Yesterday’s winter update blew the Street Fighter 5 community, while Capcom introduced a lot of interesting changes along the way for the fifth and final season of the game, but there’s a new addition that catches our eye, with a probably stronger hold than all the combined character showcases: V -Exchange.
Fans have been asking for years for a defensive mechanic to shake off the overly offended Street Fighter 5, and V-Shift is looking to tick that exact box … and maybe then something.
We’ve already learned a lot about what this new mechanic is, but we still have a lot of questions, because the devil is so often in the details with these things. It is impossible to say exactly how much the V-Shift will change the flow and feel of SF5 until FGC gets its hands on it directly, but there are good reasons to speculate that the meta could evolve to become almost unrecognizable after February 22nd.
Given the images we have, let’s dive into the more likely and significant changes this hybrid will cause from Street Fighter 3 and the invincible back lines of Street Fighter 4 to Street Fighter 5.
What is V-Shift?
Using a V-Shift in SF5 will make your character glow blue and quickly go backwards with the price of a V-Gauge bar. Your character will be invincible for throws, projectiles and blows during this move, and if you think your Shift will take place exactly when an enemy’s onslaught is about to strike (except for regular throws, it seems), you it will reimburse half of the V-Gauge bar and you enter a state of slow motion, where you get great benefits.
Seeing the smell of your opponent with slow motion will allow you to react with the best punishment for the situation, and this can be done with any of your character’s techniques that can reach in time. or through a V-Shift pause: a forward launch attack that crashes and can only be performed after a successful V-Shift.
Attacks received with fast recovery will probably not be very susceptible to Shift penalties, as we need to see an V-Shift character Break an opponent during the showcase, but larger attacks with more recovery will probably be fewer and farther with this the update is implemented.
General changes
Given that the Shift costs V-Gauge and can be performed at almost any time of the match, we will naturally see less use of the V-Trigger, as players will be inclined to use their gauge to escape situations. sticky.
We’ll have to wait and see how widespread the mechanic is during the game, but there’s certainly a scenario where the meta of the game changes sharply to build around this new tool.
V-Shift seems to serve as a powerful contraceptive against obvious neutral attacks and will likely cause players to use much more hesitation and thought before throwing big buttons or obvious special offers.
Indeed, SF5 is renowned for allowing the powerful use of powerful tools, as they present too little risk, and this may very well change the nature of many general risk vs. risk dynamics.
Changes to Neutral
Somewhat similar to the SF3 defense, it will add a universal option based on players ‘ability to predict and react to their enemies’ movements. Now, instead of waiting and holding inevitable heavy buttons or quick special attacks that can be safely and advantageously undone in V-Trigger activation, we’ll have an easier response to these scenarios.
I saw in the moving window that the V-Shift has an interesting effect on incoming attacks that can be canceled especially in the block. Ryu takes a squat it blows technically as Rashid Vo changes, but Ryu is still able to cancel his fireball, which means that the neutral pads will be somewhat irritated by this.
Necalli, for example, likes to buffer his pace behind some of his rules because he is relatively safe in the block. If he does this and his opposition changes one of those normal ones, however, the stump will still come out in slow motion and they will have all the time in the world to see him and punish him.
Moreover, slow-moving projectiles such as Laura’s Thunderclap, Dhalsim’s Critical Art, Ed’s V-Trigger 1, or Guile’s Sonic Boom can be changed, meaning that some of the pitfalls that creates them such attacks should be reinvented. It looks like it will also provide a new escape route for unavoidable but unblocked situations, such as G’s Critical Art.
Changes to quarterfinals
V-Shift seems to have some direct implications on how extremely frequent pressure interactions in SF5.
In essence, it adds a new and very viable option to the mix, as defenders can use it to counter frame traps, and a major part of the Street Fighter 5 meta has always revolved around the big advantages of being the frame advantage over your enemy. .
Frame traps, which are almost cemented in the muscular memory of many players so far, can now be countered with V-Shift.
I saw him drop three frame goals during the winter refresh flow and that’s already huge, but if it works the same way for two or one frame goal, then the SF5’s pressure play could be completely turned into head.
Persistent questions
As already mentioned, we are really intrigued to find out exactly how quickly invincibility installs when activating V-Shift. This will greatly affect its usefulness and, frankly, we are a little worried that it has the potential to make the game too defensive if it is too versatile.
Can it be used on waking to steal virtually all options? This seems to quickly break the game if it is true or at least get rid of the pressure of awakening to an astonishing degree.
We also need to ask ourselves what types of counters will be possible if players sniff when an opponent chooses to change. Can you attract him and get a reward more than just losing your opponent’s meter? After all, players continue to earn the reward of lowering pressure even if they do not get the effect with slow movement and potential punishment.
Maybe the jumps forward or the dashes will be able to hunt V-Shifts down, although it doesn’t seem that the maneuver has enough recovery to be punished very hard in the footage we’ve seen so far.
We also don’t know what the entries for Shift and Break are, nor do we know if a successful Break eliminates real or gray damage.
Final thoughts
There is still a ton of response and unpacking for this mechanic, but it looks like he will almost certainly change the way SF5 is played.
We’ll probably see a lot more strategic throws and hits as the V-Shift adds risk to many big moves that were in dire need of it and we might be able to breathe easy when opponents activate V-Trigger simply because it takes out this option. on the table.
Many members of the community are already speculating that this will be an incredibly powerful tool in the hands of zoning figures such as Dhalsim or weakly defended fighters. In theory, it can get rid of a key weakness on which strategies against such characters are based.
That being said, we are talking about a game that is to be reinvented with a lot of new variables. How those variables affect things in a vacuum is different from how they will act when they are in tandem with each other, so it is almost impossible to know how things will shake until we have enough time to experiment directly.
One thing is for sure right now and that is that Capcom has brought new potential and a lot of intrigue to the final chapters of Street Fighter 5. Hopefully this adds to the kind of balance and nuance we hoped to see in SF5 and offers an excellent boost in Street Fighter 6.