Critique my Sakura? :)

Wow. Thank you very much. My problem now is that I know some of the hit confirm combos, just that don’t know when and how to apply it in-game. I think I’m too scared that it won’t connect and be punished hard. Other stuff like safe jumps and set ups I am currently learnin them. Thanks again. Really appreciate this. :smiley:

It’s been a long time since I last posted in here so If you want go back to that video and make fun of it for a bit then help me out by making fun of this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vqj-dcfmoc&feature=youtu.be<div><br></div><div>I may have won but there are a lot of things I need to improve on but I’m not seasoned enough to be able to spot them on my own yet. So, please help if you can. <3</div>

<P><A href=“http://www.twitch.tv/bgcallisto/b/367825958”>http://www.twitch.tv/bgcallisto/b/367825958</A></P>
<P>Couple matches of mine from our last monthly, open for some critiquing, at 0:46:30~ and 1:15:15~.  Minus the dropped combos, that’s just because my links go to shitballs during events where I both play and stream, always feel too rushed :(</P>

Should probably be doing a few more focus in footsies. Focusing sweeps or dashing through fireballs is really nice. And I personally feel like fullscreen fireballs aren’t bad either. They really got away with too many sweeps. If you have 2 bars, you really should try to reversal dp every Ryu or Akuma sweep on reaction.<br><br>Any reason you’re not doing the Akuma unblockable into OS back jump? I understand the point of not showing all your options sometimes, but in this case, the mind game of showing them is stronger than hiding imo.<br><br>Also, I don’t like your choices when they’re close-ish to stun. If you hit them with a full EX dp fadc combo, go ahead and do the ambiguous jump-in rather than meaty fireball setup. Worst case scenario, they block you and you’re in the corner, but you have a chance to dizzy them and almost guarantee a round. I mean if you just hit them with random EX tatsu or shorts into EX tatsu, then corner meaty fireball is better, but I would always take the chance on dizzy if I just hit them with a really fat combo.<br>

Yeah I’m just now trying to get down the back jump OS…when I land from the back jump, should I just input m or h.shou or try to tag them with cr.mk xx h.shou?<br>

I believe you can always catch P teleport with crMK, but K teleport can block, so I’m actually not sure if the jump can work against that one.<br>One cool thing is you can punish Akuma’s dp with HP while jumping backwards, so you basically negate 2 of his best options. Too bad he has like 10 more )=.<br>

<blockquote class=“Quote”>
<div class=“QuoteAuthor”><a href="/profile/83151/ShankatsuForte">ShankatsuForte</a> said:</div>
<div class=“QuoteText”>It’s been a long time since I last posted in here so If you want go back to that video and make fun of it for a bit then help me out by making fun of this one. <br><div><br></div><div>I may have won but there are a lot of things I need to improve on but I’m not seasoned enough to be able to spot them on my own yet. So, please help if you can. <3</div></div>
</blockquote>

Right in the first round, I was waiting for you to get DPed out of the air for constantly jumping in at that range. I don’t know why you couldn’t get a special move cancel after landing a jump-in either… you were mashing like crazy when there was no need, but even then nothing came out LOL<br><br>I didn’t see you use many pokes like cr.mk or st.hk, you used some but probably coulda implemented some more.<br>

<BLOCKQUOTE class=Quote>
<DIV class=QuoteAuthor><A href="/profile/63103/atothex">atothex</A> said:</DIV>
<DIV class=QuoteText>I believe you can always catch P teleport with crMK, but K teleport can block, so I’m actually not sure if the jump can work against that one.<BR>One cool thing is you can punish Akuma’s dp with HP while jumping backwards, so you basically negate 2 of his best options. Too bad he has like 10 more )=.<BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Yeah the other thing I was trying to figure out is if I should be timing the hp after landing enough so that the OS was j.hp > s.hp~j.hp or just j.hp > s.hp ~ jump back.  I had a decent run this past Saturday at a local tourney, finished t-7th out of 26 but again ran into an Akuma roadblock(this one much better than the video I posted, he’s one of our best players who ended up winning the whole thing at least).  Really need to get these teleport punishes worked out in a hurry.

Alright guys, I played in Latif’s stream last night and played 5 matches. 2 of them were against Latif, the rest were against high level players and I won one of them. Please critique on what I can improve on, I believe I need to work on my defense and anti-airs since my offense is pretty good. If you can, please watch all the matches for the full duration; I really want a personalized critique. Thanks brahs :smiley:


Times of my matches are:
3:57:17
4:06:05
4:13:37
4:23:03
4:27:08

Since nobody replied I’ll give it a shot

First thing I noticed right away, you have trouble hit confirming, you actually got a few hits in with cr. lk and even messed up a punish, when you baited out his dp with air tatsu. Then a bit later in the first video around 3:58:14 I don’t really agree with your decision, you have full ultra 1 stocked, and are basically guaranteed to take the round there, yet you choose to go for a setup, why?? It works out now, but honestly I would’ve just gone for the damage and maybe ‘save’ your setups for later.

So yeah the thing that stood out the most here was you’re lack of hit confirming and you might want to start buffering from cr. mk and st. lk if you aren’t doing that already. If you are then you probably want to practise that a bit more because you actually got a few good pokes in that didnt get confirmed into a knockdown.

Second match, the thing that stood out the most was ‘YOLO tatsu’, I dont get why you do it, I guess you can do it every once in a while but honestly don’t really like it especially so much…

Also I noticed you usually try to whiff punish with sweep, I prefer using cr. mk for that, main reasons being, longer range, faster startup so it’s easier to whiff punish and you get more damage if you cancel into dp or even full fadc combo.

Third match, you start of randomly jumping, I guess the first time you thought he was going to do a fireball in the beginning, but second time where you jump in with air tatsu was so random, if you wanted to bait his dp , you have to do it higher like you did in the first match. Also again with the random ex tatsus it’s kind of obvious you were trying to hit him with ultra so he blocked 2 times, some better opponents will dp on reaction, and the third time you just got lucky.
In the third round you started off with trying to focus his jumpin, honestly I would just anti air him with cr. hp like you did every single time before this. After that it went down hill fast because you stopped blocking for some reason.

Fourth match
I noticed you were doing better with hitconfirming into dp

Fifth match
kind of more of the same, random tatsus, though I guess this time it was to try and get out of the corner, also for some reason your goto anti air is focus now, which didnt really work out. Not really a fan of midscreen resets, especially against a competent opponent, unless you’ve established this dynamic that you were mostly going for safe jump setups, which I dont think you did, but yeah that’s more of a personal thing I guess.

Overal I’d say learn to hitconfirm better, don’t do so many random EX tatsus, and I noticed a lot of the time when you punished you went straight for Cr.hp xx EX tatsu, so I guess you aren’t comfortable with tatsu loops yet so I would work on that as well.

so I’ll take a stab at posting my sakura gameplay. Sidenote: I despise playing online, I intend on getting one of those avermedia recorders and upload my local matches too, so stay tuned for those.

anyways Online Warrior status (sike):

Some good ones, a lot of bad ones. I’ll start with the critiques myself and would love further input. I’ve noticed that I have the tendency to jump when I’m approaching the opponent which is terrible. It’s easy to react to, so I need to up my ground game and not roflcopter in, to get in. I also noticed that I that there were a quite a few missed opportunities such as dropped combos or just whiff punishes. Lastly, I don’t think I’m nearly as aggressive as I think I should be. I guess in some cases, it’s to my benefit, but now always.

:confused:

I know most of what I did wrong, but I got bodied.

nevertheless an awesome match. gg lol.

First thing first, I would like to apologize for the noise. I forgot to switched off the fan and I just realized that awful sound after I’ve uploaded the video.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=aMkwrpX3EVU
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LUBiK91qEow
https://youtube.com/watch?v=shReBnuSPQE
https://youtube.com/watch?v=AwGku3z6DBQ
https://youtube.com/watch?v=jF3UzcTn76Q

I’ll start with my own critiques, for the most part I guess I should have blocked and be more defensive I guess. I should also not jump to much. but on my defense, I kinda rely hard on jump ins to get in. maybe that’s the reason for my loss too. And lastly, from what I see, I should practice more on my execution?

What do u guys think? I think I kinda need sort of motivation cz I don’t see any improvement at all although I’ve been practicing everyday set ups and bnbs. I dunno. prolly I do it wrong.

thanks a bunch. lol.

General
STOP with that cr. mk xx EX DP punish, that is a waste of meter and you can get a much better punish by comboing into EX tatsu or hp dp. You also throw out that EX DP out way to much, even when you don’t have 3 meters to make it safe. You’re getting away with it now, but to put it blunt; its scrubby and its a bad habit. You’re using it to force you out of a bad situation instead of earning it, and it’s a huge gamble.

Manage your meter, this goes for both your Ultra and Super meter. You combo into your ultra at every opportunity that your ultra is available. If the ultra isn’t gonna swing the match in your favor (such as you having very low health) or killing or getting close to killing, combo into a dp or ex tatsu for a mix up. Like I stated before, you’re throwing out your EX dp so much that you rarely have 3 meters. Sakura already lacks a defense and you’re just leaving yourself defenseless, c’mon son.

You’re able to confirm cr. mk into DP pretty well but you lack starting your mixup game after that. Once you score that DP, you need to apply your mixup game which you’re either lacking or just lack the confidence in doing it. You need to be confident in your safe jump after the DP/mix up with empty jump, if they don’t quick rise you can go for the neutral jump safe jump, bait a reversal, throw them, do something meaty, and more. You have a lot of options that you are not utilizing. Sakura gets her damage in large chunks at a time, once you score that knock down, you should mix up your opponent well enough that you can kill. As of now, you’re just playing guerrilla warfare with the lack of mix ups and not effective punishes, and thats no bueno.

You also need to throw more, Sakura can frame trap really well and she has that awesome lk tatsu. Which in certain match-ups you can create a “Cammy-like” vortex between lk tatsu and throw the opponent on wake up if the lk tatsu beats their wake up options. You’re rarely throwing so the opponent doesn’t have to respect your frame traps. You also need to do delayed frame traps to catch people late crouch teching, and you also need to do true block strings such as chaining 3 cr. lk’s so you can’t be reversal’d in between. If the first two cr. lk’s hit, you can link a st. lk and cancel into ex tatsu or dp.

Learn match-ups so you can play each character to the best of your ability. You need to always stay safe in your matches and from every match that I’ve seen, you leave your self wide open to be countered. Example of this is the Dudley match up where you could have molested him on wake up with lk tatsu, the Gouken match up where you should have stayed grounded or empty jump to blow up his parrry (you can also blow it up with a lk tatsu), and the Sagat match up where you should have remained patient and walked him into the corner, not walking yourself there.

Increase your footsies which I go into detail in the tips below.

Tips:
To be quite honest, you’ll get better with time. However, you can drastically speed up that time if you are actively trying to get better. Watch top Sakura player videos, but don’t just watch them. Take notes on what they do in different situations: learn their patterns after throwing an opponent, DP’ing an opponent, sweeping an opponent; then start copying them. You can do the same thing on the defensive side as well. By doing this, you won’t just be copy-and-pasting what they are doing, you will get an understanding of what they are doing whether it be baiting a dp, crouch tech, or whatever; you will increase your understanding of the fundamentals in the game.

Mixups, Setups, and Patterns
Midscreen EX tatsu xx HK Otoshi 2x, land, lvl 3 fireball - similar to the corner setup, leaves you safe. you can safe jump, empty jump, and frame trap.
Midscreen EX tatsu, dash, sweep - lands a hard knockdown. you can go for a safe jump, empty jump (which crosses up on most of the cast), and frame trap.

Corner EX tatsu xx HK Otoshi 2 - “famous” corner setup which leaves you safe, you can block (always wait in case they reversal) and walk forward frame trap (I usually go for st. mp, st. lk xx ex tatsu if it connects, or st. mp, st. lk, cr. mk, lvl 2 fireball if it’s blocked) or throw, or cross up jump, or cross up empty jump.

HP DP (quick rise setup), slight walk forward j. HP/HK - (safe jump, lands in front. different characters require HP or HK to be a safe jump. learn the match-ups)
HP DP (quick rise setup), slightly longer walk forward j. MK - (crosses up, will make DP’s whiff or get stuffed - which they reset and flip in the air allowing you to meaty cr.lk them)

HP DP (don’t quick rise), whiff st. lp, neutral jump HK - safe jump
HP DP (don’t quick rise), walk forward, whiff st. lp, crouch block - bait reversal
HP DP (don’t quick rise), walk forward, whiff st. mp, throw/lk tatsu

Throw, walk back, j. mk - safe jump
Throw, walk back, empty jump (depending on how much you walk back, it can cross up as well)
Throw, dash, walk forward slightly, throw
Throw, dash, walk forward slight, lk tatsu

Back throw, dash, lvl 2 fireball - baits the opponent to jump, in which you can anti-air with LP DP. If they don’t do anything, you’re still safe.

Ultra 2 KKK, immediate hk air tatsu - this brings you close to the opponent after landing a Ultra 2. From here you can meaty cr. lk, bait, overhead, or throw

Anti air cr. hp, immediate cr. mk xx hk tatsu - after anti-airing an opponent, you can do a low meaty and cancel that into an armor breaking move. HK tatsu leaves you -2 on block so don’t push a button after this.

cr, lk, cr. lk, cr. lk (blockstring) if they block, walk backwards slighty and poke with cr. mk buffered into dp. If they push a button, your cr. mk will hit them and you can cancel into dp. If they don’t do anything, you don’t cancel into dp and remain safe.

whiff cr. lk outside of opponents sweep range and if they take the bait, you can whiff punish with cr. mk xx dp.

At a range in between full screen and miscreen, you can safely throw fireballs, and if they jump; you can anti-air with LP DP or HP DP depending on how far they are.

That’s all I can think of right now, just keep playing and try to be more solid if that makes sense.

Yeah my meter management is pretty terrible at the moment. Just yesterday I started thinking that so thanks, its good to hear that from someone else. As far as my mix up game goes that is definitely some thing that i need to work on, I barely have any after a knock down. One thing I will mention is that I’ve been watching a lot of matches from both top sakuras and top players in general and I couldn’t help but think…Japanese players vs American players…whats the big difference here. It took awhile for me to catch on but I think one of the key differences is that american players rely a lot on mix ups after a hard knockdown whilst Japanese players are more ground game based. I’ve been trying to have a balance of both but you’re absolutely right about me not really having much of mix up game to begin with :-/

Some of the mixups, setups, patterns you mentioned above I’ve been doing much more frequently like purposely whiffing a cr.lk and then cr.mk xx dp (or one time i noticed that this seth player would press something when I whiff cr.lk so I just U2 PPP right after it feelsgood.jpg)…I also have been doing the fireball from far range and anti-airing dp (sometimes hitting two dps depending on how high i hit them on the first one). I lot of the empty jumps/safe jump setups I feel that I almost always get thrown out of when the opponent wakes up. I’m probably not timing my jump ins right but I almost always get thrown. My thought process during this is “I’ve j.fierce about four times already so I’m sure he’s expecting another one, let me empty jump cr.lk xx whatever” so I do this, then get thrown. -_-

the cr.lk block string mentioned…amazing, i never really thought of doing that. Sounds simple but I’m still “new” to sakura so I’ve got much to learn. My goal ultimately is to be a very VERY solid sakura and setups and mixups play a part of that too, there are a lot “holes” in both my offense and my defense…if I can close the gaps, I think I can be a decent enough sakura.

lastly, my execution is still an issue…in about two or three of those vids I either dropped a combo or did otoshi when I meant to tatsu. I’ve noticed that if I do all of sakuras challenges before online play, I have nearly zero execution errors but am I going to have to do this every time before playing a match? :-/

hombre, you are a gentleman and a scholar. I’m not too sure if I’ll be going to CEO but if I do, I’d love to get some long sets in =)

I’d love more critiques if people have them.

I lol’d when you said I should throw more since we’re both former ken players. I think I’m just unconsciously rebelling against throwing lol but it would make sakuras frame traps that much more dangerous

Haha it sounds so weird when you have the voices and sound effects turned up and the music turned down. Never knew chun was breathing so loud during her focus.

BlackHombre covered a lot so far,
Sorta skimmed through the guy match and from what I saw you were giving up ground way too fast, like sometimes he just walked you into the corner without any resistance. This is most likely caused by lack of footsies, and yea need to work on your meter management. Those were some things that stuck out to me so far, probably going to try and watch them later and give more detailed advice, if i can come up with some.

Yeah after an anti-air lp dp, you can juggle with a mp dp if they are high enough. This sets your a safe jump setup as well. Also something I forgot to mention was:
If you are zoning with fireballs and they jump, dp them; if they focus (to absorb the fireball), dp them.

Don’t rely on this since Sakura’s fireball is fucking garbage but a fireball is a fireball and it’s another tool you have in your arsenal. This pattern helps with certain match ups such as Zangief (outside of his ex green hand range so you can punish with cr. mk xx dp) and Dudley (he will attempt to duck and you can punish the duck with st .lp, cr. mk xx dp; attempting a dp against dudley if he doesn’t jump will get you hit).

So, somewhat related to your post, I’m beginning to like sakura’s fireball a lot. It has it’s uses, which, I feel if it were adjusted to be more like the fireballs of most shotos that it wouldn’t work as well it does. Sakura isn’t really a zone character, it wasn’t until I played against a really good (REALLY GOOD) sim player yesterday that I realized how useful it is. He actually gave me some tips and said that if I can stand outside of sims crouching fierce range and just do my jab fireball when anticipating his cr.fierce, it’s a clean hit (counter hit) every time…at first I didn’t really get why it was so useful since it does shit damage but if done right I can stop sims limbs with the jab fireball and when he expects another fireball to counter his cr.fierce, I can roflcopter in and go to town.

Its not a great fireball, sure. But for sakura, I’m beginning to think its perfect for the type of character she is.