Do you have any advice, I'm having a couple of issues just becoming a better player

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
1

Hey everyone, this is my first lost on SRK hope it’s in the right place. Anyways, I need advice on a bunch of things. If you would like to give some input feel free I’m just going to start talking I guess. . .

I play mainly three characters Juri, Ryu and Abel. I don’t have a fight-stick yet, it’s in the mail and should be here Monday.

My problem with all my characters is that I have a very reserved play style. My offense is not as high as my defense. I’m working on blocking those mix-ups and I’m getting a lot better at it, I suck at wake up mix-ups on others though. I’m way better at blocking them than doing them to others. I’m getting better at crouch tech-ing also. Trying to stop jumping so much and get my ground game up.

When I play Ryu a lot of times I feel like if I’m not punishing stuff the I can’t really do anything with him. If they make a mistake a punish hard but I never really put the pressure on them, out of all my characters. Usually when I do punish it hurts though.

With Juri I have a hard time with Turtle characters. I fight a Blanka or a Guile and I can’t do ANYTHING. Juri is a nice versatile character which honestly suits my play-style because it’s just the way I am. But i feel like I need to take her to the next level. Sorry if that’s not very specific.

Abel is probably my best character but I have problem with rush down Characters like Ibuki, Guy and Rufus. There offense rate and pressure is so high I really never have chance to do anything but block and block and make mistakes and get hit. Those are the characters I really have trouble with, when I play Abel.

Well to further comment on what I said before when I was talking about Juri, I can never beat a decent Blanka or anything really who offenses that are composed of those safe after block special attacks like the Blanka ball or E.Honda headbut dash thing, or Bison Scissor kick. They just keep doing it and I feel like right when I could counter attack they are in a good position/zone or they are just doing it again over and over and I can’t really stop there offense. They just sit in the corner and do the same moves over and over and back up. I can’t jump in i can’t do anything.

Which brings me to another problem is that I really don’t have a good sense of frames. I feel like the person on offense always has the best frame advantage and always is getting me right before I could hit them. I can’t punish it because I cant really sense when their actives are over. Then again it might just be the people I’m playing just really know what they are doing.

Well, if you have anything to say feel free. If you need me to be more specific about anything just ask (sorry for all the grammar/spelling mistakes).

Thanks

2

The biggest problem I see is that you are getting put into pressured situations where you don’t know what’s going on. You say that you are mostly a reserved player, but your offense is poor. You are probably being intercepted when you begin to put yourself in offensive spacing without following through.

Keep your reserved spacing if that is where you are comfortable, and then look for openings where you can launch an offense and then go for it. When you are not going for your opponent, rush to defend your openings before your opponent can find them.

Fight for positioning. Then fight your opponent.

Make it hard for them to get in when they are trying to get in. Make it impossible to get you off of them when they are trying to keep you out.

3

I get what your saying. I do get pressured and intercepted when I do try to do something. But I have to have some type of offense to win a match. Also a lot of times people don’t leave me any opening to attack with. And I end up just constantly block and tech-ing throws.

How exactly am I suppose to make it impossible for them to get me off? What do you think is a good way to transfer between good defense and offense?

4

Abel is a rushdown character, if you aren’t good at rushdown either learn it or switch to a more turtley character like Dhalsim. Abel’s best offense revolves around forward mk cancelled to forward dash. From there they have to guess if you’re going to throw or go for a hit, both will cost them a lot of life and lead to another knockdown. Watch videos of Abel and copy the rushdown one setup at a time.

5

True. You need to have an offense before you can find openings for your offense. Practice some offensive strings in training mode and add in some throw setups. Alternate between pressuring them with normals/safe specials, tic throws (go crazy on them), baiting reversals, and cutting off their escape routes.

Keep them out with strong positioning, anti-airs, fireballs, good pokes… until you can come up with a way to get a clean hit.

If you just want to stay offensive, you can hover outside of the opponent’s sweep range and see what happens from there.

6

jake here…

you main all characters that i only played doing trials really. sometimes i mess around with juri or ryu, but seldomly.

ummm… from what i’m reading though, it seems maybe taking a look at this will help you out?

that is a link to abel on the SRK wiki. im not sure if your fimilar with the site or what im about to mention… but frame data can be really helpful stuff to take a glance at and over time become really fimilar with. (pssst pssst scroll to the bottom of the page that i linked to find the frame data spreadsheet.)

you should look at it if you havent before, and even look at other characters you feel you struggle with for a matchup. it may help you to find offensive 'in’s on your opponent.

also, if you think you dont understand the spreadsheet for the frame data and such… [media=youtube]rCwWa6GOUUU"[/media] to a youtube part 1 video explaining

7

Yeah your right. I really do need to use the mk forward dash and i do use it, though sometimes it dosent always work out the way i want. I feel a lot of times when i do it, they grab me and abels command throw dosent go through a normal grab or when i go in for a combo they hit me before i hit them somehow. Maybe im not doing my attacks fast enough, even though i think it gives you +1 on block if im not mistaken.

8

remember the most important sources…

watch pro videos on these matchups… they definitley help…

9

Yeah i agree they do def help. Especially with ryu. I have seen countless matches with ryu and i know just what to do with him. But a see abel videos and i have no idea how to do some of the stuff they are doing. I know what they are doing but i really dont know what they are doing if that makes sense. Also with juri i have yet to see one pro match with a juri player, then again i have not looked that hard.

Also a couple of things i said before that i want to reiterate since no one has answered them.

  1. What do you do when someone does those safe after special moves. How do you punish those. For example e-honda’s headbutt and Bison’s scissor kick. One match the dude would scissor kick me and as soon as he was done spam weak crouch low kicks so i couldn’t do anything and when that link was over he would scissor kick me again. There was nothing i could do. OR one match the dude just kept Blanka balling me. I tried punching the blanka balls and i got a free ultra with abel off of it, but when that happened he just stopped doing the long ones into the short ones. What do you do in situations like that ( regardless of character not just specifically abel)

  2. Whats the best way to deal with a turtle-ing guile.

10

One thing about street fighter 4 is you cannot ask what to do regardless of character. Each character has different tools and unique ways to deal with different situations, so a general “what works for everybody?” answer will be hard to find.

With Abel when they start doing the jab blanka ball I mash jabs in case they do fierce, and then try to block as soon as I see them stop short. They probably will go for a slide, which can be punished, or electricity that can be blocked or punished with a c.LK or exCOD. It kind of depends on range.

If you don’t know already, if they spam rainbow roll you can focus absorb all rainbow roll.

11

fireball from full screen if they jump walk up and then if they press a button uppercut if they don’t then take a step back and fireball again and then get full screen and start over

12

you make the opening. that’s where the basics, footsies, whatever you want to call it comes in. round starts. both players are pretty much at a neutral space and then are fighting for position. player A does something right gets into an advantage position. either by knockdown or getting into a good position to start offense. player B resets the situation and both are back to fighting for positioning space again. of course it’s not as simple as that and it depends on what characters are being used and who’s using them, but that’s the general thing. if you tech a throw? that just usually resets both players.

13

if you are having problems against rush down characters like the three u mentioned then it seems you need to work on your blocking more. those three can wreak havoc if you cant block crossups effectively especially on wakeup. ibuki and rufus are always searching for that knockdown. after knockdown they want to mind fuck you with throws and their crossup options

also consider what it is your doing that always putting you in the position to get rushed down…

silly wake up options?
not using your normals effecftively?
not anti airing like u should?

learn to block but also make them respect your offense. punish those jump ins and poke back.

and imho i dont think that player who cant block effectively should be starting out with juri or abel. i think Ryu is one of the best characters to learn the basics with first before you move on to a charcater as advanced as Juri. just my opinion though

14

3 things

  1. you need to build up your offense. good way to do this is to play AI or human players who are slightly worse than you are. don’t block, don’t focus (unless it will get you a hit).

  2. if I’m not mistaken, Ibuki, Guy, and Rufus all have attack setups that allow them to change whatever they’re doing and hit you anyway. for instance, they come at you with some random pattern and now they have about 3 choices to fuck you up and once you’re in it, the only way you can get out of their offense is if you choose the right option. if they go rock, they don’t lose much if you pick rock yourself. but generally what will happen is you pick paper and they pick rock and you get fucked and they keep on fucking you up. that sound about right?
    what you need to do against these kinds of characters is attack their attack setups. for instance, if Rufus’s dive kick leads to setting all of this shit up, make it impossible for Rufus players to dive kick you. do whatever bullshit you can to stop it.

  3. the only hard part about frames is knowing who has the advantage at all times. if someone hits your guard with a level 1 focus, you have the advantage in frames because they have to dash; if it’s a level 2 focus, they have the advantage. if they’re using a block string, they have the frame advantage if the hits link. I think that there’s certain attacks that put characters at a disadvantage but at the moment I don’t know what they are… not really sure if that’s important

15

Learn frame data. You need to know at least which of your own moves are plus on block so that you can use them to make combos and offense.

Play footsies more and focus on anti-airing.

Learn combos. Combos are so damn important at beginner levels - the player who can hit-confirm and/or punish with combos into ultra will win way more of the time just because everything he does translates into more damage.

Against Honda if you see him headbutt from half screen or farther you can jump backwards and then you can punish him when you land. Or you can hit them with a DP in the middle of the move. Abel’s second ultra punishes all Honda headbutts on block, even EX.

You can hit people out of blanka ball with something like cr.mp. It’s pretty easy. Mash jab actually works too. Or you can probably just EX Pinwheel it on reaction before it hits you. Just sit there and see if they do the ball - if they do punish them for it. Once you punish them a couple times they’ll either A) keep doing random balls, in which case you win or B)stop doing them when they think you’re looking for them, which lets you advance. Juri also has fireballs with really good recovery.

Here is how you should learn good offense with non-grapplers: tick throw, all day. Do a couple light moves and then throw. Mix up how many light moves you do before the throw. Once your opponents learn to counter this, you need to learn how to frame trap to punish them trying to throw tech. If your opponent just mashes throw like no other during blockstrings punish it with say an EX Pinwheel or a DP.

Here’s a concrete example: With Ryu, do a meaty cr.mp on them. After they block it, you can either do a throw or a cr.mk xx fireball. If they throw tech they can get hit by the cr.mk. If they don’t throw tech they can get hit by the throw.

With Abel, tick throws are different. The mixup there is between jumping and not jumping because you can’t tech his command throw. So off a cr.lp, you can either do a f.mk or a tornado throw. Or you can punish them jumping with jump forwards fierce or falling sky. Try out different stuff, see what works for you.

Ask about the Guile matchup in the Juri forums, I don’t know.

After Honda’s headbutt if you can’t punish it you’re basically at neutral again. If you block an EX headbutt most characters can’t punish it.

After dictator’s lk scissor kicks he is at even frames. However, he has an extremely fast cr.lk. So if he does lk scissor kicks and follows up with a cr.lk, you cannot get out of it unless you do an invincible move. However, if dictator does cr.lk xx scissor kicks again, he gets pushed back. He can only do it 2-3 times before he can’t reach you with his cr.lk anymore. So if you just block and he does it twice his pressure is over. You took some chip damage, oh well. If you want to you can do a reversal before the cr.lk hits you. For Juri that would be EX Pinwheel. If he starts baiting this then you can start backdashing after scissor kicks to get out of the situation or you can go for a crossup to start your own offense. Or you can throw out a cr.lp or cr.lk to push him away. However his own cr.lk is still faster than yours so you can’t just mash cr.lk after scissor kicks.

Dictator’s scissor kick pressure is really good and there’s no way to make it not good. However the most he can do to you if you just block is chip damage. If the opponent really tries to abuse it you have to reversal it to punish him. In general though just block, it’s not an infinite loop unless he does scissor kicks -> scissor kicks. But then you can just jump out of that or beat it with a normal. So there’s a lot of guessing going on, it’s in Dictator’s favor, but you do have options.

With Abel vs mixup characters: Abel has an inherent weakness to mixups. He has EX Roll and EX TT to get out of trouble but those aren’t really great reversals. So you just have to learn to block and tech throws well. To be a good Abel player you have to have good defense for when you get knocked down. Just remember, you have your own ridiculous mixups to use when you get a knockdown.

Good defense is all about knowing what your opponent is going to do or is likely to do. You can work on this by limiting your reversals and playing against players with good offense a lot. Honestly it’s a lot of practice.

16

Good positioning depends on knowing your matchups. You need to know what the best and worst places to stand are, in relation to your opponent. You need to be able to trick your opponent into attacking and missing. You need to know where the best place to stand is so you can anti-air. You need to know where your opponent needs to be standing in order to start HIS character’s offense.

For example: Vs Abel – if you stay out of his step kick range, then you are at a range where you can reactively throw his roll, block and punish his wheel kick, and anti-air if he jumps. This forces Abel to use different methods of approach than those options when you choose to be in that position.

Good footsies is getting to know your opponent. How do you get to know someone? By asking questions, by pushing their buttons. The first question you should be asking is: Are you blocking? How do you ask that? By using your pokes.*

Make observations… He is moving forward. If he’s moving forward, he’s not blocking so I can damage him.
Or he is moving forward so he can jump and dive kick, so I must counter or avoid that.
Or he is moving forward so he doesn’t have charge for Sumo Headbutt, I have been throwing a lot of fireballs so he is probably going to jump, I will move forward so I can uppercut his jump more easily.

You have to have a plan that can last the entire match. Something as simple as I will pressure him until he dies as soon as I get in or I won’t let him anywhere near me unless I choose for him to be near me.

It’s important to be careful, but not afraid. Being worried just reduces your reaction time. Have the courage to learn your opponent.

*I have caught a number of shady Ken players holding down-forward instead of down-back. It makes uppercutting easier for them and it looks like they’re blocking. lol

17

why should a new player learn frame data? I’ve never studied fram data and a lot of the top players may look at it occasionaly. I think its better if things are learned through trial and error. This frame data craze is almost like having a street fighter text book next to your joystick while playing…imo lol

There are the universal basics a person needs to learn before they even think about frame data. if you cant block crossups or are getting rushed down for free frame data is the least of your concerns. you learn by getting your ass kicked. just gotta learn from your mistakes.

18

You need to know combos. Frame data helps with combos. The majority of forums for SSF4 will not give you an adequate combo base - they either have shittons of useless info or they leave out important info. Do you think Sako learned the s.mp -> cr.hp -> cr.mk Cammy combo by throwing out random normals and seeing if they combo’d? No, he looked at frame data and saw that the frames matched up, and then tried it in training mode. Anyway, like I said, player with combos > player without combos, no matter the other factors, 99% of the time.

If you don’t know which moves are plus on block for your character then if you try to tick throw you’ll get hit out of it. For example, suppose you’re Chun. If you do cr.lk -> throw/frame trap you’ll either get hit out of their move or they’ll tech the throw. But if you do cr.lp -> throw the situation is totally different. And having good offense makes the game way more fun. You go from “I’ll try this and see if it works” to “this will work unless he does x.”

Blocking crossups is something you can only learn from experience, yes. But there are lots of things you can do outside of matches to become a better player.

19

i strongy disagree with this

player who has mastered the basics > player with combos…any day of the week. learning to combo is useful only after you’re able to open your opponents up, which wont happen if you are always getting rushed down, cuz you dont know how to block, which is because you lack the basics when it come to defense.

OP sais his hardest matchups are ibuki and Rufus, heavy mixup characters. all the combos in the world wont help you if you dont anti air like u should or dont know how to block after a knockdown. learning combos are extremely easy in the 4 series. the challenge mode baically gives you most of the combo options.

but it doesnt mean jack shit if you cant block crossups or are always getting rushed down…

20

If I can recall, isn’t frame data recorded by trial and error?