Introduction
Chun-Li returns to the third World Warrior tournament, albeit a little different stylistically, both in her appearance and her fighting style. She's still just as quick and agile, but her actions are more fluid. No longer fighting for the sake of revenge, but for the protection of others, she seems more confident in her fighting ability as well.
In her most notorious incarnation, Chun-Li is a defensive beast. She's known for her overwhelming neutral presence, sporting absurdly strong buttons for controlling space in a myriad of ways. Long reaching lows like 2MK, far ranged heavy buttons like 5HP, and absurdly high priority buttons like 4HP let Chun keep the pace regardless of the gamestate. Her jabs are absurdly fast as well, namely her 2 frame 2LP, giving her a fast defensive option to rely on. On offense, she's known for her amazing strike/throw, complimented by pressure resets like 6MK and her amazing 5MK kara throw, which adds an incredible amount of range to her already strong throw.
Likely Chun-Li's most powerful tool is her SAII, Houyoku-Sen. It's a blindingly fast rush super that hits 17 times total for massive damage, combos from all of her pokes at all ranges, and can be superjump cancelled for followup juggles that lead to shockingly strong mixups. It has some invulnerability, allowing it to beat fireballs and pokes with low active frames, and comes with a healthy amount of chip damage for sealing out rounds with a difficult parry. Notably, it stocks 2 bars, letting Chun use her EX moves more. The most notable fact about stocking 2 bars is the fear that one stock puts into the opponent usually lets you more safely build the second bar, and most characters will die after two SAII uses.
Chun-Li is a solidly top 1 character, with no losing matchups and few real weaknesses. You will have to learn to properly play neutral, as her low health and lack of strong anti-airs means a few bad decisions ends the round, but realistically she's quite simple, fun, and incredibly rewarding to play.
Super Arts
SAI (Kikou-Shou)
Kikou-Shou is a relatively high-damage super and comes with a rather short bar, which means you can have this super stocked more often than the Houyoku-Sen. It does more chip damage and is more difficult to parry than the Houyoku-Sen, but the primary drawbacks are the fact that it only comes with one stock which bars liberal use of EXs, and that its range is fairly limited. You cannot cancel a max-ranged c.MK into a Kikou-Shou and expect it to hit. For this reason, SA2 is considered a much more powerful super. However, the SA1 does have its merits as an anti-air.
SAII: (Houyoku-Sen)
Chun-Li's most powerful Super Art is the Houyoku-Sen. It has a healthy stock of two supers, is very damaging, and can be super-cancelled or linked into using many of her attacks. The Houyoku-Sen's final kick can be super-jump cancelled. As the last hit connects, perform a super-jump, and she will leap into the air. The opponent may be juggled following the Houyoku-Sen, and it is another useful tool in her mixup arsenal. It is almost a guaranteed free ride for your opponent into the corner, so you can take that into consideration if it proves advantageous for your position. The Houyoku-Sen is also a 17-hit Super Art, making it a notorious ender of rounds via chip damage. You may also cancel a Kikouken or EX Kikouken into the Houyoku-Sen for the purpose of disrupting the timing for the opponent should they decide to try and parry it.
The Houyoku-Sen also has invincibility frames on startup during her initial rush to the opponent. It can be used to punish fireballs.
SAIII: (Tensei-Ranka)
Tensei-Ranka comes with a much healthier 3-stock limit as opposed to the Kikou-Shou, but it's much more difficult to use successfully. Unless the opponent is very tall or standing, you will not be able to hit them on the way up using the super, which turns the Tensei-Ranka most of the time into an extremely delayed, readable overhead. It is best used as an anti-air or confirmable damage off of an anti-air. Since a common way to punish jumpins with Chun-Li is to either close s.HK or parry into close s.HK, you can super-jump cancel into the Tensei-Ranka after a confirmed hit in order to do more damage than you normally would, at the expense of a reset.
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