I don’t get it. Why would you do a far sweep if it wouldn’t connect? Unlike shotos, Guile really doesn’t move his hitbox forward much while doing a sonic boom, so 99% of the time, if you could trip him, you’ll either land it or get blocked, neither of which lead to a reaction flashkick.
I am absolutely not afraid of a Guile / Deejay who just holds downback. It’s a losing proposition for them, especially for Deejay. It lets me corner them for free, and advance to buttslam range while charged, where I can either cleanly reaction buttslam their fireball for massive damage, or if they don’t fireball it lets me HHS them all day. I’m much more afraid of the type that uses their high-priority jumps a lot to snuff my advances and actively push me back to fullscreen (damn you, Guile jump fierce and Deejay jump jab!).
Here’s the thing about jab headbutt. If you never use it, then you’re basically giving your opponent a license to safely throw fullscreen fireballs all day. If you always use it, then you’re just asking to get kicked in the face every time, as your opponent just waits and punishes every time. But when you mix it up, that’s when it becomes really strong.
- Honda ground advance beats Opponent wait-and-punish, but loses to Opponent projectiles
- Honda jab headbutt beats Opponent projectiles, but loses to Opponent wait-and-punish
If you’re so afraid of wait-and-punish that you’re banning jab headbutt through fireballs from your play, you’re essentially playing Rock-Paper against your opponent’s Rock-Paper-Scissors. In actual play, you can often feel which defense your opponent will use. Not only that, but your payoff for guessing right is usually better than your opponent’s. You risk eating a fireball’s chip damage (if you walk forward incorrectly) or a single sweep (if you jab headbutt incorrectly), for a chance at getting close to your opponent, which is the holy graal of Honda vs fireballers and can often win the round by itself. It’s even better if you’re close to your opponent, as then your headbutt will actually connect, rather than whiff and get punished.
Here’s food for thought on the use of jab headbutt vs various opponents:
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Ryu. Jab headbutt is a pretty damn good round opener, since it beats both opening fireballs and DPs (jab headbutt is slow enough to connect after an opening DP’s danger window, but fast enough that Ryu can’t reliably reaction DP it). It also lets you gain meter and position right off the bat if Ryu opens with a backjump. It’s also situationally useful in early-predicting fullscreen fireballs, though mostly the threat is stronger than the execution here. You can also use it as a poke that beats fireballs at midrange. It suddenly sucks when Ryu gets super.
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Ken. Similar to Ryu, except it loses to Ken DP at round start, and his super does not shut you down. Also, your super is so much better here anyway that fullscreen jab headbutt is not that attractive. Still sometimes useful when Ken is just spamming these jab fireballs every single time.
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Chun. It’s really, really useful when you predict a fullscreen slow fireball, gives you plenty of time to recover and push Chun back against the wall. From fullscreen, a jab headbutt goes far enough that you can immediately threaten a buttslam to hit her, which is the main use, as she’s forced to walk backwards or risk eating sumo butt.
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Guile. Mostly only use from fullscreen in prediction to a boom. Pretty bad as a poke-that-beats-fireballs because flash kick is actually easy to do in reaction to a jab headbutt. Probably the least useful matchup for it.
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Deejay. Invaluable!! Same as with Chun, it instantly lets you get at buttslam-threat range from fullscreen. If you are in buttslam-threat range, you’ve basically already won. His slide sucks against you (ochio and jump short -> ochio totally destroy it) so he’s kind of forced to retreat. As with Guile though, it kind of sucks at midrange as a poke-that-beats-fireballs. His upkicks can react too well to that, and it tends to lose to his low strong too. Just use it at fullscreen to get in and you’ll do fine. Preemptive comment: “But he’s walking forward and kicking me every time after throwing a maxout!” If he’s doing that then he won’t have a charge to either fireball or upkicks you, so you can just walk forward normally to get in on him. It also means that you’re just not headbutting early enough. It’s okay to block a fast maxout to get more time for the next one.
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Sagat. Pretty worthless from fullscreen, he recovers fast enough to just throw another fireball, even if you correctly predict one. Just forwardjump instead from fullscreen. It’s kind of good from 3/4 screen though as it beats both high and low tiger shots. Too bad it mostly sucks against tougher Sagats who mostly don’t use tigershots and instead just jump roundhouse all day and dizzy-punish your headbutts, jab or otherwise.
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Dhalsim. Somewhat useful at fullscreen as an early prediction, though you might get pushed out with limbs immediately afterwards. Really good at midrange though, since it cleanly beats limbs, fireballs and flames, which are his main tools here. At worst you might eat a downback jab or a drill. As good as it is though, in practice you mostly just buttslam anyway, since that also beats limbs, fireballs, and drills (but loses to upflame I guess).