Alright, so I want to give some new life to this forum since it’s been dead since AE’s release… so just ask away and I’ll answer the best I can.
v2012 is almost here…meaning that we are almost top-tier again!!
Keep shit on topic though
To break the ice:
What is the best method of getting in on turtle characters like Honda who sit back and attack on reaction? Should I Whiff normals while slowly inching forward, like s.mp? I’m in the 4K PP realm, so I do o.k., but I blatantly know I have holes, so don’t think I’m simply rushing in like a maniac screaming WARRRR with my ripped shirt off at a canon ready to strike.
I use light version wheel kick here and there, many people say wheel kick is worthless but I don’t find it useless at all. Someone like Ryu who low forward to zone you out can get punished by wheel kick at the right distance, likewise many characters who go for low attacks can get punished if you don’t make it obvious, I make it work like a really slow overhead at close to mid range and with a trade it can be in Abel’s favor. I also tend to use this against characters who back-dash like rose after they attack then back-dash out or El Fuerte. I don’t abuse it though, but I do use it. What are your thoughts on wheel kick? When do you use it if ever?
I use S.HP a bunch to anti-air neutral jumps, so much so that it just comes out automatically, but I’ve seen you do falling sky on neutral jumps, do you do this on reaction or in anticipation?
Honda is kind of a tough match-up…impossible if you don’t know it.
Your main goal at first is to hold your ground and not let him get free damage, meaning that you shouldn’t let him jump in for free or just walk up with HHS pressure. Use your normals to push him back (st.lk, st.mp, sweep, fwd.mk) while at the same time looking for the jump in. His jump mp is gdlk and will stuff your normal aa’s if timed right, but the timing is different for your aa options. Meaning that he has to time his mp early to stuff your elbow, but your cr.mk will aa it cleanly (the mp will just whiff while you punish him), but he can also time it a little later to stuff cr.mk, but cr.hp will pop him up.
It’s a mixup that isn’t in your favor TBH, since if he lands a jump-in he gets a 30-40% combo on you. You can also try to FA lvl2 his jump-in if he’s pressing mp early, you’ll get a free crumple every time. If I have meter, I just go with EX.COD to aa, since you can combo into EX.FS or U1 if it hits. One thing to note though, is if he hits you with jump mp really high up, he can’t combo if he didn’t get a CH, so you can just block or reversal.
Once you stop him from jumping in for free, that’s when the real match start. Watch his movements carefully…when he’s charging back, just walk forward. He’s probably going to start throwing out st.hk and st.hp if you get in range… just st.lk his shit, your poke beats all of his for free. Get into footsie range and do your standard shit while respecting headbutt. You should also watch for his neutral jump at this range… if you see him do it, you can cr.mk, st.mp, ex.fs or ex.cod depending on the distance.
If you keep on walking and stuffing his shit, he’s going to get antsy and will probably jump at this point, be ready for it and don’t lose 30-40% because of a stupid mistake. Don’t jump unless you see him walk forward, jumping once in awhile when he doesn’t have charge is actually recommended, as it puts him on his toes and forces him to do more neutral jump hp in anticipation. Wheel kick is also good when he doesn’t have charge, it stuffs his pokes and also stuffs early jump-ins.
On knockdown, just respect his options and don’t get to hasty. Try to kill his charge after a TT or FS knockdown by rolling to the other side. His only wake up option at this point will be butt-slam, and you can OS that shit to hell.
Wheel kick is good, but people that depend on it get blown the fuck up by others that know the matchup. Lk.wheel kick (WK) is the only version you should ever use IMO (besides EX of course). The other kicks are too slow and any decent player will punish the living shit out of you if you try using it. Lk.WK is actually GDLK if you know how to use it and use it sparingly. Match-ups where I find it pretty abusable are vs Ryu, Ken, Honda, Boxer, Fuerte, Rose, Gief…and… actually, scratch that, this move is usable in pretty much every match, just learn spacing and timing.
Also, don’t punish backdashes with WK, you have 52435632 other options that deal 5x more damage
I actually buffer the motion when I’m teching or going for a throw, that way if they neutral jump out of my tech/throw, I get a free knockdown. Sometimes I use st.hp when I’m not ready for the jump, and just continue the mixup with a ambiguous roll.
play any good vipers? I could use any tips anybody has
what are some ways to deal with Rufus/twins dive kick pressure?
I remember something about cr.hp/throw os you were doing in the grand finals of WCW3 against Ricky Ortiz lol.
I’ll do a write up later, I want to do a thorough write-up instead of a quick, half-assed one. Expect it this week.
Input is cr.hp~lk+lp, you have to input it really late to avoid getting your cr.hp thrown.
It doesn’t work vs twins, they blow right through that shit. Best thing to do is just guess and st.hp or jump back fierce. I don’t know though, I actually use Makoto vs twins in this version, it will probably change in v2012.
I’m gonna be playing Abel in Japan after SBO 100%. I’m gonna try and learn as much technology as possible and post it here
thanks bro. you staying in Japan for a bit after Tougeki?
Why Utah so free to Idaho?!?!?! =P
How did you learn your Abel OS’s I am having a tough time trying to implement them into my game.
What do you have to say about the Vega matchup? If I can’t get him knocked down, I have a hell of a time getting in on him with those flying mix-ups.
What is your opinions on the Sakura matchup? I feel it’s very even
Yo fergus, you might remember me posting on the sak forums a bunch, well I dropped her weeks ago and have been playing abel lol. I’m not 801 strider but I’ll offer some insight since I know both characters inside and out more or less, and have a LOT of experience from both character’s perspective.
Sakura’s main goal in this match-up should be to keep Abel out, and she has all the tools to do it. c.HP beats anything aerial obviously, s.hk is amazing in footsies against any grappler and Abel is no exception, use this to beat s.lk/step-kick but don’t be too obvious or you’ll be whiff punished. I’ve never looked too much into Sakura’s grab range but when I played her it felt GDLK so just play grabby so he’s too scared to roll (while at the same time watching out for TT’s). Tatsu pressure obviously beats ex CoD and focus so if he tries that just give him the shunpuu. Don’t go for resets after ex tatsu, you will be put on the ground (more-so if the Abel player has a meter to spam Ex-TT, if you think he’s going to do that you can grab him out of it for the lulz and then scare him so you can do your usual resets, but it’s just better to be safe).
You shouldn’t need any fancy tricks in this match-up, play it safe. If you’re the sakura in this match-up just pretend you’re dhalsim. Take Abel down piece by piece instead of with combos and resets, you have all the tools, just watch what abel does and react so he can’t get in.
On Abel’s side of the match-up, get a life lead and a meter (lol). … but seriously, do that. Just get a life lead, a meter and sit in range of ex-wheel kick. It’s your match now. The only options Sakura has at that point are to do something stupid, her best option is to get you to block an Ex-Tatsu because that puts her at +4 and forces you to guess what she’s going to do next, don’t let her do that shit. Sakura’s also LOVE neutral jump hk. I’m not saying that they’ll do it every time they knock you down, but THEY WILL DO IT EVERY TIME THEY KNOCK YOU DOWN (if they’re bad) so just always be ready to react to that with whatever you would normally use to punish neutral jumps.
That’s pretty much all I can think of right now. Unless you want to hear my rant about how Ex-Tatsu being +4 on block is an absolute fucking joke.
I’m staying for a week after SBO. I’m gonna go to NSB as well. Thanks to my sponsor, HadMD
Idahoes are still Utah’s bitches…that hasn’t changed yet.
As for the OS’s, I don’t really do super-complicated shit with Abel like I do with Makoto… You can get away with just learning basic OS’s that cover backdash/reversals (cr.lk~sweep, cr.lp~Ultra, cr.lp~step kick, etc.). To cover neutral jumpers, just normal throw a lot more. It lets you punish jumps for free with your tool of choice, and conditions them to tech in between strings, which makes your TT 10x stronger.
If you want to learn them or integrate them in your game, just hit up training mode. I can’t stress it enough about how important training mode is…people expect to learn shit and improve without ever putting in the time/effort to actually do so. You can’t learn new tech or setups by just playing ranked 24/7… You have to put in the time in training mode, learn some new tech/tricks, and then try to use them in your game when you play offline/online. There is no replacement for training mode…it might be boring most of the time, but it’s necessary to lvl up your game. You gotta grind that shit out.
I think I did a post on this a while ago explaining the ground game vs him. Found it.
It’s not really detailed… but these are just the basics. Don’t get caught up trying to play footsies for too long…it’s just not worth it, you’ll get fucked up. The longer the match takes, the better chance he has to win. Take them risks, get in, and fuck him up. Of course I’m not telling you to just play like an idiot and expect to win…take educated guesses, but do it quick, and do it fast.
If you knock him down, watch out for his gay little flips. Just do meaty normals and punish the flips on reaction with cr.mk -> COD or dash up TT. This match-up is free once you knock him down, you just have to take some risks to do it.
I think it’s even too, Sakura might have a slight advantage. Her st.lp and pokes are a bitch for Abel to deal with, plus she does as much damage as him…add in to that the fact that Abel has one of the bigges hitboxes in the game… you have yourself an annoying-ass match.
Now, my question for strider, what is your go-to way to get in? I personally like to play s.lk footsies and see if I can sneak in a step-kick. Hit-confirmed step kicks obviously lead to normal combo, blocked step kicks get TT or cr.lp -> s.hp -> w/e (depending on character, obviously I don’t do half of this shit against gief)
Just wondering what you think of these approaches and what you use, character specific ones would be really cool too. I’ve been thinking about working cl.hk overhead -> mp as an option on a blocked step kick dash-in as well, do you ever use overhead -> mp -> FADC TT? is it practical? Just curious, thanks.
Walk. Seriously, just walk to get in. People now just want to find shortcuts for everything, including winning, but this is the simplest, most effective way to get in with Abel. Of course, it depends on the match-up, for example, you will be using rolls a lot more often against fireball characters than, say vs Cody.
Walking also lets you react to them accordingly. You’ll be able to aa and whiff punish pokes a lot more efficiently than by rolling or dashing. Just walk into lk range, and from there your options open up like crazy. You can bully them with lk, dash up TT, jump, roll, step-kick, sweep…etc, your options are vast once you get in that range, the trick is actually knowing how to stay in that range while pushing them to the corner, aka footsies. Like HAV has said multiple times… I can’t teach you footsies, it’s something you will learn in time as you play the game more seriously.
As for character-specific ways of getting in, you’re gonna have to be more specific, because Abel’s ground game changes a lot depending on the match-up.
Step kick -> overhead is an alright option… I say “alright” because you have other tools to do what overhead does more effectively. You can, instead, go for cr.lp after step kick to keep them grounded, then go on from there. Either keep on pressuring with normals, go for normal throw to catch neutral jumpers, or TT. Also, if you go for cr.lp after step kick, it lets you punish backdash for free on reaction with another step kick. As for st.mp FADC TT, it’s an OK shenanigan… it works sometimes in high-pressure situations, but the risk/reward isn’t that good as to keep abusing it. You are surrendering 2 meters, not for guaranteed damage, but for another setup that might not work. Use it sparingly.
I remember HAV said this on a stream, I never saw him post it anywhere though, but he pretty much said that as Viper flame kicks you, pick a direction and Ex-COD, if she crosses up then you block, if she doesn’t then you get Ex-COD. I’ve used this successfully a few times, but don’t use it enough. When I run into the Ace online, jeez it is brutal though.
ive never used makoto in my life but always wanted too. from a neutral stand point, can you tell me who is more fun for you, abel or makoto.
Makoto
overhead after f+mk is too slow unless they are backdashing/jumping out after f+mk very predictably
too much conditioning with abel thats y. am i gonna roll on the left or am i gonna roll on the right? ;p
I know… too much conditioning… Similar to Fuerte, am I gonna splash, or am i gonna…SPLASH???