Despite her devastating Cannon Spike juggles and her wide selection of frame advantaged normals, Cammy has a hard time adjusting to the SF4 combo system. She has no way to combo into lvl2 Focus Attack, and nothing sets up her divekick sequences except EX Cannon Strike or lvl2/lvl3 Focus Attack. Her inability to FADC into anything slower than 3-frame light attacks hurts too. She’s certainly not lacking in the stylish link department though.
Every combo in this video is character-specific, meaning each had to be tested against nearly the entire cast to find one viable dummy candidate. Even within the usual suspects – Seth, Honda, Rufus, Gief, etc. – every character’s ground hitbox has a slightly different shape.
0:11 While it’s impossible to connect two lvl3 Focus Attacks before an opponent falls over, landing a second lvl3 Focus Attack during the airborne part of crumple stun is a useful setup as well. Cammy takes advantage of its extended air reel to juggle meaty HK Spiral Arrow, which allows her to recover in time to connect HK Cannon Spike midscreen then cancel into LK Spin Drive Smasher. Even though the HK version of Spiral Arrow inflicts the least single-hit damage, it’s necessary because it travels the farthest of the three without any additional recovery time. For whatever reason, the HK Cannon Spike only seems to connect midscreen against Zangief, possibly due to his giant falling horizontal hitbox.
0:21 After the lvl2 Focus Attack, it’s important to get a little elevation on EX Cannon Strike for Cammy to land as deep as possible. Her s.MP, c.HP, far s.MP link sequence works on several characters, but HK Spiral Arrow only hits once against everybody except El Fuerte. Obviously landing that first hit is necessary to FADC and continue the combo. The second part is c.LK -> s.LK -> far s.LK, c.MP xx EX Spiral Arrow, which again connects twice. El Fuerte might have the biggest lower body hitbox while standing.
0:32 Seth has probably the biggest upper body hitbox, because that double close s.MP link doesn’t work on anyone else. In fact, Cammy’s close s.MP grants +6 frame advantage while connecting on the 4th frame. She must walk forward during those 2 extra frames in order to cross over that invisible line into close s.MP territory and avoid the much slower far s.MP version. Cammy also walks forward during the second sequence, inbetween close s.MP and far s.LP before finishing with HK Spiral Arrow. In case anyone’s curious, this combo deals 415 damage and 668 stun. At 10% reduction, that’s four fierces away from dizzying Seth.
0:43 As shown in the second clip, Cammy is naturally capable of comboing divekicks after a lvl2/lvl3 Focus Attack. However, dashing forward positions her right next to the opponent, leaving no time to adjust that range. A trade setup is required to get those divekicks hitting Sakura’s toes, which is important to set up the last part of the combo. Sakura’s charged HP Hadoken was used because it looks cool; no other reason. Notice how Sakura’s head leans downward after Cammy’s HK Cannon Strike, momentarily ducking under Cammy’s c.HP before rising up into it. Essentially this is a mid-combo meaty setup, causing the c.HP to connect late and providing additional frame advantage so that Cammy can link into Gyro Drive Smasher ultra. It works against a number of crouching characters, but of course it’s impossible to keep them crouching after landing a Focus Attack. Sakura and Rufus are the only two standing characters this works on. Range isn’t particularly important because Cammy’s ultra travels so far before its first active frame.
0:58 Cammy’s close s.HK causes very little pushback. Since she’s cornered when Seth’s LP Sonic Boom interrupts her, she doesn’t get pushed back either. Seth whiffs close s.HK in order to create a counterhit setup for Cammy, which gives her a damage/stun boost and enough additional frame advantage to link s.HP xx HK Spiral Arrow FADC, c.LP, s.HP xx HK Spiral Arrow, dizzying Seth. Then Cammy whiffs two LK Spiral Arrows and four LK Cannon Strikes before finishing with lvl3 Focus Attack, EX Cannon Strike, HK Cannon Strike, s.HP, s.LP xx EX Quick Spin Knuckle (one hit) xx lvl1 Focus Attack. The command for EX Spin Knuckle must be completed before s.LP connects. There’s barely enough time to enter the Focus Attack input, which is only possible because you can buffer it quite early before it connects.
Here’s how post-KO juggles work. Ignoring normal light attacks, if you knock out an opponent with anything that normally wouldn’t launch them into the air, they get launched anyway but you’re rewarded one free hit. For example, killing a grounded opponent with Cammy’s s.MK knocks them into the air and allows her to juggle with s.HK for free. However, killing a jumping opponent with s.MK does not grant a free juggle because normally that would knock them into the air. Similarly, killing a grounded opponent with Cannon Spike then canceling into EX Focus Attack makes the Focus Attack whiff because Cannon Spike is a knockdown attack. Since the first hit of EX Spin Knuckle is not a knockdown attack, it sets up one free post-KO juggle provided that it connects against a grounded opponent.
Light attacks are special because killing a grounded opponent with jab or short puts them into special crumple stun, keeping them grounded. Thus, following up with any non-knockdown attack still provides one more free juggle. Mashing jabs won’t work indefinitely because the killing strike puts them into crumple stun, the next jab launches them, and the third jab hits them out of the air – which counts as natural knockdown, ending the freebies.
Is that explanation clear enough? If it’s still confusing or if you run into any odd exceptions to these rules, don’t hesitate to ask.
This is a tool-assisted combo video recorded with two ASCII PAD V Pro programmable controllers. Absolutely no cheats, hacks, or game-altering devices were used in the making of.
I’ll have the customary combo transcript typed and posted by tomorrow evening, but i can’t survive much longer without some sleep.
Wow, c.HP link into Ultra! I didn’t even know that worked! Awesome video
Great stuff! I’m still amazed you can do meaty hits in the middle of a combo. The other day I did j.HK, cr.LP, cr.HK with Chun and it worked =P. Your combo vs Sakura was a bit better than that tho!
Also say goodbye to those post-KO combos in SSF4 =[
why goodbye to them?did they remove the ability to attack after?
@Smileymike101
Yeah, they actually did.
I like that you did that entire last combo just so you could use her back fist
CPS2: Yeah it’s crazy how much of that stuff is in SF4. At some point someone’s going to make a video where literally every link is a meaty setup and none of it matches up to baseline frame data. I’m still testing/finding appropriate dummy characters by trial and error, but i guess i’m starting to favor a few usual suspects when i have to try something new.
error1: Haha thanks. I tried everything i could think of to start the combo with EX divekick but it might be impossible to dizzy starting with that move. The closest i got was 484 damage, 745 stun but it used too much meter:
counterhit EX divekick, c.HP, s.MP xx HK Cannon Drill (one hit) FADC, c.LP, s.HP xx HK Cannon Spike FADC, HK Cannon Spike.
Btw in case anyone cares, the damage setup for the last clip was 6 blocked HP Spin Knuckles, 1 blocked LK Cannon Drill, and 1 blocked LK divekick.
Good stuff.
I just realized how awesome the last clip is, since you don’t burn meter for using FADC, you basically went overmeter in a VS match. (EX = 1, FADC = 2, and you had 2…)
very cool overall, of course
Wow, those links are insane.
@CPS2
What!? You gotta be kidding me! And here I was, hoping they’d bring back post-KO taunts like in 3S…
Wow, those links are insane.
@CPS2
What!? You gotta be kidding me! And here I was, hoping they’d bring back post-KO taunts like in 3S…
@onreload
After the round is over and it says K.O., no matter what you do, no meter is burned.
Example, just play any match, and if you end it with a FADC’able move, you can FADC free of cost.
Visual example, Maj’s Fuerte/Zangief vid, last Zangief combo.
great stuff
i’m curious as to what you’ve found with regards to combo dummys, all i’ve noticed is that dhalsim and balrog fall slow (ex tiger knee -> destruction in corner)
gouken falls weird… try tiger uppercut fadc f.rh ultra on him and the timing is very oddly precise, like maybe he is skinny in the air or something
Nothing major technical yet, but they all have different shapes on the ground. Every combo in this video is character-specific. Basically all of the usual suspects have something useful about them: Seth, Honda, Rufus, Gief, Fuerte, Abel, Sagat, Gouken, Chun Li, Akuma.
Seth has probably the biggest high hitbox, because that double s.MP combo doesn’t work against anyone else. Fuerte might have the biggest low hitbox because he’s the only one who gets hit by two hits of Cannon Drill after that s.MP, c.HP, far s.MP sequence. Sakura and Rufus are the only ones who lean the right way after getting hit standing by HK divekick to make c.HP hit meaty enough to link ultra.
Of course i could be wrong when i say something only works on one character because there’s a lot of room for error when you’re testing the entire cast all the time. But if i say something only works on one character, i’m 99% sure it doesn’t work on more than two.
SO AWESOME! <3
Are the mojority of the links performed 1 frame links?
I think so. Here’s a complete list of one-frame links used:
vs El Fuerte:
close s.MP, c.HP
c.HP, far s.MP
far s.LK, c.MP
vs red Seth:
close s.MP, walk forward, close s.MP (1-frame due to walking)
close s.MP, c.MK
close s.LP, c.lose s.MP
close s.MP, walk forward, far s.LP (1-frame due to walking)
close s.LP, far s.LK (necessary to cancel far s.LK)
vs Sakura:
meaty c.HP, ultra
vs pale Seth:
close s.HK (SB interrupt), close s.HP
c.LP, close s.HP
close s.HP, far s.LP
Additionally, all the HK Spiral Arrow FADC links into 3-frame normals have a one-frame window. The FADC part can be buffered in, but the normal move timing has to be precise.
It would be amazing how much reps you could do with akuma s.lp f.hk on sagat:))
Before i forget, there’s something interesting about that last Cammy/Seth combo. There’s a counterhit far s.HK trade using a similar setup in the Ken TACV which only shows up as a “First Attack” for Ken, not Seth. At the time i thought counterhits were impossible when two opposing attacks connect simultaneously, but the last Cammy combo proves that’s not true.
The reason you never get a counterhit when two physical attacks trade is because SF4 only rewards counterhit bonuses when an attack connects during an opponent’s attack startup. Since both characters have to reach an active frame in order to trade, it’s not surprising that there’s never a counterhit bonus.
Cammy’s s.HK hits Seth’s s.HK startup at the same exact time as Seth’s LP Sonic Boom hits Cammy. On that frame, Cammy’s s.HK has reached an active frame while Seth’s s.HK is still in startup. So Cammy gets a counterhit bonus while Seth does not, even though both characters earn the “First Attack” message.
Theoretically, Ken’s far s.HK could have hit Seth’s HP Tanden Engine one frame later and still scored that counterhit bonus, and both characters would have gotten the “First Attack” message. This would have yielded one more frame of advantage for Ken.
However, it proved impossible during testing simply because Ken’s far s.HK hitboxes don’t allow it. You can see him learn forward before kicking. If i’d waited one more frame before pressing the button, the LP Sonic Boom would have reached Ken’s standing animation.
Having the Sonic Boom approach Ken from the front would have made a simultaneous trade possible, but then Ken and Seth would end up really far away from one another.