I’ve been using u2 a lot more now, and landing it. This is partly because I’m using his focus a lot more, seeing as lvl 2 focus (blocked) dash is +3, setting you up for frame traps etc. I’ve been landing it a lot against cammy (focusing cannon spikes).
So far I use u1 vs
Akuma
Blanka
Viper
Chun Li
Cody
Dee Jay
Dhalsim
E. Ryu
Gouken
Guile (for psychicness)
Juri
Ken
Rose
Ryu
Sagat
Seth
T Hawk
Vega
Zangief
they are either fireballers, have punishable moves (vega walldives), are grapplers (meaning you’re going to be keeping your distance and anti airing with u1), or jump a lot (viper especially). The rest, I don’t really see why you’d use u1
The ones i’m debating over are:
Oni - u2 punishes oni’s main offensive tool, lk slash, on block, but u1 of course goes through fireballs … but oni’s fireballs are so shitty anyway that he isn’t really going to be throwing two many fireballys to zone
Bison - I know you can OS teleports with u1, but generally in the matchup you’re turtling, and anyway, if you’re doing that OS against bison, if he does any other options, you’ll just whiff an ultra
Blanka - u1 punishes certain things (especially if you get them in the corner), but blanka gets destroyed by focus attacks because of his slow pokes so…
My problem with U2 is that it isn’t a real freeze grappler ultra, meaning you can stil neutral jump after you see the freeze animation. Grappler ultras catch you no matter what if you weren’t doing something before the ultra animation, like a preemptive reversal or a neutral jump. against Honda’s U2, you can input your reversal after the animation, meaning you can use it for whiff punishing or other shit, not very useful imo.
I disagree. It’s still got 1 frame startup, so it will punish moves that are -1. It is guaranteed damage off a focus, and you can do it inbetween really obvious frame traps. it also gives enough time for some okizeme, unlike dirty bull.
But it’s amazing versus characters like adon, and any characters with moves that are just about safe usually
Except it doesn’t have enough range to punish like, anything reliably. Every time I think of a new matchup where it might be useful (Jaguar kicks, DJ sobat kicks, Fei rekkas) I go to training mode and see that it just doesn’t work because it doesn’t reach far enough. What important moves does it actually punish every time besides Oni LK slash?
really? record adon doing a mk jaguar kick from the distance that they usually do them (around c. mp range), and ultra is in range to punish.
Sorry for possibly exaggerating its amazingness - you’re right that it doesn’t punish a lot of those pokey type specials, but there are lots of little things it can punish, like ken’s roundhouse hurricane on hit, loads of overheads on block, ex and non lk dan kicks, badly spaced twin divekicks, and actually loads of in range stuff in the game is -1, you just really have to know and have good reactions. The other reason why I think that it’s good is because say a character wiffs a fast recovering uppercut, or drops a combo which leaves them a little bit negative, you don’t need charge to punish (like u1) and you don’t have to worry about a million frame startup.
The final reason is simply because honda’s u1 is on the whole pretty mediocre, so it’s not like you’re losing an important tool
I dunno Thunder. I’m just not on the whole U2 train. I feel like there’s still more possibilities to land U1, like going through fireballs, auto-correcting on wake-up and what not. I respect your new-found dedication to that ultra. Maybe I might start using it myself, I just need a little more verification.
On another note, anybody been using any good OSes lately? Against Akuma, I’ve been doing Ochio throw, step back, cr.LP xx HHS OS EX Headbutt. If he blocks or does something non-invincible, jab xx hands comes out. If he does any teleport except backwards KKK version, he gets caught by EX HB. If he does MP or HP shoryu, Honda falls out of it while Akuma sails into the air and you can do a cr.MK punish. Honda also falls out of the EX SRK, but it knocks you down, so no punish. This loses to LP SRK and backwards teleport xx U2, but it’s still a neat trick to have around. The same OS will beat all Dhalsim and Seth teleports with the EX Headbutt, although it’s obviously not good against Seth with meter.
I also recently realized that against Viper, if you do a safejump (i.e. backthrow, whiff MP, fj.HP) and OS LP Ochio, Honda will block if she does her SRK, grab her out of EX Seismo, and if she backdashes, she’s far enough away that it makes it awkward for her to punish, especially if it’s the first time they’ve seen the OS.
You can also do that to beat Rose’s EX Drill, although if she backdashes out she is much more likely to punish the whiffed Ochio.
Oh, and I just discovered that you can U1 a yoga sniper even on hit, lol.
Just hold back on the stick to walk backwards after the Ochio throw, then as soon as you see Honda step back, go to downback and do cr.LP xx HHS like normal. Then after you push the HP button to finish the HHS command, quickly push forward + PP to do EX headbutt (as an option select) while Honda is doing the hand slaps. Do you understand Option Selects in general? If not, I can explain in more detail.
I assume this HB OS could work against Bison as well, and with U1 instead of HB? If so, that’s pretty godlike. Which characters do you think these OS’s would be effective against?
Yep, that’s right! It’s just a matter of figuring out the timing in training mode.
I tried it against Bison, but I couldn’t find a timing to input the OS headbutt where it was fast enough to punish backwards teleports AND slow enough to autocorrect if he forward teleports. He also just has a billion other wakeup options so I wouldn’t use it unless he has no meter. Also, I can’t get U1 to work consistently against any character…I don’t think it’s fast enough to catch backwards teleports. It can catch forwards or in-place teleports (i.e. into the corner), but people hardly ever do those. I would love to see somebody figure out a way to do it midscreen though.
The same ochio-walkback-meaty cr.LP timing is also safe against Rufus EX Messiah, as it recovers fast enough to let you block if he does it, or HHS if he doesn’t. Should also work against other >8 frame reversals, like Cody, Sakura, Makoto, Viper, and Balrog, although Cody, Viper, and Balrog have other reversal options that would probably beat it.
Thanks! Also I have a question about the oicho OS off a safejump. So if they do nothing, oicho comes out, if they do something that isn’t grab invincible, oicho comes out, if they backdash, oicho comes out. Basically if they do anything oicho comes out in a sense. So my question is if this is just kinda like buffering oicho before hitting the ground or…? Maybe I’m not completely understanding the OS, but if you could explain it in more detail that would be great, thanks.
Yeah, just do the Ochio with regular OS timing (before you hit the ground from the jump-in) and then hold down back. The safejump lets you block Viper’s HP Thunder Knuckle, Ochio throw her out of EX Seismo, or if she blocks or does something not invincible Honda just gets his jump-in. If she does wakeup U1, Honda gets hit, so be careful with that, haha. And yeah, Honda still does Ochio if she backdashes, so it’s definitely not foolproof.
Basically, if you aren’t sure, just do a regular safejump. If you think she’ll EX Seismo, throw in the OS Ochio for a fairly low-risk way to beat it.
OK, thanks for clearing that up. I tried doing this against a Guy player recently, and Oicho came out but I didn’t know if it really worked or not, haha.
Doing OS Ochio is pretty much terrible against anybody except Viper and Rose, since they are the only characters whose reversals actually get beaten by Ochio. Against like anybody else, the Ochio will come out if they do their reversal and then just get stuffed. It’s just neat trick to bring out in those two matches, not something you should do on a regular basis.
Against Guy, his EX Run is throwable but the armoured property eats the OS anyway, so there’s no point in doing it.
Thanks for the tip. I wish I had a scene around my area, so then I could really level up my game, but there doesn’t seem to be much of one here anyways thanks for being such a big help.
Damn Nybb, you’re leaving me with nothing relevant to post in the couple new threads I’m working on! They’re gonna take a while tho, between the wife, the baby and a full time job I’m hardly getting any sleep at all
Haha, my bad. I’ll be looking forward to whatever else you have to share, as I’ve already learned so much from your posts. I’ve just been a little sad about the inactivity of the Honda boards and I decided to try to do something about it myself.
I also found out a couple days ago that if you are in the corner and you block Rufus EX Messiah and he FADCs backwards, you can actually punish his backdash with reversal EX Buttslam. Doesn’t work midscreen though.
Thanks but I’m ashamed to say that I should’ve posted it before(around the time I posted the unblockables thread)… 60% of what I’m working on was ready by then, I even uploaded lots of pics to imageshack… Damn real life issues!
Thanks again for your posts! Also nice find on that Rufus punish, we need those! Hopefully we will all contribute with a huge sumo genki dama for our hero Mike Ross!
anyways thanks for being such a big help.
They’re gonna take a while tho, between the wife, the baby and a full time job I’m hardly getting any sleep at all 
I’ll be looking forward to whatever else you have to share, as I’ve already learned so much from your posts. I’ve just been a little sad about the inactivity of the Honda boards and I decided to try to do something about it myself.
Hopefully we will all contribute with a huge sumo genki dama for our hero Mike Ross!