Josie

Overview

Josie is an unorthodox character with powerful space control, punishment and counterhits. However, she has no standard DF1 and mediocre frames outside of her Switch stance, which she relies on heavily for poking. Until Season 4 her threatening lows were gated behind FC and CD, but she now has a War Drums.

Strengths:

• Excellent CH capability, from her homing moves and lows to dedicated CH tools like an i12 magic 4 and her jab strings. CH-confirm capability extends this to her basic i13 and i14 mid pokes.

• i13 WS launcher, powerful i14 standing punish that gives a minicombo, only WS4 is less than stellar punishment-wise. Pushback punishment isn't spectacularly rewarding, but is extremely easy and consistent.

• Excellent DF2 with high evasion, and solid hopkick, as well as a high crush CH launcher mid.

• Long range on standard pokes, and threatening long range mix-up with CD.

• Good amount of knees and elbows to beat parries, and in general kills mashers, since Switch stance forces quick defensive decisions and she has many strings.

Weaknesses:

• i13 mid poke has pretty bad frames outside of its string followups, and i14 mid poke forces Switch.

• Threatening lows require setup, encouraging her to counter-hit for respect.

• i13 WS launcher requires execution, and Josie generally benefits from sharp hitconfirming.

• While Switch stance can be explosive with correct reads, it can also quickly get you blown up with incorrect ones.