A conversation with Pherai-sama

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
1

So I contacted Pherai about a year ago because I was sick of being a try hard Gouki scrub, at best. In the PM conversation I asked a few different types of questions but especially on matchup specific knowledge/tips. Since then with the help of this conversation and a bunch of other factors I’ve upped my game and graduated to not so bad :woot:

Below is the first set of questions I asked with answers underneath. Some of it is pretty basic but there are a few tasty nuggets of info in there. Does anyone have interest in seeing more of this helpful tome?

[LEFT]*

*[/LEFT]

[INDENT=1]If you have the time to set it up, a meaty air fireball should be a good wakeup srk deterrent. In general I’d say when you’re first starting a match against someone you haven’t played before, don’t start out with meaty attacks, or anything that puts you at risk for wakeup srk, and try to get that maximum punish if they throw one out.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]Even tho Gouki in general is supposed to attack, if someone is playing jungle (doing risky things like random srk’s), even Gouki players need to turtle.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]Also worth learning is some ambiguous cross ups vs Ken as they make doing wakeup shoryu more difficult. In the Gouki match vids thread that guy just started, theres a couple good ones in the Kuroda vs Ino match.[/INDENT]

[INDENT=1]Ya I like being in Dudleys face. I think the most favorable range for Gouki in this match is just inside the range of Duds fp. As far as being point blank, well, that can be either really good (you just knocked him down in the corner) or really bad (he just knocked you down in the corner). Dudley has good normals, but as far as footsies go, Gouki is stronger. Dudleys go to moves here are gonna be his fp, c.mp, and rh. A good Dud is buffering either super or ex mgb after mp and rh, so careful dashing in. Look for getting your sweep in or connecting low mk into lk tatsu and get his ass to the corner.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]one random fact - even when dud is crouching he gets hit by lk tatsu[/INDENT]

[INDENT=1]vs geneijin just block it out. If you have a sense for when they are going for command grab, you can demon flip out, but its risky. sadly, when a yun activates, as a gouki player, you kind of have to accept youre going to eat some damage.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]however, if yun activates from full screen or near full screen, you can actually avoid geneijin pretty well altogether. remember goukis fireball knocks down (unlike ryu and ken). yuns who activate from far away like to close the gap with dash punch, but if they get hit mid way through by a fireball, iirc they will get knocked down (and the geneijin meter just slips away lol).[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]in this match, id say start getting familiar with how you can use jump tatsu and land at a safe distance from yun. yuns jump a lot, and 1 jump tatsumaki against a yun can turn into a nearly 50% combo costing you no meter. ideally, assuming you dont hit yun, you want to land outside yuns low mk range, so the worst he can do is dash punch, but even better if you are outside jab dash punch range.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=1]in general, I don’t think it benefits you much to try to play footsies vs yun. yun will just jump and divekick, so fight him in the air. I like a demon flip assault from time to time too. Yun doesnt have an srk, so his best answer is to try to walk under them, but that is pretty easy to prevent. anyway thats a lot i hope i didnt overwhelm you. i play gouki v yun a lot lol[/INDENT]

[INDENT=1]Just be wary of his air fireball. Urien gets a bigger damage combo from hitting someone with an air fireball than he does hitting someone with low fp. other than that tho, urien doesnt have such a good anti air game. you can kinda bully urien with gouki lol[/INDENT]
[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]

[INDENT=1]*

*[/INDENT]
[INDENT=2]hahaha. tatsumaki spam is the gouki scrubs crutch. that doesnt mean it isn’t an essential part of goukis game tho. your opponent should know its part of your arsenal. you just need to be able to beat when you realize they can and will punish tatsumaki spam. I play against a lot of guys who can punish a blocked tatsumaki really hard (vinny, pyrolee, 5 star), but if I use it correctly, it throws off their game because they aren’t expecting it. its a great tool for a knockdown or pushing someone to the corner, but it has some huge risk with it.[/INDENT]
[INDENT=2] [/INDENT]
[INDENT=2]also, id say against characters like urien who pretty much have no answer, unless youre playing in tournament, I like to try to win without just spamming tatsumaki. you can probably beat 99% of american urien players just doing mk and rh tatsumaki over and over, but its bad news when you finally play someone who can red parry and you find out you dont know anything about the urien matchup besides tatsumaki spam.[/INDENT]

[INDENT=1] [/INDENT]

2

Heheh, I always laugh at the “dudely” typo.

There was also Ty Renic’s Beast Arena with pherai for more and the visual learning types wasn’t there?

[media=youtube]RXyEbFHcBs4[/media]

Good supplement to tack on here, both sides of the coin/matchup discussed.

3

Please post more. This insight is helpful even though gouki is only my 2ndary.

Also thanks funland for telling me about that cl mk os in the other thread. Been messin with it some. Its real useful.

4

I hope this is useful to you guys :china:

feel free to ask more q’s or disagree or w/e. I’m def no expert

5

So here are the next few installments. At this point I will just post in the next available space. If you guys have a preference for a long original post that is added too then let me know.

[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]

[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]Characters that lk tatsu hits crouching are…[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]Dud, Urien, Q, Hugo, Sean, Gouki[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]My best way of using lk tatsu effectively is either buffering a normal into lk tatsu outside the normals range, or whiff punishing. Against Urien or Q, you would be surprised how effective using c.mp, and buffering lk tatsu will be. c.mp beats Uriens dash and Q’s dash punch really well. Experiment with those kinda things. Against a character like Dudley, I try to keep my eye on moves like fp, or rh that leave his lower body really exposed to tag him with c.mk x lk tatsu.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]Outside of that, you’re guessing, which I still do, but only when I’m confident they are trying for a forward parry.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]I don’t know if you wanna do it, but I really took to doing fp srk after whiff lk tatsu. Whiff lk tatsu should be a guaranteed punish so I like to make people feel stupid for lagging on the punish.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]

[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]

[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]imo against Hugo its best to play safe/gay. The only time Hugo really feels like he has the advantage in this matchup is when he is right on top of you. sure you can’t really do big damage when you are spacing him, but you can do damage and he can’t. this is one of the few matchups where fireball spacing is a legit strategy. its a bit of a war of attrition.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT][media=youtube]HCxYEFkQS1c[/media][/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]In that video Yuki plays the match perfectly. He stays at a safe distance limiting Hugos options to deal damage and slowly chips away at him.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]It’s important to get familiar with the range of Hugos stand mp, his claps, and his low mk. At medium ranges, Hugo players will work with these moves, hoping to earn themselves a dash in. You really can’t let Hugo dash at you. Just be careful when you are trying to stop dash ins of being hit by his stand mp (serious damage vs crouching gouki). I like standing right outside stand mp range, so the dash in is risky, and you can easily punish whiff stand mp with your sweep. that should get you started.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]vs oro, I have a hard time with the match myself, but I can say what I know.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]Oro you have to be patient to beat too. When it comes to normals, you’re kinda at a stalemate. his far mk beats your low mk clean, and his rh will beat it most of the time too. thankfully, his sweep has a shorter range than both moves. naturally, knowing that difference in range is super important. your favorable range here is outside his sweep range if you want to try to get a parry (since at this range, your only concern are moves than can be parried forward, all of which can’t be canceled into anything so its a pretty max punish), or outside those ranges if you want a whiff punish.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]He has a low hitbox, so he can dash under your air fireballs more easily than other characters. You should also be aware that in certain instances, lk tatsu wont combo on him standing due to push back from the normal you are canceling lk tatsu from. to be safe, never try stand fp x lk tatsu vs oro, and only do cr fp x lk tatsu when you are point blank. the rest of the time use c.mk, or cl.mk.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]he does have a few weird properties that make certain combos work on him exclusively. one such combo, is uoh to fp srk. if oro is crouching, this combo works without a meaty timed uoh. this is the only character this works against without meaty uoh. also against oro you can do clk clk x rh tatsu. must be point blank, but this is the only character this works against.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]one other thing that wasn’t obvious to me was that whenever you block his chicken stomp, you can punish with reversal sa1. I’ve had oro players try to get some safe chip damage against me and lose the round because of this lol.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]Oro doesn’t do a lot of damage unless its off his launcher, so if you are good at avoiding that, Oro will pretty much just play hit and run. don’t get impatient and try to force damage, if Oro doesn’t have meter and can’t get enough for a super (typically Tengu stones vs Gouki), you can afford some risks vs Oro, but keep an eye on your life/stun, and focus on reacting to openings.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]I also like to use close stand fp as an anti air vs oro. its kinda hard for oro to connect a jump in combo, and its safer than trying to srk or sa1 as anti air vs an Oro player that is good at baiting those reactions with double jump. if you are attentive though, getting an sa1 as anti air is a strong way to shut oros air game down. really oro players are mostly looking for empty jump throw, and jump in chicken, so keep that in mind.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]

6

This is a kickass thread. “Hell yeah” to Funland for seeking out Pherai’s knowledge (and clearly such actions you’ve taken have paid off over the last year! :slight_smile: ) and now for posting it and to Pherai for, well, the knowledge (still wish we’d gotten a chance to play at Evo, even just a couple of 3AM drunk matches haha but it’ll happen someday). I really like and benefit from the way you think about the game, Pherai, and the truth is I can’t say that about a lot of people on the 3S boards, even guys who are clearly knowledgeable and even very good players.

Gonna post some responses/questions at some point, maybe later tonight if I get a second wind, maybe a month from now lolz

7

ya my one regret from Evo this year was not sittin down for a set with you and rowan. That was one thing I hoped to do, but anytime me and ryan get together we get too faded. Hopefully we can meet up at SB or something? I can tell Rowan can toss back some brews when the mood strikes :rofl:

I really enjoy helping my fellow Gouki players. It’s as beneficial to me as it is to you guys cause it helps remind me to practice what a preach. ESN is pretty knowledgeable too so if I ever say some out there shit he can lay down the 3s science for us.

8

Thanks Poe. Other than SesshaZL I wasn’t sure if anybody had looked at this thread. Guess I’ll run out the next few parts soon. Please feel free to add some feedback on whats posted.

9

Kinda basic but still useful.

[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]

[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]Who will win tatsu vs tatsu is kinda random tbh. As you’d expect, the attacking hitbox of tatsu switches between in front of you and behind you rapidly, so sometimes you’re just unlucky and your attacking hitbox is behind you, while his is in front. Also it seems like if you started yours earlier and you’re at a higher point in your jump arc when you hit him you tend to hit him more often than he hits you.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]Teching throws online is a problem for me to. When I used to fuck around with GGPO everyday after playing it I’d be mashing on throw tech in arcade because I was trying to compensate for how impossible it was to react and tech at the right time online. I’m not sure what to tell you about that because imo thats one of the harder things to do online.[/LEFT]

[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]Back to the good stuff.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]

[/LEFT]

[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]Ok brah, I don’t have too much Ibuki experience but I’ll do my best…[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]As you’ve probably noticed, Ibuki players like to press buttons. She has a lot of pokes with nice block advantage allowing her some really annoying block strings. Character knowledge here is going to help your defense a lot, so heres a couple points…[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]- On the 3sJunkies site click on the resources link and go to the frame data site. It’s important to know out of all of Ibuki’s normals and command normals which ones she can’t special/super cancel/chain. This way you can more effectively try to parry out of block strings. Her two different hop kicks are examples of good moves to try to parry since they can’t be canceled nor are they part of a chain.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]- Ibuki’s ex spin kick can be abused similarly to Gouki’s tatsumaki, so you often see Ibuki players throw this move out unconfirmed from a low short or mk or something like that. If they do use it and its blocked, you have to ALWAYS remember to crouch block it (unless you’re trying to be a stud and red parry it, but I wouldn’t recommend that just yet). It’s the stupidest thing, but so many Ibuki players get away with getting stupid knockdowns because people forget that the move can be switch to the ground kick or whatever that you need to block low[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]- Ibuki’s daggers don’t knock you out of almost anything, so if you see an Ibuki player jump in ex daggers you can shoryu right through it.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]- Ibuki juggles weird. You can only connect fp srk after lk tatsu if you do lk tatsu > jab x fp srk. It’s kinda tough so you might just want to do strong srk instead.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]- If I’m confident, I’m not shy about throwing out some srk’s mid block string or on my wake up just to keep Ibuki players honest. Nothing Ibuki does with or without meter after a blocked srk does as much damage as jab srk x sa1 to Ibuki.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]- As far as playing up close, Ibuki’s ability to deal damage is greatly reduced once you are outside the range of her knee. I think this is a good offensive position for Gouki as you are still within kara throw, and c.mk range.[/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]

[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT] [/LEFT]
[LEFT]SesshaZL I hope to see at least a few of your signature smart ass questions. Please anyone else join in to start some conversation on these subjects. I’m sure some of you other Gouki players have different approaches to matchups.[/LEFT]

10

Nice! I expect you to thoroughly destroy my Ibuki if we ever grind that one out, or I get so brash as to think I can go use Ibuki to mainly hit Normals as 1 off confirms and not run all over press buttons willy nilly, and some Tsumiji? The Hurricane kick with her, usually as a go to blockstring to keep my spacing, and be safe on grounded approach.

Though with the lag, I def won’t sneak in post LK Hurricane version ends - lull - advantage to try close MK to catch anything thrown out hastily, EX hurricane confirm. Always seems to fail despite the “Ibuki is a teleporting jerk in lag,” lag is truly unfair to both players as I say a lot.

Funny pherai didn’t say just use ‘Perfect Obliteration!’ paraphrase of the classic win quote of course. Lil bro loved that line for a man of such few words, Gouki.

Or truly Gouki can obliterate her like no other - when you have big damage lv 2 Supers
A few combos, especially with any crouching bonus damage will put her down. She has similar or even less overall health than Gouki! Pushing back with strong punishes will slow their roll and confidence very quickly. Even against Gouki, she doesn’t have too much of a comeback factor. You’re likely not eating Kunai Rain SA1 while crouching or something egregious for big damage. She will need the momentum back and probably 3-4 solid confirms with the best case scenario to setup another and find you not blocking or putting you where she wants you for unexpected mixups. And in being “jungle” flying all over, she may not hit her best ones by not playing so solid and only playing as if fishing for anything, with no real plan in mind. The “jungle” can and will run out if the Gouki is smart and waits it out to pick his spots rather than sit and be overwhelmed or desperation Shoryu she might have a bait ready and answer for. Glad pherai gave you confidence even if DevJin is now a no show, busier with other games… can still give me Ibuki tips if he remembers anyway thru a request PM I sent him! I see you logging in everyday, Marvel 3 postin! Congrats on top 8, cool writing hopeful of SF4 back when it was a one topic sticky of discussion and new information only a seperate topic… with maybe other play him up near brown nosing too. Damn.

Not as in depth as a more specialized player could be and of course going on retreading some well known stuff, I’m not much of an Ibuki, but am still open for the matchup anytime. Do need to head on there earlier for games these days.

  • oh right, something else not said, unless its just lesser info than deep into the matchup:

I’ll have to learn more about her cl HK launcher to give you a more full run down on what to expect in setting that up, what she gets if it hits, and what she can setup after. While the cr HK stand HK target combo to sJump pursuit you, you may notice is a good time for Gouki Shoryuken that will win as she’s commited to the jump and usually an attack, and as said, the Kunai or even EX won’t win out. Learning quickly when you can take control of Gouki again is something to note… again making sure to compensate for lag and perhaps being smart and blocking it out rather than fail due to missing frames and speed as seen Online.

11

after command dives or demon flip dives, what is the deciding factor between using cl. mk or st hp?

I pretty much use hp only because if it hits, confirm in to max damage bnb.

of course Ive seen match and others do the cl mk after the dive, and follow it up with a shoryu, tatsu etc. etc.

12

I’ve always felt like with mk you could more reliably combo from a high hitting dive kick than with hp. Both moves have the same start up so I don’t know why this would be, but it’s just something I’ve noticed over the years. I suspect that’s why.

One thing I do know is in certain situations hp will push your opponent too far away for lk tatsu to combo. Oro is a good example of this.

13

Won’t hp wiff on some crouching characters?

14

I believe so. Probably on Oro among others

15

Will it help visually at all, since that knee bash is dope and looks cooler confirmed right after into Special, Super, etc.

While HP is part of the ol’ JRod smack xx Demon Flip Dive xx loop fighter more.

16

Regarding the post-divekick normal choice, close fierce does a ton of damage and stun, but it’s also really negative on block and does a ton of pushback, so unless you’ve already confirmed into a combo or are going for a JR cancel into DF loop (or perhaps you might want pushback in a few situations like against Makoto SA2 or Hugo), close mk, which is safe on block and doesn’t have much pushback, will allow you to continue pressure by going low or throwing or walking up and close mk-ing again, overhead, etc. Also, close fierce is really tough to cancel straight Into super in my experience, at least on 3SOE, so that’s a major point for close mk.

17

A few questions for Pherai-sama and anyone else who wants to chime in:

  1. Hit confirms… Not the obvious ones (cr lk/cr lp chains into super, close mk into super)… This can kind of be tied into Sessha’s question. What do you do to hit confirm after command or DF dive kick? Sometimes, like if they whiff a move, it’s easy, but what if it’s a random block type situation? I’m trying to cut back on my blocked tatsus, and I have tremendously, but I still throw out mk tatsu after a lot of blocked dive kicks. My issue is especially with the command dive kick which often doesn’t combo into a medium or heavy normal on hit, so a lot of the time my instinct is to take my chances with the unconfirmed tatsu :confused:

  2. Cr lk cr lp or a similar string into fierce srk or medium/heavy tatsu… Ive heard talk from Rohan et al about cr lk cr lp tatsu hit confirm in the corner. I was messing around against Alex earlier and it seems you can confirm into fierce SRK even midscreen at least if he’s standing. What kinds of confirms into non-SA1 moves are useful with these strings?

  3. Are cr mp and far mp particularly useful as confirms into anything? They have pretty good frame advantage on hit. I’ve tried to come up with links into these normals, which can seem possible at first glance looking at the frame data, but in practice it seems like it might not be possible due to pushback, crouching requirements, etc.

  4. Lastly, this is kind of a bigger question and a tangent from the others, but what kinds of tactics do you typically go to after a blocked short short or short jab short string (a failed hit confirm into super)? Sometimes I freeze/panic/go jungle in these situations because I am not comfortable with enough safe-ish pressure tactics from this range (my instincts are often to jump, cr forward, cr forward tatsu, etc., all of which can be good I would guess but none that can’t be countered pretty significantly by a strong defensive player).

Thanks and more comments soon :slight_smile:

18

Sorry for the triple post but I’m using my phone so it’s a lot easier than editing.

Cr lk, cr lp into early canceled hp SRK works really nicely on alex from point blank. You can also do mp srk - the third hit of the fierce SRK will whiff if you don’t cancel it pretty early. Lp SRK whiffs. Cr lp cr lp also works and might end up more reliable than cr lk cr lp due to less pushback (right?). I am gonna keep testing for sure, on other characters as well as with crouching characters.

This is also a PERFECT application of the down-forward, down-forward SRK shortcut. Much much easier that way.

One note on that shortcut… Curiously, I discovered that the shortcut works for forward punch or kick teleport, but doing 2x down-back does not work to produce a backward punch or kick teleport. Really wish I’d known that months ago as I’m sure I’ve failed to get teleports on wake-up and eaten huge combos not realizing that you can’t use the shortcut to go backwards. Dunno if the same is true in arcade.

19

dive>knee>kopan shoryu>sa1

does more damage than just knee super right? I see match do this quite a bit.

but every time I look at the damages in training mode, its a diff. damage half of the time for some reason…I swear got like 69 damage once, and then like 51 the next time I tried.

and of course cabs have no training mode lolololololololol FUCK OE.

20

what is “kopan shoryu”?

Adding the shoryu probably adds damage. I was surprised to learn when I first got into training mode experimentation that close mk, fireball, super does more damage than just close mk, super. And I’m 95% sure I saw not that long ago that dive kick, close mk, fireball, super does more than dive kick, close mk, super, so the srk would probably be even more.

I’ve learned a few interesting things about damage scaling and such. For example, if you do cr mk, fireball, super, the damage varies widely, and I figured out that the variation depends on the timing of the cancels/hits. I believe that if the regular fireball hits before the super, it does more damage than just cr. mk super, but if the super hits first, then you get the scaled super and I’m not sure the regular fireball actually does damage at all in the scenario. I’m not positive that I have the specifics right here, but it’s that is basically where the issue is. Close mk fireball super, however, always does more damage than close mk super because the fireball always connects first and the super combos during the fireball hitstun.

Also, the damage of most SRKs varies depending on where in the srk you hit them (how “deep” it is), so that could be part of it. If you’re from farther range, you might get a weak damage SRK compared to if you are right up next to them and cancel into SRK as early as possible. Also, you’re probably doing this, but you should use jab SRK because with jab SRK you get the full damage of the SRK (whatever that damage may be) compared to MP or HP where you have to cancel before all of the SRK’s hits connect.