i think for SA, it’s safe if you hit people on the tip of the feets. HK in case the first hit doesn’t connect, only the second hit connects, so it’s safe on block.
meaty HK SA looks very good with online lag lol
Reversal attacks (SRK, TU etc.) will beat my meaty HK SA though, right?
I haven’t tested it yet, but isn’t the point of meaties that they do stuff reversals?
No, reversals will beat Meaties. Reversals were created specifically to deal with meaties, this was the case since SF2.
Imagine if meaties were un-reversal-able, characters like Guile, Fei Long, Bison and others with awesome normal moves would put you in block stun/throw mixups forever and there’s nothing you can do about… The game would be super “cheesy”.
BTW, for the subject of meaty spiral arrows, I found 2 other meaty SA setup situations other than the ones mentioned by Djb and DBC… I will try to post a video when I get home tonight.
Meaty SA has its uses, but once abused combined with larger reversal windows (4 frames for SF4, I believe), people can do wake up DPs, Ultras, high invincibility EX moves to get out of them or just block and tech the throw attempt if needed.
Hmm…but aren’t there ways to stuff wakeup DPs with your own meaty DP and whatnot? Or is that just specific to certain DP attacks?
Reversals beat ALL Meaties. The only reason you’d do Meaties in SFIV is because you are playing someone good (who won’t mash Ultras or Reversals on wake up for no reason) and you are just mixing things up and baiting them. Because Spiral Arrow is generally so unsafe, landing it Meaty so that it IS safe is a great DP bait. People try to counter it and you stuff them in the face with a DP FADC DP / Ultra.
The reason why Meaties work, cwistofu, is like this. You can see all of this in the Frame Data as well. Let’s look at the Medium Spiral Arrow first.
It has 7 frames of startup. Then it has 19 Active frames. Active frames mean frames that can actually hit the opponent. And according to the Wiki, she has -17 frames of Recovery time. This is calculated on the assumption that the very first frame Active connects on the opponent.
So now it’s just a matter of math. If Medium Spiral Arrow has 19 Active Frames and connecting with the FIRST Active Frame gives you -17 on Block, that means if you manage to connect on the 2ND Active Frame, then you would be -16 on Block. Hitting on the third Active Frame means -15 on Block, and so on and so forth. So what you see is that, since the Medium Spiral Arrow has 19 Active Frames, if you manage to hit with just the 19th Active Frame, you end up +2 on Block!! So it CAN be Meaty and you will end up with Frame Advantage. Granted, there is only a 2 frame window, which is really hard. That’s 1/15th of a second. 
Backwards Throw, Whiff Low Roundhouse, Medium Drill is a perfect setup for the super meaty Medium Spiral Arrow. But since the timing is so tight, it’s REALLY easy to mess this up. You have to essentially “Reversal” a Low Roundhouse and “Reversal” a Medium Spiral Arrow after the whiffed Low Roundhouse to time it properly. I’ve tried it a lot and just get hit out of my delay a lot of the time.
So now let’s look at the Roundhouse Drill. The Active Frames on the Roundhouse Drill say 8*11. That means the first hits lasts for 8 frames, and the second hit lasts for 11 frames… 19 total, again. But for this move, the recovery is -10. Why is that?
It’s because of the second hit. We showed that with the Forward Spiral Arrow, if we hit with the later hits, we’ll have less recovery times, right? Well, if you look, ALL THREE DRILLS have the same total frames: 44. So they travel different distances, but they all last exactly the same length. Because of that, hitting the second hit of the Roundhouse Drill in the MIDDLE of the Active Frames pushes the recovery from -17 down to -10.
But that kind of throws things out of whack a bit… does that mean the Meaty timing is a lot easier because the recovery is -10 and the Active Frames is 19? that means I can do it so I have a 9+ frame window, right?
Well, no. Remember, it’s calculating the recovery on the first Active of the 2ND hit. Which means we’ve already lost the first 8 frames (remember the 8*11). That means they are calculating it from the 8th frame that gets the -10. Which means that, yes, it’s not any different than the Medium Spiral Arrow. You STILL only have a 2 frame window to land it Meaty and be safe.
EDITED TO ADD: You CAN stuff Reversals, but it all depends on the move. If you have a move that has more invincible frames than their Wake-up, you can stuff it. If you can attack from an angle in which their hitting hit boxes MISS you and you get theirs after their invincibility ends, you’ll stuff it. Then there are sad moves like Gen’s Waterfall Kick DP, which has its invincibility END before it starts to hit!!! So a properly timed Meaty Attack will miss for the few frames it is invincible, but then it becomes vulnerable before it can hit you, so you just beat the move outright.
And thus endeth the Meaty Attacks Lesson for the day. Hope it made sense.
- James
Ah, I see. That’s interesting. And that reduced recovery time is why the cspike links off of HK SA when it lands?
So theoretically, you can pull off combos that normally aren’t possible by starting them with a meaty attack, right?
NEW POST:
Aww man, I guess you can’t FADC CS/ultra after a meaty SA linked into CS. That would have been pretty hilarious. I wonder if you can still hooligan tech trap…
Anyway, I tried to use the meaty SA trick in a few random championship matches just now and it seemed to work out pretty well. People who managed to block low would always try to do something right after only to get stuffed by CS. Question though: does a grab attempt beat out CS in that situation?
And man, watching SA combo into CS will never get old for me.
As promised earlier, here are 2 more meaty spiral arrow setups:
- c.hk, (walk back 1 step or slight pause), hk SA xx C.Spike
The above is easier to time since c.hk cannot be teched or quick stand so you can always keep the same timing…
- max distance lk SA, (if opponent quick stands, tech), immediately follow up with a hk SA xx C.Spike
The above one requires cooperation from your opponent but can be used as a tech trap. If you noticed your opponent has a habit to mash tech or quick stand after a knock down, this one is fairly easy to pull off, no special timing required.
Of course both of these can be beaten by wake up DP, high invincibility EX or Ultras… Just more options for Cammy’s mix up game…
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very nice will definitely give it a whirl!
thanks faux will try them out also i have to add maybe i got lucky on this but yesterday i was playing my friend he was useing ryu and i had cammy (epic battle of course) and i knocked him with a cs fadc cs. And on his wake up i did a cr.hp while he did a wake up srk. Now i thought i should have lost this and ate a srk into ultra but we ended up colliding. He feel back on his back and i only got stunned back. Now maybe this always happnens or i just had good timing but if a cr.hp can cause a collision that knocks a shoto back on his back and allows us to still be standing is helpful i believe to set up other combos
Cool vid faux, like the cr.HK, step back, SA one.
Great post James too, very informative.
Oh shiznit, I did my first C.Spike FADC C.Spike FADC Ultra in a match today to end it all. Haha, im still a big cammy nub but it’s nice to see practice paying off
Feels good, don’it??? :badboy:
- James
Yeah, I remember doing my first Cspike fadc Cspike fadc Ultra. Doing it while an audience watches you is the best.
I don’t think I would have made such a comeback against Yeb if I the crowd didn’t get behind me when I pulled it off. Such a morale boost.
And it’s cool as hell to watch 
Anyways, nice job nintendo punk! I better make sure I watch your matches at the next tournament! It’s gonna be mad hype!!!
It’s nice to know the Cammy community still finding new stuff :tup: I’d like to suggest though that if you are going the direction of oki meaties that you do them after 100% unteched falls. Or else it just turns into something like teching/unteching after viper flame kick shenanigans.
Care to elaborate?
Hey, Faux. These are safe on block as well, right? I know it’s hard to do on your own, but is it possible to show a vid of doing the setup and blocking a Reversal Fierce DP from Ken or something? I’ll try it out myself later on.
- James
They didn’t look safe on block to me 
but I hope I’m wrong since these look like some great setups otherwise.
I believe so (the execution on the cannon spike can even be slightly delayed, which indicates lots of positive frame advantage) but as you mentioned, it is very difficult to prove this by myself.
From the frame data:
Cannon Spike has 5 frame of start up and is active on the 6th frame
Ken’s Flaming Dragon Punch has 3 frames of start up and active on the 4th
so if cannon spike can connect after a spiral arrow (since HK spiral arrow cannot be canceled late or if it hits only 1 time), it would indicate that I have at least 6 frames of positive advantage, so Ken’s Dragon Punch should be blocked safely…
This is where I wish I have a “Macro” controller where I can program in the exact sequence and timing so I can perform these combos or scenarios in a controlled and consistent fashion.
Viper’s Flame Kick shenanigans start with teched falls. Teched falls are a chance for her to cross you up, whereas if you tech seldomly against Viper she’ll sometimes just superjump over you and it gives you an easier time trying to guess which side she’ll hit with her Flame Kick. In the videos above, I can’t recall but I believe all the falls have the option to be teched. So if they tech they’d eat mindgame, whereas if they don’t tech then they won’t eat mindgame.
Basically it’s a strategy that relies on people to tech or to not tech. Making it pretty much a guess =\ Which is why I suggested setups that would work only when not teched (like after a throw or super/ultra).