Barcelona Effectiveness by Matchup

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

For the most part I write each character assuming you’ve already set up the vortex. for almost everybody using an FBA without having comboed into it first or using a knockdown is a 2/ 10 effectiveness.

Fei Long - 7/10. The DP kick gets beat fairly easily, and will just as likely miss entirely, but Reppukyaku cuases trouble because of it’s invincibility. likely to go in the wrong direction though.

Cammy - 2/10. Cannon Spike and Spiral Arrow totally shut down Izuna. The only tactic you can use against Cammy is to bait an AA cannon spike with your momentum, and punish it on the ground with cosmic heel. The only problem is is if you do this and Cammy sees through it, she’ll just spiral arrow you easily. Ultra can also punish whiffed FBAs easily.

Akuma - 6 / 10. SRK, crouch fierce, both get destroyed by izuna. However teleport is for the most part a free escape. If he chooses the wrong side to teleport to though, you can punish with a sweep. Ultra can punish a blocked FBA easily.

Gouken 6 / 10. Gouken gets raped by izuna. Parry won’t do it, tatsu won’t do it, and if it whiffs, he’s going to get killed, and the ultra won’t do it. Dashes will, but leave him out of range to punish, and can usually be baited and punished with the grab or taken care of by the barcelona strike. Gouken’s EX Dive Kick also has full invincibility on the ascent. It’ll evade your izuna and i’ve seen it punish the landing with the dive kick. Sometimes you can land in time and be safe, but others you can actually get destroyed. Trying to take Gouken when he has meter could be a disaster but could be a smart way of baiting Gouken to burn an EX. Neutral jumping for him works well as does jump back roundhouse, so mainly you have to get an EX izuna in the first place to try setting it up, he’s got some good air-to-airs.

Dhalsim 3 / 10. Dhalsim can c. lk under nearly any attempt at an izuna, and punish it after with sweep. Any whiffed FBA is a free standing fierce for Dhalsim. you can punish bad fireballs with this though, and also make his air game harder to get going. Dhlasim is great at punishing this move but not with anything that does big damage. I always try the barcelona once just to see how the particular player will react to it, then i try again. Teleport also beats izuna but i’m sure if it’s a bad tele you can punish it with something quick, if you’re charging you could probably c. mp ex FBA again.

Blanka 0 / 10. Doesn’t work. we’ve known this for a while. Blanka is an FBA-beating machine, just don’t bother.

Chun Li 6 / 10. With EX, SBK will nearly always beat the FBA. However you can easily bait it and punish it’s recovery with a sweep, but if she knows you’re going to try this, she’ll screw you over with a sweep or something like that. She is extremely good at going air-to-air with the izuna and beating it often, so you need to rely on the EX FBA to get it going. If you can get her on the ground with no meter you can usually get in a couple or punish her attempts at dashing out pretty easily.

Ryu 5 / 10. SRK is usually a free izuna. Late Fierce ones have the potential to beat izuna, but can be baited and punished after. Focus is good at avoiding izuna too, but with practice, you can nail it (I go up for EX FBA on Ryu’s now just to be safer). However Ryu can punish whiffed FBAs with ultra, tatsu, flame hadou, and also is good at going air to air with the fba. However you can catch him a bunch of times when he’s trapped on the ground. His fierce SRK has the potential to beat it but because of it’s narrow hitbox you still have the advantage and if you bait it he’ sgonna get hurt.

E. Honda 3 /10 Focus says good bye to izuna. It just does’t work. He’ll do the focus every time, absorb the strike, dash to you and grab. easy punish for him. however you can use EX FBA to screw him over. If honda’s don’t know he can do that, then they’ll try ass slam, which is easily beaten by a fly-over barcelona.

Zangief 8 / 10 Much better than you would think. if you get gief in the corner with an izuna, you can easily beat his lariat during its startup where it’s vulnerable to grabs. Practice the timing, it’s very easy because his hitbox is absolutely massive. Lariat is the only move in his arsenal that is capable of besting an izuna. if you move in for an izuna, bait the lariat, you can punish with just about anything you like. Even ultra. It really arrests his defnses when you take away that option. He’s highly susceptible, you just have to learn how to ween him away from wanting to use that lariat.

Guile 9 / 10 Guile gets owned by the izuna. His hitbox is huge like Sagat’s though he looks smaller. Somersault has a seriously hard time beating izuna. it usually comes out in the wrong way, or is easily grabbed through. Ultra usually only hits once, which resets the both of you, but he wastes an entire ultra meter to do not very much damage. His focus is easy to grab. The normals he has can beat izuna easily though, and he can go air to air, so you have to combo into EX FBA first. After that he will ge towned quickly when his normals are too slow and he can’t jump out.

Ken ? / 10 Honestly I’ve never fought any Ken worth shit, and when I’ve fought decent ones, I’ve never gotten 2 izunas in a row on him.

Seth 5 / 10 The izuna just destroys Seth , health-wise. Landing a couple of these babies a round is just a huge blow to Seth. He likes to do that crazy fly across the screen shit so be prepared to use FBA to meet him in the air. Like usual his SRK and focus will get beaten by the izuna, but if he teleports, he can sometimes punish. Ultra (and super) shut FBA down.

Bison 2 / 10. One of the worst people to izuna. EX Headstomp is almost always a free 200 damage NO to your izuna. It tracks of course and has the invincibility necessary to get away and succesfully counter vega’s recovery. you see bison with EX, you don’t izuna. even if he does’t he’ll just teleport. You can probably punish in certain scenarios, but only with sweep and only under specific timing.

Sagat 10 / 10. Obviously. we all know the story here, Sagat gets raped by izunas because he’s so damn big.

Vega 1/ 10. Don’t use FBA. it’s stupid, no vega worth his salt is going to let you izuna him. KKK flip = No izuna.AlexLKD did show me some interesting stuff though, if you get an izuna, and you’re near the corner, you do the FBA early, you can actually BAIT a flip, and recover before they do. However… probably still a bad idea. you’re much more likely to get hurt trying an izuna then the vega on defense is.

Balrog 1 / 10. again, don’t use it. just don’t. turn punch alone will aalways beat FBA. with headbutt… yeah.

Abel 8 /10. Abel gets owned. You HAVE to be cautious though. If you get an EX FBA, you can easily get a bunch more Izunas. Roll gets beat, (I’ve grabbed tucked up abels before huahuah), jumping out gets beat, and anything else wouldn’t cut it anyway. he’l try to forward das sometimes, but the claws will still get you some damage. You can NEVER EVER EVER use fba on a smart Abel unless you’ve already got the knockdown. the meaty izuna will beat roll’s startup but a non-meaty izuna never will. roll will evade, and he can then punish with COD (no matter where you go) or ultra (again, no matter where you go).

C. Viper 8 / 10. Fierce TK gets beat, EX BK gets beat, EX Seismo whiffs most of the time (but can fuck you over if you’re not timing your izunas meaty. If they’re meaty, the seismo doesn’t have a chance of hitting you. If not meaty… you will get hit).

Rufus 7 / 10 EX Messiah usually whiffs or resets you in the air (which IMO is a good way to burn rufus’ meter but you have to be careful since you’re getting knocked down), Snake Strike will always whiff.

Fuerte 3/ 10. FBA is a free ultra for a good Fuerte. He has an extremely small hitbox. you have to be an ace just to get him in the first place. Guacamole i don’t think will beat the meaty izuna, but normally it would.

Sakura 9 / 10. Crouching fierce goes to shit when you’re using meaty izuna.s Start up is too slow, she can’t use it, and is forced to basically gamble. EX shouoken…? will probably air reset you or come out the wrong way. Nothing else she has will work, her dashes are slow too.

Rose 8 / 10. Soul throw might beat you sometimes. EX Spiral might as well, but you’re forcing her to burn meter for minimal reward which is good when you’re using your ground game to pick her apart. Ultra might beat you but is easily used the wrong direction.

Dan Who cares / 10 as far as i know, dan can’t do shit about it.

Gen 8 / 10 Gekiro gets owned by izuna. Wall kicks of Gen’s can punish your attempts at FBA. I’m pretty sure an izuna can be countered by an EX Wall dive by him.

2

uhm…could you be more specific about the scenario where the fba is being used?during groundgame or wakeup?

the thing is that against some characters like cammy,although you should never use it when she’s on her feet,it does wonders when you izuna her on wake up.if you get the timing down,you can come from around her back and izuna her cannon spike(all versions of it,including the ex).a good cammy player would know that her spiral arrow is their only ticket out of the vortex setup.but even her drill is prone to your claw slashes and her ex spiral arrows just goes in the wrong way.you can also counter her ultra with your own ultra,which would also go in the wrong way if you do it right.so overall,although she can sort of escape your vortex with spiral arrows,it certainly does work as a good pressure tool.

also,DO NOT try to izuna vortex her in the corner.the shit doesnt work since her cannon spike’s hit box are almost straight up either way and thus its going to hit you even if she doesnt auto correct.since your in the corner,you dont have the space to avoid her spikes that goes in the wrong way.

also sakura should be 0/10:her focus attack is going to mess your timing up.you simply cannot izuna her out of her fa,no matter how hard you try.

ken,ryu and akuma should be an 8/10.just think of them as smaller versions of sagat(which means your execution needs to be more tight) who also have a normal and a jump to stuff your mistimed late izunas.
basically if your timing is perfect,you can just consider them to be as susceptible as sagat.

also now ive figured out a great use for vega’s super!!its just a brilliant finisher to your vortex!after a couple of drops,once your meter is built just replace your next fba with the super ,your opponent who
is already mind****ed,is going to jizz in his pants!and he is right because,as of now ive never missed when i tried a super during this scenario,the timing is far too lenient for you to mess up and its sort
of a grand finale to your vortex.

also,sagat and gen are like the only characters against whom you can use your fba shenanigans when they are on their feet.
to understand why it works on them,you got to look at why it doenst work on the others.normally in a ground game,your fba’s are almost and always countered by their jump forward stuffs which works really
well.but although you could slash early in aniticipation to their jump attacks,a good player could bait you into doing this by not jumping at all,which would probably result in you landing right next to him
and take a ton of damage.thus this and their focus attacks are the main reason why,claw cannot be used like his sf2 counter part.thankfully gen and sagat are an exception.

now gen’s jump arc doesnt make it possible for him to jump forward and stuff your wall dives on reaction,which means you can throw in a lot of wall dive slashes into your ground games. sagat has an extremely bad air to air game thanks to his slow jumpspeed,which makes his jump forward stuff in attempts useless.hence unlike other matchups where its more of a guessing game for the wall diving claw,sagat and gen are the only two characters on whom the wall dive shenanigans actually work in a ground game. you can look at [media=youtube]30CuDeWoGFI[/media] to see what i mean.

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What the hell, man? I come into this forum to see how my bottom-tier brethren are doing and I come across this shitty hatespeech?:arazz:

For the record, Dan has a very solid Shoto toolset to deal with Vega’s Flying Barcelona shenanigans, outside of fireballs. I’m pretty sure he rapes it air-to-air with LK or EX Dankukyaku, or ground-to-air with HP or EX Koryuken, Focus Attack and some Ultra shenanigans depending on his position, and then he has the knockdown, which can lead to his superb pressure games on Vega. Just space him with pokes and EX FBA/Poke him whenever he tries to bully his way into mixup range with HK.Danku.

Oh, and watch out for random/psychic Koryukens.

4

in my experience against Dhalsim, a claw dive (or izuna) will always beat cr.lk as long as you only go 1/3rd to 1/2 of the way across the screen after hitting the wall

the claw will always take priority over his annoying foot; i find that half-screen wall dives are relatively effective in the 'sim matchup

5

You forgot to mention that 1 failed Izuna drop means an ultra in your face. Also, you forgot about Guile’s cr. hp. From my experience, FBA doesn’t work on Chun Li. She beats everything you do in the air, and can just focus because she takes a step back. Anyone with a teleport should be 0/10, and Sagat definitely shouldn’t be 10/10. I don’t know about you, but I’m afraid to try this on Sagat due to his 50 anti-air moves that he has, so good luck with that. When he’s grounded, maaaybe.

Sorry. I just don’t think this is very accurate.

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I figured the entire list was on wake-up during your loop, so I don’t think the list is all that bad. Maybe you’re thinking of random FBA’s instead of meaty, Rugalitarian?

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As a guile player, I can tell you that c.hp doesn’t do squat aginst a claw who knows how to time / steer his walldives right. Lately, Japan has had a sort of “claw boom”… alot of people are learning him and stuffing my AA normals. You have more to worry about with guile’s air throw and jumping normals than c.hp. Also, Izuna definately rapes me on wakeup. Just to reiterate the OP.

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Its funny cause I was planning on doing this exact thing lol. But like I said I want to wait till Super to do this so that I can use the improved version (better be improved) of FBA to run my tests. But yea I am putting alot of effort in understanding the mechanics of this move, and how to make it work on all the characters (rather how best it works on each character). As Jozhear mentioned you can even do it on Vega in the corner under certain circumstances. If they do a backlash you get a free cr. mp to ex fba. If they do anything else you get a free izuna and can repeat. The timing is fairly difficult though, and it can only be initiated by a combo ending with Ex FBA or air throw in the corner. In addition sometimes the loop actually fails cause sometimes Vega will crouch when he gets hit by cr MP causing the ex fba to wiff. Sometimes he stands which does make the Ex FBA to hit. If anyone knows why this happens then please let me know.

I am coming up with different strategies involving this move and how it applies to every character matchup. I agree with some of your stats but some I don’t. I’ll contribute to this topic when Super comes out. Ah might as well contribute a little.

Gouken can use his Ex flip move which is invincible for the first 25 frames, and it recovers before FBA which is 31 frames after you hit the ground, whereas gouken’s flip has zero frames of recovery when it hits the ground, and the total frames that it stays in the air is probably a number between 29-35. Gouken with meter is not safe to izuna, therefore not 9/10.

Once we get that no lag feint from not attacking with FBA, and about 10 frames of lag when attacking, then things will be very different. What would also help ALOT is if cr mp ex FBA could hit any standing opponent from farther distance. This would make his combos more effective and help his vortex options significantly. Once I get those things in… then we’ll see.

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@ everyone like headtap says this is assuming you’ve already set up the loop with one EX FBA
i only make asides to how you can get barcelonas to connect if you haven’t already got a loop down and for the most part it is extremely hard cause its easy to defend against for 90% of the cast

@ AlexLKD Damn. I forgot about that damn EX flip. Yeah that changes things, it can punish you hard… Shit. i’ll edit it.

10

So is this thread about people being barcelona’ed or the effectiveness of the vortex? Does ex fba apply to it also?!

As for Dhalsim…I’d have to say it’s 1/10… they can just slide underneath so it’s pretty much impossible to barcelona unless they are in the air… but even there they can air teleport… The only way to get it is if you ex fba and hope you get the 2 hits when he slides…which is pretty much a gamble.

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Alright. That makes more sense. You know, I’m still iffy about trying it because like I said: One mess up, and you’re going to eat an ultra. Why can’t his recovery be more quick? :frowning:

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I’ve had luck hitting Dhalsim out of his c. lk. It’s not consistent but sometimes he gets hurt. Reason I gave it a 3/10 is because if you time it meaty enough in the corner i’m positive that, if he did a c. lk, your barcelona would come out, and if it’s meaty, overhead attacks cannot be crouched, which would mean he’d get hit.

@ Rugal Confidence man. Practice and confidence. you’re missing out on an invaluable part of vega’s game by not doing izunas when you can.

13

Learning the Izuna vortex I believe is essential to using Vega. It’s like trying to use Akuma but not using his vortex options. It’s possible to do, but you take away a large portions of his offense, which is what Vega players need to consider when mounting an offense.

The first main problem I see is this. When Vega gets a knockdown people are trying to rely on unreliable tactics to mount an offense which is usually not great. These not great offensive options are usually blocked or countered by most of the case and then it becomes the other way around, where they knock you down and mount a great mixup game that kills you like Akuma, Abel, Rufus. If we could actually use our “vortex” options to kill people then it just makes the matches more in our favor when the cast can do the same to us.

The second main problem I see is that some people are using FBA incorrectly. They think you just start a match with vega and start flying to the wall, dropping down, and repeating until you actually go for the izuna drop. You don’t FBA against players when they are fully aware of what you are doing, and fully capable of countering it. You have to knock them down, and start crossing them up and izuna drop/ claw slash them when they have such little time to react, and then repeat the process. The most reliable knockdowns are untechable like the sweep, izuna, and airthrow. I have even successfully used FBA vortex from a back throw in the corner.

Once the FBA gets fixed (changed ending lag) these strategies will actually become as powerful as it was supposed to be.

14

Don’t do it to Sagat when he has ultra…
The things you know…

Also, I’ve grabbed gief out of Lariat startups with Izuna Drop many times. Every other time, I land right on top of him with FBA and still beat it.

15

if you dont know how to vortex right then just about every other special and ultra moves that the chraracters have becomes a major threat.

and no,i couldnt careless about sagat having his ultra,that thing doesnt even auto correct as good as his tu.

16

your execution.practice.

17

His ultra does autocorrect, actually. Stop acting so full of yourself. It can beat the vortex.
I’ve been on both sides. I’ve been beaten out of it by the few Sagat players that know (read: Sanford Kelly and LI Joe) and I’ve also beaten good Vega players with my own Sagat ultra.

Also, don’t trash on Rugalitarian. He’s a great vortex-user. He just thought Joz meant Barcelona’s in general, not in the vortex scenario. I’m willing to bet his vortex execution is much better than yours.

18

I’ve died many many times to a 1% life sagat and me having 60%+ because of an auto correcting ultra lol

19

Uhm, Rugalatarian, i’m pretty sure knows a lot more about execution of the Vortex than you considering his reputation for being a consistent Vortex user. So don’t make it out as if you know it all because you clearly don’t.

Sagat’s ultra does Autocorrect because I’ve lost count the amount of time’s I’ve gone “One more hit and that’s game,” and he busts out his ultra and KOs me because the damn thing corrects itself.

20

I’ve had probably … out of 5, sagat users trying to ultra me during the izuna loop, only 1 actually connect, the other 4 go wrong way (The only reason it goes the wrong way is cause they were mashing it out and got reversal. the one guy who got me actually did it right).