Anybody knows how to handle the matchup with Ken? His medium kick is super frustrating. This game not really balance at all. Honda has so many poor matchups.
AE2012 is pretty balanced. Honda is just part of the very big mid tier. If youāre a mid tier character, you have bad matchups. Thatās all there is to it, really. Honda has a good amount of bad matchups (Sagat, Guile, Dhalsim, Chun-Li, Zangief are some of my least favourite), but he also does well against a lot of other characters (Cammy, Ibuki, Sakura, Adon, M. Bison, to name a few.)
As for the Ken matchup, itās pretty even. Maybe slightly in Kenās favour but not as bad as other matchups. As with other characters with really good offense and oki, itās kind of hard when you get knocked down because they can mix you up, but Hondaās buttons are better, so that compensates. With medium kick, just do reaction EX headbutts or jab into hands. Use the stop sign (nj.hp) wisely and donāt let him get his offense going.
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Matches from my last Ranbat. Enjoy
Oh man, thatās hugeā¦ I have been having such an insanely hard time against Dhalsimā¦ that is the one matchup I just canāt seem to learn. Everything else I feel like I have the potential to win, but Dhalsim is just frustrating.
Thanks sir! I always like watching your matches, you are one of the best Honda players out there! Has really turned my game around. I need to really study that Ibuki match, I donāt get much experience against them online.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxp0Z6viDRQ&feature=youtu.be
Black Magic](āhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxp0Z6viDRQ&feature=youtu.beā)
Greetings!
I am a Dan main with a tournament coming up, and I have a lot of issues with the Honda match up (Iām a fraud who canāt safejump). Iām looking for a few honda players whoād be interested in practicing with me and helping me get to know the match up a little bit better. If anyone is interested please either PM me or reply here, doesnāt matter which.
Thanks!
(I didnāt think this needed its own thread so I posted it here, if this isnt where it belongs Iāll promptly repost it somewhere else)
Sup guys, Iāve been trying to approach the Sagat match up in a way called platforming that this Norcal player Hiro told me about. Basically, itās just playing the whole match spaced at the range where Lk Tiger knee just whiffs. If the sagat moves forward or backward you stay in that same range. At this range you just turtle and respond to the sagatās moves accordingly. If they tiger knee just jab x hands, if they fireball at this range focus dash ochio is a good option or a jump in. I feel like this is the best way to approach the match up instead of getting lucky and outsmarting the sagat player here and there. Just wanted to bring some light on one of the shittiest match ups for Honda. Tell me what you guys think.
nice! i feel like that would be the perfect spot to mp headbutt where he has no time to do anything either you just have to have a fast reaction.
Havenāt been able to get this working, any tips? Have you found it to be useful at all?
Another thing I was considering at 2 am while trying to sleep the other nightā¦ Sumo Buttsplash is a hard knockdown move that leaves you right next to themā¦ would it not be possible to invent Safe Jumps from this position?
I think splash only gives us a soft KD, but Iām not sure.
Hi guys I just wanted to give a bit of knowledge (and hoping to gain a little) on the matchups that are not listed on the first page.
1st one I saw was Cody:
I use U1 usually but itās pretty hard to hitā¦ I just like to have it against guys who āhold rocksā. His normals are mostly pretty fast only time I can get U2 to work is focusing someone who spammed his overhead a lot.
I find its best to stay crouching in this match and watch for the overhead because itās pretty slow and obvious. Just be aware it has a lot of range. He has a lot of low attacks that are much quick + unsafe on block that you can punish for a lot of damage.
Be very wary of hitting HK after a HHS combo when he has ultra, he can punish the link for huge counterhit damage.
Cody has a pretty safe jump against honda, NJ mp I believe (he smashes down with both hands) very similar to zangiefās. It can be EX Headbutted but cannot be buttslammed on wakeup, it will get beat.
Spamming NJ Fierce will get punished by his ruffian kick.
Codyās wakeup options are fairly shitty, just donāt be in front of him (i.e. meaty hhs) because you will eat sand into ultra. there is not much he can do about a cross up MK (as far as I know) but he can ex zonk knuckle a NJ Fierce. meaty lk buttslam is pretty safe too and gets you nice and close, usually he will react and you can hit an EX Headbutt (unless he ex Zonks you)
Try to avoid spamming tech throw because Cody has a lot of good frame traps. Good Codys will mix up a lot, I prefer to just eat the throw twice before I start to tech because it is better than eating an ultra.
Cody can punish MP + HP Headbutts on block w/ ruffian kick and itās a knockdown.
EX Headbutt is not always safe on wakeup as cody can ex zonk you it has a ton of invincibility and will win if timed right.
rocks have a lot of recovery, but i wouldnt start jumping them because he will stop you with ruffian kicks. they do hardly any damage when blocked so iād try to just slowly move forward without jumping if possible.
whiffing HK is really bad because his focus has good range and is fast. after hitting an Air to Air NJ fierce donāt do it right away on landing, good codyās will expect it.
pretty much all versions of his special moves can be punished with HHS or EX Headbutt on block.
if you get in on cody and HHS pressure there is a good chance he is going to eat it. cr lp has good priority over a lot of his normals. he has a hard time fighting you up close, so its good to get in, do lots of damage, then stay far away. he can control the mid range space pretty well with a lot of very fast half-screen moves.
Dan -
I donāt have a ton of experience in this matchup but I know it can actually be pretty annoying if you donāt know what youāre getting into.
Iāll get the obvious stuff out of the way, there is not much he can do to punish headbutts.
Iād stay away from him on wakeup, his DP is actually pretty good and does a lot of damage.
His hop kicks are safe as hell and do a lot of damage + knockdown. donāt bother trying to ocho him or HHS him, you will get thrown or DPād. You can try EX Headbutt or lk buttslam but you will still eat a DP. if he goes for a throw then youāll beat it so itās usually a good idea to just try and stand tech on reaction. I donāt think you need to worry about eating an ultra confirm but I havenāt played any top tier danās to know if this is possible.
jumping his fireballs is pretty pointless, its just an excuse to eat a free DP. id just walk forward, his up close game is shit. when you are in his face you can HHS without worrying about too much.
Ex Headbutt will beat hopkicks on reaction, if he does one far away you can beat it with FP Headbutt while the hopkick is in recovery.
There is not a lot of horizontal distance on his DP so NJ fierce at the right range is a good zoning tool vs Dan. It can beat hop kicks if spaced right but if he hits your legs he will knock you down.
Again I donāt have a ton of data on the match, itās so rare, i would love to play a good Dan and see how he really operates. I have been beaten by them before and its usually because I get too ex headbutt happy after hopkicks. they are -3 at worst so there is really not a lot you can do as honda but try and get out of the mixup. if you get damage on dan and run away it is pretty hard for him to get in.
Dee Jay:
I prefer Ultra 1 in this matchup because his booms have a slow enough recoveryā¦ I was down 1 game and 1 round in a tournament in losers and I did U1 through a boom and came back to win the set. Only reason I could see U2 working is if you Focus a slide.
Dee Jay cannot punish Ultra 1 on block with anything but Super and ex sobat. However he can punish FP and MP headbutts with Ultra 1 so be careful with those. U1 must shoot you back far enough to make it safe.
This match is really similar to the guile match but there are a few more holes and Dee Jay seems to have to pick the correct normal to keep you out. jump medium punch should be your goto jump-in for this match, but just keep in mind good dee jayās wont let you in with that, a slide can still beat it, but it can beat a slide if spaced right/caught on recovery. the trick is to aim for the top of his foot/shin with the bottom of the chop.
do not jump in on wakeup, you will eat EX jackknife kick or even regular jackknife.
be careful what range you NJ a boomā¦ if he is close to the boom then he will slide you on landing. just dont jump when he is following a boom like guile.
You can beat all of his sobat kicks with properly timed headbutts on reaction.
You can stuff his slides with cr lp HHS. just know itās fairly safe on block if he just knicks you with the edge of his footā¦ its -6 so technically you should be able to cr lp HHS it.
it is really hard for him to stop buttslams, he doesnāt have any normals that goes straight up like guile. if you can land a buttslam on top of him on reaction to a boom, all he can really do is block it because he doesnāt have time to focus it. it really helps you get in but if he doesnāt throw that boom he can focus and do a lot of damage so be careful. only use it if you are down and the time is running out.
In this match you can just hold DB and block booms all day, they do no damage. if heās stupid enough to jump in/hop at you then you can anti air him pretty easily with headbutts or st fierce. if he is smart then you are eventually going to have to back him into the corner and pressure with hands. i wouldnāt try too many headbutts, he has a decent amount of tools that can take them out(including ultra) , id only use it if you can catch him walking forward.
Dudley -
I have not had a ton of experience against really good Dudleyās but they can be quite annoying if played properly. I have not found any solid use for U1 in this match so iād say U2 is probably your best bet in hopes of crumpling a normal.
Dudley can punish ANY headbutt on block with Ultra, so when he has ultra, quit it! he can punish with FP and MP with Machine Gun Blow so random headbutting is not recommended here.
Dudley has a jumping elbow that is hard to anti-air. A pre-emptive lp headbutt or St Fierce can beat it, but I normally just let him jump in with it unless I have ex headbutt charged because it can lead to a lot of damage if you miss the anti air. watch for low hits in the block string because if he āpulls the rug out from under youā you are eating ultra or tons of damage. That being said he does have overheads that will lead to equally brutal damage so try and wait for holes in his block string and ex headbutt to get out. you are really going to want to stay out of dudleyās block strings, itās one of the few things he does well.
Donāt bother jumping in on him when heās down with meter. he will DP you or do his cross counter on you. you can bait it out and punish him though if he does it every wakeup.
Most machine gun blows can be punished with cr lp HHS on block so make use of that. the lp version is safe for him on block, however you can trick him when he doesnāt have ultra with a LP headbutt and then do an ex headbutt as soon as he comes out with the MGB.
it is easy to walk dudley into the corner, but he will push you back with machine gun blow, good walk speed and some quick normals. nj fierce is pretty good at keeping him back and hitting LP machine gun blow spammers. it is pretty hard for him to catch with a DP, however he can get you with MGBā¦ jump back fierce can work nicely to catch it as well and there is a small chance he will get you.
sorry my advice on this match isnāt the best hopefully i can get some better input
Fei Long -
quite a tough match for honda. I have actually got to play some good Feiās (notably Momi) so hereās what Iāve gathered
Ultra 2 is a better bet. Akimo uses it. He crumpled a rekka although he whiffed the command grab by like 1 pixel during the White Towers tournament recentlyā¦ would have won him the match. U1 just seems useless unless he whiffs a dp kick from 1/2 screenā¦ not sure why heād do that though.
first thingās first no headbutt is safe when fei has meter. so donāt even bother unless its EX as a reversal.
Feiās ground game is superior. he will easily walk you into the corner and thereās really not a lot you can do. i have found the most success poking with cr lp into hands or even a cr mp for a little more range. but if you whiff, he can rekka you. st hkās seem pretty suicidal as a poke but it can keep him from walking forward if you are certain thatās what heās going to do.
you canāt really punish rekkas unless you block the final one. good feiās wont do that as its an obvious hit confirm after 2 hits. you can ex headbutt them if he does them in your face.
the chicken wing is safe on block for fei. if you ex-headbutt after he canāt really do anything but DP. same with his overhead, just exheadbutt as soon as you block it and you should get him out of your face. he can dp you but itās pretty unsafe but some feiās will burn the 2 meters to FADC its a good idea to just block it and try and stand tech after he has proven to you he will dp you. he can link ultra into a DP FADC but itās not as devastating as Kenās, usually only does about 200-250 damage (350 damage at full I believe).
NJ fierce is a pretty amazing tool for catching rekkasā¦ that being said, i have had NJ Fierces punished by rekkas hundreds of times, and the memories are painful. if you are in the corner you are better off with jump back fierce but i use NJ fierce to attempt to hold ground and push fei back a bit.
St Fierce is awesome against fei. it can stop a chicken wing if you press it as soon as you see him leave the ground. you can stop a lot of pokes and the recovery is not as bad as st HK so its a better tool for poking. you can also stick it out on wakeup and it will trade with his DP which is in favour of honda.
fei long doesnāt really have the best vortex game so donāt stress if he knocks you down. he relies more on a high-low mixup and catching your pokes and denying you any breathing room.
he has some of the sickest walk speed and normalsā¦ his offense and defense are both amazing so you are going to have to let him poke away and sneak in your pokes when you feel its safe. he can catch almost all of your buttons so fast so you really need to be careful when you do ANYTHING. playing offline can be really hard because they will hear your stick and buttons and react immediately, making it really hard for you to pressure.
cr lpxxHands is one of the only āsafeā tools you have that being said good feis will stay at a spacing where you will whiff it and punish with rekkas. the only reason fei might move into that range is because he is going for a command grabā¦ another annoying thing you need to worry about, so make sure you are sticking those cr LPs out to keep him away from you. even if you donāt get the full crLPxxHHS dont worry, you kept him from doing tons of damage to you and at a favourable spacing.
Juri -
Juri has a pretty solid zoning game, it can be pretty hard to react to her ex divekicks, and he fireballs do a decent job at keeping you out. wheel kick keeps wakeups safe for her, so all in all it can be pretty toughā¦
I like ultra 1 to go through fireballs as usual, if you see her charge up one you can kind of count on one coming out in the near future.
she canāt do too much about blocked headbutts except fierce for a small amount of damage and super of course. she can lk wheel kick the FP headbutt. headbutts seem to be a pretty useful tool and all around pain in the ass for juri in this matchup, especially EX.
Go over the low fireballs with headbutt. you can duck the high ones and inch forward.
you can link EX Buttslam from HHS for a shit ton of damage. MR SNK did cr mk, st lp, EX HHS, cr LP HHS, EX buttslam against Juicebox for about 1/2 of his health. HHS - cr MKxx ex Headbutt works too.
blocked non-ex divekicks can be punished with ex headbutt.
punish her wheel kicks with HHS, they have a ton of recovery.
if she is sitting in the corner building meter with her fireball then whiff oichos to build your own meter. you need it more than she does.
her walk speed is one of the slowest in the game so make sure you are walking her into the corner and making her come to you. if she has a lot of meter you can expect ex divekicks.
jumping early MP is your choice jump in for this match as it beats most of her normals.
her NJ Legsplit kick is pretty damn safe on wakeupā¦ I wouldnāt challenge it with anything but ex headbutt.
i noticed MR SNK does NJ Fierce on wakeup and also goes did st LP cr LP hands on wakeupā¦ to me that seems unsafe as hell but juicebox was unable to or chose not to do anything against it.
Makoto -
Makotoās walk speed has to be the shittiest in the gameā¦ however her dash is probably the best in the game. she will often dash up suddenly on you and start pressuring from a little over 1/2 screen. iād stay out of there if you have a lifelead because 1 command grab = ultra.
I havenāt found any use for either ultra. you canāt crumple her overhead because its armor breaking. maybe u1 as an anti air but they are honestly both quite useless in this match.
Makoto is all about high-low mixup so make sure you are watching which way to block. the overhead is pretty easy to see coming as itās airborne. also watch for the ex ground punch that is also an overhead. it does a ton of stun so you donāt want to eat that.
She can punish your FP headbutts with her EX dash punch, however, meterless, there is nothing she can do.
if she happens to command grab you, do not let her get a reset on you and command grab you a second time. Many good makotos will go for this gimmick, they will grab you, do 1 punch, then grab you again, punch into EX dash punch. make sure you are holding up or upback after youāve been hit once.
makoto will shut down your jump ins and buttslams with her up-punch. donāt bother unless youāre way behind. jump medium punch can beat it if you can get the right spacing and she walks so slow she cant really adjust so thatās your safest bet for a jump in.
avoiding the command grab is so important because it leads to free ultra. the setups are trick. a lot of makotos shit is pretty unsafe.
a lot of makotos do that ground punch ( the one that EX is an overhead) to build meter when far away. walk forward and make her go into the corner, or you can also just whiff your own oicho, but be careful she can ex punch you. or EX/ FP headbutt her from 3/4 in anticipation. it has a lot of recovery. she can bait you with a jump back so be careful, if youāve hit it with her once i wouldnāt do it again. with a life lead, walk her to the corner then wait at 3/4 screen, she will have to come to you and you can knock pretty much everything she does back with ex headbutt. her block strings are fairly shitty and any holes can be headbutted. donāt bother trying to tech throws because she has some frame traps and the command grab will beat it anyway.
you wont take much chip damage in this match so just be patient as hell even if you are a bit behind. her defense is pretty good and her offense really isnāt so youāre better to just try and build some meter so you can keep her out if thatās all she is doing. it will end up being a long and drawn out match where neither player wants to do anything, so dont be that guy that loses because he jumped in with 50 seconds left.
T Hawk - This a 6-4 matchup for Honda, definitely.
Very similar to Zangief but he just has much shittier tools. Iād use Ultra 1, it can punish blocked condor dives, whiffed tomahawks, and condor spire spammers. a lot of guys do 2 in a row for a fast get-in gimmick.
not a whole lot he can do about nj fierce, he can risk a tomahawk (his dp) but it will stuff it if youāre at the right spacing. it beats everything he has. it will keep him from condor diving you too which is unsafe anyway but its much easier if he stays on the ground. just do it at the range where only your hands would hit him. if he is turtling then command grab him. grapplers get rattled when they get command grabbed by honda.
Canāt do a damn thing about blocked headbutts. he can however jump back so use it as a tool to prevent him from walking forward and take the free chip when he is landing from jumps. just be careful about that, be ready for a jump in/setup for SPD following because it will put you at a shitty range. also make sure you are FP headbutting every blocked condor dive, (EX is a waste it does the exact same damage). st HK is also nice for keeping him from walking forward.
one thing to keep in mind is donāt headbutt until the very last secondā¦ ex headbutts too early will get shut down by condor dives if he hits you in the back. wait until you know its not a dive but just an attack ( you should know by the spacing anyway), if its the proper spacing for a dive, its better to let him do his empty jump and land and you chip than risk eating the dive.
common gimmick is ex condor dive land right in front of you and SPD / Ultra. make sure you are buffering lp into hands always.
another one is condor spire, same thing just buffer hands, thereās nothing you can do you will always beat his recovery + startup.
donāt let him tick air-tick you or you will eat SPD / Ultra. scare him from jumping in with NJ Fierce.
Never buttslam you will eat a command grab for freeā¦ i use it sometimes on wakeup to stop some of his āvortexā shenanigans and to catch him when jumping backwards with HK but I would use it very sparingly and only if you are in a life deficit.
jewelman combos work on T Hawk. also you can link mp extended hands into ultra 1 on a crouching Tony Hawk
you can use hands to pressure but realize by doing it you are putting yourself in a range where he does well so make sure you know for certain heās not able to do anything when you stick it out. i prefer a HP Headbutt it knocks you back a little further and like i said thereās nothing he can do.
Really nice stuff, Mike. I think the op info is really old (since Super), so maybe it should be updated. I will add some stuff here soon, too.