SvC Chaos: SNK Vs Capcom/Athena

Overview

Combos

Matchups

Strategy

Misc.

アテナ姫, Princess Athena
Category	Final (Secret) Boss
Playstyle	Unorthodox Zoning/Rushdown
Difficulty	Easy
Max Mode Needed?	Almost Useless
Tier Placement	Non-Threat (D)
Standing Hitbox	Short
Crouching Hitbox	Short
Defense Modifier	239? (Player) / 239 (CPU)
Wall Jump	No

Introduction

Are you here because you thought that this was the Athena from KOF? Those two could be the same person, but this Athena is based on the first Athena game, an arcade platformer released in 1987. She is, without a doubt, the weakest boss in the game (besides Dan, of course), but she is pretty strong compared to some of the non-boss characters, and against the low tiers, gives them a lot of trouble. She may appear impossible, but it takes little work to figure out how to deal with her.

How to select Athena (Outside of Super Plus)

• You want to play with Athena, but cannot select her? If you're with the Arcade version, you can only select her by cheating, or with the bootleg hacked roms. If you're using a console (XBOX and PS2 only), you can unlock her in the Survival Mode along with RA. Just defeat her or Red Arremer in the 36th fight.

Strengths

Weaknesses

Fun to play: Athena is, without a doubt, one of SVC's most unique characters and even if she's on the weaker side, the massively explosive attacks she has access to are something almost no other fighting game lets players enjoy. Small hitbox: She is a little taller than Zero but is still smaller than most characters. This helps her remain nimble and can mess with players who aren't familiar with her hurtboxes. Strong normals: Her combos, albeit very simple, can very easily do around 25% of the opponent's total life bar, and even her lights hurt. This lets her play neutral more comfortably as she doesn't need to press as many buttons to win a round. While her lights are hardly worth using, Athena's heavy buttons all shine. A 2f low hitting heavy normal that's very plus, anti-air normals, good jump-ins, a st.C with armor frames, Athena's heavies are the reason she's somewhat competitive. You can cancel into slide for a knockdown and some oki off of most normals, too. Arrows are great for pressuring tall crouching characters: If Athena is against someone like Demitri or Shiki, the only options the opponent has is to jump her arrow attack or crouch block. Crouch blocking, however, renders the opponent to take forced chip damage, all the while they cannot punish the attack, either. Only needs meter for Blowback and maybe GCFS: Athena will always have access to meter since she has nothing to spend it on beyond front step and blowback, making meter management a non-issue. Her Exceed is almost impossible to jump over: Athena's Exceed covers pretty much the entire aerial space, so while it can be jumped over, it's impractical and will likely result in the opponent getting hit instead. Destroys players who don't know better: Put simply, if the opponent does not know how to fight Athena, they will lose. There is no avoiding it, especially when everything she does seems insurmountable and impossible to approach her.

Can only back throw: She lacks a forward throw. A small, but noticeable downside to her for controlling space. Some normals are identical, aka pointless: Some of Athena's buttons are basically the exact same with each other and you only really need one of them. While they may seem different on the surface, and they are, in reality one button is objectively better than the other copies and thus should be the only one used. Cannot do Max Mode combos, only basic cancels for mixups: Athena can only cancel her specials into other specials for simple mixups and to negate the recovery of her attacks, but it takes very little time for the opponent to learn how to deal with these mixups, making it a small reward, anyways. Extremely limited combos overall: Athena's combos basically revolve around a normal into slide. While she has a couple other combos, that's the only one of any real note. Specials are a death sentence on block due to GCFS and awful recovery: Front step is pretty much the whole reason Athena is not broken enough to be even mid tier. Front step her specials and suddenly, they're not so scary anymore. But even without Front Step, a lot of the time you can just walk or dash up and punish Athena with almost anything. One note character: Athena's too linear of a character. Knowing what to do with her and learning it is pretty easy, but it's another thing to play her well when she's not much of a threat to anyone other than the bottom tier characters. An optimal Athena player simply uses nothing more than her heavy normals and her throw, with a special move thrown in every blue moon. Either Athena blows the other player up, or the other player blows Athena up: There's no real in-between with Athena - she is an entirely knowledge check character. If the opponent doesn't know the knowledge checks, Athena wins. If the opponent does know, they're far more likely to win against her. She can still win matches even in these scenarios, as she's definitely the best of the low tiers, but it's an uphill battle for Athena. Front Step exists: If the opponent knows how to use Front Step, let alone against Athena's attacks, there's nothing she can do about it. She's getting punished.

SVC Chaos: SNK VS Capcom Frame Data Glossary
Damage	How much damage the attack does. This takes into account no defense modifiers, so the damage assumes a 0% damage modifier, or in other words the average defense modifier of 223 against characters like Kyo and Ryu. Note: Damage is a little inconsistent. Example: Geese cl.A deals 5 damage. Against Zero, sometimes it does 5 pixels of damage to his life bar, other times it does 4 pixels. Against Ryu, cl.A does 4 pixels of damage, other times it does 3 pixels of damage. This info comes from the Enterbrain Mook, but most likely this is the cause of damage modifiers skewing the damage slightly, thus making it a bit inconsistent. Damage values listed are pulled from the SVC Chaos Enterbrain Mook, save Athena, Red Arremer, Serious Mr. Karate and Shin Akuma. It is listed because it's an official source for this info, just keep in mind damage is not 1-to-1 due to varying health values and screwy ways the game calculates damage anyways. There will be a question mark next to the four mentioned characters because it's only a guess as to what the actual damage values are (until health and damage are better understood), since they were never gathered in the Mook. Unfortunately, when doing attacks, the numbers dealt in damage do not match up with the mook. As an example, Geese's cl.C does 16 damage according to the mook, but against characters like Zero, it only does 14-15 damage, and very rarely it does 16 damage. Against Ryu, it does 12-13 damage at most. But against Orochi Iori, it also does 14-15 damage, and very rarely it does 16 damage. The mook does not explain how the numbers are obtained either, or against who they're tested against, if anyone. In other words, how these numbers were obtained if not through data mining is a mystery in itself, but it can be best assumed it was against 255 defense modifier characters, and at the max damage possible. Lastly, moves like Geese cl.D, though it says 10x2 for the damage, which is true, damage scaling reduces total damage on the second hit. Max Mode also reduces damage dealt by roughly half at most.
Counter Damage	How much damage the attack does on a counter hit, or when it connects with an opponent while they're performing an attack. Counter damage values listed are pulled from the SVC Chaos Enterbrain Mook, save Athena, Red Arremer, Serious Mr. Karate and Shin Akuma.
Guard	Where the attack hits, and thus where it must be blocked. Mids can be blocked standing and crouching Overheads must be blocked standing Lows must be blocked crouching Unblockable cannot be blocked Throws break through block up-close
Guard Crush	How much guard meter damage the attack does to the green Guard Gauge.
Stun	How many points of stun the attack adds to the opponent's invisible Stun Gauge.
Meter	How much meter is gained for performing/landing the attack. Special moves earn meter both when activated and when they connect with the opponent, whether it hits them or they block it.
Cancel	The type of cancel the attack can perform. Any - All cancel types work Ch - Chain cancel; it can chain into other attacks (mostly just lights) Self - Can chain only into itself Cmd - Command cancel; can cancel into command normals Sp - Special cancel; can cancel into special moves, and almost always this means super cancels are possible too Su - Super cancel; can cancel into super moves Free - Free cancel; can be cancelled in Max Mode by other special moves or super moves Written only for special moves as all normals can be Free Cancelled, so writing it in for every move would be redundant X - Cannot be cancelled, either outside of Max Mode or that it cannot be cancelled at all
Startup	How many frames it takes before the move becomes 'active' or has a hitbox. The SVC Chaos wiki uses classic startup notation, which does not include the first active frame. A move with 3 startup becomes active on frame 4. Super and Exceed startup will calculate both the frames before and after the super flash animation as such: X+Y, with X being the startup frames before the flash animation and Y being the startup frames after the flash animation. The startup will not take into account the frames of the flash animation itself where time freezes and the opponent player cannot act. Super flashes last 28 frames, whereas Exceed flashes last 27 frames. Because there is currently no way to view throw boxes, it is assumed that throws/command grabs are at most 0-1 frames of startup. Truthfully, we don't actually know though.
Active	How many frames a move remains active (can hurt opponents) for. Consecutive sets of active frames on a multi-hit move are separated by a comma. (Example: 3, 4 - The attack has its first hitbox for 3 frames, then the second hitbox for 4 frames) If there is a gap between sets of active frames, the gap is denoted by a number in parentheses. (Example: 3, (2), 4 - The attack is active for 3 frames, then is not active for the next two frames, followed by being active again for 4 frames.) Throw boxes are not visible either through dipswitches or the hitbox viewer so it's only a guess how active throws and command grabs are, but it's probably one active frame at most. This also applies to hitbox images - they will still show the push and hurtboxes of characters but outside of that, unfortunately there is no way to depict the throw boxes at the moment.
Recovery	How many frames it takes for a move to finish after it's been active.
Total	The total number of frames the attack lasts on screen for. This adds up the startup, active, and recovery frames into one number.
Hit/Block Adv	These are frame advantage values when the attack hits or is blocked. If the number is positive, then the move will end before the defender can act again. If the number is negative, the defender will be able to act before the attacker and maybe even punish. SKD refers to a soft knockdown, or a knockdown you can tech roll out of. HKD refers to a hard knockdown, one that you cannot tech roll out of. All frame advantages assume Ryu as the opponent. If there are variable wakeup times, it is currently unknown info. Also assume that on soft knockdowns, the frame advantage is when the opponent does not tech roll. If needed, a second frame advantage will be added next to it for when they do tech roll. Frame advantages of projectiles assumes the opponent is point blank range. Any farther and this obviously changes and/or doesn't matter. Block advantage assumes no use of Guard Cancel Front Step. For one, it obviously decreases the attacker's frame advantage significantly. When the defender uses GCFS is also a variable factor so you cannot provide a hard answer as to what the frame advantage is after GCFS, as well as how soon they cancel GCFS into an attack. Generally speaking, just assume the block advantage minus the active frames of GCFS (18 frames), and that's a rough estimate of the frame advantage when GCFS is performed. Do keep in mind that GCFS technically has a slight delay when the dash is performed even if you register the input as early as possible. This doesn't really matter in most cases, since the attacker will automatically be quite minus after most attacks. It would only matter in situations where the attacker can punish GCFS attempts like with throws or multi-hit attacks, but even then, that's because the attacker canceled the blocked attack into another attack that the frame advantage of the blocked attack after GCFS no longer matters in that situation. All that matters, then, is the attack is cancelable at all.
Invulnerability	Indicates whether there's any frames of invulnerability during the attack.

Move List

Normal Moves

Far/Close Normals

Since Athena has no standing proximity normals, she only has 4 standing normals. Regardless if you're far or close to the opponent, the attack for the corresponding button doesn't change.

st.A

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Mid	-	-	-	-	2	2	6	10	+4	+2	-
This is a quick attack with her little shield. Can chain into itself and all of her other lights, and even link/chain with her cr.C. This move is useful to do some walking jab pressure.

st.B

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Mid	-	-	-	-	6	5	13	24	-6	-8	-
Athena stabs the opponent with her sword. This move cannot chain into itself, and cannot link with other normals, so it isn't very useful in Light Attack combos, but can be used to poke the opponent. Can be canceled too.

st.C

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Mid	-	-	-	-	14	2	21	37	-3	-5	-
It looks like an anti-air, but it's not. The move has bad startup, and more importantly, completely lacks a vertical hitbox above Athena despite the sword slash effect looking like it hits above her. The first frame of the attack has auto-guard frames, but even then it's not that useful. The attack can be canceled too.

st.D

File:SVC Athena st.D.png

File:SVC Athena st.D hitbox.png

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Mid	-	-	-	-	6	6	18	30	-4	-6	-
It's her best anti-air, other than her QCF + K Wave attack. Cancel it into her slide for her BnB.

Crouch Normals

cr.A/B/C

File:SVC Athena cr.ABC.png

File:SVC Athena cr.ABC hitbox.png

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Low	-	-	-	-	2	5	7	14	A/B= +0 ; C= +8	A/B= -2 ; C= +6	-
A/B Version A quick kick that hits low. Use it in Light Attack combos. Cancellable, but there's barely anything you can do with it. Just use cr.C instead. C Version Incredible crouching move. The animation and properties of this move are the same as the crouching light attacks, but has more damage and frame advantage making the lights pointless. It's cancelable, and you can link it with a st.B/D.

cr.D

File:SVC Athena cr.D.png

File:SVC Athena cr.D hitbox.png

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Low	-	-	-	-	17	3	3	23	SKD	+12	-
Athena sweeps her sword. This move has auto-guard frames too, but use this move as a low poke, that is also difficult to whiff punish. It's very slow, and there's no point if you're going to cancel it. Avoid this move if you want. If you want to knock down your opponent, there are better options, including df.D.

Jumping Normals

Like her standing normals, Athena has no differentiation between neutral and diagonal jumping normals, so again, the attack only matters based on what button is pressed.

(n)j.A/B

File:SVC Athena j.AB.png

File:SVC Athena j.AB hitbox.png

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Overhead	-	-	-	-	4	27	-	-	-	-	-
Neutral/Diagonal Jumping Attack A quick stab aiming down with her sword. The reach of this move is mediocre, and it's hard to combo with it. It can crossup the opponent too.

(n)j.C

File:SVC Athena j.C.png

File:SVC Athena j.C hitbox.png

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Overhead	-	-	-	-	9	3	-	-	-	-	-
Neutral/Diagonal Jumping Attack Good jump-in, and it does nice damage. It can crossup, and it's way better than the two jumping attacks above. You can use it in combos too.

(n)j.D

File:SVC Athena j.D.png

File:SVC Athena j.D hitbox.png

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Overhead	-	-	-	-	5	10	-	-	-	-	-
Neutral/Diagonal Jumping Attack Great jump-in attack and air-to-air move. This move has auto-guard frames, so you can use it to counter most anti-air attempts. It can crossup too, and it's very easy to combo after it.

Command Normals

Sliding
df.D

File:SVC Athena df.D.png

File:SVC Athena df.D hitbox.png

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Low	-	-	-	-	7	13	14	34	SKD	-9	-
Athena's slide. The damage is very high, it knocks down, and it's great as a finisher for her short combos. You can use it to go under certain projectiles, too. Keep in mind this is punishable on block, however, and that there are frame differences between slide and Athena's normal cr.D, most notably the higher recovery and lower frame advantage.

Throws

/ Throw

Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
24	24	Throw	0	0	0	X	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Guard Cancel Blowback
on Block

Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
0	0	Mid	0	0	0	X	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Special Moves

Some of her Special Moves are really easy to block due to many of them having predictable patterns or for having very long startup. This doesn't make all of them completely useless, though using them wisely is very tricky to get the hang of.

Heaven's Gate
qcf P

Version	Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
qcf A	-	-	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Athena summons a Lion and it throws some fast fireballs that can negate normal projectiles. In the A version, the lion throws 2 fireballs, and in the C version, it throws 3 fireballs or more. Athena can be hit while she is getting up in the lion. The mouth of the lion can hit your opponent too, and you can max cancel this move if this happens (No, you can't combo). This move is very bad due to the slow startup (Where she jumps on the lion), and the opponent can GCFS it with ease, but Athena is totally invincible after she jumps. When she recovers though, if the opponent is able to dash in, it's pretty much a free punish due to the awful recovery of it. It can be used to force chip damage to close out a round though, force a guard break, or even force a time out. If Athena is in Max Mode, she can also Max Cancel the recovery into her Wave Attack as a mixup, that leaves her invincible during the transition, thus punishing players for getting cocky. This too though, can be read and if the Wave is blocked, either way Athena is getting punished.
Version	Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
qcf C	-	-	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Poseidon Rage
qcf K

Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Athena's "Animal Summon" move with the best startup. She will become a mermaid, and will slap the opponent 9 times if it wasn't blocked. There's no difference between the two versions. Good to use on the opponent's wakeup, as an anti-air or even as an invincible reversal, but just like any of her other moves, it's easy to GCFS, and leaves her wide open for a punish on block. Great damage. While you can Max Cancel from the lion into this move, you cannot Max Cancel this move at any point, so be careful about using it.

Milk Crown
qcb P

Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
The most punishable attack in the game. Everyone can punish it easily. Do NOT use this attack against anyone that knows what they're doing even somewhat. Athena will summon a bird and it will peck the ground, causing a low earthquake. After that, Athena will follow it up with an overhead spiked mace. The second hit of the move will hit as an OTG after the bird pecks the ground if the opponent got hit. You cannot cancel any of the hits. Don't use this move, most opponents will just know how to avoid it. You can easily block low then high, GCFS and do any punish you can think of. Alternatively, you can jump the low attack and as she's falling down, you can hit her with a DP and there's nothing she can do with it. Even a five year old can punish this move; worst special in the game. The only people who will fall for it are those who don't know better. You can't even say it's a move that you could maybe troll with by using it at a random point on unsuspecting players, because the startup is so long that it's impossible to not see it coming.

Bow of Judgement
[b]~f P

Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Great move against tall crouching hurtbox characters like Demitri and Red Arremer. But even as a punish tool against anyone else, the damage is amazing, and is practically impossible to GCFS. There's no difference between the two versions. It's very fast and good for punishing most projectiles, but Athena is not at all invincible during the move. Forced trades can happen or just a well timed attack because of carelessness from the Athena player. The usefulness of this move is also reduced against characters with low crouching hitboxes because it will completely whiff against them. The move is in fact an unblockable move... but only if the opponent blocks standing. If the opponent is Demitri and they block low, while they will still get hit by the arrow, it will only deal chip damage instead. In other words there is zero reason to block high.

Night Trip's End
[b]~f K

Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
-	-	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Technically called end of the TRIP or NIGHT, but this could also just be a very strange translation error... so it'll be named Night Trip's End for simplicity's sake. Avoid this move. Slow, but the damage is good, and you can max cancel when she hits (On the second hit), but you have no reason to do that. The opponent will just jump over it, and if he blocks, he can GCFS. Athena is invincible during the move, but it's still an easy punish.

Exceed

Pegasus Fantasy

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Damage	Counter Dmg	Guard	G. Crush	Stun	Meter	Cancel	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Invulnerability
108?	108?	Mid	0	0	0	X	-	-	-	-	HKD	-	-
Goddess Athena's Exceed - and yes, it's a Saint Seiya reference(?). Does pretty good damage but it's also easy to react to and block. Ideally used as an anti-air, or the rare instances that the opponent is stunned, especially since it can't be comboed into at all; the startup is too slow. Athena is fully invincible until she lands. Also worth noting to avoid confusion, the hitbox viewer displays the hitbox as a blue hurtbox, but was edited red for the wiki; using dipswitches does not display the hitbox as a hurtbox. It cannot be interrupted. While technically possible to jump over, on top of the hitbox not being massive, actually doing so requires very precise timing that it's just easier to block it as opposed to attempt jumping it. After landing the Exceed on hit too, regardless of where Athena or the opponent is, it always places Athena a set distance in front of the opponent upon landing roughly 2 characters distance worth. Average Exceed, it's easy to mess up timing it to anti-air so practice caution that the opponent doesn't bait it out. Easier to land against matchups that require air time like Red Arremer or take a while to land after jumping or doing an attack, like Dhalsim.

Strategy

Basic Strategy

Athena's Gameplan

Athough Athena has damaging normals, she is a zoning glass cannon. Her Summon Specials can make her almost invincible, unless the opponent blocks it and, in some cases, they can quite easily punish her with a GCFS that's not difficult to time. If you need an anti-air, just do a cl.C or qcf K. If you need to punish, all she really has are her anti-airs or her very basic combos. While her Exceed also makes for a great punish, especially as an anti-air, you need to be careful not to do it too late or else it will whiff/be blocked, and thus you have just lost it. When it comes to characters with large crouching hitboxes like Demitri, Genjuro and Red Arremer, her arrow charge special is quite useful as although it's not unblockable, their crouch height means they'll still be stuffed by it for some pretty good chip damage, aside from being a good punish tool in some situations. Do be careful still though, since she's not invincible during the move, so it is possible to fight back against it. Of the summons Athena has, the Lion is not as threatening as he appears. The startup is almost completely invincible and has its own hitbox, but the recovery is pretty lengthy giving the opponent enough time to approach. The only real mixup you have is changing how many fireballs the lion throws out, but anyone with an ounce of patience will see through it. It's useful for forcing a guard break though, and if you need the emergency chip damage to close out the round. The lion is hard to use otherwise. Athena's qcf K is a great anti-air to catch jump ins, and you can Max Cancel from the lion into it to make lion recovery safe, but if blocked, Athena is wide open for any sort of punish, so never use it willy nilly. Her beetle charge lets her be fully invincible, but it's not terribly useful. Mostly just there to shrug people off since they likely won't expect it. Whatever you do, don't summon the parakeet. It is arguably the worst special move in the game, and is extremely easy to punish. Against anyone who knows the matchup, they will never fall for it. Otherwise, when just moving about in neutral, her C buttons are useful for midranged pokes, her D buttons are useful for getting her BnB combos going. Her A and B buttons are pretty forgettable, unless you need cr.B to shrug people off. Lastly, since Athena hardly ever uses her meter, this is one character where Blowback is very useful. She has nothing else to spend it on, so why not? It'll give her breathing room to try and be annoying again, at least.

A glitch with EQ

Yeah, a glitch for one character. It's a little easy to do in a real match, it just depends of your opponent. Just wait for him to do a Fat Copy (That move where he warps and goes above you). Now, time well, and do a QCF+K when he's near from you. He will stop in a hitstun animation, and he'll be open for ANY combo after it, or you can even use it to confirm the Exceed! (And the combo counter will say "02 hits" forever. Oh yeah, you can just wait for a time over if you're with a life advantage too, which will probably make him ragequit). A video with an example is here (Just jump to 0:15, but in the beginning of the video, you'll see two more Athena glitches). (Note: The glitch works while EQ is on the corner, and Athena near from him, but I'm sure that it works on midscreen too, I just need to prove it.)

Advanced Strategy

While Athena may be easy to play and learn, actually getting a grasp of what you should be doing with her is another story. As mentioned in the basics, her parakeet is useless, and her beetle summon is just kinda there. All that leaves you with is her lion, wave attack and her arrows for specials, and her heavy buttons. The only optimal zone to use Athena's lion is from fullscreen as that makes it significantly harder for the opponent to punish it, but even from midscreen they will have just enough time to punish Athena upon recovery, assuming they do a successful GCFS followed by some extra dashing. It can punish hard reads, but it's unlikely to happen. Her wave attack is to never be used point blank range or even on the ground unless you have a hard read. Only use it for when the opponent is in the air otherwise, albeit it is invincible. Ideally, you should also never use her arrows unless those too are from fullscreen, due to being unsafe. So what does that leave Athena with in neutral if there's no good chance for her to use her specials? Her heavy buttons. Jump C and Jump D are her only meaningful jump-ins, but even these are risky since the range is quite short for jump-ins. It doesn't take much for the opponent to at the least force a trade. For the rare instances she actually needs to use GCFS herself, she can punish many things with her st.D > df.D combo, which is way safer than any of her summons are while still doing good enough damage. Standing C and Crouching C are useful if you need the quick midrange poke to keep the opponent in check.

Athena, as you probably already know, is a knowledge check character. Either she blows up the other player, or they blow her up. Even if you're better than the other player while using Athena, her average damage output still requires you poke at the opponent several times, unlike most of the other characters who, even with basic combos, can mop Athena's health away. For example, say Athena is against Kyo, and he does a successful GCFS against her, then he has plenty of time to do a very simple combo: st.C > QCF + DD > QCB~HCF + P, thus removing a little more than a third of Athena's health. For Athena, it would take 2-4 hits for the same result against Kyo. The problem most Athena players have is the lack of patience, or carelessness. Especially if they fight someone and they win from spamming her summons, they get the idea that this is all Athena is and thus, she's a win button for little work. This is not at all the case. Competent players will call Athena out for anything unsafe she does, and if they have the life lead, they are effectively in control since now Athena is the one who has to approach them to open them up, not the other way around. Being able to huard break with her lion summon can help a little as it'll eventually force the opponent to start acting again, because otherwise they're sitting there and eating both chip and guard damage. It's still risky, though. Against rushdown/close up characters, Blowback is a very useful resource for Athena to spend by helping her knock the opponent across the screen and allowing her to potentially reassert her screen presence. Against zoners, Athena is definitely fighting an uphill battle, being that many zoners can force trades or setups that Athena doesn't have much of an answer for. That, or they can force her to jump which leaves her with few options she can use.

Overall, Athena is a zoner who you must play with a hit and run mindset. She's absolutely not designed for close combat, but sitting in one spot and repeating the same moves over and over is also a death sentence for her in most matchups. Athena players need to be very deliberate about when they use each of her specials and how they approach the opponent, because one mistake can lead to her losing all of her momentum. It's hard to fight back though if the Athena player knows their matchups very well.

Match-Ups

Red Arremer

It doesn't look like it, but this matchup is actually in Athena's favor. There are three main reasons: First, Athena can always exploit the fact that RA cannot crouch with arrows. While he can still low block, it doesn't change the fact that he will always be hit by arrows on the ground and can only truly avoid them if he jumps. Even then, he's wide open during his summons so eating an arrow is not that difficult. Second, Athena's Exceed can effectively shut out RA from ever summoning bats at the risk of getting half his life bar deleted. Third, RA can's approach all that safely since Athena's Wave attack will anti-air him if he tries to jump in, on top of completely bypassing his minions. Her lion summon will be nullified by RA's zombie minion, making the lion significantly less useful, though. RA can also still force trades with smartly timed summons, and if all else fails he has his fireballs. Though with Athena still being quite effective even from fullscreen away, RA has practically zero chance of setting up a combo on Athena unless the planets align. The RA player will have to force Athena into opening herself up, either by forcing Athena to approach or approaching Athena himself. But unlike RA, Athena has at least a couple more useful normals, so RA still has to try and fight from a distance, or wait very patiently for poking opportunities.

Combos

SVC Chaos: SNK VS Capcom Quick Combo Notation Guide

cl. = close normal st. = standing/far normal cr. = crouching normal f.; etc. = forward direction (NOT far) X = any button CH = counter hit , = Used to separate attacks in the combo / = Separates different options for the combo (mainly different starters or enders that are possible) Unless otherwise stated (such as it's a link or you need to delay the attack), assume this is a chain/cancel. Example: cr.B, cr.A, dp A ; cr.B chains into cr.A, then cr.A cancels into dp A [b]~f = Indicates to charge back (or downback), then press forwards for the given special move ( ) = Parentheses used to indicate the attack(s) within the parentheses are optional to add to the combo (C) = Indicates a free cancel, aka a cancel only possible in Max Mode (SC) = Indicates a super cancel via free canceling in Max Mode (1) = Used to indicate how many hits of the attack should connect (or less than) before continuing with the combo Example: cl.C(1), hcb P means that only one hit of cl.C should be performed before moving on to do hcb P, not more than one hit [ ] = Used to distinguish combo loops or combo starters/etc. in case a certain attack is only possible after specific options xN = Repeat the given loop for as many times as either possible or as many times as you wish May change to numpad notation much later down the road.

BnB Combos

Combo	Position	Damage	Stun	Difficulty	Notes
(j.X,) cl.D, df.D	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA	Athena's BnB, and the only combo you'll probably ever use. Her best combo punish off of a GCFS, and it does pretty nice damage with a knockdown, but the rest of her combos are pretty much just for show.
cl.A x2, st.B	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA	A simple and damaging Light Attack combo. Good if you're having trouble with the other combos. If you add a jump attack after the combo, the st.B will still hit the opponent, but the stab will not connect with the other moves. It can combo in the corner. (Someone please verify this English doesn't make sense, cannot tell what is trying to be said about "after the combo?" Also st.B is 6 frames startup, st.A is only +4, how is it a combo?)
(j.X,) cl.A, cr.C, df.D	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA	Interesting combo. This is your main combo to punish your opponent too. It's very easy to do, the damage is very high, and you can followup with a Charge b, f+P if the opponent isn't a low crouching char on his/her wakeup, but the arrow setup is too risky to justify attempting it, plus if they know to block low, it's an easy punish for them.
(Earthquake only) cr.C, cl.D, df.D	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA	This combo works against some characters while they are crouching and on the corner, and they are: Shiki and Hugo. The df.D part can hit the opponent, but cannot connect in: standing/crouching Genjuro, and crouching Tessa. If you're against EQ/other tall crouching characters, you can followup with a Charge b, f+P on wakeup, but you probably won't hit this if they attempt a reversal, or they know to just block low instead.
cl.D (Guard Crush), Exceed	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA	Not a real combo, but it's a way to confirm the Exceed.