I’m a complete Alpha series scrub. I recently got my hands on the Alpha Anthology, though, and figured I would give it a shot. Now my greatest failing when it comes to any fighting game is my execution… it’s complete junk. It doesn’t matter if I’m playing MVC2, CVS2, ST, or 3S. It doesn’t matter if I’m using a pad or a stick. My execution is going to be crap. That said, I really can’t pull off VCs in Alpha 3. I’ve already spent more hours than I care to think about trying to do the ones for Ryu, Sagat, and Sakura and I haven’t had any luck with any of them.
Now I would still like to play the game, but I figure it would be better for me to use Z-Ism or X-Ism. However, I’m not sure what characters are actually solid with those Isms aside from Dhalsim. Can anyone just point me in the right direction with what characters work well with either of those Isms?
Errr… I’m guessing there HAS to be a thread listing non Vism viable characters.
Anyway:
Zangief (A or X)
Chun (A or X)
Blanka (A)
Gen (A)
Guy (A)
Charlie (A)
Adon (X)
Balrog (A or X)
Ken (X)
Ryu (A or X)
And that’s about it. Keep in mind… if you’re having a hard time executing Sagat and Sakura customs (which are about as easy as customs get) Several of those characters are immediately out (Guy, Gen, Charlie, Ken, Ryu). Those characters rely on landing combos to win, and charlie needs his flash kick super. Adon is out, just b/c his pokes suck really bad.
That leads you to scrub row: Blanka, Chun, Gief, Balrog. Easy mode central.
Gief- Best character for easy mode play. Crouch and KKK lariat beats ALL jump ins… Splash or Kness beats non invincible anti airs. Grab when nessesary.
Chun- Cross up with j. short. Then either throw, S.FP, or L. RH. Repeat.
Rog- Xism= low strongxx rush and FP. This is your entire game. Aism is a bit different, you actually have to play a little.
Blanka= Jump around with fierce. Ball alot when people can’t punish. Throw.
Characters that are best in V, but work well in other Ism’s too:
Sim (AX)
Chun (AX)
Gief (AX)
Ryu (AX)
Charlie (A)
Cammy (A)
Adon (XA)
Then there’s a bunch of characters which are so good in V that you shouldn’t use them in A(X), but they’re still really solid in it. Best examples are Karin and Sak.
Just play X-Dhalsim. Or Zangief if you can SPD consistently.
BTW X-Blanka and A-Blanka are pretty much identical- so if you’re not gonna use Alpha Counters or anything, it may be worth losing air blocking and the tiered super in favor of more damage and a longer guard meter.
She’s actually one of the easiest people to Valle VC with, since her activation time is shorter. I believe people discovered that a year or so ago in one of the Japanese ranbats, so I’d rather use her on V.
V-Birdie has an infinite and OTG combos, so I dunno. A-Birdie does shut down projectiles completely though.
It’s really hard to say since a lot of Japanese players will use characters like Blanka on V just for the ability to counter activate since that lets him use his great jump-ins with less fear (plus his supers blow), and I remember a couple guys were doing some crazy shit with V-Ken a while back. He has an infinite on P1 side as well I believe.
Hot damn, I got a lot of replies pretty quickly. Thanks for all of the input.
Scrub row is what I’m all about. I’ll definitely be experimenting with a few different characters now that I have some direction. I’ll also keep practicing Sakura’s VC, but I’m not counting on anything.
When I made this post, I had basically just been using A-Sim since I was already familiar with his basics from ST and I’m a complete Alpha scrub. For some of the other characters I’m interested in trying, though, I’ll have to spend some time just getting used to their basic moves.
Don’t forget X-Rolento, his runaway game works pretty well with the high damage output.
And X-Cody’s super is just funny if you get it in a combo. Corner pressure c.lkxlp.hurricane upper to launch, if they don’t flip, juggle with s.HPxxSuper and then do (c.button, s.button, s.button)xn. Damage rivals most v-ism combos, and funny as hell to watch. Bonus points if you use different buttons for each hit while super is active.
How does being able to hit someone with a crouching Roundhouse just for the sake of losing the ability to block and then facing the risk of the opponent’s potential “reversal” VC, Super or even DP, lead you to the V-ISM over A-ISM preference?
While I agree that V-ISM Rose is a decent contender, it is not due the reason you have listed.
Aside from Kayaman, whose main character is A-Blanka, could you name or at least point me in the direction of these “lots of Japanese V-Blanka players”?
The Level 3 GSR has 40 frames of invincibility, making it one of the harder (hardest?) Supers to drop-through with a VC activation. And if your character does not have an invincible DP-like move, I’m not sure if you can even drop-through and punish. The GSR gives a Level 3-charged Blanka a viable anti-air against V-ISM players without fear (or minimal fear, at least) of the opponent countering.
Isn’t it true that V-Rose can combo INTO her VC from confirmable ground hits(irregardless of counterhit)?
I think it’s something like cross up forward kick, crouch strong, activate, cr strong - blah blah.
And doesn’t Sakura have this ability too? Did anyone ever come up with a list of what characters have the fastest activates?
Well, damn this isn’t the thread for that.
From what I’ve seen the most competitive A-ism characters are:
Dhalsim
Gief
Chun
Charlie
Gen
Guy
Karin
Dhalsim, Guy, and Gen seem to do really well vs V-ism. Due to still having many options available.
Characters like Dhalsim, Chun, Gief, and Charlie in A-ism dominate pretty much the rest of AX-ism. With the exception of being vs Dhalsim, Chun, Gen, Gief, and Guy.
So IMO, I’d say the best choices would be: Dhalsim, Chun, Gen, Gief, or Guy
I actually started trying to practice up some Guy combos last night. The spotty execution was making it tough, but I think it’s a possibility for me if I keep practicing. For some reason I can do normal combo chains into supers decently, but I can’t do VCs.
One problem that I keep running into, though, is doing Guy’s throw into a super. Doing it against a dummy in training mode was fairly simple, but if I set the AI to actually try to get out of it I run into problems because it’s hard for me to tell when they will get out of the throw for me to do the super. Do you just need lightning-fast reactions or is there some trick to it?
But with that said, I think off the grab itself if you and your opponent both don’t hit a thing, then Guy does 4 hits to his grab. You’ve got to be fairly fast to do it on reaction without having your opponent air recover first. Or try cancelling a whiffed cr jab or something.
It’s just NOT a good option to do.
If you’re slow you get air recovered, activated on, and you gave your opponent the round.
note: Dhalsim can recover out of the supers before the last hit anyway. You’d just be throwing options away if you did that to Sim.
The best time IMO, to use it(well, the punch super in general), would be when it puts the round away(preferably the final round).
And ultimately, IMO, the best way to use it is to grab your meterless opponent and get as many knees in as you can, and let them air recover and then do the super as they come down. Test that by throwing out other attacks to see if your opponent is going to air recover or not(during the match. set it up, pretest it.).
Coming from an A-Guy user to you, I do not recommend you start with Guy.
I highly recommend Chun, Gief, or Dhalsim. This is just my suggestion btw.
Right, right, I keep forgetting about air recovery in this game. My scrub-level A3 for the loss…
I had no idea about this, thanks for the heads up.
Is this a good rule of thumb for any A-Ism character? Basically I’m used to 3S where, except for certain situations, you can generally burn your meter any time you have the opportunity to land a super.
I think I’m going to take this advice to heart. The fact of the matter seems to be that I’m just far too unfamiliar with the game’s mechanics as a whole to start off with a character as complex as Guy. Other than Guy I was testing out using Sim, Chun, and Rose, so I think I would be better off just becoming familiar with one or more of those characters, becoming familiar with the game, how it plays, what other characters are capable of against me, etc. and then possibly trying Guy again at a later time once I’m less scrubby. Thanks for a helpful post, I appreciate it. :tup:
A good rule of thumb as far as meter goes, with A vs V, is for A to always have atleast 1 bar at all times. Without it, you can’t use alpha counters, and thus your v-ism opponent gets free damage. Hold onto your meter as long as possible.
Think about your chances for damage output. It’s probably smart to just never use your meter for supers, and save all 3 levels for Alpha Counters. This holds especially true when you’re using a beginning A-Dhalsim, alpha countering is a great part of A-Dhalsim’s defensive options.
V-Akuma is a common v-ism opponent who wins for free if you don’t have an alpha counter. However in the U.S. though, i’d say that Sakura and Gief are the far more popular picked v-ism characters over Akuma, though. Keep in mind though, just in general, alpha counters are key for Dhalsim.
So even if you don’t use the alpha counters the entire fight, it being available to you is very important. So sitting on your meter is a big part of the game. Which is the opposite of 3s, where you’d want to use your meter at every confirmable opportunity. In a3, you can sit on your meter and get away with bluffing.
By Valle VC, I meant that you can hit them with a low start-up hit (c. LK) before they have a chance to switch from high block to low. Most anyone can do it, but I remember reading that it’s harder to defend that against Rose because of her shorter activation time in some topic a year ago, and then seeing it being used in a couple matches.
Also, I said that lots of Japanese players will use characters ‘like’ V-Blanka who aren’t usually considered best in that mode. I never said it was better, but I said it was something to think about. It makes people think twice about AA VCing you and it also gives you more opportunities to AC. If you’re on A/X, you can’t jump in safely unless it’s after a knockdown or a whiffed special, and some of Blanka’s greatest strengths are his jump-ins, so that seems like a waste to me, unless you’re fighting a character without reliable AA VCs.
Yeah, but what happens when you blow your meter? You are fodder for activations and jump-ins for the rest of the match. My argument for V isn’t just that it gives you more options, but that it gives you more options more often since you can get 50% meter back on V in less than the time it takes to get level 1 back on A. Now, that doesn’t mean I think V-Blanka is necessarily better than his A variation, but there is some justification for using him in that mode.
With such short reach on her crouching Short, I have to wonder just how much a factor this really is to advocate V-ISM’s use over A-ISM. You’re talking about being in point blank reach for this, nay, for the opponent to stand. I mean, just how often does the opponent stand up within that range to be hit consistently and constantly? And it is through this that you’re making a preference over A-ISM?
I just don’t see it.
Also, said tactic does not fit the defintion of a Valle CC.
So characters "like V-Blanka can be taken as “characters who are usually thought better in A”, and the players pick these types because they’re sick and tired of being anti-air VC’ed? So according to this I should see lots of Japanese V-Gen, V-Guy, V-Dictator and V-Boxer players who are rarely anti-air VC’ed because they can now drop-through? This is not happening in our current SFA3 climate.
But you can still jump in, even if’s not “safe”. A good reading of the opponent/current situation grants you this. It’s the same reason why people still non-safe jump in on Nekonohi.
My point, which you’ve so hastily glossed over, was that the Super did not “blow” as you put it, but that it was a viable anti-air that prevents the opponent from jumping in - stocked with a gauge or not; and not what happens when the meter is gone. That is a different argument.
And no, I am not necessarily fodder for mid-air activations and jumps-in for the rest of the round, because countermeasures for those exist:
anti-airs which hit early so the opponent has to commit to activating as soon as they jump in or risk getting hit; this type of anti-air is not the sort can can be easily reacted to: air throw, high angle anti-air
bainting/mix-up: throwing/poking when someone lands after a “fishing” jump in; jumping away at a jump in, which can be safe against fishing and can also lead to a mix-up (involving tactics in the previous point) the next time the Customer makes an airborne advance.
Based on this you’re effectively guessing each time you jump in with the intention of activating. All the while putting youself at risk to the above. Even in 3s, with its air parries, once some-one has been hit with an “anti-air”, you don’t see them jumping in with impunity, just to get in, because the mix-up factor, which you don’t seem to acknowlege is present.
Not sure about c.MP (+3 frame advantage), but you can definitely link c.MP after c.LK (+4) -> activation. I think both links are possible, it’s just that the c.LK link is easier so i’ve never tested the other one.
