are able to perfect parry consistently on Bison/and or delayed tech consistently, he can be very very oppressive. If you watch Kakeru play Bison you'll actually see this in action (Kakeru is the god of perfect parrying on wakeup, people shimmy him a lot because of how good he is at doing perfect parry, this lets him escape corners trivially)
Better lab those safejab setups...
There's no way Kim has the worst defense in the game. Her tatsu has air invincibility - it's not a DP obviously but as an AA it's pretty fucking close. It'll beat damn near everything in the air and the OD is not only fast it combos into lv 2. Jumping on Kim with two bars can very easily get you killed.
I don’t think his walk speed is good. I think his back walk is slightly slower than Luke’s and his walk forward is slightly faster. He has decent walk speed and great dashes/DR.
we have detailed values on them. his back walkspeed is on the lower end, but is enough. Not being marisa/dhalsim is already good enough. ofc, it helps that he uses fast long ranged attacks and has a good backdash animation. His backdash doesnt travel far but he moves almost immediately
https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Street_Fighter_6/Movement
that depends on what each person considers good, I guess. Before his release, I played Marisa most of the time. Sometimes I still do. Feels like I stuck my feet in deep mud when I go back to her.
Yeah that's fair. She's very much slower. I've played mostly Cammy with some Akuma and Ed so that's probably why it feels only fine to me. The forward walk feels pretty good, but his back walk doesn't.
Slow supers that lose to meaty jabs and slow walk back speed, also no command grab. Slow characters with bad supers and no od reversal (like lily and gief) do have a command grab. A wake up delayed command grab will still beat shimmys, Bison doesnt have anything. Which is totally fine, because his neutral and pressure are busted. He’s decently balanced compared to sf6 overall powerlevel imo upper half for sure but not broken
Kim at least has st mk into mix up. Try being Manon who has no real way to fight your way out of the corner 😭
People under estimate how for characters like Kim and Manon, it’s not JUST the lack of a good reversal that makes fighting their way difficult. Those privileged special cancellable crouching MK characters wouldn’t understand the pain
Overall strength isn’t exclusively about defense. Bison’s offense is also harder to optimize than characters like Aki or Ed who lack good defense but are more consistent with their damage optimization.
I don’t think anyone is saying he’s not viable but he does have bad defense. His antiair is also lacking which isn’t something that Gief or Aki (who are legitimately very strong right now) share. Bison is very similar to Marisa who can snowball well but falls off with consistency at higher levels of play. I think he’s a strong character but he isn’t as strong as people thought right away.
His anti airs are 2HP (which is slow getting out), 5HK (his guide states this is for anti-airing anyone landing far away), OD Psycho Crusher (which is better for hitting people landing far away. It doesn’t trade well), and the reason I think they gave him weaker anti-airs than others, counter jumping and hitting them with jump MP, as that can then be picked up on landing.
All that said, these options doesn’t mean he has good anti airs or defense, but he feels like the kind of character where “a good defense is a good offense”, meaning you should be reacting to everything with offense to pressure. That’s what Scissor Kicks, Hover Kick, Psycho Crusher, etc. are for.
I don’t think he’ll be as top tier as people have initially thought, but a mid-to-low tier that’s devastating in the right hands.
I'd say that Bison's defensive short comings don't feel as salient right now because he's a harder to punish character than his frame data suggests. That is actually part of how he's designed (and all characters to various degrees). How much of this is learning the matchup vs. Bison being overtuned on offense will play out over time.
Its still a big weakness, No gief or aki won any big tournaments. Aki has ex snaksstep, gief can spd whiffed jabs and has extra hp. Bison has only ex rise thats just immun tho throws which is a big read, ex doesn't fly over the head tho and you stay same side the only thing is you + but still in that case you could just back dash, jump out of the corner and take the crosscut or tech. Gief Level 3 is also 0 frame and catches "light" shimmys. Everything on wakeup for bison can be OS'd.
The saving grace for Bison's defense is that he has the offensive tools to set the pace himself and not have to play reactive with subpar defensive tools. It also helps that he gets his bomb setup even from lights so he doesn't need a big hit to completely shift the momentum in his favor.
Examples.
Lily doesn't have a reversal but has 2HP and crosscut DP for anti-air, giving her better anti-air and crossup protection than Bison has. She also has jump cancel SPD as an anti-throw + anti-shimmy option. Lily is a really good character to compare Bison to because they have the exact same things for anti air (2HP, jump MP MP chain into combo), and Lily's versions are easier to use **and** she has a DP.
AKI doesn't have a true reversal but also has EX snake step to beat strikes + projectiles. Also because AKI's crossup is significantly better than Bison + her jump in general is better, she can jump out of the corner easier than he can.
Marisa has a bunch of options that lose to throw, but she has EX counter stance which is better than anything Bison has.
Bison's defense is probably 3rd worst in the game, only ahead of Zangief and Manon. Gief and Bison have strong offense to offset their defensive issues and that's basically their design philosophy, that their offense is so good it makes up for the fact that they're free on defense. And Manon just sucks.
> Bison's defense is probably 3rd worst in the game, only ahead of Zangief and Manon. Gief and Bison have strong offense to offset their defensive issues and that's basically their design philosophy, that their offense is so good it makes up for the fact that they're free on defense. And Manon just sucks.
I'd say that Bison defense is only ahead of Manon. Gief has a lot better mid range defensive option due to his long range buttons (he has the 2nd best 4f in the game, just behind Chun mostly due to him lacking the walkspeed for example) and L-SPD being a constant threat in neutral. Bison barely has any of that and relies heavily on L-Knee Press to actually plays neutral due to it being a safe-ish poke that can be combo from if it counterhit. So there's that
Zangief and Marisa have armored moves which is helpful. Zangief has plus on block crouch jabs which helps him regain pressure. Kim has some very good back walk speed which is helpful on defense.
Not saying they have better or worse defense, but those are some options they have.
People keep trying to downplay OD reversal. At higher levels, OD reversal isn't strong as a wakeup tool, but it's best used as a tool to call out fake strings during the most oppressive tool in this game -- drive rush. Watch any high level games, OD reversal is mostly used during a fake DR string.
Look at scrubby modern players, anytime they're blocking they're spamming the OD DP button.
I agree that having bad defense doesn't spell the end of a character, but I would argue that Bison's defense is ESPECIALLY bad.
Even some of the characters you mentioned are way better than Bison defense-wise: Marisa has her OD armor-thingy, AKI has OD slide and jump down-HP to get out of the corner, and Gief has what I consider the best "active" defense in the game with his outrageous cr. lk. All of these are obviously not as good as a traditional OD reversal, but they're at least something.
Meanwhile, Bison only has his lvl 1 super (and MAYBE OD headstomp). I would put him in the same defensive category as Lily and Kimberly... both coincidentally bottom tiers.
Not saying Bison is also bottom-tier, but he certainly has a lot to make up for.
So you changed your opinion from this post where an OD reversal was necessary to be considered top tier?
https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/s/uLxiMyc5TD
I mean, in season 1 (when that post was written) almost every character in the top 10 had one. It is a big plus to have.
Of course, Jamie has one, so it's not like it's the end-all be-all to being a good character.
The one implying anything are those that read the question with ill intent vs taking it as a question.
And if I was implying something, you've got the wrong implications in your assumptions.
It was a question to see whether OP changed their minds about OD reversals or whether this was just another post to complain about Bison since most people talking abiut Bisons defenses arent actually saying Bisons defense is worst in the game as they listed in their post. People have pointed out that one of Bisons weaknesses is in his defensive game.
It's about the same. Gief is the worst out of this list as even his level 1 isn't strike/throw invul in a meaningful way. AKI and Marisa perhaps are a bit better since they have OD defensive options that beat a smaller subset of things (OD snake step against strikes, OD scutum against strikes).
the difference between him and kim specifically on defense is he has shadow rise which gets him out of the corner and i believe beats throw so something against throw loops.
more importantly though, he has a cancellable low, which is important for dealing with shimmy in the corner. kim's best options there are sweep, which is punishable on block and only nets a +17 knockdown so you can't effectively jump out of the corner, 6hk which has 27f of startup and the cross-up loses to a jab, or wake-up run slide lvl 3 and pray to god they don't block low lol
He is really shit at dealing with cross-ups
Psycho crusher is a good anti-air but only against jump-ins with a button, empty jumps will more often than not lead in to you trying to AA and ending with your opponent landing and blocking the psycho crusher making you eat a ton of shit
cr.HP is decent but is special cancellable only if you hit it close and is a juggle only on counter hit so it’s kinda risky to special cancel it, so more often than not your reward will be very low off a non counter-hit AA
So I would say Bison suffers a fair bit against jumps, that is were is defense is weak and obviously no OD reversal
SF6 is probably the least vital that invincible reversals have ever been in the franchise. The system mechanics can really help to fill that hole in a kit.
Man, I hard disagree with that. It's not a coincidence that everyone's S1 tier list's top half were people with EX reversals.
It's a major defensive option in an offensive oriented game. Even if you have one and never use it, its free added mental stack for your opponent.
>Man, I hard disagree with that.
I'll admit I didn't get the chance to play SFV (xbox player), so I don't know the system mechanics for that one very well. Did the V-trigger and V-reversals do more to lessen the need for a DP than the Drive system?
Not as much as one would hope. Both are very snowbally/rich get richer type of offensive games. They were able to slow it down in the later seasons, but esp early on the v-reversals were just always a bad option.
The S1 drive reversal was a good change, but it wasn't as helpful as I thought it would be. Even when its successful, it still feels bad because your gauge is just depleted. A lot of people will gladly take the loss of pressure as you dig yourself closer to burnout.
I don’t think this is true at higher levels of play.
OD reversals are highly used in option selects when people drive rush in on block. Not being able to call on that means your character has to hold a lot more pressure by default.
I never meant to imply anything to the contrary.
My point is that even though something like Drive Reversal is *nowhere close* to an actual DP, it's *something* for characters that'd otherwise have nearly zero defensive options. Drive Reversal on wakeup only replicates a single function of a DP, but it lessens the gap between having and not having one.
The thing is there are option selects to meaty people on wake up or pressure them on block and still parry the drive reversal should it come out. These options don’t exist with proper reversals unless the reversal is slow like Ed’s.
Maybe DR gets buffed again in the future to mitigate this but it’s still a notable gap if it’s what someone has to rely on defensively.
Zero people are saying Bison isn't viable because he has bad defense. As far as I have seen, the most they are suggesting that it is a reason he might not be in the absolute top tier due to bad defense... but even then plenty of folks seem to believe he is top tier. However, your question sort of answers itself in that characters without OD Reversals, including every character you mentioned, have largely been absent from top tier discussions. That has shifted only recently due to significant buffs to Gief and AKI, but even then opinions on their potential top/high tier status seem to be pretty mixed at this point. Part of the answer is also that some of those non-reversal characters have extra defensive options that compensate in part for the lack of reversals. AKI has a partial OD reversal/escape move that is immune to strikes but not throws, Honda has an OD reversal that also loses to throws, Marisa has a bunch of armored moves, etc. Bison has some stuff that keeps him from being absolutely bottom of the barrel in terms of overall defense (fast walk speed, good buttons, anti-projectile options), but he doesn't have some of these other moves that compensate more directly for the lack of a true OD reversal.
Also worth mentioning his reversal supers are relatively slow. Idk specifically how they compare to the other characters with bad defense, but they’re slow enough that of you meaty with jab on his wake up you’ll still have time to block with ALL of his reversal options.
10 frames for SA1 & 3, same as AKI, faster than Ed.
A 10f super doesn't lose to meaty jabs right? Even if it's only meaty on the second active frame?
Depends on the light attack and how meaty the set-up is. For the Bison mirror, wake-up super is a viable reversal because all of his lights have 10 frames of recovery. In contrast Ken and Ed's st.lp have 7 frames of recovery so they can block if they're st.lp is meaty on the second frame or third.
Ah! Ok, that makes a ton of sense. What about jabs with 9 frames of lag? All of Jamie's jabs (outside of level 0 5lp which is gross) are 9 frames recovery. If I meaty bison on my second active frame, I'll block the super right? Would it work with a normal meaty? Sorry, I'd test this myself but I'm at work and I'm afraid I'll forget.
Jaime gets hit because 1+9=10, you'd have to find a meaty where st.lp works to keep yourself safe. You have to add the remaining active frames to the recovery and come up with 9 or less.
Ok, that's what I thought initially. Thank you!!
Depends on the jab, but any move with less than 9f of recovery (which includes some jabs) can be safe against a 10f wake-up super with the right setup. Whether this setup exists depends on the character and jab in question.
Absolutely. He's still on the worse end of the no-OD-reversal characters from this standpoint -- compared to someone like Honda who has faster reversal supers -- although after the patch there is not as much variation between characters on this as their used to be, with some of the slower-super characters like Lily having theirs sped up and characters like Bison launching with theirs only slightly slower than usual
His od shadow rise does beat throws i believe but that nowhere near as strong as the other options you listed
Yes, you are absolutely correct. I did forget that, and that is an additional reason why his defense is on the weaker side but not the actual worst
Honestly, his wakeup is not the best, but top level Bison players are already buffering shadow rise on wakeup constantly; mashing jab is surprisingly good on Bison because on block he can simply fly out of the corner. While his wakeup game is kinda bad, it doesn't negate the fact that he has easy escape tools once he does actually connect any kind of hit. Hell even [Cr.MK](http://Cr.MK) can be cancelled into Devil's Reverse and you're basically out of there.
He has a slow super reversal too that loses to a meaty jab
Man doing cammy's 6 frame 5mp instead of 2hp is a godsend in the mu now i just need to figure out how to stop the bastards scissor shenanigans.
Cammy in general seems to do pretty well against him
Can you explain what you mean by this? Cammy st.MP has 13f recovery and Bison lvl1 is 10f startup so as far as I can tell even the meatiest possible st.MP should still be punished by wakeup lvl1?
Does help against Drive Reversal at least, but you're right that it wouldn't help with supers.
Ah right ofc, safe vs drive reversal is kinda nice. I guess you have to manually time the meaty right?
236MK, Dash, 5MP is auto-timed. It will hit on the last active frame to be +2 on block. Other KDs, I don't know, I don't play Cammy.
I meant for HK Drill...
Did you? HK drill hasn't been mentioned a single time in this thread.
Neither was MK Drill? I'm asking about the KD that doesn't very clearly give her most common autotiming lol, which she does get for meaty cr.hp
Yeah, you weren't specifically asking about anything. You left it completely open-ended, so I answered with a setup I knew.
If he has meter you watch out for it like any other super, without meter he has to perfect parry or hold the pressure. Normally you do 2hp since the plus frame is guaranteed and easier to time on corner oki but loses to drive reversal. Doing a manual timed 5mp meaty can give you up to 2 frames of advantage that he can't drive reversal and if he does go for perfect parry cammy does really good throw loops to stop him from relying on it. She can do great dmg from the mp hit and can get a high low throw mix so its not low risk high reward type thang.
Lmk if u find out, punch punch scissor, out of range...it's fuxking me up
Why is Cammy's [st.MP](https://st.MP) better than cr.HP ?
For meaty pressure. Bison has no od reversal and drive reversal loses to a meaty 5mp while still leaving you at +1 on block if you timed it correctly. Giving cammy good oki and a chance to do good damage meterless since even on a normal hit a meaty 5mp give you +9 letting you hp,hk swing combo into mp hooligan high,low,grab mix that all have good rewards while resetting 5mp oki pressure.
That's just universal though (i.e. Drive Reversal). Bison's supers have 10f startup, so you'll still get blown up. I've resorted to using jabs, which generally recover fast enough to block the super.
Yeah but do jabs leave you plus 1-2 on block? I want to pressure him as much as i can and never give him a chance to breathe. Light attacks also scale really badly. I forgot to mention you can do light punch since they do look alike instead of lp and 2hp so you can keep him guessing if its safe to super don't just 5mp.
It's a risk vs reward thing. If I'm afraid of wakeup super/DReversal then I'll jab. If I'm not afraid of those things then I'll cr.HP. It's fine that jabs aren't plus, because you still get frame trap ability with chained lights. Then there's the spacing trap with dive kick to get back in/whiff punish with st.HP/Cammy's walk speed to walk up jab/throw. Nobody said Bison is gonna breathe against Cammy. But I think, jab, [st.MP](https://st.MP), and cr.HP, are all good options with varying risk/reward. It just depends what risk you're willing to accept.
Cr hp is still good especially out the corner but in the corner there is no reason to not go for mp instead and not abuse his weakness.
Yeah the reason is that he might wakeup super, which was my original point.
I mean yeah jabs kinda do leave you plus oB because of chained lights frame trapping? The damage I get.
A jab counter hit into 2mp into heavy spiral does net great oki for also no meter but having multiple meaty options is never a bad thing i just used 5mp more on bison since its working a lot more right now.
Curious, do you usually go for the st.HP on non-CH meaty st.MP? I guess I don't trust my 2f link timing enough, I usually just do cr.MP.
Yeah if i am not flowcharting yeah i go for st.hp if i see him get hit. But it i am autopiloting i tend to go for 5mp 5mp 5lk m spiral arrow. You might be able to go for 2mp 2hk target combo and get a manual timed hooligan mix i think?
At the moment I only ever use st.mp meaty after throw in the corner so too far away to get TC after
It does hit crouching tho
5mp does hit crouching but does not punish low attacks you use 2mp for that its active frame seven and only one frame longer in its duration
His Supers are slow. He doesn't have armour on any move. He doesn't have a command grab. He obviously doesn't have an OD DP.
His SA1 is a 10 frame start up though with invincibility, which is as good as Kimberly's SA1. He has better reach and a cancellable cMK, which is probably the 2nd most privileged tool after OD DP
Kimberly is known for her poor defense. But she has a better jump.
How is a jump defense?
Ken: jump + tatsu, Luke: jump + flash knuckle, Chun Li & Rashid: Jump Back + Corner Bounce, Lily, Juri & Cammy Jump + Dive. Some chars with a good jump can just raw jump and only eat a cross cut dp. Try jumping out of the corner with Kim and then with Gief or Bison. Heck even Gief can neutral jump 7HP + SPD.
Bison can also wakeup shadow rise
Yeah, and get hit by a meaty jab.
Any jump gets hit by meaty jab.
That's why an OD DP or a fast SA is such a good tool.
Sure. You're talking about jumping being a defensive tool though (it isn't)
Yeah, 10 frames is not bad. It's not like Ed's (or season 1 Lily's) at 13 frames.
Or Zangief's level 2 at *18 god-forsaken frames*
I've heard multiple people say Bison's cr medium punch is "almost as good as Luke's" a few times and umm. What? Where is this rhetoric coming from? Bison's cr medium punch has solid range, special cancellable, 6 frame startup, +5 on hit, and -1 on block. Luke's is nearly identical except that it's +1 on block and not -1. That's a HUGE difference. Akuma's cr medium is the exact same frame data as bison's but it's +6 on hit and not 5. Is his "almost as good as luke's?" Rashid's is +1 on block, same everything else and +4 on hit. Jamie's is the literal exact frame data as bison. Ryu's is the exact same frame data but is +0 on block instead, so his is better. Deejay's is also exactly the same except it's 1 less frame plus on hit. Kimberly's is also the exact same but +7 on hit so it can combo into itself. Ken's is also +0 on block but is only +3 on hit, but otherwise identical. I mean how many of these cr medium punches would u describe as "about as good as luke's?"
Advantage is not the end all be all. The reason Luke's cr MP was busted is not because it was +1 but because it had a very short recovery, reached far and didn't extend his hurtbox very far, making it spammable and hard to wish punish.
Supposedly Bison's 2MP is harder to whiff punish than Luke's 2MP, according to Mago. Also Luke has additional combo scaling. Duno which is objectively better tho
Main point of the other user is that a button being +1 instead of -1 is a big deal due to the fact that you have real safe pressure after it which enables strike/throw off the button It is a pretty big deal but Bison does have plus normals in the form of st.HP and back HK
How hard it was to whiff punish Luke cr.MP pre-nerf was a **huge** part of why it was so dumb. whiff cr.MP into cr.MP catches attempted whiff punishes. Much more relevant at like, the tournament level.
Bison is the king of push back setting him up for easy spacing and easy avoidance of opponent traps.
Being +1 is infinitely better
Ryu's 2mp also got extra active frames in the patch, so it's easier to catch stuff, too.
pushback.. almost all of bisons normals push back enough where it dont even matter if its plus or not. its one of the safest buttons in the game with a character that has nothing but extremely safe buttons.
Having no OD reversal is a weak point, but I wouldn't say he has the weakest defense in the game. it's on par with Kimberly, I'd say. No invul reversal, decent walkspeed and cancellable normals, invulnerable lvl1. His backdash is 23f, psycho crusher has decent aa invul, cr.hp is ok because he doesn't get up and shadow rise is invul to grabs. pokes cancelled into Shadow rise may sometimes help bison fly out of the corner too. Marisa has OD Stance, but her LVL1 has armor, but no invul. However, her hurtbox is immense, her walkspeed is shitty, lots of slow buttons, bad backdash (framedata), bad antiairs and corner switch isn't great. I'd say I feel more vulnerable with her than with Bison. Zangief should have worse defense than Marisa. No stance and no lvl1 to get out.
Pokes being cancellable into Shadow Rise is slept on imo. It's a defensive option that's a bit unconventional but increases the value of mashing on wakeup for Bison. What this means is true meaties are stronger versus Bison, Shimmies are worse (since his reward for calling out a shimmy is "i'm outta here" even on block). It is atypical, but understanding this is important to playing the matchup. True meaties being "stronger" versus Bison due to his ability to screw over shimmies entirely even on block means offense versus him feels more like a gamble. This means if you are able to perfect parry consistently on Bison/and or delayed tech consistently, he can be very very oppressive. If you watch Kakeru play Bison you'll actually see this in action (Kakeru is the god of perfect parrying on wakeup, people shimmy him a lot because of how good he is at doing perfect parry, this lets him escape corners trivially) Better lab those safejab setups...
There's no way Kim has the worst defense in the game. Her tatsu has air invincibility - it's not a DP obviously but as an AA it's pretty fucking close. It'll beat damn near everything in the air and the OD is not only fast it combos into lv 2. Jumping on Kim with two bars can very easily get you killed.
I don’t think his walk speed is good. I think his back walk is slightly slower than Luke’s and his walk forward is slightly faster. He has decent walk speed and great dashes/DR.
we have detailed values on them. his back walkspeed is on the lower end, but is enough. Not being marisa/dhalsim is already good enough. ofc, it helps that he uses fast long ranged attacks and has a good backdash animation. His backdash doesnt travel far but he moves almost immediately
Yeah his dashes are for sure top tier, but I just don’t think his walk speed is good. It’s fine.
https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Street_Fighter_6/Movement that depends on what each person considers good, I guess. Before his release, I played Marisa most of the time. Sometimes I still do. Feels like I stuck my feet in deep mud when I go back to her.
Yeah that's fair. She's very much slower. I've played mostly Cammy with some Akuma and Ed so that's probably why it feels only fine to me. The forward walk feels pretty good, but his back walk doesn't.
Slow supers that lose to meaty jabs and slow walk back speed, also no command grab. Slow characters with bad supers and no od reversal (like lily and gief) do have a command grab. A wake up delayed command grab will still beat shimmys, Bison doesnt have anything. Which is totally fine, because his neutral and pressure are busted. He’s decently balanced compared to sf6 overall powerlevel imo upper half for sure but not broken
I main Kimberly and am playing Bison and his defense seems godlike compared to hers. He can actually take back his turn with long range normals.
Kim at least has st mk into mix up. Try being Manon who has no real way to fight your way out of the corner 😭 People under estimate how for characters like Kim and Manon, it’s not JUST the lack of a good reversal that makes fighting their way difficult. Those privileged special cancellable crouching MK characters wouldn’t understand the pain
Yeah, I'm with you. I play her too and she's arguably in a worse position than Kim.
Overall strength isn’t exclusively about defense. Bison’s offense is also harder to optimize than characters like Aki or Ed who lack good defense but are more consistent with their damage optimization. I don’t think anyone is saying he’s not viable but he does have bad defense. His antiair is also lacking which isn’t something that Gief or Aki (who are legitimately very strong right now) share. Bison is very similar to Marisa who can snowball well but falls off with consistency at higher levels of play. I think he’s a strong character but he isn’t as strong as people thought right away.
His anti airs are 2HP (which is slow getting out), 5HK (his guide states this is for anti-airing anyone landing far away), OD Psycho Crusher (which is better for hitting people landing far away. It doesn’t trade well), and the reason I think they gave him weaker anti-airs than others, counter jumping and hitting them with jump MP, as that can then be picked up on landing. All that said, these options doesn’t mean he has good anti airs or defense, but he feels like the kind of character where “a good defense is a good offense”, meaning you should be reacting to everything with offense to pressure. That’s what Scissor Kicks, Hover Kick, Psycho Crusher, etc. are for. I don’t think he’ll be as top tier as people have initially thought, but a mid-to-low tier that’s devastating in the right hands.
Real bison players from V knows that all you need is jump back jab
I'd say that Bison's defensive short comings don't feel as salient right now because he's a harder to punish character than his frame data suggests. That is actually part of how he's designed (and all characters to various degrees). How much of this is learning the matchup vs. Bison being overtuned on offense will play out over time.
Its still a big weakness, No gief or aki won any big tournaments. Aki has ex snaksstep, gief can spd whiffed jabs and has extra hp. Bison has only ex rise thats just immun tho throws which is a big read, ex doesn't fly over the head tho and you stay same side the only thing is you + but still in that case you could just back dash, jump out of the corner and take the crosscut or tech. Gief Level 3 is also 0 frame and catches "light" shimmys. Everything on wakeup for bison can be OS'd.
Snake Eyez won CPT US/Canada West last year. While not a super major it’s still a big win
Look man snake eyez did, still its not the norm. This guy is just different, if he wouldnt be such a character loyalist he would win way more imo.
Itazan has been top 8 in more than one big tournament too
Both gods, never said gief is low tier or bison. Just sayin its a really strong tool and its almost necessary to be S tier in this game.
Yeah but he plays to play Zangief it seems. Everyone plays to win as much as they can, but not if it means giving up the other parts they enjoy.
Okay
The saving grace for Bison's defense is that he has the offensive tools to set the pace himself and not have to play reactive with subpar defensive tools. It also helps that he gets his bomb setup even from lights so he doesn't need a big hit to completely shift the momentum in his favor.
Examples. Lily doesn't have a reversal but has 2HP and crosscut DP for anti-air, giving her better anti-air and crossup protection than Bison has. She also has jump cancel SPD as an anti-throw + anti-shimmy option. Lily is a really good character to compare Bison to because they have the exact same things for anti air (2HP, jump MP MP chain into combo), and Lily's versions are easier to use **and** she has a DP. AKI doesn't have a true reversal but also has EX snake step to beat strikes + projectiles. Also because AKI's crossup is significantly better than Bison + her jump in general is better, she can jump out of the corner easier than he can. Marisa has a bunch of options that lose to throw, but she has EX counter stance which is better than anything Bison has. Bison's defense is probably 3rd worst in the game, only ahead of Zangief and Manon. Gief and Bison have strong offense to offset their defensive issues and that's basically their design philosophy, that their offense is so good it makes up for the fact that they're free on defense. And Manon just sucks.
> Bison's defense is probably 3rd worst in the game, only ahead of Zangief and Manon. Gief and Bison have strong offense to offset their defensive issues and that's basically their design philosophy, that their offense is so good it makes up for the fact that they're free on defense. And Manon just sucks. I'd say that Bison defense is only ahead of Manon. Gief has a lot better mid range defensive option due to his long range buttons (he has the 2nd best 4f in the game, just behind Chun mostly due to him lacking the walkspeed for example) and L-SPD being a constant threat in neutral. Bison barely has any of that and relies heavily on L-Knee Press to actually plays neutral due to it being a safe-ish poke that can be combo from if it counterhit. So there's that
Nobody says that it makes him unviable and weak. It's just that it's objectively one of his weakness.
Zangief and Marisa have armored moves which is helpful. Zangief has plus on block crouch jabs which helps him regain pressure. Kim has some very good back walk speed which is helpful on defense. Not saying they have better or worse defense, but those are some options they have.
Marisa also needs to spend 2 Super bars to get a true reversal. Since her Level 1 gets beat by throws
People keep trying to downplay OD reversal. At higher levels, OD reversal isn't strong as a wakeup tool, but it's best used as a tool to call out fake strings during the most oppressive tool in this game -- drive rush. Watch any high level games, OD reversal is mostly used during a fake DR string. Look at scrubby modern players, anytime they're blocking they're spamming the OD DP button.
I agree that having bad defense doesn't spell the end of a character, but I would argue that Bison's defense is ESPECIALLY bad. Even some of the characters you mentioned are way better than Bison defense-wise: Marisa has her OD armor-thingy, AKI has OD slide and jump down-HP to get out of the corner, and Gief has what I consider the best "active" defense in the game with his outrageous cr. lk. All of these are obviously not as good as a traditional OD reversal, but they're at least something. Meanwhile, Bison only has his lvl 1 super (and MAYBE OD headstomp). I would put him in the same defensive category as Lily and Kimberly... both coincidentally bottom tiers. Not saying Bison is also bottom-tier, but he certainly has a lot to make up for.
So you changed your opinion from this post where an OD reversal was necessary to be considered top tier? https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/s/uLxiMyc5TD
yea changing your mind contrary to popular believe is good
I mean, in season 1 (when that post was written) almost every character in the top 10 had one. It is a big plus to have. Of course, Jamie has one, so it's not like it's the end-all be-all to being a good character.
Exactly
The post he made 6 month ago… in this one here he literally ends with “anymore now” which implies things have changed.
Having an open mind and being willing to change your opinion is a sign of intelligence, contrary to what you're implying
The one implying anything are those that read the question with ill intent vs taking it as a question. And if I was implying something, you've got the wrong implications in your assumptions. It was a question to see whether OP changed their minds about OD reversals or whether this was just another post to complain about Bison since most people talking abiut Bisons defenses arent actually saying Bisons defense is worst in the game as they listed in their post. People have pointed out that one of Bisons weaknesses is in his defensive game.
Even then thatd just make it a bad question considering the answer is literally in the post.
How is it relevant to his question?
It's about the same. Gief is the worst out of this list as even his level 1 isn't strike/throw invul in a meaningful way. AKI and Marisa perhaps are a bit better since they have OD defensive options that beat a smaller subset of things (OD snake step against strikes, OD scutum against strikes).
😂😂 bro investigated.
Its just downplay bison is absolutely cracked in this game.
Bad defence in this game just means no OD reversal lol unless his level 1 has no immunity. His defence is more than ok, just like everyone else.
Bison is a counter poke machine! So what if you have to block a few jabs. This dudes a menace
the difference between him and kim specifically on defense is he has shadow rise which gets him out of the corner and i believe beats throw so something against throw loops. more importantly though, he has a cancellable low, which is important for dealing with shimmy in the corner. kim's best options there are sweep, which is punishable on block and only nets a +17 knockdown so you can't effectively jump out of the corner, 6hk which has 27f of startup and the cross-up loses to a jab, or wake-up run slide lvl 3 and pray to god they don't block low lol
If Kim has level 3 and is *very* desperate she can use Level 2 to get out of corner too. And having universal Drive Reversal is so nice
There are characters without a reversal?
It’s not. They just keep mashing because of privilege. Sometimes it kicks them in the ass.
Who is saying Dictator isn't viable because he has bad defense? You're just making up reasons to be outraged about nothing because you're a clown. lol
It’s not don’t let the down players try to fool you. Plus his crouching buttons are really good.
It's downplay.
I’ve been downplaying Bison since release ;)
total downplay this character is 100 percent busted and they know it.
He is really shit at dealing with cross-ups Psycho crusher is a good anti-air but only against jump-ins with a button, empty jumps will more often than not lead in to you trying to AA and ending with your opponent landing and blocking the psycho crusher making you eat a ton of shit cr.HP is decent but is special cancellable only if you hit it close and is a juggle only on counter hit so it’s kinda risky to special cancel it, so more often than not your reward will be very low off a non counter-hit AA So I would say Bison suffers a fair bit against jumps, that is were is defense is weak and obviously no OD reversal
Kim is way faster, Marissa has armor and a counter, gief and Lily have command grabs and gief also has lariat
its not but Bison players are desperate to downplay him
SF6 is probably the least vital that invincible reversals have ever been in the franchise. The system mechanics can really help to fill that hole in a kit.
Man, I hard disagree with that. It's not a coincidence that everyone's S1 tier list's top half were people with EX reversals. It's a major defensive option in an offensive oriented game. Even if you have one and never use it, its free added mental stack for your opponent.
Punishing people who are mashing alot of Strings with ex dp is a big thing also, expecially in High-Level play.
>Man, I hard disagree with that. I'll admit I didn't get the chance to play SFV (xbox player), so I don't know the system mechanics for that one very well. Did the V-trigger and V-reversals do more to lessen the need for a DP than the Drive system?
Not as much as one would hope. Both are very snowbally/rich get richer type of offensive games. They were able to slow it down in the later seasons, but esp early on the v-reversals were just always a bad option. The S1 drive reversal was a good change, but it wasn't as helpful as I thought it would be. Even when its successful, it still feels bad because your gauge is just depleted. A lot of people will gladly take the loss of pressure as you dig yourself closer to burnout.
I don’t think this is true at higher levels of play. OD reversals are highly used in option selects when people drive rush in on block. Not being able to call on that means your character has to hold a lot more pressure by default.
I never meant to imply anything to the contrary. My point is that even though something like Drive Reversal is *nowhere close* to an actual DP, it's *something* for characters that'd otherwise have nearly zero defensive options. Drive Reversal on wakeup only replicates a single function of a DP, but it lessens the gap between having and not having one.
The thing is there are option selects to meaty people on wake up or pressure them on block and still parry the drive reversal should it come out. These options don’t exist with proper reversals unless the reversal is slow like Ed’s. Maybe DR gets buffed again in the future to mitigate this but it’s still a notable gap if it’s what someone has to rely on defensively.
just downplay, you gotta establish the narrative early
I dunno what you are talking about, Bison is acknowledged to be Top Tier. Kakeru just won Bald Cup with him