There are times where I don’t get the right read and I get grabbed 3-4 times in a row (although rarely) and its frustrating as hell because I can’t react in 7 frames. Is it even humanly possible to do that? Should I just be mashing or what?
Lets say I fail to AA.
Jump in > Throw
Jump in Air Hit blocked > Throw
Jump in Air Hit blocked > c.LP > Throw
Jump in Air Hit blocked < V-Reversal > Thrown
Here’s the other problem if I try to mash throw.
Dash in/Jump in > c.lp > lp (Counter Hit) > eat a combo
Neutral Jump - Opponent’s throw recovers and you get blocked for trying to punish them
Back Dash - If they weren’t throwing you get to eat a counter hit!
Tech - If they weren’t throwing. Yo. Eat a counter hit.
Throwing in this game has me all types of fucked up and if I could do anything from being put into throwing situations at all I would love it. It doesn’t matter what character I’m playing. I want to play neutral. Not Throw Fighter 5.
Throws are an important part of Street Fighter. In SFV, they’re also much weaker than in SF2, Alpha, and 4 (Maybe a little stronger than in 3 though).
The way to prevent yourself from being put into throwing situations is by playing neutral. If you’re good at playing neutral, you’ll be thrown less often. If you’re bad at playing neutral, you’ll get put into bad situations over and over again. One of the possible goals of playing neutral is to put yourself into position for a mixup, which is one of the primary uses of grabs in this game. Grapplers (Gief, Laura, R. Mika) are going to go for this option pretty much every time they get the chance. Some really offensive based characters (Necali, Ken, Karin) will normally do it too. On the other hand, FANG and Dhalsim are more likely to reposition themselves away from you.
If you truly cannot stand grabs, try playing other games where throws are weak. It seems you like Blazblue. That is one of the games where throws aren’t very good. The other ones I can remember are Tekken and Marvel. Dunno how good they are in Skullgirls or KOF. Killer Instinct grabs are as good as Street Fighter, but because everyone YOLO REVERSAL DP in that game so much, many players are too scared to use them, and it’s not always easy to get in range. Virtua Fighter grabs can do upwards to half your life, but instead of having to react to tech the grab, you have to guess between three options to break it, so the person using the grab has to get the opponent to guess wrong twice to even land it, not to mention not everyone has high damage grabs and if the opponent is good on life they’ll break that one to stay safe (They can’t do that against Wolf though, because Giant Swing, F5, and Burning Hammer all do a ton of damage).
If they’re really close, like say, grab range, then get ready to tech, if it’s a cmd grab then get ready to jab, short, jump, backdash, etc. Those options will beat throws, but lose to other shit. It’s all about making reads.
Throws are slow in SF5 (7 frames startup. SF4’s throws had a 3 frame startup). If you block a jump attack, you should always be able to beat a normal throw if you just jab.
Jab is safe if your opponent blocks it, and it can lead to combos if it hits.
So when in doubt, you could just mash crouching jab for now.
Of course a jab can be beaten by other moves, like an uppercut. Keep that in mind, don’t rely 100% on the jab.
You’ll get a feel for throws, it comes with time just like everything else if you keep trying.
I remember when i first gotten into SF IV i could not tech throws for the life of me, even with crouch tech i would just spam it until i went through the process of learning the games mechanics and why players do this and that. Once i started to throw more myself and started doing things like delayed crouch tech, stand up crouch tech,frame traps, or simply just willing to take the throw sometimes i started to get better and better at not being thrown so much.
Learning the range at where you can be thrown helps out too
I realize most people probably know what this means, but I can’t gather from what you said what “playing neutral” means. Does that mean doing a standing block?
uh what? have you played sf3? the weakest after V would most definitely be 4 and then maybe Alpha3. Alpha had a guard break meter though so it wasn’t that big a deal.
they’re 5 frame startup, but yeah, that’s why they get beaten out so much by jabs.
Playing “neutral” means both characters are standing/walking around trying to move themselves into a favoriable position for their character.
Example:
Ryu VS Dhalsim in SF4. Dhalsim is trying to keep out Ryu and punish him for unsafe moves at a range.
Ryu is trying to get closer to Dhalsim (since that is where Ryu is in a better position than Dhalsim), blocking attacks, throwing fireballs, punishing whiffed sHP for example. Stuff like that.
That is neutral game. Basically whenever both characters are able to move around.
While throws are slower this game I think they are actually more powerful at least right now since there is no real/easy crouch tech (I’ve seen the video by PR Balrog tho). You kinda have to read/react to them.
SF3 grabs are good, but only when it comes to frame data.
You can OS grabs in SF3 and 4. Crouch Tech isn’t in SFV.
Grabs cause knockdown. SF4 is very wakeup oriented. SF3 has more options to deal with being knocked down than any other SF game, and SFV grabs don’t even cause hard knockdown.
Also, both SFV and SF3 grabs have terrible range (To be fair, SF3 has Kara throws), and SF3 has that bug where you can’t grab a crouching opponent for a frame.
I find it hard to believe a player of your early SG talent level would have problems with throws in sf5… Especially when throws are so strong in SG as well.
But to let you know the obvious:
Throws are there TO PUNISH YOU for allowing your opponent get in close to you with frame advantage. But they are far from free. You can:
Jump
Tech
Invincible reversal
Walk backwards (in sf5)
Dash backwards
Or mash jab… All of which either outright beat throws or are very hard to stop.
The best way to not get thrown in sf5 is 2 ways:
Don’t allow your opponent to jump in on you blocked… Because that’s one of the most powerful throw setups in the game.
And don’t allow your opponent dope to dash throw you, because that’s another good setup.
Jab>throw doesn’t really exist outside of your opponent making you block a jumpin, or after a dash in cr.lp.
It CAN happen if you get punished for a wiffed dp by something like Jab>throw… But you should consider yourself lucky in those circumstances since you only lost 150 health instead of something like a crush counter combo into a v trigger pop xx super which could be like 500 damage.
But as other people have said, the easy answer is don’t allow the mixup in the first place by having a better neutral than your opponent, and using that neutral to keep them the fuck away from you.
throws are frustrating for new players, they made me go crazy when i started playing fighting games. In order to break throws, you have to understand when the opponent wants to throw. You have to anticipate these situations, so if you you know they like to jump in and throw, focus on better AA. if they dash throw, focus on hitting their dash, or breaking the throw on reaction to the dash. Breaking throws is a guess, cause you never really know what the opponent will do. Focus on avoiding situations, and understanding what a player is trying to do.
again, breaking throws isn’t rookie material, it takes a good game understanding to fully understand throws, don’t get too upset if you get thrown alot
lastly, when ur in block stun, press throw while in block stun after each of the opponents attacks, and if they throw, you’ll break it. Smarter players will punish you for this, but if someone is throw happy, this will stop them.
Just want to point out that the stuff in this post isn’t necessarily true. First, throws in SFV are 5 frames start-up (with 2 active frames). That tech window is still not in the range of reactability so SFV throws being slightly slower than SF4 throws isn’t really relevant to the topic. And also, jump-ins often (but not always) impart frame advantage to the attacker even on block. Many jump-ins will give enough frame advantage that the throw can be “meaty” and beat out a jab. Your only escape is to hold up or tech. Though obviously your best defensive option is to not let them jump in on you in the first place.
I think throws are perfectly fine in this game, and also very important to the way SFV was designed overall. In particular, the interaction between CCs and throws.
The threat of a CC is much greater than the threat of a throw in terms of damage and positioning. Talking to a friend of mine early in SFV, I was talking about my own bad habits and said “I need to press buttons less, and stop trying to tech throws as much.” My friend replied that he felt in SFV it was preferable to just take the throw and be reset to neutral a lot of the time, rather than risk being in a counter-hit combo situation.
It’s true that most characters have a very hard time maintaining pressure after a throw anywhere but in the corner. Cammy, for example, has amazing options to pressure after a combo ending in any Spiral Arrow, anywhere on the screen. After any of her throws, however, unless she’s in the corner she has no safe means to try and continue her offense - the game is reset to neutral. I believe this to be the case for the majority of the cast. Choosing to throw is conceding your pressure and resetting to neutral, so the reward is far less than actually connecting with an attack/combo.
One thing you might want to incorporate into your game is late teching. I’m not sure I’ll do justice to describing how or why this works, but basically, if you input a throw tech late-ish instead of ASAP when you think one is coming but are in a block string, you can time it late enough that you’re already in blockstun if they did an attack (so you’ll just block and the throw/tech animation never comes out), but if they tried to throw you, you’ll get the tech. This can be blown up by people staggering their block strings and deliberately using slower attacks if they know you’re doing this, but it can be a useful technique to enhance your defense.
Overall though I think throws are at just the right power level in this game. Fast enough to present a meaningful disincentive to hold down+back, option selects are being actively eliminated by Capcom so you actually have to make a choice on defense, but also relatively weak in terms of damage, and always reset the situation to neutral outside of the corner meaning you give up the option to maintain offensive momentum by using them. I also think Capcom was very deliberate about how throws were implemented in this game, and seeing high-level throw bait tactics are currently one of my favourite parts of the SFV metagame. Watching Daigo dash in~dash out to fake a dash in throw, or shimmy into s.mp xx CA hitconfirms is, to me, a big part of what makes this game exciting and interesting to watch.
In actuality you have more than 7 frames to react to a throw (in the neutral game) because your opponent has to actually walk up to you in order to throw.
The tell is right there. It’s not a matter of reaction, but anticipation. With practice you can reliably guess when your opponent is going to throw you, and against most players online it’s fairly obvious.
Of course the challenge is when you’re knocked down or you’re in the corner, that’s where it becomes more of a guessing game but IMO that’s how it should be because you’re meant to be at a disadvantage there anyways.
just like everything else if you keep trying.