Kuma

Oddball

Kuma (and Panda, often just referred to as bears) is an oddball character specializing in ranged poking and whiff punishment. Cursed with often terrible frame data on his moves and the worst overall mobility in the game between his huge size, lack of specialized movement tools and a generally bad backdash/sidestep, Kuma has to navigate the mid range carefully and deliberately, lest he gets run over by enemy pressure. To offset this, the bears come equipped with some of the absolute best whiff punishment tools in the entire game. Kuma Musou (df+2,1) is an i15 whiff-confirmable launcher that hits all the way from range 3 for close to 45% damage without Heat on open ground. Demon Bear Breath (1+2) is an i13 mid stolen from Heihachi, which boasts similarly impressive range and heat engages. Kuma also has an array of ranged mids and low pokes to gradually chip away at the opponent from outside their effective range, and a decent selection of tracking keepout moves such as b,f+2, uf+1 or b+1+2, all of which deal considerable chip damage when blocked. Holding down or pressing 3+4 after select moves transitions Kuma into the Hunting Bear Stance (HBS for short), a naturally high-crushing, mixup-focused stance. HBS allows some additional light pressure with the threat of an enormously plus on hit, fast low in HBS.2. This can be mixed up with HBSs good selection of safe, or even plus on block Mids. Kuma's Heat allows him to become even deadlier in the neutral game, as he gains access to Wind Bear Fist, a plus on block launcher similar to the iconic Mishima Wind God Fist, which cannot be crouched under. His Heat Smash is also top class. It's incredibly fast at i13, has huge range, hits mid and does above average damage for a Heat Smash, further reinforcing his identity as the more "neutral" focused of the two bears.