Hail, Cammy players. I just got SSF4AE really recently and don’t even have 20 hours of gameplay to my name yet, but have already settled on Cammy as my main. I just… did really well with her compared to with the other characters I tried. And she’s pretty cool anyway. I’ve always liked the bad guys who become good guys. But, in the newbie forum I was warned that there’s a lot of Cammy hate out there. How bad is it really? And what are the main reasons for it? Once I get her basic moves and a few combos down well enough to start playing online I wouldn’t want to prove any of them wrong by failing to give them lots of what they hate. 
(One thing I’ve learned during my roughly one year of Soul Calibur 5 is that a lot of hate mail and trash talk means you’re doing something right!) I’ve got a long way to go before I’ll be infuriating any players who know what they’re doing, though. All I’ve really got going for me at this point is enough fighting game instinct to know that spamming spiral arrows will only get me so far.
Are u viola in scv lol would explain the hate msgs. I main natsu still get hate thu lol.
For similar reasons cammy is considered by many players cheap and in the top tier category. She is always hated for the wrong reasons thu.
Cammy is one of the few, probably the only character, that can expose bad habits (of defense) when she’s up close to the opponent. Which then u can capitalize on. The same happens during oki situation.
As a beginner the most difficult thing to learn when playing cammy is how to approach ur opponent safely. The hardest thing for cammys to do is to maintain ground in a neutral situation (in footsies) when u don’t have meter. Common beginning of round1.
Haha, I don’t play Viola though I’m quite familiar with all the Viola hate. I think a lot of it is understandable, though I see learning to deal with Viola (and Natsu) as just part of the game. The hate mail I get is almost always when I play Siegfried, who you probably know is actually one of the weaker characters in the game. I was wondering if it was a similar situation with Cammy, if she’s just a bit different than the other characters and has to be dealt with a bit differently rather than that she’s overpowered.
I’ve been using spin knuckles to close in fast, especially against characters that launch fireballs. Even if it’s blocked you’re right in their faces and evidently not at much of a disadvantage on block. I have noticed that certain characters love to throw me out of them, though.
Cammy = top tier. But not viola tier. She is really good. But not broken good.
Vs fireballs either use ex arrow in reaction to fireballs or ultra1 (main fb punish… u1 goes thru fireballs). If u don’t have ultra meter. Focus backdash fbs to gain revenge meter. (2 at a time. Regain grey life. Repeat). Fb becomes extremely risky when u have ultra1.
Spin knuckle is rarely used. It’s too slow to be practical. Good players will punish u hard for it (during startup). Yes it’s +frames on block +4 for lp. +3 for the other versions. I personally rarely use it.
The same for naked arrow. It’s highly punishable on block. Its only safe on block if spaced perfectly (hits by the very tip) or meaty.
It’s + on block, and has all that invincibility, and does all that damage, but is rarely used? Makes me kind of sad since that is my favorite move, though needing more of an opening to use it has kept me from over-using it as much as spiral arrows, I think. Since, as you mentioned, it does have to wind up an awful lot before impact.
It’s good against he car in the bonus stage, at least.
I guess focus backdashing is something I need to learn how to do. Well, backdash is self-explanatory. I’ve seen discussion of focus but haven’t yet worked out what people mean by that exactly in my tiny amount of play time so far.
I personally think that alot of people who start Cammy and only played sf4 for a short period of time don’t really understand her as a character (including myself). When I first started learning her I expected to rush people down, press tons of buttons and win the round which is wrong in most cases. Don’t even get used to bad habbits like mashing dp on wakeup, (except if you know your opponent is pressing buttons or doing obviously bad jumpins) or spiral arrows/Knuckles from fullscreen because it looks like they’re safe.
Also what is indeed quite important in this game (which is also universal) is blocking. Ask a friend or someone you’re playing with who kinda understands an offense if he wants to practise with you. Try to block his frametraps, setups, throws, jumpins (preferably with DP’S), and try to utilize your escape options (focus backdash, backdash, block, teching ?) etc.
Get used to her pokes and normals and try to play a few matches with your friend where both of you only use pokes so you get a feeling when to use which poke (far.mk cr.mk. far.s.hk s.mp etc) Try to get used to her neutral game without jumping too much. Alot of new Cammys just jump in and press buttons and if they get antiaired everytime they’ve already lost since they literally don’t know any other way to approach their opponent.
Now that I think about it… I am a way too defensive with Cammy in certain situations but in general you don’t want to risk too much. If you want to get in just look for that single opening(whiffpunish a move, bad jumpin, bad fireball which can be punished by your jumpins etc) and once you got you can put on a huge amount of pressure on many opponents but as I said don’t get too impatient and do reckless jumpins. This might work against people who can’t antiair but it’s really better for you if you don’t get these bad habbits at all so you don’t have to get over them later once you improved.
When I was learning combos when I started SF4 I had that problem that I could do the combo like 100 times in the lab but I could never do it in match simply because I never practised situations where I could land them. So if you ever practise combos in this game try to do a setup first (for example a safejump or unblockable) and the combo afterwards (cr.lk cr.lp cr.mp or S.hp > Spiral Arrow). If you want to learn hitconfirms set the dummy on random block and do a blockstring. If it connects combo into Spiral arrow. If it doesn’t connect do a walkup throw or walkup and press another button (s.hp for example) if that one connects end the combo in Spiral arrow (s.hp s.lp cr.lk > SA or simply s.hp cr.mk > SA (my go to confirm))
Once you got a general idea how to play her you should start approaching single matchups. How to approach fireball characters and zoners, when is it safe to jump, characterspecific setups etc.
Also check out the Cammy Tutorials by RandomSelectTV. I think it really covers her basics.
Now that I finished writing and reading your post again I am not really sure if you knew this already, I guess I read it wrong but meh…don’t want to delete it
I think it’s still pretty safe to assume that I may not know anything at his point. Thanks for all the advice!
I’ve also been looking for some pockets to start working on and am strongly considering E. Honda and… Juri!
Just learn everything in those videos and be prepared to be called a scrub. People can’t be bothered to learn the matchup and cry. Seriously, learned that before even bothering to learn max damage stuff and all I got on mic was “You’re not even good”.