I don’t think you’ll lose out on fundamentals by making the switch. Birdie still relies on them heavily, it’s just a different set of tools once you factor in his can/banana and command grabs - good things to learn in SF anyway, especially V as there are many grappler-type characters. You’ll still absolutely need solid D, execution, anti-airs, knowledge of spacing and which buttons to use when to succeed.
At this point you’re probably super familiar with Ryu’s play style and move set. The fundamentals you’ve picked up are universal. If you feel like experimenting with someone else to see if it suits you more, I say go for it.
When I was teaching my friends how to play Street Fighter years back, they would ask who to start with. My mantra was “Your favorite, or Ryu.” Back when characters as complex as Gen existed, that would be problematic, but SFV isn’t like that. Especially not Birdie. One of my friends, who’s been playing for a few years, sucks badly with Ryu–but his Birdie is pretty respectable.
Birdie is really, really easy to use. Don’t let rankings delude you into thinking you can’t make a switch. In fact, for a beginner I’d say he might be the easiest character in the game. Low execution, high damage, excellent buttons, and fairly straightforward meter management. The fundamental fireball/DP game isn’t there, but his ground game and anti-air is still wicked strong.
What he said. Just go for it and see if he clicks. You’ll obviously need to make some adjustments, but your fundamentals ain’t going anywhere.
Took a couple days away from birdie, and just carved and went back to him today and have been busting people. Playing a non grappler without his godlike antiair makes it even more effective when you get those tools back.
Birdie’s a great character to pick up for anyone, as people here have mentioned. There are just two caveats:
Don’t start off abusing Bull Revengers (the leaping command grab) against people who can’t defend against them. I’ve seen Birdies who rely on that, and that move is so very easy to punish once you learn to react to it. Instead, focus on learning your poke range and antiairing. You’ll get good mileage just out of his pokes at a low level anyway, and that sets up a good base for his trickery.
Birdie’s defensive options aren’t great once people are in and pressuring, so make sure you don’t let them. For instance, follow up every single cr.MP antiair with a meaty of some sort if the opponent doesn’t have an invincible reversal. A decent base is to go into either St.HK, F.HK (his overhead) or command grab. If they have an invincible reversal, you’ll need to block here and there, but reversals aren’t risk-free in this game.
Also, USE HIS DANG V-TRIGGER. Birdie’s so much better in V-trig, and one weakness I have is that I just forget about it.
Cool, thanks for the tips everyone. I’m gonna try him out. I just need to watch some more gameplay and a tutorial or something. I have no game plan with him and find myself leaning on raw specials, which I know is what I shouldn’t be doing. He just doesn’t seem to have many combos and my neutral game is weak.
I should add: Learn to do his LK-Bullhead combo. It’s tough to figure out, but once you have it in your fingers you can punish so much stuff. One of the first steps of really learning any matchup is figuring out which moves can be punished with your LK.
For instance, a lot of Karins like to abuse their leaping hand-whirling special. However, when you block any of those, you can punish with LK into Bullhead before Karin can do one of her followups. You get damage, she doesn’t get free pressure.
You mean LK, LP xx LP Bullhead right? I was practicing that yesterday but it’s pretty tough. Linking LP from LK isn’t too bad, it just seems like the cancel window off of LP is so small. In training, I get a lot of two-hit combos by linking the lights and then a bullhead that hits but doesn’t combo. Clearly, that’s not going to fly in matches.
The cancel window for LK into Bullhead is incredibly tight, just as tight as the LP window. But it’s easier to me because you can piano the buttons, rather than mash one button REALLY fast. And it’s one single motion to incorporate into your reflexes, rather than a link and THEN a cancel.
And it’s not really a confirm. I’m talking about using it as a PUNISH. Birdie’s LK is 4 frames, and a lot of characters have normals and specials that leave them at -5 or -4 on block. Learn which specials/normals those are, and take a nice little chunk off their lifebar every time you block one.
guys how do u deal with charged st.HP from Zangief ? what’s the best way to handle this move ? I played vs Zanigief who likes to use this charged move a lot,and I didn’t have real answer…help
Technically lows beat it, but I’ve never had any luck using them against that move. I’m always too far and it lets him move forward, I have to block, or I get crush countered.
that’s my problem too. I can block it… but Zangief player is smart, he will spam and abuse that move vs Biride… so as soon as I want to make some pressure, I can’t because of that stupid move…
If Zangief is using the charged version of stand fierce, use Birdie’s toward fierce to absorb it and hit him on recovery. If he’s using the uncharged version, it has less range, so just back up and whiff punish it with Birdie’s stand strong into strong bull head. You can technically use Birdie’s toward fierce to absorb Zangief’s uncharged fierce also, but since it has no windup time, you can’t do it on reaction (and guessing with toward fierce is dangerous against Zangief since he can jab SPD on block unless you’re at max range).