Rock Howard/Move List

Overview
Rock is an All-Rounder Character who can apply offensive mindgames and/or defensive conditioning on the fly to suit the situation. Gameplay-wise, he's a very basic type of versatile character to play in most of his appearances, being something of a "Shotoclone" but with other extra offensive and defensive tools.



As a sufficient jack-of-all-trades, Rock has access to a fireball-styled projectile in the form of Geese's Reppuken and Double Reppuken, a rising-anti-air uppercut move in the form of Terry's Rising Tackle, and his own gap-closing dash move in the form of Hard Edge as just surface-level basics. This also accounts for some of his normals being easy to use as well, such as his crouching being a great alternate anti-air and his jumping kick normals being great air-to-airs.

Additionally, he also has the Crack Counter, a move that allows him to punish predictable opponents (hint hint) that rush in sloppily. Not only is he able to play defensively, his Rage Run followups are the main source of his mixup game with Type "Dunk" being a hard-knockdown overhead, and Type "Shift" being a close-range side switch. Added with his father's Shinkuu Nage as his other tick throw option, Rock's mixup-throw game is simple yet effective. Shinkuu Nage in this case is a damaging command grab that he can break out of for faster recovery unlike Geese's version, and - in some games - doubles as a juggle opportunity. His Shine Knuckle super in particular, is one of the faster gap-closing punishers in the game, allowing Rock to secure a lead or finish on a careless opponent off of a simple conversion with meter.



Overall, Rock - alongside his adoptive father - is an excellent character for both beginners and novices alike to play if you want a well-rounded character that can do what you need him to do reliably. Especially as of his appearance in The King of Fighters XIV.



Despite this, Rock's biggest weaknesses are that while his moves cover many purposes, he can only juggle around the fortes that both Terry and Geese excel in at a near bare minimum; his damage output without resources is still rather limited unlike with Terry and his ability to condition the foe into a predictable loop is not as effective as with Geese.

What holds him back are mainly his moves being slower and/or committal with plenty of prone gaps (causing his mixups and pressure to require heavy conditioning), lack of cross-ups outside of the committal Rage Run: Type "Shift" (also makes his jump-ins rather risky), as well as overall not excelling in any particular category. While he was at his weakest in his debut in Mark of the Wolves, his Capcom vs. SNK 2 incarnation improved on his pre-existing tools to make him a solid-yet-complex-lower-top tier due to his flexibility.

He returns as part of Team Garou in The King of Fighters XV's first DLC Team pack, and has seen plenty of new buffs compared to his previous outings. Blessed with having more than 2 far standing cancel-able normals (up to 3) including another new cancel option for his far standing, Rock's neutral game becomes noticably stronger which leads to more conversions and rewards overall off of his pokes. Rising Tackle, which has always been a charge input in most of his and Terry's appearances, is now performed with +  like with Terry's to give them both an easier-on-the-fly-to-use anti-air option; Shinkuu Nage also now has a half-circle-styled motion as well instead of the prior 360 motion used prior that Geese sometimes had.

Along with his Rage Run variations now being overhauled to have more than 2-to-3 followups for more of a mixup game, sealing the deal is the return of his T.O.P. Attack from Mark of the Wolves, the Overhead Kick, with a notable speed increase unlike in Maximum Impact 2 and Regulation A, with the EX version being a faster ground-bouncing tool. Several of these changes (including a new version of his father's Deadly Rave that can empower Rock for the rest of the match when used) grants Rock some of the most flexible and damaging combos in the entire game, making him a lightning bruiser of a character that can delete your health bar quicker than ever before with resources (and ultimately fixing up his lackluster damage issues).