Topic: Clark Still (Console)

[Sharnt]

The gameplan is the same for a lot of characters against those in this game :
Block a lot of fireball since the cheap damages are low and meter gain high.
Then punish the first miss (With the gauge you gained) with a strong oki or just combo him to death.

[LouisCipher]

What matchups do you think give Clark the most trouble? My picks:

Iori (either), Kyo, Beni, Billy, Mr. Karate, and Yuri.

Reasons: They all have really good normals that can shut Clark out, and amazingly good pressure and mixup to keep him guessing.

[LouisCipher]

Going to play a little Devil's Advocate with Clark.

After really looking at what he can do I think he's a character that doesn't benefit too much with full HD and 5 bars. Ideally, you want a character that can do about 700-800 damage with full HD and about 2 bars. Clark can't really do that unless you have Bala-levels of execution. In which case anyone who's looking for a character that does shitloads of damage in HD without very much meter (between 1-3 bars on average) isn't going to get as much with Clark as he could with Shen or Mr. Karate.

However he excels without using meter and with meter he can blow up fireball zoning. I think that's the way to use him, at least that's the approach I've taken with him.

He is undoubtedly the best pure grappler in the game (not counting the hybrid characters like Beni or Yuri). Goro and Vice need meter to be as scary as Clark. Raiden is similar to Clark but he lacks a lot of tools that Clark possess.

So I'm left with the conclusion that he should be ran 1st or 2nd and just doing SAB or Gatling combos can be devastating if done right. Use meter if you have to; either to kill or EX Gatling to blow up fireball zoning.

[CharREX]

He is undoubtedly the best pure grappler in the game (not counting the hybrid characters like Beni or Yuri). Goro and Vice need meter to be as scary as Clark. Raiden is similar to Clark but he lacks a lot of tools that Clark possess.

Care to explain a little more? I personally think he is the best grappler/what Clark should have been in XIII. The setup he gets after the command grab is WAY better than Clark. The anti air he has is nice too. And  overhead into HD??? Get crazy

[LouisCipher]

Raiden doesn't have a safe way of getting in. His Giant Bomb is not immune to projectiles and he can be hit out of it except for EX. His grab is okay, but he can't drive cancel for massive damage like Clark or Goro or Vice. His Mist is pretty good but it's more useful on the opponents wakeup.

His airgrab is pretty risky but does okay damage. But admittedly his Dropkick is godly in the right hands but the high execution to use it correctly will put people off.

Don't forget Clark also has an overhead st. C and he has better HD options than Raiden. Raiden is all about Drop kicks into charge in HD whereas Clark has more options and can end his DM grab (a good super btw) with Neomax whereas Raiden needs to set them up correctly to land his Neomax.

[CharREX]

Hmm I feel like being a dick today so I'm gonna post what I think

Raiden doesn't have a safe way of getting in. His Giant Bomb is not immune to projectiles and he can be hit out of it except for EX. His grab is okay, but he can't drive cancel for massive damage like Clark or Goro or Vice. His Mist is pretty good but it's more useful on the opponents wakeup.

Can't you say this to Clark too? Clark's Gatling Attack is not immune to projectiles also (except EX). The only good thing about it is the "fast" start up. Raiden's Giant Bomb has auto guard and feint as a trade off for the slower start up. I can't really argue the drive cancel for massive damage part but again, Clark has to spend meter to use meter, which I don't like. I rather have the oki position Raiden has after the command grab.

His airgrab is pretty risky but does okay damage. But admittedly his Dropkick is godly in the right hands but the high execution to use it correctly will put people off.

I don't think his air grab is risky at all. The EX version has ultra fast start up and will beat pretty much everything.

Don't forget Clark also has an overhead st. C and he has better HD options than Raiden. Raiden is all about Drop kicks into charge in HD whereas Clark has more options and can end his DM grab (a good super btw) with Neomax whereas Raiden needs to set them up correctly to land his Neomax.

I am 99.99% sure Clark's st. C isn't an overhead. Since I don't know anything about Raiden's mid screen HD, you win.

[Sharnt]

Raiden doesn't have a safe way of getting in. His Giant Bomb is not immune to projectiles

db~f.C has guard point to go through projectiles, is quite safe and at least just the feint makes you charge gauge ...

He has a 100% hd combo with 3 ex and 870 with 2, both from mid screen.

[desmond_kof]

Don't forget Clark also has an overhead st. C

...It's not an overhead man. Do you even know what an overhead is?

Do you even properly test these things out before posting or sharing?

[LouisCipher]

Yes, and I will admit to making a mistake. I do test this shit out before I post in the wiki. By all means you'r free to contribute to the Clark wiki if you want.

[Tikok]

He is undoubtedly the best pure grappler in the game (not counting the hybrid characters like Beni or Yuri). Goro and Vice need meter to be as scary as Clark.

I am not saying you are wrong , but to be honest, I feel like he's the worst "pure grappler" in the game. He's nothing special without meter , and the other grapplers are way better than him with meter.

It would be pretty interesting if you could tell us why you believe Clark is the best grappler. I would be happy to hear it~

[LouisCipher]

The more I think about Clark and Goro the more I think that they're roughly on the same level in terms of what they can do and how effective they are with meter. I think Goro has a harder time against rushdown unlike Clark though.

Vice absolutely needs meter to be effective and I think a character that needs meter in order to work could have that weakness exploited. With meter she's undoubtedly good.

[Tikok]

I don't think that Vice absolutely needs meter to be effective.

I think of her a bit like Shen. They both are weaker without meter and benefit a lot from it , but they can build their meter just fine on their own, have a nice pressure game, good normals, damaging combos that don't require a lot of meter and command grabs.

The more I think about Clark and Goro the more I think that they're roughly on the same level in terms of what they can do and how effective they are with meter

I really don't agree with that. Goro has a lot more ways to use his meter than Clark.

First of all almost all of Goro's grabs are drive/super cancellable, Clark has to use his EX grab for that.

Goro's EX Earthquake move is a fullscreen anti fireball move (and an overhead up close), so it's riskier to try and zone him out with fireballs unlike Clark who is only a threat up close.
And at that range, Goro's EX roll is a bigger threat because his EX roll can even lead to a full HD combo.

Speaking of HD combos, Goro can land his HD combos in many ways : counterhit j.CD , air to air j.CD in the corner, even his EX grab which can be cancelled out of his invincible EX Roll.
Also, because Goro's HD combo is composed of mostly grabs, it builts very little (if any) meter for the opponent, which is a very nice bonus.

I am no Goro or Clark expert, my main team is Athena/Kyo/Yuri, in that order. But unless I really don't know how Clark can spend his meter, saying that Clark can do as much as Goro with meter is not true. Goro is mostly used as anchor after all.

[LouisCipher]

I don't know. With Vice it just seems like it's all about getting a CD into her EX Grab and doing whatever. Seems a little gimmicky to me but I don't main the character and I haven't played enough Vice players to give a more in depth opinion.

I would agree with what you said about Goro, my main problem with Goro is that he gets rushed down real bad.

[Tikok]

I would agree with what you said about Goro, my main problem with Goro is that he gets rushed down real bad.

I don't really play Goro / never faced a good enough Goro to reply to that. I guess we need some input from a Goro player~

[LouisCipher]

^
Agree. I used to play him for a while but getting rushed down by half the cast really hurts with him. His s.D is a really good AA but if you're dealing with someone who picks up on that, they can bait and punish really hard.