Fei Long for Dummies- A good players guide to not losing online

Its happened to all of us at one point or another. You jump online to prepare for your high level tournament thats coming up, only to get crushed time and time again by general scrubbiness.

You dismiss it as “just online”, and you’d “smash that guy if not for the lag!” Believe me, I know.

But what about when “Step Kick Ken” shows up to the tourney? If you don’t have a solid plan for dealing with “scrub” tactics, he will step kick, low fowardxxxfireball you right into losers bracket. There are a lot of things that go into being a high level player, but a big one is always having an answer to consistently crushing players who don’t think

Which brings me to the point of this thread; to discuss the matchups from a less than tournament level of play. We can ask the questions that we are ‘too good’ to normally ask about, but we lose to anyway while trying to overthink the opponent

I’ll cover a few general ones myself, and those of you with more specific scrub matchup related info can fill in with the rest.

The first thing you’ll want to do above all else, is get your fundamental gameplay down. A few important bullet points to keep yourself from falling into scrubdom. if you dont have these things down, it will make you lose no matter what level your opponent is

-dont drop combos. self explanitory
-dont do things predictablly. ie i’m far, so im goona do chicken wings, or im a bit closer, so im gonna jump. or always having the same response to unpunnishable moves
-stay grounded for the most part of your matches
-learn to anti air every jump in

General Online Player Strategery WIP

  1. Dragon punches are kewl

the guy who has to mash something. usually a shoto, or a dp character.

you jump in or get close to try a block string, and as soon as theres a gap, you get tagged with an ultra. this player usually will not anti air you with the dp because it requires timing and actual thought. they prefer to just hit buttons until something invincible comes out

theres a really simple response to this player. keep things simple. when you start your hit confirms, use chained light attacks until your opponet is too far away for the reversal to hit you. you can use the Mago string. cr.lk, cr.lk, cr.lp, st.lk, pause briefly, then rekka. its much safer than using cr.mp, rekka because you can not reversal in between chained light attacks (the hnic)

Seriously, this one is easy. Generally solid players that just love to mash reversals under pressure. Create pressure situations then BAIT. I promise you if you bait 100% of the time they WILL get punished because those guys always DP at some point. Don’t play the guessing game. Just block every time. If you see they are starting to catch on and defend on wakeup, start throwing them. They’ll go back to DPing.(samurai)

2.The jump-back fool.

Probably takes the cake for annoying fights since the opponent isn’t even trying to hit you, just avoid you until you make a big mistake. While you walk forward, he just keeps jumping back until he reaches the corner. At that point, he baits you to come closer, then either:

A) Jumps backward into the corner repeatedly and lands with j.HK if you’re close enough
B) Tatsus over you (if it’s a Ken, Ryu, Akuma, or Gouken)
C) Step Kick or cr.MK xx Hadouken

Solution:

If there’s anything we can learn from the Dhalsim and Guile fights, it’s to be patient. These types are no different, except they aren’t even doing damage to you until you get close enough. Walk forward and always watch your guard. Don’t commit to jump-ins or dashes when the opponent is waiting for you to move or you may get hit on the way down/chipped to lose the advantage.

Once the opponent reaches the corner and starts doing random jumps backward, approach carefully and space a s.HK to hit them as they go up. If you’re quick, you can also try forward dash> Flame Kick, but it’s better to stay safe by using the s.HK. It’s possible to time a Rekka as your opponent lands to do chip damage, but it may not be worth the risk of getting SRK’d if you anticipate it.

If your opponent is inclined to Tatsu away at the first moment, dash towards them as they do and attempt to catch them with HP Rekka. The timing is tight, but definitely possible–especially if it’s a short Tatsu arc.

Important note in this fight: If you get a sizable lead, hold onto it by turtling. There’s no sense in putting yourself in a risky situation if you can already win by time. If your opponent is forced to actually jump FORWARD, that’s an anti-air opportunity for you right there. Otherwise, just play the opponent like any other player at that point (nosone)

-Walk forward and always watch as he jumps. Sometimes they will get antsy and jump forward when you get into range so always just try to sit at the range where they will want to jump and look to anti air. If you stay there long enough they WILL jump. You just have to keep waiting. Work him into the corner then stand at a range where he can’t move forward or try to jump over you without being intercepted and watch. He will do something eventually, undoubtedly unsafe. Punish it when it happens. Alternatively just block as these guys have no mixup. Just be wary moving forward as some do like to “spring forward” once you start chasing them with a move like tatsus or whatever (samurai)

-jump back shotos; hold down-back outside of their jumping range, if they jump towards you flame kick them. If they keep jumping backwards watch their pattern and jump in with a (air to air)fierce before they manage to reach the height of their ascent (Nyoronoru)

  1. jabjabjabjabjabjabjabjabjabjab

The Jabber: Watch their reactions to situations you create. Generally bad players are NOT aware of their habits and will respond with the same thing in set situations. Do a jump in and watch, does he mash jab? After rekkas, does he mash jab? After overhead? If you delay on wakeup?

Generally if you observe those patterns you can easily create that situation again, hesitate just enough for them to come out of block stun, and then flame kick. You can also defeat this with st.jab delay cr.jab rekkas to counter hit them, or after a jump in cl.MP delay cr.lp rekkas. (samurai)

-tenshins after jump in roundhouses/fierces cannot be escaped by jabbing or low techs. especially useful against charge characters (the hnic)

  1. Cross up, blockstring, rinse, repeat

How to deal with an opponent that is always jumping over you after completing a blockstring to either cross you up or empty jump

The way you choose to deal with this situation relies mostly on your reaction time , don’t ever just sit there and let opponents pressure you with this scrubby technique .

Average reaction time : After the opponent has completed the block string and you can see that the jump is coming , as soon as they are about to land on your opposite side press Crouch Medium kick as this will make their crossup normal whiff and you can immediately go for a throw or even a BnB as the opponent will not have expected their crossup to whiff and will most likely not be blocking or teching throw . If they try to empty jump throw you the crouching medium kick will catch them , and if they just empty jump block the blocked crouching medium kick will leave you in a safe neutral position .

Good reaction time: After the opponent has completed the block string and is jumping over you …walk slightly forward wait just until Fei long is facing the opposite direction and immediately press Close medium kick , if u press Close medium kick before fei long is facing the opposite direction it will whiff and leave you open for a punish so you have to time it just as Fei long is looking in the opposite direction . Most crossup Medium kicks will get stuffed by Fei longs Close medium kick so i if they try to cross you up they will also eat counter hit damage . And another plus is that when you hit the opponent out of the air with the close medium kick they get reset , and the position at which they get reset is just inside of Lp rekka range so after you have poked them out of the air you can immediately go for a Lp rekka poke .

You can do the exact same thing with Cl.Hp as with Close Medium kick if you want to go for extra damage but the Cl.Hp trades much more often so i would avoid it .

Very good reaction time: This is exactly the same as with Close medium kick but instead of the the medium kick you go for a Flame kick …and considering Fei longs Ex Flame kick is 200 damage i would most likely go for that if you have the meter to spare . And i will reiterate the fact that you have to react quick because you don’t want your flame kick to come out after they have landed …for obvious reasons

So just see the jump …walk slightly forward …wait until Fei long is facing the opposite direction…Flame kick

Oh and you should also use these techniques if the situation is the other way around , as in if you are pressuring the opponent or you have the opponent locked in the corner and they try and escape the pressure by simply jumping over you , do not let them get away with it …it’s free damage as long as you can react quick enough (demented rabbit)

-if they are being really predictable, just hold up back+your button of choice when you anticipate that crossup (the hnic)

lol instead of fei long for dummies …it could say fei long vs dummies .

anyways i think next there needs to be a strategy on how to counter opponents who refuse to take their fingers off that jab button . especially Balrog , Chun li , and i think Cody has recently come into the mix too .

lol sure, i could change it if it seems like its putting anyone down. but i was thinking more like fei long for fighting dummies while still making a play at those simple guide books like “ebay for dummies”…etc. kinda like poking fun at ourselves for losing to such simple tactics at times

i know one ive been using vs jabbers is to jump in with a heavy attack, and go straight into a normal tenshin. unless you hit too deep with the jump, the tenshin connects regardless of hit or block. most charge characters usually cant punnish it unless they block then neutral jump and attack it because they lose the down charge when blocking the jump in

another tactic, when you have meter, is to jump in, cr.lk, then flame kick fadc. into a CW. you may need to pause briefly to make sure they have time to stick that jab out, but it punnishes crouch tech and jab mash pretty hard

The jump-back fool.

Probably takes the cake for annoying fights since the opponent isn’t even trying to hit you, just avoid you until you make a big mistake. While you walk forward, he just keeps jumping back until he reaches the corner. At that point, he baits you to come closer, then either:

A) Jumps backward into the corner repeatedly and lands with j.HK if you’re close enough
B) Tatsus over you (if it’s a Ken, Ryu, Akuma, or Gouken)
C) Step Kick or cr.MK xx Hadouken

Solution:

If there’s anything we can learn from the Dhalsim and Guile fights, it’s to be patient. These types are no different, except they aren’t even doing damage to you until you get close enough. Walk forward and always watch your guard. Don’t commit to jump-ins or dashes when the opponent is waiting for you to move or you may get hit on the way down/chipped to lose the advantage.

Once the opponent reaches the corner and starts doing random jumps backward, approach carefully and space a s.HK to hit them as they go up. If you’re quick, you can also try forward dash> Flame Kick, but it’s better to stay safe by using the s.HK. It’s possible to time a Rekka as your opponent lands to do chip damage, but it may not be worth the risk of getting SRK’d if you anticipate it.

If your opponent is inclined to Tatsu away at the first moment, dash towards them as they do and attempt to catch them with HP Rekka. The timing is tight, but definitely possible–especially if it’s a short Tatsu arc.

Important note in this fight: If you get a sizable lead, hold onto it by turtling. There’s no sense in putting yourself in a risky situation if you can already win by time. If your opponent is forced to actually jump FORWARD, that’s an anti-air opportunity for you right there. Otherwise, just play the opponent like any other player at that point.

thanks for that nosone, i dont know how many times ive been completely flustered by a jump back shoto, that hk they have has some rediculous priority on it sometimes…

jump back shotos; hold down-back outside of their jumping range, if they jump towards you flame kick them. If they keep jumping backwards watch their pattern and jump in with a fierce before they manage to reach the height of their ascent.

Great thread!

That’s pure gold. I used to just do c.HP outside sweep range as they come down, but that’s blockable and punishable.

Make sure to throw some over heads.

Couple of tactics I’ve learned for fighting scrubs:

The Jabber: Watch their reactions to situations you create. Generally bad players are NOT aware of their habits and will respond with the same thing in set situations. Do a jump in and watch, does he mash jab? After rekkas, does he mash jab? After overhead? If you delay on wakeup?

Generally if you observe those patterns you can easily create that situation again, hesitate just enough for them to come out of block stun, and then flame kick. You can also defeat this with st.jab delay cr.jab rekkas to counter hit them, or after a jump in cl.MP delay cr.lp rekkas.

The Jump backer: Walk forward and always watch as he jumps. Sometimes they will get antsy and jump forward when you get into range so always just try to sit at the range where they will want to jump and look to anti air. If you stay there long enough they WILL jump. You just have to keep waiting. Work him into the corner then stand at a range where he can’t move forward or try to jump over you without being intercepted and watch. He will do something eventually, undoubtedly unsafe. Punish it when it happens. Alternatively just block as these guys have no mixup. Just be wary moving forward as some do like to “spring forward” once you start chasing them with a move like tatsus or whatever.

MASH DAT REVERSAL: Seriously, this one is easy. Generally solid players that just love to mash reversals under pressure. Create pressure situations then BAIT. I promise you if you bait 100% of the time they WILL get punished because those guys always DP at some point. Don’t play the guessing game. Just block every time. If you see they are starting to catch on and defend on wakeup, start throwing them. They’ll go back to DPing.

cr.MK hadouken Shotos: We’ve all fought them before and they can be pretty annoying sometimes but what they don’t realize is that cr.MK Hadouken ISN’T safe if you do it every time. Approach them at cr.MK range and block the kick, then reverse with EX CW, level 2 Focus, Flame kick, or Ultra. If you do it enough they either kill themselves or their game falls apart.

Blanka: Standing on top of him on wakeup at point blank and mash cr.LK when he’s at low health. 80% chance he’ll do wakeup ultra or a blanka ball.

Churn that butter 360 Gief: We’ve all fought him before, the geif that likes to spin the stick whenever anything is happening that’s not a neutral situation. If you’re getting 360’d all the time after blocked attacks or whatever, just make him block something then neutral jump. You can punish that habit HARD. The same works for abel or other command grab characters.

Seriously though most of these situations just involve careful observation. Look for bad habits or predictability and punish. These guys AREN’T going to vary their pattern so you just have to recognize and recreate situations.

How to deal with an opponent that is always jumping over you after completing a blockstring to either cross you up or empty jump . Specifically Scrubby Adon and Ryu players love spamming this technique over and over .

The way you choose to deal with this situation relies mostly on your reaction time , don’t ever just sit there and let opponents pressure you with this scrubby technique .

**Average ** reaction time : After the opponent has completed the block string and you can see that the jump is coming , as soon as they are about to land on your opposite side press Crouch Medium kick as this will make their crossup normal whiff and you can immediately go for a throw or even a BnB as the opponent will not have expected their crossup to whiff and will most likely not be blocking or teching throw . If they try to empty jump throw you the crouching medium kick will catch them , and if they just empty jump block the blocked crouching medium kick will leave you in a safe neutral position .

Good reaction time: After the opponent has completed the block string and is jumping over you …walk slightly forward wait just until Fei long is facing the opposite direction and immediately press Close medium kick , if u press Close medium kick before fei long is facing the opposite direction it will whiff and leave you open for a punish so you have to time it just as Fei long is looking in the opposite direction . Most crossup Medium kicks will get stuffed by Fei longs Close medium kick so i if they try to cross you up they will also eat counter hit damage . And another plus is that when you hit the opponent out of the air with the close medium kick they get reset , and the position at which they get reset is just inside of Lp rekka range so after you have poked them out of the air you can immediately go for a Lp rekka poke .

You can do the exact same thing with Cl.Hp as with Close Medium kick if you want to go for extra damage but the Cl.Hp trades much more often so i would avoid it .

Very good reaction time: This is exactly the same as with Close medium kick but instead of the the medium kick you go for a Flame kick …and considering Fei longs Ex Flame kick is 200 damage i would most likely go for that if you have the meter to spare . And i will reiterate the fact that you have to react quick because you don’t want your flame kick to come out after they have landed …for obvious reasons

So just see the jump …walk slightly forward …wait until Fei long is facing the opposite direction…Flame kick

edit : Oh and you should also use these techniques if the situation is the other way around , as in if you are pressuring the opponent or you have the opponent locked in the corner and they try and escape the pressure by simply jumping over you , do not let them get away with it …it’s free damage as long as you can react quick enough .

Also, if you dash after the anti-air close medium kick, you can end up on either side of your opponent in the case of certain characters, Adon for sure. Should be hard to block a low short in that situation and you should also still have the frame advantage. I’ve never actually tried it in a real match, though.

im liking this a lot. keep em coming guys

heres one i figured out to use versus adon with his jaguar kick, ken with a tatsu combo, or sagat with blocked tiger knee.

they all try to create a situation where you have to guess with a dp, back dash, or throw tech vs their offensive options, which get more diverse if they have meter to fadc an uppercut

simplest answer is to do a reversal CW. if they try to throw, you get a combo. if they DP, you both pass thru each other harmlessly. and if they try to it you with lows, you fly over them and escape the pressure. obviously a good player would find a way to punnish you, but then again, a good player wouldnt be going for such simple DP/throw mixups at every turn

this also works if you do a RH or MK CW and its blocked by a dp character. if you follow with another RH CW, and they mash DP you pass thru, if they stand throw, you get a combo

Boxer is holding down back. What do I do?

when i fight boxer and try to close in on him, i like to do something i call option select blocking.

i creep foward while constantly moving my stick from foward to down back. if he moves foward with a special, i RH CW.

-if its a dash straight, it comes out so fast that i dont have time to get the CW out, and i just block (even if i complete the CW motion)
-all the rest of his punches start slower, and get eaten by the CW’s invincibility, and get their potential armor broken by the first hit of the CW

they usually stop the walk back random special strat after eating a few combos

if he’s just turtling, you have to find a way to either get a tenshin from a blocked jump in, or if he anti airs well, hit him with some dash in throws.

my personal favorite is to do a couple cr.mp’s, and follow with lp rekka. this conditions him to continue blocking. then when i feel that he wont move or is just waiting for me to jump, i dash up and throw him. feis dash and rekka are both very fast, and its hard to tell the difference if you are just sitting there.

you can use cr.mp dash up to start block strings and such too. if you follow with rekkas often enough, just the sight of the crmp will make your opponent sit and block. this works against good and bad players

This thead is fantastic. I’ve been taking a break from SF this week as I felt I’d burned myself out playing too much. Now I see why; after hitting 3,000PP I was feeling great and all that, but I stopped progressing. Stuff like the cr.MP, cr.MP, rekka, cr.MP, cr.MP dash in throw had never occurred to me. There’s tonnes of stuff I hadn’t thought about in this thread, thanks a bunch, I’m gonna get back on tonight :smiley:

Adon’s corner cr.LP Jaguar Kick, cr.LP Jaguar Kick lockdown

This is a tough one since Adon’s HK Jaguar Kick (JK) has such a crazy hitbox on it that it can even beat Flame Kick or trade with it. The difficulty is also magnified when Adon mixes this up with Rising Jaguar (DP) or Throws. CW will cause you to get tagged for a reset if you try to mash it before the JK hits you and reversal Flame Kick is no guarantee.

What to do:

Late crouch teching will help stop Adon from going for throws, and remember that you’re also at +2 (Adon is at -2) after a blocked Jaguar Kick. Don’t MASH crouch tech since a loose jab could leave you open for DP or another JK. cr.MP would also work since you get that nice 2 frame cushion to execute it.

If you’re caught by the jab, try not to panic and mash something out. It’s best to block the JK too. On block, you can THEN do a Reversal CW to try and get out of the corner or catch Adon as he’s coming to jab/throw you. Again, the risk is DP> FADC> Ultra, but that’s why it’s called a 50-50 :razz:

If you have meter, you can chance a Flame Kick as he approaches you and then FADC that. With sharp timing you can also try to EX Flame Kick through the Jaguar Kick, but this has to be done late to truly win (otherwise it could be a trade).

A final response to this is to have Ultra 1 buffered while you’re in block stun for the jab. As soon as you see Adon come down from the Jaguar kick (best time is when his lame foot is next to your face), hit PPP and you get a full ultra on him.

Abel’s shitless…meant Breathless Ultra.

Anyway sometimes when you dominating an Abel player he’ll pulls this shit out of the bag and bam!! there goes 50% or more of your health and now he’s right back into the game. Generally alot of inexperience players will pick this ultra cause they are unfamiliar with combos to land U1 successfully and this is an easy win button for them.

Things to keep in mind:

This ultra is useless up close so i urge anyone fighting Abel to stay in his face as MK CW will lock him down. I would even go as far as suggesting to spam MK CW over and over, most brainless Abel players will assume they can tornado throw you in between hits or when they block this…they can’t. Mix it up as well, do about 2 or 3 in a row then toss a throw in and repeat. Note this will only work on brainless, Abels with more sense will learn they can roll to escape. The point of this is to keep on top of Abel so when the they get frustrated enough and throw out U2, you can easily jump over it or you can even CW over him.

Something i’ve learn doing some testing last night…if you have Ultra 1 and he activates this…use it!!! It will cause his grab to completely whiff and thus him eating a full Ultra! I suggest only doing this if you are within sweep range… did not test it beyond that. But i assuming a typical scrub will think they have you after you activate this and be shocked to see the grab whiff and they take big damage.

update on this
After more testing this will NOT work, don’t know why it was working consistently the other night but Abel is able to grab after this, however if he does cancel he can’t block in time if you in sweep range. Would advise this cause it isn’t consistent using U1 when he does breathless.

Problem with that is Abel can always cancel his U2 and get a big combo on you. Sure it may work once, but the next time you pull it you’ll lose about 400 health from a combo.

what do you guys have for akuma who spams standing RH