SF4 Biweekly TACV 07: Abel

Abel’s episode ended up slightly longer than expected, mostly due to his inability to combine multiple concepts. He has plenty of interesting facets, but can only showcase one at a time. Thus if anything seems repetitive, that’s because having “tool-assisted” in the title forces me to maximize each combo – even when only one piece is special. With Abel, meter to burn always leads back to the same road, although i did try to employ different links every time.

0:11 Finish Low isn’t a throw, but rather a low-hitting attack which would combo from Abel’s Change of Direction chains if not for its prohibitively slow 21-frame startup. Trading lvl3 Focus Attack with Dhalsim’s c.LP gives Abel enough time to whiff LP Change of Direction -> Second Mid and catch Sim with Finish Low right before he becomes invulnerable. Also, the starter is trickier than the usual Focus Attack trades because Sim’s c.LP reaches out as a vulnerable hitbox before it becomes an active hitbox. You have to use distance to make it work. Dhalsim has to push c.LP early to place his fist in front of Abel, then Abel’s lvl3 Focus Attack has to be spaced correctly so his shoulder advances into the punch. If you don’t start slightly out of range then Abel wins cleanly every time.

0:17 Abel has that rare combination of dash speed and quick Focus Attack startup to link a dash-canceled lvl3 Focus Attack into lvl2 Focus Attack before the opponent falls over. Crumple stun works as a meaty setup for Abel’s s.HK against Dan and Dhalsim due to the way they lean in, but far s.MP xx HP Heartless doesn’t connect against Dan at maximum s.MP range.

0:29 Four Changes of Direction! El Fuerte’s far s.HK leaves him laying flat on the ground, where he stays to avoid the first 2 active frames of Abel’s HP Change of Direction. Then he whiffs s.MP to provide a counterhit bonus, making that link into c.LK possible. The rest of the combo is fairly straightforward, although i did try to mix it up by using all three of Abel’s standing punches. The first two CoD’s are HP versions and the last two are MP versions. After CoD FADC followed by two light attacks, only Seth and El Fuerte appear to be wide enough to trigger a close standing attack.

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0:39 Balrog’s Personal Action allows him to begin charging PPP for Turn Punch without whiffing a punch first. Turn Punch invincibility then provides a counterhit meaty setup for CoD, which is necessary to combo Second Low. The full combo is counterhit meaty HP Change of Direction -> HK Second Low xx FADC, c.MP, s.HP (one hit) xx HP CoD xx FADC, c.HP xx HK Marseilles Roll, MP Falling Sky. That crossup HK Marseilles Roll sets up LP Falling Sky against several dummies, but MP/EX Falling Sky only works against a select few. HP Falling Sky never works.

0:47 Two Wheel Kicks! Gen’s HP Zan’ei instantly grounds Abel as it trades with HK Wheel Kick, leaving Abel more than enough frame advantage to land F+MK. The full combo is HK Wheel Kick (HP Zan’ei interrupt), F+MK xx dash, s.HP (one hit) xx HP Change of Direction xx FADC, F+MK xx dash, s.HP (one hit) xx HP CoD xx FADC, c.HP xx HK Wheel Kick. The corner is needed to connect HK Wheel Kick against Gen, but not for the LK or MK versions. This combo deals 500 damage and 630 stun.

0:56 Chun Li crouches under Abel’s far s.HP, then whiffs LP Kikoken to provide a counterhit bonus while rising into its last active frame. In case anyone’s still unfamiliar with this chararacter-specific infinite, it works because c.LP makes Chun Li momentarily lean downward. The first active frame of Abel’s far s.LP whiffs before she raises her head into the second active frame, giving Abel +7 advantage instead of +6 frames. That’s what enables him to link F+MK, which becomes active on the 7th frame. Obviously repeating the infinite would’ve killed her, but Abel wouldn’t be able to rebuild enough meter to FADC. Instead i decided against leaving Soulless out of the video. The first part of this combo causes 770 damage and exactly 1050 stun, leading to 841 damage in total.

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.

48 thoughts on “SF4 Biweekly TACV 07: Abel

  1. Maj Post author

    The video is almost finished, but i found a few unexpected tricks at the last minute and i’ll need an extra day to see them through. One way or the other, it’ll be available tomorrow evening.

    Sorry everyone, i wasn’t expecting these last two pieces to take so long. Hopefully nobody stayed up too late waiting for it.

  2. Bob Sagat

    I can’t believe I’m unAbel to watch it now! I thought you’d be Abel to finish it on time! I’m slamming my fist on the tAbel I’m so angry!
    I’m gonna go watch tv. Too bad I got no satellite, only cAbel. Maybe I’ll pop in a DVD and watch BAbel, that was pretty good.

  3. error1

    take your time and make it as good as your Abel, no one will remember it was a week late when they come back and watch it.

  4. ZGiSH

    Take all the time in the world, More or less, you are giving us entertainment and insight for free. We have no reason to be mad or frustrated even if it’s late by months. :)

  5. Maj Post author

    Cool, thanks for understanding. It’s encoding now, which usually takes close to an hour and then uploading takes another half hour so it should be up around midnight. Turned out okay, i think.

  6. Maj Post author

    Okay, it’s finally done and up now. I’ll have the usual combo transcript typed and posted by tomorrow evening, but everything’s pretty much straightforward once you see it.

  7. harejordan

    LEAVE CHUN LI ALONE!!! Great job again Maj, interesting how the airplane wing doesn’t break and you can still see Abel’s outline.

  8. Bob Sagat

    Just to clear up any confusion: The Bob Sagat he’s thanking in the video isn’t me, he’s the American one.
    I didn’t know one already existed when I donned this username.

  9. Bob Sagat

    Oh and thanks for the vid Maj. I too found it interesting that you could see Abel’s outline through the wing. That just looked plane weird!(Sorry, Abel just unlocks the bad pun part of my brain)
    The first combo was cool because of the elaborate setup for just two hits. Could very well be added to Ode to the 2-Hit Combo.

  10. Bob Sagat

    Well, uhm, I know there’s one in New York or something. I’m the one from Holland.
    I figured you meant him, since I had nothing to do with this vid at all.

  11. Maj Post author

    Yeah i don’t know anyone else by that name. You use the same username on SRK, right?

    I dunno, i just thought “tAbel” was advanced. Plus you posted some dope screenshots on SRK so that’s enough of a reason for me.

  12. Bob Sagat

    Haha, oh wow. I feel so totally honoured right now!

    Anyway, sorry for hijacking this discussion. Back to the cool vid.

  13. Maj Post author

    Bob Sagat: Haha no worries. Sorry i didn’t get a chance to give you any advance notice. Lately everything’s been beyond last-minute.

    Tarnish: Yeah that seemed to be the early concensus so i went with it.

  14. Smileymike101

    Damn 94 hit combo and could have gone over the limit of 99.Topped akuma and seth thats for sure.

  15. IC IO IM IB IO

    OMG! that was definetly worth the wait, 94 hit combo was preety sweet and i have been waiting to see that infinite for months. I cannot wait for SSF4 and the new Chars TACV’s :]

  16. Maj Post author

    Alright the transcript is up as well. If anyone has any more questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

    Regarding 94 vs 99, maybe it was a mistake not killing Chun Li but i got really bored of that loop. Also 94 is a bigger number because 99 is more of a concept – and a vague, medium-sized one at that.

  17. jamheald

    Oh and I would advise you to keep your vids secret from ehubs in future (I do know this isn’t possible) they’re just full of posers that just insult you and anybody who likes your vid by saying that it’s easy and that if we’re impressed we must be scrubs when they don’t even see half of what’s going on, the half that makes it groundbreaking and damn good. Oh and then there’s the ones who say tacv well it must be impossible and pointless and hasn’t had any work put into it, I mean ofcourse they could just programme a controller… after designing a combo that has been worked on and improved through trial and error while making sure that it is original in a game that allmost has a sequel, and then as always the idiots that say it’s faked. Needed that.

  18. Maj Post author

    I’ve recorded lvl3 Focus Attack xx dash forward, lvl2 Focus Attack with El Fuerte, Fei Long, and Abel so far. I’m sure it’s possible with a couple more but i haven’t tested much else. Based on their frame data compared to the frame data of the ones i’ve found, Chun and Gouken look promising as well.

    As for eventhubs, i don’t visit that website unless someone links me to it, so i neither know nor care what’s going on over there. The saddest/funniest thing is when someone asks a question about a video they posted. It goes totally unanswered every time because nobody on there has the slightest clue what’s going on.

    “News” websites like that are simply built to leech off the popularity of SF4 to make themselves a little money on the side without creating any actual content. So it’s not surprising that they attract and tolerate the dumbest, rudest crowd on the internet. All i can say is i’m glad people don’t get away with that kind of stupidity on SRK.

  19. harejordan

    Off topic quick question. What happens if two chars try to airthrow each other at the same time? I figure one would win if tried to input manually, but since you can control time and space, is there an air tech?

  20. Maj Post author

    Nah there’s no air techs. Simultaneous air throws work the same way as two untechable command grabs performed at the same time. The game simply picks one to win out at random.

  21. ano

    they don’t just both whiff? that’s what happens w/ gief’s throws (at least his ultra? maybe not his others). I know at a local tournament I watched a gief vs. gief where both giefs did ultra simultaneously, both whiffed, one guy reacted faster and did his super (he had enough meter lol) immediately after and the super grabbed.

    unless gief’s ultra just has throw invincibility? some things about the engine are still a mystery to me despite me changing these things.

  22. Maj Post author

    Zangief’s super and ultra only have one active grabbing frame, and they’ve gotta be invincible for longer than that. Looking at the frame data, it looks like it grabs at the tail end of superfreeze where the opponent has no chance to counter. Obviously he’s invincible during superfreeze because he can’t get hit by a fireball or anything while the screen is frozen.

    Command grabs and air throws have no invincibility so one of them always wins. There are actually some games like SFA2 where Gief isn’t invincible during the grabbing frame of Final Atomic Buster. He still beats non-invincible moves every time because throws take priority over attacks overlapping on the same frame. In those games, two simultaneous FAB’s always lead to one randomly winning out.

  23. Maj Post author

    Btw i tried this setup against Rose where Abel trades HP Falling Sky with Rose’s j.LK, then trades EX Falling Sky with LP Soul Spark. But then nothing else works.

    Another EX Falling Sky whiffs right through her. And ultra looks too slow by like two frames. But even if it wasn’t, i doubt it would connect. Super has no juggle potential so obviously that’s useless, not to mention impossible because of meter resitrictions. And EX Wheel Kick is even slower than ultra.

    Ah well, it would’ve been cool to land this whole combo as time expired so that it would cause zero total damage.

  24. Smileymike101

    Ultra sohuld be Abel to connect as i heard it has infinite juggle ,but if you say the setup isnt fast enough…

  25. Maj Post author

    Nope, no damage, no combo counter message. All you get is the “First Attack” message.

    I might be wrong about ultra, but yeah, it’s too slow. Maybe someone can come up with a better setup than i did. As far as i know, there’s no legit way to test whether Abel’s ultra has a juggle potential of one like EX upgrab or whether it’s infinite.

  26. jamheald

    And since ultra’s to slow to combo off of a traded ex grab there is no legit way to see if ables ultra has more than one.

  27. Smileymike101

    maybe its faster, if, again using rose and lp fireball setup, you do cr.hp AA, cr.hp so she is in juggle state, EX upgrab trade, ultra.Maybe this setup grants more height, hard to test by hand.

  28. Maj Post author

    Maybe but i doubt it, because in my setup i already have to wait until she drops a little before doing the EX upgrab trade.

  29. electric

    Here are a couple of questions for you Maj… They’ve had me stumped since day 1…

    Question 1: Abels, f+mk is +3 on hit… after dash cancelling, it’s +4 … this is pretty much fact, as the only follow ups to f+mk xx dash are st.hp and st.lp – Why is it then, that it’s impossible to do f+mk xx dash, TT ? Since TT has 5 frames of start up, I’d imagine it would be the perfect tick set up… is there a few frames coming out of hit/block stun where the opponent is throw invincible ?

    Question 2: Keeping in mind that f+mk xx dash is +4 on hit, going by the assumption that medium and hard attacks grant +3 on counter hit, this should put you at +7 on hit. Fine and dandy, until you can actually link cr.fp after counter hit f+mk, which supposedly has 8 frames of start up. What are your thoughts on this ? do command normals grant extra frame advantage on counter hit ? Is there a way to test that cr.fp’s start up really is 8 frames instead of 7 ?

    Just wanting to pick your brains on the the subject, as you seem like you’re well in the know!

  30. Maj Post author

    1) Actually Abel’s frame data says it grabs on the 5th frame, which is the 1st neutral frame after recovery. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was 1 frame of throw invincibility after hit stun. That setup works fine if the opponent blocks, which gives the F+MK less frame advantage by only 3 frames.

    2) That’s come up before but nobody really knows the answer. I wouldn’t even go so far as labeling the rule for all command normals. It looks like Abel’s F+MK is a special case on counterhit but until someone finds more examples, i’m inclined to call it unique.

    When it comes to this type of frame analysis, sometimes the best answer is finding someone with a top quality capture card and playing back the footage side-by-side frame by frame. Since there’s a PC version available, that’s an even more accurate alternative. Maybe you can even spot what’s happening visually right away. Worth a try if you’re curious enough.

  31. Maj Post author

    Concerning the first question, Zangief’s frame data says that c.MP gives +3 frame advantage and EX SPD grabs on the 4th frame, but i just got that to whiff too. In fact, EX SPD is listed as active for 2 frames so maybe throw invincibility is even longer than 1 frame.

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