I agree with Az.
Once you know what Seth is capable of it really comes down to the players. He can quickly overwhelm and stun anyone in the cast if he reads you right, but in turn if you read him/guess the mixup correctly, the payoff will be big. I think the matchup is even or at the very least close to even and just lack of familiarity can throw people off.
His dive kick is one of the best in the game as it’s an overhead and can make you lose your charge, can reset after stomps and it has very little landing recovery so focus striking it is not really plausible. However one good thing to know is that df+lk works on him similar to the way it worked in super because of the way he floats, so you can trade with his jump attacks and get a free EX Legs or Ultra 2 in this match (I personally use Ultra 1 to limit other stuff he has, but I think U2 can be effective as well in this match due to his low health). Other anti-airs I use mostly are instant nj. HK, jump back MK/HP/HK or jump forward MK/HP/HK depending on where he started the jump. St. mk is difficult to use as an AA in this match because he can delay his divekick for a while but still you should use it and recognize when you’ll have to make that adjustment.
Command grab/Shoryu/bait mixups is what the match will boil down to if he gets close and you’re on defense. You guess right and you get good damage. He guesses right and he gets to do it again, but I know Seth players have to be extremely brave when they play that game so making any mistake for that huge chunk of damage can be a mindfuck for them. Just don’t get mindfucked yourself if they’re on a roll and you’re close to stun. Stay patient and capitalize when you read him.
Mixing him up, I find instant stomps to be pretty good for baiting Shoryu and command grab/EX command grab amongst other things. Other mixups come naturally, but when it comes down to the wire and he’s waking up, I’m thinking to bait his panic moves with stomps most of the time.
Zoning is pretty much like fighting a shoto, except if he decides to jump or walljump refer to the anti-airs I listed above (air grab is good vs. his wall jump too if you’re close/have him cornered). Hasanshu/Ultra to counter sonic booms… they don’t recover nearly as fast as guiles. Ultra his St. HP (stretchy arms) and be careful with your own fireballs as he can Ultra 1 them or EX Legs them if he’s looking for it.
I can believe that Chun vs Seth is 5-5 on paper, but against any good Seth player it’s almost always an uphill battle. From far away Chun wins, but from up close Seth wins. Problem is, Seth has lots of options to approach and Chun is not always able to prevent him from doing so.
Yeah, pretty much what Darklight said. In addition -
She does win the long-range game. She has tools to keep him out - he can’t Sonic Boom as much as he’d like (Hasanshu, plus U1 - which has great range against him), he loses c.hp when she has ultra, and nj.rh is decent AA against him. Chun doesn’t want to be neutral jumping when he has U1, but if she sees him jump back towards the wall she can do it on reaction easily and block him. Air throw is also nice to have.
Also the nice thing about EX SBK is that it’s a side-neutral reversal. So it’s a good answer for ambiguous landing cross-ups that Seth has to calculate for.
This is a match where Chun can afford to be a little offensive. In some ways that works to her favor - you want Seth burning meter on DP cancels to safety and not on high damage/stun combos. If Seth is willing to throw uncanceled DP’s you can punish and his low health works in Chun’s favor here. Make no mistake - the up-close game is definitely Seth’s, but Chun can (and should) apply a little offensive pressure when the situation calls for it.
So Seth is kind of like Rufus, but with a (somewhat) better offensive game while and a better reversal overall, but its harder for him to get in and he pays more dearly for mistakes. I think that’s enough to bring the MU to even, as hard as that can be to process. With both characters you don’t want them in close - it’s just a matter of how they’re making your life miserable. Honestly though Seth’s divekicks are much easier to deal with than Rufus’s. I also feel like he definitely has the advantage with meter, so it’s up to Chun to win the first round and then accept a probable loss in the second to come back in the third, or hope the opponent is being stingy with meter usage/make them burn it and win the second.
Now I understand both Az and Dark are decent players but suggesting its 5-5 and that all characters have to deal with Seth BS in the same way as Chun is just frankly not true.
Two players who gave up on Chun and don’t even play that much SF4 anymore?
If Seth safe-jumps you it doesn’t matter if you have a DP or not. You’re blocking the jump-in and then you have to deal with whatever mixup he’s going to do. I play a little E.Ryu and I’ve tried DPing the bastard only to have Seth’s DP win. So it’s not like having one is an automatic get out of jail for free card (Seth generally doesn’t want to fuck with Cammy because rather than just eating DP, it now puts him on the bad end of her offensive momentum). If you play a character with fantastic escape options (such as Bison or Akuma) then Seth’s offensive pressure isn’t as bad, but more or less everyone is in the same boat - will he DP, Tanden, or SPD?
Chun generally does pretty well mid-range and long distance against him, so really she just doesn’t want him in her face on his terms. U2 Zangief in Chun’s face is horrible for her as well, but she gets the 6 because it’s difficult for Gief to get there. Same sort of idea. And while Chun can’t zone Seth out nearly as well, she does have options to make him at least put in some work to get there. Factor in his low health and it’s enough to make a difference.
However I really only give the match 5-5 on the condition that Chun is willing to be somewhat offensive. If she’s trying to run away from him for 99 seconds then she is most likely going to lose.
And Chun’s 3.5 or less against Akuma is about more than just losing to vortex. It’s that plus she can’t really do shit against him offensively, and he wins the long distance game as well. It puts her in a position where she has to constantly make great reads against him. She’s always playing his game and just trying to sneak in damage where she can.
Nuki stopped playing SF4 not long after SBO 09 IIRC. That was before Seth was even playable (arcade version). He never really liked the game anyway. And he lost to Honda at SBO, mostly due to a small degree of randomness (he got hit by a random jab into Hands, into Super and Chun’s life bar just vanished). Don’t really know what Nemo’s deal is, he retired once around Super only to come back, switch characters, and then leave again. I think he’s another one of those players that never really got into the game.
So my point is it’s kind of hard to look to those two for Chun inspiration. We actually don’t have a really good/consistent high-level player to turn to so we have to take it upon ourselves to maximize her potential and innovate where necessary.
I’ve been saying this for awhile, but most of the time when I see a Chun I see her being played as a defensive zoner, and I think that’s wrong. Maybe this is a hold-over from original SF4, where everyone had to play cautiously because reversals were so damn awesome. Especially for Chun and her low vitality, she could do everything right for 90% of the match, make one mistake and then lose.
Now v2012 is all about offense, and Chun is still trying to say “stay away from me!” I consider Guile’s zoning game to be miles better than Chun’s and he’s only mid-tier. So I don’t see the benefit in playing her like this. She doesn’t have an air-tight offense so she always has to worry about eating a reversal, and more than just the damage is the problem of getting put on her back and in a position where she has to defend. So she can’t go gonzo on the offense. But she does have options and I feel that mixing them with her zoning game makes her better overall.
So the point of all that is – if you spend 99 seconds trying to keep Seth out, you’re probably going to lose. Try to zone him out and take 100 damage or so for every successful hit or two you get, but then he gets in and takes 3-400 and puts you in a position to take more if you don’t guess correctly. So yeah, looking at it like that Chun is going to lose. But I feel the same way about Makoto. Obviously she’s nowhere near Seth’s league in sheer offensive pressure, but the basic principle is the same – keep her out for half the match, she gets in once and destroys you.
So zone Seth as much as you can, then pick your spots and go in for offense. Force him to make a guess that can lead to damage dealt if he’s wrong. She should be going in to try and bait whiffed DP’s for a good punish, and especially when he has meter to bait out DP FADC - better he use his meter here than on a high damage/stun combo. Yes Chun risks eating a reversal and getting put on her back, but that’s just part of the game. Increase the damage you deal to him to go with occasionally keeping him out and this is what makes the match more even.
A 4f safejump/OS off of hasanshu knockdown after focus crumple:
Lvl 2/lvl 3 Focus crumple -> Backdash -> HK HSU -> whiff 2 cr. jabs (or whiff cr. jab, then close st. lk seems more accurate)-> nj. HK/cr. HK OS.
I don’t really use OS much but I was trying to figure out some safe jump from HSU’s hard knockdown properties and I do the HSU knockdown often if I end up backdashing after a crumple instead of forward dashing. Sweep OS is needed to prevent backdash abuse etc.
In some ways I agree with Az though, we need to figure out a new way to play chun, and being defensive isnt going to be it. Shes not even good at defense in the first place, aside from her back dash. Her offense isnt very good either, but I bet there are a lot of setups that none of us have figured out yet. 2012 is more or less about rush down, shenanigans, ch setups and vortex stuff, theres gotta be something.