Counter ultra use

I’m sure most of you are wondering the usage of the counter ultra, and for that I will make a thread, with a list of characters where the ultra has optimal usage.

Akuma- shuts down the vortex
Blanka- overhead ball, and ultra 1 shutdown
Guy- that fly in the air drop elbow thing shutdown
Gouken- like akuma
Fei (lol)- chicken wing shutdown
Zangief- annoying crossup, and lariat spam shutdown. For lariat yur gonna have to block 1 hit first.
Rufus- reservence of dive kick

These are the characters so far that I have seen optimal usage.
But for almost every character- reservence of crossups.

Beats tatsu cross ups. Beat dp’s and wake up dp’s.

lol realise it doesn’t completely “shutdown” anything, it just makes them slightly inclined to use them. Rufus isn’t completely going to stop dive kicking at you etc.

Which is why I say with reservence, cuz those are hard to counter on reaction. However attacks such as akuma’s air kick, practically shut down completely.

does it take also FADC’d DPs?

A lot of what you mentioned aren’t exactly “shut downs,” especially Guy’s elbow drop as he can just as well throw you as quickly as he can elbow drop you. Most of those are all “I swear this move is coming” style setups. You should really try to MAKE people throw the thing you want to counter at you, this is exactly the reason why Cammy having this ultra is pointless compared to Fei having it, witch is much more useful. I’ll list some situations as well. I’ve had a good 50-70 matches with Super Fei against solid competition and I’m definitely above 75 percent on hitting the ultra when I actually bring it out.

Keep in mind also as you think of ways to use this that the motion is double quarter circle forward and 3 kicks, meaning it doesn’t overlap any of his other moves so you can buffer and block all you want, especially usefull for crossup situations, you can just buffer and if you are to timid at the last moment, the worse you get is a blocked crossup.

The Anti Air: An obvious use for counter ultra. You can also use this to make people empty jump you, giving you easier anti airs by simply ignoring your own counter ultra and hitting your standard flame kick or standing roundhouse.

Match-up specific moves: An example would be Chun Li’s hasanshu or balrogs ex high/low punch, among others. The trick is not to “wait” for these moves and react to them. But be ready in situations where they are commonly thrown out. Or, as Fei Long can do quite well, MAKE your opponent throw out the move. using the same example as before, a lot of low blocking would tempt a Chun Li to Hasanshu, be ready after you’ve blocked enough lows.

Wake-up reversal specials: As I said in a previous thread, an example of this would be Rufus’ Messiah kick on wake-up. Even though these moves are given “armor breaking” properties, they don’t count as such to your counter ultra, and can be countered.

Bullying: Nobody likes being in the corner. If you can apply enough pressure to someone, they are more and more probable to throw out SOMETHING to fight back. Look for things like high priority normals or “safe” non-armor breakers like bisons scissor kicks especially in these situations. The longer you keep that block pressure, the higher and higher your chances are of them throwing out a limb right when you want it.

Eating a tech: The most risky use of counter ultra, but so sweet when you hit it. delay the motion until the last possible moment while tapping people with jabs, making them reayd to throw tech, and instead of throw, counter ultra. Remember though that pro players will tech at the last possible moment. Also remember however, that when you are pressured by these strings, people will eat your own throw techs with a standing fierce ect. giving you another spot to try counter ultra witch is, again, another tier to the “I know he knows I’ll do this” mentality.

The main rule of thumb of counter ultra is to ONLY use it with purpose. Never throw it out because you’re “pretty sure they are going to do something.” The amount of times you miss ultra 2 while in that mindset will make you doubt it has any use at all. On the contrary, you can create some good fear-bases situations.

Lastly I’ll say what I’ve said before, this ultra is specifically usefull for Fei, and NOT for Cammy. As a Fei Long player you can chip and pressure, your opponent can’t just hold down-back when they have a good life lead. This means your opponent eventually MUST fight back. Know that, use it, and abuse it.

Good luck in Super everyone!

In the end, all of that’s still a “i swear i think that’s coming” setups just in more detail.

Alright people, but no mater what. It is true that ultra DOES have an intimidation factor now. The fact that the opponent will use certain moves more sparingly illustrates just that.

A problem with Ultra II that I discovered through testing; any move that has armor breaking properties will hit the counter animation clean. There seem to be some exceptions to this rule; other moves that don’t have such properties will still hit him out of it. The only one I’ve found so far is Balrog’s overhead dash punch.

I don’t play Fei Long normally, but I think it might be important to point this out to you guys. Ultra II is good, and while I see you guys understand that it’s not gdlk, I thought I should let you know that any other player who figures this out will abuse it against you. Be careful.

Balrog’s dashing overhead is an Armor Breaking move… Or at least it was in vanilla.

http://www.shoryuken.com/wiki/index.php/Balrog_(SFIV)

You can see there that the only dashing punches that don’t armor break are the straight ones (regular and ground).

catching seth’s jump off the wall divekick/headstomp, bye bye half ur life seth

Did that one today… man was it satisfying to see it in action!

One note- works for vipers cross up flame kicks, and her other shenanigans

Aside from the setups I said were risky, IE the throw tech setup, it’s really not. Fei Long can MAKE people strike back. I’ll say it a million times, that’s why Fei having counter ultra is way better than Cammy.

Wow. I played vanilla SF4 for a long time and I never realized that. I guess it never occurred to me as something to worry about, since 99.9% of the time you just block it (or get hit).

Yes that’s true in the sense that he does make people attack back but its still ambigous as to WHEN they will attack back, Ok lets say you’ve got someone cornered, you pressure them with block strings and then you randomly do your counter ultra after awhile in anticipation that they may attack back? That pretty much sounds like a “I swear I think that’s coming” scenario to me because there’s no way you can really react to a retaliation poke or move unless it’s really slow.

Like I said, all the scenarios that you’ve listed are still “I swear I think that’s coming” scenarios, those are just attempts at trying to provoke some kind of attack from your opponent is all but yeah the list is still good usage for the counter ultra by listing ways to provoke an attack. The idea is right in that we should be looking for ways to provoke an attack in order to make this counter ultra more useful. Other scenarios where you can try risk a counter ultra is from using moves that have slight recovery on block/whiff.

My opinion is that counter ultra is just free form, there isn’t really a set scenario where it is good to use because every opponent attacks you differently, simply if you THINK a counterable attack is coming use it, that’s all it boils down to.

To me it seems you have better oppertunities to land Tenshin since people go into defense mode (Not as likely to throw out stuff) when you have Counter Ultra.

Cut your Rekka’s short and you always get people try to mash through that bet you would catch a few there.

Yeah I just pick it and don’t use it… it really seems to intimidate people for some reason. I don’t even think I’ve landed it vs anyone good yet but it definitely makes the fights easier because people don’t want to attack all the time.

The only thing is if both players choose counter ultra in a mirror match, it’ll be even a lot more defendsive than before.
Damn, I wanna try it out now.

The whole game is like that though cosine.:slight_smile: “I know he knows I know he knows I know he’ll do this thing” hehe. But those setups put counter ultra at a higher tier up on that list other than just “get ready to counter his (blank).” The point of the thread was to discuss places to use counter ultra other than the obvious, and there is obviously no way to MAKE it hit, such is the nature of it. I’m still really consistent with it, and I still pick ultra one sometimes as well, when I think I can fight my way in for a focus or what have you.

And yes, just having it works wonders against smart people, and USING it works wonders on the scrubs hehe.