Interesting discussion. @IglooBob has the right of it though, at least he’s the most correct.
“Fundamentals” is a nebulous term that we as the fgc have never bothered to define. We all know it to look at it, but defining it? Hard.
MY definition is 4 parts and 2 concepts.
Concept 1:
- Those things in your chosen game that you will consistently be doing and having acces to.
Concept 2:
- Knowing your situations
- Knowing your options within those situations
- Having the ability to execute those options to their most optimal end, optimal being both executional and decision based.
An example of concept 1:
AAing well in any streetfighter is a fundamental ability. The better you are at it, the better you will be at the game. This of course includes things such as not being in/avoiding hard to AA situations.
However, this fundamental is literally not needed in fighting games like tekken where there is no jumping.
Another example is punishing. In ST, punishing isn’t a huge crucial fundamental because most things are safe or plus on block. There are of course many exceptions like blocked and wiffed reversals, wiffed moves in general etc. But punishing takes on less significance in ST than it does in a game like tekken.
This of course is only the most basic application of the concept. I’m deliberately keeping these examples basic as to try and write less.
Examples of concept 2:
Let’s take streetfighter 5 as it has lots of fundamentals in it that are widely known in a broad sense, but unknown to the collective playing majority as sf5 fundamentals are very different from other streetfighter fundamentals, when regarding importance of certain fundamentals.
Knowing your situation:
An easy concept to understand, but not to have knowledge of…Let’s take a look:
Rashid does L mixer which is -2 on block and leaves him point blank. He has a 3 frame move, (st.lk) that he can use right afterward. That moves leaves only a 5 frame gap, but that gap is more than enough for 3 and 4 frame jab characters to be able to sneak in an attack before rashids st.lk can hit them. There is a problem however. Rashids L mixer, both online and offline, has weird blockstun properties. It takes longer to be able to press a button than it seems. This makes getting your move out before his, harder.
So if you know the frames, you know the situation, but if you haven’t specifically practiced interrupting this string in training mode there is a big chance you could be eating rashids “fake” pressure here and get counterhit to boot.
Which brings us to…
Knowing your options:
Let’s take the rashid situation again and add another situation in as well.
I already explained the frames for rashids situation… but what are ALL the options?
Wel, if you have a 3-4 frame jab, a 5 frame medium and an invincible reversal then an option tree develops:
If you have the right timing then a 5 frame or faster medium will always work as will a jab and a throw. But rashid can ex mixer reversal all those options. So, blocking has to be an option as well. And if blocking is an option, then throwing is an option for rashid. And if throwing is an option for rashid, then backdashing, teching and or jumping out of the throw is also an option. So because of the “nothing guaranteed” nature of the situation, there can be many options and that makes it a very murky situation indeed. In situations like this, it’s very crucial to play the risk versus reward game.
Instead of using your jab, which is low damage, but easy, you may instead make sure to ALWAYS use your 5 frame medium so that your reward is higher, after all if your opponent does a reversal to you then you doing a jab or a medium are the same exact risk. So why not use the move that gives more reward if it hits?
And also make sure to use your best combo in the times that you block the ex mixer and can punish it.
Alternatively… You can just V reversal rashid to not have to deal with that situations murkiness. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that if you can never time your 5 frame move perfectly, or can only time it or your jab well around half the time, then you may never even make it into the higher level guesses… So it’s imperative that you know the situation, can react to it in time, and have the timing down to get your move out on the first frame.
Another example is Ryu jumping in with LK:
If you are playing against Ryu and he is jumping at you with that move from a certain range, you know the situation already. But depending on the character, you may not know how to deal with it. Let’s say that your most obvious AA doesn’t work. Well, if you don’t know what DOES work, you are now “free” to his j.lk and he will likely abuse that, should he notice it, and he probably will.
Which brings us to:
Having the ability to execute your options (which I already slightly covered above)
This is easy to understand. This is simply execution and the easiest place to improve… HOWEVER… In sf5 it is much less about combo practice, and much more about “punishment practice”
Using rashid as an example, lots of lower level rashid players like to use his eagle kicks. Both the air versions and the ground versions. At first this seems really dumb, but there are some smart attributes. Even though these moves tend to be unsafe as hell on block, the problem is that the disadvantage varies AS WELL AS the distance that rashid bounces to on block.
Moves that look virtually identical have radically different punishes. You can use a one size fits all solution for some characters, but in those cases you are leaving damage on the table when you use them.
The solution? It isn’t easy. You basically have to have rashid do his different moves and practice punishing them in training mode.
And actually this is what sf5 training mode is more about than anything else… Learning to punish common strategies from your opponent, both on block and pre emptively.
Your ability to do so, is absolutely fundamental to sf5… Amongst many other things.