Ask me anything! 3rd Strike Discussion

@"Hol Horse"‌ I was curious so studied Urien vs Yun some on my own.

Ground game = Stop yuns cr mp with st hp or cr mk. Both cr mk and st hp (mostly cr mk) can potentially stop shoulders and toward fierce when placed right (so whiff or make contact at right spacings) but you run the risk of things like divekick or st hk and for whiffing st hp, things like cr mk x dash punch or raw dash punch (if not careful even get hit by shoulder). Sweep can also beat cr mp and can beat cr mk but use sparingly since it’s recovery is higher than cr mk. tackle is a strong move (because if the opponent is forced to look for tackle it’s easier to walk in) but don’t use it too liberally since its easily punished on guard by yun. Urien can’t win obviously just on ground game but he needs meter and hitting the opponent is one way of building meter. Urien has to approach while caring for shoulder, laggy normals like toward fierce/st RH and divekicks.

Divekicks = jump rh, jump hp, st mp, or parry. I don’t think a smart yun will use this move too liberally because of sphere > home run or parry > elbow risk but throwing out sphere has too much risk when yun is close to having gauge (can be whiff punished by shoulder or dash punch) so use very sparingly.

Throws = I think toward and back throw is fine. The damage and meter return is so much better with these throws when compared to neutral throw. only time to use neutral throw I think is when you want stun. just remember to not dash in after toward or back throw since yun gets up too quick when he QS.

“HK upper sa3 is not so good. Loses to guard (what a good chun will do 90% of the time). I can see what you mean about lower level, but its not a good habit. If you do it and i guard and I cant punish, sure youre safe. But Id be so happy to know that im free now and dont have to worry about okizeme. A sigh of relief”

Yeah it doesn’t seem like an amazing option to do on a regular basis but if your opponent wakeup parrys 90 - %100 of the time it’s amazing, and i’ve seen it enough at high level to know that it’s still a good option, especially if you have 2 or more SA3’s stocked.

Having said that i don’t use it much…

@yuuki yes cMK and sHP are good buttons in this matchup indeed, although when playing against a good Yun whiffing sHP is quite dangerous since it’s easily whiff punished as you say, and that means knockdown and meter building on top of the damage wihich by itself would be dealable, so I have to be careful using it as a placed move… and at the spacing where it won’t whiff Yun starts having other good options. I sometimes go for the yolo tackle indeed just to keep him in check but I try to minimize its use.
Against divekicks yes when I feel I can react I mostly go for option parry/sMP or air-to-air, though if he opted to NOT divekick his jump HP/HK/target actually has annoying priority. When I react to the jump early enough sometimes I try sHK too - it can work surprisingly well.

I’ve been meaning to ask this somewhere for a while so I might as well ask it here I guess. Is there some reason it’s so hard to do Dudley’s crouching roundhouse > kidney blow > uppercut when not in the corner? That IS a thing, right? I think it only works on fat hitbox characters, but I know I’ve seen it, and I know I’ve done it, yet I’ve always had too much trouble with it to bother in a real match. I tried practicing it today, and couldn’t get it once. I go to the corner, try it, get it every time. What is different about doing it when not in the corner?

I hope I haven’t asked this already, I kind of feel like I have, but I don’t recall the answer…

It works on all characters except Ibuki. When you do kidney blow x uppercut off c. hk, on Oro, Twelve and Dudley himself you need to wait until they fall pretty low, it’s easy to mistime the uppercut so it might not be worth it to do that combo against them.

Balls deep jump in you have to guard. Don’t recommend anything else. Guard and try to guard the high low mixup without mashing throw and eating backswing.

If its on okizeme you have to guard really. Non okizeme then you might try dash under or anti air.

There is also the trick where you crouch because chun is so small and can kinda dodge the attacks. I don’t have much success with this though.

Remember even if you parry a balls deep jump in you usually can’t do anything. High risk and low reward to parry.

For Footsies remember you can stand still or crouch so you don’t walk backwards. Walking backwards isnt a very good idea especially when you’re chun. I recommend watching some high level cvs2 videos to see sick ground game. Of course since there’s no parry, people are forced to be much stronger on the ground. It might help you out.

This might be an incredibly basic question, but one I’ve always wanted to ask, and if anyone else in addition to Ryan wants to answer, i’d love to hear the responses.

What influences your decision to parry as opposed to block or vice versa? When I’m playing Remy, I don’t tend to do tons of parrying unless I A: have a pretty good idea of what’s coming, or B: I know I’ve got the match in the bag and decide to try stuff out. It’s a bit different when I play Chun or Hugo, but I’m curious as to when you guys decide to keep it safe and block or fish for parries. Thanks for the responses in advance.

Sometimes I just have a good read on someone. Like every fucking online Urien does up-ball, tackle, whether it hits or not. Or a lot of Dudley players try to sweep on my wakeup 90% of the time.

If I’m playing smart (and this is hard for me to remember), I’ll be taking their meter into account. I’m a lot less likely to guess parry on Ken with a couple bars stocked than Ken with just an EX ready.

Hugo can be really scary to parry because claps can be totally safe, so even if I guess right I might not get anything out of it, and if he has bar it’s a good way to end up taking a gigas.

I mostly play SA2 Oro, so against most characters the risk/reward on a guess parry is pretty good for me. If it looks like I’m going to lose a round I’ll guess parry anything if I have a bar. If I get it, there’s a good chance I can steal the round with unblockable loops. Of course people who actually know what they’re doing won’t give me the chance to do that very often.

Parrying is a complex subject… Without a specific example the most general answer I can give you only want to parry when the risk/reward ratio is in your favor. There are exceptions to this, but that is the most general answer I can think of. At some point you should sit back and think about situations that you attempted to parry something and what you stood to gain versus what you risked.

*I haven’t touched 3s in a long time, unfortunately, but I’ve been looking to get back into the game.

Here is one question that I think I should have asked before but never did, how do you build confidence? I know that sounds vague but I mean when you’re going through your journey to get better, say from low level to intermediate or intermediate to higher level, how do break through the confidence barrier? Here’s a few examples I’ve experienced in the past:

1: When you’re playing against someone that’s completely new. The first couple games can be a process of feeling each other out and seeing what the other person knows. However, past that point of feeling things out I’ve had stumbling blocks where it felt like I knew the answer to a situation but was indecisive on executing said answer. If you’ve ever dealt with this feeling, or point in your 3s Journey how did you deal with it and get past the doubts in a match. Was it just a matter of getting more reps against players and particular matchups?

2: Playing up/down to competition. A somewhat related issue I had/have is the nasty habit of playing “down” to lesser competition and playing “up” against people who were better than me but who I could still pull out wins against. Did you ever have a similar experience and if so what helped you to be a more consistent player?

3a: Unrelated to confidence but what are some of the training habits you have now and where were they born from? How and why did you form some of your current training exercises?

3b: Is there any particular trick or exercise that you have that helps against going on “autopilot”?

Edit: I always felt like 3s is the one fighter I’ve played where mindset and outlook is one of the most important things about the game. *

‘Confidence barrier’ lol. Dude, if you’re not confident enough to try doing something in a video game then I’d hate to see how you handle decisions that actually affect your day to day life. Just press buttons and have fun.

short answer, having your opponents admit you are good or did better. Other than that, it’s going to take the usual “just win”. Of course, you could just absolutely know and recognize where your faults lie and avoid those. Still, that doesn’t mean that your opponents will ever recognize your skill or ability if they know your name and handle. It’s just how the non-skilled players are. Winners don’t give up their position cause then they’d be losers mode of thought.

Good luck!

You’ll see that after me there will be several posts directly attending to every point I make yet completely avoiding them to tangent off into another valid yet unchallengeable point. Those are the winners.

I realize I might have worded my question wrong. I didnt mean confidence in a general sense like how good, or bad, I am at playing. Nor was I talking about not having confidence to try something in various situations or against players I don’t know. I was specifically referring to longer sets against new competition and decision making during the later games. After you and your opponent have exchanged a few games and you’re put in a situation where you and him has had that same exchange multiple times.

In that split second of coming to an answer in my mind on how to play the situation but over thinking it due to how he might have played the scenario differently earlier in the set. Hesitating in that moment of reflection instead of committing to my response. Thats what i meant about confidence.

Like they say in boxing “Speed kills”

@DarkGeneral‌ can you give a specific example? I ask because this question might be a matter of risk reward or not knowing all your options which is why you might hesitate.

it comes down to practice and experience. Having a large repertoire of ghetto tricks helps keep your opponent guessing because you put it in their head that you have some shit they have never seen and cannot be ready for.

using them at the right time is key. I like to bring them out later in the set.

Also, being solid with hit confirms puts it in your opponent’s head that they can’t mess around, and that makes them scared to attack (depending on their level).

just a couple of ideas on what you can work on.

Your presence is definitely a factor in this game.

You’re referring to things that red parry was made to deal with. You find yourself in the same situations and still aren’t confident as to which direction to take the rest of the match. Just make sure you don’t ruin future positions for yourself, meaning don’t make things worse for yourself. I think paying attention to your meter would help with those situations because it’s something else to look forward to that won’t loose you your position. You could also pay attention to their stun in those situations. Or keep in mind what they could do with their meter. Is that what you mean by speed skills?

In my experiences, I’ve foudn that focus in on their particular approaches has a tangential effect on your game plan unless you’re like some sick ass back tracker. That would still keep you from looking further into the situation. If you are aware of the approaches your opponent took in prior exchanges, then you have as much information as you need to keep going. Certainty isn’t as much a thing in this game as you might think, the best you have to go off of is the possibility of contingencies that will allow you keep pushing as hard as you were pushing when you had the advantage.

@DarkGeneral you’re definitely tuned into something I consider to be a huge factor in 3s. I’m not sure the best way to fix it other than always be mindful that dwelling on individual decisions mid match/set will weaken you. hopefully ryan has some better ideas. I think guys like Ken I or Haitani are really good at commitment to their decisions. its a huge strength.

Yo, I think I already asked this question somewhere, but does anyone know why Ken players tend to cr.LK at far range occasionally when playing against Makoto? I see it in Japanese match vids.

there used to be a vid on youtube that showed how crouch short stops pretty much every way Makoto has to advance, and you can just spam it without worrying about timing.

Just don’t mash cr.short when Makoto has stacked SA2, she can just throw it and catch you before you can withdraw.