always hear that upball,mp ball are safe = 8-2mu so in sf4 blanka only had 8-2mu?
i need 10 balls for same chip as 1reaction dp
you cant ball good players more than 3 times
good hawks not jump and they punish mp balls what can i do? every trade is a loose for blanka
too if i complete play lame i have a change but the risk that he corner me is high
next time i play a set vs good hawk i try to upload it
You need to be more aware of what you are doing. You can’t just throw the moves out like crazy.
his non ex dp’s aren’t startup invincible, he can’t react to upball, and you can definitely ball good players more than 3x.
You just aren’t that good and are looking at the matchup from the eyes of not playing it skillfully.
Selfmadeking:
Here’s some more tips.
- if he DP your MP ball, bait him with LP ball so the DP will whiff.
- remember to build meter with electricity, this is one of those match ups having an EX ball could be useful to throw off his timing
- hop into upball is a good way to provoke him.
In general it’s tough for T-Hawk as long as you’re not terribly predictable. If he’s just sitting back and chilling this means you can build meter with electricity. And if he tries to come in at you that’s when you pay more attention and try to push him back or make him take the chip damage or even just to scare him a bit with hop forward.
If he does condor spire (fly horizontal move) be ready to slide him out of it or punish it in general.
If you have a decent life lead (doesn’t need to be too much) there’s really no reasons why you need to go in at him.
-LAU
Still having trouble against the local sagat player, but at least now I know he’s actually one of the top players in Hong Kong.
I realized before when I go into this match unlike my other more confident match up a I don’t really have a solid game plan. Making me play more by reaction and what works generally rather than focus on the game plan.
So would like to hear what others think of this match up.
Here’s my thought for now see if you guys want to comment or add to it.
Generally in this match up I can’t play keep away for obvious reasons. My goal is to try to stay close to him and corner him. My main source of damage will be based on ground games footsies and occasional mix up after a hard knockdown.
Jumping is necessary for this match up but gotta do it seldomly and as safe as possible, should try not to make jumping guess should focus on ground games especially when he’s within do range.
Sagat damage comes from fireball, and anti air. Finally occasional post knockdown mix up/OS
Anyways will love to hear more comments from you guys. Probably do the same for some of my other hard match up next… Like seth
Try to advance forward, and work max range st.jab and st.hp. they both do great vs. his buttons and the st.hp can even make dp whiff. Once you’re in do jab elec pressure to throws/ch stuff and try to not get dp’d.
Don’t coward crouch ts unless they are hk or ex low. If he does a high tigershot and you don’t think you have time to slide it, you can cr.hp from about 2/3’s screen.
Represent safeslide to induce focus backdashes to work him to the corner, or just simply chase them down.
b.throw dash j.hk makes dps whiff
f.throw, whiff mp ball, very late j.hk, jb.hk is a fuzzy setup, can os sweep to cover backdash here too.
f.throw, backdash, forward dash j.hk is a fake crossup that makes dp whiff in the corner.
It’s definitely hard and an uphill battle. blanka’s normal anti zoning game doesn’t work so you have to force sagat into making mistakes and just try to read dps correctly.
Seth is much easier than Sagat in my opinion, I’ll go over Seth in a bit, you have like definitive things to do vs. him.
Thanks for the tips, like you said I also agree Seth is easier it’s just I’m lost on how to approach him. I feel very much like playing rock paper scissors in this match without much of a general strategy/goal
Back to Sagat. I’ve been using lp and mp even c.mp a lot in this match up to poke and push him to the corner. However I really hate his s.mk it’s insanely good and his ex tiger knees seems to be like the best move in the game when I push him forward. He either hits me and push me wayyy back or on block he puts me in a mix up where I have no good options, keep in mind I don’t have down charge if I block this since I’m most likely playing footsie
Anyways here some setups that I found recently.
After the set ups below I get to force a throw/c.lk mix up on Sagat unless he dp.
1.Forward throw, lp ball, mp electricity
2. Back throw, mp ball (getting the timing on ball is weird here)
3. C.hk, slide
vs. Seth
you want to play right outside of dash command grab range if you have a lifelead, if he dashes forward here you can react to the dash and force a dash dp if he wants to try to beat out a normal, and you can also react to jumps here well. far mp is okay vs. divekicks, but I also like buffering electricity because seth players love jumping.
when advancing vs. seth don’t worry about st.hp, you can punish it on hit or block, so be willing to move forward if needed and take the trade.
focus backdash loses to the spd part of his mixup, but it dodges his huge horizontal dp range and will also get out of the way of normals. mixing this up with ex rainbow, normal backdash(once you’ve established you can make the dp whiff with focus), and nj’s is huge.
reversal rainbow roll escapes the j.short unblockable with only an air reset.
f.throw, dash hop, walk a tiny step back, immediate j.mk is an unblockable. works after super/ultra too but you have to delay the jumpin by 9 or so frames compared to the f.throw knockdown.
f.throw, whiff hop/hp ball, whiff throw, j.mk is an unblockable in the corner, works after super/ultra too but you have to delay by 9ish frames again.
b.throw, dash, j.hk hits front side and makes dps whiff. This is best when seth is near the corner but not quite in it because it will mess up both the corner and midscreen unblockables.
after soft knockdowns or sweep you can meaty st.hp near max range and it will low profile his dp. In the corner if you attempt this and he wakes up with a jab/short you can link off the st.hp with cr.lp into hp ball.
Once you establish that you can kill Seth on one offensive sequence with unblockables things get a bit easier, and ex rainbow helps to keep him honest as it beats both dp and command grab, and like cr.short os sweep.
So back to more feedback regarding Sagat and Seth .
First Sagat.
Still losing the same amount because I haven’t really got the chance to practice the setups on a weaker Sagat player. So I end up messing up or forgettting when I do fight him.
On the other hand I do feel more confident with the match despite losing its getting closer. I also see myself pressuring him once I hit far MP range and closer. With far MP I can sometime stuff tiger shots or trade in my favor. He might pull out ex tiger knee which will trade but at least I made him spend a meter and he doesn’t have as great of wake up game since its not his standard knockdown
Also my footsie in this match up is improving making him think twice throwing out far mk. Still quite a far way to go.
Seth:
Played against the best Seth in Hong Kong made him switch out of using ryu and evil ryu.
Obviously not ready for him. Tried to use your tips against him in fact was reading it in between rounds and match.
Problem is I don’t know what to do during neutral game. He pretty much never does s.hp at punishable range. But that’s not even what I’m losing to. I get mid range against him it’s hard to anti air him. Far jump mp helps but when he starts using his jump mp I’m kinda screwed. And since I cant exactly jump like a maniac I slowly move in he starts jumping at me mixing up regular j.hk, dive kick, j.mp (whiff) throw. Everything else is your standard Seth vortex that everybody gets hit by when they are cornered.
Also keep forgetting to not jump against his tandem stream strings doesn’t help. And jumping at the wrong place fearing spd doesn’t help either … Ended up not getting hit by a single spd but ate all the frame trap combos instead…
Neutral is hard. you have to just react to everything like a robot, and make some reads on when he’s jumping/tandening. It’s pretty obnoxious
btw… didn’t realize the sagat guy i play is on xbl as well, supposedly he’s only #2 sagat in HK, have never played #1 because he plays at different arcade. and #1 sagat taught #2.
here’s a footage of him playing.