Fighting games in Xbox 360 Controller Sucks (KOF XIII)

Arcade Stick , FTW.

buy an arcade stick...hori v3 sa or madcats te

In my "carreer" I've beaten every single arcade stick I've ever seen with my controller, from Guilty Gear to Tekken.
It depends from person to person, if you don't really go for the pro-tier an rcade stick is a stupid purchase, besides you can pull off every technique with a pad too, it requires slightly more practice, that' all.
Besides it's pretty satisfying to beat up someone with an arcade stick with my adapted ps2 controller and then saying: "sure that stick was a good investment" cue to evil laugh XD

Yeah, the Xbox 360 controller is pretty terrible for fighting games. There are some competitive players that somehow pull it off in MvC3 though.

My recommendation would be that you try keyboard. Only, set it up like a Hitbox Controller. use S, D, F, Spacebar for movement and Numpad 7, 8, 9, 4, 5, 6 for your punches and kicks and such (alternatively, you can use U, I, O, J, K, L if your keyboard ghosts with the former). It takes a bit to get used to spacebar being up/jump, but once you get used to it it's MUCH more comfortable than WASD when it comes to fighting games.

KOF XIII is the only fighting game I've had problems with when playing with an X360 controller, to be honest.
As TimidTofu said, using your keyboard is probably your best option.

You can mod your 360 to have a transforming d-pad. It's shown in this video
It seems really cheap to do and I plan on doing it myself when I get the money.
Aside from if you have a PS2 controller you can buy a PS2 to USB adapter which is great because some games don't detect the 360 triggers or d-pad.

You can play with the keyboard (re-binding will be probably necessary). If you really wanna spend extra money for a dedicated controller which might or might not improve your performance, of course buy an arcade stick. :D

Finally, someone understands me.I hate my controller, only racing and some indie games feel good with it.Tried Dark Souls 2 in my friends house with my controller, keyboard is a lot easier and feels better.

I don't like controllers.

I like my PS3/PC Gamepad, is the best, i think. =o
I don't like Xbox 360 controller, is too big and... Weird(?) is just my opinion, i played all my life with PS controllers and i really love them. With Keyboard is not bad, but is tiring after a while.

Try the Xbox One controller, it actually has an USABLE D-PAD now.

Yeah, it's crap.

This happens because fighting games have 8-way inputs. When you extrapolate those 8 possible directions to flippin' 360 you can expect trouble to happen.
Also the 360 d-pad is crap.

And then, the 360 is also useless for 6 button fighters like Street Fighter or MvC.

Well, it's not good. But if you practice a bit you will get used to it. I play KOF XIII with it and I don't have any major troubles, can make combos and specials quite easily. But, I played a lot of KOF in my life so maybe I just find it easy to use because I'm really used to play the game.
Anyway, Xbox 360 controller d-pad is far, far, far away from an arcade stick, but I will not use the keyboard over it in this game...