I tried out some AA options against shoto roundhouse, and it really seems to look as if j.b fierce isn’t all that great here. I found that, as alex stated, cr.hp works pretty well. Also, j.b light punch and mid punch are pretty good.
Doing some player matches with a good Rufus I found on xbl. Back dash, far strong, jump back strong and crouching fierce (in some cases) seem to work well. Two back dashes should take you right out of the falcon kick mix up. Poke cancel -> FBA help if you need to get out of the corner before things get ugly. That escape also helps out against Balrog corner traps.
Edit
On another note, does anybody know a good follow up to this scenario? Blanka attempts a cross up ultra, but you slide under the 2nd hit and you’re on the other side. He can let the ultra go and remain safe if you go for ultra. How do you punish him with anything other than ultra?
^^ yeah i’d like to know too
usually whenever i dodge blankas ultra i’m just happy to be in one piece, and run for the hills till its all over.
the only way i can take out blanka is mid-range pokes coupled with grabs when i feel like he wont electrocute me. its really boring but against blankas, giefs, and hondas… i think its better to be safe than sorry since they can drop ur health so fast.
edit:
oh yeah and btw what are some high damage punishers if i blocked a gief’s lariat?? most giefs will do that lariat crossup thing and i block it most of the time, but i usually only answer with a slide kick
Blocked lariat punish = crouching forward kick -> crouching strong punch -> EX FBA or crouching forward kick -> roundhouse ST.
The situational close fierce punch combo tends to miss on Gief when I try it, unless I trade crouching strong for crouching jab. Doesn’t make sense to use it, imo.
at certain distances you can also get cr mk --> light RCF or ST.
I feel exactly the same. I will stop playing this game because 80% are Ryu players.
Correct me if i’m wrong, please:
-In my experience cr.hp is only useful from the right distance, quite far away, and it TRADES with ryu’s jumping.hk if you don’t time it right or if you miss the distance (and you do cr.hp at the standing.hk distance.
-If ryu is landing a little closer, cr.hp trade a lot and standing.hk is a good option. The shit is that if he is even closer, standing.hk will trade a lot, and a trade is good for ryu.
-If ryu is landing up close to you, the only option to me os to try to jump and AA him, or dash under, or earlier df.hk under (jumping.mk will beat this last option).
Because if you backdash and you are not perfect with that you can still be hit, and kkk is garbage because he will sweep you in the recovery.
The SHIT is that when i’m scared (because of trades), or i don’t expect a jump but he does it, my reaction is LATE (i’m a scrub player), and if i just block the jump-in, i’m done, because all the mixups and things he can do up close just bring me to the death.
I hate ryu
since sf2
I will stop playing this game because of him being always the best. not fair for the ones that don’t like ryu’s look as a character and don’t want to play with him.
At the peak of your jump arc
Hmm. The way I see the Ryu match at the moment is take away his long range options by gaining level 1 ultra as quickly as possible, then play it according to the general match up.
- A good wall jump/ fba should counter his hadoukens.
- There’s a way to punish full screen jumps with far standing fierce, but you need to know the spacing. Possible to avoid a trade if done correctly.
- Focus can work to kill his far fierce/roundhouse jump-ins.
- If you have him in the corner and he jumps, just do the AA attempt and don’t worry about the trade. This is something I’m working on at the moment, where I’ll give up the counter ST just because I’m worried about getting hit. Also, if you can condition him to expect a trade every time you AA, you can immediately change it to something else and do full damage without the trade.
- If you have ultra, aim to punish the jumps (any jump) if he’s being stingy with the hadoukens. Also, aim to punish the fake focuses, empty tatsus and anything else you can think of.
- If he’s on top of you, just hold out and look to back dash at the first opportunity. It may fail at times online, but I’m certain that the back dash should be avoiding everything from frames 1-8 and all low attacks and throw attempts for most of the remainder.
- Empty ultra is a good corner escape tool, imo. Up against the wall with a jumping Ryu that has no counter (atm)? Ultra right out of there. Granted, just wall diving to the other side could be a better idea.
Those are the tips I have at the moment. Besides getting an opportunity to poke -> FBA to the other wall when in a corner trap, I can’t think of anything else.
Now, the match up I want to complain about is Sagat and his jump-forward strong punch. Does anybody have an AA move that beats that thing clean? It hits low enough to stuff/trade ST, far enough to trade/stuff jump-forward forward kick and high enough to stuff/trade neutral-jump forward kick. Of course, it does great damage, being a Sagat move and all. Wtf is up with that? :@
Edit
Interesting information about Sagat’s tiger knee. You can air throw him out of it, as well as stuff it with crouching forward kick/crouching roundhouse kick. The air throw also applies to the tiger knee at the beginning of his ultra sequence.
Here is my take on the Ryu matchup.
Match starts, neither of you have meter. OK; what you need to do is whiff some Barcelonas. The race is to 1 EX bar. Once you have EX, you’re a threat on either side; if he jumps or does bad Tatsu’s, you can full screen punish him with EX FBA. If he fireballs carelessly, you can EX SHC. In either of these cases, you are fishing for a knockdown. Try and save meter for the EX FBAs, as you need to connect with Izuna drops to really get any sort of momentum going. Vega is special in that it doesn’t matter if Ryu is using SRK’s, he still is going to have a hard time getting out of trouble. A late SRK will still beat an Izuna but nothing beats a well timed SRK anyway. As it is, you run much less risk doing this (granted you have practiced your izunas enough) then running a basic corpse-hop, ground game that you normally set up on say Bison, or Balrog (characters who easily escape Izuna traps [Bison with meter that is]).
Try to dominate the fullscreen aspect of this game. You should never show him your charge. Sitting and crouching and trying to react to fireballs for EX SHC and Ultra will only work if you time it just right. Otherwise, missing the timing and having these blocked is a free ultra for Ryu. Most people never punish a blocked EX SHC but it is very unsafe. Instead, if you have a life lead, dodge fireballs with jumping neutral jab, flips, and the like. Force him to come to you without resorting to his fireballs. As far as Ryu’s footsie game is concerned, c mk beats a lot of your options. Stay at slightly outside max c. strong range (Ryu’s c. mk is a little less than that) and counter lows with c. mk, sweep, and c. lk. Guess right when he does a hadou / sweep at close range and you have a free jump in. Any time Ryu does a sweep and you block, sweep. Ryu’s sweep is something nasty like -12. Vega’s sweep is an 8 frame startup so ALWAYS capitalize on this. Taking away the fast knockdown that Ryu has is essential as it’s a key part of his pressure game. He has a very fast sweep, 6 frame start up iirc.
Ryu’s biggest threat is his tick throw / option select rushdown. Against good Ryu’s, they will safe jump into you (not that this means anything) and can punish your backdash with a LK huricane option select or, if you stay blocking, begin tick pressure. In the Valle vs Tatsu vid, Valle owned Tatsu by going up close, faking throws and comboing out of c. lk. The ideal way to escape is to sit, block the jump in, block the c. lk, and backdash immediately to avoid further mix ups. Normally an option selcet to punish your backdas would not occur there. Never let Ryu get the distance up close on you if you can. St. RH is your friend here as even though it is unwieldy in certain matchups in this one Ryu struggles to punish it effectively. It beats a lot of his stuff thanks to its speed but still, make sure you are not too liberal with this long-recovery move.
On offense, (pardon the redudancy) beware the SRK. One botched wakeup mixup and you are exactly where you shouldn’t be (on the ground, Ryu jumping in on you). Play it safe and if you can, fish again for the Izuna. IT really is your ticket to winning in this matchup. Nothing else is as safe, and can reliably beat the SRK. Otherwise, I really have a lot of success whiffing normals like st. mk over their body as they get up, and they go to punish with an SRK, which whiffs, and I punish with Cosmic Heel, ST. Always make sure you shut down the SRK. never should Ryu whiff and SRK and go off the hook. If you shut down the SRK, you can get in and do some Kara throw / Tick pressure that many players struggle with. Remember not to get to crazy with your block strings. Every once in a while bait an SRK by interuppting your string and backdashing for a sweep / cosmic heel punish.
We saw in the recent video Sasaki posted that the Vega player interrupts Ryu’s hadou pressure strings with an EX ST. This is something we all need to work on. It’s huge, really. Fireball incinvibility ftw. I don’t know much about this moves properties so I’ll have to do some resaerch.
Anti-air and air-to-air is dangerous. Your best options are to neutral jump at roughly outside c. strong distance and bait a jump in, punish with a late ju su rondhouse and fierce. AT any point however Ryu can easily connect with his jumping mp (a move with a special place in my “Fucked Up Shit Hall of Fame”) and you are so fucked if he does. I don’t know what else to say. I hardly ever air-to-air Ryu outside of jumping straight up so as to not only avoid SRK’s but this move as well. Basically you need to shut down the ultra options ryu has from these scenarios. Predicting a jump in and punishing with an air-to-air is usually a bad idea. If you’re wrong, jab SRK, ultra. Pick the safest option.
Air-to-air from the ground, as I said before I don’t know. I usually lose or trade, so obviously some work needs to be done here. Standing fierce sounds like it would help alot against j. rhk though.
RCF strings are a death sentence. Easily reacted to, SRK, punish, etc. Make sure your RCF strings are such that the first hit (roll) is connecting as is the claw hit. At leaset this way you can cancel the last hit into throw or jump out fierce mixups.
Beware the super. FBA gets shut down by it, and don’t commit to too many jumping over fireballs. At some point you will be gunned down by the super.
Anyway those are my strategies. Running away works a lot in this matchup as Ryu isn’t exactly a Rufus / Abel. Just make sure you have a way to safely get yourself out of the corner. Save your meter in this match for EX FBA and EX SHC punishes. (Generally, my playstyle has revolved around saving meter solely for the use of punishing EX FBAs.)
Also last piece of advice; don’t get discouraged. Ryu is a bullshit character, everybody knows it, but yet all the scrubs have to flock to him (unfair blanket statement, I know, as there are some good Ryus, but many who look better than they actually are. I always ask myself how good these ppl would do if playing a different char). He simply has too many options. Make sure you are playing as safe as possible in this match as many things are easily punishable. Also, if you get mashed out of strings, and mashing is a problem in general, start baiting it! Lately I’ve been doing it and man… things get a hell of a lot easier. Losing to Ryu is nothing to be ashamed about. It’s a piss poor matchup and Ryu is a piss poor character so whatever, fuck it. That’s basically may attitude every time I lose to Ryu. At any rate you can practice a lot of stuff in this match like your izuna as it is your one saving grace. I don’t think Ryu’s pressure game is that great, just as long as you don’t option select throw too often. It’s usually better to eat a throw than to eat an EX hurricane or Shoryu so be more liberal with blocking. Also kara focus is a great trick i recently learned. Kara focus through one fireball, most ppl will shoot another, but you’re in jump in distance so punish with jump in fierce, c. strong, ex FBA. More research needs to be done here as well.
Anyway as I said once again. Ryu sucks. Don’t think losing to him is a sign you aren’t good enough. Cahnces are you are a better player than the Ryu player. You know a good Ryu when suddenly he seems to be psychic with hurricane kicks (option selecting) and he anti-air’s everything you do, bringing out all his options. Just don’t fall into a pattern of shittiness that the SRK-spammers bring you into.
One more piece of advice, this is for the Balrog matchup;
I know I said that c. mk on his wakeup is an ideal move to use because it beats headbutts, but check this. Standing Short has the same frame data on hit or block than this move, and it recovers in seven frames. If you’re doing a meaty st. short, than a reversal headbutt that comes out in 8-12 frames (iirc, the jab comes out in 8… fierce / ex come out in either 10 or 12) will whiff and you will block it and have any punish option at your disposal. If he blocks, you can kara throw just the same as you would a c. mk. Great tip because although c. mk is still a great move (I would use this if Balrog has no meter) st. short completely betas reversal EX headbutt. =) I had to learn this becase I played TMJ (Major Crimson) th other day and lost utterly, 10 matches to 0, I think i won about 8 rounds (and these were best out of 5). His rushdwon ate me alive and I got nothing done on offesne. I figure that I need to work on my footsies more. Watching Reiketsu, or whichever Balrog, fight that Zangief and force him not get in even once makes me jealous. How the hell can he do that? I need to learn how to makle my Zangief matches like that.
anyway enough digressions, hope you guys find that usefrul.
^johzear is all growed up 
*Try to dominate the fullscreen aspect of this game. You should never show him your charge. Sitting and crouching and trying to react to fireballs for EX SHC and Ultra will only work if you time it just right. Otherwise, missing the timing and having these blocked is a free ultra for Ryu. Most people never punish a blocked EX SHC but it is very unsafe. Instead, if you have a life lead, dodge fireballs with jumping neutral jab, flips, and the like. Force him to come to you without resorting to his fireballs. As far as Ryu’s footsie game is concerned, c mk beats a lot of your options. Stay at slightly outside max c. strong range (Ryu’s c. mk is a little less than that) and counter lows with c. mk, sweep, and c. lk. Guess right when he does a hadou / sweep at close range and you have a free jump in. Any time Ryu does a sweep and you block, sweep. Ryu’s sweep is something nasty like -12. Vega’s sweep is an 8 frame startup so ALWAYS capitalize on this. Taking away the fast knockdown that Ryu has is essential as it’s a key part of his pressure game. He has a very fast sweep, 6 frame start up iirc. *
I like the bold sentence. Never even thought about that one.
So far I haven’t tried standing fierce from far away as an AA option. However I have very good results with cr fierce as an AA, except only as a non cross up AA. I haven’t found many players who will do the cross up often enough fro me to test it and I have been purposely playing farther away so as to not get crossed up as much.
The key is to mix it up with Vega’s AA options. If they input the attack usually at the end go for a jump air throw or forward jump MP. I also use NJ mp and fierce kick sometimes which work well. NJ MP has really large range but only in certain places, so its good to know when to use it as opposed to the NJ fierce kick. Just know when to intercept them. If they do it too early then you get a free cr Fierce punch even if you cross up. My Cr fierce has beaten several moves but it usually trades. trading is much better than letting certain characters get in your face and eat you alive. I have even beaten Sagat’s forward jump strong punch with cr Fierce so I can say its fairly reliable.
Problem is the cross up. Im still working on this. Dealing with a crossup is so hard for Vega so I am still working on it.
Don’t know if anyone knows this yet, but I find cr.fp works well against Rufus’s dive kick pressure if you’re trapped in the corner. I only use it if I can predict that they’re going to throw out another one right after the first one that’s used on me in the corner since they have to jump in order to do it. The cr. fp will come out before the second dive kick can hit me. It’ll at least lessen the bs pressure he puts on Vega and the player might think twice about spamming too many dive kicks although that will likely never happen.
As for Rufus, I find that standing jab works pretty well. It interrupts his rushdown momentum and gives you a chance to breathe (AKA get the hell out of the corner)
Jozhear… You’re the man! I’m glad you took the time to write all that stuff out. I agree… I never thought about sweeping a blocked sweep against Ryu.
I’m gonna try this Cr. Fierce Anti-Air stuff later this week. I’ll see what the Japanese players have to say against it. I live close enough to Bix Box so it’s perfect.
I love trying new things out against these Japanese players… Really. They don’t do anything risky. Their playstyle will definitely bring out the bad in any kind of new technique.
I think the dumbest thing about the Rufus matchup is that stupid air to air punish that he has. That move into his EX does like 380 dmg, which is beyond so stupidly easy to do and is so easy to hit with, and he can also do it into ultra which does 498 dmg. His EX snake strike does like 280 dmg alone. Wtf is capcom thinking. You combine that with Vega’s mask falling off and Rufus can win easily by doing two moves. one air to air into ex snake strike, and the other combo into ultra. Along the way Vega will lose his mask and just die from the extra dmg in the middle of the ultra.
I find that CR FP works well in this match though.
Any good vega players there at big box?
against a good rufus the real issue is stopping triangled jelly roll dive kicks. idk how your suppposed to stop that shit barring psychic jump back fierce:sweat:
i know this all too well when I play either play Ricky Ortiz’s Rufus or Daniel Tran’s Rufus here in NorCal:sweat:
ok guys I just got back from a gathering and i got beat by an akuma who just spams st. RH what can I do stop this bullshit haha