Isn’t that, like, exactly opposite of the right mentality? N groove should follow the Battery/User/Anchor formula. If Ken uses more meter, he should go second so that when he comes in, he already has meter. Iori is a much better battery, he doesn’t need meter to do damage, and he can pass the meter on to ken. Sure if you get the chance you may want to use the meter, but Iori can cause a lot of problems without it.
Iori never uses meter unless he’s ACing or counter rolling, and unless he’s getting locked down like solo sent vs magneto, i’d say iori would be fine in either the 1st or 2nd slots on that team, of course it would be smarter to guarantee ken full meter and put iori 1st, but both are good batteries, and both play well without meter.
Considering likely matchups these days maybe Iori going 1st would be the best option?
ken is way more scary w/meter than iori is. asside from the obvious fact that iori’s lvl 3 does dick damage as opposed to ken’s (which is decent), ken can gaurd crush better than iori and you do 120% gaurd damage when popped.
As far as my N-team goes, Iori is first. Iori can build meter hella fast with his pressure game. My favorite string is trying to get a knockdown then run in with LKx2 into his Rekka Ken move. I’ve been beaten by wake-up throws and DPs on that exchange, so I’m careful about the distance and how I use it. I also need to master his command throw so I can put that in my game.
I’m mainly a K-Groove player, though, although K-Groove doesn’t need a true “team” dynamic. My afore mentioned Cammy/Ken/Sagat(2) is my favorite team right now. I play keep away with Cammy, waiting and countering what my opponent does with her high-priority normals and Cannon Spikes. She lacks offensive “sting” and aggressiveness, though. Ken is played much in the same way as my N-Ken, only more aggressive and focused on rushdown. Sagat is a monolith of keep away, I really don’t know how to rush down with him other than running up to a downed opponent and HP’ing them as they try to get up. I generally try to outdistance and outlast them with Sagat. Most player back off from someone who is ranged, which as Cammy or Sagat is where I want them to be.
I’m thinking of forming a new team of my favoriite fighting game gals of K Mai/Chun-Li/Cammy(2). The only problem is I only have rudimentary knowledge of Chun-Li and jack squat about Mai (but I can learn her, heck it took me less than half an hour to be fairly proficient with Sagat). Would Chun or Cammy function better as the r2 on this team? I know Chun-Li has the combo of death, but I think Cammy could make overall better use of the bigger damage. What do you think?
eek, K-cammy is arguably the best rushdown character in the game, learn to abuse her running fierces more, if anything I’d be more agressive with cammy than with ken or sagat.
with k-sagat, most of your rushdown revolves around low jump HK, running c.LK and s.LP, and lots of guard strings into c.HP. work with stuff like run in c.LK,c.LK, run in c.LK, c.LK, run in c.LK, c.HP to start, his rushdown gets much better against characters who can’t duck s.LP (s.LP comes out faster and gives you more advantage on block)
I didn’t mean Cammy lacks offensive sting, I meant that my Cammy lacks offensive sting. I’m aware that Cammy has great potential in that category, but I’ve never really exploited because I guess I’ve gotten stuck in the “scrub” Cammy. I’m spending some time reading through the stuff in the Cammy forum, specifically guard crush strings and links so I can introduce them into my game and take my Cammy to the next level.
Thanks for the tips on rushdown Sagat, this along with the Cammy stuff will give both characters the same versatility I enjoy with Ken, this should make my team better overall.
This is getting a bit off topic: But I tend to bite off more than I can chew when adding things to my game. I tried learning a lot of links to level 3 supers and guard crush strings at once. I need to focus on ONE specific thing until I get it down and then move on to the next thing (this is what practice mode is good for).
im playing C KIM MAI R2-BLANKA OR C MAI BLANKA SAGAT i wanna get proficient in A groove with honda, dictator, vega, blanka or any other A Slut lol
fuckin slut!
I dunno man your game is pretty solid when u play C, but if you’re gonna get into A groove, you definitely need to practice charge RCs (for all of the characters u listed lol). you’re gonna be upping your turtleness to the toppest if you’re playing most A characters except like A-kyo or A-sakura. watch vids of turtlefests like mago vs bas, hone your patience to be like their’s, and then be more patient. it’s so strong to hold on meter in A, that if you can keep up your defense and land damage just through punishing and playing a throw game. play A-RORENTO! cause his ground game is so sick mang.
Got a question, im playing C-Joe, Honda, R2-Blanka. I can RC like nothing, but that still isn’t gonna save Joe from characters like A-groove Vega/Bison or basically any RC or awesome K-Blanka. I was just wondering what replacement should be suggested in case Joe goes poof against chars like that.
As for my playstyle, Im patient and turtle a shitload with Blanka/Honda. But with Joe im always closing in with RC hands, mixed up with throws, short short super, or sometimes backing off with hurricanes once in awhile. As for people that jump straight up as the ‘RC hands counter’ i usually do either RC qcb kick, a jab hurricane, or delay the jab whiff into RC hands to knock them down. At TX Showdown 6, alot of people didn’t know what the hell to do. For Evo, i’m gonna try to get better at comboing after the hands with cr. rh or st. rh, maybe even jab into super.
Against chars that are damn fast with good runaway its hard to play this way however, and if they have a full A-groove meter all this crap is basically out of the question.
I dunno if I should just get my Guile better or if I should just try a whole entire new char. And no, my Sagat is garbage, so thats out of the question. Perhaps Rolento or Vega to create a totally irritating team? Which is also good against good ol’ Hibiki, who seems to also do well against my team.
The reasons Hibiki may be doing well against your team, are that she more or less counters Honda and is capable of busting up Blanka. Joe’s got no pokes to speak of comparable to hers IMO except maybe his slide, but RC hands would sure piss her off enough that if you abuse it she’ll just abuse her own RC’s and drop you.
So basically she single handedly “counters” your whole team, although Blanka may be a debatable issue, the fact of the matter is I see no reason why a well played Hibiki shouldn’t be able to kill one of your characters and severely pound another.
Too good, A-Team Runaway 
Never fought it but I’d imagine it’s a pain in the ass.
Yeah Hibiki is a straight up ass. When i use Honda against her, I HAVE to rely on the RC 360 mixup to kill her quick, or maybe scrub it up with roll super.
I’ve been thinking of throwing another curveball and using C-Dhalsim, its just all the situational anti-airs he has that makes it hard. But Rolento seems to be a good choice, forming a team ‘DO NOT ENGAGE’ as you said. (Also a Team ‘Kill Sagat’ as well) He is also capable of doing damage, unlike C-Vega.
Although, the cool thing about using Joe is that 99.9% of the people that have the guts (i.e. stupid enough) to use him in tourney, usually aren’t very good anyway. Alot of people dont take me seriously at first glance.
Warning- Post contains incredibly high amounts of scrub and is proven by the surgeon general to cause at least 17 types of cancer.
Right now I’m playing with N Iori/Cammy/Hibiki
I always hear that Iori is an awesome battery (and well, I’ve seen the power…) but I was just wondering if anyone else can play battery properly. Y’know, and still be good. I like Iori, but it always feels like I’m playing someone elses character.
I heard somewhere Akuma’s supposed to be a good battery, but I don’t really dig him in this game. There’s just too many better characters.
I just started with Cammy and think she fills the position of meter whore quite nicely, though I’m open to suggestions.
The team I was playing before incase anyone cares. K Rock/Vega/Hibiki. It feels good, but I just like the options N-groove gives better.
No problem! This is the correct thread, and posting in correct threads is something of a gem nowadays in the CvS2 forum!
It’s always tough to make a top-tier (or popular) character your own, since so many people play them and it’s hard to develop your own style while staying out of the “obsolete skill range.” The truth is, you don’t have to use a character like Benimaru to be original. It will be a lot easier to define your own style, yes, but with some crowd pleasing (or crowd groaning) techniques, you can use any character with your own touch.
You talked about using Akuma as a battery, right? Funny that you mention him; Akuma has so many ways of RTSD that it’s easier for him to find a playstyle than other popular characters. For instance, many people try to connect a hurricane kick for the followup DP (as they should). You can either totally deviate from this path and tack on something else, or you could change the subtleties of the combo…
Try doing this: whenever you connect a hurricane kick with an extra hit left, use either a jab DP or a strong DP (jab DP is preferable). The reason for this is that you now have lots of prep time to figure out your next plan of attack! With this method, you can easily set up some really nice meaty ambiguous crossups that make Akuma fun to play, or you can go for the fireball crossup (use mp). Or maybe, if they are in the corner, and they are the turtling type, you can setup a straight up air-fireball to hit them on their wakeup, and follow up with something beefy like maybe c.rh xx red fireball. The possibilities are plentiful!
Find some nuances within a character that you like and try to make something fun out of it. This post is becoming rather long so I’ll just end it right here. Good luck!
Thanks much. RTSD? I’m not familiar with the term. I think I know what you mean by context, but could you please explain?
RTSD = rush that shit down
Alright. THAT I’ve heard. Thanks much.
So I’m currently using P-Groove Dhalsim/Maki/R2 Zangief. I’m using P because it seems to me like Dhalsim and Maki are better off with a dash instead of a run and Zangief needs the low jump. I’m thinking about switching it up so that it’s Maki/Zangief/R2 Dhalsim, only because Dhalsim is probably my most effective character. I’m thinking about using C instead of P, only because it seems like the roll cancel would be pretty helpful for Maki and Gief, but I’m not sure if I want to lose the small jump. Anyone have any advice?
I think that Zangiefs best Groove is N, and Dhalsim is effective with the level ones.
N-Groove