SF4 Biweekly TACV 13: Blanka / E.Honda

Apart from their charge-back cannonball and button-mash specials, Honda and Blanka share a number of core design similarities. They both have long-range, high-damage normals with just enough frame advantage to get by. Both are bound by slow dashes. Neither can chain light attacks. Neither can combo into lvl2 EX Focus Attack or perform any FADC ground combos without counterhit. It’s no surprise that their basic combos follow the same blueprints.

0:11 Dhalsim’s vertical j.LP reaches into the last active frame of HP Electric Thunder. Blanka recovers in time to whiff HP Rolling Attack and juggle with LP Ground Shave Roll. The super command is delayed to reuse the same charge. This trick is easier to duplicate near the corner, because the Rolling Attack recovers much quicker. Unfortunately, Ground Shave Roll also stops instantly upon reaching the corner. Since Blanka automatically starts rolling on contact, it’s impossible to land more than one hit when starting all the way in the corner.

0:18 There are two components to pushback in SF4. Pressing a button expands the attacker’s hitbox to a specific size. If the opponent is standing at point blank range, that expansion pushes them back before the attack even connects. Take a look at Rufus’ c.HP for an extreme example. The second component is of course the pushback caused the strike itself. In this clip, Gouken’s EX Senkugoshoha thrust counteracts Blanka’s s.HK pre-impact pushback, in addition to acting as a counterhit meaty setup. Then the end flip of Blanka’s close s.HK pushes off against the corner. Combined, these two factors eliminate both components of s.HK pushback in the first combo. The second combo doesn’t have the advantage of Blanka being cornered because he needs the corner to juggle MP Ground Shave Roll after HP Electric Thunder.

0:27 Normally crossups are bad for combos in SF4, because they cause opponents to lean backward, which expands their hitbox in that direction and prevents you from getting in close. However, Blanka’s close s.MP causes so much pre-impact pushback that crossup j.HP doesn’t make a difference. It would’ve pushed the dummy that far away regardless. Blanka is usually not a good combo target but he does have a wide low hitbox, which is enough for something.

0:34 The original idea here was to have Gen jump over Blanka’s Rolling Attack, then use Zan’ei to trade from behind – instantly grounding Blanka and pulling both characters together. Somehow they got pushed apart instead, because backwards attacks behave weirdly in SF4. Luckily, the modified setup shown here does work as intended. Blanka’s HP Rolling Attack trades with Gen’s HP Zan’ei as Blanka passes through Gen’s invincible startup – drawing them as near as Gen’s backward leaning hitbox will allow. Blanka then continues with s.MK, s.LP, s.LP xx HP Rolling Attack xx HP Ground Shave Roll. This combo deals 515 damage and 495 stun.

0:45 Blanka doesn’t have any long combos. Twelve might be the highest number of hits he can rack up. This combo only works on Gouken, Guile, and Rufus. Against all other candidates, the HP Rolling Attack becomes airborne and uncancelable by the time it connects. This combo inflicts 455 damage and 565 stun.

0:55 Counterhit HP Rolling Attack causes enough hit stun to combo EX lvl2 Focus Attack. The hard part is executing the Rolling Attack after changing sides with Rose mid-air. The trick is to shift charge directions on the exact frame when the side switch occurs. Not only does this require one-frame precision, but also a great deal of trial and error since there’s no visual indicator to mark the occurence. You basically have to guess. After that, Rose’s LP Soul Spark interrupts Blanka’s c.MK xx HP Rolling Attack, which allows for s.MK, s.LP, s.LP xx HP Rolling Attack xx lvl1 EX Focus Attack. The interrupt point is somewhat delicate because HP Rolling Attack travels faster than LP Soul Spark. Not every cancelable normal can replace c.MK there. This combo causes 434 damage and 695 stun.

1:06 Blanka’s c.LK provides +4 frame advantage and his Lightning Cannonball ultra becomes active on the 4th frame, forming a one-frame link. The first part of this combo works on characters with wide base hitboxes – for the ultra’s initial low hit to reach them after the c.LK quartet. The last part works on dummies who lean backward in response, avoiding the ultra’s upward arc until it lands on their feet. Delaying that launch gives Blanka enough time to reach the corner and follow up with LP Ground Shave Roll, which only hits once as before. This combo totals 344 damage and 470 stun.

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1:18 Dhalsim’s vertical j.LP reaches into the last active frame of HP Hundred Hand Slap. Honda juggles with EX Sumo Smash, which has a juggle potential of one, so it only connects on the way up. It turns out that EX Sumo Headbutt has a juggle potential of two (or more).

1:24 Optimizing for damage is difficult and time-consuming, especially when a combo contains a multitude of interchageable range-dependent options. That’s certainly the case with Honda’s HP and EX Hundred Hand Slaps. Weighing in at 709 damage, this seems to be Honda’s best configuration against Seth. However, i didn’t have to use any kara-cancel tricks and i had a bar of EX meter left over, so it wouldn’t surprise me if someone found a more efficient structure.

1:48 With the exception of dash cancels and rapid-fire light attack chains, SF4 characters generally can’t turn around in the middle of cancel sequences. That means if Honda jumps over Rose as she throws an LP Soul Spark, she won’t turn around when she cancels into super or EX Focus Attack. Thus he can easily switch sides before her superfreeze, so he can charge for ultra comfortably in mid-air. With precise timing and spacing, Honda’s crossup j.MK narrowly evades Rose’s HP Soul Spark – connecting on the last frame before landing in order to combo his Ultimate Killer Head Ram ultra. He remains invincible until the finisher, averted by Rose’s slow fireball. Smileymike101 was the first to try interrupting Honda’s ultra this way, finding the opponent’s state to be vulnerable to throws. This combo deals 531 damage and 170 stun.

2:00 Guile throws an LP Sonic Boom, then whiffs c.HK to duck into Honda’s crossup j.HK while creating a counterhit setup. Normally Honda can combo j.HK into ultra with perfect charging, provided that j.HK connects as deep as possible. Since it can’t connect that low as a crossup, the counterhit helps in comboing the ultra. Executing the ultra itself requires the same charge direction switch as the sixth Blanka combo; except corners are weird, so Honda has to switch directions three times – all with frame-perfect precision. Difficulty aside, Guile makes a superior dummy for this setup because his Sonic Boom reaches Honda sooner, allowing him to recover earlier and prepare more elaborate followups. This combo deals 806 damage and 507 stun.

2:16 Zangief arbitrarily seems to have the ideal hitbox shape for Hundred Hand Slap combos. Honda’s HP Hundred Hand Slap has such an immediate burst of momentum that it almost doesn’t matter how the combo starts. However, it ends up causing quite a bit of pushback once it becomes stationary. Conversely, EX Hundred Hand Slap advances gradually, but can keep moving forward. Every c.LP xx EX Hundred Hand Slap repetition brings Honda slightly closer to the opponent, whereas any HP Hundred Hand Slap usage extends the gap. The HP version’s two advantages are: it doesn’t cost meter and it provides +10 frame advantage compared to the EX version’s +4. Apparently it’s possible to kara-cancel HP Hundred Hand Slap into EX Hundred Hand Slap, giving it an extra initial jolt. This trick is only used once in the combo, because it only links directly after HP Hundred Hand Slap, at relatively close range. Honda walks forward during every frame gap. The second-to-last HP Hundred Hand Slap only connects six times, but the missed hit is the fifth slap. Since the last hit connects, Honda still gets +10 frame advantage. The last HP Hundred Hand Slap normally only connects four times, totaling 618 damage and 728 stun. However, the KO provides a free juggle state and the corner keeps Zangief close, so the fifth slap raises the final tally up to sixty.

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.

45 thoughts on “SF4 Biweekly TACV 13: Blanka / E.Honda

  1. Maj Post author

    The last couple of weeks have been hectic to say the least, but i still want to get this episode wrapped up this week. It may take a few extra days though. Hopefully it’ll be done by Friday.

    Sorry about the vague delay. These two aren’t the most versatile of subjects, but they do have a few tricks up their sleeves.

  2. Killweir

    @Maj
    I canne wait as I’ve recently taken a shine to Blanka. Hopefully there’s something in there that helps me survive in the jungle…

  3. zero

    blanka’s last trial cost me almost 10 hours in sf4 and 2-3 hours in super.
    the miserable feeling keeps me out of touching him.
    whenever i eat a cr.mk -> Ultra in arcade, i respect my opponent so much.

  4. Snoooootch

    Well, today I went to the training room with Blanka and was totally unable to come up with anything cool. I hope you have better luck. It’s gonna take some very creative thinking to pull something great off. Good luck, Maj.

  5. harejordan

    Blanka ball into Akuma’s demon palm allows one of them to continue a combo, I think Akuma, but maybe there’s a way to let Blanka do something after that.

  6. Maj Post author

    Unfortunately i still haven’t had any time to work on this, so at this point it’s probably best just to push it back to next Tuesday. Hopefully i can spend the whole weeking working on it.

  7. Maj Post author

    Change of plans, hate to say. I was hoping to get it done by tonight but things kept coming up so i need another day. The trouble is i’m busy tomorrow night and possibly the night after.

    The most realistic favorable outcome is this gets done on Friday, then i try to wrap up the next episode over the weekend, but that may get pushed back until next Friday as well. Anyway it’ll show up on my u2b channel as soon as it’s done, as always.

  8. Maj Post author

    Alright, Blanka’s finally done. All of his combos are short but a few of them look strange enough to be interesting.

    I’ma grab some food then try to wrap up Honda tonight, but if it turns into the Gen nightmare then all bets are off.

  9. Maj Post author

    Haha yeah, plus i thought of more Blanka stuff to test out. Sucks that you can’t do anything after killing someone with lvl1 Focus Attack xx dash forward, because he can obviously end a combo with Rolling Attack xx lvl1 Focus Attack. But his dash takes too long to recover.

    Oddly enough, KKK command hop is the only thing you can do in that situation. Technically it doesn’t count as a special move, so the post-KO special move lockout doesn’t apply to it. Yet it still behaves like a special move in all other respects, which means you can buffer it into the end of a dash, which lets you input it slightly before the dash ends (before the post-KO input cutoff). You can’t do that with normal moves obviously.

    I’m not going to include any of this in the video because it doesn’t add any hits to the combo, but i guess it’s a semi-interesting bit of trivia.

  10. Maj Post author

    Honda doesn’t have a kara-throw?? What a massive gyp.

    HP Hands hits on the 9th frame and gives +10 on hit, which means it links into itself with exactly 1 frame to spare for a kara-cancel, except Honda has no forward-moving karas whatsoever. It’s a conspiracy!

  11. Maj Post author

    HP Hands xx MP Oicho? You can’t kara Hands to Hands though, right? And how do you not get EX when you press two buttons?

  12. Mienaikage

    I’m not quite sure how that happened, I was just holding HP on turbo and timing LP Oicho. Something worth looking into?

  13. Maj Post author

    Did we ever have a 700 damage combo with Honda? I found one that does 709 but it’s kinda ghetto. Worth including?

  14. Maj Post author

    Damn it, i was really close to being done and then i found something promising against Zangief. Haha this is what happens when you make the mistake of underestimating “basic” characters.

    If i can’t stay awake long enough to capture this last combo, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow afternoon. Apologies for the delay once again.

    No matter how hard i try to adhere to a strict schedule, the fact of the matter is combo-making timetables can be unpredictable.

  15. crowbait

    If you could add one interesting new thing a day, I’d wait more or less forever for the video. :) Rock on, Maj.

  16. Maj Post author

    Snoooootch: Haha how long until it turns into an angry mob?

    crowbait: Dang, thank you sir. You won’t have to wait much too longer though. I just finished capturing the last clip so now i only have to edit and upload it. Should be up roughly three hours from now.

  17. Maj Post author

    Okay, it’s live. I hope it was worth the wait. I’ll start working on the Chun/Rog episode tomorrow.

    It might be a while before i get around to writing up a transcript, but it’ll happen eventually. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions in the meantime.

  18. ShaXan

    Dayum, nice one Maj, liked the E. Honda stuff.

    Those interrupts and the 60 hit combo were pretty sweet.

    I gotta sleep though, gonna check it out s’more tomorrow.

  19. Snoooootch

    My most favorite yet! I can’t believe you pulled off such great stuff with Blanka! I was aching to see what you came up with! And That E honda Stuff with the projectile interruptions are a masterpiece!

  20. error1

    I liked the charge switching on the blank/rose combo and blanka’s ultra into super.
    Also impressive charge management on the honda/guile combo. You had to switch charge for that one too right?

  21. duelle

    I’d like to know how to do that cross-up roundhouse to U1 with Honda. Awesome stuff with against Zangief, too.

  22. N00b_Saib0t

    does honda’s ultra cause crumple stun? only reason can think of why he can throw rose after the interrupt, nice find :)

    also, i saw a vid a while back (maybe yours?) where abel does both his super and ultra through a sonic boom, and the sonic boom passes through him by the time it gets to him on the other end of the screen. people guessed that when a fireball leaves the screen it loses its hit box because of a gouken clip vs dan doing his air taunt, but apparently that isnt the case if honda is vulnerable to them during his ultra. just thought i would bring this up to point out how SF4 combos have evolved.

  23. FastyMcNasty

    Any idea on how much damage it would do if you did the ultra with projectile interrupt against Seth, and then did the hands loop?

  24. error1

    @N00b_Saib0t
    no it’s not crumple stun, it’s similar but it doesn’t last quite as long and has a different hitbox. You can’t for example do that weird cross up nj.hp I found on a character in crumple stun.

    @FastyMcNasty
    It only works on rose and guile as they are the only ones who have slow enough full screen projectiles. Also hands loop isn’t the best damage he can do, the most I’ve managed is 848 on rose.

  25. ShaXan

    Hmm Maj, on that Honda vs Guile Ultra Interrupt, instead of super-canceling, couldn’t you have linked super from (what looked like) HP Hands, since it gives 10 frame adv.? Or would it not work because Honda would move out of range?

  26. ShaXan

    Sorry for double post, umm, how did you execute the ultra for Honda vs Guile Ultra Interrupt, if you crossed him up, wouldn’t you lose your charge? or was it executed in the air, then auto corrected?

  27. ShaXan

    q_q triple post.

    In my first out of these three posts, i said you could link HP Hands to super, but if Honda moved out of range, would HP Hands > HP Headbutt xx super work since you have two extra frames for Honda to move forward?

  28. Maj Post author

    duelle: Right as Honda is crossing over the opponent, you can switch directions to sustain charge. It’s not practical because it requires one-frame accuracy and there’s no clear visual indicator of when you’re supposed to do it. In fact, i had to switch charge directions three times with Honda against Guile, but Guile didn’t have to do anything special to get the Sonic Boom. Corners are weird sometimes. I guess it took Honda two tries to make it over.

    N00b_Saib0t: You mean this? Actually none of that stuff contradicts. If you take too long with Honda’s ultra and allow the fireball cross the edge of the screen, it’s rendered harmless. But the boundary is the true edge of the screen, not the ultrafreeze zoomed edge.

    FastyMcNasty: Unfortunately that Honda interrupt setup only works against Rose and Guile. Everyone else’s slowest fireballs travel too fast. You can see Guile’s Sonic Boom touching Honda for a while before he gets hit. That’s because he’s invincible until the finisher. Seth’s LP Sonic Boom is way past Honda by then, even without the jump attack at the beginning.

    ShaXan: To get +10 from HP hands, you need the 7th hit to connect. In that setup against Guile, it only connects four times, which is perfect because the fourth is the last hit he can cancel into super. Headbutt is really slow. I doubt Honda can link Headbutt after seven-hit hands even from point blank range. He certainly can’t do it from far away. The other problem with Headbutt is that it becomes airborne very early into its active frames, so if you need it to travel forward then you can’t cancel into super. HP hands is way better at closing distance. Check out how far away Honda is before doing the last HP hands against Gief. Headbutt wouldn’t reach there even if he had +15 to work with.

  29. Numsigmernen

    Wow, amazing, as usual. You never disappoint!

    I was wondering, was there a particular reason for killing Zangief in the last combo? Would the last hit whiff otherwise, or anything?

    (I also was wondering if Honda could be interrupted before the ultra’s final blow, but I see you’ve already answered it)

  30. Maj Post author

    Yeah at that range, HP hands only hits four (or three) times normally. But if you kill Zangief near the corner, he falls back and his hitbox gets bigger, plus you get a free post-KO juggle off the fourth hit so the fifth one connects. Without the KO, the combo would’ve only been 59 hits. It’s the same as the last Gen combo from before.

    Btw regarding the opponent’s state after Honda’s interrupted ultra, i probably wouldn’t call it crumple stun either because the fall clearly looks different. The main similarity is the fact that you can combo throws during that state. But you can’t hit them off the ground after they fall like you can during Focus Attack crumple stun.

    If Honda’s ultra hits someone out of the air, it preserves the knockdown state with the juggle count as 0. Tested against Guile’s LP Sonic Boom xx HK super, normals and throws whiff right through him, but EX buttdrop hits once and that definitely has a juggle potential of only 1.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the initial hit of Blanka’s ultra acts the same way, allowing throw combos and such. The problem is it causes waaay less hit stun, so it’s impossible to test in SF4. Maybe in SSF4 with Dudley’s rose?

  31. ShaXan

    Hmm, but Maj, is it possible to link super after a point blank HP Hands?
    or is it just as slow moving as a headbutt?

    Blaaaargh. I wish I had a stick, then I could actually do Hands combos D:

    I can only just hit confirm w/ Chun from cr.lk, cr.lk xx mk/ex legs D:

  32. ShaXan

    Oh, and were those kara’d Hands on the last Honda vs Zangief combo?
    if so, with what? HP Hands kara’d into HP Hands?

  33. jamheald

    ShaXan :
    Oh, and were those kara’d Hands on the last Honda vs Zangief combo?
    if so, with what? HP Hands kara’d into HP Hands?

    As far as I’m aware that’s impossible.

  34. Maj Post author

    Alright, the transcript is done – without regard for the basic decency of paragraph length. Took me all evening (and night), but i decided to get it out of the way sooner rather than later. Hopefully that answers most questions, but don’t hesitate to ask about anything i missed.

    Random notes:

    For the first combo, i originally wanted to start with upball trading with Dhalsim’s j.LP to show off another charge trick (charge DB, UB+K to preserve back-charge) but unfortunately the air flip takes too long to recover.

    For whatever reason, the Honda setup against Guile only works going right to left. I can’t explain it, because it’s so precise that there’s nothing i could do to make it a frame faster. Although i bet replacing j.HK with j.MK would save a couple frames and make it work.

    The one thing i didn’t try with Honda was kara-canceling MP hands into HP hands. If that’s possible, you should be able to add an extra hit or two. Even if it causes EX hands to come out, that won’t be a problem at the end after he runs out of meter. But it might not be a problem anyway because i don’t think you can negative edge hands.

  35. Maj Post author

    It’s weird how neither Dhalsim, Blanka, nor Honda have arranged themes in SF4. I’ve had to use jungle background music for both episodes. The night version makes me laugh too. It starts out techno, then gets more techno!

    Also regarding the most-hits combo with Blanka, he might be able to reach 13 against Rose but it seems doubtful. It would look something like backward crossup j.MK vs Rose dash under, c.LK, s.LP xx Rolling Attack (LP FB interrupt), s.MK, s.LP, s.LP xx HP Rolling Attack xx super. The problem is, those two hits before the first ball would create a gap, then you might run into trouble making the fireball connect without losing too many frames.

    Might be easier against Guile because Blanka can do three jabs against him, so you’d only need backward crossup j.MK vs Guile dash under, c.LK xx Rolling Attack (LP SB interrupt), s.MK, s.LP, s.LP, s.LP xx HP Rolling Attack xx super to reach 13 hits. The problem with Guile is his dash is much slower and his LP Sonic Boom may be sliiiiightly faster than LP Soul Spark.

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