Haohmaru very underated character but at the same time very deadly. When people speak of hao they refrence only the disadvanges he has to top tier characters. So im going to a guide to uses of haohmaru his strengths and effective as well as mixups and strats combos he has. And welcome all help to show just how good he is.
Strengths:
1.Pokes ,pokes and more pokes
2.Does decent to above average damage
3.Fakes outs his fake Senpu Retsu Zan can set up for some niffty mix-ups
4.His Ougi Senpu Retsu Zan LP version from long distance can be used for many set-up
5. His level three Tenha Danku Retsu Zan has many uses in conjuction whith the fake Senpu Retsu Zan and guard crush strings
6.He is a decent turler when used right
7.Pokes
He is best played in N or K not just for the JD or powering up capabilities but hao is slow compared to most characters and Imo needs run to utilize more effective gameplay which i’ll explain later.
Ill be back with a whole shit load on hao later. Feed back on him and his strengths are welcome.
Back to Hao besides the lp/mp which are real good they have good reach.
Relaible combos for Hao
C.Short x 2 C.Jab
C.Short x 2 C.Forward
C.short x 3 the one i use the most because of the mind games u can use for it.
Jump in deep with roundhouse C.Short,S.Jab,Fierce Secret Crescent Moon Slash
Jump In Deep Fierce,S.Roundhouse,Slash of Supreme Judgement
A for poke strings/guard crush patters i use C.lk3 run in Mk,standing MP dash in repeat though this can be countered.So in the instance of useing N groove for example after the C.lk3 into the foward Mk pause for a bit allowing your opponent to try and counter,u mix it up with a RC(roll cancel) version of the fake Senpu Retsu Zan the reason for it givestwo possibilies.1- The opponent will assume your using a fake Senpu Retsu Zan esspecially if your useing a guard crush pattern 2- because
the RC Senpu Retsu Zan will leave you in the same place you left of after the standing MP allowing for a deadly combo or a extended string.
I’ll be back with more stuff got to study for my mid-term.
points i’ll address next time real uses for the Tenha Danku Retsu Zan his level three super and more strings and strats against high tier characters.And uses of N and K in conjuction with Haohmaru. Ask questions if im not addressing something well or need answers to. poke poke,poke
I’ll address the uses for the Tenha Danku Retsu Zan his level 3. We all know that the move itself is extremely powerful but at the same time very slow start up and recovery time. So in the best cases it is best to lure your opponent in a trap,guard crush or dizzy the opponent which allows hao to perform the move sounds esay, its not. Traps are usually the best way to go because waiting for a dizzy is not reliable at all so its best to trap utilizing the fake and back dashes to your advantage. For example the guard crush pattern i listed above can be used as a trap after fake Senpu Retsu Zan back dash. The opponent will either do two things come at you for a damageing combo or mid or rugular jump in you for a combo. The time during the jump can be used to utilize the level 3 against are risky because jabs and shorts because their fast unless you know the imcoming move is long range attack such as a hadoken which need a motion to perform from the character itself allowing you the move because of invincibility frames provided on th move. Be back with more later got class
Back to Hao And uses of N and K in conjuction with Haohmaru. N-groove gives haohmaru gives haohmaru roll and powering up capabilites. IT gives him many advantages. 1- The roll allows him to roll cancel .2-The powering up gives him a boost on his already powerful attacks.3.He gets run allowing for extreme rush downs and turtleing tactics.
K-groove his signature groove gives him many possiblies such as just defense and run. Depending on how you use Hao this is were he will seem to shine the most. In this groove he is now allowed two options 1.Rush down/turlte .2-baited traps. Let me explain though Hao is somewhat slugish than most characters in k-groove he can bait,trap and counter.
But be warned not to just defense to much using it only to formulate a tactical procedure. using JD will only make predictable and subjectible to throws and other mix-ups.
Be back later with more again feed back is welcome i would like to know who plays Hao and their tactics for the lone samurai. Later
Some more things on Hao the HP hard slash is not as bad as it is talked about tough it is really slugglish in start up the slash can counter many regulars and can be used as a anti-air in some instances. I my self use it more for guard breaks three consecutive slashes will nearly break it leaving the opponent open for a simple but damageing BnB combo in to a super.
On to the uses of the Ougi Kogetsu Zan and the Ougi Resshin Zan
first ill address the Ougi Kogetsu Zan his shoryuken type move it is slow and can be beaten out and leaves time when falling to be snuffed out. But the move is very damageing the best way to use IMO is only in a sure combo like jump in deep Hk, Hp into Ougi Kogetsu Zan even then it is very risky depending on your postion so a Simple jump Hp in to the Ougi Kogetsu Zan will do fine and will provide a suffient amount of damage to the opponent. But abusing the move will only get you hurt, so be wise when useing it.
The Ougi Resshin Zan is a very good much in this move he does a overhead jump slash clashing it with the floor. This has two great uses. 1 is to use over ground projectiles or even standing and some low normals. 2 the Ougi Resshin Zan can be used to mix-up/ false cross-up a falling body. One strat i use in a situation say i just knocked dowm a sagat use a medium Ougi Resshin Zan the use the Hk to cross up this will trick and cange the characters postion twice or you can add more to it to furhter it like a fake u know what after the Ougi Resshin Zan then cross up the dead body.
Be back with more later once again feed back is welcome. later i got class
On to the uses of Ougi Senpu Retsu Zan his tornado slash projectile this moves is bad it has alot of lag but on a good note the move can be used to zone the opponent and it travels along the ground at a slow speed so you can flow behind it if your k or n. for some mix-ups but other than zoning this move will get counterd and snuffed out, it is easliy seen so again use it wisely.
other notes on hao is small jump is essential in guard crush strings not really needed but wise to use. i usually use a hp slash when use crush strings.
His Hk in the air can snuff out most air to air moves and can be easily used to cross most characters. some characters require more specific postioning for example when fighting a samller character like blanka or yun,e-honda maily because these characters are in a crouching postion or are just to small so the cross will be harder.
Further notes Haohmaru he is all about pokes, pokes ,counters and mix-ups their is no need to rush in a battle with hao is made to bait and control the match. even if the match is taking long just keep baiting and countering.When in K groove and rage is maxed out dont rush to hit and use a super or a niffy combo. Be patient and let them come to you. many people think Hao is bad character because he does not have the speed or ealily comboing moves. But what he does make up for is power and tactical munevering alot like how many good players use rolento.Hes not a sagat or a blanka or even a chunli hes a samurai as is meant to used like one.
my personal style goes like this bait,counter,poke,bait,counter,poke some more,and bait
Thats all for now also i would like to know who else uses him and there style for him. later
I fucking live this guy.he wrecks online.i beat alot of people.i also use him in K.id have to say my favorite technique would be two in 1 cMK to over head or jumpin then overhead.
yea that 2 in 1 cmk is pretty good tried it out couple of times and workes real good. besides the mp for pokes ive useing his standing Mk for short range pokes because it faster than the Mp and creates less lag the on only real down fall on this is that it does not take as much from the guard meter as the Mp.
oh i wanted to know what kinds of traps or mix-ups you hao players use in a match ,For learing purposes
I don’t know if you know this but hao beats sagat…can also beat blanka as well.
Haohmaru is a great character b/c of what he has, and that is his range, he can keep just about every character in cvs2 of of his face.
For example : sagat can’t jump in on him not even in a short jump grove , if he is in close, a poke well puch him back before he can do anything for the most part. if he is crouching medium punch will come out quicker then anything sagat has and he he tries to standing feirce you can can medium punch him. what i like about hoa is that really his game never has to change and the reason is if your a god enough hao player there is nothing that can be done.
You are dead right about the frames if done at the same time sagat will aways beat out S.strong. generally lower frame rate means faster move.
But in the case of effective play with hao (imo my style) is best to pin point counter. many of the sagats i play use a load of C.fierce so instead of trying to beat them out i wait for the intial movement at a decent rageand counter with my s.Fierce will. Reasons why are Hao s.Fierce has 2.5 frames around that where he pull the sword back before doing the intially foward slash. This is really only noticeable if the sagats c.fierce and haos S. fierce come milli seconds after each other. But from point to point Sagat will beat out his S.fierce. :sad:
sorry, i was in a rush, i didn’t get to finish up on my post.
what i meant from posting the frame data mainlyl is to show that it’s not as spam-able as you think. it’s still good, it just requires you to choose your pokes wisely. just don’t use it as if you’re playing mvc2 or something.
sometimes i get carried away and i just play mindless for a bit. c.jabx4, s.strong, s.fierce one right after the other without caring and sometimes i get lucky and land that far s.fierce after the string, but yeah it’s not smart and you should really stick with s.strong whiff punish, c.jab if you’re close, and never s.fierce unless you know for sure you can punish some slow ass whiff that they are gonna throw out to punish your s.strong(or if you think they are gonna try to psychic dp you). imo s.fierce should only be used for that(of course doing it once in a blue moon is good too).
I see what your saying now.you got to be cautious and wise when using it it and i do agree using it once in a blue is neccesary because hao has a lack of variety in what he can do so its good to mix it up once in while to put on the pressure.
oh yea i was wondering what were some of the hao players here strats against skilled blanka player. later
this is mainly for C/A-haoh:
-try to trade hits using c.fierce as AA whenever he jumps. that’s the best you can do against air blanka i think. i don’t know how effective RC dp is. i rarely used it cuz it was slow and i usually only got 1 hit from it for crap damage and stun
-mash on c.jab if blanka starts going for poke strings. there’s a good chacne you can beat out blanka’s normal. if the blanka player gets tricky and tries to blanka ball you in between poke strings, that’s basically like baiting psychic dps. punish with s.fierce(or if for some reason it’s not working, use s.strong)
-for Cgroove only, try to air block blanka jumpins, and do c.jab when you land or throw.
-i rarely use the overhead against blanka, it’s not hard for blanka to react to overhead by doing a blanka ball when he sees you become airborne
-don’t do anything on wakeup against rc elec, i don’t think it’s worth it to try to RC dp out of there
-s.strong is your friend. it beats some of blanka’s normals clean, but once again don’t spam it, cuz it comes out in 8 frames, so that gives blanka plenty of time to do rc elec setups. you should be able to keep him out, just don’t spam move(including c.jab, even though i say mash it…only do it when you know you can get it to come out inbetween strings…don’t use it too many times in a row)
i recently started using K-haoh since i’m actually more of a K-groove specific player. whwnever i get raged, for some reason i want to get in more. but i think that’s the wrong way to approach things for raged haoh. just continue doing the same tactic for the whole game. you’ll at least run time out if you play it safe and turtle/zone when you’re raged.
what i hope for when i play K-haoh, is random dizzies cuz jumping in against most character is no different from jumping in with any other non-top tier character.(i.e. nothing as good as whoring small jump rh with sagat), so you’re gonna have to do a lot of poking with raged s.strong (1.3k damage :D)
i think haoh’s best air normal is j.strong, but for some reason i find j.fierce to be better when doing small jumps.
edit:
random comments.
i’m not sure if this is useful in an actual match, but normally i try something like c.shortx3, c.jab, dash back and s.fierce.
but if they psychic roll/early jump on me i’m screwed. i tried the same tactic, but instead only doing s.fierce if i see them whiff something(hopefully they whiff something with slow reocvery like dps)
i could not punish on reaction with s.fierce, so the s.fierce is pretty much gonna remain as a “random move once in a blue moon” for me. s.strong is by far haoh’s most important move. it ALMOST out ranges vega’s c.strong. if vega stays at max c.strong range, he can pretty much stop haoh in his tracks for the rest of the game. but since it’s somewhat hard to stay only at max c.strong range, you can try to walk foward and poke him out of it.
here’s a list of other things i noticed while playing against vega:
1)if he corners you, you’re screwed cuz it makes it really easy for him to c.strong you at max range all day since you can manuever back and forth
2)do not jump in on vega, non of your air normals will beat vega’s air throw/s.rh. it’s pretty bad beat when you jump
3)do not attempt to psychic roll through his c.strong, vega has enough time to recover and throw you after whiff c.strong(or at least tech). so it’s pointless to risk getting throw just so you can get thrown or teched.
4)spam c.jab when he’s close. just do it…it’s your only hope
you pointed out some really good things about matching up against a blanka and a vega. Some points i would like to add is aginst a sagat.
sagat can play a good zoining game and also can put on close pressure really well. playing a mid section zone is the best bet against him.
what i mean is do not get backed up in the corner this will cause you to get trapped.
In the case of k groove two things will mostly likely occur.
1.You’ll get a crush string that will mostly likely get your guard broken and because of haos slower movements will get counterd because hes backed in the corner.
2.Even if youre fairly good or even great at just defense it will can be fairly hard at times to counter a throw when youre focusing on getting out the corner.
so Imo it best to match a sagat at mid screen were you more open to a variety of mix-ups. but it is very important to pick your combos and pokes wisely. i say this because though hao has some range on his moves they can be snuffed out easily by a jab. tiger uppercut so its best to be patient and certain movements well.
i’ve noticed that it’s incredibly hard to guardcrush someone with raged K-haoh, even if you zone properly, there’s just not enough time(especially if you haven’t already cornered him)
the overhead leaves haoh at -6, so it’s not helpful to abuse it in Kgroove like i had planned earlier.
it’s like trying to use K-vega. it’s gonna be real difficult to land his super, but his raged normals aren’t gonna win the match all the times. so like vega, haoh is better off in a groove that builds bar.
Just a Review of the match i had over weekend in a tournament my friends have every month this instance i used the Senpu Retsu Zan but not just throwing them out of no were. I would use it from a zoning distace rush down the Senpu Retsu Zan and back dash depending if the opponent jumped or not i would either follow it to start a guard crush string and if they jumped use s.fierce if they JD then i would rush under thier somewhat floating body after a JD and wait for a incoming throw then use the knock down throw that puts them in a close postion then variate small jump cross-ups in simple Bnbs some what :lame: but it did work on several occations in the tournament we had. ill post more on the other matches we had.
How would some of you have countered it and what are some of your strings you pull in a match with your Hao?
I’ll try my to upload some of the matches that we will be have this weekend so stay tuned for some hao action and other characters your not used to seeing along with normal high tiers
:badboy:
Have u noticed that Haohmaru’s tornado snuffs lvl 3 supers at mid to far apart range.
It happened to me while i was playing C-Bison and my cousin was using K-Haohmaru, I was trying to punish that laggy ass tornado shit with Psycho Crusher.I got like 1 hit off that super than the tornado interrupted it…
Another interesting Haohmaru fact: One time, when I was playing P-Groove Haohmaru against a computer Athena, she decided to do the MAX Phoenix Arrow super thingy (which barely missed), and I decided, since she was doing the attack right in front of me, and I might hit, I decided it was time for a MAX Flame Of The Conqueror. She had 75% on her lifebar before the super connected. When the super connected…instant KO.
