I finally got to fight Justin Wong in tournament a few years ago and he just picked Elena. It was like finally getting to box against Tyson after training your whole life, and he just shows up with a gun.
Now think... is it better to be punched by Mike Tyson, or shot by Mike Tyson? If he punches you, you're alive, but in severe pain. If he shoots you, you're probably dead, or will be shortly.
@@nicksrandomreviews exactly what i was thinking my friends say im the quickest and have the will to take a hard punch like no other guy my size and even if i was a heavyweight size i still wouldnt want to take a punch from iron mike in his prime unless you payed me alot of money i would love to spar him but i know ill never get the chance
Chun-Li's hazanshu (where she does a flip and lands doing the splits) has a hitbox that is a long thin rectangle on the ground. It must be blocked high....
@@kawaiiempoleon8721 backdash went further and had less recovery Her slide had invincibility on frame 2 lol Healing ultra recovered the health at a faster rate Hurtbox was severely janky to the point where combos and cross up combos would stop connecting on her by certain characters. Cant remember everything else off the top of my head lol
For me healing is less about balance and more about it's appearance of cheapness. Healing is 1.basically free, 2.not very high strategy, and 3. Radical gameplay mechanic designed to be something no other character could do and broke the normal rules of the game. It's similar to TJ combos "get up" move if he has instinct when he dies in killer instinct, it's not really OP but just feels obnoxious from a fairness standpoint.
They fucked up making healing her ultra and not her super. That would have made it less irritating than focus backdash all day. Still would be a bandaid fix on her.
TJ's last breath is even the opposite of OP--most of the time it's the worst way to use his resources, as an extra 8 seconds of his insanely powerful instinct is, in most rounds, more useful than surviving a single additional hit, and some characters can put him in a bad situation as he's getting up. yet, people have always complained about it, bc it feels bad.
She's good but not the strongest character that the game ever saw. It's more that she's a playstyle everyone hates and had a lot of tools that broke the game in ways people didn't like. I think both AE yun and vanilla sagat were much worse than her. Elena is just demoralizing. You're winning, then she throws you and heals and now you're losing.
As a Guy main, I hated her hurtbox and backdash so much! Her hurt box was weird so the second or third hit of my target combo would whiff and her backdash made it hard to pressure her.
@@waterdog737 people definitely had high hopes for sfv once it was announced, which was around when Elena was getting popular. Discussions turned to things people hoped sfv would fix and things wrong with sf4, so Elena is frequently associated with the waning interest in the game even if she's not actually the direct cause.
I had been messing with the move files for years by the time ultra dropped and it was pretty obvious the creators of the new characters didn't have a good understating of how the game worked, mainly in how the moves flowed and hitboxes. They managed to make them functional it it was clear they were made by less experienced people.
Oh, I’ve got a treat for you guys! It’s just a quick compilation of notable things and not a full character walkthrough, but Bafael made a video 6 years ago called “USF4: DeeJay is Trash”. ua-cam.com/video/yyNTnKYH_l0/v-deo.html
What keeps Elena in check in this game is the fact that her bad match ups are against the other top tiers. She struggles against Evil Ryu, Akuma, Cammy, and Yun. All of whom are/were regularly seen in both top level and casual play.
I doubt you'll read this but on the off chance you do, going forward with this series it would be cool if we got comparisons to other characters in the game. Elena is obviously good but comparing it to other things in the game gives context. It might make things take too long, though.
I've been thinking a lot about this but there's no good way to really do it. Context is important. It's why I brought up Vega, zangief, and dudley in this video.
“Options even if wrong” really is elena, I remember an elena getting mallet smash that would go over me, but the elena would cLP again and it’s a crossup, wasn’t ready for it so it worked. Pair that sentence with “can heal herself” and this character was easily toxic. But elena is a favorite character of mine so I forgive LMAO
the worst thing about her heal ultra is how free it is, she's almost guaranteed to get it off at least once every round, sometimes twice other characters don't have that level of consistency on ultras
Damn i remember that 2015 match where elena pulled off about 20 heals across the set. Definitely convinced me she was busted. Just as a spectator i was frustrated watching.
These videos are great, its fun to learn about other games but it also helps me put balance in general into a context I can translate to the games I do play. It is almost like fighting game literacy training.
By the time Ultra SF arrived , I was already done with SF4 . To me., the best one was Super SF4. Elena was to Ultra what Sagat was to vanilla and Yun was to Arcade Edition . There was not one single thing about her was OP in an of itself , but rather a combination of a myriad of factors that would work in her favor all the time .
Like on his Yun Vid (since i aint a fighting game player unless you count for honor which is technicly kinda like it but also just not or thats what it feels like) Her distinct lack of weaknesses right?
Yoooo Baf, I think you hit on something HUGE here with this series. Not only is it entertaining, but it appeals to ALL kinds of gamers, not just fighting game players because of your attention to detail in really getting into the meat of why these characters are "bad balance". Also, being a 3s junkie, I'm learning tons of stuff about frame data, how it works, it's practical applications... It's great man!!! Don't stop (please lol)!! If I could though, offer some constructive criticisms? The audio is bad. It sounds too quiet, and volume is a little bit of an issue here, but I think the main problem is your voice's audio is too thin (not enough midrange, or bass) which hugely affects perceived volume. I suggest talking in closer proximity to your mic (See: proximity effect) and monitoring with a db meter/EQ of some kind, or just your ears- you're aiming for about -2/4db I think? (it's been a while lol). Or you can just listen until you hear a nice balance- not boomy, but a good bass presence, not to "tin roof" or thin (like this video), and not so mid-range that it starts to distort. Also, I would balance the background music in relation to your voice (which you've actually done really well in this video, considering the iffy voice audio) You could always boost with an EQ, but I would very much advise against that- good mic position comes first, and is a must in recording audio. Of course, it doesn't sound like you're using the best mic, and that's ok- but I would consider improving to a better quality mic in the future. Also, It's kinda unavoidable that you're going to need to use a "limiter" aka a limiting compressor, or a "brickwall" compressor effect. There are free VST compressors all over the place, and it will make pretty much all your sound, sound better XD Here's a link to a video that describes the proximity effect: ua-cam.com/video/pdMUgX9HWeg/v-deo.html THANKS FOR THE VIDEOS! Hope this helped, or pre-emptively helped you out in some way with your audio stuff.
I know this comment is ancient, but I want to validate what you said at the start, haha. I've played maybe 20 hours of fighting games across my entire life, if you don't count platform fighters like Smash (and even then, NEVER seriously or professionally). I'm about as far from a serious fighting game fan as you can get and still be aware of what a fighting game actually is. But these videos are fascinating to watch purely from a game design standpoint, and while having experience with the games in question would help me understand better, I don't feel like I need to in order to still learn things about the way these games are designed.
Glad to see this new format Baf, so much stuff to cover from all fighting games, i've watch your vanilla Rufus jump EX snake strike vs maskless vega, ouch.
Healing super would’ve definitely solved the 2 healing per round issue, and would’ve made Elena think a lot more about if she wants to go for that combo with huge damage
Man I love this series 🥰 I’ve been having a lot of fun with USFIV recently too and this has really enlightened me on its flaws, always knew Elena was busted but not super specifically how
Cool vid Baf, I've really been enjoying this series. I only played USF4 briefly (if you played the world's worst decapre online in 2015, that was probably me) but your point on broken characters frequently profiting from their mistakes reminded me of Bayonetta in smash4. Everybody knows about witch time and her long combos but the thing that frustrated me the most was her ability to hold down the A button to fire bullets after her attack. This did flinchless damage from far away (fine), but up close she had a hitbox that would put the opponent into hitstun. Not a lot, but it made punishing her whiffs all the more difficult as the "flinching" hitbox could often tag someone going in for a counter-attack and it created enough stun for her to escape. She didn't have to go for it and it was basically unreactable if she did or not. It made trying to punish her in neutral much more complicated than other character but it doesn't get remarked on much. To this day I'm unconvinced the character could truly make a mistake in neutral that wasn't secretly a 50/50
Damn, the discussion of her normals equals the length of the discussion of most other characters in their entirety. We didnt even get to her specials yet
I'm getting bayonetta flashbacks from the end of smash 4. Super strong neutral game who could flip to playing super lame when the situation called for it.
I was so mad playing the beta of Ultra with Dark Onion and finding out that Elena can lose a ton of HP, heal it back to full, win the round and get a "Perfect". No game! Bad game! It wasn't perfect!
Omg fighting her was such a pain in the nuts especially a dumb ass like me that mained cody XD. It was truly frustrating getting just blown up by here high low game. Only thing that was pretty consistent was Cody's forward moving high kick that was pretty good at beating her slow jump. But she didn't need to jump that much lol. And hey I actually did use here healing to put my self in a better position back when I played go me I guess still got hoped tho. Awesome brake down dude!
I don't have nearly as much trouble with O. Sagat as I do O. Ken for some reason or another. Old Ken's light shoryuken is ridiculous as far as punishing and all; Invulnerable up (with a very generous hurtbox) and very quick recovery on block. Hell, even if whiffed, you could do another and chances are it'd hit cuz the opponent tried to punish.
Not necessarily the best character in the game, but one that instantly deletes a whole bunch of other characters from the roster. Truly the epitome of Bad Balance.
I really like this series Baf! You do such a great job explaining the issues with the balancing of a character. A couple of questions/requests: 1) Do you think Evil Ryu and Elena are Top 2 in USF4? And do you consider Evil Ryu bad balance? 2) Who do you think is Top 2 in each version of SF4? 3) Is Vanilla Sagat the best character in SF4 (not including Omega Mode)?
1. Yes, Evil Ryu and Elena are top 2. Oddly I think Evil Ryu actually doesn't counterpick almost any character, he's just strong in general, so even though he might be better than Elena, he's not really as "broken." Other top tiers in ultra are Yun, Seth, Akuma (most people agree on these), Poison, Decapre, maybe Fuerte (these are my opinions) 2. Vanilla - Sagat + Akuma. Super - Cammy + Honda. AE - Yun and Fei. AE 2012 - I don't remember lol. 3. Probably the best character in SF4 is Vanilla Akuma followed by Vanilla Sagat. That includes omega mode too, but Omega Honda is also probably one of the best.
@@Bafael Omg Senpai noticed me and replied. Ty so much for doing this! Intresting you think Honda and Cammy are top 2 in Super. I thought 1 of them would be Guile due to how good Booms were in Super. Also, damn you think Omega Honda is one of the best characters in all of SF4? Im really interested for you to bring omega at a glance back specifically for Honda.
Man, I never realized she was that good, and I cant believe how much damage some of those combos do for only a bar or two. 300 or 400 damage for one or two bars? Thats more than makoto gets using like 4 bars
this series is great! I hope you do more of them. also maybe do some videos on characters that are just top tier, but not necessarily broken like Elena.
@@johnquach8821 In my experience, modern fighting games are generally pretty well balanced, Even the "bad" characters are usually C to C- tier rather than F tier.
@@a-pathetic I thought Alex has been Mid-Tier since season 2? I mean either way I don't really care. I still main him anyway, but I could've sworn he got a bunch of buffs that made him more bearable in S2. I know he was close to the bottom season 1.
Interesting stuff, I'm digging this series. I love that you don't do stupid gimmicks or delay at the start of the video, you get right into it, and for that you've earned a sub you didn't have to beg for.
She was quite dominant in the last season of SFIV. Even players that didn't main her had her as a backup character. Gamerbee transitioning from his fan-favourite Adon to Elena cemented her as a sort-of-villain in the eyes of the community.
@@xaviervega468 Man, that final was crazy (and heartbreaking). I don't blame Gamerbee for not thinking clearly after that grueling top 8. To anyone that doesn't know how crazy, awesome and yet still sad was the Last SFIV EVO Final, here's a link. Gamerbee´s Swan Song. ua-cam.com/video/T7Qn2RQ3qi4/v-deo.html
@@Artersa You can watch him as part of team Dynamite in the North American Street Fighter League (this year the NA league includes players from outside US). He mains Seth.
goddamn i never knew Elena was this broken. I picked Ibuki and Makoto as the two characters i wanted to learn. never really had the chance to play against many online players, and none of them were elena.
These are really the videos that I am subbed to you for. It'd help if your Fire Emblem videos were on a separate streaming channel- looking through your recent videos is... daunting.
Thanks for the video, it's very informative :) If you could, consider doing a video on SF3 NG Elena because I recall her being pretty weak in that game.
Loving this series of vids! I feel like we hear "poorly balanced" or "broken" very often, but people don't really go over the details of "why" (and usually just resort to reciting whatever the hot Twitter thread about it says). So this has been extremely interesting to follow.
I had no clue she was in USF4, or that she had a healing ultra. Always had arguments over healing supers in fighting games with people, and so many games choose to just avoid even trying to have one. It was interesting seeing the strengths and weaknesses of it here. I'm a fan of any characters with unusual supers, but wow, Elena's got a lot more going on than just that! Very great video, perfectly indepth!
I don't say this lightly, but Evil Ryu I think was as bad balance as Elena and we would have seen as much of him as Elena if the game stuck a year or two more. I can give some examples of why I think he's as good as Elena as well: 1.) He was a momentum monster. He was the best in the game at getting a confirm and converting it into round ending amounts of damage and stun. Meterlessly! While building crazy meter cause he had great meter gain so Round 2 usually it was even easier for him to snowball. I can't reiterate enough how much he could do momentum. 2.) He had great footsies: You know how Ryu is balanced around having good footsies, space control, and neutral fundamentals? Evil Ryu gets all of that, he doesn't really have to put himself in danger at all. He has low health, but he has plenty of defensive options to fish for confirms to get his momentum started. usually with fighting game glass cannons they are required to put themselves at risk for high reward. Evil Ryu doesn't in the same way. He even has triple hadouken for zoning matchups that does a lot of damage and beats other fireballs to force zoners to get closer to him... or hit them and use the fact he has some of the best ground speed in the game to go delete their health bar. 3.) Pressure: Evil Ryu's up close pressure is so good because they intentionally gave him combo tools that synergize with his strengths to give him a lot of versatility for opening you up not just damage and momentum once he does. IE: His M Axe Kick is special cancelable off of a lot of his best pokes, including his 3frame medium punch and on hit it's +4 and combos, while on block it pushes away, is -2 and can either be rinsed or set up a frame trap with another poke. This one move combined with his far reaching safe normals gives him a ton of OS just off the medium version. Light AK can be fdac'd on block to be relatively safe, and also happens to have *200* stun and link into at the most basic Cr.MPxx LAK which does 300 stun for two buttons of work. LAK has to be frame one linked to combo but it gives on demand meterless stun combos. Why yes he can cancel it off his long range safe normals too. And that's some examples off of the most common variants of his best special move for pressure. Not even getting into stuff like how easy he could reset to restart scaling, or the fact he had divekick oki like pre nerf yun and his heavy AK was an overhead, caused a hardknock down and special canceled from his st.MK... like his medium AK so you could set it up really easy and it's some of the best oki in the game. He didn't even need it like his pressure was so good already, and he just also has great oki. 4.)Meter: The really screwed up thing with him is if he's played optimally first round he should have taken the round meterlessly. Which means you have another round where he has resources, which open up even more of his pressure and makes him even harder to fight. All that stuff I've talked about so far is stuff he can do without meter (except L AK FDAC on block into Shoryu) with meter his ex moves and fdac means with good execution he gets a confirm he's stunning you and you lost. Or against zoners he has ex triple fireball which is incredibly damage efficient for the meter cost beats other fireballs and being in a fireball war means he's building meter to spam it making his anti zoning very good. Also, he had two good ultras to help him round two which I guess Capcom thought he was hurting real bad instead of having no real weakness except having lower than average health and stun. Those are just some brief examples. Evil Ryu went 5-5 with Elena for a reason, and honestly Elena being easier to use in the executional sense is why she's higher not because he wasn't absolutely op. I personally think if somebody were to sit down and really master him he could be favored against her. Definitely the strongest legal version of Ryu ever.
Elena is actually the reason i stayed out of usf4 the healing crap imagine being able to beat someone only to have them.heal half their health bar on you
I finally got to fight Justin Wong in tournament a few years ago and he just picked Elena. It was like finally getting to box against Tyson after training your whole life, and he just shows up with a gun.
Getting to box against Tyson after training your whole life, and he bites off your ear after the first round.
@@wildreams LMAO so true
Now think... is it better to be punched by Mike Tyson, or shot by Mike Tyson?
If he punches you, you're alive, but in severe pain.
If he shoots you, you're probably dead, or will be shortly.
@ThatGuyWithGlasses Pretty big if there.
@@nicksrandomreviews exactly what i was thinking my friends say im the quickest and have the will to take a hard punch like no other guy my size and even if i was a heavyweight size i still wouldnt want to take a punch from iron mike in his prime unless you payed me alot of money i would love to spar him but i know ill never get the chance
"Looks like Elena is pretty strong. Better nerf Dee Jay." - Capcom
Elena: Look at how strong I am.
Yun: Yang, hold my skateboard.
The new dev team:
Dev 1: we can't let dee Jay have buffs, we have to nerf him, any ideas?
Dev 2 :Make the move we just buffed useless.
Dev 1 : GENIUS.
I think nobody got the reference
@@gen5fan293 gekkouga
FORCES STAND
An attack that visually hits the ankles not being a low really makes me question if I like fighting games or not.
Chun-Li's hazanshu (where she does a flip and lands doing the splits) has a hitbox that is a long thin rectangle on the ground.
It must be blocked high....
Lows are important but I'd rather each character only had a small number.
@@ShadyHitchhiker At leaat the animation itself is unambiguously an overhead.
Felicia's cr.MK in VSav isn't a low yet does just that. What a piece of shit.
In MK11 Liu "Lui" Kang has a mid hitting low kick and an overhead looking high...
Everybody gangsta until Elena stands up straight
she tall
😍Elena is tall!😍
Thats love tho lmao
@@graylyhen9490 this^^ right here
What a woman 🥴
imagine having a slow jump but being hard to anti air
Lili has the best sidestep and the shittiest homing attacks. Homing attacks are the counter to sidestepping and side-walking in Tekken.
Surface to air Elena (AKA SamE)
What about Ukyo?
Happens a lot in Guilty Gear due to generally buckwild design (compliment)
You know she's broken when she can befriend Akuma.
SNU-SNU
hol up what
In Elena's USF4, we get smiling Akuma.
Elena must have been really strong if she got Akuma to smile.
@Nero The Chosen Tekken Bowling ≥ Elena
Elena: Suffering From Success
The craziest part is.... THIS IS THE HEAVILY NERFED ELENA and she still ended up being top 3 😂
Which iteration had the best version of her?
@@brazencoronet17 arcade version before it got released to consoles
@@MrPavySRK what was better about her back then
@@kawaiiempoleon8721
backdash went further and had less recovery
Her slide had invincibility on frame 2 lol
Healing ultra recovered the health at a faster rate
Hurtbox was severely janky to the point where combos and cross up combos would stop connecting on her by certain characters.
Cant remember everything else off the top of my head lol
@@MrPavySRK oof
No wonder she’s so god damn happy all the time
XD
she just wants to show you her dance...
Id be happy too if i had beats in my head all the time
i totally forgot about the flashing png of fire that flies off of the ultra bar lol
noice vid baf elena is cool
A sprite to be more accurate i think
Honestly it's extremely distracting. They could have at least gave it more than like 4 frames.
It's hard to un-notice isn't it..? It's got that geocities feel.
Damn it now I can’t stop looking at it
I never realized there was a fire png when playing the game
Elena idle animation is me avoiding responsibility
For me healing is less about balance and more about it's appearance of cheapness. Healing is 1.basically free, 2.not very high strategy, and 3. Radical gameplay mechanic designed to be something no other character could do and broke the normal rules of the game. It's similar to TJ combos "get up" move if he has instinct when he dies in killer instinct, it's not really OP but just feels obnoxious from a fairness standpoint.
They fucked up making healing her ultra and not her super. That would have made it less irritating than focus backdash all day. Still would be a bandaid fix on her.
It's like fighting Rashid in SFV or something, it's not necessarily unfair or broken but it does make everyone go "Man, I hate this, fuck off."
@@leoschue8071 right, because it flies in the face of what street fighter is
@@leoschue8071 basically lol
TJ's last breath is even the opposite of OP--most of the time it's the worst way to use his resources, as an extra 8 seconds of his insanely powerful instinct is, in most rounds, more useful than surviving a single additional hit, and some characters can put him in a bad situation as he's getting up. yet, people have always complained about it, bc it feels bad.
nice, always wondered why Elena was a top tier that "killed the game"
She's good but not the strongest character that the game ever saw. It's more that she's a playstyle everyone hates and had a lot of tools that broke the game in ways people didn't like. I think both AE yun and vanilla sagat were much worse than her. Elena is just demoralizing. You're winning, then she throws you and heals and now you're losing.
@@Bafael yeah, that's what I took away from the video.
had always heard that she was The Best and beat everyone, but this clears things up for me 👌🏽
As a Guy main, I hated her hurtbox and backdash so much! Her hurt box was weird so the second or third hit of my target combo would whiff and her backdash made it hard to pressure her.
did she though? she did came out around the transition time between sf4 to sf5
@@waterdog737 people definitely had high hopes for sfv once it was announced, which was around when Elena was getting popular. Discussions turned to things people hoped sfv would fix and things wrong with sf4, so Elena is frequently associated with the waning interest in the game even if she's not actually the direct cause.
I had been messing with the move files for years by the time ultra dropped and it was pretty obvious the creators of the new characters didn't have a good understating of how the game worked, mainly in how the moves flowed and hitboxes. They managed to make them functional it it was clear they were made by less experienced people.
Hi error, you were one of the people who got me into making videos lol
I'm impressed you could fit everything in just 28 minutes
Baf has some of the most information dense content around, his ability to be concise and thorough is pretty incredible.
Me, never having played the game: *completely enthralled and wanting 254 more vids like this*
These videos are really cool. I think Alex from 3S, SF4AE Yun, or USF4 Deejay would be cool future candidates
He has a How to Play Alex guide that I think does a decent job of showing why he sucks, tbh.
@@IronChefBoyardee To be fair, KSK did manage to place 3rd at EVO with Alex. There is no way in hell Sean, Twelve, or Remy could have ever done that.
DeeJay for sure needs to happen
Oh, I’ve got a treat for you guys! It’s just a quick compilation of notable things and not a full character walkthrough, but Bafael made a video 6 years ago called “USF4: DeeJay is Trash”.
ua-cam.com/video/yyNTnKYH_l0/v-deo.html
@@deadfr0g I've already seen that lol, I'd like a new updated version thats all
What keeps Elena in check in this game is the fact that her bad match ups are against the other top tiers. She struggles against Evil Ryu, Akuma, Cammy, and Yun. All of whom are/were regularly seen in both top level and casual play.
"There's a secret agreement among all Elena players to claim its a one frame link." LOL. Good shiz as usual baf!
I doubt you'll read this but on the off chance you do, going forward with this series it would be cool if we got comparisons to other characters in the game. Elena is obviously good but comparing it to other things in the game gives context.
It might make things take too long, though.
I've been thinking a lot about this but there's no good way to really do it. Context is important. It's why I brought up Vega, zangief, and dudley in this video.
“Options even if wrong” really is elena, I remember an elena getting mallet smash that would go over me, but the elena would cLP again and it’s a crossup, wasn’t ready for it so it worked. Pair that sentence with “can heal herself” and this character was easily toxic. But elena is a favorite character of mine so I forgive LMAO
I started with third strike and 3S made me hate Elena with a burning passion. This game is only solidifying my distaste towards this character
the worst thing about her heal ultra is how free it is, she's almost guaranteed to get it off at least once every round, sometimes twice
other characters don't have that level of consistency on ultras
Damn i remember that 2015 match where elena pulled off about 20 heals across the set. Definitely convinced me she was busted. Just as a spectator i was frustrated watching.
I really like this series! I hope you continue with this for a long time.
These videos are great, its fun to learn about other games but it also helps me put balance in general into a context I can translate to the games I do play. It is almost like fighting game literacy training.
Most of it is Greek to me, all this frame counting this and frame counting tbat . I guess i just play by feel (and tend to lose a lot online)
By the time Ultra SF arrived , I was already done with SF4 . To me., the best one was Super SF4. Elena was to Ultra what Sagat was to vanilla and Yun was to Arcade Edition . There was not one single thing about her was OP in an of itself , but rather a combination of a myriad of factors that would work in her favor all the time .
Like on his Yun Vid (since i aint a fighting game player unless you count for honor which is technicly kinda like it but also just not or thats what it feels like)
Her distinct lack of weaknesses right?
Yoooo Baf, I think you hit on something HUGE here with this series. Not only is it entertaining, but it appeals to ALL kinds of gamers, not just fighting game players because of your attention to detail in really getting into the meat of why these characters are "bad balance". Also, being a 3s junkie, I'm learning tons of stuff about frame data, how it works, it's practical applications... It's great man!!! Don't stop (please lol)!!
If I could though, offer some constructive criticisms? The audio is bad. It sounds too quiet, and volume is a little bit of an issue here, but I think the main problem is your voice's audio is too thin (not enough midrange, or bass) which hugely affects perceived volume. I suggest talking in closer proximity to your mic (See: proximity effect) and monitoring with a db meter/EQ of some kind, or just your ears- you're aiming for about -2/4db I think? (it's been a while lol). Or you can just listen until you hear a nice balance- not boomy, but a good bass presence, not to "tin roof" or thin (like this video), and not so mid-range that it starts to distort. Also, I would balance the background music in relation to your voice (which you've actually done really well in this video, considering the iffy voice audio)
You could always boost with an EQ, but I would very much advise against that- good mic position comes first, and is a must in recording audio. Of course, it doesn't sound like you're using the best mic, and that's ok- but I would consider improving to a better quality mic in the future. Also, It's kinda unavoidable that you're going to need to use a "limiter" aka a limiting compressor, or a "brickwall" compressor effect. There are free VST compressors all over the place, and it will make pretty much all your sound, sound better XD
Here's a link to a video that describes the proximity effect: ua-cam.com/video/pdMUgX9HWeg/v-deo.html
THANKS FOR THE VIDEOS! Hope this helped, or pre-emptively helped you out in some way with your audio stuff.
I know this comment is ancient, but I want to validate what you said at the start, haha.
I've played maybe 20 hours of fighting games across my entire life, if you don't count platform fighters like Smash (and even then, NEVER seriously or professionally). I'm about as far from a serious fighting game fan as you can get and still be aware of what a fighting game actually is. But these videos are fascinating to watch purely from a game design standpoint, and while having experience with the games in question would help me understand better, I don't feel like I need to in order to still learn things about the way these games are designed.
Glad to see this new format Baf, so much stuff to cover from all fighting games, i've watch your vanilla Rufus jump EX snake strike vs maskless vega, ouch.
Just found you from the Sean vid despite not being an SF player, love watching these types of videos
I haven't played SF4 in a few years, but this video made me so mad again.
😂 same.
It makes me sleep to play against Elena. Put the sleep into Sleep Fighters
Healing super would’ve definitely solved the 2 healing per round issue, and would’ve made Elena think a lot more about if she wants to go for that combo with huge damage
If anyone is still interested, the song in the background is "Babylon" by Kevin MacLeod. Cheers!
ohh kevin, lol
Elena: “fuck your fireball”, the character
This is such a good video. Really appreciate the work here, Bafael.
Absolutely loving this type of content, can't wait for more follow-ups on the SF4 series as a whole!
Thanks for your content, honestly. You really brought me back in time with a few of your videos. Keep up the good work man, I love content like this.
Man I love this series 🥰
I’ve been having a lot of fun with USFIV recently too and this has really enlightened me on its flaws, always knew Elena was busted but not super specifically how
Cool vid Baf, I've really been enjoying this series. I only played USF4 briefly (if you played the world's worst decapre online in 2015, that was probably me) but your point on broken characters frequently profiting from their mistakes reminded me of Bayonetta in smash4. Everybody knows about witch time and her long combos but the thing that frustrated me the most was her ability to hold down the A button to fire bullets after her attack. This did flinchless damage from far away (fine), but up close she had a hitbox that would put the opponent into hitstun. Not a lot, but it made punishing her whiffs all the more difficult as the "flinching" hitbox could often tag someone going in for a counter-attack and it created enough stun for her to escape. She didn't have to go for it and it was basically unreactable if she did or not. It made trying to punish her in neutral much more complicated than other character but it doesn't get remarked on much. To this day I'm unconvinced the character could truly make a mistake in neutral that wasn't secretly a 50/50
This got recommended at the best time
Damn, the discussion of her normals equals the length of the discussion of most other characters in their entirety. We didnt even get to her specials yet
I'm getting bayonetta flashbacks from the end of smash 4. Super strong neutral game who could flip to playing super lame when the situation called for it.
characters that stand like this are always strong
I was so mad playing the beta of Ultra with Dark Onion and finding out that Elena can lose a ton of HP, heal it back to full, win the round and get a "Perfect".
No game! Bad game! It wasn't perfect!
Omg fighting her was such a pain in the nuts especially a dumb ass like me that mained cody XD. It was truly frustrating getting just blown up by here high low game. Only thing that was pretty consistent was Cody's forward moving high kick that was pretty good at beating her slow jump. But she didn't need to jump that much lol. And hey I actually did use here healing to put my self in a better position back when I played go me I guess still got hoped tho. Awesome brake down dude!
Hey cool to see a Cody main, the fallen hero deserves more love.
Dude your videos are so great and interesting and such a learning curve keep up the good work 😎👍
Sagat in Turbo 2. No need to go into detail, just piece together a couple clips of him doin what he was born to do
I don't have nearly as much trouble with O. Sagat as I do O. Ken for some reason or another. Old Ken's light shoryuken is ridiculous as far as punishing and all; Invulnerable up (with a very generous hurtbox) and very quick recovery on block. Hell, even if whiffed, you could do another and chances are it'd hit cuz the opponent tried to punish.
god O. sagat is so fucking obnoxious
@@RichterBelmont11891 SHOR
Not necessarily the best character in the game, but one that instantly deletes a whole bunch of other characters from the roster. Truly the epitome of Bad Balance.
This bad balance series is fantastic. Keep it up!
I really like this series Baf! You do such a great job explaining the issues with the balancing of a character.
A couple of questions/requests:
1) Do you think Evil Ryu and Elena are Top 2 in USF4? And do you consider Evil Ryu bad balance?
2) Who do you think is Top 2 in each version of SF4?
3) Is Vanilla Sagat the best character in SF4 (not including Omega Mode)?
1. Yes, Evil Ryu and Elena are top 2. Oddly I think Evil Ryu actually doesn't counterpick almost any character, he's just strong in general, so even though he might be better than Elena, he's not really as "broken." Other top tiers in ultra are Yun, Seth, Akuma (most people agree on these), Poison, Decapre, maybe Fuerte (these are my opinions)
2. Vanilla - Sagat + Akuma.
Super - Cammy + Honda.
AE - Yun and Fei.
AE 2012 - I don't remember lol.
3. Probably the best character in SF4 is Vanilla Akuma followed by Vanilla Sagat. That includes omega mode too, but Omega Honda is also probably one of the best.
@@Bafael Omg Senpai noticed me and replied. Ty so much for doing this!
Intresting you think Honda and Cammy are top 2 in Super. I thought 1 of them would be Guile due to how good Booms were in Super.
Also, damn you think Omega Honda is one of the best characters in all of SF4? Im really interested for you to bring omega at a glance back specifically for Honda.
I seem to remember Cammy and Akuma dominating hard in 2012
She's back. I can't wait to see how she plays
Suggestion: bad balance Dee Jay sf4
Baf has a much shorter version of that, but having it with the explanations in the video would be more digestible for people.
*Forces stand*
As a Cammy main, fuck Dee Jay, he needed nerfs 😁
Forces Stand
I never got why he was called weak so I'm down to see that
Great content! I'm learning stuff I didn't even know back when I played the game.
The lynx tail mixup would probably not be as bad if it had different voicelines like SFV often does
Man, I never realized she was that good, and I cant believe how much damage some of those combos do for only a bar or two. 300 or 400 damage for one or two bars? Thats more than makoto gets using like 4 bars
I always love videos like this. Just interesting to watch and learn about older games.
Same
this series is great! I hope you do more of them. also maybe do some videos on characters that are just top tier, but not necessarily broken like Elena.
u shuold call these baf's bad balance cause saying "welcome back to baf's bad balance" would sound funny. love these vids bro
Absolutely love this series Baf, keep it going!
Stop hating Elena, she is just a cute girl that wanna heal the world :')
I always hear "Thats REAL!" instead of "Scratch Wheel", and i feel like that sums up the disbelief I have seeing what Elena can do
Bad Balance: 3rd Strike Chun Li (too good)
That chun vid would be cool, but SFV vega aint terrible at all whachu mean?
@@pandafights2win405 Whoops. I thought SFV vega was terrible for some reason. Maybe Turbo Akuma? (Although that guy was supposed to be OP)
@@johnquach8821 In my experience, modern fighting games are generally pretty well balanced, Even the "bad" characters are usually C to C- tier rather than F tier.
General consensus is that Nash and Alex are still bad in SFV. Vega is around mid.
@@a-pathetic I thought Alex has been Mid-Tier since season 2? I mean either way I don't really care. I still main him anyway, but I could've sworn he got a bunch of buffs that made him more bearable in S2. I know he was close to the bottom season 1.
She's 1 of my favorite Street Fighters thanks for the awesome video.
This series of videos is amazing. Keep it up man.
Amazing. Great video and analysis.
One of my favorite Street Fighter characters. I wanted her in SFV, but she's really unlikely at this point
We might have to wait for SF6 to happen.
@@headshotmaster138 we might
Interesting stuff, I'm digging this series. I love that you don't do stupid gimmicks or delay at the start of the video, you get right into it, and for that you've earned a sub you didn't have to beg for.
I hope you keep doing these. Super fun to watch and reminisce
I knew Elena was viable, but I never knew she had so many advantages in SFIV.
She was quite dominant in the last season of SFIV. Even players that didn't main her had her as a backup character. Gamerbee transitioning from his fan-favourite Adon to Elena cemented her as a sort-of-villain in the eyes of the community.
@@MrTrellheim Frankly Gamerbee should have counter picked with Elena in the Evo Grand Finals when Momochi went to Evil Ryu
@@xaviervega468 Man, that final was crazy (and heartbreaking). I don't blame Gamerbee for not thinking clearly after that grueling top 8.
To anyone that doesn't know how crazy, awesome and yet still sad was the Last SFIV EVO Final, here's a link. Gamerbee´s Swan Song.
ua-cam.com/video/T7Qn2RQ3qi4/v-deo.html
@@MrTrellheim does gamerbee still play V?
@@Artersa You can watch him as part of team Dynamite in the North American Street Fighter League (this year the NA league includes players from outside US). He mains Seth.
goddamn i never knew Elena was this broken.
I picked Ibuki and Makoto as the two characters i wanted to learn. never really had the chance to play against many online players, and none of them were elena.
If you really want a laugh, this Elena was considered low tier for most of 2014.
It’s always the damn shotocasts online and it’s so damn boring.
I always get the kens, Ryu’s, giefs, and the occasional bison.
Thanks for this video. Now I know why I always lose to her. After what you've explained here I do think she's 'super op' :)
So you gonna make a lot of these videos now or just a couple in a row happening rn
Probably a good 10 or so anyway.
@@Bafael awsome
@@Bafael you should make SFA3 Mika and SFV Juri at some point!
Deejay when?
Alex when
Love this format! Hope you make more high quality videos like this!
These are really the videos that I am subbed to you for. It'd help if your Fire Emblem videos were on a separate streaming channel- looking through your recent videos is... daunting.
Elena and El Fuerte being the popular characters of USF4 was amazing
Your videos are inspirational, Baf. Awesome work!
Literally just realized this came out recently. I thought this was and oldie. Nice new content Baf.
Seeing as how just about EVERYONE had Elena (and/or Evil Ryu) as a backup character, that tells me that she is broken.
Great video man, I play gouken so it helps you just forgot to mention that Elena's EX DP can teleport behind you if block
Thanks for the video, it's very informative :)
If you could, consider doing a video on SF3 NG Elena because I recall her being pretty weak in that game.
I've heard she's bottom tier in that one but from what I've seen it's because everyone else is broken lmao
Loving this series of vids! I feel like we hear "poorly balanced" or "broken" very often, but people don't really go over the details of "why" (and usually just resort to reciting whatever the hot Twitter thread about it says). So this has been extremely interesting to follow.
For a lot of people it’s not broken it’s either “I’m blindly saying an opinion I heard someone else say” or “It’s a matchup I’m not good at”
@@jaksida300 Very true, and tbh, I can't talk like I haven't been guilty of it too lol (in regards to "it's a matchup I'm not good at")
I can't wait to play with her with modern control in Street fighter 6! 😁😁😁😎🤙🏿🪘
Put your hand in the air Elena 🖐🏿 for your healing! 💗🙏🏿
She's like an MK9 top tier levels of broken. Tons of undeserved (and often safe) mixups and moves that have far higher reward than risk.
Those jank hurtboxes making Elena look like a Smash Bros character
Love your videos, no bs straight to the point.
Edition Select was such a great addition.
Pff, these people getting hit by Mallet Smash, i'll have you know, i have never been hit in a fighting game once in my entire life.
YESSSSSS i love this series!
I recently found ur channel and as someone who has watched a lot of sf4 tourneys this is super cool defiantly gonna sub for more
Love this series! I think a vid on AE Yun would be really cool, versions of SF4 between vanilla and Ultra aren't really talked about
I had no clue she was in USF4, or that she had a healing ultra. Always had arguments over healing supers in fighting games with people, and so many games choose to just avoid even trying to have one. It was interesting seeing the strengths and weaknesses of it here. I'm a fan of any characters with unusual supers, but wow, Elena's got a lot more going on than just that! Very great video, perfectly indepth!
I don't say this lightly, but Evil Ryu I think was as bad balance as Elena and we would have seen as much of him as Elena if the game stuck a year or two more. I can give some examples of why I think he's as good as Elena as well:
1.) He was a momentum monster. He was the best in the game at getting a confirm and converting it into round ending amounts of damage and stun. Meterlessly! While building crazy meter cause he had great meter gain so Round 2 usually it was even easier for him to snowball. I can't reiterate enough how much he could do momentum.
2.) He had great footsies: You know how Ryu is balanced around having good footsies, space control, and neutral fundamentals? Evil Ryu gets all of that, he doesn't really have to put himself in danger at all. He has low health, but he has plenty of defensive options to fish for confirms to get his momentum started. usually with fighting game glass cannons they are required to put themselves at risk for high reward. Evil Ryu doesn't in the same way.
He even has triple hadouken for zoning matchups that does a lot of damage and beats other fireballs to force zoners to get closer to him... or hit them and use the fact he has some of the best ground speed in the game to go delete their health bar.
3.) Pressure: Evil Ryu's up close pressure is so good because they intentionally gave him combo tools that synergize with his strengths to give him a lot of versatility for opening you up not just damage and momentum once he does. IE: His M Axe Kick is special cancelable off of a lot of his best pokes, including his 3frame medium punch and on hit it's +4 and combos, while on block it pushes away, is -2 and can either be rinsed or set up a frame trap with another poke. This one move combined with his far reaching safe normals gives him a ton of OS just off the medium version.
Light AK can be fdac'd on block to be relatively safe, and also happens to have *200* stun and link into at the most basic Cr.MPxx LAK which does 300 stun for two buttons of work. LAK has to be frame one linked to combo but it gives on demand meterless stun combos. Why yes he can cancel it off his long range safe normals too.
And that's some examples off of the most common variants of his best special move for pressure. Not even getting into stuff like how easy he could reset to restart scaling, or the fact he had divekick oki like pre nerf yun and his heavy AK was an overhead, caused a hardknock down and special canceled from his st.MK... like his medium AK so you could set it up really easy and it's some of the best oki in the game. He didn't even need it like his pressure was so good already, and he just also has great oki.
4.)Meter: The really screwed up thing with him is if he's played optimally first round he should have taken the round meterlessly. Which means you have another round where he has resources, which open up even more of his pressure and makes him even harder to fight. All that stuff I've talked about so far is stuff he can do without meter (except L AK FDAC on block into Shoryu) with meter his ex moves and fdac means with good execution he gets a confirm he's stunning you and you lost. Or against zoners he has ex triple fireball which is incredibly damage efficient for the meter cost beats other fireballs and being in a fireball war means he's building meter to spam it making his anti zoning very good. Also, he had two good ultras to help him round two which I guess Capcom thought he was hurting real bad instead of having no real weakness except having lower than average health and stun.
Those are just some brief examples. Evil Ryu went 5-5 with Elena for a reason, and honestly Elena being easier to use in the executional sense is why she's higher not because he wasn't absolutely op. I personally think if somebody were to sit down and really master him he could be favored against her. Definitely the strongest legal version of Ryu ever.
I see USF, I UPVOTE no matter what
Woah, how did I miss this? Great vid!
Thank you for choosing the wife Elena outfit
Bafael with the knowledge as always thanks dude 👍
Loving this series! Nice one Bafael!
Thanks for the steady stream of SF content
Elena is actually the reason i stayed out of usf4 the healing crap imagine being able to beat someone only to have them.heal half their health bar on you
Keep making content like this regularly and I'm gonna share it to my friends every time. You drop the content you get rewarded. Super entertaining