1

This is for a complete beginner with a mindset of having a focused approach to improving, I fully understand that it will take a solid amount of time to become decent at this game but when I commit myself to something I am determined to carry it out!

So, with that said, I need someone to create a training regimen for myself, w/ the combo and what I use it for and I can determine the reps as I see fit. eg. BnB (Combo here) - (What you use it for).

I want to have a super focused approach about this and try to improve at a solid rate, I will be devoting a lot of time into this as it is the holidays. My method in my head is as follows;

  1. Run through training regimen in training room till all the combos are done (both sides) I will force myself to do this even if its boring as hell (I am an athlete and understand the process of drilling, injuries FTW!)
  2. Play online and when starting a new match up play it as it is then look up a match up guide afterwards and keep that in mind next time I face it.
  3. To finish off my day I will come onto the forums and ask any questions that might have arisen from that said day.

TL;DR: A complete Sakura beginner needs YOU (experienced Sakura player) to create a training regimen for him that will help his execution. Keep in mind! He will be able to go through all you give him as he has a large amount of time.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

EDIT: ALSO! If I purchase Street Fighter x Tekken Fightstick PRO, I will be able to play SSF4: AE with it right?

2

There’s tons of information on these forums about combos and what works for which characters. You can also just figure out the latter. As for tatsu loops, they tend to be variations of cl. Mk xx tatsu cl. Hp xx tatsu cr. hp xx tatsu st. Lk xx dp or ex tatsu. Look around on here or figure out what you can do on which characters and at what ranges.

In training, practice your combos: tatsu loops for punishes / big damage, hit confirms (i.e. cr. lp > cr. lp > cr. mk xx dp, or cr. lp > cr. lp > cr. hp xx dp or ex tatsu, etc) for, well, hit confirming.

Something that you should also work in training that is often overlooked by newer players: learn the ranges of your pokes. You need to know exactly how far cr. mk, st. Hk, st. Lk, etc are. Really you should familiarize yourself with every button you have. Also, learn the ranges of your various anti airs: dps of different strengths, cr. hp, cl. Hp, st. Mp, etc.

In matches focus on fundamentals. Don’t let yourself jump, don’t let your opponent jump, practice using your pokes, learn how to space things properly and learn how to play footsies. Those are things you’ll just have to figure out on your own.

No one can tell you exactly how to learn how to play this game, the most they can do is offer advice.
Luckily for you there is tons of good advice on these forums, and i suggest reading through the stickied threads (or at least skim. I know there’s a lot)

And yes any controller (pad or fightstick) that is designed for your console will work with sf4.

3

Two training mode things that I did not do as a beginner(have never played another character, fwiw) that I really wish I would have:

  1. Learning jump arcs of other characters so that I knew which AA to use when.

  2. Practice combos going to the left as much as I did going to the right.

4

Hmm, okay. Thanks! So my bnb would be a tatsu loop? Because I can’t find what the bloody bnb is for sakura, everyone just says its the bnb but i don’t know what it is (sorry for my incompetency). Also, when you say don’t let yourself jump, is this just to develop my ground game better (I see people treating ground game more highly) and when my ground game is more solid put in air attacks or do you mean that jumping is just straight up bad? And yes! thats one of the thing I will be doing, trying to see every poke I have and become familiar with them. :slight_smile:

  1. I’ll look into that eventually

  2. Oh when I practice for my execution before my sessions I’ll aim to do e.g 10 of one move in a row, and if I screw up once before the 10th I redo it till I do 10 in a row, this will be for both sides… I’ll admit the first days will be rough and I will most likely get really bored, but that’s with everything you want to get kinda good at, right?

Thanks guys! If anyone else has more advice, PLEASE! :slight_smile:
<3

5

Tatsu loops will be your bnb off of a punish or jump-in with a cl.hp, cl.mk, or cr.hp starter. The most straight-forward will be cl.hp xx l.tatsu > cr.hp xx ex.tatsu or cr.hp xx l.tatsu > s.lk xx ex.tatsu/h.shou, with the former doing more damage but the latter being a slightly easier link, both work universally on the full cast.

Starting with cl.mk will leave you closer after the l.tatsu, allowing for longer combos, an easy one being cl.mk xx l.tatsu > cl.hp xx l.tatsu > s.lk xx ex.tatsu/shou.

While I would take your time working into h.shou > FADC > cl.hp combos, I would definitely work on ex.shou > FADC combos right away, it’s a much easier link, a good way to ease into her FADCing and getting used to buffering the dash input, plus it is capable of completely turning around a losing round off of a single mashed-out dp.

6

Oh okay, So my bnb will be a tatsu loop.
Question: When you say cl.hp xx l.tatsu > cr.hp xx ex.tatsu does more damage, but cr.hp xx l.tatsu > s.lk xx ex.tatsu/h.shou is easier an easier link, is there any time that I would prefer the easier one over the hard, more damaging one? Not sure if this is a stupid question but, just trying to learn! :smiley:

and what is the " L " in “l.tatsu” mean? I’ve never seen that abbreviation.

another question: Why is FADCing so utilised? What does it do to give you an advantage? I have a theory, just want to see if I am right.

And thanks for the easier and harder variants, that is very thoughtful of you! Is it viable to breakdown the hard links into smaller parts and then bringing it together, because I might just do that when learning a long, hard link.

THANKS! Keep the advice going guys, super helpful :).
<3

7

Basically until you get comfortable with the combos, you’ll want to stick with slightly easier links, as dropping a combo altogether will always yield less damage than not dropping a slightly easier one.

The “l” is for “light”, so when you see something like l.tatsu or h.shou the letter before the period means to use the light, medium, heavy, or EX version(similarly, in case you were unsure, on normal moves cl. = close standing, cr. = crouching, s. = far standing, j. = jumping, and nj. = neutral jumping).

As far as FADCing, the two main benefits are that you can extend combos at points where you otherwise couldn’t, or you can safely back out of an otherwise unsafe move. An example of the first is that you’ll notice that tatsu loops generally start with cl.hp or cl.mk. However, both of these moves require you to be directly in the opponent’s face, which they’re obviously not going to allow you to just walk up to most times.

One of your main tools will be canceling cr.mk, which is fast and has great reach, into h.shouuken. You can FADC the third hit of h.shou, and the hitstun from it will leave just enough time to land a cl.hp, and perform a tatsu loop combo from there, essentially allowing you to get the great damage and stun of a tatsu loop but from a much further distance out. Disclaimer: this is one of her harder combos and will take you a good while to get down, don’t get too far ahead if yourself.

Similarly, you can FADC out of the fifth hit of ex.shou and continue a combo, which in effect allows you to pass through most attacks with an invincible startup combo-starter whenever you have at least 3 bars.

And as for the second point, if your shouken is blocked, you can FADC.backdash instead to cancel the move and back off and go back to the neutral game(note: some characters can still punish this).

And yes, it’s usually recommended to break down longer chains into smaller bits first.

8

First step when learning a new character is execute execute execute. You gotta get past the thinking of pushing a button to the point that you just natural push the buttons. You need your focus to go elsewhere in this game (reacting to the opponents move, analyzing the opponent, etc etc).

When you feel comfortable you should be practicing all this stuff against the CPU. You should be trying to anti air him when he jumps in. You should be trying to get max damage punish when your block a DP. You should try jumping in and landing your combos. Everything you just worked on learning to execute should be able to be done against the CPU comfortably. It’s not about trying to beat him or anything, its about putting that execution to use in real gameplay where your thinking of so much more. If your too focused on what button to push next, and the opponent jumps… chances are your not gonna be able to anti air him.

Once that is done get ready to bring it online and have a world of hurt coming your way. Now you will get to see what a real match is like and understand why its so important to be comfortable with your combos and normals so that you can keep your focus on the opponent. Your now fighting against another human thinking just as you are thinking. How you are gonna out play him is up to you but its crucial that your able to land your combos when you need to. I’m not gonna go in depth with all of this at the moment since your still just starting but that is my advice to you.

Good luck!

“Everybody can see superficially how a battle is won; what they cannot see is the long series of plans and combinations which has preceded the battle.”

9

A lot of good things have already been said, but I think it can go even more basic, and start off with just drilling your special moves while learning the range of all your normals. OP is mostly starting out, chances are he can’t even consistently do a dp or fireball, tatsu etc. So I would start out with just that, while trying to figure out the range of your normals and when to use them, When drillling a good number to aim for is usually something like 10-20 times a row. Once you can do that, start drilling the ultra motion of both ultras, I know when I first started out, I couldn’t even do ultra consistently so I assume its the same for you.

After you can do that, start practicing cancelling normal moves into special moves. Another thing I had trouble with when starting out was canceling cr. mk (crouching midkick) into shouoken, other notable cancels are cl.st. hp (close standing hard punch) into shouoken/ lk. tatsu/ EX tatsu, or cr.hp into the same moves.Once you can do that consistently start out with the hit confirm combos and bnb’s.

The way you practice this the most effective way imo, is to break them down in small steps. For example lets say you want to practice cr. lk, cr. lp. cr. mk xx hp shouoken ( xx means cancel), first practice doing the link from cr.lp to cr. mk first, then practice cr.lk cr.lp cr.mk. and eventually do the entire combo. Use the same approach for all combos and basically everything you want to pratice .

Once you’ve done everything listed in this thread, you should have an basic understanding of how your character works and have at least a decent level of execution.

Also regarding the question you asked about whether to use cl hp xx tatsu cr.hp xx tatsu or the st.lk variation, there are times where cr. hp will whiff because you’re standing too far away in that case you can always use st.lk because it has a much further range.

10

That’s a good point, I do actually begin every practice session with a quick run-through of her challenge mode just to brush up on linking random crap to other random crap. The combos obviously aren’t very optimal but it’s nice seeing what moves are capable of flowing into other moves.

11

This quote rules. UltraDavid would climax over that shit.

12

Lol! the art of war is full of SF relevant stuff :wink:

*All warfare is based on deception.**Hence, when able to attack, we must seem **unable; when using our forces, we must seem **inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy **believe we are far away; when far away, we must *make him believe we are near.

*By applying the art of war, it is possible with a lesser force to defeat a greater, and vice versa. The secre tlies in an eye for locality, and in not letting the right **moment slip.**He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take *the enemy unprepared.

*Knowing the enemy enables you to **take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to **stand on the defensive. Attack is the secret *of defense; defense is the planning of an attack.

*To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own **hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is **provided by the enemy himself. Thus the good fighter is able to secure him self **against defeat. One may KNOW how to conquer *without being able to DO it.

Let’s start a religion…

13

Hey! I have another question for you guys! :slight_smile:

Can someone give me a solid list of common bad habits that i should focus on avoiding? I think this would be useful in the long run so i can spend time doing things that are good and avoid wasting time to unlearn a habit. :slight_smile:

14

Top two beginner habits to break off the top of my head: 1) Punishing opponents’ mistakes with throws instead of more damaging combos and 2) raw ex.tatsus from far out.

15

Jumping, excessive focus attacks, excessive dashing, throwing too many fireballs…

These things all give up control of your character. You put yourself in a situation where your opponent knows exactly where your character will be (or at least knows the limited possibilities of where your character will be) and is thus in control.

Not so say you should never do any of those things, but there’s certainly a time and a place.

16

  1. I will work on that! Sounds very useful and I think this advice will help me in the long run, but is there anytime a grab would be preferable

  2. I should only do raw ex tatsus from close?

Super thanks! Anymore habits I should try to stamp out, anyone?

17

Grabs are mostly used in mix-up. IE empty jump grab or a tic throw. (A tic throw is throwing someone instead of continuing a normal block string so say you normally jab jab med punch a tic throw is jab throw or something. Only do this on block by the way its more damaging to actually finish a combo then to do this)
As far as the ex tatsus he meant that alot of people throw them out at long range because on block your at a frame advantage. This is risky since it uses meter and you can get hit out of it pretty easily. You almost NEVER want to throw ex tatsu out close range because you’ll just go right over them and get punished. EX tatsu is meant and very good for ending a combo because the command jump as well as ultra 2 fit really easily after it.

18

Yeah, thanks for that clarification, I meant just don’t raw ex.tatsu in general unless the person is trying to focus attack in your face or you’re very confident they’re about to throw a fireball

19

Or against guile. Gotta be real familiar with that raw ex tatsu if you want to do anything. Or play gouken, like me.

20

Really? That’s one of her best approaches in that matchup? How depressing )=. I need to study ChrisG vs Dieminion a bit more.