always slide. ALWAYS. Slide is best punish!!!
the only time you wouldn’t want to slide would be if you were close enough to u1, or if you use u2 vs. ryu.
But how often are you going to block a sweep with db charge?
Clearly you haven’t fought against 70% of Ryus on PSN Ranked Matches around here… sweep it’s the only normal for them, always.
Yeah that’s what I meant, my bad.
Yeah, slide is awesome against his sweep, even at max range, it will punish it.
I don’t really consider pairings with randoms online as actually playing the game, haha.
You’re absolutely right.
You end up creating “special” tactics to fight them, and those tactics slowly infiltrate on your own playstyle, crippling your ability to evolve in the game.
Alas, for most of us it’s the only way to play against another person…
Ryu is unable to punish MP ball on block without Super or Ultra correct?
mp safeball is safe, normal balls can sometimes be punished by dash > sweep
Could use some anti-Sagat here.
I know this is a bad match up for Blanka… but it’s just tough…
here’s how’s the game goes for me.
My strategy is really to try to score one knockdown so i can get in safely then trying to continue to pressure him with pokes ideally at s.LP range that’s when i can somewhat continually pressure him with pokes or walking in closer for s.LP xx electricity pressure… or sometime walking in closer for karathrow attempt and every so often hopping in… or s.LP cancel into hop in… personally I find playing aggressive against a Sagat usually yields me better result than trying to play turtle and eventually getting dying due to getting cornered eventually… and dying… by getting tiger shotted/tiger kneed to death, or my attempts at countering tiger shot ended up getting punished like crazy…
It feels like… if I don’t stay ontop of him… I lose… problem is… aside from far s.LP (and closer) range all other range i lose…
if i’m at s.MP range… I feel like the poke game here… Sagat have a slight advantage due to the fact he does more damage and got more options here…
anything further it feels like a bigger gamble for me… basically i can’t really ball him… LP ball really doesn’t do any good on whiff, hit or block… on whiff… if i’m lucky i can get right inside… which is what i want… but at the cost of maybe getting hit out of LP ball before or afterwards… on hit… i’m too far out again… and have to work my way back in which is extremely tough… and on block… although i’m fairly safe but it’s basically same scenario like on hit… not to mention Sagat will always use U2… which is a guaranteed damage.
In general this particular Sagat player I play… is extremely patient… if outside of poke range… he’ll either start throwing out tiger shots… or focus attack… to hopefully catch my slide… my ONLY real chance to get in is really if i guessed he’s gonna focus attack… and I hop in and throw him… and maintain ontop… but if he doesn’t focus attack… then hopefully I try to either slowly work my way in… or gamble with slide… but it’s usually for the worse… but i feel it’s kinda necessary… If i hop at the wrong time i will just get hit out of it…
c.HP is pretty much just as bad as the slide…
coward crouch i feel like is near useless in this match up… i either get hit out of it eventually or… i corner myself.
the Sagat player rarely uses tiger knees unless i’m pretty much cornered… otherwise the only type of tiger knees he does out of the blue is ex tiger knees which sometimes feels like the best move in the game when it comes to beating Blanka.
anyways… that’s about it… anything to suggest or help? or am i on the right path and getting owned is pretty standard
-LAU
I guess all Blanka players hate this matchup
-LAU
maintain slide spacing, reaction slide a tiger shot.
in closer use st.hp(ducks focus and stuffs his normals)
j.hk is great at causing tiger uppercut to whiff.
Im starting to think the trick is to not bother sliding. Dont know about you but i always eat fireballs trying. Just edge in to footsies range. St.hp if they’re not fireballing you out. Always watch to st.lp x hop their focus attack.
Build up their confidence with throwing fireballs. Block em. Jump when you have ultra. You have to jump or get chipped out, so at least make it do 400 damage otherwise dont bother.
Safejump of throw or cr.hk. try not to get fireballed in the face too much.
partially agree with you about the slide. I’d never move back to maintain slide spacing vs. sagat as I would vs. other fireball characters, if he’s willing to move forward just take the initiative.
Low Tiger Shots are probably the hardest projectile to slide though.
Honestly… I really think maintaining slide distance and trying to slide under tiger shot is pretty hard for me… and if i reacted wrong I get punished big… and if my reactions are too slow I get hit by low tiger shots anyways… the guy pretty much uses low tiger shots like 90% of the time…
as for s.HP… I do that already… but it’s not something I will say will make a huge difference in the game… the focus attack will miss if you’re at the right distance… but if you’re not he can hold it longer and still hit you for it… finally last but not least since you’re using s.HP as a counter poke you end up eatting low tiger shots a lot…
don’t understand your “jump when you have ultra”…
This match up is hard… because at a certain distance you’ll get kara tiger uppercutted for neutral jump…
and honestly… reacting to jump is usually too late… now if you’re predicting the tiger shot and you jump… that’s just gambling but definitely at disadvantage… however I still feel it’s necessary to jump at Sagat simply because simply walking in… is too hard if he knows you’re scared to jump… but if you mix both a bit… with jumping maybe once per round at most (unless he sucks)… that will make things easier.
another question is… i do manage to corner sagat sometimes… but when i do… all he does is just sit in the corner and wait for me to be in range for poke -> tiger shot … or wait for me to jump and punish… any suggestions?
-LAU
I didn’t say neutral jump.
I said wait until you have ultra and then jump when you think he’s going to throw a fireball. If you have ultra stocked its worth the risk. You can’t beat sagat or ryu in footsies if they late fireball, which is too hard to slide on reaction, so you have to jump. And you can’t jump on reaction so you have to guess and jump when you think he will throw the fireball.
Sagat beats blanka pretty badly. Out footsies him, out damages him out chips him. You can play correctly and still get beaten more often than not. It’s a bad matchup.
then i guess we’re more or less agreeing with each other… but to me I don’t see why not having ultra vs having ultra taking that ‘risk jump’ makes a difference… with ultra… sagat will definitely be more keen on NOT throwing fireball… but wait… i’m assuming you’re picking U2 which is what I use in this matchup
-LAU
I always pick ultra 1. It’s the Only way to make a few select risks worth taking. Like jumping in, going for the overhead or hopping on their wakeup.
My reflexes suck, so U2 never really worked for me.
I also have crap reaction as well… i have very few success with U2 because my reaction sucks… but i still feel it’s somewhat necessary because it does limit Sagat going crazy tiger shots… and there are certain places that I kinda look out for that Sagat usually likes to throw tiger shot out… and that’s really when i’m most successful with connecting it… and if they don’t throw out the tiger shots there… it gives me an easier time to get in…
some places like… Sagat can’t really easily throw a meaty tiger shot… or can’t immediately throw a tiger shot immediately after his ex tiger shot gets blocked… those are the easy place to look out for other places… just simply sitting on downback… will make them slow down the shots a bit…just because the risk/reward isn’t really in their favor…
vs… U1… you kinda need to take multiple risks to get that to land on Sagat…
first you gotta find a way to get in… (risk 1)
then you have to find a place to connect it (risk 2)
finally if you’re doing it in a ‘combo’ that is tight enough to be consider a risk itself (risk 3…sorta)
and finally as an added bonus… assuming Sagat is picking U2… which imo is the better choice… there are more reliable setups to chip kill him with U2… if they pick U1 most of your setups will be thrown out of the window… but it’ll mean EX/LP ball is safe… which i feel is actually necessary in this match before he gets U2… shutting down his ability to tiger shot mindlessly with a low chance to punish is definitely better than getting punished like crazy much and shutting down one of your tools.
-LAU
Now that I know you can plink ultras I just see it as another combo. I haven’t practiced enough but really there’s no reason why we shouldn’t hit cr.mk, U1 every single time. Meaning off a jump in or focus crumple it should be guaranteed.