Birdie Q&A Thread: Ask All Your Questions Here

Blocking seems to be the best answer for dealing with pressure. Block and v-reversal to get people off of you. Crouching mp deals with neutral jumps.

You should be using Birdies amazing normals and tools to bully people into the corner. Use cans to cover you as you walk them down and bananas to keep them away. People should never be jumping at you because Birdies crouching mp is one of the best antiairs in the game.

This is just simple stuff to help you. Birdie has many tools and all of them are great however they can be very unsafe when used incorrectly. The biggest thing about Birdie is learning how and when to use them.

Ok.

Approach:

Walk. Forward. I’m not being a douchebag. Literally walk forward. Try to react to their movements by blocking, then walk forward again. At first, you don’t even need to push anything. Your opponent will either move backwards, move forwards, or try to attack you. If they move backwards, keep walking forwards. Walking a retreating opponent to the corner is exactly what you want to be doing. If they move forwards, c.lp makes for a good poke to stop them and make them think. If they attack, you either block until they do something unsafe, or you can think about countering it with a move of your own. Armor on f.hp can be useful here, or distance yourself to whiff punish with s.mp xx bullhead.

From these 3 situations, you put yourself in a position to react and counter what your opponent does next. If they try to open you up with a jump, c.mp is LIFE. s.lk is your quickest normal and is the first thing you should think about doing when they leave themselves at negative frames. Even if they’re safe on their negative normals, they are still at disadvantage, which means you are in the better position. This is where you can apply pressure. Scoring damage is nice, but controlling the match is what LEADS to damage. Try to keep that in the back of your mind. You don’t always have to have your hits connect. If you’re controlling the opponent, you’re going to win.

Basically, birdie can use his sheer presence to dictate how the opponent plays the match. Walk forward and block is REALLY useful in learning how your opponent is going to play, which leads to punishing and countering them later. No two opponents are the same, so you can’t really play a single strategy and hope it works 100% of the time.

Wake Up:

Just block, homie. Birdie’s wakeup isn’t good. You just have to handle it. Eventually, you’ll block enough that the pushback resets the neutral game, so you can begin your approach again. Blocking is your friend.

How do I deal with positive frames:

Just block, homie. Karin FEELS like shes + on everything but pushback is real, as I said above, and so is whiff punishing. Your range is further than hers, so bear that in mind. Heaps of her shit can be interrupted with a jab, or an armored move (F+hp, or EX Bullhorn). Similar characters have similar issues. Except maybe Cammy. Shes’s pretty hard.

Why does everything CC…?

Because you’re pushing the buttons at dumb times. That’s all there is to it im afraid. s.mk is for whiff punishing. It’s a good poke, but you need to be careful of opponents who excel at getting crush counters on poorly timed pokes. (Bison/Necalli for instance) You need to be poking with it almost on reaction, not so much as a “This button goes far i must poke now all the time lul” c.lp is better for a pressure poke than s.mk, because it gives you more time to recover if the opponent tries to get around it. Same goes for s.mp. s.mp is primarily a whiff punish at medium range. It’s not an offensive poke. You can use it to fish for a whiff punish sometimes, but don’t get too excited.

Hope that’s all kind of useful. It’s a really really basic rundown, and there will be definite exceptions, but hopefully that’s at least a start point for you. Birdie is meant to intimidate the opponent into reacting a certain way. Whether they go ham and try to smash you, or whether they sit there and block, you need to be using this information to approach each game. Birdie excels in reactive gameplay. Control the mid range with your normals, and don’t be afraid to block.

TBH I wouldn’t even use the can/banana until you can get a handle on his neutral options. Once you learn what situations you’re free to use them in, that’s when you can start implementing his other tools.

When do you use the can v-skill. I mainly use banana’s and donuts.
I sometimes use it to remind my opponent that I have it, but I never see a real use for it.

I loved it in beta phase one, when it was so much quicker.

For me it’s the other way around.
I hardly use the banana unless I feel like I can safely meter build by whiffing a command throw behind it from mid/fullscreen.
I really see no offensive use for it other than being a bad punishable gimmick when used up close, since everyone already quick recovers and reacts to it when done after a normal throw, bull revenger or LK hanging chain.

Donut comes into play when I’m laming it out against Dhalsim, Fang, Laura or shoto fireballs and if they don’t approach.

The glorious can is used as my primary tool from setups or given opportunities.

  • AA cHP xx can (Birdie throws the banana a little bit furter than the can, so if the opponent is too close, the banana will be thrown behind the opponent while the can is able to hit them)
  • EX Headbutt xx VT cHP xx can.
  • After MK Chain
  • Against most characters with combos ending with headbutt and if u’re not close to the corner
  • After crush counters -> cHP xx HK Hanging chain
  • Whenever I’m given the oppertunity to use it from fullscreen.

Machineking1313 don’t be so negative man, you can improve in this game if you practice properly(be positive about your own learning).
i think you should see your own replays, take a piece of paper and take notes of your owns matches (specially when you lose). it’s hurt but it’s work.
take notes about what opponent moves they use to beat you, what are the kind situations you get hit and identify your weakness. after that go back to training mode to search/learn how to handle this moves (write things down, memory is fragile), and play against the same opponent. also use training mode recording to practice (for example if your anti air/fireball punish reaction is bad, record 3 slots of ryu’s fireball at different times and 2 slots of ryu jumping.)

Blocking does not work either. I get thrown all day. I literally will get thrown 4 times in a row sometimes. I try to tech the throw, but I usually get crush countered or they throw me despite me trying to tech it. I don’t know why teching is so impossible in this game. I didn’t have this problem before. Vs a lot of the cast, like Bison, I actually lost more than half my health with white damage from blocking him and I never had a chance to hit him back.

How close do you have to be to throw someone in this game?

I try my fastest normals, the light punches and kicks, they get beat by their slower moves like heavy punch. Nothing works consistently. I just get lucky when I win or play someone who cannot even throw a fireball.

Does Birdie have any good meaty or counterhit setups of note? Also interested in any gimmicky command throw/chain stuff

A basic grab/chain gimmick is s.MP around the tip and cancel into lk revenger. Revenger will usually grab them. Keep doing it until they start jumping out after s.MP. when you know they want to jump you can s.mp cancel into HK chain which will grab them out of the air.

Another one is on knockdown meaty C.LK someone, then LP command grab. Do it until they start jumping after C.LK and when you know they want to jump do C.lk meaty then C.HP which will hit them as they jump.

What is the best thing to do after anti air crush counter (spinning knockdown)?

I usually just use MP Bullhead, but I’d imagine better options are possible near the corner (anti-air st.HK CC, 236MPxxVT, 236LPxxCA?).

Like f hp? On that cc you can combo into m. Bull head

I think anything that causes cc will cause the same state on cc against an airborne opponent right? F hp is one example. I assume st. rh does the same?

I actually dont know lol. It would make sense though.

from sHK you usually don’t need the corner. The best things u can usually do is either:

  • cHP xx HP Bullhead xx Super
  • cHP xx HK Hanging chain

I’m not really sure lol. I haven’t gotten a ton of practice in the lab tbh. I just assumed that was the case. The guide seems to suggest that counterhit f hp ALWAYS puts them in spinning knockdown though which is interesting.

First I’ll say Cc f.hp definitely puts the opponent in the same state.

Next the best thing to do after depends on if you have meter and where you want the opponent to end up.
Mp bullhead is good if you want to cancel into VT or don’t wanna spend meter.
Ex bullhead gives crazy wall carry and a VT cancel.
Ex chain is also really good damage.
CA.
In the corner cr.hp xx hp bullhead/bullhorn meterless.
Also in the corner mp bullhead xx vt ex bullhead/ex bullhorn/CA hurts a lot.

Might as well go for cr.HP xx hp bullhead xx vt ex bullhead/ex bullhorn/CA, instead of MP Bullhead in the corner for way more damage.

I’ve been having trouble following up a cr.MP anti air. I usually eat a fast jab or a dp to the face. What are my options after a cr.MP anti air?

HP Killing Head, All light normals, normal throw, overhead, meaty sHK (if blocked meaty, you can go for a command throw or sLK/sLP since it’ll be +2 on block),

I assumed that it wouldn’t work because it won’t off of CC st.hk in the corner. Didn’t realize the extra height from the spinning would make it work. Thank ya!