ways to improve Honoka and stay in flavor of the character

Omegax

New Member
That Hissatsu stance is so blah. I barely use it and if I happen to transition into it, I normally just follow up with K or T. Otherwise, meh.
I think the reason for that is because you need a stance transition to get into hissatsu, so with her not being able to transition her stances very well it kinda of makes the point of it useless becuase you can poke and run with her, so all you really have to do is wait and whiff punish people. If they allow her to do her own stance it would make people incorporate it more. I see this as the same as how they did momiji so that people would use her other strengths than just he tenku string spams.
 

iHajinShinobi

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I don't think that stance is useless at all. Something is only useless if a player doesn't understand how to make it effective (generally speaking). If you're going that route with her stances in Critical Stun Threshold, then learning (and honing) each stance is your best bet for utilizing that stance better. Since it actually has good options.
 

Jyakotu

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You have a P that you can charge for a CB or deep stun, a K that launches, and two T options that can be used for punishing holds. Personally speaking, I just prefer the later options because then I can do followups. The P followup has uses, but then she takes too long to get out of the stance. That recovery is ass.
 

Omegax

New Member
I don't think that stance is useless at all. Something is only useless if a player doesn't understand how to make it effective (generally speaking). If you're going that route with her stances in Critical Stun Threshold, then learning (and honing) each stance is your best bet for utilizing that stance better. Since it actually has good options.
I completely understand but i am also thinking of the mix up opportunity her stance provides when she is actually, i think it would be nice to have that option early game
 

iHajinShinobi

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The point of her stance mix up is to commit or overextend. Having access to her unique stance itself would defeat the purpose of the character's design (her mix up).
 

Raansu

Well-Known Member
Because you can't mash or auto-pilot.

I said "Any of these can be attempted outside of just jab free cancel."

Yes her reach is bad, which is why her walk speed is way above average and her 6T has longer range than most other 6T forward throws. I have to assume you've never seen any bit of my Honoka tutorial. I have said this time and time again, you are not going to be successful with this character if you cannot play a footsie game.

I have and its a good tutorial, doesn't change that honoka is trash. Don't care how good you are at the neutral game and playing footsies. Matched up against someone of the same skill level you're going to lose every time to almost the entire roster simply because she has zero reach and her slightly faster walk speed does not make up for that.
 

iHajinShinobi

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Don't care how good you are at the neutral game and playing footsies. Matched up against someone of the same skill level you're going to lose every time to almost the entire roster simply because she has zero reach and her slightly faster walk speed does not make up for that.

I have a zero success rate playing Honoka at a high level (or at all) because the character simply can't do anything. ;)

lol, riiiiiight.
 

Nikotsumi

Well-Known Member
Well actually i meant to say just her unique stance if she could transition all of her stances in block she would be broken for the fact that she has good follow up from most of her stances.
Oh, I was referring to the comments before, not you xD

Y'know, every time I hear people saying "Honoka needs to be able to stance transition on block", generally tells me you (the player) don't necessarily know how to open someone up in neutral.

I don't necessarily think that she has to be able to stance transition on block, as i'm fine as it is now, it was just an idea to "improve" her neutral game (and use that Heichu +6 GB! xD), but i guess now, after reading the comments, don't think that anymore, since as it has been said, she's always in disadvantage or can be sidestepped.

Also, yeah, 6T.... 6T all day.
 

Jyakotu

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Nobody has used Honoka or had success with Honoka at high level, tournament play in America. Until you have won a tournament with Honoka, you can't count online wins as high level.
 

DestructionBomb

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I truly believe that most of the changes were intentional. Yes, the character has range issues..but you cannot expect result to increase every single move range to be at pinpoint exactly the same as the cast version. Some characters within the game were intentionally made that way in such a design where there has to be a flaw.

She needed those range meters increased don't get me wrong....but not the entire movelist as far as simplicity goes. I seen the past where it's "But not just those moves that needed a range buff or not the moves she needed a range buff in." Oh i'm sorry, we apologize that they didn't increase range of specific moves that "you" wanted.

In all seriousness, it's a design towards an approach where she must be played differently than others and be committed to make different reads than you ordinarily do. Cool character, but don't expect to make this into a perfect character either. Not gonna happen.
 
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Nobody has used Honoka or had success with Honoka at high level, tournament play in America. Until you have won a tournament with Honoka, you can't count online wins as high level.
And this is a fact, the day I see someone winning or even getting among the top three with Honoka, I will believe she's good, it's really cheap to talk in the forums or win against scrubs online. It's been 8 months already since DOA5LR release and still nobody uses her at pro level in tournaments, so we have to believe she's great and nobody uses her, so many idiots out there apparently.
 
Ok guys the point to of the forum is discus the character and describe her weaknesses and figure out ways to improve them. It was to bounce perspective views of the character from different players. It was not hear to say people don't know what their doing and they need to get better. The fact of the matter she has weakness in her character design and or kit that steers players away from. On a general level and high, if that was not the case you would see more of her. It now different if I was talking about Ein, Eliot, or Lisa. These guys are under used characters for similar reasons. I'm not saying you can't win these characters. Hell we all saw blades win a tourny of some renown with Eliot. I thought I would never see that. Would been even more shocked it he pulled it off with Lisa. Saying that is crazy due the fact most players they have obvious that are easily taken advantage by a large portion of the character roster. I'm not here to have a pity party, I'm here to discuss what does not, what does, what stays in flavor, and how we can change her, but still be balanced.
 

iHajinShinobi

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And this is a fact, the day I see someone winning or even getting among the top three with Honoka, I will believe she's good, it's really cheap to talk in the forums or win against scrubs online. It's been 8 months already since DOA5LR release and still nobody uses her at pro level in tournaments, so we have to believe she's great and nobody uses her, so many idiots out there apparently.

Going by that logic, it is as easy to say something is bad on a forum or because you can't win online simply because you are bad at it. It has been 8 months since Last Round, and you're still yapping about the same thing.

People are not maining her at a tournament level simply because there is nothing fast and cheap this character has for anyone to run people other with.
 
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iHajinShinobi

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It was not hear to say people don't know what their doing and they need to get better. The fact of the matter she has weakness in her character design and or kit that steers players away from.

I said people don't like playing the character because she isn't button mash friendly and cannot be auto-piloted. Much is the same why many others at my level (or higher) do not play Ayane or Momiji. Honoka requires good fighting game fundamentals to play well (especially at a high level), and the ability to play a good neutral game. Most players do not have that kind of patience to build that skill to make the character more effective.

I don't play Honoka at tournaments because Ayane is and will always be my focus.

The most obvious thing about this character is that her reach is limited. But so what? The entire roster does not have good or great range to fight those that do have good or great range. You're supposed to adjust to this fact, figure out how to make her limited range effective along with her above average walk speed, and take advantage of everything else that makes her good.

The only way this'll happen is to obviously play the character and look at everything it has to offer. Nothing is really good or bad unless you actually understand why it is.
 
I'm aware of that Hajin, I played before Honoka was Bayman and Tina so I understand about working through adversity. That does not change the fact that Honoka has odd choices in her kit. I would like to really just streamline her options. Like earlier in the thread I stated she really does not need buffalo train in her kit. If you have insight on that move for situations I would love to hear it. If you have counter points about her play to the choices we made in this forum, I'm more than happy to hear it. I do not, let me repeat, do not want this to end up being a destructive arguments about players and what is right or wrong. If you have time in your day today I would love to chat with you one on one to gain some clarity. I have Skype and I have PSN.
 

DestructionBomb

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Ok guys the point to of the forum is discus the character and describe her weaknesses and figure out ways to improve them. It was to bounce perspective views of the character from different players. It was not hear to say people don't know what their doing and they need to get better. The fact of the matter she has weakness in her character design and or kit that steers players away from. On a general level and high, if that was not the case you would see more of her. It now different if I was talking about Ein, Eliot, or Lisa. These guys are under used characters for similar reasons. I'm not saying you can't win these characters. Hell we all saw blades win a tourny of some renown with Eliot. I thought I would never see that. Would been even more shocked it he pulled it off with Lisa. Saying that is crazy due the fact most players they have obvious that are easily taken advantage by a large portion of the character roster. I'm not here to have a pity party, I'm here to discuss what does not, what does, what stays in flavor, and how we can change her, but still be balanced.

And that is the problem. Some of those flaws cannot be really changed due to having a solid wall of diversity here. Say you wanted her i9 jab to have more reach or more damage..but in doing so, you will have to change the speed of the move to a i10/i11 because you asked for a range increase or a damage increase. This is usually the potential outcome of the feedback you receive when you want certain moves to be changed for improvements.

Now to answer the topic at hand, people could describe her weakness and find ways to improve them...but then it would serve small purpose because there will be a negative feedback for improving such moves. (Increase recovery time, more unsafe on block.) The moves that were originally -5 suddenly become -8 because you wanted the move to have more reach. That is what I am on about. The next move was suddenly made much better and much more safe to the neutral point or -1, but now her other tools that were light negatives at disadvantage (-1/-2) are now at -5 or higher so the opponent no longer has to respect your buttons. Situations like that. Same thing with Ein, he may have a few flaws here and there, but they are likely intentional no matter how many improvements people wanted to give to the characters due to the fact that the approach for such characters are different than others. There are some improvements that can do more harm than good if you are not careful on what you ask for.

I'm sure everyone in the forums could find ways to improve the characters they use and remove the flaws inherited for each character in the roster, but that alone cannot be deemed possible as it can cause far too much complexity than it has to and changes based on how people feel but not as a whole concept towards the character itself. "Oh well Pai has more range in her fast moves..!" That's because Pai's damage base output in general is weaker so there is balance. There is a character design here. That's what I am on about. It is rather difficult to just remove all the flaws because all the flaws you removed creates new flaws.
 
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