Especially with Akuma on the horizon
Since their inclusion in the genre as a whole, dive kicks have shown up time and time again with the potential to be one of the most dangerous attack types in fighting games — but that’s certainly not always the case.
And speaking of cases, Jamie seems to be making a pretty good one as to why his dive kick may need a buff heading into Street Fighter 6 Season 2.
Guile player Linz recently shared a match clip against RG|Boltstrike’s Jamie that left even him pretty aghast at the character interaction on display.
As shown off here in slow motion, Boltstrike jumps over an enhanced Sonic Boom and goes for Luminous Dive Kick at the same time Guile does his stand medium kick.
It appears as though right before or just as the active frames of Jamie’s Overdrive special he gets absolutely stuffed by the grounded kick except that there’s almost a whole training stage square between the characters of technically empty space.
Like we’ve pointed to before, Jamie’s dive kick actually has a slightly faster startup and does more damage than Cammy’s, but that comes with a big trade off.
During the attack (and even in the flip), Jamie’s collision / hurt box extends down a crazy amount and much further below his hit box. This does exist somewhat for other characters in SF6 too, but not to this extent.
Me and @Boltstrike_ were left speechless after this.
This is not okay pic.twitter.com/lrIwur9JZt
— Linz (@TalhaGhoneim) May 12, 2024
Capcom might need to shorten that hurt box a bit for Season 2 at least, which it looks like they are giving him some buffs already, especially with Akuma on the horizon and looks to have multiple strong air options — including a dive kick.
In this instance, we’re not even really saying that Jamie should have necessarily beat out Guile here since that medium kick is a good anti-air with a disjointed hit box at the tip.
It just looks and feels like an unnatural interaction when the move that has meter spent on it is stuffed before it fully even comes out when the characters themselves don’t appear to be touching each other at all.
And that’s on top of requiring Jamie to have a drink level before he can even use the dive kick. Plus, it’s not like he’s exactly tearing up the tournament scene as is anyway.
As to what the developers actually decide to give Jamie going into Season 2, we’ll have to wait a bit longer with the update coming alongside Akuma on May 22.