Rose has problems against every character that can lame out without fireballs. Balrog, Blanka, Bison, Honda, Dhalsim (has fireballs but she can’t do much about this one), and a few more. And Gen happens to be one of those characters that can out lame her.
If she doesn’t know the matchup, take that advantage and play the slow game of getting early acess to Teiga by focusing fireballs. She can’t throw any fireball when you have ultra, I feel it’s easier to counter than Yoga Fire.
Don’t engage her directly in footsies battle too soon if you can help, get some meter first so you’ll be able to confirm your hits into some real damage and push her to the corner.
Tips for footsies:
*Mantis roundhouse crushes her cr.mp if you hit her with the tip of your foot. It’s not hard to space too.
*Mantis s.mk is important here, because her s.mk is very good at crushing low pokes. It also the best starter for FADC combos from footsies.
*Rose unfortunatelly doesn’t have a lot of strong players reping with her, they really like to slide around the screen, etc. Fish for it, walk around that range where they like to use it, and sweep her out. It’s really easy to do if you’re expecting. Focus Attack is an option, but you’re putting yourself at a mind game, since the better players out there know how to poke with Soul Spiral, her armor breaker that can put her at frame advantage on block if spaced correctly. Soul Spiral too can be whiff punished by sweep on reaction.
*Anti airing Rose can be tricky if you’re not familiar with her normals. Her j.hp has a good hurtbox, and can beat clean Gen’s cr.hp. Crane cr.hk and Gekiro are your most consistent anti airs, and focus back dash is nice too, but watch out if she has ultra 1, as she will hit Gen out of it as she lands. Don’t second guess your Ex Gekiros, spend that meter, it’s ok.
*She is all about spacing her stuff, so she is at a big loss if you put her into the corner. FADC combos are great for that, don’t mind wasting the meter since Super doesn’t have much of a role in this matchup.
*Know her frame advantage from Soul Spirals and Slides. She’ll counter hit your normals if you press buttons when she spaced it correctly. And obviously, there’s no need to respect those that were not.
*She doesn’t really have a safe blockstring. You can mash things in between her cr.mpxxSoul Spark/Soul Spiral. Basically, if it was a real blockstring, she is at bad frame advantage.
*Don’t give her openings for big damage. Don’t jump if she has Ultra 1. Don’t backdash her jabs as she can OS ultra.
*A Rose that knows the matchup will focus on 3 tools mostly: S.mk, Cr.hk and Soul Spiral. Those are the most efficient tools she has for Gen. S.mk beats lows, cr.hk is just good and can be hard to punish and hard to counter, Soul Spiral is what is going to put Gen’s focus at check and is her main pressure tool. She’ll also do some cr.mp with ex Soul Spiral buffered to damage your limbs , but she’ll be reserved about it because our roundhouse is really good against that normal. She’ll also be very patient, you should be too.
Gen really is about fundamentals and footsies, and that is good, because reaction is pretty much the soul of this game. Well actually it’s about ambiguous BS and bad risk/reward all around (he also got those), but you know what I mean. Point is that 2012 Gen has reactionary tools to most situations, but I feel most players are way to biased toward mind games, offense and trying to land the Super. Most of us are way too proactive with a patience based character.
Will try to offer some help with Dhalsim and Fei before it’s too long, though I’m not sure if I have stuff you don’t know about. Hopefully it’ll open up a good discussion.
