Top 10 Helena's worst moves

[Omegan Eckhart]

What do you think if they made all of Helena's handslaps (236P+K, 4P2P, BT PP4P2P, 33P4P, BT 6P+K, BT 4PPP, BKO 6P4PP) have parry abilities similar to Sarah's P+K when your opponent tries to crush you? Is it too much or would that help her improve? Or is it dumb and not needed...?

I had always liked how Sarah's P+K is both offensive and defensive at the same time and that when they try to crush her it just ends up backfiring at them. I thought to myself "Should Helena have this?"

Sarah's P+K is bullshit seeing as it jumps lows, parries mid's, tracks, is +2 on block and causes a sit down stun on hit.

On topic, Helena's hand slaps have fantastic hit boxes so hitting her out of them is nigh on impossible. They do need to be at least -2 on block instead of being -4 so she can at least block afterwards without being hit.

 

[KwonJigglypuff]

I'd love Helena's 236P+K to be a sabaki, that would make it more useful.
But I'm not sure that's the way TN wanted to design the character.

 

[Omegan Eckhart]

I'd love Helena's 236P+K to be a sabaki, that would make it more useful.
But I'm not sure that's the way TN wanted to design the character.

Seeing as she got fairly well nerfed with her 3in1's > 6P gone I'm eager to see what TN gave her to compensate. Maybe her bound state game will be godlike? If P(P) go straight into bound which guarantees 66KPP then she will be awesome.

 

[Rawbietussin]

Sarah's P+K is bullshit seeing as it jumps lows, parries mid's, tracks, is +2 on block and causes a sit down stun on hit.

On topic, Helena's hand slaps have fantastic hit boxes so hitting her out of them is nigh on impossible. They do need to be at least -2 on block instead of being -4 so she can at least block afterwards without being hit.

Lol that's the thing that makes Sarah's P+K likable for me.

There's not a lot of ways to safely transition to BKO and most of the time, it likely gets crushed a lot. I thought that maybe at least if they gave her a parry from her handslaps, she would be able to do more moves from BKO or when transitioning from BKO to BT.

 

[HaJiN]

Sarah's P+K is bullshit seeing as it jumps lows, parries mid's, tracks, is +2 on block and causes a sit down stun on hit.

On topic, Helena's hand slaps have fantastic hit boxes so hitting her out of them is nigh on impossible. They do need to be at least -2 on block instead of being -4 so she can at least block afterwards without being hit.

Sarah's P+K deflect was nerfed in Ultimate. It only gives her +1 on block now, and if it deflects a move, nothing connects afterward, unlike previously, where 6kk was practically guaranteed. The chances of it jumping over any lows was almost impossible in both versions. Either way, bokuho was always a much better stance than Sarah's flamingo. Helena can crush most moves from that stance, has a strong low, and throw options. Sarah's flamingo would be better if she could throw from it like in VF4.

I don't know how many of you guys play Sarah, but she was hit with the nerf hammer pretty hard (except in tag, where she is actually stronger now)
- P+K is +1 on block, and nothing connects after a successful deflection
- 4K went from +4 on block, to +3 on block (this is huge when fighting the likes of Christie, Kasumi, and Pai)
- 4P+K went from +4 on block to +3 on block.
- There is an awkward pause on block or hit after 3pk, 4k, P+K, and almost any other move that puts her in flamingo. (I think this was done to give the opponent breathing room after being put in a frame trap)
- Her 2p grants no follow ups to connect, unless near a wall. (The same can go for the rest of the VF cast)
- 44p (her 9 frame jab) no longer connects after a successful mid punch attack from sidestep.
- FLA 1kk is no longer a natural combo, and when maximum critical threshold is reached, the second kick can knock the opponent out of the stun

Sarah is definitely no longer top tier, and is probably B tier now instead of S tier. They need to fix the pause after her flamingo moves, bring her deflect move back to the way it was in 5 , fix her 44p jab after her sidestep mid punch attack, and make FLA 1kk a natural combo again. I think reducing the frame advantage, and making nothing connect off her 2p were fair nerfs, though. Sarah may have been top tier, but without a viable throw from her flamingo stance, a Sarah player had to be very smart with their mix ups from the stance, and had to rely on parlor tricks for her wins. Now that I painted a pretty clear picture, it's pretty easy to see that Helena's bokuho is, and always has been a better stance than flamingo.

 

[Omegan Eckhart]

Sarah Stuff

I wouldn't compare the two stances in my opinion. Sarah can enter stance at + frames on block and has fast moves to go along with it. She doesn't has evasive capabilities from it nor does she need it, her stance is meant to be used purely offensively. Helena on the other hand has no way to enter stance safely except BT 66K and 236P+K so her stance is designed to be used defensively. The only way she gets into stance on block and continues her offence is by crushing, which as a rule won't work if the opponent knows that 2P stuff's everything she has.

I'm glad she got smacked with the nerf bat, she was absolutely absurd in Vanilla.

P+K needed a nerf, what a brain dead p.o.s move it was. It parried mid's, tracked, was +2 on block and caused a SDS on hit. I would have left it alone and just made it grossly insafe on block so it could be baited and punished but whatever, as long as it got nerfed somehow I guess I'm satisfied.

Honestly Sarah probably shouldn't have been put in DOA5 to begin with. There was no way to keep her close to her VF5 self and have her be balanced. She is really fast, has tons of tracking moves, plenty of great and safe SDS's, good damage, tons of safe moves and + frames on block, a high/mid crush that is only -6 on block, good counters and throws, I'm ranting now...

If she were a DOA character everyone would be freaking out but because she is a VF character having all that shit at her disposal is somehow justified. I'm happy she has been taken down a notch but I bet she is still better than most of the cast, all the stuff in bold is still intact so she will still be an extremely dangerous character. She will just have to work a bit harder, although still not as hard as most of the cast.

 

[HaJiN]

SNIP

Bokuho is also an offensive tool, because Helena can not guard while in it. She is wide open to an attack, and someone who is smart will go for it. Bokuho is a very fast stance to go into (like ~5 frames), and teishitsu can immediately be activated while in the stance. She has a 19 frame low that stuns (and has tracking), and allows follow ups to connect for a combo, she has a 12 frame mid, a mid kick launcher, two mid punch launchers, a high launcher , transition into backfacing, throws, etc. While she doesn't have mid tracking moves from the stance, 6p4pp is very hard to interrupt with a sidestep move. Overall Helena has tons of options from bokuho

Flamingo has no direct way to access it, except through a 4f+k cancel, and it takes more than double the frames to go into than going into bokuho, which means she has very few stuns in her normal stance that allow her to transition into flamingo and continue the stun for a combo. Even if she can transition, all options are slow escapable. However, stuns such as 6p4k, 1h+kk, and FLA 1kk, which start in her normal stance and end in flamingo allow her to transition into standing after the hit, and get a launcher, or if she is lucky, a critical burst.

Certain moves that leave her in flamingo give Sarah frame advantage, but her game while in the stance is limited. She has three tracking moves from the stance, but only one makes sense to use (3pk), because the others are too slow, (2h+k) or leave her at too much of a disadvantage on block (h+k). That leaves her with one viable tracking option from flamingo, and that move is a high. This means Christie has no problem sidestepping Sarah's flamingo mix up whatsoever.

She has one viable mid poke from the stance, and that is her 6k, which is 13 frames. Her two launchers from the stance are mid kick, she has no low that allows her to start a stun for a combo. People use FLA 1kk, but the second kick is counterable if you react to it. Her 2h+k is a low that is like 24 or 26 frames, and is very easy to see. It also flips the opponent in the air, and doesn't allow a follow up. She cannot execute a throw from the stance, or crush. Most people when they see Sarah go into flamingo do 1 of 2 things. They either sidestep, or they counter high. That completely erases 95% of what she can do from the stance, since she cannot throw them while in flamingo. Doing either of those things while playing against Helena is extremely dangerous since she can do everything while in bokuho except counter, guard, and low throw.

And if you think Sarah has tracking, think again. She has her sidestepping mid punch, her kk string, 8h+k, 3pk and 3h+k. All those are standalone moves. All of them are high or low, except for 8h+k. This means that Sarah cannot just whip out a tracking move like Helena can because a good portion of Helena's tracking moves start a string. Sarah can only rely on two things to win, and that is speed, and frame advantage. Sarah used to cause me so much grief until I started using her back in February, and now she is my secondary, and until Ultimate, she was my favorite character to use. Fighting another Sarah never really causes me trouble anymore, since you become aware of how limited she really is. She is also highly technical, like Helena and Rig, and takes a lot of skill to use. (It took me 3-4 months to learn her, meanwhile I learned Kasumi and Alpha-152 in a day). So if you lose to a newbie who is using Sarah, that is your own fault. If you lose to a good player using Sarah, say good game, because she is not easy to use.