I’m planning on spending a couple of hours in the lab on sf4 tomorrow. I’m playing with Hugo until after EVO as far as actual gameplay is concerned (with a little labwork). I’ll look into punishes for some of the new characters and fill in their information on the spreadsheet which i have no idea how to make everyone aware that it exists. -_- Happy Monday everyone.
For poison, after a blocked DP, depending on the range cr.mp hits, so you can get a decent punish with a charge and meter. Her first rekka is safe, any after is incredibly negative on block. If she goes full screen throwing fireballs, dash ultra shuts her down.
Elena:
cl.hk, cr.mp or variants of it (e.g. cl.hk, st/cr.lp, cr.mp or focus crumple, cl.hk, cr.mp) DON’T WORK on standing or crouching Elena. Walk up cl.hk even on counter hit gets balrog nothing except sweep or st.hp. If you start a combo with cr.lp, it won’t link into any of the close normals when she’s crouching (they whiff). cl.hk has too much pushback, cl.mp is pretty universal. Go to string should be cl.mp, cr.lp, cr.mp. OR cr.mk, cr.lp, cr.mp (self-charging).
deep corner: fwd.throw, fwd.dash, cr.lp, jump back hp, will hit meaty on crouching Elena (unsafe from ex.dp, she can also trade hk.dp into U1) if you don’t press a button. This is specific to this setup, the known safe jump setups (w/o delayed wakeup) beat non-ex.dp. Her only options against meaties is ex.dp and super. (you can also o/s her backdash fyi)
All of her mallet smashers are punishable on block except fierce. Fierce is really slow, you can get CH’s pretty easy if they attempt to do so from a cancel. if you use headbutt ONLY use lp.hb. ex has really quick recovery (think dudley’s ex.mgb) Generally all of her mallet smashers are negative on block so if you mash jab, you should almost always win, you can/will get ex.dp’d though.
Lynx tail is difficult to punish, her short lynx tail is pretty unpunishable at anything more than point blank. mk (hits twice) can be punished with sweep, hk can be punished with cr.mp. Ex up close is strange to punish, ex from afar after the first two hits they’ll whiff. Keep in mind that all hits are lows (esp if you block ex, since the last hit can lead to U1 or a knockdown and time for U2).
The only guaranteed setup she has for U2 is from back-throw, and this is ONLY safe if she cancels (she’ll visually recover as you wake up). If she cancels she’s safe, but she only gets a little health back. If she goes through the full animation (the cancel window is short), you can punish with ex.ru or U1. If she does it off of sweep (god forbid), you can punish the cancel with jab. if she tries to do it off of ex.ss, which launches you across the screen, quick tech as soon as you hit the ground and punish.
Rhino horn will not (imo) be used from neutral, generally never a block string has zero use in the matchup (i feel). Crouch and go for biggest punish. Also if she has U2, definitely hold back on your biggest punishes until you’re pretty sure they’re gonna kill. BUT, this move is fucking awesome for punishing neutral jumps and she gets dp/rh trade into U1 (not that i feel she should be using U1 in this match, more likely U2/W).
Poison:
Big boy combos only, well not really. cl.hk, cr.mp only links when standing, cl.hk, cr.lk never links. cl.hk, st.lp ALWAYS links. Red focus combos generally don’t work on her. mp.ds xx RF whiffs 100% of the time, and the timing is such that you can’t delay for the blowback to subside. lp.oh xx RF always connects and forces stand so you can get the big boy combos.
She’s positive on all of her fireballs (beware). And her overhead special is safe on block (and breaks armor fyi). Whip of love is negative, but the pushback is peculiar, it’s suppose to be -4, but i can’t get jab to punish on block (U2 does work though). I also feel that even though it’s -4, that you can’t mash, i feel like her whip of love is like Bison’s scissor kicks, you’re just supposed to eat them and handle the footsies afterwards. (i’ll do more tests to figure out what you can do afterwards in response to what she does).
Hugo:
Meaty leap attack can be beat with meter, TAP will generally blow up what he’s O/S, there’s very little reason for Hugo to O/S meat squasher, so attempt reversal TAP at your own risk. Meaty clap loses to ex.dash/ex.hb. ex.hb will generally win since ex.bb only has invincibility to the first startup frame but there are a shit ton of setups for meaty hp.clap so i’m pretty sure there’s one that’ll beat ex.hb, he can also O/S U2 which has its own pros and cons. If he does a whiff clap, you can generally punish his recovery (or startup) with cr.lp, beware of him performing a “read” U1/ex.spd. I feel that backdash should be your LAST option, you should block before backdashing IMO. ex.bb has more vertical range and less horizontal range than U2, it won’t catch you tha far beyond 1/2 screen.
I’m playing Hugo as an alternate so i have a very shallow insight into how he’s supposed to function as a character: Hugo controls the air, even without meter, there’s no gain in jumping in on Hugo unless you’ve come to the conclusion that the Hugo you are playing has really shitty reactions or you’ve figured out their pattern. st.hp doesn’t have a lot of horizontal range, so you can force him to whiff it (but to what end) at certain ranges. ex.bb always wins in the air, U2 can catch neutral jumps well into 3/4 screen if done early enough.
Always keep meat squasher in mind, meat squasher is the game changer, the minute you let him get close enough where you can’t tell the differences in animation between a lariat or a meat squasher you get opened up pretty easy. If it’s non-ex, just go for cr.mp or cr.mp xx hb. You can jump meat squasher for a big punish (e.g. jump back fierce, ultra), but if its lariat, Hugo gets an AA hit into lk.bb. Lariat has infinite armor up until the point where he’s about to hit you, so if you time it right you can avoid the pseudo mix-up altogether. Alternatively, if you block the lariat you get a free 10f punish (i suggest a cr.mp xx ex.ru punish). ex.lariat gets him a decent knockdown, but ex.meat squasher lands him ~230-320 damage (if he re-stands with st.mp) and perfect corner positioning. I’m not saying you lost the match, but he’s built to keep you in the corner.
Keep in mind that hugo’s mobility is shit, understand the range of his throws (also keep in mind that ultra throw is hella slow in comparison but has a shit ton of range). If hugo dashes forward, you should be reacting with jab or headbutt, Hugo should NOT be able to dash in and throw you. Hugo’s lvl1 FA is negative (-3 i believe). So if he level one focuses in, punish with cr.lp. If you block a clap at max range, don’t press anything, just backdash or create space. Your goal should be to time Hugo out if you can’t outright kill him. Also, i’ve had a significant amount of success with grabbing errant grab boxes with U1, if he has it stocked, AA with headbutt, he’s a grappler but he’s NOT Gief.
Also I feel as the match starts, Hugo needs meter, so he’ll whiff lk.lariat (which doesn’t move him forward) or clap to gain distance and move forward, You should push him towards the corner and put him in a situation where he can’t build meter without losing life because meter gives him options in a the neutral game to which he can’t really play footsies. IF hugo gets super, stop pressing buttons, assume you can’t bait it and that every button you press should be a punish or be there just to fill the screen with motion (e.g. st.lp).
And give him basic grappler respect, Hugo may have shit mobility, but he’s still a fucking grappler and his damage output is 3-4 times the magnitude of any other grappler.
i’ll be periodically editing this post as i find out more stuff.
Alright so I found some tech against Dee Jay that beats all his options on wake up besides his EX Double rolling Sobat (Only beats it if you throw the sweep) EX Jackknife Maximum, EX Machine Gun Upper, Super, and Ultra. Also figured this out after recording, this tech is also good against Balrog himself. He cant beat it without any meter, and Ultra 1 won’t beat it.
So It’s pretty simple, just throw a option select sweep with cr.lk instead of cr.lp. The cr.lk has to be really meaty for it to work.
Okay, so below is an analysis of the option select and not necessarily why its bad, but rather why its utility is REALLY small and/or non-existant.
Specifics aside, Dee Jay is REALLY hard to O/S because he has a fully invincible 4f reversal and a partially invincible 15f reversal. A) Balrog has no safe meaties against the 4f ex.up kicks B) Balrog can safe jump ex up kicks, but they’re all either eyeball setups or very specific (e.g. quick stand after smash in the corner). Also if you were to safe jump ex up kicks, you could only really do TAP or delayed O/S sweep. It’s easier to block and punish hard versus option selecting. Alternatively IF you could O/S it with a meaty, Deejay would switch sides and make the punish…complicated. e.g. Attempt to punish Yang’s U2 on block with a jump-in 
cr.lk isn’t safe from Ultra/Super, but cr.lp can be if hit on the 2nd active frame (7f or recovery vs 10f of recovery). If Dee Jay has no meter (so ex up kicks isn’t an option), then his only option is backdash, so jab O/S sweep is the best options. non ex up kicks will either whiff or get stuffed by the jab (I believe).
In short from a practical perspective, DeeJay is NOT a decent candidate to option-select, but a good one to attempt a 4f safe jump against for guaranteed pressure, possibly with a delayed st.hp or cr.hk. I’ll agree with you on using meaty cr.lk against Balrog except that if he has meter, he can punish with an ex.dash. It’s useful (I even put it in the O/S video). FYI:
meaty cr.lk - cr.hk, j.hp (whiff), buffer cr.lk (hits on first active frame)
- fwd.throw, fwd.dash, j.hp (whiff) buffer cr.lk (hits on first active frame)
For Hugo either doing j.HK or j.HP towards you, i found that st.MP punishes better than cr.HP for anti air …or unless i’m just timing st.MP at the right time?
Not sure, it’s probably a distance thing. Hugo has massive hurtboxes, so unless he’s hitting you with the absolute tip, cr.hp should be the go to anti-air. Otherwise headbutt should work. Only time hugo should jump in on you is on knock down and if you’re being incredibly defensive against Hugo for no reason, only time in mid-range game where you should be overly cautious is if he has super.
In other news, the new ultra combination (KPKPK or PPKPK) doesn’t always work on blanka mid-screen or in the corner. Mid-screen it’s more consistent, less consistent in the corner, starting with punches (i.e. you activate ultra too early). If you start with kicks, then do it when he’s lower to the ground so you don’t pop him up too high.
Seems like you can’t red focus cancel standing fierce against Decapre either but you can still do medium straight dash red focus.
Yeh, the SRK wiki states that everything but mp.ds RFC (except against poison apparently) works and all of the others are character specific. I’ve seen the Dopliss combo video where TAP RFC connects. Eventually there will be a list, but i have a feeling there will be some hitbox modifications so it might not be a good idea to do it “now”.
TAP RFC works on only a few characters. I was trying to make a list but it’s just seems like it only works big body characters like Gief, Hawk, Sagat, and I think Hakan. There is probably a few more, but I forgot.
Regarding TAP RFCs, it seems level 2+ TAP xx RFC has a better chance of connecting for some reason. I wasn’t taking note of the who I was using as dummies at the time, but on at least two cast members, L2 TAP into RFC connected while L1 didn’t.
Made this a while ago.
If you read the CH close roundhouse will hit then this can be pretty useful.
Specifics:
Doesn’t seem to work on anyone crouching.
Normal :
Abel, Sagat, Gouken, Dee Jay, T-Hawk, Adon, Guy, Hakan, Hugo
CH only:
Decapre, Yun, Juri, Chun-li, E.Honda, Ibuki, Dudley, Seth, Fei Long, Akuma, Gen, Sakura, Yang, Poison
Odd:
Dhalsim - CH or Deep Jump HK, Cl.HK
Zangief - CH or Deep Jump HK , Cl.HK or extended walk towards then Cl.HK
Makoto - Only non counterhit Cl.HK
M.Bison(Dic) - CH or Deep Jump HK , Cl.HK or weird extended walk in
Balrog(Boxer) - Deep Jump HP , Cl.HK
(This combo is 437Damage, 670Stun)
Can’t view the video for some reason (I’m on mobile, so maybe that’s why, but is it perhaps set to private?).
Edit: Ok. Got it to work after editing the youtube session out of the URL.
Just a few notes:
-you can do the same thing with cs. Hp. It does more damage and stun and is less finicky about crouching opponents.
-IMO, it’s not going to be that useful in a match if it won’t work on crouchers, as most counter-hits you’ll see are against people crouch teching. Might as well save your 3 bars if it’s not going to get you guaranteed damage;
which normal do you fear most from these three characters?
Adon
Juri
Guy
I coulda sworn I read somewhere here that Balrog had the most amount of trouble against Adon’s far standing mk poke but I guess I remembered wrong cuz I cant find that anywhere.
thoughts.
Adon - st.hk, it can be tough to counter poke and has gdlk range, i feel like st.hk is the only counter poke, but if you botch the timing, Adon can punish. It’s not that bad unless you like to ex rush punch to get in, and then that tool is certainly liberated from your arsenal.
Juri - cr.mk, low profiles everything and has really good range and her j.hk: the one where she kicks down since it can stuff headbutts, or trade for a hard knockdown.
Guy - cr.mk just because it hits twice and low profiles, BUT i don’t think he really has any scary normals so much that I have trouble with his jump arc.
@Aleri_XV, my opinion on the matchup is that it’s honest. I think Rose has a few more tools than Balrog, but it’s all footsies, all fakes, throws, meaties, counter pokes and solid play. Balrog has gimmicks just like Rose.
In general, I feel that balrog wants to make Rose focus on having to play solid neutral game and be afraid to use her heavy pokes. Balrog doesn’t want to be in a position to have to deal with her cr.mp and by extension her cl.mk and long range throw. Rose can out throw rog when she’s in cr.mp range but she has to deal with his 10f jab. At range rose has to be on point with her counter-pokes since rog can always counter poke into sweep for the knockdown. Rose has really black and white wake up options (although the ex.ss is fully invincible now), she can either backdash, ex.ss or block. You can meaty jab and sweep on reaction to a backdash, that’s probably the best option.
Rose’s fireball game is good in terms of her having a very slow moving fireball, but she has to do this out of hp.hb’s horizontal range for it to make sense or when Balrog doesn’t have down charge. She has decent AA’s but there are ranges where she’s forced to AA balrog with a normal versus an invincible special, these are the ranges where you should hover around (if you’re not playing footsies), if you want her to attempt to throw a fireball then punish it with super/hp.hb or U1.
Know her dash range (not that it matters), but you shouldn’t be pressing laggy buttons that give her the opportunity to dash up and grab you. If you’re not specifically counter poking, be careful about button checking her with sweep since if you’re off, it has enough recovery for you to eat a dash into throw and then Balrog is forced to deal with her throw/cl.mk game which although it can probably be beat by headbutt 9/10, she’ll have a much easier time of opening you up.
When Rose get’s U2, you want to make sure you’re very close to her, you don’t want to give her an opportunity to be able to activate U2 safely because he gets ridiculous pressure. The damage doesn’t matter, but the pressure and comeback can be a big pain. IMO she should activate it the moment she gets it (so she can get it twice), or if she’s using Ultra W, almost 3 times (maybe). It doesn’t have invincibility so any meaties will stuff it. If she does it in your face, you can ostensibly punish with cr.lp. If she jumps with U2 and you have back-charge, headbutt. If you have an opportunity to sweep when she activates, the possibility of hitting her is worth the possible trade since she loses at least one orb and her pressure game. If you get knocked down and she has U2, take the throw, TAKE THE THROW! and also do DWU and DON’T CROUCH TECH, with even three throws, it probably won’t equal the damage of a connected U2 and with the extra time from dwu, you’ll probably time out the U2 and it’ll disappear. If she does it from neutral and she’s in the corner, mash backdash and wait.
If she has U1, just beware about how you avoid fireballs, it’s really active, if you jump over a fireball, and she’s recovered she can catch you etc. It’s very simple to avoid IMO and i don’t think this is one of the matchups where she should not pick U2.
Does anyone have some advice in the ibuki MU? I get stomped all the time by ibuki. Even with delayed wake-up. I have a lot of trouble AA-ing her kunai jump ins.
When you say Kunai Jump-ins are you referring to vortex or just a kunai from neutral?
If it’s a Kunai from neutral, cr.hp will hit her and knock the Kunai away. Generally you can’t ever use non-ex.hb to AA her because the Kunai will hit His feet for a CH or just beat headbutt altogether. On your wakeup, if she does Kunai (vortex), you can generally TAP for free (beware of tapping into the corner). AFAIK she can’t O/S TAP escapes if she does Kunai, but she can if she baits it or does jump short or just reacts to that incredibly slow special.
I’m sure there’s a lot more and there’s significant value in learning each of the setups. I forget if Ibuki has a 10f attack or can just do the Kunai later in response to a DWU, I believe the window on Kunai vortex is pretty forgiving.
As usual i’ll say that Ibuki has >>some<< trouble with Balrog in that she has to work really hard to get in or do something really unsafe. Otherwise Balrog has to do something silly like try to counter-poke or rush punch against her cr.mp buffers into slide special (DON’T).
I was referring to kunai jump ins from the neutral. I’ll have to try using cr. fierce more. I guess I just don’t trust cr. fr to hit her and the kunai or that I will mistime it and get CH. So I usually just try to Focus Backdash but that usually gets me into even more trouble.
I have tapped out of Vortex a couple of times, but yeah, I usually get bodied by the cross-up jump short option. My opponent sometimes does that in the neutral when I whiff something. He’ll just super jump and instantly cross-me up with j. short. It surprises me pretty often and it’s difficult for me to tell which side he’ll end up on most of the time.
Also, when I go to Air to Air ibuki when she (super?) jumps in, I usually go to j. fierce but she does jump short in the air and stuffs me every time. I’m thinking I should go for a pre-emptive j. strong in that case then?
Thanks for the info, Enig. I will have to lab up her set-ups and the different angles that she can jump at me from.
Anyone have tips for dealing with Decapre, especially her U1? If she does it raw from the corner, I can’t U1 through it because pushback will shove me into her U1, and if she does it raw midscreen, I get AA’d if I jump forward, and if I block, it’s a ridiculous amount of chip coupled with a mixup.