Dhalsim - YOGUH!

Eggo. Great matches. 3 critiques, if you think they will help.

  1. Teleport out of the corner when Fei starts the jumping MK frenzy. Don’t try to AA your way out of it. Fei’s corner game is to strong. If you try to AA slide and he does a deep kick your going to lose a lot of life. Even if you knock him away, guess what, your still in the corner.

  2. For the love of God :wink: Don’t Flame on the get up, there aren’t any safe reliable distances to apply that pressure. Its not worth risk. If you konck him down, just take a few steps back, jump back, or teleport back and create some distance. Throw a fireball if there is time, and play your keep away game. Thats is where Sim’s strength is, why not play it.

  3. You’re doing the super motion WAY too fast. I saw you miss it on several occasions. And you timing was the same. Slow it down a bit. You can’t do it as fast as other supers in the game. The motion has to be smooth, well timed, and deliberate.

VS Sagat: Less jumping, more forward or roundhouse reaction spears.

Stuffing the CW pre-emptively is what I try to do, but Fei’s like aerofx or MM Monster still find a way to get in with the CW. If you’re constantly doing a standing forward or RH, you’re going to eat a flame kick and get cornered fast. I’m not worried about Fei’s normal jump in’s. Those I could handle. It’s the fear of the CW that has me doing stupid things like sliding for no reason (in anticipation of a CW). I uploaded another vid of aerofx’s FL tonight. I think this vid, the previous one with him, and the two vs. MM Monster illustrate the problems I’m having dealing with CW. It’s so easy for Fei to get in and once he’s in, the risk/reward quickly falls out of your favor.
New aerofx Fei Long video

I’m surprised I never thought of this earlier, TBH. I think I should respect Fei’s corner game as much as I respect Honda’s. It’s hard for me to go from treating Fei as a lower tier character to someone I fear as much as Honda, but I think it’s the best strategy, after banging my head against the wall for so long with all these matches. If you play Fei’s game, you usually will lose.

This is going to take some effort to untrain. You mean against Fei Long only, or against everyone in general? I like to flame against shotos when they get up from max distance (except Ken when he has super). Is that not safe either? Usually, if they uppercut, the flame still hits them on the way down. I like JV’s sneakiness of ducking and throwing on wake, so I’d prefer to keep this tactic in the arsenal if it’s safe in certain situations. Against Fei, I’m more than happy to stop doing it though.

JV’s friend Megaman was saying to do it slower too. The problem is if I slow it down, I get a single yoga flame (non-super). I spent time in training mode trying to do it slow, and couldn’t get it consistently. I suppose I’ll work on it some more.

Thanks, I’ll keep this in mind. The only thing that really destroys me vs. Sagat is his jump ins. I’m not exactly sure what beats what. I usually try back jab, but I know that gets hit cleanly sometimes (based on distance?). Most Sagats mix it up between jump short and jump RH. Are there particular counters for either that I should be using? If I non-react drill, I usually eat a jumping RH in the air.

Other than my confusion over the new Fei Long, the only other match I am lost in is Cammy. If any of you have had the pleasure of playing DoablePolecat, his Cammy is mean. It even beats my E. Honda, which is hard to do (with Cammy). I finally got a match of him recorded. You can view the carnage below. Playing his Cammy makes me throw my hands up in the air. I feel he has to make a mistake for me to win and I have to play perfectly to stand a chance.

[media=youtube]jTeF153BZAo"[/media]

Good match vids Eggo, great counter throwing against Honda!

Your missing the same tricks I am as well, I havent figured out a way to reliably get people to land on slides, but I have seen some top notch Sim players make a mess outta people with that tactic.

And as for the super (I had the same issue as you for a while, then I got it down), you can snap it out after a MK drill, and I think you can tag it on after the cr.jab-cr.fwd-super (not 100% on this one, but i have seen it come out on a ground chain before.)

I find the super is a nasty reversal (That has turned the tables in my favor more then once), and great for wake up chip damage.

Great spacing against Antolaism, that guy has a nasty Gat.

Yes, I mean on Fei only. His RH flame kick has a HUGE ark and his leg has a huge hit box while extending out on start up. He’ll hit you on reversal 99% of the time.

I tied to find a perfect distance in training mode to be safe, but I couldn’t find one constantly. (I am not saying there isn’t one) But if there is, it is to precise to try and worry about in match. IMHO.

I also played Sabre a long set one day over the Xmas break, after we beat everybody out of the room… HE HE… We played a priveate set. During that time I tried to find safe distances for the flame on wake up. On every knock down, where possible, I tried to create a flame trap from the farthest distance away I could … I got my ass handed to me every time. B/c after he knocked me down on reversal he got a free wake mix up game. Which did 2 things.

  1. Created a guessing game for me to lose EVEN more life.
  2. Pushed me to a closer to the corner.

The way to beat a good Fei, to keep the pressure game up, don’t do stupid shit on the wake up, and get your BUTT out of the corner. If you knock him down, back up, create space and play the keep away game. :karate:

QFT. I have pretty much given up all attacks on Fei on his wake up. Very few things end up being safe, so I’d rather back up, and try to keep the space.

With regards to the Fei match, he’s actually not that hard to keep out (in general). You can st.mk his chicken wings on reaction and beat them clean (as long as you have him at a good range). Honestly, the thing that often gets me killed (besides a good flame kick on one of my limbs) are his rekkas; the new ones are deceptively fast and have pretty good priority. Thankfully cr.mk will beat them clean every time. I’d say in general the match is pretty heavily in Sim’s favor, but if he gets you cornered and keeps you there it can flip pretty dramatically (much like a lot of Sim’s matchups, as far as I can tell).

EGGO Vs. Cammy:

  1. Stop using your standing kicks as AAs on her jump-ins. You whiffed almost every one. Use the slide to go under or behind her jumping attacks. Only if her jumping MP is done really really deep/ late, will it hit your slide (even then I am not 100% sure it will hit in HDR). You’ll be able to tell, if you see her pass the apex jumping ark with out an attack, jump back fierce. If you see an attack, slide > combo.

I personally don’t go for the throw after the slide. Not worth the the possible counter. I go for the combo against advanced opponents.

That was the only place I saw you make many mistakes. He kept closing the distance with the jumping lk. You’d whiff, and he would get an attack and the madness would start.

Nice vids Eggo! I need to find a way to record my matches so I could learn from them too. Anyways…

Super: I agree that you should start by learning to do it slowly. Usually, if you miss it, it’ll be because you missed some directional inputs, not because you did it too slow. Just be sure to do smooth motions and to not over/under shoot when snapping back for the 2nd half of the motion.

Once you learn to do it reliably at slow/medium pace, I would recommend also learning to do it reliably fast. This will enable you to punish some jump-ins on reaction and can help you get out of sticky spots.

I also recommend always doing it at medium speed when you use it on wake-up as a reversal. In that situation, you have *plenty *of time to do the motion. If you make extra sure to get all the directions right, then you only need to worry about hitting the button at the right time, which helps a lot!

Oh, one more thing. You should do more LK up-flames after knockdowns or during other pauses in matches to build up your meter. It couldn’t hurt to start doing this even before you incorporate the super more into your gameplay. At worst, it’ll prepare you for when you do. At best, having meter might scare your opponent anyway :wgrin:

Sagat: If Sagat does jumping roundhouse from far away make him land on far cr.strong. If Sagat does jumping roundhouse closer make him land on LK or MK slide. If you use the slide you can link close cr.MK or do a throw. The kick is safer, but the HP throw gets him back out. So, mix it up or choose your style there. I’m not sure about Sagat’s jumping short. Most people don’t use that on me. If slide doesn’t work, down-back jab might.

If he throws a lower tiger, LK/MK drill him. If he throws a high tiger at mid~2/3 screen range hit him with far standing fierce. If he throws a high one from full screen, MK slide toward him. If you do this early enough you may be able to peg him with far strong after the slide, but if you’re not sure play it safe.

Mostly, try not to jump much. But, if you do jump don’t throw out a MK/HP unless you seem him doing a move you can punish safely. Otherwise, you’ll eating some free uppercuts. I’m also guilty of doing both of these and am currently trying to un-learn these bad habits.

**
Fei Long:** The best advice I can give you is to do what I’m working on myself in this match. When you have him at a distance, play more reactionary and use less pre-emptive strikes.

If you throw a fireball from 2~3 to full screen away, I dont think there’s any reason to immediately follow up with a poke after the fire. Instead of throwing out a far MK/HK to hit an anticipated Chicken Wing, just wait a moment. If he *does *do a CW, then make him land on far cr.strong from far away, or a slide -> cr.mk if he’s closer. If he doesn’t CW, then just throw another fireball or counter whatever he’s doing.

I noticed that whenever you grabbed Fei with the noogie hold that you usually went for the usual post-noogie mix-ups. I’d advise against that! Instead I’d walk back and throw a fire or jump back. If you jump back, don’t stick out a move unless you see him do something you can counter. Otherwise you’ll often eat a flame-kick, even if you do a really late MK.

Sadly, I think Fatboy is right on the meaty flame. I haven’t been able to find a safe distance to use it on Fei. That’s probably fine though. You don’t want to get up close to him and go for antics anyway. So throwing a fire is probably the best call after knockdown.

Honda: If you block his super, I’m pretty sure you can always get a free far MK on him. I saw you try this once, but you did it too late. Practice the timing and/or use two fingers to piano tap the MK when coming out of block-stun.

Also, my advice is to almost always go for the meaty flame after a knockdown on Honda. If you’re far away, use a quick slide or drill to close the gap. The thing with Honda is that he can butt-slam on wake-up to go through your fireball and advance on you. While you can counter these, if you mess up and trade/lose he’ll have knocked you down and advanced. Eek!

With a properly spaced meaty flame, there’s nothing he can do(it beats his super too!) and if you time it properly you can usually poke him after the flame for more push back. As a bonus, even good Honda’s often get impatient and try to reversal through the flame. They’ll lose everytime :rofl:

Cammy: I suck at this match, so I only have one piece of advice. When she gets close and you do a combo to counter or push her back refrain from doing the final poke, fireball, or throw. Almost every Cammy I’ve played has a trigger-finger on the thrust kick. Let them fire that off and whiff it after your incomplete combo, then punish them. After you’ve done this a couple of times, watch out for a lot more walk-in throws and Hooligans.

Did player matches with xbl brian for an hour tonight. Here’s the Ryu matches, since I haven’t posted any Ryu fights yet, as well as highlights from our epic Guile/Dhalsim fights.

[media=youtube]_oDOxsID1ag"[/media]

[media=youtube]KjGHDmc8Jlg"[/media]

[media=youtube]aUl1HnadbjY"[/media]

[media=youtube]Zu9KksFJNIk"[/media]
Guile (xbl brian) vs. Dhalsim Part 2
Guile (xbl brian) vs. Dhalsim Part 3

[media=youtube]xCYG2K9QW4w"[/media]

Dhalsim is a character I’ve been trying to force myself to learn, because he requires such a different play style than what I’m used to, and I like a bit of variety in my game. However, I have some serious, serious difficulty getting a feel for him. Obviously, practice is going to be the biggest factor in it, but I think I also just need to get into a Dhalsim mindset. I find that learning a character like Blanka or Sagat takes some work, since obviously I don’t have the same feel for their normals and such as I do with Dee Jay or Cammy, but I can grasp it fairly quickly. Dhalsim on the other hand, playing him with any grain of consistency evades me.

I guess what I’m asking is, aside from the obvious keep-away games and practice with that, are there any other specific things I should be trying to build my game with Dhalsim around? I know that’s a very general question, but I’m not asking for full strategies and such so much just a general Dhalsim mindset.

I want to play some matches with you guys to get some feedback on my Dhalsim playstyle. It seems like I tend to play him much differently, almost rushdown style. I do my best to throw-A LOT. If I get a dizzy and I’m too far back, I always drill to get close, and if it doesn’t hit, I short slidexxthrow. It’s more of a habit than anything. Actually, I think all of my techniques are habit, though I’m trying to grow a little bit and use more jumping mk for zoning and whatnot.

I don’t use projectiles as much as you guys do in those vids, but if I’m playing someone else with a shoto or whatever, I’ll use yoga fire, twitch a step forward to get them to try to jump closer, and either yoga flame so they jump into it, or kick them out of the air. I don’t think these specific techniques will work at high level, but I don’t really ever get to play high level players so… =/

Eggo VS. Guile.

You give XBL Brian lots of free jump-ins. There are several places in each set where Brian jumps in where you could have AA’d him.

However** XBL Brian is a Smart player. If you start to do this, expect him to adapt and limit his jumps.

Once he slows down, you’ll have to play a really intense “grounded match.” Which against Brian (Prob one of the best most consistent Guile players on XBL) is no picnic.

Eggo, your Sim impresses me more and more.

Can you give me time codes of specific matches and what anti-air would have worked in each scenario? Typically, Guile jumps on me with forward, and I don’t know of anything that hits it clean because most of the time, it’s following a Yoga fire, so I am in that split second of just having recovered, but can’t quite get a full move out.

Jump back fierce should hit Guile clean, but most of the time I don’t have time/spacing to do that since he’s practically on my head. Back jab (I think) and down back jab/fierce (close range) both trade with the jump forward. Standing short or back forward (short) also trade I believe. Slide will get hit clean, right?

If I had an answer to Guile’s jumping forward when I’m coming out of fireball recovery, I think it’d help my game tremendously.

Standing jab will beat long range j.fwd if you time it.

Edit: Sorry, that’s back jab. Neutral jab might but I always use back jab.

edit 2: Man if you could super on command you woulda won a lot of those matches. Work that shit. Even I can do it :slight_smile:

Edit 3: Match 2, about 30 seconds in, you eat like 2 jumpins where you shoulda waited and b.jabbed instead of throwing more fireballs.

I still have some bad habits that I have to correct, but I think the posting of videos and fielding feedback is already paying off. Gentleman, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. Better than he was before. Stronger. Smarter. Stretchier… Allow me to present… Dhalsim 2.0:

[media=youtube]zD0hKUaBF5w"[/media]

[media=youtube]Zck1dTGHsn4"[/media]

[media=youtube]ivi-fKWHvBw"[/media]

[media=youtube]f-_5FJHXkCQ"[/media]

However, while we are seeing progress with the latest model, we still have a lot of work to do. There are still challenges which we have yet to overcome:

[media=youtube]8PzI28xk92A"[/media]

[media=youtube]4AeiTQkXKMk"[/media]

[media=youtube]KrOND1dkZPo"[/media]
Dhalsim vs. E. Honda (goukiccm)

[media=youtube]r8NS3A8yBVo"[/media]

Eggo Vs Himself. :razz:

I watched all of your vids. I was going to break them down like the first couple of posts. However, I started to see a pattern and realized specfics will not matter until you change a few bad habbits. You do the following well.

From the begining, I think you controll ground space farily well. When you had people inside your sweet spot. They had a hard time getting in. You mix up the ground game enough with your normals that you you keep people on their toes. You can tell they are questioning there approach.

However, I see you make the same mistakes in each match.

  1. I get the feeling you are a little shaky on what anti-airs to use when, where, and on whom. Many of the matches (you have posted) are difficult b/c you are not stoping the jump. Players you are playing get this sense and aren’t afarid to close the distance through the air and just smother you.

  2. Less IS more. You are very aggresive with your drills and Noogie attempts. You play Sim as if he still had some of the strengths he had in ST. Sirlin specifical took this out of the game. You go for the Drill and or noogie game WAY too much. Watch the Cammy match 2, round three. You lost the match b/c you kept trying to pressure him.

You almost never walk back after a knock down and create distance. When playing Sim in HDR, you have to think of it like the game TAG. If you are not “it” and do not want to be “it” you would never run directly at whom ever is “it.” But, you do this in HDR. You get a lead in life, and throw you body at them, giving them a free optorunity attack you, damage you, knock you down, and even the game. Once they are on top of you, you have a hard time getting them of of you.

I get the feeling that you are very conditioned to try and continue to ‘press’ after after a knock down. Mybe this is because you don’t feel strong enough in your AA game… I am not sure… If you have a lead in life (agaisnt anybody with a good reversal) , walk back create space. Make them chase you and break your defence… The timer is your best firend. It makes people do STUPID shit. That is Sim strongest game.

  1. You never Super… You never Super… You never Super… Learn to super. :wink:

Basically, spend some time learning the AA’s. Take your time playing the match, Sim has a counter for damn near everything. If you learn them you will not have to press as much to try and win.

Great vids Eggo and great response Fatboy… You hammered home a lot of issues I have with Sim. I compensate for a lack of consistent AA with pressure pressure pressure, which destroys average players but gets owned by Top-Tier players… I need to play more keep away and be less reliant on drill pressure/noogie shenanigans to win…

The exceptions to that rule are Vega, Chun, and Bison though, right? I mean, you want to keep pressure on those as much as possible? Any others?

Are there any posts in the archives that lay down the best AA to use against each character? That would be such a huge help…

Thanks for the feedback. I’m glad it’s started this discussion, because the whole goal was to get better and help others get better too. To answer your points…

Anti-airs: I am shaky on some of the AA’s. Here’s some backstory if it makes a difference… I’ve been a Dhalsim player since SF2: World Warrior. I took a break from him in Super Turbo when it first came out, because Balrog was better. This was before Gian and GGPO, back when tourneys were all-arcade. As such, I never learned the proper counters in this version of the game. I’m learning as I go. :stuck_out_tongue: Here are some situations where I’m a bit hazy and could use help:

1)When Ken/Ryu jump at me from semi-far, there is a certain distance where I do a standing forward (long), but they hit me clean. I suspect I can short slide and down back forward kick here, but muscle memory tells me to standing forward without thinking (old play habits die hard).

  1. When Guile jumps on me with forward after I’ve thrown a fireball (and am in fireball recovery), I have a half second to do a move, but I don’t think there’s anything safe to throw out at this range, with this timing window. Note: if Guile jumps on me when I haven’t thrown a fireball, I can hit him clean with back jab. This is a different scenario.

  2. When Chun Li jumps on me with short or forward… someone made a comment in a video to use back jab. I tried this, and I’ve seen it hit clean (when she’s directly on top of my head), and I’ve been hit clean out of it as well. Is this a viable AA for her jumps? Are there others I should try? Assume I don’t have enough time to do an up-flame based on reaction time.

  3. Similar situation, but with Blanka’s jump short/forward. The only reliable AA I know of at close range is slide to the opposite side. If he’s far, I use jump RH, jump forward, jump fierce, etc. at the appropriate ranges and distance.

  4. When Dee Jay jumps on me with RH kick, I just block because he seems to trade or hit clean anything I do.

  5. When Zangief or T-Hawk get on top of my head with jump fierce, my back jab gets hit clean and the pain begins. I tend to teleport out at this point if I can, but I’d prefer a more reliable AA option when they’ve broken that airspace where back jab no longer works (assume I don’t have room to jump back fierce).

Rushdown/Zoning - As the poster above me mentioned, there are certain matches where I feel compelled to rushdown - Chun Li, Vega, Bison. Vega and Bison are too dangerous to let them do their thing. If I do, I’ll get caught by a Bison combo eventually, or Vega will get the wall dive or jumping on me with normals thing going, and it will spiral out of control from there. Chun, if you let her kick back and build 2 supers a round, odds are one will hit you.

There are two other matches where I sometimes rush down because I’m not sure how to play it. Blanka I mix between zoning from far away and drilling to throw them off as they’re hopping in. Not sure if I’ve posted a Blanka match yet, because most of the ones I’ve fought recently have not been very good. Cammy, as I alluded to a while back, I have no idea how to play that match. If I just sit there, I’m hooligan bait. If I try to defensively zone, I’m uppercut bait. If I throw fireballs, I’m combo bait. If there’s one matchup I need the most help in, it’s this one. Since I have no clue what the gameplan is, I fallback on “When in doubt, drill…” Probably a very bad habit, but it feels better than getting uppercutted on the ground and hooliganed to death.

The good news is I can be taught. In the Dhalsim 2.0 vids, I backed off on Fei Longs when I knocked them down. I could do the same vs. Ryu/Ken as well if that’s deemed dangerous (assume they don’t have super). I’m open to suggestions on particular match-ups. Sagat, Honda, Fei Long, Balrog, Guile… I fight all of those characters very defensively and usually have good patience.

Super - Since I didn’t main Dhalsim in ST, I never learned to do the move properly. It was also extremely unreliable to begin with. I still feel the movement is unreliable, but I am starting to use it more (which you should see in some of the vids). I’ll sit down in training mode one day and hammer it out eventually.