I dunno where to start and I’m lazy. But I’ve noticed a lot of questions going on in the General Discussion thread and people haphazardly making new threads that are being decomposed.
So I’ll start this thread off fresh without pre-posting any common questions and answers. I’ll start adding some things to the first posts once I start seeing more repeat questions that have been answered.
Reserved for Future use. jk there is no faq. im done
General strategies for dealing with corner pressure without meter or a DP? I don’t want to list specific characters because it a problem I have in a lot of matches.
Personally, I just block a lot until there is an actual gap in their block string. Like eventually they may want to go for an empty hop or something an Option Select cl.C/D is a tool that helps back them off while getting damage. Or waiting for an opportune moment to use something like a st.A/B to anti air their hop. If things get really desperate and you are a bit more ballsy, you could try to simply just predict a hop and trying running underneath and getting out of there. Another thing is that if you’re good at anti-airing their hops with anti-hop, ground attacks, they may want to start full jumping and doing things like that. There you could use those opportunities to simply walk under cr.B anti-air if you don’t have a good vertical anti-air attack ready for usage. Typically if the opponent ends a blockstring with a heavy attack or a special or something, they more or less ended their offensive and you have as much of a chance of turning around the momentum as they have restarting it. So from a neutral advantage it depends on how the spacial tug-of-war goes.
I think there is no situation where you really need a good, invulnerable reversal or meter to get out of. But I think any of the main three fat crouching characters on block might have trouble with Kyo’s j.CD on crouch block. That shit is a nightmare to deal with or get out of. In lieu, those three fat characters should have enough tools to never be put in that spot in the first place if they exercise good spacing. The three characters being largest vertically on crouch are Daimon, Raiden, and Maxima.
But yeah there isn’t any “easy” solution. It just requires good blocking and “knowing” when your opponent does something that gives you leeway and you must “know” the answer of getting out or reversing momentum and control. I block too much to the point I get guard broken and in XIII that’s more a big deal since it gives a free combo rather than a free 2-in-1 like old games. But yeah, you just need to know the gaps in which you could press buttons and win and keep blocking until that situation arises or the opponent gives an opportunity to escape and they’re not baiting you into doing it.
Hey, I’m New to KoF in general and I’ve been playing with my friend a lot, and he is really good, and I’ve progressed a lot playing with him. My biggest problem is that I can’t figure out 2 things. How to jump in properly, and how to anti air properly. My team (in my sig) has, for some reason, the worlds hardest time anti airing Shen, or King, and yet whenever I jump at my friend, I have to either do my jump D or C super early to get a counter hit or beat out his normal, but then I can’t get a combo off it, or wait, and then he either jumps up and punishes me, crouches and punishes me, or just blocks, and I’m super sad about everything. 
I basically just need some explainations or tips about Jumping in or anti airing someone with normals with my characters.
Also if someone has some Iori taco kick set ups that would be amazing… lol
What’s a good blockstring with Hwa? Or rather, what are good ways to keep corner pressure on?
Well to start with a primer, here’s this link to spacing in general (made by Sparkster): http://wiki.shoryuken.com/The_King_of_Fighters_XIII/Strategy
To specifically cover your question, I’d say you first have to study the types of normals your opponent’s character has at disposal for anti-air and air-to-air situations. From there, you can use that knowledge and apply it by finding the normals and angles of approach that would either beat out your opponent’s normals, or attack from angles that are optimal for you and would make the opponent second guess whether or not to commit anti-airing. If you’re playing spacing/zoning characters that have higher hop arcs that are not intended for fast high/low/empty into throw mix-ups like Iori or Kyo, then the goal isn’t necessarily to hit with an overhead but to just get on top of the opponent and establish pressure, force bad rolls or jumps, and punish the opponent. For example, Mai could hop in from a further distance just so that the tip of j.D barely touches Shen Woo just as she’s about to land on the ground. It’s a difficult angle for Shen to control because if Mai didn’t commit to the j.D, he’d whiff a cr.C or st.A or would be counter-hit if he finally was in the range to actually “hit” the j.D when it comes out. Once Mai is in, even if she was blocked, she could apply a lot of cl.A, cr.C, Ryuuenbu pressure and just keep pressuring and chipping the opponent while she mixes up her ways of approach and changes her aerial momentum with stuff like well spaced dives.
Those are just some generalities for now and there’s that spacing section. After you read that or if you already read it, then please feel free to ask further and specific questions that may arise.
In regards to Taco set ups, a few basic ones are like one cr.B or light attack on block at point blank, then hyper hopping over and tacoing. I noticed if I do two crouching light attacks on block, Taco won’t activate as it normally would (I do j.6B actually, holding forward “after” I crossed over the opponent so technically it would be j.4B once I reach that side); but, from that spacing j.C would cross up crouching characters. Another basic set up is just to do a hop-in j.C then just hyper hop over the character to hit them with a taco. After a Taco, you could actually hop forward and do a taco without hyper hopping. But otherwise in most situations, it requires a hyper hop. I don’t like doing super jump tacos because those usually could be anti-aired or crouched underneath if I used the spacing that would have worked on standing characters.
Most of Hwa Jai’s great pressure is actually due to his great normals rather than special moves. So to perform well with him, you have to have a good understanding of spacial control and setting up frametraps with him. A common tool for one is just doing cl.C at point blank on block since it leave Hwa Jai more or less at neutral advantage from that point. From there, he could further pressure with something like a sweep, Far D to cover good ground and air control while being +2 or something after block, run back in to continue pressure, or simple anticipate the opponent trying to escape the trap by being ready to anti-air or air-to-air a jump out or punish a roll.
Another good tool to use is st.CD since it’s usage is quite similar to Far D, except with a slightly lower vertical hitbox. In lieu of that, it has lower body invincibility, reaches further horizontally, and is largely fast and safe on block.
Another common tool is being able to threaten with slide and knowing which ranges that slide is safe. Being able to slide at any given moment to anti-air the opponent and combo into a knockdown or HD combo will greatly extend your space of control. Typically after cl.C from point blank, stuff like slide is unsafe on block. But from spacings such as cr.B x3, st.B xx Slide or cr.A > cl.C xx Slide, slide is safe on block. If you do slide from unsafe ranges, you can cancel into qcf+P to make it safe. Just note that you have to delay the cancel or Hwa Jai will be pushed out way too far and be vulnerable. Usually deeper in the slide, the better since there is less of a gap in between the slide and the qcf+P to make the slide safe. cl.C xx Slide xx qcf+P is a bit trickier to make safe since if you do it too early you’re done, but if you do it too late to make it actually connect there is a gap for the opponent to DP in between. But otherwise, qcf+P is one means of making slide safe. Also note that at the ranges slide is naturally safe, qcf+P will more or less always whiff. Vice versa, if qcf+P could connect from slide on block that means that slide would have been unsafe.
Another thing to note is that Hwa Jai’s air dp+B is -1 on block, and there are ways to space it to make it perfectly safe. I have no specific technique in setting this up, I just feel it out and visually commit to doing the dive and try to make it safe. That and I do TK’d Dive kinda like Cammy’s TK’d Dives in SSFIV.
So with Hwa Jai, I don’t really try to open up opponents by forcing them to change the way they have to think they have to block like I do with Iori or Kyo hop pressure. I just set up good pressure and force them to do something stupid and they get hit for it. Then I can try to sneak in a few slide xx dp+D against people who are sleeping on the job that are hopping/jumping in or if they’re caught whiffing a normal or stand blocking. Then I change up the pace of things with a well placed command grab in situations that would feel awkward for them to expect one. But yeah I create walls of control with stuff like j.CD, j.D, Far D, Slide, st.B, st.A, cr.D, cr.C, cl.C, cr.A, cr.B, st.CD, and qcf+A. I don’t really like canceling into his qcb+B attack or his other heels because they usually end my offensive momentum, just all so I could chip them. I’d rather just work for the guard break or set up something better. I didn’t mess around with Drink Super enough to comment on that though. Side notes: I like doing air qcb+B from back dashes and changing it up to qcb+D once they start to try to run in on me. I also like TK air ex qcb+K since it covers so much range safely. Then I like to do pressure such as j.D xx air qcb+B > slide or something (it also combos on hit.)
Feel free to ask anything more about Hwa Jai or ask for clarifications.
Is there any character similar to Chris from '97-'98?
how do i deal/punish (if possible) athena’s f.B air spiral move when they don’t go for the followup and kula’s hurricane kick? tried jumping,mashing c.B with iori/saeki, but he kept frametrapping me with c.C, my roll would get throw if he went f.C and i felt like the only thing i could of done was guardcancel stuff or dp. and kula’s hurricane kick was just locking me down with c.B/s.B followups. could of been the online but i just felt trapped
Not really, Chris is pretty unique in his air control and moderately decent grounded control. There are a few characters that boast well in air-to-air control but they play like themselves, not Chris. So yeah, Chris is Chris and there is no substitute.
Athena’s air f.B is traditionally safe on block. The only other way I can think of punishing it is guard rolling the butt and running forward and hit her before she touches down; but, she can troll and just cancel into air qcb+B or something. Just have to respect the move. Kula’s Ray Spin is punishable by EX Iori’s dp+C, always. That’s my only answer to it so far other than 1 frame command grabs or avoiding being put in the position in the first place to be forced to block Ray Spin. Kula is just a dumb character in general, even if she isn’t top tier in this game. Her general design is lopsided and stupid so I either play in a way that I either fuck her up or get fucked. So I just try to space her out in the neutral game and get a chance for a knockdown mess her up on okizeme with safe-hops. But yeah, my counter to Kula is EX Iori since that shuts down her safety with Ray Spin. In old games, it was more legit, st.B was better than XIII Console, qcf+A had more range, etc. etc. I really hate Kula.
What is the final word on the netcode patch Laban? The thread(s) are always ambiguous and people seem to always be posting about the placebo effect and not the actual delay.
Marginally better for local games that you felt originally should have been decent pre-patch but weren’t. So now those games are better. I still won’t have serious games against Socal because the lag affects the finer, more minute timings of certain combos and what not. So yeah, the best way to use net play is just to go on forums and search up local people and just friend them on PSN. Online still isn’t good enough to the point where you could play random Ranked or Player matches like you can do in SSFIV or something.
So online did get objectively better, but not enough to actually move and shake things. Just eased certain matchmaking issues, made certain local connections better, and widen the range of what is considered a 4 bar connection.
With my connections pre and post patch, nothing has really changed. I just play wired, Norcal connections and it still feels the same because they already are what they were, good/decent. Norcal to Socal became ever so slightly more “smooth” but didn’t stop the slow lag of things.
Could you go over the Billy match up in general?
I haven’t had a long time to play the console version so I usually end up giving him too much respect when playing against him.
I’m not sure how to approach him in the neutral game and I usually end up in the corner pretty fast where I just get locked down from 6A, close 5C(I swear he can do this from outside the “close” range lol) and hop normals.
Here’s one.
How many times with King can you loop Trap Shoot to Tornado kick in the corner without using any bars? Especially HD.
I think I’ve done it like 3 times ONCE. Usually I just get it to work twice.
Now with HD bar I think I’ve done it 4 times but could have possibly gotten to 6 before the bar ran empty.
I got a good one. Any idea how to link K’s Heat Drive DM into I guess backdash, minute spike(qcb+a)? I can barely do it, but is there an easier way to help me understand? Any estimated frame data or something to help me out?
Billy’s close C is pretty damn slow, and even if the activation range is somewhat large if he messes up he’ll get a far C which in all respects is a terrible attack. cr.C would be a better choice for frametrapping with Billy, and most of his basic pressure comes from j.D, j.C, and j.CD along with cr.B pressure combined with f.A.
His best pokes for stopping grounded advances are cr.A, f.A, and hcf+P and other attacks like st.CD/b.A work but they’re much risker on whiff. cr.A has a good length to it, but it’s slow and Billy can’t continually do it over and over to push you out like how Yashiro could frametrap st.B into itself continually in KOF '98. You have to acknowledge it’s there, but it shouldn’t be hitting you multiple times in a row and you can still hop over it, counterpoke it, or get in to a closer range where he wouldn’t want to use it. f.A is an annoying attack that Billy can pressure with and use once you break through cr.A’s effective range. If you crouch and block it or block from far, you should only be hit once by the move. The main reason this attack is difficult to deal with is that Billy will probably press a button like afterward and frametrap with a cancelable normal into it again, and the best way out of this is to set up a recording of Billy looping you in a blockstring and then find a poke that can counter hit him out of the startup. Many cr.C type uppercuts work, and you may have luck with a st.A even. There’s also the riskier option of DPing, though backdashing or rolling backwards is less overtly punishable and you can afford to sneak those two escape methods in occasionally unless you’re cornered. Otherwise you can block until he does something else or until he’s pushed out to a less ideal spacing where he can’t trap into f.A. hcf+P is good and all, but the recovery’s thick enough that he can’t really keep throwing it out once you start moving in on him. You can hop it as well, but you have to keep in mind that he has qcb+P and his EX DP and cr.C. hcf+P is like a more extreme cr.A, and I believe you can Guard Roll the C version to punish him should he do the flame followup on block.
j.C attacks at a great angle that’s difficult to deal with, but if Billy doesn’t time the attack late on the descent of a hop or neutral hop you can crouch under it. You can acually hit Billy out of the startup of the move by htting his stick just like how you can hit Dhalsim out of his limbs from fullscreen. If he’s closer, he’ll be in optimal j.CD range (or rather, you’re so close that j.C may whiff due to lack of close vertical control) and he’ll either time it early as to possibly air-to-air or late to make sure it works as an air-to-ground. If he’s doing it early, you should be able to crouch under that and punish him, though traditional normal anti-airs are likely to lose if he’s just barely tipping you from his jump-in. If he times it late, you punish oppositely by hitting him with an anti-air or air-to-air which will effectively hit him before the attack comes out or simply win by hitbox proximities. You could also DP it, and since he needs to be somewhat close to hit you with j.CD you don’t have to second guess yourself like if you wanted to DP j.C from max range. j.D isn’t much of a problem any more than any basic jump-in is, and j.A is his absolute air-to-air so you either have to bait it and make it whiff and then punish with a low, or meet it with a better air-to-air.
There’s also blocking and patience, which you use to buy time to recognize and punish a pattern or some sloppy error.
King’s best meterless corner HD combo is: …df.D (HD) cl.D df.D xx [dp+K (HDC) hcb+B] x4, ender. The trick is to start by sliding into Trap Shoot, and you do this by canceling her slide late which allows her to get in deeper, thus preventing the special from whiffing.
I haven’t tested K’s odd instant Minute Spike ‘OTG’, but if you want to do it instantly from a backdash you should buffer it as 2144+K. Backdashes have an input leniency, so it may be easier than doing 2147+K to ‘Tiger Knee’ it.
Yo, mang. Just as a suggestion, I think it’d help if you use quotes so it could alert people that we responded and it’s easier to see where their advice starts and ends. Sweet
So messing with Kim and his overhead…strange properties.
F+LK done alone overheads on crouch/blocking opponent, but I’ve noticed that if I’m hitting a crouch blocking opponent(i.e. cr.LK,cr.LK) and input F+LK that the opponent can crouch block the overhead if F+LK comes out too quickly. EX Kyo’s overhead does the same thing in the same situation. What makes the overhead blockable? I tried it out in versus and rubberbanded a second controller into crouchblock position and despite the controller never going into a standing block, the overhead *is *blocked. When I do the overhead clean, it connects.
Also with Kim…his overhead done by itself can’t combo into his specials, but I’ve noticed that if I hit my opponent with any light attack, HP or standing HK(canceling 2nd hit) into F+LK, I can combo *from *the overhead. What causes that? It looks like the opponent has time to recover in between the Normal going to F+LK, and normals don’t combo into F+LK. Is it something to do with hitstun still being active that changes the combo ability for F+LK? Seems like it could be reversed with proper timing, but what changes so Kim can combo from F+LK?
And finally…what the hell do I do with Kim/EX Kyo versus Clarks who do nothing but his charge punch on reaction and command throw when I get in close? I’m not worried about the RED command grab glitch with EX Kyo,(if it even exists anymore), and I’ve had success poking with his Standing HK because Kyo’s airborne… but having real trouble getting in on Clark and maintaining pressure, especially with Kim.
No, Kim’s f.B command normal is too slow to combo into by chain canceling into it. Like you observed, it’s an overhead when done raw, but by canceling an attack into it it ceases to hit overhead but it then gains the ability to be canceled into specials and DMs. There were plenty of command attacks that followed the same pattern in older KOF games, though in XIII a select few maintain their high/low property even when canceled into (Robert’s f.B, for instance, will always hit low and it can always be canceled into specials). Because Kim and Kyo can’t combo into their f.B, it mainly serves for creating frametrap blockstrings (As Kim, you can do* cr.B cr.B cr.B f+B xx qcb+B *to capitalize upon the range and cancel property, and that’s just one odd example) and not for doing hitconfirms.
Clark’s Gatling Attack charge punch move is completely unsafe on block. If you can bait it and punish, you should quickly discourage him from using the attack. Just keep in mind that the EX version is startup and projectile invuln so it’s not worth trying to counterpoke. Clark gets pushed back slightly so that you may not be able to get a cl.C, but must characters can hit Clark with a cr.C instead.
You can use heavy normals for checking Clark and ending blockstrings, but for more direct pressure you should be using light attacks like cr.B which you can hitconfirm or use to get frame advantage for frametraps or set up for cross ups or bait out his command grab with hops/staying just outside it’s range. Battle him from the neutral game with your better pokes and neutral hop with a good air-to-air or be ready with a reaction DP when he starts using j.CD. If you get a knockdown, stay in on him since he doesn’t have an easy way out of offensive pressure unless he wants to risk using a his grab or charge punch, both of which can be severely punished if he guesses wrong.
So would this be considered the appropriate thread to get advice/critique on match vids? I know we have the main video thread, but we just had a local ranbat and I’d like to post up a few matches and get some general input on the areas im struggling and such. My apologies for not posting a true specific question but I didn’t want to assume and shit up the thread with a bunch of match videos asking for critique.