Lily's Condor Spire is looking like a stronger move than you might realize in Street Fighter 6

Capcom released the latest batch of highly anticipated Street Fighter 6 developer footage this week, showcasing classic character E. Honda and newcomer Lily. Both fighters demonstrated new and high level tactics, which has helped further inform fans about how they will play when the game launches in a little over two months.

This new footage was particularly enlightening for Lily fans, who got a real glimpse at how her T. Hawk-inspired move set will actually work in battle. Though she showed off a lot of new things, it was her Condor Spire special move that caught a lot of people’s attention due to it possibly being stronger than initially expected.

Lily’s Condor Spire in Street Fighter 6 is a horizontal-moving attack that closes distance quickly and hits multiple times when closer to the opponent. The inspiration for it was taken directly from T. Hawk’s move set in the Street Fighter 4 series, which he used mainly to move in close to his foe swiftly and apply pressure.

Both T. Hawk and Lily also often use this attack in lieu of their bad forward dashes, which are fairly slow and travel a very short distance. But based on what we saw in the developer’s footage, that’s not all Condor Spire is set to do for Lily.

Now, we saw this particular special move used in combos, meaning it should act as a decent combo ender for Lily. It is also safe to assume (though we don’t know for sure) that the OverDrive (EX) version of this maneuver will also pass through projectile’s like T. Hawk’s did.

However, it’s the higher level stuff that is making this technique look quite strong — when used properly.

For starters, we see in the footage that a perfectly spaced regular Condor Spire (with no wind buff) can be made safe and potentially even advantageous on block. This is particularly nice in a game like Street Fighter 6, where a lot of normals and attacks used to pressure the opponent are actually negative on block.

We actually see Lily set this up multiple times in the new footage, and each time it comes from bread and butter scenarios that shouldn’t be hard to set up. It can be as simple as hitting one of her Aztec war club-based normals at max range and cancelling into the proper strength Condor Spire or even firing off the special move after a basic combo to make it hit meaty when the opponent gets up from a knockdown.

Safe on block is nice, but being plus on block is even better. Fortunately for Lily, it appears that the wind buffed version of Condor Spire is advantageous on block even when performed at point blank range.

Lily has the ability to stock wind buffs that are used to improve a handful of her special moves. One of these moves is Condor Spire, and the attack looks as though it get significantly better when one of these wind stocks is used with it, even granting her the ability to combo straight into it from light attacks.

What this means is that Lily, a grappler style character who wants to be up in the opponent’s grill, has the ability to fire off a horizontal-moving attack that travels a great distance and leaves her at an advantage should her foe try and block the attack. It is worth noting that techniques like Drive Impact and parry should be solid counters to these attacks, but as far as tools for a grappler goes, this has to be one of the most sought after.

You can see both of these versions of Condor Spire in action below thanks to Rooflemonger.

Properly spaced Condor Spire is plus on block
Windclad Stock spire is just a sledgehammer and its plus on block even point blank

its everything I hoped for 🥹 pic.twitter.com/GOjxJ4XGiO

— Rooflemonger (@Rooflemonger) March 21, 2023

The OverDrive version of Condor Spire also looks to be very fast on start up, can and does utilize the wind buff mechanic, and can be combo-ed after with one of Lily’s supers (and potentially more attacks). We see it used as a swift check in the neutral to close out the second round in the latest developer footage, and its quick speed caught the E. Honda player off guard.

In Street Fighter 6, it feels like most characters have a special something that looks crazy on paper, but thanks to the various defensive mechanics the game has, becomes manageable. This appears to be Lily’s, and for a move that’s coming straight from T. Hawk — a character that definitely wasn’t considered strong back in Street Fighter 4 — it’s nice to see new life and utility injected into it.