Hey, great guide thank you but I’ve got a question. This is my first incarnation of SF and don’t quite know how to option-select. I understand that u press throw but do u just hold it or do u have to press it with every attack (i.e. press throw every jab) Hope this isn’t too noob of a question and if it’s in the wrong section let me know and I will delete post.
No probs dude. This thread is made for the people. It’s general and will accomodate all questions.
Whilst you are blocking (and subsequently stunned) just mash lp+lk whilst holding DB with joystick.
Mashing works most of the time. But when you start running into higher level players… they can punish you with a well timed attack.
e.g They start combo’ing you whilst you block… but then pause slightly “making you jab out” and then punish with a DP xxFADC, ULTRA.
This isn’t a common scenario though. But it’s a heads-up… so you’ll know why you just got smacked later down the line.
Learning wise - start using (spamming) OST. Then work on refining your use in the future when you start learning timing and rhythm (of yours and opponents moves).
Thanks for the clarification. Just another thing I’m going to try and incorporate into my arsenal.
HaiGai
118
Man, this is some good stuff
Really nice indepth and easy to understand ken analysis, thanks alot ! [and from a fellow australian too]
Not sure if it has been mentioned, but the normal air tatsu can indeed by combo’d off of, I just tried it on a series of characters including chun, rufus and shotos. You can’t link directly into shoryu or the slower normals like with the ex, but you can still link low short/ low jab/standing jab off of it.
Timing feels a little like Balrog’s Ex rush punch links [except with a little more lenience]
I’m not sure about the implications of this though, the regular air tatsu’s are so slow you’d probably be AA’d before you even had the chance to hit, and the cross up seems to push you too far away for a decent link 3/10 times [although that might just be my poor execution]
Apologies for the lack of video proof, i’m not well versed with video recording / editting, but i’m sure one of the more skilled members here can confirm, if it hasn’t already been addressed already.
Again, sorry if it has already been addressed in this thread/other threads, my internet is painfully slow because of our bullshit limit =] so browsing / searching is a bit of an issue at the moment, I just thought i’d bring it up because it was addressed in your post.
Something odd just occurred. I was playing my cuz online, and he did his ultra with Ken and as he was waking up I used Ryu’s Tatsu and ending up crossing him over and hitting him in the back of the head… Anyone know if this was due to lag(we had a four bar connection) or was my timing just right?
Was your (Ryu) TAT executed from the ground in front of him or was it from a jump?
Because a set-up with Ryu is to jump from the front and execute TAT+hk (at the peak) changing trajectory and changing the jump to a cross-up.
I useful move due to the ambiguity and KD properties of Ryu’s TAT.
If it was executed from the ground… “shit happens”
You can indeed combo off a AIR.TAT but the issue is timing (and a bit of luck) of when the TAT actually hits. Any hit that is late and deep will put the opponent in a stun long enough to be a combo. Any hit that is early (upper body of character)… cannot be combo’d off.
As a DP+hp comes out just as quick as a jab… you can also do that upon immediately landing - but risk is just too much. Better off spamming OST.
> The main issue was to see if FU could be linked off a AIR.TAT as it can on a AIR.EX. But it can’t.
Summary: AIR.TAT not very useful. Too risky and can’t really be combo’d off. If you are good with trajectory of it… do a ambiguous cross-up and go straight into throw. It’s not the best of set-ups (due to risk of AA) but it usually works if connected.
This thread was very helpful
Thought i would throw out the newest update to ken gameplay, thus updating this thread in the process.
Throw(foward throw)->backdash->lp. fireballxxfadcxxultra
Unblockable ultra setup may work on all characters (tested on seth and sagat so far). Timing does differ slightly between characters.
Set training mode on all-block to test this and train it.
Why would anyone want to win a match in that way?
Being new to the forums and just looking for some character advice, I looked all over for a general strategy thread for Ken and it took forever for me to find. My purpose for coming what to get a feel of how I would play as Ken and this thread did that when a lot of the stickies, while they provided great data in their own right, did not. I suggest putting this at the top, renaming it to a general strategy thread, and, if gunslinger can, come back and update it for AE.
Ikaru
125
No. I don’t think you read all the stickies thoroughly enough if you didn’t get general strategy and character advice for Ken. Hell if you wanted to get precise the match-up thread would tell you how to play against EVERY character in detail.
Develop your own way to play the character, if you win you’re probably doing something similar to what’s in the stickies. Or just lamin’ people out hardcore.
I did not want to read each sticky, but I got down this far, that’s precisely why. What I meant specifically was, I’m in a bit of a character crisis and I’m going to each forum to just “see how each character feels” (what do you do as Ken? What does he play like?) and this thread did that best for me. (And I could see a new Ken player wanting much the same thing)
shrugs
Take that as you will. Moving along now.
Ikaru
127
Didn’t want to read stickies but you’ll sift through old Ken threads. OKAY.
That is an actual crossup. It is like Bison crossing you up with his Psycho Crusher on Wakeup.
Ikaru
129
Touch
dude that post was from '09. o_o
tali
130
Full animation fadc only happens on anti air and counter hit fierce srk fadc, also don’t do ur ultra immidiatley after the fadc wait like half a second. It also works with lvl 2-3 FA, wait for the crumble and then fr.srk fadc ultra.
And the best way to kara throw on ps3 pad is f+ r2+throw but not at the same time press r2 and immidiatly throw after like a very slight space in between, its a smaller karathrow but the range is still better then any one elses kara throw and u don’t need to assign diff buttons
Wow, forgive me. Thanks for bringing me back to reality.
Ikaru
132
Anytime. Looks like the poster above you also did the same thing. lol you guys.
I said that I did read thru the stickies.
Lots of good and precise data, but it took this far down (was farther before I bumped it with my post) to find just a general feeling of how you’re supposed to play as Ken without doing theory crafting and testing. It’s good for people looking for that. And, please, if you’re just going to post something snarky, don’t.
G77
134
Don’t take it too personally buddy!!
We’ve had an influx of people picking up Ken since the release of AE and all the questions that we answered 2 years ago have resurfaced and buried a lot of the more relevant threads. We’ve been struggling to direct people to the original information and I think you’ve walked into a bit of a cross-fire.
Ken gets a lot of bad press for being a “flowchart” character regardless of the fact that Ken’s DP’s are generally regarded as the most unsafe and low priority DP’s in the game (going on invincibility frames alone, Ryu, Akuma, Seth, Cammy, Fei Long, Sagat, Yun, Yang, Adon, Oni, E.Ryu and even Dan outprioritise Ken’s DP’s), and with the release of AE it would seem that there are more players starting to pick him up and use him badly, which can only aggrevate the issue.
Hence, the Ken crew who have been playing him from Day 1 of SF4, battling against the stigma attached to him, have found it tough to maintain a happy tone and refrain from the odd cheap shots here and there.
My advice is to revisit the General Discussion Thread that I keep an eye on and use the links in the third post to find out all you need to know. Watching the vids in the video thread will also give you a very good idea of how to play Ken effectively, much more so than can be gleened from words alone.
Hope this helps,
Peace,
G.
