I wouldn’t even bother with U2 if you land a focus crumple on a fei long rekka or something like that, you can land U1 anyway… i just think U2 does a bit more damage i just dont have the inputs down well enough so i dont bother its just easier to whiff.
sounds like your gameplan is good, i do a lot of neutral jumps because i am very familiar with the spacing and i stay just outside of attack range it is a great way to bait people to coming to you and playing in to your game. knowing which headbutts are safe is important, and knowing how to use them as pokes is as well, keeping people from walking forward is key. great trick is lp headbutt then if they block it do EX right away, so many people dash forward or try and punish it and can’t. vs cammy you can MP headbutt and its hard to tell if you used mp or HP so she will cannon drill you and it wont get punished… free HHS! punishing with cr LP HHS is super important obviously, anti airing with st HP is not super important because there are very few times you will use it but it can make you a lot better. honda has one of the easiest anti-airs in the game (EX headbutt) so make sure you aren’t allowing shit for jump ins… use your st FP for divekicks, air tatsus, cammy ball gimmick, guy flip (altho ex headbutt is fine) basically anything with weird timings or trajectories. ST HK is great but needs to be used sparingly as it will get blown up by a lot of people, it has horrible recovery. it’s great at catching people walk forward and is a bit safer than a headbutt (not much) and hits low which is nice and does tons of damage. make sure you know how to jump in with different buttons, FP for far away, MP beats SO MANY standing normals and air-to-airs, and HK for damage (mp and HK are very similar ranges HK is a bit further back though) and MK for crossup of course.
learning wakeup bullshit is an absolute necessity as majority of the cast is going to have safe jump options against honda (every cross-up must be blocked honda has no way to blow up crossups if timed right) and also off the top of my head all shotos, cody, all dive kicks, dudley, guy, ibuki, Zangief, theres definitely more im not thinking of… anyway, they all have safe jumps against honda in front on wakeup. so ex-headbutt doesn’t auto-win neither does buttslam.
to be honest i hardly ever use oicho or buttslam. i use wakeup buttslam when I don’t have EX meter and I am 100% sure they are trying to throw me, i use it to catch certain people in the corner only who have a tendency to jump back, and in that case its only EX, and I use it against cody on wakeup if he doesn’t jump (meaning he is going for ex zonk which ex headbutt won’t beat) it is a really unsafe move and is the reason i lose a lot of my matches. it is a really bad habit of mine, but when im playing well ^those are the only times i use it. def dont use it against anyone with a command grab or anyone with 3 frame startups cuase they can punish it on block.
oicho HHS - focus gimmick, if i were you i’d just stop doing it alltogether. like even the newest people to the game are wise to that now, no one falls for it anymore. it is a huge waste of meter. If you are going to do it, do a HHS->HHS (only works on certain characters) and on hit only cancel the 2nd hands for an oicho reset. The only other time i use it is like blueberry said crossup mk oicho or better crossup mk, cr lk tick oicho (on wakeup most people are wise to it and can blow you up) when vega wall dives or honda buttslams you can FADC oicho. it also works great when they are in the corner although i still dont usually use it because i dont like to give up the corner, i usually do 2 HHS pokes and if they haven’t jumped yet i will FADC forward oicho or forward throw. one last use that i have found is if you land a NJ Fierce on someone who is standing you basically get a free oicho from hitstun if you are close enough. FADC cr MKs from most of the cast CAN work but if they space it right you won’t be close enough cause hondas dash is so short which is annoying.
