He can’t ultra while his sonic boom is on the screen now.
I need some advice on the match up with Cody. I played a pretty tough Cody last night and I just could not figure out a good way to attack him (Akuma too but he’s a different beast all together). I couldn’t jump cause he has a sick anti air normal (standing MP I think) which hampered my offense and cross-up attempts (I learned my lesson and stopped jumping at all but I had trouble getting in and actually doing damage), I couldn’t focus cause he could armor break easily on reaction with the crack kick or the tornado punch (including my U2 start up) and he just shut me down with pokes and block strings into the tornado punch. I just felt locked down hard.
What do you guys recommend against Cody? How can I frustrate him in the same way and make him make mistakes? A good Cody seems like a pretty brutal match up or I’m just not seeing what I can do to trip him up?
Watch your replays against him and see what he’s doing then figure out a way to beat him. Work for a knockdown and completely piss in his face when you get it.
Pretty generic answer, but hell.
i disagree maybe you using it wrong,breathless especially good because of abels poor defense. the age of free jump in and pressure are over abel players.and the greatest thing about this ultra that nobody ever brings out is that it puts your opponent in the corner regardless or where you hit it from which is the worst position in the game.though abel doesnt always have the best tools to keep you there its still a major advantage
as a cody player i can tell you he is pretty difficult to get in on,but one you get in cody cannot do nuthing except eat blockstrings and TT.he has ex zonk but you can bait and punish for good damage.do not use random breathless from to mid range because his ultra 2 and ruffian.kick will armor break.u better set that shit up or let it go immediatly if cody has no ultra…and dont jump in
If you use your AA’s well, jumping in on Abel was never a sure thing. You’d at least get a trade. While U2 eliminates some pressure options, it’s not going to stop them dead and let you mix them up to death. I’ll wait to say more till after ECT2 though, since I hope to see an Abel in Top 8.
Edit - Thanks for the info Natty/Sakeido. Also, that link doesn’t work for me.
OK, so I was just playing some Sakura online.
I had about 50% left, and the other guy had about 5%. I backed him into a corner just through poking, so I was a few character lenghts away. I had the idea to just step back, and do Breathless. My thinking was this: I have this huge lead, as long as I don’t eat some big ass combo into Ultra, I’ll be good. So I stood at a range where I really couldn’t be hit by anything, and did it. The way I figured it, his best defense for this would be to just throw out U2, and make me cancel Breathless. Doing anything else would be risking the match. Now, this was Ranked Match on PSN, so obviously, dude wasn’t smart enough to do that, he just stood there, so I released and caught him, but I think I’m on to something with that use of Breathless.
Thinking on it afterward, I forgot that he could just Instant Air Hurricane to get out… but I think I’d have been able to cancel Breathless and punish that. Outside of that, dude had no options. He had no meter to EX Fireball, no Hurricane Kick would reach me from that far to focus break… he really had nothing.
For me, obviously with a lead like what I had, I had no real need for my Ultra bar, so using my bar for the sole purpose of draining his made sense to me. What do you guys think?
Like you said it’s PSN so that will work on people who don’t catch on. But analyzing it… I don’t know the speed of it and where you were exactly but I think you’d have to look at if you’d have to block the ultra or if you could avoid it completely. I say that because it may give sakura a chance to get out the corner and pretty much reset pressure. Sakura could do stupid shit off resets and get stun and more damage. but then again with no ultra for sakura you could pretty much sit back after and let them mess up. I think the trade off in that situation is worth it and I have acted similarly in the past.
On that note though breathless really changes the hitbox of abel to the point where alot of opponents have extra difficulty clearing him. Even a jump that should have been easily a crossup no longer crosses up so it’s good to learn those distances also. Ideally closest we can be to them without them being able to retaliate is what we’re lookin for IMO.
Is it just me or is st.hp stupid good as an anti air now btw?
And last thing I’m seeing is a strat I’m developing on dudley. granted I haven’t played any great dudley’s yet but staying just out of range of being able to hit them and abusing st.lk was working wonders. Any attempt by them to get in gets stuffed. If they try using dudley’s counter lk whiffs anyway and I get free punish. One smart dudley ducked in and then did the counter move. Good shit but predictable afterwards. Point is I think that’s the range I’m going to be trying to keep dudley at the beginning and end of a match.
St.hp has always been good, but I feel like now it’s STUPID good.
it stuffs literally all of guys jump elbow/throw shenanigans clean, and even deep crossups on occasions
Made sense to me at least. Ive done similar things. when i know i dont need the damage to finish my opponent off id do anythin to bait her to do something that i can punish with cr.lk strings etc, another example, i did breathless in the corner against guy/claw knowing while they have little health left, i prepared myself for a few options they might do but i was expecting them to try to escape by wall jumping, i immediately cancelled U2 after the flash and j.HP them for the win. Guy might even do ex hurricane kick, which U2 can punish for free but i figured that even if he did that ill have enough time to punish with other moves and take the round…
on another news, from my experience against some rose players using U2, most probably they’re just careless/stupid or summin but ive faked an oki and jumpback when she activated U2 and a lot of times they will recklessly do a fireball which i ultrad on anticipation. its like they feel like its safe since they’re protected by them orbs… 
oh and i did CH f.mk dash st.hp cod fadc ultra against guile the other day and the damage i was kinda surprised at the damage(of the st.hp specifically)… sooo good. the guile was decent and all, but i managed to keep up and thats all it took to take 40% of his life, just like that.
edit: st.hp has always been good, just need to master the spacing and timing and youre good.
Yeah, s. FP was ridiculously good AA in Vanilla. I use it the same way I did in Vanilla. It doesn’t seem any different to me.
Psychochronic was doing the same thing to me at MWC, but I was just using EX wheel kick.
U1 worked too.
It’s definitely good, but be careful that you don’t eat s.HP/f.HP (Both trade pretty consistently with s.LK from my exp and do 130 damage on regular hit).
i like that HAV. i did the same thing to a rufus player. got him in the corner, he had probably like 3-5% health, no meter and i was at a distance where he couldnt messiah (only last hit would get me but i could probably cancel in time), galactic tornado wouldnt have reached me (i would just cancel/punish) and if he jumped / dive kick i can get that (which he did). since he didnt have meter and i had a decent life lead on him i threw it out to see how he would react + like u said ultra is pretty useless right there. seems to work way better against sakura though but yeah i like that a lot.
I’ve been playing around with breathless against people in the corner like that. Fun stuff, especially after a blockstring sometimes they’ll try and mash out a reversal and you get it for free.
now that i dont like, stupid play like that
i dont know how is it over there but people are wising up here when it comes to dealing with breathless, U2 is still decent and all but im not going to use it in matchups that i know its not that hard to land a f.mk dash st.hp combo…
that’s what i come here for, to learn that what i’m doing is stupid :clown:
that shit may work once, but thats about it, anyone that can throw out a armor break move is gonna bait that shit out.
i like u2 especially against guile and gief but im still feeling u1 more. maybe that will change after ECT
I haven’t been canceling breathless a lot so I’ll get back to you on that when I mess around with it tonight
The timing for f.mk CH cr.fp is soooo easy now I love it. I think I’m gonna work it into being a big part of my game since it isn’t exactly hard getting a f.mk counter hit.