I’ve been putting in a lot of lab time with Street Fighter 6’s newest DLC character, Ed, this week. The Street Fighter 5 representative comes equipped with a lot of the maneuvers he had back in the previous title, and with SF6’s new mechanics he has all kinds of new and awesome things he can do in battle.
Ed is a juggle and combo monster here in Street Fighter 6, and powerful moves like his level 2 super open up the doors to all sorts of extended sequences that can be incredibly intricate and stylish. After quite a bit of lab work, I was able to drum up an extended combo for Ed in Street Fighter 6 that has to be one of the most difficult to perform sequences that has been discovered for him yet.
This combo primarily relies on a very tough technique to execute with Ed in Street Fighter 6. Ed’s level 2 super, Psycho Cannon, sees him fire off a large ball of Psycho Power that moves forward toward the opponent and hits multiple times.
The speed that the projectile travels depends on the strength of the punch button you use, and when the final hit of this move strikes it explodes and pops the opponent up into a juggle state. However, it is possible to hit the opponent on the same frame that the explosion happens and essentially override the juggle property to keep the opponent grounded and get more out of your combo since the foe is still standing and not airborne.
Not too long after Ed’s release, I saw Momochi pull off a version of this maneuver that saw him use a jumping heavy punch to hit the opponent in conjunction with the explosion and keep the opponent grounded. Doing this properly can actually allow Ed to extend his combo so much that he builds another bar of super meter, and in turn can grant him the ability to hit two level 2 supers in the same sequence.
Momochi not only hit the two level 2 supers in the same combo, but also hit two of the jumping heavy punch to keep the opponent standing twice. This inspired me to try and see what other moves could produce this same effect, and as luck would have it, a fully charged heavy punch from Ed can do the exact same thing — albeit at the expense of much tighter timing.
Having labbed both the jumping heavy punch and the fully charged heavy punch set ups myself, I can say that it certainly felt much more difficult to pull off the latter consistently. Naturally, this meant that I had to challenge myself and hit two of them in the same combo…
This combo begins with a standard standing heavy kick punish counter opening. After the standing heavy kick and a regular standing heavy punch, we cancel the second normal into the heavy version of Ed’s level 2 super.
The first fully charged heavy punch happens here, and the timing required to make it connect properly and keep the opponent grounded is incredibly strict. What I found most useful was pressing and holding heavy punch as Ed’s arm swings down from the super and he says the “THIS!” part of “HOW’S THIS?!” (with his English voice actor).
What follows is a quick couple of normals before the first Drive Rush, and after said Drive Rush we have three microwalks to not only maintain enough Drive Gauge for a third Drive Rush cancel, but also to help build the extra bar of super meter. When done correctly, the final crouching medium punch we see just barely builds enough super for a second level 2, and we fire right into that from there.
It’s at this point that the second fully charged heavy punch comes into play, and the timing, once again, is incredibly tight here. If it lands properly, though, you get another opportunity to get a grounded combo, though I closed things out a little differently.
I used one more microwalk to set up the timing to juggle with Ed’s medium punch – heavy punch target combo and get a fully charged Psycho Flicker to secure another juggle. We end the whole thing off with a heavy punch uppercut for the damage.
I MADE THE COMBO EVEN MORE DIFFICULT!
– 2 full charged HPs to cancel out level 2 super explosion & keep opponent grounded
– 4 microwalks (including the one at the end)
– Tricky juggle with full charged Psycho Yoink (I never remember what the tether move is called ) #SF6_ED pic.twitter.com/YU5jjMIbLq— Steven “Dream King” Chavez (@TheKingOfDremes) March 2, 2024
What makes this combo so difficult is that nearly every piece of it requires very tight timing. If you get beyond the first fully charged heavy punch (which is already so hard to do), you get to look forward to microwalks in between the dual heavy kicks after each Drive Rush.
Not only that, but a second fully charged heavy punch is required late in the combo, which again ups the difficulty a ton here. And at the very end, please don’t hate me if the timing for the fully charged Psycho Flicker doesn’t pan out how you’d hoped…
Ed has a lot at his disposal when it comes to combos and juggles. We’re only here in week 1, so I am very much looking forward to what else the community finds with him!