this is something I see a lot of people including myself struggle with. Can someone explain exactly how combo timing works?
My understanding is that it has something to do with how long the enemy is in hitstun, but it seems to me like the time at which you press the button to get the next move out will occasionally make it come out faster.
Say you just sit there mashing short kicks with Bison. If you get the timing right, you’ll see three or four come out super quickly. sometimes, they will take longer in between them.
My understanding is that there’s a window of some sort - like, immediately when one move is ending, if you hit a move that combos off of it it’ll come otu super fast. With sim, for instance, I’ve gotten the combo timing on a d.mk into d.mp pretty well by waiting for the leg to come back in.
anyway, bottom line: Can someone who has combo timing down solidly give me and the rest of the noobs some explanation of how exactly the process works, and how best to practice combos? this is really hampering my ability to play alternate characters - I even have a tough time doing deejay’s combos sometimes =P
I mainly play Sim, so this hasn’t been much of a problem for me up to now, but as I branch out it gets ridiculous that I can’t punish dizzies as badly as I should et cetera.
this game has links. To link two moves together you have to wait for a move to recover, and then before the hit stun wears off you use another attack button. Not all moves have the same amount of hit stun so only some moves can successfully link into other moves. This is mostly for normal moves.
You then have chains…I don’t think any characters have chains in this game so moving on…
There are some specials that can “Cancel” off normals. Its real easy so cancel a normal into a special because there isn’t any timing to it. Since you don’t have to wait for a move to finish recover with specials you just do the normal move and immediately do the special.
Links are hard (well for someone who has been catered with chain combos like myself) but to get it down just go in training mode and practice getting the timing down. Honestly though, depending on the character, this game is probably 80% spacing and only 10% combos.
EDIT: Also mashing links out doesnt work, you have to time it in order to combo.
that’s a good description of my understanding of combos – So far I have not had much luck with training mode though, the timing always seems to change somewhat. Maybe there is a small degree of randomness or something.
Obviously there are lots more important things to this game than combos. I play Sim fairly successfully without more than the occasional 2 hit combo, and my dictator hangs OK doing 3-hit combos. But I’d like to take it to the next level, where if someone lets me have a jumpin they are borked – or if i get a random dizzy, I convert it to a win instead of a likely win. Know what I mean?
Landing combos successfully, consistently is the difference between winning and losing a lot of the time.
I guess I might just need to focus more on seeing the frames when a move recovers. That’s been a tough spot for a while.
It all comes down to practice and getting the timing right.
For example, Ryu can combo his c.strong and c.forward. After the c.strong, if you hit c.forward too early, you get nothing. If you hit it too late, it doesn’t connect. You have to find the timing in between that works. You also mention Dictator’s 3 shorts. Well see what you’re doing wrong. If the first 2 shorts don’t connect, you must be hitting the 2nd short too late.
That’s pretty much how it is for everyone else. Though the timings for other links are different of course.
Fortunately, this game has training mode. Learn what combos your character has and then go practice.
If you are playing online then you will have a lot of problems comboing. Especially with Dic since he is a pretty technical character. I can do Dictators TOD combo 5 out of 10 times offline and 1 out of 10 online.
In real offline matches though the timing will be the same.
Dude, if you want to play Dictator you have to get those combos down. Dict. is a balls to the wall character: He has next to no defense, so when you get an opening you must take the W. Against friends around here for instance, I’ve stolen perfects out of their mouth because I landed a single j. roundhouse and pulled off a TOD. Now, his pressure game is important too, and have a strong pressure game and good reactions can win you a lot of matches. However, if you can’t get that clutch victory, you’ll lag behind other Dict. players. I used to never practice dict combos. I did fine with pressure and throws, but because I couldn’t exploit dizzies, I lost a lot of matches that that I should have won. So, do what I did. Go into practice mode and run the same combo over and over until it becomes second nature. Also, doing that, the best advice I can give you is don’t try to mash the links out. It’ll hurt you in the long run, I know it hurt me. Also, get a good stick. I used to be a dpad warrior, but my game stepped up when I got a stick because the buttons were just so much better. Shit that was hard before rolled off like raindrops.
Here, go practice these combos with him:
j. roundhouse > c. forward > psycho crusher
j. round > s. short > c. forward > knee press. This will dizzy. Do this combo again or combo 1 for a TOD.
crossup j. forward > s. short x 3 > s. roundhouse. This combo is awesome. Requires no charge, does awesome damage, and dizzies half the time to boot. You can mix it up too by not doing the roundhouse and doing a throw instead.
Just keep practicing and it’ll come. Oh, and if you have any difficulty or questions, hit me up with a PM or write on my visitor space and I’ll gladly hook you up.
Very interested in this thread as im in the same boat with not punishing mistakes as fully as i would like and my combo timing seems way off on this game for some reason. On old versions my Guile corner pressure was incredible with boom mixups and pokes, on this version im left standing there when one sonic boom after another fails to come out and the bloke trapped is just looking at me like i have no idea and is able to get out easily.
Those dic combos look good. Ill try them later. If anybody else has some punishing (intermediate level) combos for Akuma, Ryu, Ken, Sagat, Guile, Blanka…hell anybody then they will be gratefully received by anybody reading this thread who is in need of help.
As a new ST player I would go to the ST wiki, find my character, and hop down to the combo section. And see something like this:
Cross up j.Forward, c.Strong, c.Forward XX qcf+K
The first thing that jumps out at me is the “xx” notation. It took me quite a bit of searching to find out that means cancelling (of some sort ) the move.
At that point I went straight into training mode and started trying to pull of the combo and failing miserable because I didn’t understand the timing. I am hoping now that I understand ‘linking’ I will have better success. It seems as if linking is not talked about as much as cancelling in the forums. So me being new, I associated cancelling as being very important to know but linking less so.
if you guys want to talk about specific combos go to their character threads. There should be an organized post(s) that have all the combos and strings you need to know.
Unless you’re lagging, the reason you could only do it 1/10 times online is because you’re opponent is fighting back and there is that “pressure” factor. I’m not insulting you or anything so don’t take it the wrong way, but that’s how it is. That gets eliminated with experience.
With Dhalsim, I punish dizzies with a jab yoga fire into st.fierce, as it seems to redizzy faster (and does comparable damage I believe).
Volatile brings up the main thing I wanted to discuss in this thread - Linking timing. I have at least the basic cancels down, but normal linking is something I continually struggle with even after hours in training mode. What I’ve been doing is trying to break up the harder combos into chunks, e.g. always landing the link off of the jumpin (e.g. j.rh or j.jab into st.short).
If anyone has any tips on seeing the frames for linking – e.g. being able to understand when to press the next attack so you’re practicing with a method rather than just repeating until results come, I’d appreciate it. It seems to have to do with seeing recovery of one move.
I am afraid, for both of us, that since every attack/normal has different frame data that practice may be the only way to get it down.
I feel this way because attack X (to start a combo for example ) has 3 frames recovery and cause 9 frames of hit stun; while attack Y (used to start a different combo ) has 7 frames recovery and causes 11 frames of hit stun. Then you also have to factor in the start up frames of the next attack in the combo chain and those will have their own startup, recovery, and hit stun data. So my guess is each link would have it’s own unique timing. But I haven’t studied the frame data, AND I am a complete noob, so someone else could give a better and definitive answer. This is all just guesswork and theory on my behalf.
I think it’s safe to ASSume that most of the linking windows are very small. So they do have that in common
I have been trying to press the next attack button when the current move registers a hit, but that hasn’t really worked for me yet.
It’s a timing thing, that’s all you can do. Relying on visual clues and stuff aren’t gonna help you as much. To be honest with you, I find it best when you rely on audio clues. Are you musically inclined in anyway? Ever have any problems with rhythm?
Basically, for me, Links are always based on just a feel, largely based on sounds. When I hit forward, I hear when I hit it, and I “muscle memorize” the amount of time before I want to hear the next button press. And then I make sure to hit the button at that time so the noise from my second button press forms a timing. It’s weird, because even though EVERY link has a different timing, learning this method ingrains it into your brain and into your muscles, so whichever one you need, you can pull out as you need it.
Sometimes I also use the noises the move makes. So when I hear a move connects, I know how much time after that sound I should hit the next button… which is why lag and games with the sound turned down really mess my combos up sometimes.
I have a really hard time timing Dee Jay’s standing strong after cr.jab x2 in combos like crossup j.mk -> cr.jab x2 -> st.strong xx rh dread kicks. Any tips?
