Buttsmash isn’t a great idea at that range, since Hawk’s jumping fierce will beat it, go through it, or trade, and if Hawk then blocks it, depending on circumstances he can 360 or dragon punch. But yeah, the hands are good, sac throwing is fine if you have good ochio timing, early fierce headbutt is good. Far standing roundhouse beats Hawk’s low jabs, but if Hawk sees you walking up or jumping up to get there, he can jump and do the dive, dragon punch, walk toward and/or jump into shenanigans, etc, because he knows you don’t have charge. You can beat those options too, but again, the point is that these are all games that, although they usually go in your favor, can go in Hawk’s favor a significant percentage of the time, and that’s most of the reason why this matchup isn’t 8-2 for Honda like the Gief, Cammy, and Fei matchups are.
hmmm here are how i would see two players equally skilled with there characters.
Tier I
Ryu vs Honda 8-2
KEn 8-2
DJ 7-3
Tier II
Chun 6.5-3.5
Sagat 6.5-3.5
Guile 6-4
TierIII
Balrog 5.5-4.5
Tier IV
Dhalsim 4-6
Vega 4-6
Bison 3.5-6.5
Tier V
Feilong 3-7
Thawk 3-7
Blanka 3-7
Zangief 2.5-7.5
Cammy 2-8
The reason i give Fei 3-7 s b/c of the direction of his DP move he can block and do it safely. So while getting chipped he can try it if it fails he still can block.
Cool, I agree with lots of those, but here’s my take (with the second number as Honda’s score):
Ryu: 8-2
DeeJay: 8-2
O Ken: 7.5-2.5
Guile: 6.5-3.5
N Ken: 6-4
Chun: 6-4
O Sagat: 5.5-4.5
Boxer: 5-5
Sim: 5-5
Claw: 4.5-5.5
Blanka: 4-6
Dictator: 3.5-6.5
O Hawk: 3.5-6.5
Fei: 3-7
Cammy: 2-8
Gief: 2-8
Edit: waffling between 3.5-6.5 or 4-6 for Blanka and 6-4 or 6.5-3.5 for N Ken.
Yes! Finally! This is what the Honda thread NEEDS! Ehonda, please, for the sake of all things Honda, just keep talking! It is so hard to find someone who can talk about Honda. I want to learn !!!
:woot::woot::woot::woot::woot::woot::woot::woot:
Now I will post Honda vs Guile strats. Pardon if it is somewhat inaccurate I have not played this match-up in many years.
Hondas key here is to bait Guile into throwing Booms. Even if Honda does anticipate Guile can still jump up to counter a buttsmash over the Boom, since Guiles lag time after the boom is very short. The Key in this situation is to be as close to Guile as possible and do Medium B.Smash through the boom hitting him on the way up. If you are to far away to hit him on the way up you will hit him on the way down (unless Guile jumps away or air grabs him [tough to do ] Guile can recover and counter this move when you land.
Pinning Guile in the corner is essential to beating him. Using ticks and foot games with C.short, C.forward, StRH and low strong and jab. These prevent booms and various moves in Guiles arsenal. You cannot fight Guile mid screen (much like against Vega). Chipping away at Guile with 100 hands is a nice way to get blk damage and to close to set up the oichio. I like early Jumps vs Guile as well after you knock him down do a Crossup Msplash early hope that Guile does a wake up and then Hit him with Hands 2x the 1st will hit, the other will make them block. Or after the initial hit do Bsmash. and attempt to grab or do low Short into HB. Try not to knock him down again until you have done sufficient damage to him.
Here are a list of NEVERS:
- Never do Forward or Rhouse smashes over booms from full screen. only use short until close.
- Never Turtle. ( unless you have an 80% lead or so and time is running out of course)
- Never do full screen Headbutts.
- Never allow him to jump in.
- Never allow him to tick throw you. * you do have oichio remember that!!!
I noticed there was a few posts about the guide I wrote so I figured i’d just clear things up. The last version of the guide I spoke of was totally lost due to the PC it was wrote on having a complete HD failure, so all was left was a very rough version of the guide I had saved on my e-mail.
I’m due to become a father in a few weeks so I don’t have time to re-write what was lost and finish the thing (also whenever I play ST these days, I use Boxer), but I figured i’d post the most interesting parts from the “ghetto guide” and hopefully it will get people started on racking up the wins with Honda.
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Anti-Projectile Strategy
One of the major hurdles a beginner Honda player will run into is dealing with projectile spam - at the start you’ll probably think its a lost cause dealing with the random hits/block damage caused due to his size, but after a while you’ll learn how to deal with it.
First thing to know is NEVER EVER use HK Sumo Splash, that thing is serious counter bait, don’t use it.
LK Sumo Splash over projectiles from max distance away does very well if you are willing to “creep” towards your opponent - remember that patience will serve you well in the long run as all it takes is to win is 1 mistake or trapping the opponent in the corner and keeping them there.
MK Sumo Splash is very risky, especially against shotos, but if it is used once in a while it may help gain some ground if you have the health to take the risk with.
Straight Up j.HP - this is controllable, so you can move forward slightly while in the air, learning to do this is pretty essential because overuse of any type of Sumo Splash will lead to being countered all the time.
The Super - text removed due to reference to points later in the guide don’t forget about it and remember to have a back up plan if it doesn’t work correctly.
j.LK - this comes in handy since makes Honda a smaller target and seems to have pretty high priority, i’ve seen this do pretty really well against Guile in particular.
MP HHS - this isn’t avoiding the projectile par say, but if you are willing to be a man (and have the health to back it up), you can at least trade hits from a fair distance away, this can be a psychological advantage knowing you always have a way to at least trade off in the damage department.
Ill also use the MP (and sometimes HP) HHS after a straight up j.HP, this can be decent pressure against characters with longer projectile recovery time, New Ken and New Sagat being prime targets.
Another method of countering projectile spam is by simply trying to bulldog your way to the opponent - walk forward, block, repeat (and perhaps do the occastional poke now and then)… you’ll slowly but surely back your opponent up into a corner. This is, of course, a very dangerous way of getting in, as proven in one of the A-cho tournaments, it can actually get you completely owned so only use this if you have strong reactions.
As stated earlier, patience is the key against someone who knows how to use their projectiles, take your time with the confidence that you’ll eventually get in (even if it takes the whole round and nearly all your health to do it) and you should go far.
Hundred Hand Slap - which one to use?
HHS is mainly a chipper - if you go into a match thinking of using it as a primary way of dealing direct damage, your thinking the wrong strategy with Honda.
General, point blank on wider characters, chip damage is as follows:
Weak: 3 max
Medium: 5 max
Fierce: 7 max
(those numbers could be wrong - I just wrote them off the top of my head but it seems about right)
The general usage of each version is as follows:
Weak: This HHS actually has pretty good priority all round, will snuff out a decent number of moves and can be good to use randomly at the start of the round if someone gets fresh with you and attempts to jump-in (which would be suicide really, but whatever…). This can also be used as a method of fast meter building since Honda’s super is an important psychological key to winning the vs. projectile character match ups. This is also very good at point blank range on a knockdowned opponent in the corner.
Medium: This is the one I use the most, it moves Honda forward pretty fast at a reasonable distance, is very easy to learn to get the minimum 4 button press activation and does an excellent job at putting pressure on the opponent. Superb meter builder also so learn how to do this at will and watch your Honda game sky rocket. Another thing to learn is blocked c.MK into MP slaps and blocked b/f + HK into MP (or HP) slaps - this is purely pressure/chip related but a lot of people won’t have a clue how to deal with the constant barrage of low hitting normals and forward moving slaps, and since you can charge for Sumo Headbutts during the slaps, they can’t really jump forward at you either.
Fierce: Personally, I don’t use this very often - it moves Honda VERY quickly and quite far across the screen, but it always seems to put me in danger more than anything, generally i’ll use this when I want that extra couple of hits in block damage or really need to cover some ground after a knockdown, but other than that, I stick to MP slaps.
The Secrets of Mashing
Ahh, the hidden art of mashing for those Hundred Hand Slaps - what most people don’t know is there is a rule for mashing where you can actually get the move to come out in a minimum of 4 button presses.
Another rumour, which i’ll kill now is; no - you can’t piano tap for HHS - piano tapping only works with Deejay’s Machine Gun Upper.
Anyway, use this ghetto chart to see how get the minimum 4 button press HHS:
Weak: LP… LP… LP… LP
Medium: MP… MP… MP… MP
Fierce: HP.HP.HP.HP
What it quite interesting is the drastic change in tempo between the MP and HP versions of HHS - you can actually do the MP version pretty darn slow and it’ll still come out while the HP version needs to be done very fast and there doesn’t seem to be any exception except “mash fast”. If anyone can give a different view on the HP version, post it.
Stored Oochio
The nightmare move of ST… this makes Honda an iron fortress and is arguable the most broken thing in the game - learning to use and abuse this is completely essential for high level play.
Oochio is performed with a HCB + P movement right? Well, a glitch in ST makes it so Honda can store the move and use it at will - this is done by doing the HCB movement then holding onto either Back, Up-Back or Down-Back and not letting go.
Why is this technique so good? Oochio is a zero frame command throw (with no whiff animation, unlike Gief’s SPD) with decent range, which means under reversal circumstances it will beat every ground based attack in the game… period. This also means when Honda is knockdowned, he can store Oochio and basically be impossible to meaty attack.
Other plus points is the fact when your holding onto Back/Down-Back so you are essentially charging up for Sumo Headbutt and Sumo Splash while having a perfect reversal waiting. In other words, everything you want for the “tank-like” defensive is covered, if you wanted, you could also use MP and HP slaps as a way of moving forward while keeping all 3 attacks ready.
One last point; when the opponent isn’t in range for an Oochio, you can use any normal attack you wish and not lose the store.
Oochio Options
Whenever you land an Oochio (stored or not) you have a whole host of options to play with, here we go:
c.MK - this doesn’t work on all characters and i’ll update this with a list at a later date, but because Oochio does a HUGE amount of stun damage, generally, the next hit will probably dizzy the opponent.
MP HHS - this is a no brainer, the lunging slaps get chip damage for free… unless your opponent is a reversal demon they’ll most likely do the safe option and block.
c.MK > MP HHS - an extention of the above, if the c.MK doesn’t get them… the chip damage from the HHS will…
HK Sumo Splash - this will cross the opponent over and probably dizzy them if it connects.
MK Sumo Splash - just to mix up paranoia about the crossover HK Sumo Splash with a non-crossover Sumo Splash.
j-d.MK (the splash) > Oochio - this is risky but is worth it if you connect with another Oochio afterwards.
(in the corner) c.LK xx Sumo Splash - the c.LK is cancellable so it should flow like a thing of beauty for a high/low block string, can also lead to another Oochio.
(in the corner) LP HHS - like the MP HHS, chip damage for all, just watch out for those reversal throws.
(in the corner) Oochio Loop - see the next section…
B/F+HK - the sweep of doom, use if you forget the above follow ups… >_>
c.LP > Oochio - this can be done when you land an Oochio close to the corner but you still switch sides with the opponent, this is done the same way as the Oochio Loop (talked about in the next section) only you cant carry with the loop after the second Oochio hits.
Oochio Corner Loop
This is Hondas fast route to 100% victory, here is how to do it:
Step 1) Get opponent into the corner and knock them down.
Step 2) Do a point blank meaty c.LP (stand LP and c.LK are also options, but c.LP is by far the better attack).
Step 3) Oochio them when they recover from block/hit stun - this can be done by 3 methods;
By quick storing then piano tapping the Oochio - this gives 6 chances for the Oochio to connect with the opponent but also runs the risk of being reversaled by a special move easier if a normal comes out during a mistime.
By quick storing, holding down the 3 punches when the c.LP is still out, and releasing them one after the other piano style - this method cuts the number of chances for the Oochio to come out by 3, but also removes the risk of being reversaled by a special move since Honda will always block it instead.
Or by doing it normally with a brief pause between the c.LP and Oochio (like you would when doing something like Gief’s LK > SPD) - I seriously recommend not using this method at all.
Step 4) Repeat Steps 2 and 3 - the Oochio in the corner puts the opponent into perfect position for another meaty c.LP, so this is a pretty easy loop to learn.
While this trick is pretty nasty, it can (like anything else) be escaped by reversals - I generally don’t recommend using this against characters with access to a hold rather than a throw since at least if you get reversal thrown while attempting this, odds are you can tech out of it for minimal damage… unlike most holds while lead to a whole load of pain even if you escape quickly.
To make things easier, here is a list of characters that you should not attempt the Oochio Loop on unless you are feeling brave and have the health to spare:
Dhalsim, Boxer, Blanka, T-Hawk and (New) Ken
T-Hawk, Gief and Honda (obviously) can also use their own command grabs to get out the loop
When doing the loop, I recommend mixing it up with LP slaps, Sumo Splashes and LP Sumo Headbutts to keep the opponent from thinking twice when trying to reversal throw you - of course, this is still open to something like a reversal DP, but mixing up your options even when it might not be needed will keep your Honda from being predictable.
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That’s all i’m posting up for now, if you guys enjoyed these bits of the guide I might clean up other sections and post them up in time - feedback and criticism is welcome, thanks for taking the time to read all that.
This was very well done, basic but well done. I only disagreed with one thing in this guide and that was the RH Buttsmash. This is one of the biggest tricks Honda has in his arsenal. There are a few things you can use it for, by changing your timing of when you go over FBs this will change where you are after the FB passes under you. Since you go so high in the Air it gives you more opportunities to get over them. IF my opp is full screen its a nice trick to get your opp to try and reversal this move. I will do and early RH Smash over a FB just landing after the FB lands under me. IF i do it late the odds of it being countered are much higher but it will prevent a Crh from a Ken and Ryu if they are used to seeing you do it early. Changing up tactics while using RH Smash are a must. Also if they try and counter this move in the air and they do a jumping forward move to counter you, they just put themselves(when they land) in range of an ochio or a M buttsmash. Remember the Short buttsmash cannot go through FBs when they are point blank. At the start of a round if your opp starts the round with a FB you can counter with Med BS to go through the FB and get a knock down on the way up. …that is the range im talking about when they try and counter your RH Buttsmash. So they essentially took FB out of there armory until they retreat a bit farther back.
One of the things i loved was one of the first comments about taking block damage. (Yes get used to it. ) taking hits is also necessary if you are to get inside. especially the full screen Super through FB even though a great reversal player can counter it, this will get you into range again. Another thing i was suprised about was that you did not mention the whiff super into oichio.
some times you will notice that when Honda does his Super it will only connect 2 times on a random basis, this is not bad if you always prepare for it. If after you do the super motion and hit your last forward motion roll it backwards to the DB position and repress the button and hold it while you are still in the super itself. when/ IF you whiff with only 2 hits of the super release or redo the motion/button of the oichio and get devestating damage from the two hits of the super and linking into the oichio throw.
That’s…really interesting, and makes a lot of sense. Perhaps there’s some tweaking of our strategies in the Ryu and Ken matchups as well, to keep from getting quite so spanked?
Yes ive seen this before, but very rarely. Bob Painter used a similar strategy with Honda. This works great until your opponent adjusts like all top level players will do. This will work great on high level players but not for very long, and low level players why bother. Another strategy is to bear hug then walk under neath as they land and play some games that way as well. much like the Balrog thingee.
well, damn… sorry i posted.
but walking underneath is way too risky. you usually can be reversal thrown before you truly get underneath, and your chances of attacking the wrong way after walking underneath is very high.
it was a legit post… sometimes using stuff that is not usually used can be effective. but just don’t over use it . finding a way of mixing up two different patterns in the same situation can be a great advantage.
What? C’mon, don’t take it too personally. People can express diffent opinions, that is part of posting on a forum! :wgrin:
Keep posting.
I don’t think honda ment his reply as an attact.
There are tons of people who play tons of different chracters. When it comes to mid/lower tier characters such as Honda (sorry Honda fans :lovin:), there are tons of differnt ways to approaching things b/c there is no single dominate tactic they can exibit to get out of problematic situations… hence being low tier.
People want to hear what other have to say as long as their not speaking out thier @$$.
yes exactly! So much has been uncovered in ST over the past many years. Its tough to come up with something never seen before. i haven’t seen that thing in a long time. in fact i re-learn stuff every tourney i enter. half the time i forget things i have seen 6-7 years prior. Its nice to see people actually taking the time to experiment with things.
A while back, Apoc posted jokingly that (and I paraphrase) among the old school players, ST tournaments were no longer about who was the best, but who had forgotten the least. Forgetting matchups and general memory loss is evidently a serious hurdle for the 30 and older crowd 
ST discussions are cyclical. Skilled and devoted players come along, drop a few knowledge bombs, and after a time fade from the scene due to real life obligations or lack of interest. Newer players pay attention, take up the reins, and make important contributions. But there’s no central repository of ST knowledge. Before experimenting with something “new,” a player can’t consult the big book of ST and realize that “Honda bear hug in the corner followed by a properly timed c.RH crosses up” has already been discovered. So, for better or worse, new player or old, we reinvent lots of really cool wheels with spinners.
Wow…Bob Painter. I wish I had played his Honda more. I’m guessing he “retired” from the SF scene much like Milo did. I knew those cats personally, BTW. You got me reminiscin’ about the old days.
Anyway, I would think that if you’re bear hugging with Honda, you probably got it by accident and any shenanigans you pull after that should be geared toward landing the Ouchio Throw. Am I crazy?
Hmm got me thinking of some mess with that bear hug stuff… bear hug walk forward do Standing low RH which will cross-up then go and try for oichio. blah… i rarely use the bear hug unless i’m trying to counter throw a certain characters throw. I have found out that i can counter throw certain characters throws with certain throws. so if Ken tries to do low short into a leg throw i should use leg throw to counter that, not his bear hug or MP throw. I do not think it has anything to do with the game mechanics but it seemed to work a lot for me in the past. perhaps it was just psychological.
Two questions:
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Is Hondas jab headbutt ALWAYS safe to use as an anti-air? Is there stuff that beats it?
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Does O.Honda have a different throw range than N.Honda? I remember watching a vid where an O.Honda tor up a couple of guys using alot of kneebashing (RH right?) throws, one of the guys played Boxer and almost never threw the Honda back.
While your statement makes sense, in my personal experience against one of Europe’s top Ryu and Chun players, as well as some pretty good Deejay and Guile players, RH Sumo Splash is an absolutely awful move in general and often lead to me eating damage for free.
The only time I’ll personally use RH Sumo Splash is for some crossover trickery, i’ll never use it for anti-projectile purposes.
Like I said, that’s just my personal view on the move - if other people want to keep it in their arsenal, it’s all good.
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Jab Headbutt is invincible on start-up so theory wise, it beats everything - the trick is learning the timing to use the start-up (which is an attack all on it’s own) to anti-air, not the actual torpedo itself.
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I’m fairly sure that Old and New Honda’s normal throws share the same grab range. Without seeing the video myself, i’m taking a guess that the reason why the Boxer couldn’t throw back is because, iirc, Honda’s normal throw range is larger than Boxer’s.
Hondas Jab Head butt is like RWD said “invincible on start up”. But you must watch for early jumps and far jumps which will effectively make your JHB worthless and very vulnerable. As far as i know the throw ranges are the same. You also can be throw out of the JHB by things such as Gief and Thawks 360’s. Early jump by Zangief then 360 = death for Honda.
Dj cannot defend against the RH smash his recovery is too slow, Guile however can, Chunli cannot recover in time either. Ryu and Ken yes they are fast enough. Remember i don’t mean that they cannot recover as in they will be hit by the RH splash, they all can block it, just some block at different stages of the move. DJ and Chun can block but countering it is tough. Guile can just jump away. Ryu and Ken can DP it. Also it all has to do with anticipation of the move as well.