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Do you think your Dhalsim is going to be…simsational?
During the last beta I got to play Dhalsim a little. He plays so fun, but nothing like I am used to. What can a Dhalsim newbie expect and what does one need to know the most about piloting this flame spitting bad ass?
I just picked up SFV and am an old Dhalsim player from SF4. So far, much of the gameplay seems similar. You can still do fireball / teleport / the standard combo mix-up tricks, etc. But, with his new v-skill you are more mobile than ever.
The anti-airs have changed a bit. We don’t have the beef knee anymore (b+hk). Instead we SEEM to have cb.mk and b+fp.
The game still seems to be (at a rudimentary level) to keep them at a distance with pokes and use fireballs to create traps and build meter.
But, I’m day one’ing it here.
No idea what I’m doing with this character, and I’ve never really played a zoner before. The style feels unfamiliar to me. Any kind of advice would be appreciated.
Realizing again that I don’t really know what I’m talking about… I would say to get used to your normals, especially your anti-air. And get a good idea for the distance on the standing MP/HP/HK.
Get used to IAT (instant air teleport), v-skill into teleport, v-skill into HK drill, and the fireball mixup.
The fireball mixup is where they have to block a fireball and you teleport at the last moment into a combo… If you teleport late, they have to block to the right, if you teleport early then they must block to the left. Time it as closely as possible and toy with their expectations.
Sim’s critical art seems to be a quite effective anti-air.
I would only tentatively call Sim a zoner in this game. He has ranged normals, to be sure. But he is missing certain important zoning normals from his other games, like st.LK, st.MK, and the crouch stretchy punches. His ranged normals are all very slow as well. Thus, Sim has some glaring deadzones in his spacing game that can easily be exploited by aggressive characters like Karin, Nash, and Vega. We’ll have to learn how to protect those deadzones as part of his steep learning curve.
I’m having a lot of trouble adjusting to SFV Sim for this reason, especially after coming from Alpha 2 Sim. He’s definitely reliant on his teleport to give him mixup, and anyone with half a brain will be able to jab/headbutt/whatever you out of it if they see it coming. In Cammy’s case, Cannon Spike outright beats j.HP (Helmbreaker).
The part where I’m especially having trouble is with jumpers. Sim actually has a lot of great anti airs: st.LP, cr.MP, b.MP, b.HP, his fireballs, EX Flame (to an extent), and his critical art. You have to know exactly which ranges they hit at, though, and he still has a bit of a deadzone juuuuust slightly in front of the top of his head, which cr.MP can’t reach. Sim also doesn’t seem to be able to combo off his AAs anymore. In the betas, you could combo off a b.MP into fireball (which is his go-to AA combo in A2). Now the fireball just goes through them and they land on the ground. So you need to follow up AAs with Yoga Flame to keep yourself at advantage, as it will meaty them right as they hit the ground.
b.HP crush counters. I’m not sure how to follow up from it.
st.MK is an excellent poke. Good move to use at round start and during lull times in your neutral game. Be aware that st.MK doesn’t have quite the range it seems to have, though. The front of his foot doesn’t seem to have a hitbox. st.MP is pretty decent too, though I prefer using that to keep people in flame carpets because it seems to have a bit more blockstun and can catch people jumping.
Playing around your V-Skill (flame carpet) is critical to Sim’s gameplan. As mentioned above, st.MP is great at keeping players inside of it. A lot of players will panic and jump out of it at you, too, which you can stuff with a cr.MP. V-Trigger (float) can be used to add another layer onto your carpet footsies, wherein you can throw out a j.MP to achieve a similar purpose (be extra sure your opponent isn’t going to try to jump at you, though, because you’ll get blapped out of Float). Vega and Nash are issues, though, since they can get out of the carpet with teleports and dives.
Stun combos: probably just combo into critical art if you have the meter. Otherwise, his optimal stun combo seems to be b.HP > L or M Flame?
Meaty options: TK Gale is a great meaty option in the corner. It raises you off the ground, which prevents the opponent from trying to grab you on wakeup. It beats mashed jabs as well. I can’t get it consistently yet, but I’ll keep practicing it.
As far as zoning goes, though, back teleport > j.HK is an amazing snipe. It covers a lot of screen real estate and will stuff anyone who tries to mindlessly jump at you from full screen.
For new players: Arturo’s Twitch and YouTube channels will likely be our main source of tech.
https:// www.youtube.com/user/FGCSabin/videos (auto-embed breaks the link)
Happy Yoga-ing!
Anyone know what the invincibility frames are on Burner and Sunburst? I anti aired with Yoga Burner before. Do EX yoga Flame have invincibility?
Anybody have tips vs Karin, chun and rashid? Karin and chun have great normals that seem to beat my options and rashid is all over the place lol
any tips with his instant air teleport? i can’t get at the right height consistently yet. i will either get it perfect, too low, or normal teleport. i’m guessing if maybe someone gives me a different input to try that i’ll start getting it every time.
In another thread someone said f, df, uf, PPP is the shortcut for V.
yep that works amazingly well now thanks.
Man, even with that shortcut, I find instant air teleports way harder to perform than they were in SFIV. I keep getting a jumping attack instead. Am I just not pressing all three buttons simultaneously?
Also, any tips on getting the motion down for standing back MK into Yoga flame? I’ve played charge characters almost exclusively in the past because they felt so much more natural to me on a fightstick.
I’m having huge trouble doing IATs on my pad. I don’t even try them in battles because the chance of just getting a jump forward fierce is too high.
I feel like sim’s execution in V is a bit more strict than IV. Personally I’m having trouble hitting the downback on flame combos.
That said, it’s hard to give general advice other than go to training mode and turn the input display on. Then when you fail to do something just stop and look at what inputs were registered.
Another thing I think a lot of people end up doing is trying to get the stuff out too fast. If you’re new it definitely seems fast, but once you have some muscle memory down it’s not that bad. Try to find not just how fast you can execute, but also find how slow you can execute something successfully.
I have to agree with you but in my case it’s the IATs. I never have any problems performing sim’s IATs in SF4.
In SF5 I am just so inconsistent. I guess it’s a matter of getting used to timing again.
When should I be using Gale and when should I be using jFP during teleport mixups? I see Art switching back and forth but I’m not sure what the reasoning is.
Gale catches mashers. Mixing it up between Gale and j.HP keeps the opponent honest, and you’ll have to feel it out vs. each individual player.
On pad, input the DP motion and then go straight to up or up-forward. You can also do up-forward, down-forward, forward to get more height on the TP. Just practice the motions in the training room.
What is the best motion for IA Teleport and IA Gale? I’m having some trouble getting those to work consistently.