Blanka Discussion #3: Okizeme

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

This topic keeps coming up and people really don’t have an idea of what they should be doing on knockdowns, and I think Blanka’s setplay is not only very strong, but it’s really easy and efficient if you know whats up.

The last two discussions I’ve been trying not to chime in too hard because I don’t want to dominate conversations, but this is easily the strongest part of my game.

The format for this will be the listed knockdown in bold, a subsection in spoiler tags with each setup I know and my notes on that setup. Listed setups will not include the move that causes the knockdown because that is assumed under the section, saves me a little bit of typing.

Note: Cammy and Sagat wakeup 1 frame slower than the rest of the cast, Blanka wakes up 2 frames slower. This is important in understanding why certain setups do not work on them.

Forward Throw

Forward throw setups are stronger against characters who you cannot unblockable or do strong ambiguous back throw stuff against. It’s a strong tool to setup safejumps and is that it allows you to keep your opponent in front of you which is ideal in the corner. The strongest asset of f.throw is that it allows you to keep your opponent where you want them, which is ideal if you need to position them in the corner, or get yourself out of the corner.

note: a ‘wiggle’ is basically walking back and forth

Safejumps

Spoiler

4 frame safejump(Does not work on Cammy/Sagat/Blanka)

f.dash, f.hop, j.mk - Can be a little tricky for your opponent as it looks like you can reversal it, but you can’t.

f.dash, f.hop, nj.hk - Very strong if you f.throw your opponent while you are in the corner, lets you switch sides and put them in a large amount of blockstun.

f.hop, f.dash, nj.hk - this setup maximizes hitstun/blockstun while keeping you on the same side as your opponent

5 frame safejump(Does not work on Blanka)

mp horizontal ball, j.hk - This setup has a lot of strengths. Firstly it lets you switch sides with your opponent. Secondly it’s a little tricky looking with the screen shift. Thirdly you build meter from whiffing the ball, and building meter = good.

Character specific - works on Juri, Ibuki, Makoto, Rufus, Dictator, Fuerte(no u2), Ken strong/ex dp

nj, j.hk - The biggest benefit of this setup is that it is impossible to mess up as it requires no timing whatsoever. Hold up, then hold upforward.

f.dash, f.dash, nj.hk

High/Low

Spoiler

Note: these setups sometimes have issues on the characters that get up late where you will not get both hits of the overhead and some skinnier characters like Ibuki, Sakura, Yun, Yang, etc. where you will dash over them. I’ll update this with a full list of dash over characters soon, I am forgetting them atm.

lp horizontal ball, dash/hop, overhead - It’s an overhead setup that lets you get lots of charge because of the dash, it builds meter because of the whiffed ball, and due to spacing quirks it will trade with a lot of reversals, making it somewhat low risk. Character specific ideal followups will be in the next post, I’m still testing, sorry!

lp horizontal ball, dash/hop, whiff rockcrusher, cr.lk/mk - This setup looks very ‘goofy’ for lack of a better term, but once you’ve established that Blanka does indeed have an overhead, why not fake it and go low? Very underrated.

lp horizontall ball, wiggle, overhead- Same as the other overhead setup, but it makes it look a little more ambiguous as to what you are doing, and you can go for other stuff. The drawback to this is it requires more manual timing. A big benefit however is that it works on the characters you would normally dash over.

lp horizontal ball, wiggle, whiff rock crusher, cr.lk/mk

These setups are useful for characters you would dash over

cr.lk/far.lp, f.jump, overhead

f.jump, cr.lk, overhead

cr.lk/far.lp, f.jump, whiff rock crusher, cr.lk

f.jump, cr.lk, whiff rock crusher, cr.lk

Ambiguous/Unblockable

Spoiler

hold charge, wiggle, u1 - MIZOTERU BOMBER. One of Blanka’s oldest mixups, and while it is not as potent now as it was in Vanilla, it still does a large amount of damage and chip. Can hit on either side, does massive damage/chip, and on crossup some characters really struggle to get a good punish. If spaced correctly it will also make reversals whiff back into the ultra causing it to be inescapable by most of the cast. The drawback? If blocked there is a good chance you are at minimum eating an ultra back, and possibly more. This is best used if the chip is a guaranteed kill, or you are massively behind and need the damage to win and it’s your only shot.

lp ball, step back, j.mk/hp/hk - This setup is really underutilized by Blanka players. If practiced, not only can you make reversals whiff, but sometimes the jumpin will be a crossup, a fake crossup, or an unblockable, whats not to love? This is really essential against dp characters like Ryu and Ken because they can’t normally be safejumped, so having a setup that makes dp whiff, and is hard to block is a huge bonus to you.

hk upball, hp electricity - corner only setup, this really isn’t very strong, but if the electricity will chip out if mashed, and your opponent can’t reversal out, it’s a pretty good option. Depending on the character and when you upball, the electricity can hit either side. Use sparingly.

mp ball, walk forward, hop, cr.lk/cr.mk xx electricity - you can substitute raw electricity if you aren’t too solid with the cr.lk cancel, but you lose damage and the fact that you are hitting low. This setup is pretty strong as it is hard to ascertain what side Blanka will be on, which makes it very strong vs. characters with minimal/non existent reversal options. It doesn’t lead to the most potential damage, and people will try to mash out of it, but overall it’s pretty solid

walk forward, whiff lp ball, electricity - corner setup. Have to time when to initiate the ball, but this is really hard to block if timed correctly.

New:

dash, cr.mp, j.mk/hk - midscreen setup vs. Rufus. Unblockable, though j.hk is crouchable and whiffs at neutral. Credit to Insaynne for the new discovery.

Back Throw

On the surface backthrow looks worse than forward throw. It doesn’t leave you as at much advantage, it does less damage, and throwing your opponent out of the corner is never really that great, but it has one huge advantage in that it leads to his hardest to block mixups.

Ambiguous/Unblockable

Spoiler

dash/hop, j.mk/lp/hp/hk - Blanka pretty much only has one backthrow mixup midscreen, but it’s a doozy. All of these buttons can crossup, fake crossup, or be unblockable depending on the character and the timing used. I’m still working on a chart with the new backthrow in AE2012, but for now it’s good to know this information;

b.throw, dash, j.mk is unblockable vs. Guile, Guy, Viper, Rufus, Fuerte, and Juri(hard)

b.throw, dash, j.hk is unblockable vs. Boxer though it is kind of tricky to do.

b.throw, dash, j.hp can hit on either side depending on timing vs. a lot of characters, but most notably Cammy and Cody

Sweep

Blanka’s oki off of sweep isn’t as strong as what he gets after a throw, but still very potent.

Looking to combo into sweep off of counterhit st.mp/cr.mk will really open up the amount of mixups you get.

Safejumps

Spoiler

I personally prefer to manually time slower safejumps, but these setups work if you want to go for it.

cr.hk, st.jab, j.hk - works on 7+ frame reversals

cr.hk, cr.lk, j.hk - works on 7+ frame reversals

Meaties

Spoiler

Meaty setups ending in cr.lk/cl.mp are +3 on block/+6 on hit, cr.mk is +3 on block/+5 on hit

While I no longer condone trying to link to sweep, the extra frame advantage on cr.lk makes linking to cr.mk very viable, and it also helps if you are trying to do lk x3 ultra as there is one less 1f link to worry about. Being +3 on block also helps your kara throw game.

The cool thing about these is that if you sweep from close enough, the whiff j.hk makes the followup look super ambiguous and you can end up on either side.

cr.hk, whiff j.hk, cr.lk (1) - Safe vs. fully invincible reversals that start up in 9 or more frames

cr.hk, whiff j.hk, cr.mk (1)

cr.hk, whiff j.hk, cl.mp (2)

For some reason people still have trouble with hop vs. dash. Do a safe meaty and trick your opponent with what side you will be on. This is very strong vs. characters like Dictator who are forced to block when you go for this allowing for more setups to land throws and to frame trap him. If you go for cr.lk you also get a lot of os options like sweep or slide. Very solid.

cr.hk, f.dash, f.dash, cr.lk (1) - Safe vs. fully invincible reversals that start up in 9 or more frames

cr.hk, f.dash, f.dash, cr.mk (1)

cr.hk, f.dash, f.dash, cl.mp (2)

cr.hk, f.dash, f.hop, cr.lk (2) - Safe vs. fully invincible reversals that start up in 10 or more frames

cr.hk, f.dash, f.hop, cr.mk (2)

cr.hk, f.dash, f.hop, cl.mp (3)

cr.hk, f.hop, f.hop, cr.lk (3) - Safe vs. fully invincible reversals that start up in 11 or more frames

cr.hk, f.hop, f.hop, cr.mk (3)

3=Blanka
2=Sagat/Cammy, if tried against other characters(except Blanka) will give 1 less frame advantage
1=everyone else

High/Low

Spoiler

Very similar to the f.throw high/low options, those are actually based off of these.

dash/hop, overhead - easy peasy overhead setup, you want to delay the overhead a frame or two if you dashed, but overall it works without any crazy timing. Will trade with a lot of reversals, making it somewhat safe.

dash/hop, rockcrusher, cr.lk/mk/kara throw - fake overhead setup once again, but because you are a big farther away with a sweep setup you can also go for a kara throw. If you decide to just block after the rockcrusher you will block reversals, which makes it a good bait.

Electricity

Followup Pressure

Spoiler

Blanka can actually get some followup pressure after midscreen electricity knockdowns. Nothing too hard to block, but forcing your opponent to do something never hurts right?

kara f.hop, cr.mk - Will beat crouch tech mashing, but thats about it. The biggest benefit here is that you can cancel the cr.mk to hop, which will keep you same side. A lot of what people to visually time hop punishes has to do with the point in which you crossup, since you don’t you have a chance to get some damage in.

kara f.hop, cr.lk - Hits pretty meaty, will let you block super slow reversals like ex Psycho Crusher

f.hop, cr.lp - Will make certain reversals outright whiff, and while you can’t do anything if they block, this is basically used as bait that gains you a bit of meter if they do happen to block it.

kara f.hop, walk kara throw - For the opponent who is used to blocking your cr.mk’s, work in a throw mixup.

Corner Mixups

Spoiler

overhead - The timing is pretty perfect, if you just delay it by a frame or two.

dash, electricity - Will get under some reversals like Boxer headbutts, Deejay upkicks, etc. and beat them clean

whiff jab(buffer electricity), walk forward, electricity - Will also get under some reversals but will let you space yourself a bit farther out to more accurately beat them. Good vs. Yun upkicks

hop, cr.lk - Will safe meaty a lot of slower reversals. If you want to stay same side directly in the corner, substitute with a dash and slightly delay the cr.lk.

whiff ball, cr.lk or electricity - Gains you some meter and the act of whiffing a ball tends to make people a bit unaware of whats going on.

2

Option Selecting

[coming soon]

3

reserve #2

Anyways the idea is for the first post to have all the setups, then we can discuss the why and what to do against other characters and the risk:reward.

I’ll keep working on the first post as I go, I have to retype a lot of this stuff because it’s either mental or paper notes, or incomplete info.

4

So yeah my mentality pretty much laid out.

Throw wise, I pretty much always b.throw the following characters unless it will corner them.

Viper, Fuerte, Boxer, Cody, Cammy, Guy, Rufus, and Guile.

Boxer, Rufus, and Guile pretty much can’t do anything about b.throw, so it’s free damage vs. them. Guy and Fuerte have the best options vs. b.throw, so if they start to use them I will start to delay my jump to bait these options, or switch to f.throw safejumps.

I f.throw and do the lp ball stepback setup vs. Ryu, Ken, Akuma, E.Ryu, Oni, Ibuki, and pretty much any character that doesn’t have a reversal to beat it. It’s ridiculously good and leads to very solid damage, even if they whiff a reversal.

If I land a sweep vs. most characters I will go for an overhead, or a fake overhead setup. I think overhead is very very powerful and blanka players need to be abusing it a lot.

5

awesome!!! thx ves

most of the time I do my overhead timing manually, because it has so many active frames and doesnt really benifit from hitting meaty… but I should use a setup for the fake crushers… GREAT move

6

wow, one of the best post ive seen on srk. thanks man

7

Back throw, dash, cross up mk still works on balrog, timing is just really difficult now.

I’ll have more to say eventually, but this shit was so damn exhastive im not quite sure what to say.

I can say i didnt know that forward throw, mp ball, jump hk was a safejump for 5 frame reversals. Previously, I thought if done frame perfect, it was safe to 4 frame reversals, but now that Ves says that its 5 makes a hella lot of sense to me.

8

Thanks Josh, I’m not actually done yet, this is just what I had on hand, I’ll add more as I go.

9

Yeah thats actually why you use the setup. It lets you condition your opponent really easily, and keeps the timing strong.

10

I don’t practice really often, but i have some informations (mainly read on SRK) that can complete the first post:

cr.hk, [whiff j.hk OR f.dash, f.dash], cr.lk (1) - is +3/+6 onBlock/onHit.
cr.hk, [whiff j.hk OR f.dash, f.dash], cr.mk (1) - is +2/+5 on Block/onHit.
cr.hk, [whiff j.hk OR f.dash, f.dash], cl.mp (2) - is +2/+5 onBlock/OnHit and +3/+6 onBlock/OnHit against Cammy and Sagat.

Sweep, dash, overhead - is +1/+7 onBlock/onHit.
f.throw, lp horizontal ball, f.hop, overhead - is +4/+10 on Block/onHit.****

Some meaties that aren’t listed above. I don’t know if it’s really useful, be it should work.

cr.HK, [whiff j.HK OR f.dash f.dash], elec.LP : will hit on the second active frame of the LP electricity.
cr.HK, back hop, slide : is -2 onBlock.
Slide, empty jump, cr.LK : use only if slide connected on the first 3 actives frames (goes from +3/+6 onBlock/onHit to +1/+4)

Some far post-sweep meaties :
cr.HK, empty jump, cr.HK : is -3 onBlock and hit on last active frame of cr.HK.
cr.HK, empty jump, far.MP : is +4/+7 onBlock/onHit and hit on last active frame of far.MP. Safe vs 11+ frames revsersal.
cr.HK, empty jump, far.HP : is -3/+2 onBlock/onHit. I used it versus C.Viper because it makes reversal Thunder Knuckle HP whiff.

You can find my “visual” framedat afor theses setup on a google spreadsheet > https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApbwPvEeCJXfdDdlWjY2R0RoUW42Q1BwUk9VUm1vR2c

–

Some useful numbers, i used to check and build safe jump/meaties/…
After a f.throw:
[LIST]
[]Characters wakeup 81 frames after you recovered from f.throw.
[]Juri, Ibuki, Makoto, Rufus, Dictator, Fuerte wakeup 80 frames after.
[]Sagat and Cammy wakeup 82 frames after.
[]Blanka wakes up 83 frames after.
[/LIST]
After a sweep:
[LIST]
[]Characters wakeup 48 frames after you recovered from sweep.
[]Sagat and Cammy wakeup 49 frames after.
[]Blanka wakes up 50 frames after.
[/LIST]
pre AE2012, after a b.throw:
[LIST]
[]Characters wakeup 54 frames after you recovered from b.throw.
[]Sagat and Cammy wakeup 55 frames after.
[]Blanka wakes up 56 frames after.
[/LIST]
In AE2012, i don’t know if theses numbers are still valid.

After a slide (i think theses numbers come from Ves?) :
[LIST]
[]characters wakeup 44 frames after you recovered from slide if slide hit on first frame.
[]characters wakeup 54 frames after you recovered from slide if slide hit on last frame.
[/LIST]

First post here. Feel free to delete or ask to remove the post if there is too many mistakes.

11

Solid stuff. Don’t know how I missed the meaty far strong after sweep, I love that vs. Abel.

I will comb over and see what I think is good. Good to have all that frame data though.

thumbs up

12

I WANT THIS.

I haven’t tried the none jump FP versions of this if they’re any easier but I can’t seem to get this set up to work. I either whiff my jump in, or the jump in does not cause reversals to whiff.

13

sending you a pm

14

I can never get ambig j.hp either. I try it on Cody sometimes. On shotos I can time j.mk to stuff srks, as an air reset. Which leads to tech or backdash, not big damage.
I do like the whiff lp overhead post sweep on blanka, overheading a wakeup U2 looks funny.

15

I recently read from you andilitiritthat this setup is meaties. It was the first time i read this, and i think it’s interesting to add the explanation to this topic:

In my note book, I’ve also a similar setup: sweep, f.hop, jump.MK. I know (i’ve tested in training) that it make reversal DP to whiff - but now with posts above, I wonder if it beats auto-corrected reversal DP. Otherwise, this setup might not be reliable.
I’ve also listed Sweep, empty jump, f.hop. It crossup opponents when he wakes up and make mashed reversal to whiff. Still, i wonder if it’s reliable with delayed reversal.

Does anyone knows? (I can also post some notes/results from my tests for theses two setups, even if it’s only valid for mashed reversal)

16

Some of his attacks are “pseudo-meaties”. The thing to remember about wake ups is that your last wake up frame is always standing. You can cancel that standing frame with a crouching attack or by blocking low correctly, but if you just hold back and the attack crosses up 1f before (don’t remember the exact details), you will walk forward instead of block. This is what makes some unblockables and fuzzy guard setups work. This is also why Cammy and Hakan can do “unavoidable” grabs on your wakeup even if you hold down (holding down doesn’t cancel that wakeup frame, and since throws can’t be blocked, you will get grabbed). You can also try this using Ryu (against chars with normal wakeups): b.throw, dash, mk tatsu. If you hold down/back, you will get hit, but if you hold down forward or do a crouching attack on that wakeup frame the tatsu will go over you.

Blanka’s safe cross-up after an f.throw can be timed so that it’s not meaty, or pseudo-meaty. I’ve managed to get Ryu to mash a jab out before he got hit.

17

It says a lot about this game when you have to work so fucking hard to make a reversal whiff after you score a knockdown so you don’t die. Oh well.

18

I’d actually say the opposite is true. Getting knocked down in this game is really bad for most characters. Not even 3f DPs are safe any more.

19

I kind of meant that its easier to score a CH reversal DP fadc into Ultra than it is to do a crossup c.MK that makes reversals whiff. Its a complaint that’s been made a thousand times before, but when you miss that perfect meaty timing and get fucked up by one, its frustrating.

20

You’re assuming that the opponent always has that option, right? He may not have 2 bars for that, and it’s up to you (as in every other game) to evaluate the risk/reward relation.

I don’t think there’s an unwritten rule of fighting games that the person that gets the knockdown should always have the absolute advantage on the situation. And I don’t see how SFIV it’s different from many other FGs in that aspect.

In SFII (the whole series) you had the throw invencibility on wakeup, so there was one less thing to be concerned after you got knockdown, a short DP was a reasonably safe option in the faster versions (ST) and wakeup throw was a viable option too.

Not too mention we’re talking about Blanka here. Because there’s a lot of characters that really dominate the opponent after getting a KD (Viper, Ibuki, Akuma, etc), so it’s not like having a poor risk/reward situation after a KD is an intrinsic feature of the game, just of some of its characters.

So, I think, your post should be: :smiley:

It says a lot about [S]this game[/S] Blanka when you have to work so fucking hard to make a reversal whiff after you score a knockdown so you don’t die. Oh well.