For Rufus’ dive kick, lk slide -> throw? I’m not sure because I haven’t had this matchup much.
I’d consider it a 5-5 match up with rufus. HK will usually shut down pretty much all of his jumping approaches unless he’s in range to hit you with FP (and same with jumping MP). B.MP is a better option for Rufus dive kicks, but he needs to be directly above you for that to work usually and yoga blast is kinda slow. B.HK is still usable at times, but you need to judge that. The match is in your favor if you get them in a corner, but vice versa with them. He’s a pretty fat target so HK hits a lot of the time from long-midrange and so does jumping MP. Mainly either you own them or you get owned, there’s rarely an in-between.
El Fuerte depends on how well you can predict what they’re going to do after knockdown (or how well you can space yourself the whole match without getting knocked down). Eventually they’ll probably do a HK slide with their habenero dash and that’s pretty punishable if you low block it. Wall jump approaches can be stopped with jumping MP.
EX yoga blast has a very fast frame start up and i would say is very important, slide is good but then again i would not use it since i want to get away from rufus and is punishable.
and fuerte just needs one focus before you get looped and stunned.
Out of all those match up lists (the recent ones), I like Davids the best, but whats the reasoning with having Rufus at a 6.5 (and according to you, sims worst matchup)? I could understand 5.5 or 6… but 6.5? It doesn’t seem like Rufus is that dominant in this match up.
Its strange how different Sabins and Davids lists are. Sabin, you have rufus at 4.5, which is a far cry from the 6.5 in davids chart.
Anyway, I think for the most part, Sim goes even with some of the “fence” characters that keep going up and down .5 or so (like Sagat/Ryu in sabins list).
In my opinion Sim only really has problems with characters who he either can’t zone or can’t trap, especially if those characters can wreak havoc up close.
Rufus is hard to zone and very safe and damaging up close. He varies his jump arc well, he has air attacks and grounded normals that beat your pokes, his spin makes it harder to throw fireballs than against most characters, his regular jesus kick goes over fireballs and limbs, and he has lots of life so he can afford to get knocked back a bunch of times. Once he’s in, as per usual, you don’t have very good options. You can deal with dive kicks with stuff like down-back+strong~jab+short, back+roundhouse further away and higher up, back+strong, and ex up flame, but those aren’t great options in the grand scheme both because they can still lose to dive kicks and low kicks and because even if they hit, they don’t knock Rufus too far away. One successful dive kick or low short xx combo or ex jesus leads to you losing half your life, and since dive kick and spin pressure is totally safe on block (and so is ex jesus with 2 bars), he has no reason to not try them constantly and just see if they hit. This is Sim’s worst matchup, imo.
Viper is probably the best in the game at getting around normal zoning techniques, but while she’s damaging up close, in general she’s not quite as damaging as Rufus is. Fuerte is also hard to zone and damaging up close, but again not quite as bad on either front as Rufus or Viper.
As for Chun, I used to think it was more in her favor, but I’m gradually going back to it being about even. Maybe next time we do this I’ll put it at 5-5. I think it was mostly learning stuff like not doing far standing fierce at max range because her fireball straight up beats it, using yoga tower to get through fireballs and hazanshus, doing jump back forward kick drill over fireballs as she’s walking up, figuring out exactly what antiairs beat what from what distances, never doing a regular jump, etc. I try to stand either at a range where I can do crouching strong, roundhouse slide, or standing fierce (which trades) on reaction to a fireball or else entirely outside of my poking range, and that’s helped a lot.
I still think Sabin underestimates Zangief in this match. You know if you do jump back roundhouse/back+rh in the corner, Gief can eat that up with mashed standing jab (either far or close jab works) or crouching strong, both of which also beat Sim’s other jump moves, or neutral jump up+fierce, which puts you 2/3 of the way to dizzytown even if it’s not on counter hit (5/6 of the way there if it is counter)? And everything you use to keep Gief out, he has an answer for. It’s unlikely that he’ll pick the right answer, but that chance is there, and he really only needs a couple chances to win.
Ok here’s some of my reasoning
Cliff notes version about sim vs gief…
Sim keeps gief midscreen or in the corner? He wins. Gief pushes sim to the corner? He loses. I just think its harder to do the latter than the former…in order for gief to advance he has to take calculated guesses that are not in his favor most of the time…save for his empty jump arc to get sim antiair to whiff lol. I’ve had 0 problems with any gief ever except for ultradavid and we only played the match once…
I think Davids score on rufus is way too lopsided, but he still loses yeah…pretty much you can keep him out 90% of the match and he can still lose.
Also, I think amsalp is a little misguided about sim rh. Here’s a basic rufus flowchart for jumps…
Rufus regular jumps at you, stand rh early inns every time.
His df and fwd roll loses obviously to stand fierce and stand rh! Looks weird.
Neutral jumping rufus… Try to j. Strong if ur in range…if not…wait to see what he gonna do, I’d he divekicks, stand fierce will trade with divekick in your favor.
As for divekicks… B.rh will beat divekicks but if he delays it, yours will lose out…you can delay it and antiair him but it aunt easy.
Ex upblast will beat any rufus jumping shit but the recovery on whiff is not good. When pressured b. Strong pre emptively for divekicks is alright.
Stuff to test…
Have to find out when to use db strong for antiair and whether db fierce can trade with something from the air or not.
I also heard that sim head spear is good against rufus j. Rh wondering if this is true.
There’s still a lot I didn’t cover but these are just my general thoughts on the fight.
Oh yeah and based on recent matches vs sagat with dlorl smoothviper, marn and some others I think sagat vs sim is dead even.
Yeah I went back to Sagat being even too, but I’m open to the possibility that it’s not. For both sides.
Maybe mummy beats jumping roundhouse, I don’t know. But if you’re expecting jumping roundhouse, do you really want to be in the air for the frames before mummy comes out? Also, standing roundhouse loses to Rufus’ jumping fierce at the range where his hand hits your foot.
Oh EX yoga blast, that’s a different story (not reading carefully ><, I don’t have my glasses as lame of an excuse as that is). I haven’t tried that yet so maybe I will. I prefer saving for inferno though ><.
I’m pretty knowledgeable with RH and B.RH so I’m not misguided (ok you probably know more than me, but meh D:). Sometimes though if he’s up-close jumping, I’ll usually do jumping MP while jumping away from him. If he snake strikes, it can sometimes put me in a better position away from him so long as I’m not in a corner and I get up quickly (though EX hurts like a *****), and I’ll usually IAT behind him if he tries jumping closer to me when I’m closer to a corner.
thanks for the tips
I’m new to using Dhalsim, but i’ve gotten pretty decent very fast. The only character of the cast i have trouble zoning out and escaping is CHun li. For some reason me winning against a Chun player depends completely on how agressive they choose to be.
Her fireball is very good at closing the gap, and once she gets in i just get crossed up. They usually attack me high, and then just when i’m about to make my move they give me a crouching heavy kick.
I play a very, very agressive sim by the way. Any tips for agressive sim players?
Learn how to block I suppose. Sim doesnt have many fast attacks so the cast will have a lot of moves that will come out faster than Sim. Wait for them to attack and then punish accordingly. I think perhaps tone down your aggression as well? Or keep mixing it up, dont keep going for the same predictible set up all the time. Also be aware of how far they are from you. If theyre at jump-in distance, it may not be a good idea to throw out a fireball. Perhaps wait for them to jump-in/fireball and react to what they do. Chun has a lot of high priority normals as well I think so you’ll just have to play it safe. Also be careful of her ultra, pretty sure it goes through fireballs.
Jumping MP can stop Chun-li’s jumping approaches. If you find yourself knocked down and she trys crossing you up, block the correct way and then start blocking low. Stop using fireballs when she has a full ultra meter and don’t use fireballs if she’s not on the opposite side of the screen cause her ultra can hit you from the opposite side of the screen and Yoga fire is punishable if she has already closed some distance. Play defensively and block and throw jabs every now and then in case she has ultra cause all your pokes can be punished by it. Yoga Knee can trade hits with her jumping hard kick (might be MK, but I don’t remember) so your most reliable anti-air is jumping MP. If you find yourself near a corner, IAT when she tries jumping towards you.
My general thought on very aggressive 'Sim is: usually don’t. There are times when Dhalsim’s rushdown is a good idea, and he can do some interesting stuff up close (instant HK drill vs. techs, slide into links into slide into links into slide into surprise throw), but it’s gimmick - it doesn’t win because Dhalsim has good fundamentals, it wins because people are generally pretty surprised to see Dhalsim trying to bring the fight into close quarters. If they keep their heads, and if (god forbid) they have some sort of reversal, you’re taking an enormous risk. Likewise IATs. Great tool in some situations, massively punishable if anticipated.
That’s not to say you should never play aggressively (I certainly do once in a while, and it has won and will continue to win matches for me), and it doesn’t mean you should try to panic escape every time somebody gets on top of you - it just means you’re playing at a guessing game that’s almost never in your favour. Dhalsim is made for reaction and defense, not aggression, and while he can be effective on the attack up to a point, he’s always one wrong guess away from giving up all of his momentum and an enormous chunk of his health.
The main tip, if you do want to go on the offensive, is to always do it unpredictably. Vary up your poke strings and tick throws, don’t stick out anything that’s too risky, and don’t try to force things when you see that your opponent is defending appropriately - be ready to teleport or slide out.
^Seconded, especially on characters like Sagat or Zangief, you do not want to go aggressive. Once people have experience with playing against Dhalsim, it’s less in your favor to go aggressive at predictable times (like if you throw out yoga fire and teleport behind them, they can just jump back and hard kick you). One knock down and you’re likely to get screwed.
Thanks for the replies guys. I’m learning very, very quickly that agressive sim play is only good for player matches, and the occasional low BP ranked match. I have just about 5k GP, and playing an agressive sim is getting me absolutely destroyed at this level. I have about 1100 matches logged with Sim, and i’ve only won about 55% of them. I’m slowing it down from now on.
Once i learn how to defend agressive corner traps, and cross ups i’ll be ok.
don’t ever throw fireballs on chun with ultra. even at full screen she can dash and then ultra on reaction.
^I’m glad someone mentioned this. My brother mains Chun and I’ve been on the receiving end of dash->ultra a number of times.
id say gen is 6-4 or 5-5
sakura 4-6
rose 5-5 or 4-6
No way does Sim lose to Sakura, Match up is easily in Sim’s favor.
Gen probably beats Sim, but I don’t have a whole lot of Gen exp.
Rose, I don’t have much of an opinion either but I don’t really see her beating him. Sim vs Rose is 5-5 at worst. People need to weigh in more on Sim vs console characters.