About Claw:
He also can punish with U2.
I used to play Vega before I ditched him for the fat man and c.HK was fairly unreliable as a punish for headbuttā¦If they did it close thereās too much block stun (and itās not like Blankaās d/f HP). I usually just walked up s.MK a blocked headbutt to dissuade Honda players from spamming it. EX Barcelona will always punish blocked headbutt. If he somehow gets you in a corner, be patient about trying to get out. He might look out for a buttslam, which he can airthrowā¦he can jump backwards over a headbutt and sweep you for an untechable. If you jump he can flip kick or jump back MP you. The scariest Vega players are the ones that alternate between d/f HK and kara throw while youāre in the cornerā¦if he can scare you into teching youāll eat a launcher and if he scares you into blocking youāll get thrown. It really is a 5-5 match. Luckily if Honda can get up in Vegaās face thereās not much Vega can do about it.
FUCK RUFUS and fuck Seth. Please, someone help me. Entered a tournament yesterday had optimal brackets and then got sent to losers by a RUFUS. donāt have much Rufus experience so just read through the write up, tried to not tech as much but the guy would just keep throwing me, then iād start teching and that dive kick would come out again late sigh. FUck that matchupā¦
And the seth i played, i thought was very good. I really couldnāt get in, and I got caught in some unfortunate mixups here and there. How do you bully your way in? the seth i played would keep throwing out the fp and i was scared to try to poke it with a jab. really did a good job of keeping me out and when i did get in heād back teleport away or wall jump and it would beat my nj fp.
FUcking hate those characters now.
Hereās a video to go along with my rose post:
[media=youtube]YLKhgzRYM5g&feature=related"]Akimo [Ho] vs. Ororoy [Ro[/media]
He starts off round 1 eating the bs damage* trying to chase rose, then getās lucky with a prediction HB, and gets another free one for her teching and trying to jump. Eventually all the neutral jumps and impatience in walking forward catch up to him and he loses the round.
Round 2 he had a case of what I call āThe Catch-upsā. He was probably irritated about losing the first round, and started it off swinging for the fencesā¦ Which led him to eating bs dmg. As you see he punished the spiral with jab xx hhs xx super. And getās the life lead back, this is why the match is ultimately in hondaās favor imo. Heās taking random ass risks, getting punished for them, and getās 1 big punish to be back in the driverās seat. Hereās where he should have shut down the offense, but he wanted to take an oki option and ate the ultra damage. Then she getās a random spiral outta the corner cause he jumpedā¦ donāt let that happen. if he blocks there instead of jumping he gets a free hhs punish and still has her in the corner. But since sheās out, he has the looooooong walk back to the other corner. Instead he tries to chase her and eats a fierce. Add in a couple blocking miscues and eating a few tick throws, and its over.
Moral of the story: Donāt Chase her, Patience, Walk to the corner (Donāt jump or dash), Make her out play you, donāt give up free damage. And never give up, just because you made a few bad judgment calls in a match, doesnāt mean its overā¦ make her earn every round against you.
*BS Damage- Free damage given to an opponent for pressing dumb buttons/jumping
*Disclaimer: These are merely my opinions upon the reasons Akimo lost that particular match, and what he could have done differently to win. I am in no way, shape, or form trying to insinuate lack of ability or judgement. * I just callz it like i seez itā¦
Most of these WILL be repeating stuff from other great Honda players.
General:
- DONāT USE BUTTSLAM. AT ALL. Gief can spd/super/ultra you out of it. Only use might be to punish badly timed crossups attemps with EX, and even those are risky, since all reversal buttslams on wakeup can be safejumped or you might do it too early missing the autocorrect window(or not missing the autocorrect window but missing gief). Only other use is as a VERY EARLY antiair, but you have better ways to anti air him.
- DONāT FULLSCREEN HEADBUTT āJUST IN CASEā. Just stop doing it, I shouldnāt have to tell you that lariat on reaction > all headbutt variants(even super/ultra).
- DONāT JUMP FORWARD. AT ALL. This is similar to the buttslam issue. Crouching lariat beats or trades with all your jumping forward attacks, even the almighty air jesus chop a.k.a. j.MP(and if it trades you get the friendly ex green hand as a bonus). So WALK FORWARD. Also, donāt try to cross him up with j.MK, same rules apply.
- THIS IS NOT VANILLA! So yeah, sometimes people forget that lariat has been nerfed and that you can actually punish close lariats with a c.MK xx hands xx super or something like that. Also learn the differences between PPP and KKK lariat(the sound is different, the punish too). Punish whiffed lariats, even from full screen!
- PUNISH HIS JUMP IN ATTEMPTS. So he wants to jump in? LP/EX headbutt, jesus chop(situational), nj. fierce, jump back HK or even early buttslam his ass. Just let him know that heās a fool for trying it. Every time.
- PUNISH WHIFFED STANDING HK. Some giefs will go for a whiffed standing roundhouse into something(usually spd). Train yourself to either punish it with c.LP into hands or jump backwards. Jumping is not the best idea but if you canāt punish the s.HK it might be better than eating a super/ultra.
- BE AWARE OF GREEN HAND RANGE. Some giefs try to go for a whiffed green hand into spd(once in a while) or will try to EX green hand your footsie attempts. Be aware of that range so you donāt try to whiff normals or go for a NJ. fierce(that can be punished with ex green hand) if youāre abusing it. Ex version has the most recovery(-9 on block), but even on hit(any regular version) the most frame advantage gief gets is -5(and -7 on block) so punish accordingly.
- DO THE āJUMP OSā. Most giefs will go for a crossup splash and then tick into throw, or go for the crossup knee(d+LK while jumping) into 360+k(or even empty jump into spd/super/ultra). As you(might) know, fierce blockstun is bigger than light blockstun, so you can train yourself to block and immediately wiggle the stick/pad up/up back and then go back to back or down back, so if gief used a splash, nothing will happen, but if he used a knee you will jump and avoid the grab(since the grab is his safest option). Timing is a bit different for the empty jump(faster), but it still works.
- DO THE āJUMP OSā PART 2. So, youāve been practicing the c.LP/c.LK/c.MK into hands but youāre not 100% there yet? Ok, after the move youāre canceling the hands into, buffer a jump backwards. If you donāt get the hands, youāll jump to safety, avoiding the mashed [insert special move here]. If you do get the hands, good for you! Thereās an extension: jump backwards and do an early roundhouse, itāll beat his lariat if close enough, and if he did EX green hand instead you can throw him upon landing.
- REMEMBER YOU CAN HANDS INTO HANDS INTO HANDS HIM. It might not be your best combo, but Iāve noticed it makes giefs very defensive afterwards. Nah, seriously, remember that you can go all ācombo videoā with gief. Just donāt miss, otherwise youāll be eating mashed EX green hand/spd/ultra.
- MIXUP THAT OICHO. Giefs get comfortable knowing that they have one of the best command throws in the game, if not the best. So they can grow careless and start to block everything you throw at them trusting their tech abilities. LP Oicho them from max range! Oh, and donāt oicho them if they are in the corner, just do it if itāll give you the round/game. Same for hands FADC into oicho(only use it if it nets you the win).
- BE PATIENT. So heās out-turtling you? nonsense! get him to the corner(as slowly as it might be), then watch him die trying to get out. Punish his jump attempts, be careful with the ex green hand(block and throw him into the corner again or ācombo videoā him), use s.HK/s.HP/c.LP into hands, or all of the above. Let HIM fall into YOUR traps, you donāt have to rush him. Ever.
- TRY TO READ HIM. Ok, so he knocks you down, does his LP green hand and then blocks, trying to punish your reversal? Oicho his ass! He jumps a lot towards you? Wait for him and punish him! He waits for you? Be careful with your approach! He always does the same blockstring? EX headbutt through it! He tries to s.MP you to death? Jesus chop that shit! You have to read him before he reads you, so you might wanna make some planned mistakes to see what he knows about the matchup. Just make sure that they arenāt your last mistakes.
- DONāT PANIC. Ok, again, he got a knockdown, do a proper evaluation of whatās going on. Do you have both charges? Can you do the autocorrect headbutt? Is he jumping early enough so that your reversal ex buttslam will get him? Is he jumping or is he short jumping? Does it matter? The only way you can do this is if you donāt panic. If you DO panic youāll start to make mistakes, like hold upback(or downback) and you will be punished for that because thatās what Gief wants you to do. So donāt fall for that. The only way you can keep your cool is to get used to the matchup, to know what to expect and what gief can and canāt do. And youāre going to lose in the meantime so anyway donāt panic. At least, a lost round can always give you a read of what to expect and what mistakes you shouldnāt repeat. Finally, a great gief will do stuff that will surprise you anyway, so keep your cool too so you can learn something about it and maybe counter it on the fly.
Honda vs Gief āFlowchartā:
-He knows how to punish nj. Fierce?
-NO: Spam it. Seriously. Afterwards if blocked use a mix of s.HK, s.HP, c.LP xx hands, max range ātickā oicho or jump and do another one.
-YES: Use VERY sparingly, and punish his punishes accordingly. Avoid his s.HK range(or bait and punish it), and punish his c.HP/c.HK punish attempts with early mini jesus chop nj.LP(counter hit) into c.LP into hands into hell for him. You can sometimes hit his s.HK with nj. HK but its a trade slightly in his favor so itās better to just bait and punish it. Only properly spaced df.HK canāt be punished 100% of the times from a neutral jump, but it can be trip guarded if you do nothing in the air and block upon landing. And after blocking, you can combo his ass since no matter how meaty his df HK is, his frame āadvantageā will range from -11 to -4(worst case scenario, very rare) and your c.LP is a 4 framer.
-He mashes [insert gief special move here]?
-YES, he mashes EX green hand: You have 9 frames(if blocked), you can normal throw, oicho or c.LP/c.MK into hands. So block and punish. Better: bait, block and punish. Or bait(or predict), jump backwards as he moves towards you(with all that butter on him) and combo him as you land. Careful with your links(donāt use them).
-YES, he mashes lariat: Donāt jump as often, crouch and punish. Or use nj.HK(from very close), nj. fierce(from a distance), j.kinda early fierce(from far). Do them all on reaction. Only nj.fierce works preemptively from the right distance, the other options can trade/be beaten by crouching lariat. Also oicho wakeup/regular lariats if he doesnāt know the unthrowable lariat trick(press up and then lariat).
-YES, he mashes spd/super/ultra 1: bait, neutral jump into HK/HP into ground combo. Punish every whiffed grab, even with far HK. Donāt do any links, honda has NO SAFE LINKS AT ALL, HE CANāT CHAIN HIS NORMALS AND YOU KNOW IT. So if youāre attempting to link some normals in a nice blockstring, guess what, any normal you throw there might be SPDed afterwards on block, or sometimes even on hit too. Hell, even blocked c.LP into hands in unsafe!(the pause between the c.LP and the hands can be grabbed by ex spd/super/ultra, itās hard but itās possible) So just (neutral)jump/backdash to avoid the command throw and then punish.
- He got you with a nj. fierce?
-Back up a little bit, you might get stunned easily in a follow up combo. Donāt do it predictably tho. Or get him to block some of your stuff too, whatever makes your stun meter go down. Except blocking, if you keep blocking his attacks your stun wonāt go down.
- He canāt punish blocked buttslam?
- LOL. Spam it to death, so next time you play him heāll know how to punish it. Even better, tell him that he can punish it.
- Nothing works, heās IFC Zangief/Kilivan/Vangief!:
-Do your best, and prepare to be read to death. Embrace it and try to learn something from it. Heck, record the fight and watch it many times. Check giefās inputs, OSs and such. Upload it to youtube and post it here!
Guess Iām updating Giefs block. Thats pretty sick and on target.
Thanks Mr. SNK, and I tried to write a compliment for you but everything I wrote was dick riding you too much so Iāll just leave it there.
EDIT: Edited the above post, formatting, spacing(it was a huge wall of text) and added some stuff I remembered.
Good to hear that the damage nerfs/harder hands may be a fluke.
I think he could use a little toning down on his headbutts, but itās also his main anti-air for some matchups (balrog) so I could see leaving it alone.
If someone lets you get a jump-in - headbutt combo or random HB thatās their problem. Honda does not get away with that stuff easy.
I like the U2 motion change but I think itāll still be U1 mainly. I very rarely get close enough to most characters to make U2 worthwhile. Ochio throw setups tend to make people want to stay out of close range.
I think if anything they should give him something to deal with the sim/sagat matchup. That shit is so frustrating. I just would rather see 5-5 than 7-3
I donāt think Honda has any 7-3 matchups against him, aside from possibly Chunā¦super punishing roundhouse on hit? bullshiiiitttt
Thanks for making a āprettyā wall of text.
Hey, it has windows and a ladder now! 
Was I wrong in thinking they took Sagatās ātrade-hit into Ultraā away? I could have sworn I read that some where, but after a night of fighting a good Sagat (or at least one that knows what heās doing) I know its still there. Hell, he can ex-uppercut into his freakin ultra. That match up is still bullshit, thanks to his tiger knee. Does that move have any weaknesses?
What I wrote for the match-up still holds, a good sagat wonāt throw low tigershots when you have the charge or you have to be fearless and try to headbutt when he throws one. Also he still has all of his perks minus the major damage overhaul.
yupā¦ get the life lead find the corner and hold down back. Dodge the lows, jump the lows, and headbutt once you find a patternā¦
What i did in vanilla was stay just out of st rh range and beat f. rh with nj fierce.
Also tiger knee trades with mk butt slam and ex butt slam beats TK
Yeah, Iāve tried to get enough of a life lead where I feel pretty comfortable with sitting back (and it works), I just donāt like the idea (depending on how much time is left on the clock) of eating that much chip for a match and letting Sagat build meter. Sagats also tend to use Ex Knee to close the gap pretty quickly and go for a throw or uppercut mixups.
Vs sagat you just dodge what you can easily and SAFELY after you get the leadā¦as for TK, I just use jab headbutt to hit him out of itā¦free supers if you gotāem!
Manā¦ You guys still donāt get that Sagat can close space with Kara Shotā¦
Save me mr snk! Im losing to random fucken codys who jump like crazy lol I didnt see anything in the spoiler for cody.
I agree, for some stupid reason Codyās air to airs beat out Hondaās shit too wellā¦jumping normals, butt slams, headbutts, what the hell?
That would probably have come up in the test.