Interesting tid-bit: Today I used a jab headbutt to go through two sagat fireballs, first low tiger shot hit close then he did a high tiger shot and it went through and then hit sagat. Odd since Honda’s headbutt can’t go through a two hit MP Akuma fireball.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that number of hits isn’t actually the underlying reason Honda can’t get through Akuma red fireball and Ryu super fireball, those two are surely specially tagged, since jab headbutting against those won’t reduce the number of hits by one.
Na, I’m sure that you didn’t nullify the first projectile. Since all of Honda’s headbutts go over Sagat’s low Tiger Shots. So what you did was sail over the low one, and nullify the high one. But ya, I think Thelo is right, the number of hits doesn’t matter.
On the same subject does the same thing happen when DeeJay tries to MGP Ryu’s Super or Akuma’s red fireball, since the the MGP now “eats” fireballs similiar to Honda’s headbutt (in Super SF2 fireballs would go through him during the MGP)? Just curious, won’t be home for awhile to test it.
I’m pretty sure that in HSF2 AE I’ve used SSF2 DeeJay’s MGP to avoid Ryu’s super, but like I said fireballs would pass through, not be destroyed by it like in HDR.
I’ve tested Dee Jay’s MGU against Ryu’s Super and it doesn’t “destroy” it. But, I’ve tested it against 2 Hadokens, a slow one followed by a fast one while DJ mashes on the Jab MGU, and it does destroy at least 2 fireballs. Also, I’m pretty sure that neither SSF2 nor ST DJ’s MGU can go through Ryu’s Super, since it doesn’t have any invincibility or fireball-killing properties.
Yeah, Deejay MGU probably has exactly the same properties as Honda jab torpedo and Zangief green hand. Destroys any number of projectiles, except Ryu super and Akuma strong / fierce red hadokens.
SSF2 DeeJay’s MGP DOES have (small) invincbility properties, it worked as great AA and fireballs would pass through it (do the jab version to hold it longer). The properties were changed from Super to ST. I’m one of the few that actually played a ton of Super, LOL. I used DJ’s MGP to avoid fireballs in Super all the time, my memory’s just a little fuzzy on if it worked against Ryu’s Super or not (I think it does, though). I’ll go to classic and use O.DeeJay to test whenever I get home (unless someone beats me to it).
Man, I cannot emphasize enough how good vertical jump short -> ochio is against a knocked down Chun or Bison. Do it after any non-ochio corner knockdown, and maybe even outside of the corner if you get some really long knockdown.
The subtle trick, especially against Chun, is to time it as a not-meaty, so it falls on her a tiny bit after she gets up, preferably in the corner. Done this way, it will cleanly beat reversal upkicks, and the pushback will leave you in ochio range, but outside of her own throw range (unlike a ground tick or diagonal jump short tick, which can be counter-thrown), so you can negative-edge a free ochio very easily.
Since vertical jump short basically lasts forever, you have all the time in the world to press down your three punch buttons as you fall down, so you can negative-edge that ochio with a piano release of all three. The purpose of the negative edge is to beat any attempts to take the hit, then do upkicks or super against the ochio.
The only meterless way for Chun to escape this setup is to slightly delay her upkicks, so it comes out as a non-reversal, but the timing for that is extremely hard. She and Bison can also escape with a reversal super, which sails harmlessly beneath you, or a slightly delayed super, which will only hit once and do paltry damage. Pretty sure Bison is just screwed from that setup, without meter. I basically do this setup every single time that I can, the risk-reward is completely out of whack in my favor.
Speaking of negative edge, just a reminder that Honda’s negative edge ochio is an absurdly powerful tool, and it’s your sacred duty as a sumo to abuse it as much as possible. For instance, imagine you’re getting rushed down by Balrog. Will he do blocked jab -> throw? Blocked jab -> jab -> throw? Blocked jab -> jab -> strong? Whiffed rush upper -> throw? Low rush? Walk-up throw? Any of those but with headbutt or even super inserted somewhere? All these have slightly different timings where you must ochio Balrog, and hitting a button at a wrong time can mean losing the round. How to best use your negative edge advantage here?
The idea is to start with all three buttons held down, and an ochio motion stored. At every gap in Balrog’s rushdown, you can release one, two, or three buttons, depending on how likely he is to be throwable at that point in time. Every time you are in blockstun, you can “reset” your negative edge chances by pressing down all three buttons again.
Releasing one button is least likely to succeed as a throw, but leaves you two other buttons for a bit later - for instance, it’s good to release only one button after each time you block a low jab, so you still have more buttons in case he’s going for one more low jab after the current one before attempting to throw you.
On the other hand, releasing all three buttons at once nets you a large chance of succeeding at the throw, but leaves you no other negative edge chances if you guessed wrong. It’s best used against a blocked rush / whiffed rush mixup, which is so fast that it’s hard to time your throw against, but leaves you in a long blockstun - long enough to safely reset your three negative edge chances.
When you do this right, it becomes extremely hard to throw you, since you’re constantly doing ochio attempts, and it’s also hard to surprise you with random reversals, since you’re technically blocking the entire time. It’s not that hard to execute, but can have a strong impact for the psychological conflict, since you can appear to be outright invincible for a moment (even though you’re not actually threatening much during that time). If you can convince your opponent that attacking is useless because you can counter everything he does, then you’re that much freer to make an offensive of your own later.
Imagine you just got knocked down by Zangief, and he walks over to you. Will he do a meaty sweep? A low jab -> SPD? Two low jabs -> SPD? Honda’s a charge character, so if you try to reversal at the wrong moment, you’re screwed… or are you?
Remember that Honda actually has three valid reversal moves: the ochio, headbutt, and buttslam. None of those three have overlapping charge inputs, so you can do an option select sequence I call the “15 reversal” to survive it all… if you have quick enough execution. Here I use [inclusive brackets] to mean that I’m holding down a button, and ]exclusive brackets[ to mean that I’m releasing a button.
You must start the whole thing with an ochio charge while you’re getting knocked down: :r::df::d:[:db:]
Zangief walks over to you. He can’t throw you yet, but will likely attempt some kind of tick. If he does it from far away or while jumping, he’ll be out of your ochio range, but what if he walked a tiny bit too close? Do reversal attempts 1, 2 and 3, the negative-edge ochio attempts, by quickly piano-releasing your three punch buttons: ]:hp:[, ]:mp:[, ]:lp:[. If his tick was unsafe, you just counter-threw him (3 attempts). If it was a sweep or whatever non-real tick, the negative edge will save you from hitting a button and getting hit for no reason.
Let’s say you just blocked his tick attempt (it was a jumping tick or long-range tick). Now, he can either combo his initial tick into another tick (you won’t be able to reversal since you’ll be in blockstun still), or he will attempt to SPD (you MUST reversal). Do reversal attempts 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 by quickly attempting the buttslams: hit :ub:, [:hk:], [:mk:], [:lk:], ]:hk:[, ]:mk:[, ]:lk:[. If he tried to SPD, you just reversal buttslammed him (6 attempts).
Now let’s say he comboed his two ticks together. This means that you’re still stuck in blockstun, and your buttslam attempts didn’t do anything. Zangief will now try to SPD. Since you attempted the buttslams with :ub:, you still have your back charge! Do reversal attempts 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 by quickly attempting the headbutts: hit :r:, [:hp:], [:mp:], [:lp:], ]:hp:[, ]:mp:[, ]:lp:[. With the right execution, you just reversal headbutted his double tick into SPD (6 attempts).
It’s a long, difficult to input sequence where you make 15 reversal attempts to defeat the entire tick throw scenario. TL;DR :
15 reversal:
:r::df::d:[:db:] as you’re getting KD
]:hp:[, ]:mp:[, ]:lp:[ against the first tick
:ub:, [:hk:], [:mk:], [:lk:], ]:hk:[, ]:mk:[, ]:lk:[ after the first tick
:r:, [:hp:], [:mp:], [:lp:], ]:hp:[, ]:mp:[, ]:lp:[ after the second tick
Bonus: Some Zangief players are truly devious, and will attempt to do three ticks before the SPD. If you face that and somehow mistimed the initial ochio attempts, even the rest of the sequence perfectly executed as a 15 reversal would fail. But if you have both superhuman execution and full meter, you can try a variant I’ve never managed to do myself: a 21 reversal. In theory, you should be able to append an attempt to super, right after the (failed) headbutt attempts and Zangief’s third tick. This should be basically ironclad against all ticks. Let me know if you ever manage to pull this off:
21 reversal (in theory):
:r::df::d:[:db:] as you’re getting KD
]:hp:[, ]:mp:[, ]:lp:[ against the first tick
:ub:, [:hk:], [:mk:], [:lk:], ]:hk:[, ]:mk:[, ]:lk:[ after the first tick
:r:, [:hp:], [:mp:], [:lp:], ]:hp:[, ]:mp:[, ]:lp:[ after the second tick
:l::r:, [:hp:], [:mp:], [:lp:], ]:hp:[, ]:mp:[, ]:lp:[ after the third tick
That was a great series of posts Thelo. Lol I don’t really think Hondas need to learn more ways to screw Zangief over though. Anyways, on your point about the “21 reversal” I’m not sure how lenient the super inputs are. You would need to have about 25 frames of leniency after the headbutt attempts to get the super to come out. I know with Blanka I can do jab roll to super, but the super timings seem to be more strict with some characters. I hope it doesn’t work (lol I hate Honda too much), but if it does nothing really changes I guess. All Zangief can do for wake up pressure are safe jumps or xups, which bypass the “15 reversal” thing. There’s always 4 ticks too 
.
All of that is true Thelo. If a Zangief or Hawk do 3 grounded meaty Jabs, Honda will be able to beat all 3 Jabs, and I think the Super will be able to come out, if a Honda player were to be very good at executing all the escape options. If it’s not a Jab though, then I’m not sure if the Super can be tagged on as another escape option. And of course safe jumps will take Oichio and Sumo Splash out as options. All Zangief and Hawk have to do is safe jump, 2 ticks and the only thing Honda will have is Torpedo and Super as options.
Also, I think Chun Li can escape neutral j Short, Oichio with reversal SBK, but Bison is screwed without meter I believe. Maybe a reversal PC will still get hit but will get him close enough to reversal throw? Or maybe a slide will get him close enough to reversal throw too? IDK, next time you’re on, I wouldn’t mind testing these ideas out.
Pretty sure that reversal SBK isn’t going to do much, it’s unsafe on block. If I remember correctly, what happens is that she does escape the initial ochio attempt, crosses Honda up with SBK, then gets ochioed on the other side.
Also yeah, it’s actually fairly hard to test the 15 reversal in “real” situations because really, how often does Zangief manage to knock you down. But against a Zangief safe jump, yeah you can’t do the whole thing. In these cases I usually just try to :ub: buttslam the safejump, then :r: headbutt right afterwards in case I’ve missed my buttslam, basically skipping the negative edge ochio part.
:sad:
Fucking kick lariat 
Kick lariats trade or lose to headbutts more often than not. My luck is so bad with these things that I’ve gone severals sets vs Honda without hitting him out of it with kick lariats (terrible luck, gambler’s fallacy, and morbid curiosity ftl). Anyways, punch lariat is more likely to beat headbutts due to having bigger hitboxes. It still loses about half the time though and randomly using punch lariats is an easy way to get tripped by Honda’s command roundhouse. The biggest problem for Zangief in my opinion is that knockdowns are very hard to exploit vs Honda’s who know what they are doing.
Actually, one of the (advancing) lariats sometimes knocks down against HHS that aren’t done from the very tip, it’s bloody annoying. I need to be extra careful about hitting from max range, but then Zangief does retreating lariat instead and I just whiff the HHS for no damage, so at some point I gamble it and use a HHS that reaches further, just to deal some damage. The most successful Zangief v Honda strategy I’ve seen is to exploit that advancing lariat KD vs HHS a lot, since really that’s the only “hole” I’ll leave reasonably open in my defense (I basically never do offensive headbutt vs Zangief, it’s too risky).
Projectiles have hitting and hittable hitboxes. Typically the hittable hitboxes are only affected by other projectiles for projectile cancels. Ryu’s super and Akuma’s multihit fireball appear not to have any hittable hitboxes.
Jab Headbutt and MGP can definitely cancel multiple projectiles, and the projectile cancels and it seems to cause a single frame of hit freeze. (Though I’m not entirely positive about that.)
I’ve fought a few Giefs lately that like to do nothing but kick lariat mostly, and it is surprisingly effective. It’s difficult to time stuff against because it recovers so quickly. If you try to advance they’ll jump and try to tick into max range SPD. And if you accidentally time your offense against the start of a kick lariat, you get knocked down no matter what you do due to that incredibly large red hitbox.
I mentioned this for the Deejay matchup, but it also applies to Ryu and Ken. Empty jump-in is a surprisingly good option against shoryukens! By empty jump I mean jump forward and do not hit any buttons. If you hit anything, your hitbox extends and you get pretty vulnerable to shoryukens, but empty jumps will make your opponent’s shoryuken cleanly whiff a lot of the time (Honda’s hitbox is kind of weird), then you can punish with ochio or something as they land a second later. Very useful against Ken’s jab fireball -> fierce shoryu trap in particular, but works against all flavors of shoryukens, really.
The catch? Same as against Deejay: if you’re at the distance to beat shoryuken with empty jump, you’re also at the distance to get beaten by their sweep as you land. You could beat that sweep with a jump short landing, but then the jump short loses to shoryuken (yes it does extend far enough to make a difference). So if your opponent knows how everything works, it’s a 50/50. Still, a 50/50 there is in your favor, because if you lose it you just eat a sweep or DP, but if you win it you have the opportunity to do mad damage. A well-placed empty jump sometimes allowed me to win games against even top shoto players like DGV or Damdai - it’s really that important, I feel, to have this option to beat their shoryuken.
This mixup doesn’t work as well on Sagat, though. For some reason, his Tiger Uppercut reaches far enough to beat a lot of empty jumps, and his sweep is unusually good against your jump short. On jump-ins against Sagat, I almost always use jump fierce, since even if Sagat tries to uppercut, it will often trade with your jump fierce (or sometimes even lose cleanly if you’re high enough).
Speaking of Sagat, here’s a really fun trick I discovered recently: at precisely round start distance, your jab handslaps cleanly beat his Tiger Uppercut! Watch as your opponent tries to reversal uppercut you, only to get stuffed by the almighty power of the Hands. Pretty damn useful at round start, and against those players who rely heavily on the prediction uppercut in footsies or when getting up. It’s the equivalent of the stand jab against Ryu shoryukens, but specific to Sagat.
More anti-Sagat tricks!
Jab headbutt does erase low tiger shots, so you can use it instead of fierce headbutt to beat a low tiger, to avoid landing on a slow low tiger after hitting Sagat’s hands.
Honda super’s startup normally gets hit by projectiles, but it will not get hit by a low tiger! This means that you actually can use super in reaction to a low tiger very well, it’s a lot easier than against shoto fireballs.
Just for fun, let’s see the many ways you can beat “reversal”-type moves, beyond just baiting them:
Ryu shoryuken: Meaty far stand jab, empty jump, KD then crossup roundhouse
Ryu super: Jump short
Ken shoryuken: Meaty far stand jab (only against jab shoryuken), empty jump, KD then crossup roundhouse
Ken super: KD then crossup
Guile flash kick: KD then crossup roundhouse (works 100%!)
Guile super: Uh…
Chun upkicks: Vertical jump short (delayed), buttslam (delayed), empty jump-in
Chun super: Vertical jump short (delayed), buttslam (delayed)
Blanka upball: Just do meaty HHS, at worst it’ll trade
Blanka super: Snuff it with a late jump short (forwards or backwards), or block then HHS back to equalize damage
Honda wakeup buttslam, headbutt, super: Uh… vertical jump short a small distance away as they get up after a KD
Zangief lariat: Vertical jump fierce (steer it to hit with the tip of your hand)
Dhalsim super: KD then crossup
Balrog headbutt: Safe jump short
Balrog super: Early jump-in short, so amazing (You want to be airborne when he activates super)
Vega flipkick: KD then crossup roundhouse or crossup buttslam for free damage. Roundhouse buttslam to crossup is handy because of its range, but crossup roundhouse usually leads to better damage.
Sagat Tiger uppercut: Meaty far jab HHS, high jump fierce
Sagat super: It’s possible to jump fierce it between the knee and uppercut parts, but that’s really hard, so just block it then punish
Bison super: KD then delayed vertical jump short, crossup (doesn’t work that well)
T.Hawk uppercut: Uh… you can far meaty sweep I think?
Fei Long flame kick: KD, then vertical jump fierce next to him (flamekick doesn’t have enough range to hit you if you wait until the last moment to hit fierce) or crossup roundhouse (watch out for eating a chicken wing, keep that ochio attempt in negative edge)
Fei Long super: KD then crossup
Deejay upkicks: Empty jump-in, far meaty sweep (upkicks whiff)
Deejay super: Jump-in short
Cammy thrust kick: KD then crossup
Cammy super: KD then crossup
Thelo: Edited in the how-to-beat-reversals and the Sagat tricks into the first few posts, will edit in the 15 reversal and some of your other stuff shortly. Thanks very much!