Cammy Beginners Thread

Street Fighter V Cammy
201

I sometimes think that very good players underestimate upper Silvers and Golds. They know and understand more than you (not you personally) think.

I often hear things like “Cammy is brain dead, all you have to do is go crazy and she’ll win” or “Silver players don’t know frame data” or “M. Bison can spam Devil’s Reverse and Headstomp and reach Platinum.” Comments like those are absurd and comical.

I will certainly give some of your opinions a shot, but I am suspect that they will work as well against Silvers and Golds as you think. I say this because as an Ultra Silver, I’m pretty good (I think) at pressuring people after a drill. I can land a meaty st.MP or st.LK on a QR and I’m pretty decent at landing these normals after a backroll or delayed rise. I’m even good at confirming cr.MP (CH), cr.MK xx SA and cr.LK, cr.LP xx SA (thanks to the regiments that Sun Tzu and Carups laid out for me above).

I believe that players around my level know and understand; their frame data, most of the rest of the casts frame data, CC combos, VT combos, one bar combos, basic setups, how to AA adequately, and the concept of the neutral game.

The biggest struggle around the Silver/Gold level is understanding what the opponent is trying to do. Diago once said that because he’s played SO many matches, that within the first 15 seconds of a match, he can ‘label’ his opponent and ‘categorize’ what kind of player they are. It’s not just that…he says he has hundreds of categories in his head. I only have 2 or 3 categories in my head. I can’t figure out if my opponent is going to press a button after I do “X” or if my opponent will be patient and block 3 strings in a row.

Other struggles include

  • Nerves
  • Scramble situations
  • Failure to think TWO moves ahead instead of just one (or failure to consider multiple options from opponent)
  • Lack of knowledge regarding other characters tech/set ups

4 of the 5 struggles I’ve listed cannot be taught by reading or watching videos.

Other things that I need to work on is; divekicks, shimmys, and defending cross ups. All 3 areas are extreme weaknesses for me.

Sorry Pink, this was not directed at you and I didn’t mean for this to turn out to be such a rant that offers nothing for beginner players. You just said something that I wanted to expand upon. I just wanted to let you know where I was coming from, since I seem to be one of the weaker players who frequents the Cammy section.

202

No worries man. i fought, some silver Cammys, who were struggling to beat me. One of them asked me how i was winning by basically doing nothing. Which prompted this.

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Pink has the right idea to help, but unfortunately it doesn’t really explain “the why” which is a big part of fighting games. Like I can say do this, this, and that and someone new will be like, “ok I can do that”, but without explaining to them why they are doing that combo they won’t really understand how to learn the game. It’s akin to giving a man a fish, rather than teaching him how to fish.

What I like about the flowchart is it sets up a guideline to follow without being too overwhelming. For beginners you have to break things down into stages, sort of like Gief’s gym does so it’s not necessarily a bad thing and it’s not meant to be the end all be all of training. The problem is you can’t go into too much depth via text without rambling on to long so that’s why I’m thinking of making a video (if work allows it) that covers these guidelines but explains why you are doing them, how to use them, and what you should do if they aren’t working. For example pink states your goal is to land HK SA, but he can’t really explain why and how without writing several paragraphs that no one will really understand without seeing it and then practicing it themselves. It took me a long time to realize that what I was watching pros do was not the same thing as what I was doing even though it looked like I was doing the exact same move. The timing, the spacing, the setup are all things as a beginner you don’t really see. To them it just looks like the pro did a walk up cr mk and it hit so they did spiral arrow. You have to get them to focus on the moon, not the finger otherwise they will miss all that heavenly glory. Props if you caught the reference.

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Did not catch that reference, but I googled it.

But flowcharts are good and everyone follows them, right? No matter who you’re playing, there is a concrete list of viable things to do after a drill. It’s up to the player to choose which option he feels would work at that time.

Yes, I understand that watching what the pros do is not the same as what I do. I accept that fact, but it’s hard to bridge the gap of understanding why X worked for Kazunoko in a certain situation and it did not work for me. I know the answer is likely ‘conditioning’ or a ‘read’, but it’s a fine line of doing something that works and looking like a genius and doing something that fails and losing the match.

205

A flowchart is generally seen as the overall characters guideline of what to do from start to finish of the round. What you do after a spiral arrow is generally seen as a setup, which can be just a part of the flowchart.

Bridging the gap as you put it is what happens when you get that feeling that something clicked for you in the game and you suddenly got better. The problem is a lot of people can play the game for hours and learn absolute nothing while at the same time developing bad habits that will be hard to break later. This is because most people don’t know what to look for or how to bridge that gap, because if you are just going through the steps trying to perfect them you’ll mis the point entirely of fighting games. Which is to beat your opponent using your own mind/style given the character tools that you are given. That’s basically the whole point of the quote of focusing on the finger rather than the moon and is part of what @Sanada-kun was talking about with flowcharts being bad for beginners as it makes them want to look at the finger.

Unfortunately the only way to teach beginners this stuff seems to be with an actual sit down showing them and then having them do it to explain how and why it works. This can take a lot of time to do and requires a lot of hours of practice for you to pull off the same way, but I think the important thing is to get beginners “THINKING” about the purpose of what they are doing while they are practicing it so once they perfect it they’ll know where to go from there.

The problem is it’s hard to explain these more complex ideas in forums, so they usually just get simplified down to “footsies”, “setup”, “shimmies” by most good players, but unfortunately beginners really have no idea what these terms mean. First they have to learn what the terms mean and then they have to learn how it actually works themselves. Without a mentor showing you it can take a long time for you to figure what these concepts actually are and how to use them and I think that is where a lot of people get stuck in fighting games.

206

If you did not know the moon existed, how could you see it, let alone contemplate it?

Isn’t it easier to see the finger, become aware that there is a moon, and finally see it?

Imo, you awareness of the moon can only grow in proportion to your skill. If that makes sense.

207

Pink that’s exactly what I am and what I think Sanada was trying to say about giving beginners just a flow chart.

You are assuming they will become aware there is a moon by themselves through time and experience. Some do become aware on there own but some don’t and that’s the problem. If you give a student something to study, some will become obsessed with just the perfection of that technique that they will not see the moon at all. You show them the finger to teach them but as the teacher you need to make sure you are keeping them aware of the moon otherwise they may miss it. A flowchart cannot do that.

And yes awareness of the moon, well not awareness, but understanding of the moon can only grow in proportion to your skill. You can have awareness without really understanding something. Like I can be aware of footsies, but not really know what that is.

208

The problem is that a flowchart teaches someone how 2 win but it doesn’t teach them why they win. So in turn when the flowchart doesn’t work and they lose they will have no idea why they lost and will struggle 2 adapt. As a fighting game player winning is great but the most important thing to kno is the why.

Everyone opponent is going to be different and the ability to adapt is really important but a flowchart doesn’t account for adaption, it just gives u a gameplan and assumes it’s always going to work

209

Sadly I think this is what we are getting a lot of with season 2. I play against Urien’s, Balrog’s, and Bison’s that just go through the motions. They do it so much that even when the moves whiff they continue with the follow ups anyway. It’s like they aren’t even watching the match or playing the opponent. They just do what they were shown in the flowchart until it works or they lose.

210

Flowchart is helpful for me, I feel like I know the concepts of the game better than I know how to play the game. I really can’t figure out that secret to winning games. It feels like my normals don’t hit and getting in is impossible without jumping.

Does anyone have anymore tips regarding to the neutral? the flowchart mentions that mp and aa will make up most of it, but what about cmp, cmp and cmk, fhk and other stuff?

211

Thats like every shotomatch I had in SFIV.
Something whiffs, MASH DP! and if you block, they FADC away. Yay?

Which button to use, depends on the situation, your opponents habits and your spacing. Oh and the MU.

A good approche on lower levels is to bully the opponent with st.mk and stop inbetween for the obious jump to punish.
I like it to school my opponent, by doing over and over the same stuff, after a while they keep only reacting to this and go into some sort of autopilot mode. Then I start changing stuff up, what leads to quick deaths.

212

The flowchart is what’s actually holding you back. See what you’ve done is relied on setups built from a flow chart to get damage so it’s all you know and all you look for. Since flowcharts can’t really cover all footsies/neutral situations you have no idea what to do, so your mind resorts to the easiest flowchart option in the neutral which is jump on them. In order to progress you are going to have to move out of the comfort zone of setups and force yourself to do things you think are impossible right now, like whiff punish, hit confirming off one button, and optimizing counter hit combos.

First thing you can practice right now in the neutral are these three normals. In the neutral against any character besides Balrog, Bison, or Urien (shotos are best but can work on the rest of the cast) stand at about st mk range and walk back and forth. You will be looking to beat them out with you st mk if they try to hit a button at range or fireball, you will be looking to hit with with cr mk buffered into spiral arrow if you see them walking or dashing forward (if they are not walking or dashing forward do not buffer, only do it if you know it will whiff or you know they will walk into it), at closer ranges use st hp the same way as cr mk to beat out their normals with higher priority and faster speed.

At first you will get hit a lot and fuck up a lot but keep practicing this. Eventually you’ll sstart to realize when st mk works, or st hp works, or cr mk works against their normals. It’s different for each matchup and that is why it’s hard to explain through text.

213

@lbo neutral is hard to explain. It is something you are gonna have to figure out based on your style of play. I am goal oriented, so I just give myself a goal per rnd to do.

E.g.
Jump at them once/rnd
Vskill at them once/rnd
Land a 5mk in neutral
Land a 5hp in neutral
Land a 2mk in neutral
Successfully dash up throw
Successfully dash up 5mp
AA once/rnd
Super a fb in neutral
Exdrill a fb in neutral

Etc, etc. Hell you can even dash up dp once/rnd. Hopefully this helps you structure your neutral. Your goal in neutral is to make it as predictable as possible, based again on your style of play.

214

@p1nkt1t5 Don’t you mean as "UN"predictable as possible?

215

Its a matter of:

You want to be unpredictable as possible in the neutral game for your opponent.

VS

You want the neutral game to be as predictable as possible for you.

They are essentially the samething. I just don’t like telling new players be unpredictable, cause to them, that just means play random. When you want a strong fundamental structure with which you can lead lambs to the slaughter. Essentially what @Cipher wrote.

216

Based on your description I would have used the word comfortable in place of predictable “Your goal in neutral is to be as comfortable as possible, based again on your style of play.” To me being predictable is how you lose in this game and being unpredictable and adaptable is how you win. Sometimes being unpredictable is being random, which isn’t always a bad thing. Against people who really know the match up going random is your best show at landing something.

217

Some stuff to think about:

218

What did the Cammy forums teach me:
-Cammys Throws are shit, because it resets the neutral and Cammy has to get in again.
-Cammy can’t open people up
-They will rather eat the throw, than the frametrap,making her frametrap game incredible weak
-Throw has no oki, no vortex and therefore it sucks
-The opponent never has to press a button, they will just eat the throw and reset the neutral, making it so Cammy has to work again to get in.
-With 900 health is this a bullshit designchoice.
-EX Divekick is her only good move.

Thank the gods, I blocked the morons who write that shit.

219

Lol, man let it go.

220

I don’t know if this has been asked before but: What are the uses for st.mk? I’ve seen it seldomly used by pro players and some barely use it at all. I haven’t been able to make proper use of it so I’d appreciate any advice you could give about this move.