1

So I didn’t know where to put this so I just decided here. I have only used Balrog and I have managed to get him to a B rank and over 2000 pp. I have kind of hit a wall in skill right now per say. It could be one of many factors but I just wanted a bigger insight on this.

2

I can’t speak for Balrog, specifically, since I tried him and just cannot get a grasp on him, but in general I’d say you should be more on the defense, make the other guy come to you, take advantage of your extremely fast jabs to maintain a bit of space in close or to punish on wakeup, try to eliminate any extra jumps you don’t need, perfect your timing so you can get your combos down.

I’ve found myself repeatedly fighting people at your level as a Vega and Oni at about 1800 BP, and around 1000 pp, and when I find myself winning, or getting damn close, it’s usually because they’re just not educated about what I can do. Then again, the ones who stomp me into the ground are those who are able to just shove me into a corner in 5 seconds by rushing down my Vega. So I should probably use the same advice I gave you.

Oh, and try to avoid doing anything 3 times in a row. Most of the time. Like, if you use a meaty jab on their wakeup twice, wait a bit before doing it again. Or, every so often, do it a third time, to keep them from figuring out your patterns.

3

Whether you mean it or not, this is pretty much troll bait.

pp isn’t really much indicator of how you should be playing. a bunch of dumb shit can be relatively effective online due to subpar netcode. If you want be successful online, all you really need is:

  1. a reliable anti-air
  2. a decent punish
  3. a reliable/decent hit confirm
  4. an idea of how to use them and not kill yourself trying

Those four things will get you far online.

If you really want to know how good you are, look for people locally to play with. Online sucks.

4

If we want to be successful offline don’t we need those things as well, though?

5

You can still practice online effectively as long as you play the match ups as if you were playing them in a offline scenario. So for example someone who continually try’s to jump over fireballs might get away with one or two per match online but in reality you’d be dead offline. If you practice good habits they carry over, equally if you practice bad habits they will carry over too.

PP doesn’t mean anything but as a rough guide someone between 2000-3000 PP usually means (not always) they are a basic player that only has a limited range. Probably a few combo’s, decent reaction and average footsie’s. If you want to push on to the next level you have to put frame traps and set up’s into your game, like safe jumps and counter hit combo’s. You also have to learn to bait reversals and unsafe moves. Your frame data knowledge should be almost flawless for every character.

6

WOW you just described me as a player and I’m in the 2000 pp range… Can you explain how 3-4k and 5k+ players play?

7

Yeah i get what he means, most people don’t like it when you use PP to judge skill, but to be honest every time i see a guy with 3,000 PP, he play’s exactly how i would expect. Then anyone who play the game serious enough to reach 4500PP or higher must actually have skill behind the numbers, if they could deal with online bull shit all day, as funny as that sounds. Just the way highland broke down 2,000-3,000PP, you can also break down an alt’s skill level. ( Alt meaning a good player on an alternative low PP account for whatever reason) After the match you can kind of still guess how much PP he might probably have on his main account ( That is unless of course, he’s an endless battle warrior), based on what you saw from the match you just played. Where am i going with this -_-

8

PP doesnt matter
look you can even have 6k PP and play like this…

9

Hmm a scene OG vs one of the top Yun’s in the world playing casual non serious online matches… But i get what you are saying…

10

The question itself is even more troubling for me with this response. Personally, I agree that this quote is a good, general description of how you can expect an average person of that level to play. However, I’ve only come close to 2000pp, and always have immediately lost B rank when achieving it. For 4 years of playing on and off, I’ve hovered between a low of 600-700 pp, and a high of 1500-1900 pp. I believe my reaction is decent, I bait reversals, my footsies are decent, and I have a general knowledge of combos. But when it comes to winning consistently I’m anything but consistent. I’m that guy who steals 100+ pp from someone higher, then donates it away to the charity players everyone else can stomp. I have no real sub, only playing Makoto all of this time.

I believe execution is a factor, but not in a basic sense. Can you not mess up things that will get you punished for? For example, I get someone in Makoto’s corner combo, and I miss the fukiage. They stand up and punish me big on my dropped combo. With little mistakes that cost a lot like this, winning consistently is a sad joke.

When you lose a match, do you know why you lost? Do you generally blame yourself for losing, or do you think you are beat? If you can blame yourself and see the mistakes you made, then you can correct them.

Another thing that I think of is pressure game. How well can you tolerate pressure from an opponent? With your back to the wall, low on health, can you still fight back without cracking? Pressure game s another way I’d rate how good someone is. Knowledge of match ups, and confidence in your skill with your character is a big factor in this to me.

I automatically assume that people with around 2000pp are at least average in those few things.

But long story short, I don’t believe pp is always an accurate way to judge skill. However, it does irk me to know that certain people are winning more than I am when I know the amount of effort I put into the game. I know why I haven’t become a 2000pp player. I make dumb execution errors that get me executed, I have difficulty dealing with certain match ups, and sometimes I get spooked and give up momentum that’s in my favor. Oh…and my biggest sin: not blocking or teching throws when I believe that I am…but I can stuff that into execution as well.

11

LilB, you didn’t hit a wall…
Right now you have very few fundamental flaws.

  1. You have to learn about ranges and different angles of attack
  2. You have to learn safe pressure (don’t get it confused with baiting, you bait well, but pressure unsafely)…
  3. You have to learn how to hold a life lead
  4. You have to learn how to wiff punish
  5. You have to learn the percentages of life in which it makes sense to do things and when it no longer makes sense…

If you learn these in the order presented (we can have a practice session if you have any trouble with any of the concepts) you will have graduated fundamentals school and would have to begin practicing character and a player specific strategies. I’m learning the character specific stuff as I just about finished the player specific stuffs.

Here is a check list of everything you have learned BTW…

  1. Anti Air game
  2. Max damage and confirmation comboing
  3. Poking (forcing jumps)
  4. Offense on opponent’s wake up
  5. Defense on wake up (knowing not to always headbutt)
  6. Cornering opponents and avoiding corners
  7. Not rushing the match

These few things took you from 500-800 to 2200. Finish the the last 5 points and you be around 3000. Character and player specific stuff will take you to 4000 and up. The rest will be you, your game and how much you train yourself from that point…

12

How can I learn #1 and #5??

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How to learn #1
Ranges and angles involve going to training mode and programming the dummy to do stuff while trying to counter it. 2 examples: 1. I play ryu so vs ken, (if I want to shut down his step kick) beyond max step kick range I want to do standing punches, but once ken and ryu trade or ryu beats him clean, its time to go to crouching punches because no matter what they connect with, afterwards I’m no longer at a range where the angle can beat step kick, I have to stuff it on start up. 2. If I’m playing ryu vs adon and I bait an ex wall kick, I could try to shoryuken it. But I can do more damage if I jump back and do a full jump in combo on him. Not only that, but if I get baited back, its safer than wiffing shoryuken. The angle of his attack lets me choose a punish that does heavy damage and is relatively safe to most variables that would arise from that situation.

You can also just go to a character match up thread and post a situation, someone will give you a great answer.

How to learn #5
Common sense and planning is pretty much all you need. At the beginning of the match, you can test your opponent and sent him messages. You can jump in on your opponent to see if they anti air. You can mash dp on their pressure to send the message that if you try to perform illegitimate pressure on me you will pay. If your opponent doesn’t have meter and you have plenty of life, you may want to risk a heavy offensive. When you have no life and you are on wake up, fuck it, sometimes wake up ultra is the correct answer. Desperate times are for desperate actions. But remember one thing, you have to figure out what you want to do before you are in the match. This is a gameplan you are following, each match up is different so your actions will be different depending on who you are fighting. 2 examples 1. ryu vs zangeief I am not supposed to jump at zangief for this match up because one jump can equal death. I fireball and retreat until I start getting close to the wall but I’m not there yet. Zangief has really been waiting to kill me at the wall and his chance is coming soon. I have plenty of life (85%) while he is at about half. If I make it to the other side of zangief he will not be able to corner me before he dies. At this point its a 50 50, either I get to the other side or he gets his knockdown and vortex. This is when I choose to make some attempt to jump or hurricane or fadc a fireball so i can dash under a jumping zangief or whatever, because if he corners me I die anyway, the risk is now worth the win… 2. I just got destroyed by a blanka, I have 3 meters and I’m on wake up. I know that he is going to cross me up to electricity for the chip. Normally wake up dp is bad because he is probably frame perfect with his cross over and has some type of option select. Wake up ultra or dp is fucking fine, at this point you are already dead, you have nothing to lose, go for it. Maybe a missed input or shock factor in what you did will catch him by surprise, just go for it.

You can also post what situations you are losing and someone will hook you up with a reasonable answer if not the best answer…