Sim has very few combos you need to worry about. For his main BnBs and confirms, I would stick with these;
cr hp, back mk xx mp flame
st jab, st jab xx ex flame (jab confirm to ex flame)
st jab, st lk xx ex flame (another jab confirm to flame)
st jab (counter hit), back mk xx mp flame (ch confirm to mp flame)
There are pretty much all you need in neutral and for confirms. It’s pretty much anything into back mk xx mp flame.
Cn anyone explain to me why drills are used so much in the higher ranks? I’m only silver and literally just picked up dhalsim today and going 50/50 on most games. Even just bet a super gold ( who dcd!!! )
When I seem to use drills they are always blocked and I’m punished for it. I like the idea of the offensive fchamp play but when I try stuff like drills to get in I get 40% of my life taken.
Am I missing something?
Is there any tech to allow you to safely get in or at least a setup that allows me to use X drill when X far…
Thanks in advance guys
Wall of text incoming
Drills are used a lot because of the immense frame advantage they give when spaced correctly. You can space drills so that even cr.hp will beat 3f jabs after a drill! Basically drills can be made to be about +6/7 from testing.
Your drills are likely not being spaced right. If you hit a little too high with it, it will be negative, and your opponent will be able to interrupt your followup and punish you with a ch jab combo.
A good way to test and practice drill spacing in training is to pick your opponent as Chun (or any other character with a 3f jab), set the dummy to reversal cr.jab (under guard recovery actions in training on block), and then set the dummy to guard all. Practice doing drills and then instantly doing st.jab afterwards, and 1 of 2 things will happen;
Your st jab will be blocked/your st jab will counter hit your opponent - this means that your drill was spaced correctly.
Your st jab will not come out and your opponents jab will ch you - this means your drill was spaced incorrectly and your opponent was able to attack before you
The reason why st jab is so good after drill is because it is sim’s fastest normal and on ch will confirm to back mk drill, or go into ex flame or w/e. It’s very strong.
Drill has little landing recovery so the goal is to make it hit as low as possible to that we can recover instantly while the opponent still has to deal with the block stun. The visual cue to tell if a drill will be spaced right or plus on block is if the guard impact occurs instantly at the last second at the opponents feet, and just before Sim lands. Also worth nothing is that Sim technically has 3 ways to do each drill (neutral jump, jump back and jump forward), so in training experiment loads with the different ranges different drills hit at, as that’s 9 drills that all hit at unique ranges
I will say that jumpback lk drill at max range and nj mk drill are the two most useful drills, the former is great for getting in at distance and nj mk drill is used a lot at the more up close range. I find that RH drill is much tougher to use as the range is poor and you need to go into your opponents jab ranges to threaten with rh drill, which sucks. Lk and MK drill are the ones you will use most, so practice these a lot.
Regarding tech, there are some setups/instances I have been experimenting with to auto setup perfect drill spacing, but 99% of drills will just need to be spaced correctly by eye and muscle memory. You just need to practice it man 
TLDR; Practice drill spacing in training until you are able to recognize when drills will be safe
Nice Ramza!
Thanks a lot, I’ll give it some practice
Anyone else getting rekt by Alex? I feel like you can’t throw any fireballs at all since Alex can’t basically fullscreen punish those.
To be honest vs like half the cast I feel like I can’t throw a fireball as they can punish on reaction. In those matchups you have to rely on your movement (Drills, V Skill, Forward Dash, Teleports) to get anything done. I recommend learning how to play Sim with minimal fireball usage.
I haven’t fought many Alex’s yet myself, when he gets one bar you need to play more safe and with less long limb pokes, as EX elbow is a thing. I believe it is -10 though so if you can bait it, you can cr hp it for full punish combo. His wakeup seems poor. No idea on his moveset yet or frames. Any invincible reversal? Does ex elbow have armor frame 1? etc
As a Dhalsim player who is fiddling around with Alex I can tell you that he does have Super as a true invincible reversal but that’s all. EX Elbow does not appear to have armor on frame 1. Stomp and Headbutt both are good for quickly traversing a long distance and avoiding horizontal attacks, and non-EX Stomp is -5 and Headbutt’s a command grab (to grab people trying to block and punish Stomp), though being airborne beats both of them (I’d say neutral jump but I guess you can’t really do that the same way with Dhalsim as with any other character).
Am I nuts or since 1.2 is Tk.Teleport harder to do?
I seem to be missing it alot…
They did increase the prejump frames on backwards jumps, so IAT backwards must now be done 1 frame slower if that’s what’s messing you up.
Played three or four different Alex players today, all in higher leagues than me (which isn’t hard to do, but anyway). When Alex has meter, at the beginning of a round, doing anything but cr.Block seemed like a bad idea. His rushing elbow dash seemed to stuff everything and even caught neutral jumps IIRC.
Edit: Somebody should make an Alex matchup thread.
Anyone else have a problem to IA gale after a dash? It’s a lot easier for me if I go to a neutral jump gale instead of a forward going one for some reason.
Would someone mind helping a newbie with Sims anti-airs? I was wondering what the optimal anti air is for each jump in scenario, so far I kind of use crMP for far anti airs, bHP for predictive/when I use EX yoga fire. I use bMP most of the time for normal jump ins, but it trades a lot and sometimes loses. It might just be a timing thing, but I see a lot of top players using st Jab for jump ins. What is the timing on that, do I hit the jab pretty late like right about when they hit me? And lastly when do I used bMP vs stand jab?
Good questions I’m curious as well. And are there any good punishes or even follow ups after a successful AA? Sims AA game seems straight trash
I am not the most qualified to answer that, but one thing I saw someone do is if you get the back HP crush counter anti air is ex Fireball, then teleport ex Yoga gale for quite a bit of damage. On regular non CC anti airs I have no idea tbh.
Edit: found a random video of the combo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fvHUbkPguM
Just about any AA you get besides the crush counter one
is just a basic hit. There’s not a whole lot on this game that causes free juggle state like in 4. The good news is under certain situations (range, how high you hit them) you can cancel most of his AA options into a light fireball to set up some pressure as they reset.
As far as damage goes, if you just so happen to get into some very specific situations you can of course use just about all his specials as makeshift AA. But again, it’s rare. Just recently I was in a match where I threw an EX Fire, they neutral jumped over, and I was close enough to throw out a medium flame that they fell on.
Good to know. Do you have any advice on when to use stJab vs bMp to anti air?
Generally im always think jab for cross up distance, b.mp for mid range expecting them to land just in front, and c. Mp for further back than that. I just need to figure out where to fit in b.fierce into the scenario, and shouldnt b. Fierce CC everytime they are in the air? Sometimes i AA with it and it doesnt counter…
Sim’s AA game is anything but trash, in fact I would argue it’s one of the best in the game. He has an AA for every angle, and importantly, he has an AA for right over his head, which is really important; not every character has that. He also has a pre-emptive AA if you’re on point that can CC, so there’s that. Here’s a run down in my opinion of his AAs (after using solely Sim for the last while), and the ranges they are best used at, followups etc. If anyone disagrees or has anything they’d like to add, please share!
st.jab - 4f, super quick, godly hitbox. This is your go to AA for when people are just above your head, or jumping over you. This thing beats everything. Really helpful in the corner when people go for NJ to bait throw, as you can still recover in time from a whiff throw to st jab em. After a st jab aa in corner, I like to lk slide under my opponent to corner them and get some meaty pressure going. Even midscreen, if you st jab aa, immediate lk slide will switch positions, and is hard to block. You get a free meaty cr hp/gale/throw after the slide, so it’s a godly AA + a pressure starter. St jab AA is a must when playing Sim, as it AAs a lot of moves that other normals won’t (Nash moonsault, Dictator’s devil reverse etc)
cr.MP - Really useful AA at a tonne of ranges. This normal is really good at most ranges which aren’t directly over Sim’s head. It’s my go to AA when midscreen/neutral and when st.jab isn’t needed/wont reach. cr.MP also nets you some pressure, as you can cancel the cr.mp into lp fireball for some slide pressure and ground control. Be careful not to cancel to fb when you AA with this when your opponent is close, as they will land close enough to punish the fireball animation. Only cancel to fireball when you AA at a good distance; your opponent will try to cover said distance upon landing and will run into the mk slide fireball combo =). I found this move trades at times, but even still, that’s fine, since you recover first and can go pack to poking them in the neutral, or go for an IAT, or whatever.
b.MP - One of Sim’s weaker AAs, IMO. Like cr.MP, it’s useful when your opponent jumps at an angle. I use this one the least honestly, everything this move does, cr.MP can do, and more. B.MP is useful for when your opponent is close, and in scenarios where cr.MP might whiff. Even then, I just use st.jab at those ranges, since b.MP seems to trade quite a bit, which sucks because on trade the opponent still lands in front of Sim, which isn’t exactly a good position for Sim (you took a trade, and they got in). Honestly I feel like cr.MP is way better than b.MP, I rarely ever use this normal if at all. The angles where back mp is good, are few, and even then st jab seems to be better (sure, it does less damage, but you risk them being in your face on trade, and you get lk slide crossunder etc after st jab, as opposed to b.MP). Maybe it does more damage, but honestly it feels like that’s not enough to warrant using this over cr.MP/st.jab
b.HP - A very situational anti air, as well as being very slow. You really need to make a read on a jump to hit with this move, I find. Still, it has its uses, and it’s not a bad idea to pre emptively throw this move out when you think your opponent might jump. Even in the neutral when you are at a safe range from your opponent, doing b.HP isn’t a bad idea since it will punish jump happy players and will likely go unpunished in the neutral. It’s not a super slow move recovery wise, so I feel like you can throw it out with impunity most of the time if you think someone will jump. It also tends to CC quite a bit, which in itself leads into a mixup when you cancel to ex fire. This is a useful AA that is worth incorporating into your game.
Problem is certain attacks still stuff or trade with cr. mp. Vega’s jump lk has been flat out stuffing it.
