Guile is a footsies character?

I hear people saying how in SSF4, they’re going to make Guile feel like a footsies character again like he normally was, but I have trouble imagining what this means. I always think of him as a zoning/turtle character, not necessarily one who sticks out normals, makes people whiff, etc. Then again, I didn’t seriously play Guile until SF4 (played Ryu/Dee Jay in the past).

What are some examples of his footsies game? Punishing whiffed sweeps with cr.mk or something? Or maybe his own sweep, assuming they improve its speed/range in Super?

Footsies is one method to zone a person.

Everytime you’re cr.mk (and other whiffed normals) as Ryu to keep your opponent from advancing, that’s using footsies.

And yes. Guile is very much a footsies character. s.hp, cr.mk, cr.lk are examples of his footsies stuff. While you could possibly live off of Mexican uppers and sonic booms, a bigger aspect to his game is to have people eat boot and fist when possible.

guile has always been about footsies. he has good normals for every situation.

his most important footsie tool, c.mk has long reach, gives good frame advantage but comes out a bit slow. it also anti airs in games with no trip guard.

c.mp comes out faster, good priority but has little range. bufferable into sonic boom/flash kick

c.lk is a mix of the above but does little damage.

c.lp is rapid fire, comes out fast.

and theres the sobat kicks (back/forward+mk) these moves beat/avoid other characters low moves but like c.mk comes out slow

standing hk has good reach and priority but comes out even slower than his c.mk, so you’ll only want the tip of his hk to hit.

backhand is a decent anti air in a few games but can usually be ducked

Ah good stuff…funny thing is I use all those moves as described without thinking they were footsies haha. I keep thinking of footsies as basically walking back and forth, making the other person whiff, punishing, etc. I stick out limbs all the time to stuff moves.

so you thought of footsies as flirting under the table with your feet. Interesting.

One of my favorite tactics is having a life lead on somebody, then pretending I’m running away to zone them (using b.MK to increase distance) then when they’re in range, give em a nice fat s.HK. I didn’t throw sonic booms because I’m still within jump attack range. Guile has good normals, it’s just a shame they either don’t combo, are hard/character-specific combos, or do little combo damage. He has nice counter-hit combos though.

Guile is good at that too.
especially against shotos.

Standing medium kick is my new favorite anti-air, that thing stuffs people’s faces -all- day. If they’re coming in too high, c.fp. If they’re coming in more horizontally (frequent jump angle), s.mk. If they’re between c.fp and s.mk range, s.mp. If they’re coming in high but haven’t stuck a limb out yet–standing close roundhouse -eats- people.

I was just about to say that if you play Guile, then you play footsies. There’s just no way around it.

YES!!! I love S.MK. I use that thing a lot too. If you’re liking that you should try S.MP and Neutral Jump+FP. The S.MP is great if you are little further than sweep range from your opponent. Works great when you throw out a LP.Boom and they try to jump it. It trades with a bunch of stuff but it’s a hell of a lot better than eating a J.RH or J.FP from some character with a generous hit box. The NJ.FP is a good one as well. Works great for characters who do a lot of jumping like Rufus. And it has some surprising decent range/hit box too.