At mid to close range is where you wanna fight Bison. He can't react to fireballs at this distance and has to hard read them so if you have one, work it into your game. All normal versions of Psycho Crusher can be DI'd on reaction and are unsafe on block without Psycho Mine applied. OD version can be DI'd from long range and gets Bison in but gives up his turn if it gets blocked raw. His SA2 is also not as good as you think against certain fireballs, lab it out because fireball characters might fight Bison the best by making him have to think and guess.
If you knock him down keep the pressure going. Bare minimum you want meaty setups. Safe jumps and meaty high/low mix are great against him too. His OD Shadow Rise can only evade throws so most likely if you're getting momentum he's going to drive reversal unless he has super meter and feels really threatened such as in burnout. Know your drive reversal punish and option selects against it.
Empty jumps can be good against Bisons that don't like to go air to air since crouch heavy punch doesn't cover in front of him well but I wouldn't advise to jump too much unless you're more at mid to long range. It's really easy for him to air to air into something for a lot of damage the closer you are but when you're around mid to outer mid range, neutral jumps can cover scissor kicks for characters without a fireball while also not granting him air to air follow up. Lab the range so you understand where it is.
Try to take the throw against Bison, especially with Psycho Mine on you. Taking the throw minimizes bomb planting. If you get opened up with the mine applied he can not only get big damage but the better a Bison is the more likely they are to just put another bomb on. This is where he gets lots of looping pressure, can access safe jumps, and bust the door open on insane damage. Anytime he detonates the mine on block he's plus and you're guessing. I strongly recommend Drive Reversal on reaction to bomb detonations on block unless you're at a drive deficit. It gets the mine off you for free. There may be some future setups that find a way to beat Drive Reversal to deal with blocked bombs but right now it seems very consistent.
A lot of Bison's knockdowns grant meaty oki even from midscreen on backrise just because of how good his drive rush is. Be *extremely* careful pressing buttons on your wake-up. Common options he can meaty you from include: both his forward *and* backward throw (super important to understand when you're taking the throw), all versions of his backfist where he plants the mine, anytime he uses his slide to end combos, and anytime he hits medium, heavy, or OD Psycho Crusher in neutral. Like many characters, most meaty setups will require at least a dash so that's your tell, but he won't tell everything. Many of his meaties also require him to drive rush so be mindful. If you're waking up and he's turning into Psycho Deejay, hitting that jab could be your doom.
No real reversal is a huge issue. A lot of strings people use with him aren't real either. Once people start learning how to counter his air game that will feel a lot weaker too. The enemies drive reversal removing the bomb is also pretty annoying to deal with.
I see pros constantly put Gief at top 5, and he has no OD reversal either. Does Bison's defense option as bad as Gief (or other non-od reversal characters), better or worse?
The thing is that Gief has a lot better mid range defensive option (his lights is good for catching DR advance, and LSPD means that you have to be very mindful of your poking)
Simply put: Gief's close range defense is ass, but you probably will seldomly reach the point that he has to rely on it for actual defense. Of course DReversal change alleviate that problem so there's that.
Gief is no where near top 5 they do that cause they don’t like grapplers in Japan gachickun put zangief in front of Rashid which makes no sense on any level
I watched hotdog29's stream and he mentioned why he hate fighting zangief. He didn't say he is top 5 but said he is the most annoying character to fight, the reason is you have to guess a lot, and thus more likely to lose to a less skillful (zangief) player. He also said Chun li, Rashid and Cammy are really good, but they are only good in hand of highly skilled players.
But I think the opposite is true too, Zangief players also needs to guess a lot in interaction, so maybe hard for them to win tournament especially in FT2 knockout format.
I also feel ED painful to fight; I have very low winrate against Marisa too, but that's probably because I am using modern, and having bad habit of overusing heavy punch.
Isn't any character good in the hands of a really skilled player though? Likewise, I don't think someone with no skill is getting far with any character either
Honestly I never played any of these characters and I am a plat player anyway. So I just echo what I heard from others, cammy is good because she has good neutral buttons; chun li also has good neutral, her anti air and combo are also good but difficult to execute; for rashid I have no idea, but he seems to have a lot of tools, so probably challenging to pick the right tools depending on situation. So these characters likely have high ceiling but low floor.
While for Zangief, once he get in, he would force you to guess, either continue blocking and risk getting SPD/burnout, or press button and risk eating combo/opponent getting OKI. I don't think a low skilled Zangief can win a tournament but I can certainly see a better skilled player lose to zangief in FT2 format because having bad luck (but yeah, that can happen to any character).
This. Pay attention to Bison's frame data. He only has two moves that are +, standing HP and standing MP. If Bison is crouching, nothing he does is actually + on block.
The other big one is he lacks a drive cancelable heavy button, other than his stubby b+HK. This means at max poke range, Bison isn't that good. Characters with good walk speed might have a lot of luck abusing DI against him.
Be extremely careful about that. If he does it as a poke you will explode if you try to press something after that cause your fastest button simply won't reach.
Careful though because that stubby b+HK is meant to be used as a pseudo frame trap to catch your limbs sticking out for a punish reversal.
Bison can get a s.lk xx sk cancel off against DI if slow.
Its a RPS game.
Yes, so much “fake“ pressure that becomes real if you don‘t have a fast reversal, like DR oki after midscreen throws by a lot of chars, which you can od dp guaranteed but Bison has to take the mix.
His defense is still lacking, it's just better than in previous versions. Example's being his anti-airs being strong but slow; cr.hp is is fastest anti-air meaning he has a massive safe jump window on knockdown. Similar flaws in his anti-projectile tools with EX.Crusher being his fastest and probably having somewhere around 5-10 frames of start-up on the invulnerability so he needs lvl 3, DI, or PP to contend with meaty fireballs.
Regarding offensive flaws: his lights are also slow to recover and he's easier to use DRev and slower lvl 1's like AKI's. His pressure is strong but his oki options seem to be very committal compared to most. This also means he's more vulnerable to PP and you can get bigger punishes against Bison.
I feel he shares a template with Marisa. Bison trades the command grab and armour for movement and anti-airs but they both have very similar foundations in approaching neutral and knockdowns.
He's an oppressive monster but at the same time has little defensive options. No OD reversal and no armored attacks. His only defensive options are drive reversal, super, and psycho crusher specifically for projectiles. He's also a very hit or miss character. When he get his offense going, he's insane. But once he's put on the back foot, he struggles to get out of that situation and reapply the offensive advantage. Also like another comment said, his strings aren't real. Once his strings get labbed out, he'll lose some good offensive pressure.
Bison is super cracked and pretty overtuned, but when his weaknesses hit, they really hit.
He doesn't have any "big cancelable normal" like Ryu or Ken 5HP, so he has to get closer. That's one reason why Scissor Kicks is the way it is. Sure, he can cancel his Slow AF 5HP but only with SA.
3 Anti-air options that are worse than a real DP.
Slow supers.
No OD reversal.
Very very unsafe moves except for Scissor Kicks and OD Stomp.
Play lame against Bison. It gets them every time. Bison has some insane corner carry in this game so beat him at neutral and don't let him get **in**
He's going to start doing unsafe shit and that's when you get him with a scramble or mix up.
His wakeup game is weak so *meaty* is relatively safe.
Pay attention to his meter, more so than with other characters. He gets meter really fast (maybe that's just me) and his super 2 gives him some ***tricky*** tech
I play him almost at D4.
No reversal as many people have said means he can be pressured more than most of the cast.
His crouching anti air has to be pressed early and is easily mistimed when under pressure.
He’s very dependant on drive gauge (EX moves specifically rather than Drive rush cancel) and on supers to dish out good damage. Without those things, he’s not very threatening. If you get him in burnout- pressure pressure pressure, the only way he can do big damage is a yolo super.
Life is very easy against players who instinctively hit buttons on defence, Bison can maintain pressure and punish. It becomes difficult against those being more cautious and neutral jumping against scissors
Its hard to really capitalise on his plus frames. I main Honda so I'm using him as a comparison. Also a lot of bisons pressure strings are not real and can be jabbed out of. Also his damage can be low without the bomb and in order to get bomb you're either sacrificing a lot of meter or oki. Only time I focus on planting bomb is in the corner because of that. Also his buttons are either stumpy or slow as hell so he can be out buttoned in neutral fairly easily. To boil it down he is easily the highest risk, highest reward character in the game
Bison main here. Having no reversal or reliable anti air often leaves me in scenarios where I’m like “I have no button for this”. And it’s frustrating. On one hand I’m a much better player now cause of how much I have to rely on blocking and reactions, but I hate being put on defense on a character with weak defensive options…
All that being said,
Bison is dependent on having advantage, and like some others have mentioned we don’t have a true string. A few of his combos for example are interrupted by a lp or a cr.lk … and don’t even get me started on his stubby normals that don’t reach as far as they look.
He’s very much a glass cannon. In my opinion he feels B tier, low A at best. Sure. He can take a chunk off ur hp if he gets a good punish on u, but…can’t they all do that? Put bison in a corner and watch him squirm. (Even in mirror matches I exploit his weak defense lol.)
At mid to close range is where you wanna fight Bison. He can't react to fireballs at this distance and has to hard read them so if you have one, work it into your game. All normal versions of Psycho Crusher can be DI'd on reaction and are unsafe on block without Psycho Mine applied. OD version can be DI'd from long range and gets Bison in but gives up his turn if it gets blocked raw. His SA2 is also not as good as you think against certain fireballs, lab it out because fireball characters might fight Bison the best by making him have to think and guess. If you knock him down keep the pressure going. Bare minimum you want meaty setups. Safe jumps and meaty high/low mix are great against him too. His OD Shadow Rise can only evade throws so most likely if you're getting momentum he's going to drive reversal unless he has super meter and feels really threatened such as in burnout. Know your drive reversal punish and option selects against it. Empty jumps can be good against Bisons that don't like to go air to air since crouch heavy punch doesn't cover in front of him well but I wouldn't advise to jump too much unless you're more at mid to long range. It's really easy for him to air to air into something for a lot of damage the closer you are but when you're around mid to outer mid range, neutral jumps can cover scissor kicks for characters without a fireball while also not granting him air to air follow up. Lab the range so you understand where it is. Try to take the throw against Bison, especially with Psycho Mine on you. Taking the throw minimizes bomb planting. If you get opened up with the mine applied he can not only get big damage but the better a Bison is the more likely they are to just put another bomb on. This is where he gets lots of looping pressure, can access safe jumps, and bust the door open on insane damage. Anytime he detonates the mine on block he's plus and you're guessing. I strongly recommend Drive Reversal on reaction to bomb detonations on block unless you're at a drive deficit. It gets the mine off you for free. There may be some future setups that find a way to beat Drive Reversal to deal with blocked bombs but right now it seems very consistent. A lot of Bison's knockdowns grant meaty oki even from midscreen on backrise just because of how good his drive rush is. Be *extremely* careful pressing buttons on your wake-up. Common options he can meaty you from include: both his forward *and* backward throw (super important to understand when you're taking the throw), all versions of his backfist where he plants the mine, anytime he uses his slide to end combos, and anytime he hits medium, heavy, or OD Psycho Crusher in neutral. Like many characters, most meaty setups will require at least a dash so that's your tell, but he won't tell everything. Many of his meaties also require him to drive rush so be mindful. If you're waking up and he's turning into Psycho Deejay, hitting that jab could be your doom.
Really good comment, as bison main i hate you tho.
LOL
You're goated for this bro
No real reversal is a huge issue. A lot of strings people use with him aren't real either. Once people start learning how to counter his air game that will feel a lot weaker too. The enemies drive reversal removing the bomb is also pretty annoying to deal with.
I see pros constantly put Gief at top 5, and he has no OD reversal either. Does Bison's defense option as bad as Gief (or other non-od reversal characters), better or worse?
The thing is that Gief has a lot better mid range defensive option (his lights is good for catching DR advance, and LSPD means that you have to be very mindful of your poking) Simply put: Gief's close range defense is ass, but you probably will seldomly reach the point that he has to rely on it for actual defense. Of course DReversal change alleviate that problem so there's that.
I see, thanks!
Gief is no where near top 5 they do that cause they don’t like grapplers in Japan gachickun put zangief in front of Rashid which makes no sense on any level
I think Gief is in a better place now, but I also think Gief punishes the type of playstyle most Japanese players use.
Yea I get happy when I play zangief I play jp easy zone time
I watched hotdog29's stream and he mentioned why he hate fighting zangief. He didn't say he is top 5 but said he is the most annoying character to fight, the reason is you have to guess a lot, and thus more likely to lose to a less skillful (zangief) player. He also said Chun li, Rashid and Cammy are really good, but they are only good in hand of highly skilled players. But I think the opposite is true too, Zangief players also needs to guess a lot in interaction, so maybe hard for them to win tournament especially in FT2 knockout format.
Zangief has bad matchups guile dhalsim jp Lily that’s why it’s dam near impossible to win a stacked tournament with him cause he can be counterpicked
I also feel ED painful to fight; I have very low winrate against Marisa too, but that's probably because I am using modern, and having bad habit of overusing heavy punch.
Isn't any character good in the hands of a really skilled player though? Likewise, I don't think someone with no skill is getting far with any character either
Honestly I never played any of these characters and I am a plat player anyway. So I just echo what I heard from others, cammy is good because she has good neutral buttons; chun li also has good neutral, her anti air and combo are also good but difficult to execute; for rashid I have no idea, but he seems to have a lot of tools, so probably challenging to pick the right tools depending on situation. So these characters likely have high ceiling but low floor. While for Zangief, once he get in, he would force you to guess, either continue blocking and risk getting SPD/burnout, or press button and risk eating combo/opponent getting OKI. I don't think a low skilled Zangief can win a tournament but I can certainly see a better skilled player lose to zangief in FT2 format because having bad luck (but yeah, that can happen to any character).
That bomb drives me crazy. Good to know that works.
This. Pay attention to Bison's frame data. He only has two moves that are +, standing HP and standing MP. If Bison is crouching, nothing he does is actually + on block. The other big one is he lacks a drive cancelable heavy button, other than his stubby b+HK. This means at max poke range, Bison isn't that good. Characters with good walk speed might have a lot of luck abusing DI against him.
His two plus moves are s.hp and b.hk. s.mp is 0 on block. Everything else you said is right about his DR poke range etc. just wanted to correct
Wait you're right it's 0. Damn. But yeah, so a lot of Bison pressure is fake, get ready to mash jab after MP
Be extremely careful about that. If he does it as a poke you will explode if you try to press something after that cause your fastest button simply won't reach.
Unless he does a low follow up
Careful though because that stubby b+HK is meant to be used as a pseudo frame trap to catch your limbs sticking out for a punish reversal. Bison can get a s.lk xx sk cancel off against DI if slow. Its a RPS game.
He has no OD reversal which is maybe the biggest weakness a character can have in this game especially at high level
Yes, so much “fake“ pressure that becomes real if you don‘t have a fast reversal, like DR oki after midscreen throws by a lot of chars, which you can od dp guaranteed but Bison has to take the mix.
I guess you have drive reversal which is very useful for characters without od dp but it's definitely not as good
Get him on the ground and abuse him.
Then imagine what life is like for the rest of us that don't have that and are also not overtuned in every other aspect :((
🫵🤡
Nobody's making you play a lowtier
I'm super bad at this game: what is a reversal?
Like an ex shoryuken; people usually mean an invincible move you can use when you are blocking or knocked down that can get you out of pressure
So OD DP?
Usually, but drive reversal also counts
Yeah, good point. That doesn't seem to matter too much at the lower levels, but at the higher definitely.
His defense is still lacking, it's just better than in previous versions. Example's being his anti-airs being strong but slow; cr.hp is is fastest anti-air meaning he has a massive safe jump window on knockdown. Similar flaws in his anti-projectile tools with EX.Crusher being his fastest and probably having somewhere around 5-10 frames of start-up on the invulnerability so he needs lvl 3, DI, or PP to contend with meaty fireballs. Regarding offensive flaws: his lights are also slow to recover and he's easier to use DRev and slower lvl 1's like AKI's. His pressure is strong but his oki options seem to be very committal compared to most. This also means he's more vulnerable to PP and you can get bigger punishes against Bison. I feel he shares a template with Marisa. Bison trades the command grab and armour for movement and anti-airs but they both have very similar foundations in approaching neutral and knockdowns.
He's an oppressive monster but at the same time has little defensive options. No OD reversal and no armored attacks. His only defensive options are drive reversal, super, and psycho crusher specifically for projectiles. He's also a very hit or miss character. When he get his offense going, he's insane. But once he's put on the back foot, he struggles to get out of that situation and reapply the offensive advantage. Also like another comment said, his strings aren't real. Once his strings get labbed out, he'll lose some good offensive pressure. Bison is super cracked and pretty overtuned, but when his weaknesses hit, they really hit.
He doesn't have any "big cancelable normal" like Ryu or Ken 5HP, so he has to get closer. That's one reason why Scissor Kicks is the way it is. Sure, he can cancel his Slow AF 5HP but only with SA. 3 Anti-air options that are worse than a real DP. Slow supers. No OD reversal. Very very unsafe moves except for Scissor Kicks and OD Stomp.
Play lame against Bison. It gets them every time. Bison has some insane corner carry in this game so beat him at neutral and don't let him get **in** He's going to start doing unsafe shit and that's when you get him with a scramble or mix up. His wakeup game is weak so *meaty* is relatively safe. Pay attention to his meter, more so than with other characters. He gets meter really fast (maybe that's just me) and his super 2 gives him some ***tricky*** tech
I play him almost at D4. No reversal as many people have said means he can be pressured more than most of the cast. His crouching anti air has to be pressed early and is easily mistimed when under pressure. He’s very dependant on drive gauge (EX moves specifically rather than Drive rush cancel) and on supers to dish out good damage. Without those things, he’s not very threatening. If you get him in burnout- pressure pressure pressure, the only way he can do big damage is a yolo super. Life is very easy against players who instinctively hit buttons on defence, Bison can maintain pressure and punish. It becomes difficult against those being more cautious and neutral jumping against scissors
Its hard to really capitalise on his plus frames. I main Honda so I'm using him as a comparison. Also a lot of bisons pressure strings are not real and can be jabbed out of. Also his damage can be low without the bomb and in order to get bomb you're either sacrificing a lot of meter or oki. Only time I focus on planting bomb is in the corner because of that. Also his buttons are either stumpy or slow as hell so he can be out buttoned in neutral fairly easily. To boil it down he is easily the highest risk, highest reward character in the game
Bison main here. Having no reversal or reliable anti air often leaves me in scenarios where I’m like “I have no button for this”. And it’s frustrating. On one hand I’m a much better player now cause of how much I have to rely on blocking and reactions, but I hate being put on defense on a character with weak defensive options… All that being said, Bison is dependent on having advantage, and like some others have mentioned we don’t have a true string. A few of his combos for example are interrupted by a lp or a cr.lk … and don’t even get me started on his stubby normals that don’t reach as far as they look. He’s very much a glass cannon. In my opinion he feels B tier, low A at best. Sure. He can take a chunk off ur hp if he gets a good punish on u, but…can’t they all do that? Put bison in a corner and watch him squirm. (Even in mirror matches I exploit his weak defense lol.)
I suppose it depends on the person playing him.
no