Hey guys I’ve been playing Ssf4 seriously for almost a year now and am finally getting a hang of it. The plan i wanted to do now was play ranked battles online until i get C rank for every character, I was thinking if i learned how to play every character i’d be better when i fight them.
But i’m having second thoughts about five characters in, Sometimes i get my butt kicked so hard in matches with a unfamiliar character it’s sad.
Do you guys think i should just grind my current plan out? Or just pick a main character now and grind on them alone?
Definitely pick a main and grind them alone. Getting C rank with a character is meaningless, and trying to learn every character in SF4 (which has a very large cast) is an incredibly lofty goal for a beginner.
Imo, playing as a character in order to learn the matchup against that character should be your last resort to learning matchups. Just go out there and play against them online. You can learn matchups very well without every actually playing as anybody but your main, and its much more effecient than trying to learn every character. Just think about all the time you’d spend just learning every characters combos, and that still doesn’t really teach you shit about the matchups.
I agree with having one main but playing 2 or 3 different style characters as secondaries helped me improve my game and general execution. I would also ignore tiers and pick whatever character style fits you, but you have to mess around with different characters to find that out imo.
If you have to play online, do not play ranked. The vast majority are just people looking to get those points and trying to gimmick and guess their way in a first to one. You will be learning extremely little at a very slow pace. Play endless and look for good players. Ask them what you did wrong, what you could be doing instead. How to deal with certain mix ups. Stuff like that.
Watch replays of your matches when possible if you’re not just getting off of SF. It really helps identify bad habits and tells you what you need to work on. Try to avoid watching replays when you’re in the middle of playing, as your judgement may be clouded.
And if you find yourself losing to someone who throws you over and over. Or DPs through a supposedly true block string every time. These things online are basically impossible to beat sometimes. It’s really a guessing game and most of the time, you have to just try laming it out if you run into players like these. Don’t factor them into what you could be doing differently unless it’s happening in 8 out of 10 games you played (but in ranked, 8 out of 10 players are basically just using online tactics anyway, so this is another reason to avoid it.)
tl;dr = be careful of what you take from online.
Also, stick to one character for now. Picking up a secondary is okay after you get familiar with that character, but three characters is kind of pushing it.
Yea just practice, its ok to stick with a main or even 2 mains if they play similarly. This game is going to be around for a while, I think SFxT will be fun, but SF4 has proven staying power.
Learn to block. Don’t pick up the bad habit of doing anything but blocking on your wake-up. Shit is fine in SF4 but will fuck you over if you ever want to play a good game.
There isn’t much anyone is going to tell you that hasn’t been said, especially here. Read. Grind. Practice. Read. Grind. Practice. Read. Grind. Practice. Stop when you’re not having fun. Pick it back up when you’re ready to have fun.