[Beginner] Entry-level Juri Questions

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

I was hoping I wouldn’t have to make a thread asking this, but it’s probably for the best. I read a few beginner guides on various sites, and watched some Youtube videos, but not all of my questions were covered, so I’d like to ask you all a couple of things, before I develop any awful habits in my Juri play, or something similar.

I recently bought Arcade Edition, and after trying out a majority of characters, I chose Juri to be my main. However, most of the guides I’ve seen highly recommend Ryu or Guile for beginners, because of their basic attacks, and (In Ryu’s case, not sure about Guile) good normals, and I really want to dive straight into Juri, but I’m worried that it might bite me in the arse later on. Here are the things that I want to know most:

  1. Are Juri’s normals good enough to learn the basics of the game with? If not, which character should I practice with at first?

  2. How crucial is her Fuhajin store mechanic at a beginner level? That is, should I start learning when and how to store as soon as possible, or should I first spend time familiarizing myself with her normals/other specials, and use Fuhajin just as a normal fireball attack?

  3. I’m trying to find some entry-level combos to punish mistakes with. Even after reading various combo threads and other guides, I’m still not sure which ones to use, since at the moment they all look difficult to me.

  4. Is Juri gamepad-friendly? I’m saving money to buy a stick, but that’s going to take a while, so I’ll be using a gamepad until then.

  5. Are there any specific things I should look for once I start analyzing matches I play? (I’m still working through Arcade difficulty levels, I don’t think it’s a good idea to start playing online before that.)

Any advice would be highly appreciated.

2

I would agree on Ryu as a starting point if you are truly ocming in cold to a fighter, if you have your heart set on Juri, getting used to how she does first, while maybe not as easily rewarding at the start as having their easy reversals, she teaches other important fundamentals like sometimes just blocking. So many ryus just can’t block :3 (Though, some Juris can’t stop pinwheeling, or divekicking whenever, 2 areas to watch out for)

Very much so, she has some nice footsie tools(cMK, buffered with Pinwheel for example) Learning how to footsie with your character is always better. Practicing other characters to figure outt heir footsies distances for info is always good too, but that might be a bit much at the start.

yeah getting used to this asap would be good, but you can focus on just storing one at the start. Playing with multiples at the ready can wait, but feel free to try it sometimes, Remember online is just online, even in ranked, don’t be afraid to just test stuff no matter if you win or lose.

cHP xx HK Pinwheel is pretty decent as a basic punish, cMK xx HK Pinwheel and is one frame faster and more range for the punish, but less damage. cLK xx MK Pinwheel is a very fast simple one. and of course, any of those normals into fuhajin store instead is preety good too.

The stores have a bit of a reputation to being more manageable on a stick (4 fingers and a thumb vs 6 buttons vs 1 thumb vs 4 face button and 2 shoulder/fingers). I do find maintaining the press with my lower thumb and using the tip on the punches doable, but I won’t lie I prefer doing it on my stick.

Stop that, just go online, don;t fear online. AI will teach you things that don’t pertain to humans. Getting used to a large pool of human opponents wh all play very differently from each other will teach you more. Though even then, going to offline meets and tourneys will get you even better experience than that.
Theres a Go-Proverb I’ve always loved for this,“Lose your first 50 games as soon as possible, then you can finally start beginning to learn” the value of fighting humans, even the humongous body of fail you can find online, will be a better teacher than AI.

Good luc out there man, and welcome to Juri :slight_smile:

3

I second everything @Souchan said.

4

I think the most important thing to focus on when learning a new character is familiarizing yourself with their normal moves. Get comfortable with them, and know what situation calls for which normals. I find that most beginners focus too much on special moves.

Juri has good normals.

For Anti-Airs: cr.mp, cr.hp, far st.mk, st.lp.

Air-to-Airs: Neutral Jump mk and hk. Diagonal Jump hk, mp, lp, lk

Pokes: cr.mk, far st.mk, st.lk, cr.hk, st.hk.

Hit-confirms: cl st.lk, cl st.mp (these two are her fastest normals). cr.lk

Punish starters canceled into pinwheel: cr.hp, cl st.mp, cr.mp, cr.mk

5

Here’s a practice plan I came up with thanks to your advice:

Step 1: Hit the Training Room.
Step 2: Record a standard jump in or dive kick special.
Step 3: Hit each Anti-Air normal 30 times in a row, from both sides.
Step 4: Get each special to come out 30 times in a row, from both sides.
Step 5: Learn two to three simple punish combos, and get them to come out 15 times in a row (Since they’ll mostly consist of a normal and then a Pinwheel, I’m choosing 15 instead of 30 for now), from both sides.
Step 6: Do those combos again, but with a stored Fuhajin if possible, to get used to holding the buttons down.
Step 7: Get wrecked online a good few times.
Step 8: Repeat until I have no problems with steps 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Sound good?

Also, thanks for the quick replies, I think I’m going to try to learn fundamentals with Juri, with some occasional experimentation with other characters.

6

1.) Yes.
2.) Crucial.
3.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FNQreVzXko
4.) I play pad ^this is my tutorial~ You might have to switch grips though during Fuhajin stores from standard claw-grip to keyboard.
5.) Playing against computer is good for practicing whiff punishing and anti-airs, but it won’t prepare you for the onslaught of mashing through blockstrings.

My advice is to take it slow – Juri’s normals are #1 priority. Be familiar with them all. 2nd is to learn how to store and use lk.Fuhajin and hk.Fuhajin (I use mk.Fuhajin mainly as a filler if I have time to charge it, and also for the Honda matchup).

After you become familiar with Juri’s normals and specials, watch videos and steal other people’s offensive blockstrings and understand where and when they use defensive strategies.

Also, the tutorial is only a little outdated -_-; Most – if not all – you can still use now.

7

I wouldn’t worry about learning so many punishes at first. Get one down that you can hit every time. Also make sure you try to anti air different jump ins from different characters and distances. She can beat just about every jump in (damn you Sakura), but you need to know when to use each. st.MK is good when they are far in front of you, c.HP when they are over her face, and cr. mp covers most of the gaps. It’s a little harder to time, but f.st.HP works at some distances as well. For a LOT of moves that you can’t beat, c.MK will low profile you under it. It can even low profile you under some ground specials like Sakura’s tatsus, Fei’s chicken wing, Rufus’ jeebus kick, etc… That might be a little much at first, just throw it out there in some of your matches against these characters to get a feel for it.

Hell while you’re working on anti airs is probably a good time to work on option selecting crouch tech and cr.MP/HP to get ready for fighting dive kick characters. Just do a normal crouch tech, but add MP or HP to it… so you’d hit downback, LP,LK, and MP/HP at the same time.

Oh yeah… you get a free store after an AA if you use c.MP or c.HP… don’t forget to cancel them.

8

How do I know if I’ve done the crouch tech punch right? Which move is supposed to come out if I do it on empty space? Should I record a divekick on, say, a dummy Juri, and practice with that, or what? I’ve been getting crouching light kicks and crouching medium/hard punches to show up pretty consistently, but I’m not sure if it’s a good thing.

9

Yeah… the idea is if Rufus dive kicks, the cr.MP comes out. If he hits a button on the ground you’ll block, and if he throws you’ll tech it. You have to use c.HP for some characters/ranges. I don’t think I’d try it on Juri or Cammy, though. Their dives are a little harder to beat at that angle. St.LP is also great for beating dives if they aren’t right in your face. I’ll stop, I love playing Juri, because she has tools for about any situation, but I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much stuff.

10

Teching with cr.MP is good until the Rufus adjusts to it and does his dive higher than usual to make the cr.MP whiff. Personally I think that backjump MP and backjump HK are really underrated tools against characters like Cammy and Rufus, especially against Rufus.

In the corner I would tech with cr.HP instead since it hits above her head and he can’t frametrap with a normal or lowest divekick on block into another divekick if you press the cr.HP tech early enough.

edit: smh way to indepth but hey maybe anyone else needs it :stuck_out_tongue:

11

I’m more than fine with getting more advanced tips, since it gives me some sense of direction with practicing, if that makes sense. If I know what I’ll be doing in the future, I’m a bit more motivated and prepared. Since one of my friends (Who’s currently the only person offline I play with) uses Rufus occasionally, it’s all useful to me. Keep them coming if you have them, this is great.

12

Option select crouch teching works because when you press multiple attack buttons, the one with more priority comes out, but it still counts the LP+LK input as a throw tech. Button priority from low to high is LP LK MP MK HP HK. This is mostly going to be used when you’re waking up, to beat a dive kick / throw mixup, but the dive kick will be right on top of you. So I would use cr.HP for that angle even though it’s a frame slower. You should get the HP to come out if you’re doing it in empty space. By the way, Juri’s dive kick is actually pretty hard to anti-air. I would recommend Rufus or Yun for that training.

It’s more important to practice the anti-airs themselves though. Stay out of the bad situation in the first place. Also practice pokes: set your dummy up to just do some normal moves, find a range just where they barely miss you, then hit their move recovery with one of your normal moves.

I like that you are practicing combos while holding a fireball. This can be pretty important sometimes. You usually do not want to just do QCF+K and release the K, that is really slow. Juri’s fireball release is basically as good as a sonic boom, so take advantage of that.

For punishes, just start out with cr.MK into HK pinwheel. It does a good chunk of damage, has good range, and it’s relatively easy to do even if you are holding LK. Landing a basic punish every time is better than landing an optimal punish only 3/4 of the time.

13

I can usually get the cr.MK into HK pinwheel to come out 30 times in a row, in training, but it gets a whole lot trickier when I’m under pressure. Also, in most Juri matches I’ve seen, the LK fireball is the most common store, and I’m not exactly sure why, apart from the assumption that it’s because of mid-fireballs being crouched under. Is there a priority to fireball storage?

14

There’s no special priority to her fireballs, no. LK fireball is the most common because it can go under all other fireballs (even low tiger shots from Sagat), and also because MK fireball whiffs on crouchers. I find MK fireball to be useful in fireball wars and against anyone who tries to dash / fly at you quickly (Honda, Blanka, Makoto, etc). You also have to keep in mind what normals you are giving up to have a fireball stored - with LK fireball you still have her longest-ranged pokes in far.MK and cr.MK. Far.LK is a good poke too but not as good as those two.

Everything is trickier under pressure, especially when you’re performing Juri’s special finger gymnastics… but doing it over and over again in training will help you to do it in matches without needing to think about it. Sounds to me like you’ve got a good training regime for now.

15

abuse c.mp for anti-airs because it’s amazing. but be very careful against dive kick characters, like others have said. if you do that against a cammy, akuma, e.ryu, etc, once or twice, they’re just going to start doing their dive kicks at different times and they’ll hit you while you’re in recovery. then you’re screwed. and in a vortex. and juri has shit for reversals (ex counter will only work once or twice against someone with brains). as mentioned, you can cancel a c.mp anti-air into a fireball store, which is a great idea. you can also dash immediately after and wind up on the other side of the person you just AA’d for a nasty mixup opportunity. it’s especially awesome if you already have a fireball stored due to combo potential.

you need to be 100% for cancelling hk pinwheel from a c.mk, c.mp, or c.hp when used for a punish – no reason to ever miss it. it’s also the basis for her bnb/hit-confirm combos. and always use hk pinwheel, since the mk version can, at odd ranges, whiff on the last hit, meaning less damage and no knockdown.

get very used to storing a lk fireball and walking around, throwing out c.mk pokes at its max range, and releasing the fireball if the c.mk hits. once you get the hang of that, you can start experimenting with combos after a fireball release. (against shotos and larger characters, you can, if started at point blank range, link a c.mk xx hk pinwheel after a c.mk xx fireball release; against others where the aforementioned link whiffs, you can link a sweep after a c.mk xx fireball release – it’s critical to her burst damage capability).

16

I’m currently working on two punish combos, although I’m not too sure about the second one. The first is cr.MK into HK pinwheel. The second, st.lp into the close-range medium punch into HK pinwheel, is a lot harder for me to execute. I can’t get it to come out 5 times in a row yet.

One thing I’ve added to my anti air training is walking back and forth slightly, so I could either use it to position myself better if I react fast enough or to fake doing something else. Not sure how viable it is, but I’m trying to think of potential uses for things like that. Should I keep doing that, or is it non-viable?

17

dont worry about hit-confirms like st.lp into c.mk/c.mp/cl.mp yet. just focus on basic option-select combos like c.mk (or c.mp) xx hk.pinwheel. those have to be absolute 100% before you worry about hit confirm links.

walking back and forth quickly and in small amounts is fine…it’s best to do that just outside poke range because that’s when you’ll be sticking out c.mk to try and catch them. if they happen to jump while you’re doing that, you should be, with some practice, able to determine which AA is best to use – either c.mp or c.hp. and if you get a good read on the player and guess their jump properly, you can juggle with j.mp and U2 when you land (or cl.hp xx ex pinwheel if you don’t have U2).

18

It’s very unlikely that I’ll be using Ultra 1 in the near future. I don’t see the point, if I can’t make full use of it. Ultra 2 is currently my only option, the way I see it.

I’m glad to know that I can replace the hit-confirm one with something better, since it’s been somewhat frustrating to see the cr.MK into HK pinwheel come out nearly every time, and then have the second combo fail millions of times. I haven’t been trying to use HK pinwheel after successful antiairs, even though I’ve seen it used in some videos. I suppose I should work that into the standard routine.

19

it’s not that c.mk/c.mp xx hk.pinwheel is better than a hit-confirm combo like s.lp <c.mp/c.mk/cl.mp> xx hk.pinwheel, it’s just that it’s easier, and is what you should be focusing on now. each has their place and is useful in different situations. you need to master the basic option selects before moving onto tight links and hit-confirm combos.

a raw pinwheel after an anti-air isn’t a good idea since most of (if not all) of the hits will miss (opponent is landing after being hit in the air). after a successful c.mp or c.hp anti-air lands, you should be cancelling it into a fireball store, or dashing under for a mix-up. with the fireball store, you can go back to zoning and keep your distance. if you want to go on the aggressive, dashing under for a mixup is a good idea, especially if you already have a lk fireball stored.

20

I’ve been where you are, I started out the same way myself. While I won’t dissuade you from using Ultra 2, I will say that making the switch eventually helped my game quite a bit. Ultra 2 used to get me killed because I’d always go fishing for juggles or try for a raw wake-up ultra. I always ended up hanging myself that way sooner or later. Picking Ultra 1 helped break me of that habit and eventually I started making use of it. I’m still absolute garbage with it, but even simple 3-hit combos from it can be pretty decent, plus it can be used for mind games. People give you a little bit of space once you activate it and since they’re always expecting you to go for the super long combos they’re always thinking “do I block high or low” and not “is he going to just walk up and throw me”, which makes for a really good time of messing with people’s heads when you throw them for free.

Just give it a try once in a blue moon.