Nj. hk also works well on shotos that know they can crouch under the nj. hp. and if you catch them deep enough nj. hk, cr. mk xx hhs, cr. mk xx h.hb… Excuse me, did someone say a sneaky 400+ dmg, a free bar, and a possible oki option if they’re in the corner? I think so. :smokin:
Thats the whole point. There is no reliable way to AA a shoto when you have lost charge. I am confident there is no answer to this, so i will never have to live up to my side of the bargin.
Bottom line, cant be done! This is hondas weakness and imo, if he had a reliable AA without charge, he would be a beast. Too much of a beast.
i think this is completely wrong. No offense, its just not what I believe. ya, aa’s without a charge become more difficult and quite a bit riskier than ex hb, but honda’s normals kick ass imho. so what’s the most likely thing a shoto is going to do if he sees you lose your charge and decides to jump in. if its ryu, its more than likely going to be some sort or ambiguous cross up bs with either fierce, short, or cross up tatsu. Now we’ve got a few options
-
go for the chop… we all know about it, we’ve all been stuffed w/ a c.h. fierce 350+ dmg combo time and time again, you can try it, but i dont think you should abuse it.
-
WALK FORWARD! ya I said it, walk forward! (this works best aginst close-mid range jumps) Everyone know’s honda’s a turtle, and we all love holding db, but what 99% of people dont realize is that honda’s forward walk speed is gdlk!
2a) You can walk forward just enough to get under whatever shoto and cl. hp. (ya, that random looking palm to the sky), and I promise you the other player or someone in the crowd will say"wtf was that?!" cl.hp is also a FANTASTIC answer to any crossup tatsu and random demon flips (its got a weird hitbox over his head and a little behind him like a lot of cr. hp’s), you’ll get a smooth c.h. hp for 120 x 1.25= 150 dmg, and you get a sick reset with huge frame advantage and plenty of time to charge… this is where you can own shotos for free if you get in their head
2b) if its a character with a higher jump (you’ll get more comfortable with this after a while and can apply it to the low/mid height jumpers later) if they try to jump at you w/o a charge or do a obviously late safe jump, walk under them! and if they pressed a button its a free punish on their jump recovery. If you’re somewhat near a corner, free normal throw into the corner. If you’re mid screen, you can do a meaty fierce command grab, or a meaty cr. lp xx hhs xx super if you have the meter and can close out the match. -
jb. mp… its the most gdlk jumping normal in the game imho. amazing priority and range, learn it, love it!
-
if they get reallllllllllllly predictable with their jumps Jf. instant hk stuffs a lot of shoto jumpins (dont abuse this though please, I really think it just looks like flowchart ken garb, but it works)
-
Jb. lk is really good for getting jump happy players off of you when you dont have a charge (blanka comes to mind), its not gonna hurt them at all, but its one of those x-factor moves that can make the difference between a win and a loss by avoiding a stupid 50/50 that might have lost you 130-500 hp
-
Twitch… fake walk forward (z0mg! the mind games!) If you realize round 1 that everytime you walk forward against ryu, he either throws a hadoken, or jumps at you… REMEMBER IT! People are creatures of habit, most people will react very similarly (if not exactly the same) when put into familiar situations. ESPECIALLY if what they did last time worked. So you’ve made a few in game adjustments, he won round 1 from a c.h. fierce jumpin, you took round 2. Now we’re in round 3, and the ryu you’re playing has aa’d every1 of your jump ins so you know you can’t jump w/o eating dmg, set this fool up to think you dont have a charge. when you’re staring at eachother try standing up and walking back 1cm on the screen really quick. Standup and croch (make sure you’re outta cr.mk range!) do whatever to make your character look like you’ve walked forward. Then when he jumps, FREE DMG!:lovin:
sry, kind of a rant, any1 else have any say on the matter?
Funnily enough, it was today that I realized how powerful walking is when it comes to AA - especially when it comes to ambiguous cross ups.
When you walk forward or back, you drastically reduce the ambiguous nature of the cross up and will automatically be upright and holding down the correct button to block - if not then it wasn’t ambiguous at all and you could have easily AA’d with lp hb, ac lp hp or standing fierce.
Nothing is better than getting that perfect cl.hp coming out or walking under into backthrow, dumping your opponent in the corner where you want em.
This is so fucking simple but its so easy to forget. Especially with Honda and his slow walk speed.
EVERY Honda player at some point has had at least a handful of moments where you go into a sort of “Honda Coma”. You feel safe in that down-back position, its only natural.
But you realise a few moments later (especially if you lose the round) that a simple walk/dash forward or back could have avoided whatever situation lost you the round.
I know spacing is a fundamental but it really can be forgotten with a charge character.
On Topic, those of you struggling with Boxer here’s what is helping me loads in this matchup.
Use charge partitioning for a HB (Charge B, F, B+Punch) LP version. Lots of Boxers, even the good ones, will give you a dash straight for your troubles after a blocked HB. LP version is safe so use charge partitioning to hit him with one, if he blocks you have the extra few frames charge to hit him with EX HB for some nasty counter damage.
Any damage is good in this turtle fest of an annoying matchup. I really want to think that it is 5/5 but i PERSONALLY feel it is 6/4. Main reason being Honda’s options are mostly unsafe, restricting him getting in and not being able to chip either.
Yes you can chip with HHS, but try and get close to a good one without jab spam interferring somewhere along the line.
My worst matchup for sure…
goes to watch some akimo and mike ross vids
Most of Akimos recent videos (before SSF4), he had a horrible time vs boxer. Good boxers will sit outside of lp headbutt range and force you to come to them. S.hk helps to get in as it is a bit like a battering ram to help you move forward bit by bit. Its a battle of wills IMO. You sit in and around max dash punch range looking to bait one and he tries to chip away and force you to come to him. Played Zak recently and you have to look for ways to bait that dash punch when at a range to punish with. nj.fp at max range really seems to bait a dash punch well.
yeah steering nj.fp backwards to bait one can work wonders. I even just have trouble with simple boxers that just know how to punish and cr.jab>cr.jab>cr.lk headbutt U1.
It’s just me having trouble with it personally, so maybe i was hasty to call 6/4 haha. Because the match is basically boxer attacking and you landing counter hits, the damage output for Honda’s counter hits make up for boxer’s pressure game.
St.hk is such a nice tool in general. I just wished it knocked down like ST. It was an awesome meaty and still kinda is. Not necessarily on wakeup but after a sucessful air-to-air and stuff. It catches boxer nicely if he’s edging closer. It still seems to have the same hitbox as vanilla where it can be misleading. The top half of his foot can completely whiff into the leg of your opponent. How much depends on your opponent. On Sagat in vanilla almost Honda’s whole foot would disappear all the way up to his ankle.
It is great for another use too. I once remember a great piece of advice Mr SNK wrote, something like “whiffing laggy normals can give the impression you are not charging”. st.hk and st.mp are great for this.
Bit off topic here TAMANAPANTS, are you going to Super Vs. Battle in London this year?
Now you see why Rog honda is 5-5 however the part your running into now is that you have to make choices that could net you a bonus or put you in the red. Welcome to the real world. 
Not sure. I just started a new job and SSF4 has taken a back seat. If I do go, I would want to at least feel like I can be at my best (whatever that is). I have played twice in the last 2 weeks and I already feel some areas of my game are getting rusty lol.
Tell me about it, life and and sf for that matter is just one big game of decisions and gambles with payoff or punishment. I should be learning the matchups against the female psyche and dickhead customers at work. Both are 9/1 matchups for sure. The dickhead customer matchup is maybe 8/2 if i can squeeze in a reversal “i’m just putting you through to the right department” U2. But yeah, i really hate rog but am slowly learning. It’s just so different from any other matchup to me.
And yeah TAMANA, i havent played for almost 2 weeks too after getting after moving house. I want at least a months training solid every day if i’m gonna go. I know i should go with the mentality to win, but i am seriously so happy if i just get the chance to play side by side with some good players, offline and level up.
Zangief’s U2 is really fucking annoying for honda. If zangief jumps in and uses it before landing, he will grab you out of your headbuts. Basically this leaves you with the option of AA with standing fierce only as backdashing or focus will leave you getting spun by lp spd upon landing - as far as i can tell.
I was getting smashed by this shit the other night and in a fit of rage i loaded up the Zangief thread to investigate, and sure enough here is the quote for the matchup;
"Vs honda it’s a must high level hondas fav AA is ex headbut which you get a nice little yellow flash to tell you to pop u2 on a jump-in. It really messes up Honda and may be most usefull vs him. Also it realy limits his wakeup game. "
Im sure i just noobed out to a new trick and there is a good way to deal with this so anyone had the same issue/got a solution?
Lp headbutt still works well against gief from what I can tell. Ex headbutt goes from a ground state to an airborne state a lot quicker than the light version. You still have to make sure that you aren’t throwing it out too early though. That said, I was just playing against a gief and I foolishly threw out an Lp headbutt too early and he activated ultra but it didn’t catch, so it’s not like it’s precision timing or anything. you just have to be wary of which moves put you in an airborne state and which ones don’t, then adapt your AA game accordingly
in my lackluster efforts to analyze the honda v sim matchup, I did some hb testing by having sim back up to the corner and shoot fires of various strengths. measuring from crouching honda’s front foot to neutral sim’s front foot (really the line a couple of pixels ahead of that foot), I have:
jab fire:
at 6-6.5 squares, ex hb can be done on reaction just as the actual flame emits from sim’s mouth.
ex hb is unreliable further away. at best, you’ll go through the fire clean while sim blocks your hb. you’ll probably trade with the fire though.
at 5.5, ex hb will catch sim right when his head swings forward, but not after the actual flame comes out.
timing can be slightly earlier for either case, since you’ll trade with the fire anyway. hitting sim is key.
full screen fp hb will get sim, at the latest, when sim retracts his head. you won’t be doing this on reaction.
otherwise, hail mary fp/ex headbutts must be done before sim’s yoga fire startup.
in all cases, the hb, if it goes through, will trade with fire (not bad considering the matchup).
super is gimmicky as shit, since if you do it too early (on reaction!), the retardedly slow jab fire will catch honda as he winds up for the 2nd headbutt.
at 7 squares, the super will go through clean when performed as sim’s fire almost (but not quite) detaches from his mouth.
there is a very subtle increase in delay as honda gets closer to sim. really inconsistent imo. and to think it was one of the only ways honda could breach through sim’s defense in vanilla!
ultra is free at max 4.5 squares. just let it loose. good luck getting close enough though 
(I wonder if this range was shorter in vanilla?)
who cares about strong fire.
fierce fire:
at 6.5-7 squares, if you ex hb right after the flame emits, you should be able to ram sim cleanly. timing is tight, though.
at fullscreen, you can go through when sim says 'yoga FIRE.'
at 6, just as the head pops forward but before the flame.
obviously super and ultra are easier since the projectile goes faster. I wouldn’t count on sim shooting even one of these anyway, except to screw with your hb timing. but there seems to be a sweet spot where ex hb will go through regardless of whether jab/fierce/ex is used (more on ex in a bit), using the same timing based on sim’s animation.
ex fire:
the cases are more or less the same as in the jab fire case, except worse since sim recovers 6 frames faster. notably, sim might block your hb and then honda’s fat ass is literally juggled backwards by both hits of the projectile. to top it off, sim provides no audio cue; reacting might be hard even with the yellow flash since you definitely don’t want to be late with the hb (otherwise the aforementioned scenario happens or you eat the fire straight up). imo I don’t think it’s even worth trying hb. of course, ex fire doesn’t even fucking dissipate, which is still extremely problematic, so… iono. hopefully the sims you play save the meter for aa super.
and just for reference, sim’s standing fierce reaches 5.5 squares on a standing honda, and 6 on a crouching/focusing honda.
still, finding a range where jab fire can be reliably headbutted (albeit at the cost of meter) is reassuring, especially when I previously only went for the gimmick hail mary torpedos. hope to work on this and hb’ing sagat’s low shots in the coming weeks. matchups matchups
anyone have other practical pointers for the sim matchup though? I (and probably everyone else) still loathe it
I got hit with that shit once and was amazed. After that I started spacing better and trading/Beating jump ins with Jesus Chop. :hp:
yo, gs! Seth and Sim are my 2 biggest problems, I’ve been trying to workout hb timing against yoga lugie. Unless you’rre at point blank, I dont think its worth risking a bar to hb sim at all (unless of course you blocked a yoga sniper). 1 counter hit fierce hb is still worth the 4 other counter hit fires you ate before. But it is still good to know the info, props!
Side note. at full screen if you block any yoga fire and sim throws ANY fire again on “reversal” timing (as you block the last 1), you cannot hb him. So if you block 1 dont even try headbutting, you’ll eat any of the 4 fires clean
On the sim match up, would it be bad to throw out a random butt splash? I figured it would be a good way to get in closer and get some chip damage from it. Unless there is a way to stop buttsplash on the way down. Like b.rh or b.strong. This match up sucks.
Butt splash is beat clean with the b.strong overhead chop from sim, except if you just hit him with a cross up butt slam but the area b.strong beats you clean is huge and outside of that a whiff is free dmg for him as well. It is a tough match against a patient sim that doesn’t leave many openings.
- I get a bit of dmg by baiting out yoga snipes(j.fierce) and using jab HB on them on reaction. (Only when in front of you, if his arms are going to hit on top of you , late EX HB will work instead)
even easier than that… block the sniper and fierce hb, more dmg too
The only time a RH buttslam works for me is on Sim when ive caught on to his patterns and catch him jumping back. It can be your savior or your downfall in this match so careful now.
I’m sorry if this has been discussed, but what are some of Honda’s safe jump set ups after common knockdowns like forward throw, oicho or splash? I tried googling and using the search function, hasn’t been too helpful.