Something I thought about today was figuring out, in the event of a focus vs focus standoff, who has the upperhand against Seth’s focus with their own. What this means is that if Seth lands his focus on another character’s focus and backdashes, if he’s safe from the other character’s focus, or if it’ll hit him. Also on the flip side, if another character lands focus on Seth and backdashes, if they’re safe from Seth’s attempt at landing focus.
So like Makoto is a fine example: If she lands focus first and backdashes, Seth will WHIFF his right in her face. If he lands focus first and backdashes, and she lets hers out, she gets the crumple. I’d like to *focus *(har) on who can catch Seth’s backdash with their own focus attack first, but would like to know all the different end results. I guess this wouldn’t have to be in the video (due to boredom and being excessively thorough) but would be great for all of us to know, even if some character’s focus attacks are worthless.
With that in mind, it might be worth seeing who Seth can definitively punish in the event of them using a non-focus-breaking special and FADC backdashing out of also (IE Balrog’s straight rush punch/mid-range fireballs etc.).
I do have knowledge and tricks I’d be willing to share (a lot of them unsafe and mostly betting on the other player sleeping or being too eager), but a lot of these tricks are character/timing-specific. Such as after a blocked tandem engine, neutral jumping avoids a lot of reversal uppercuts and gives you a free punish, but this doesn’t work on some character’s like Sagat or Fei Long whose heavy uppercuts are still rather vertical. To push this “strat” even further, there are some characters whose reversal uppercuts can only be punished with stomps to dive kick reset like DJ’s light and EX upkick, same with Guy, same with Yun’s light DP.
I’ve yet to figure out if all reversal light DPs are just as punishable (or conversely could punish Seth’s neutral jump) since this is something I’ve only tested online, and most people I’ve played go for fierce or EX reversal uppercuts.
What makes this a reasonable mix-up is you can do nj.MK (splash) and hold toward to put yourself in a better position to more likely evade an uppercut. If you do get hit with an uppercut, you might perhaps screw up the other player’s angle or inputs; preventing them from getting out a game-winning ultra. Only drawback to this is you’re sacrificing your jump attack-- allowing them to punish you if they chose to just wait you out. Same goes with if you do instant overhead Stomp after blocked tandem (which is also character/timing specific). It might be safe, but you might eat that reversal DP. At least you’re left with the possibility of doing dive kick or another jump attack after IOH stomp.
Alternatively, one could forward jump, but that leaves you too far away to land any jump attack, and doesn’t put you in a good position for a punish if they did go for an uppercut. Doing dive kick after forward jump leaves you closer, but that’s no guarantee of anything (including safety) afterward.
So yeah, there’s a lot to explore, just not sure how character/scenario-specific you want to get.
Edit: One more trick I want to tag on is after sc.HK, on hit or block, if you do LP Shoryu (umeshoryu), some characters who get hit by that can have the stomp follow-up landed on them without having to (or being able to) FADC. I did start a list on this because it seemed like worthwhile information. Doesn’t even have to be after sc.HK; just at the range that point blank sc.HK leaves you at. It doesn’t work on everybody though, and some characters it can work on, they have to be standing.
Who it works on so far: Sagat, Ibuki, Fei, Blanka, Oni, Cody, Akuma.
Who it doesn’t work on so far: Bison, Makoto (I think I have her listed as this only working on her when she’s crouching), Guile, Balrog, Guy, Yang, and Seth. Also documented some inconsistency next to Seth suggesting it might work if the Seth doing the trick steps back slightly before LP Shoryu.
And while I haven’t tested this in months, I believe that the characters it doesn’t work on, they still get hit by the LP Shoryu, but during the start of the move, rather than midway, so you’re still able to cancel out. If that wasn’t the case, then the character gets hit with the latter half of the active frames, but has a weird hitbox so you can’t connect to stomps afterward.
I’ll go experiment with this some more later and see if we can at least combo LP umeshoryu to U2 on everybody.
