Yes I know but it’s hard to react online. For me at least.
What I hate more about the match-up is Gen comeback ability. He hardly needs meter to excape or wth and even if you have a large life lead one wall dive/cross-up and you eat super/ultra for around 600 damage and it evens the round or kills you.
First of all, too much random headbutt. Second, anytime you scored a knockdown you could have gone for some jumpin attempts (ambiguous or otherwise) or abused lack of meter with throw attempts seeing as you can throw him out of everything other than EX PC/Scissors on wakeup and recover in time if he tried a headstomp. You seemed to get desperate at times with the headbutts. He was also pretty predictable in going for the LK Scissor nieussance and you seemed to fall for it everytime he was going for another after a first, just be patient when they’re throwing the scissor pressure and save EX RP for when you’re cornered with it and looking for a way out, not in general because I saw you get PC Armor Broken I think a few times with the random EX rushes. GJ backing up and punishing whiffed headstomps, keep that up.
Once you score a knockdown it’s pivitol you try get as much offensive momentum as you can especially if/when Bison hasn’t got meter for escape options. If he gets away he’ll get back to trying to pin you down with crossup jumps (He has a really fast and horizontal jump so be wary of those for crossups) and Scissor pressure again, or back off and start DReversing for meter.
I’m talking from a Vanilla PoV though as I don’t have Super yet so take that with a pinch of salt.
need advice
Critique me on my Balrog
I uploaded some balrog vids, one thing I know is that I spam his headbutt a little too much...
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Just wanna get some advice, thanks.In the second match (Juri) you let one of her dive kicks (don’t know the name -_-) go unpunished. They are completely unsafe on block, you can do just about any combo you desire.
1:12 in the Rose video… random ultra. Lucky it landed! Don’t do that!
In general you definitely do way too much random headbutting, should only be done as a direct counter or when hitconfirmed, don’t just fish for opportunities. You also need to work on your anti air with cr.hp/s.mp, you lost alot of opportunities for damage and took quite a few hits. You’re also using ex rush upper to close distance even when nearly at fullscreen, it’s very unsafe and easy to see coming, no reason you can’t walk/dash 
Reminds me of me when I first started. I used to random headbutt pretty much the hard-majority of a match and most of my distance making was purely by special moves rather than just actually moving, sometimes accidentally wasting EX by doing so.
You should practice your defense, offense or mixture as a whole to get a specific style going for yourself first of all. Your AA is relatively weak and your offense seems reliant on random poking and specials, this isn’t going to work too well against experienced players capable of punishing properly. Against the Rose for example you were using CJab and CMP when she was nowhere near you and you ate some damage because of it - It’s fine against characters with moves that you are looking to predict and stuff but against some it’s not too useful and often leads to trouble. The only thing Rose can do to move forward is slide and she was way out of range for that, for example, and you ate a Spiral/Spark (Can’t remember which) during midscreen poking.
I’m no pro but I very rarely ever stay still for any length of time, I’m either walking forward or backing off appropriately and will only charge when I need to, often going for the ‘in and out’ approach unless I’m in full mental control or a round in hand then I’ll either go full on aggressive to close the game or will defend a bit more depending on the opponent character and skill. Honestly, get used to walking forward, bulldogging, bullying - There’s something VERY intimidating about a forward moving charge character. If you rely on specials to close gaps, you’ll likely often eat a jumping (Insert Normal Here) and if it leads to a combo, bad times are ahead for your Balrog.
Just general advice. Overall Gillete above has said the most important bits as far as I can tell. Good luck and keep practicing!
Thanks for the advice guys ! I took what gillete said and I won 20 ranked matches in a row lol
I don’t have a tonne of Abel experience and the majority I’ve faced weren’t all too hot (much like I’m not with Boxer!) but I could still do with advice, especially from a SSF4 perspective in the event I finally get the game.
All I had to really go on are movies from you guys in the Needs More Dudley thread and, obviously, I wouldn’t be able to re-enact that skill-level (Tourny vids) but I gave it a shot. Made a few mistakes of which I’m aware of and even messed up an Overhead combo, one I’ve had consistantly for half a year, which either means it was laggy or was under pressure - The bloke likes to mix it all up and my defense in that situation is pretty weak.
Anyhow, people mind giving some tips on this video?
[media=youtube]AKROShju7Gw"]YouTube - ?SF4? Birthday Match - RopeDrink [BOX] vs [ABE[/media]
First round I tried to work on my footwork so there’s a LOT of dashing. Won’t get to check back for a few days, off to celebrate being a year older - Big thumbs up to the community, love the atmosphere and helpfulness here in the Roggy Forum.
Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert.
Remember that you can throw Abel out of his roll.
There isn’t a lot Abel can do if you jump at him while he’s getting up, but if he’s blocking you it’s just right back into footsies anyway so you may be better off just standing at a different spacing so you can mix up your footsies game.
On a similar note, be careful about using the rush upper without hit confirm. He didn’t punish you, but if it whiffs he can turn it into some free damage. If he blocks your BnB, ending it with a dash straight (or nothing) gives you different poke options.
In the third round you let him out of the corner three times without much of a fuss. The first time you didn’t punish a jump in, the second you jumped back and gave him more space unnecessarily, and third you just threw him out. When you get someone in the corner, it often pays to be patient and make them pay for trying to get out. Remember that while they’re there you have compete control over spacing.
Using focus outside of his poke range just cuts off your options if he does decide to do something. It can be good to bait wheel kick, but you can also do that by just crouch blocking and not give up your charge.
Dash when you need to get somewhere quickly. If you’re just trying to space, walking is a lot more threatening.
More importantly, happy birthday bro!
Also, there wasn’t any Anti Air at all
St.HP beats regular Wheel Kick up close
Ultra on reaction with his Wheel Kicks, the range is the same as if it was a fire ball
Kinda wasted EX on those Dash Uppers at the end of the blocked BnB
Walk Up to him, Besides the Tornado Throw and forward step kick, almost every special and normal has a huge enough start-up to block on reaction, no matter the lag.
You crouch way too much
Also Happy Birthday (Insert Leprechaun Joke here)
Does anyone mind giving me some advice. I’m not too good and my execution needs work but here’s some matches against a Sakura.
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I have some more videos on my channel but it’s all pretty much the same.
I played a little while ago a semi-final in a GameFaqs tourney. I lost to a pretty strong Ken. I was starting to figure him out towards the second half of the match, but it was too little too late. Any advices?
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You could of been way more agressive to him. Dont be afraid to drop your charge too. Get close with his good walk speed and use your normals. Also you seemed to be doing cr.HP late Try doing it earlier and also try using st.mp
You kinda crouch too much, also you random rush, I know its not that big of a deal against this Sakura, but really, it could easily be a free U1 for Sakura, or EX SRK. Also, its , you could’ve been much more aggressive, I mean its only Sakura, A spaced Forward Jump HP would beat C.HP easy
Thanks for the tips! I kept eating anti airs, maybe it was because I always jump in with a roundhouse. I usually am a much more aggressive player (to the point where it’s a fault) and I’ve been trying to play safe lately.
At the start of the first match you’re giving up space for free, there’s no reason for the constant backdashes you’re just giving control of the match to the Sakura player. Rog is no threat from full screen.
As you pointed out there’s definitely too much jumping, it’s not a habit you should get into. Unless you’re being predictable to the point where you’re going to eat DPs every time you do it standing round house is an extremely good zoning tool and from the right range is soooo much safer than any jump
Awesome TAP @ 2:40 and again at 2:43!
As well as it works on this dude the EX overhead should be used sparingly, it’s incredibly easy to see and block and in turn punish.
You should definitely work on using cr hp and s mp for antiairs, while you were great at blocking their jumpins it would be even better to get big damage by punishing them!
I think the biggest thing you can do to up your game is, and don’t take this in the wrong light, pay attention. That Sakura had some habits that they never broke - for example, after every single cr hp punish on your jumpins they did the overhead kick (punishable on block I’m pretty sure), you could also ex headbutt these but that’s a much more risky read. Small things like that can be hard to pick up in one or two rounds but if you can catch them it can completely change the flow of the match.
Overall I think you did pretty good in this video. To many far distant overhead usage for my liking though. If you are playing at the tournament level you will be grabbed or ultra’d.
In the Sakura match-up anytime you knock her down you should be jumping in with a jumping light kick or jumping heavy kick safe jump to apply pressure so you don’t have to deal with footsies and also your jabs can push her in the corner which is where Balrog plays the best at.
You got hit by Sakura’s level 3 focus attack a couple of times when she charged it in your face. If you are not holding a turn punch charge you can easily jab her out or jump back fierce depending on your distance. If you are charging turn punch you could release it off reaction and get the counter hit in which you could combo into jab jab heabutt ultra or anything else you would want to do for a punish.
Also it’s NEVER good and I think all Balrogs even myself do this at times, "Randomly jumping in Especially on crouching opponents. It’s a super bad habit. Don’t do it or any character. Every character in this game has an anti air that can punish Balrog for jumping in. If you jump in randomly and it hits it only lets you know that your opponent does not have the reaction time to prevent you from jumping in or they don’t know the characters anti air. You can safely jump at sakura from long distances with jumping heavy punch however it’s not worth it. The only time you should be jumping at Sakura is to beat her jump in off reaction, Safe jumping, neutral jumping to bait her to jump or jumping over fireballs off reaction.
I guess one last thing. Buttery Attacks / Ex rushes are very unsafe at mid range or long range so it’s a bad habit to do that due to easily being grabbed. Random ex upper the kick version is super unsafe to do randomly on small characters because it whifs on crouch so if you are playing a smart player they will crouch all ex attacks and just jab you out if they did not get hit immediately. The best attack to you for pressure is ex standing rush attack imo but I rarely use an ex attack unless it’s for combo’ing or avoiding attacks which is just apart of my playstyle and something you really don’t have to listen to.
I think you have a pretty solid Balrog and it was fun to watch.
Thanks much Gillette and Poem, really appreciate the help. I’m actually going to my first tourney in a few weeks so this really does help me out.
Following on from the discussion in the Worst Matchup thread, I said how I wished I could fight something other than Shoto’s (Preferably Rufus/Rose/Gen/Fei/Gief/Viper/Blanka due to having little/no experience vs most of them) low and behold a Viper joined my Arc Req and we played about 23 games.
Sadly I think both of us had limited experience so the fights are likely very scrubby but ultimately it was in my favour, only lost 3. I still need some Viper tips, not nessecarily against this one but general advice.
9/10 Vipers I’ve seen on GFWL just hop around trying to abuse crossup BurningKicks or generally leap around like a mongloid all day, only one I’ve fought was any good and they tore me a new ass.
I’ll post the two vids, though they won’t give much to critique - Probably just there to show the level I’m at at the moment so people know what I could absorb into my gamestyle vs Viper.
Game 01
[media=youtube]AFlCkqC-8Yo"]YouTube - ?SF4 Vanilla - [RopeDrink] Balrog vs Viper [Okumah[/media]
Game 02
[media=youtube]U319NaGZVIw"]YouTube - ?SF4 Vanilla - [RopeDrink] Balrog vs Viper [Okumah[/media]
NOTE:
In the first game I’m aware I could have ended it quicker with an AA or Chip but in previous games the person chanced their arm at random Ultra’s and I sadly ate some of them, was being extra safe. I also Focus too much knowing full well it’ll likely just encourage lightning knuckles but its just a typical bad habit of mine I’m working on.
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All feedback welcome