Lion Weakness

Been playing Lion since Virtua Fighter 2. Now playing Lion more now in VF5FS.

What are Lion's major weakness?
-I agree that he has trouble again Taka especially a really good Taka.
-I find playing against tank characters (Jeffrey,Wold,Taka) always difficult.

 

His mids are OK, but not as good damage wise as other chars like Akira, Brad, Jean,Jacky, Taka, Goh or Sarah.
He lacks a 14 or 16 frame hit confirmable mid that deals good damage ala Taka 4P+K, Brad 2P+K,P, jacky 6P,K, Jean 4KP etc.
If he wants damage he needs a counter hit, or to use slow moves like 46K or P+K wich will only create nitaku at +7/8.
On the other hand he has safe semi circular mids.

He has trouble punishing sweeps with good damage, he needs -19 to deal good damage and a lot of them are -18 or less. It's a bit better than it was in vanilla thanks to 6PP but still sub par.

He doesn't really have any good strings like Jacky, Jean, Aoi, he's more about single hit attacks

He's a lightweights so he eats close to max damage on juggles.

Against heavyweights, he deals significantly less damage and his RO potential (one of his strenghs) is towned down. Since his mids aren't the best in the world damage wise in the first place and heavyweights can go 45%-50% combo against him with a CH, I feel they are his worst matchups for me atm.

 

Very nice answer about difficulties in Lion's gameplay overall. When i learn and study enough i wanna challenge u online hope the connection would be great.
p.s Congratulations mate, u rocked The Fist of Legend! I wish final match between u and Shwoking was more tence) anyway i wont give up my Kage.[waga michi ni makenadonai]

 

I believe I told you it was last time we played. It's very slightly delayable. And I swear when I've been in the zone I've been able to hit confirm it. But I just tried in the dojo and In general, I'm gunna now tell you that it's not .

 

I don't think it is, or it's super hard. May be if you see a low punch whiff after a backdash.
On a side note 66KK is confirmable on NH, it's not easy but not so hard either, it can be mastered with training.

@Efreeteg: thanks. Where are you from btw ? see you online

 

Regarding 6PP, you basically have to do what I call "Pre-Confirm." Basically see the crouching state early enough and commit... Not ideal, not even easy, and not something I can do that well but it's basically what you can do with the move.

I like his mids, but they are outside the comfort zone of the great mids, because they require either hard-countering (using a move that flatout overrides another move, in a manner like 8K beats low punch), whiff punishing, and sometimes ballsy play. So this is not ideal, but Lion has damage off of his mids, greater than he used to have--simply because VF5R added bounds to the game.

That guide I've been working on covers a mid attack and the various applications of the move. Fortunately, I have shared an incomplete draft of that guide with one person already and I think that person has found it useful ^_^

On the whiff punishing aspect, I feel this has become a greater part in VF5FS, but it's a risk/reward that needs to be understood. Lion can do good damage off of this, and the most common way is to use backdash. The problem is, when your backdash gets read, some characters can go to town on Lion for that--mainly Taka but I'm pretty sure Wolf and Jeffry also have things they can do to punish predictable baiting backdashes (as opposed to stairstepping away with 44254485 etc...). A baiting backdash is risky because it stops at the backdash or even gets cancelled by the whiff punishing attack, so it is weak to direct anti-backdash attacks like Taka's standing K.

In any case, what I am trying to say is Lion's mids aren't that bad, they're just not "great" and I think everyone in this thread is saying the same thing. Like Chibitox said, you are pinpointing a lot of single attacks, sometimes to setup something better. Like traditional Lion, you are using poking, spacing, and evasiveness to setup better opportunities.

But again, with the addition of the bound system and improvements to 6PP (as well as opening it up to being accessible from crouch), Lion's overall power level increased even against the larger healthbar in FS and in fact, he can be played more "conventional VF" than ever before, at least imo. But he's still evasive and has depths to his game outside of the traditional moral framework.

Just my thoughts though, and this thread has been awesome!