Right now my biggest problem is was not using my normal’s enough. I just used Cr.Hk. lately I have been incorporating St.Hk and St.Hp more in my matches, I have seen some positive results but still need to fine tune it in when is the best time to throw them any other help would be useful as i wish to get better. You see I’m good at anti air but after reviewing many matches I seen my opponents talk up to me more and more. I’m so focused in them jumping that by the time I react I’m usually too late. But i have also been using the normal’s in other ways as well, but as i said before any other experiences i could get help with would be excellent
Use far standing HP sparingly. Roundhouse is quicker though a bit less range, so generally a better option.
So i check online and i saw this for the changes of balrog Not sure if this is old but i have a question
Among the changes was
-Violent Buffalo (UC1) last hit changes to a straight when holding P, uppercut when holding K; 4th and 5th hits no longer unconnect during combos
My main question is The Violent Buffalo Ultra 1 change, The last part that confuses me is 4th and 5th hits no longer unconnect during combos. Does this mean that the ultra combo will always do more damage with more hits? I’m just confused in how this works and which way? I would honestly love a detailed explanation on how this works, and by that not just a yes or no lol
From Jav1ts explanation, I believe it only matters for when you hit a fully grounded U1. If you recall sometimes when you hit dash ultra the last (most damaging part) will whiff because it must be an upper, now it can be a straight, so that dash ultra can be all straights and always connect. You’ll still need to use uppers for the juggle though. (Video Reference)
TYVM 3nigmat1c
Sweet, Either way this is a buff, This will make us more dangerous vs fireball characters now, Obviously before Ultra 1 was nice but you still needed to be around medium range for all the hits to connect unless you felt like getting hit with an ultra because the last hit always missed.
All the buffs hes getting is amazing
After playing AE for a month getting my fundamentals straight with ryu and akuma, i’ve decided to main Balrog because he fits my style of play the most. 2 questions:
When and how should I use TAP?
Is there a specific timing with Balrog’s specials when I charge buffer?
You should use TAP sparingly, at low level you can use it to shuttle him around the screen with a hitbox and maintain your down+back charge. It should be something you work into your knockdown game alot to build meter (both TAP and rush upper/dash straight). But generally you should use it as a pressure tool when your opponent can’t do much about it and/or when they’re not punishing it.
Charge buffer…you mean do a charge move? (if not please correct me), it’s about one second to get enough down/back charge to perform a special.
Hey 3nig, I’m having a lot of trouble with balrogs footsies. I use jab to cr.roundhouse mainly, but idk hot to implement other moves besides roundhouse for which I use for whif punishes.
Use your knowledge of the move u want to wiff punish. Example, sagat throws a standing hk and you’re out of range you’ll want to likely standing jab hit extended hitbox canceled into a jab straight. makoto mp because its highly active and low recovery low jabs itno shit is the best wiff punish(though i prefer sticking active normals in her face to make her stop pressing buttons forever). almost any normal has uses. low strong can be canceled into something on reaction if you’re good at looking for it. sky is the limit!
Punishing is just a little part of it though, I wan’t to be able to never leave the ground unless I see otherwise. My ground to ground game rely’s almost on dash straight, jump fierce, tap, dash low, and sweep/st. roundhouse. I want to be able to just strike fear into my opponent just with normals, and walking forward.
Getting back into the game on a more serious level, haven’t really pursued SF4 as a “main game” since SSF4. So while I might be behind, I’m tryna to pick it up quick and do my best to see what I can do at the next couple tournaments. Just have a couple questions though to see what I need to do.
-What are Boxer’s hard 6-4’s or 7-3’s? What match-ups do I really need to work on, and really understand to do well in? I heard Seth and Sim are pretty rough, but I just want to see what characters I need to look out for. Similar mini question, I don’t have any garbage match-ups right? I kind of just want to stick with Boxer, so it would kinda suck to hear that a character exists that just auto wins against him.
-So I stunned the opponent and I do this combo.
J.HK, S.HK, S.LP, Dash Upper (EX if I have it than link after it etc)
Is this okay?
-Watching a lot of PR Rog, I notice after a HB knockdown or something like that he does J.HK reaally early in the jump arc and comes down on the ground. How does this work? Is it some voodoo mixup or a safe jump? OS? Let me know please 
-Any universal OS’, safe jumps, or silliness I should start doing to get me started?
Thanks in advance!
Matchups:
Weird question for me to answer, I force myself to believe every matchup is 10-0 to Balrog. If I lose, it’s my fault.
That said, seth is probably the hardest but not an auto win for him by any means. Sim is actually good for Balrog atm because you can afford to lose a lot of life to get in.
Combo:
It’s not optimal but it’s ok, cr.mp instead of the s.lp is better but harder link. you might not want to go into ex.ru loop off stun depending on the scaling, if you did a big combo to start the stun you probably just want to do j.hk s.hk s.lp cr.hk.
headbut mixup:
yep, depending on character and spacing you can land on either side as a kind of cross up. it’s been around a long time.
Universal OS:
The most important one is cr.lp -> cr.lp + cr.hk
the idea being on block or hit you get cr.lp into cr.lp, if they backdash and your first cr.lp wiffs then you’ll get cr.hk to punish the backdash.
3nig will correct any of this cause he’s the labcoat master but yeh.
Footsies are difficult to describe. Read Maj’s guides on footsies (http://sonichurricane.com/?page_id=1702). Footsies are about controlling space primarily. Balrog uses all of his buttons in his ground game. ALL of them. My opinion is that you need to understand how your (balrog’s) and opponents hurtboxes look as they recover. You’ll also need to have a good idea of what buttons your opponents have and when they want to use them, and how you can put yourself in a situation where you can use your buttons safely, but they can’t OR they have to take some really hardcore risks. For example. Ryu Blocks a cr.hk, his cr.mk is out of range, so you have the button priority, your cr.mk and st.mk will beat his cr.mk, You can jab to bait or walk forward cr.hk again. To beat your cr.hk, he has to walk forward cr.mk or attempt to dp your sweep. He can also use focus attack whether that’s just a dash forward or a release. So forth and so on, you can also take into account his meter to attempt to whittle down what he might want to do or when he’s more likely to take risks (e.g. ryu has three bars, he can get U1 off of cr.hk).
You can also use focus attack to freeze your opponent in place if they’re blocking (proximity blocking). It’s really useful against charge characters since it allows you a moment to advance when you opponent can’t, its incredibly slight, but enough to be useful (Zangief uses this a lot).
@polenykes, good info.
Balrog has some difficult matchups, most are either 6-4 or 4-6 or 5-5, Seth and Akuma are probably the worst ones. The others really depend on your matchup knowledge, playstyle and the opponent. You should work on ALL matchups. But if you want a list, you should just look into what characters generally win tournaments for the ones you should be REALLY knowledgeable on, but remember that the characters not represented in top 8 are generally in pools, so you want to be the one who makes them lose so you should learn ALL matchups (fyi i don’t know them all).
yeh, there’s a headbutt mixup (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20617091/hb_mxups_2012.pdf) Only current to 2012 afaik, check out the full spreadsheet (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20617091/char_spec.xlsx) Not a safe jump, can be made safe with a delay.
Universal O/S, like polenykes said, meaty jab o/s sweep is a universal. There are others though. Read/Watch: https://archive.supercombo.gg/discussion/141486/sf4-game-mechanics-option-selects
So I just started playing online after learning the basics, but I’m having problems in certain areas.
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Jump ins - So when I attempt to do j.hk to start a combo, my opponent does a focus attack. Every time I do this, I cannot block the FA response and results in a crumple. First, does my opponent already have a lvl 2 FA by the time I hit him, resulting in the crumple? Am I hiting him too early, therefore I’m not landing and can’t block the FA? In these cases, I’m jumping and then they start to Focus.
On the other hand, if they start to focus, and then I jump in, will it be an automatic lvl 2 or 3 FA when I hit them? -
After getting a hard knockdown on my opponent. What is Balrog’s best options? I’ve tried the following
1) - jab pressure on wakeup to try to get in a throw
2) - Cross up option
For the first scenario, I usually get reversed dp’d on wakeup. On the second scenario, since I’ve crossed my opponent up, I lose any buffering charge and can’t really perform a decent damaging combo. Opponents also tend to throw me when I do a cross up, so right now all I do is move back to roughly sweep range and go from there, but there must be better options. Lastly, I also fight a lot of opponents who just neutral jump on wakeup. Is the best option to just AA that with c.hp? -
The third thing I find hard is pressuring my opponent. I feel like I’m playing a really lame style where I look for opportunities to deal damage off of unsafe moves, rather than creating my own chances. A lot of balrogs I see are very aggressive, but I can’t seem to do that because I’m scared of being punished. What could I do to fix this?
Thanks for the help!
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If I jump in and I see a focus I don’t press anything and block unless they’re going for a lvl 3 for which I cr.lk or cr.lp them out of it. Focus attacks are all timing, if you hit them I don’t think the attack moves up a level but I’m not sure.
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Cr.lp for a meatie is a good option, but not always at low level play, and doing it predictably. Low level players tend to mash Srk on wake up so it gets stuffed. Also when you jump over are you just empty jumping or doing something? I would’t recommend doing that much unless if it’s a charge character, or just going for strange mix ups to throw them off. If they neutral cr.hp, and lp headbutt are your best options, you could always focus but that’s risky.
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Rog doesn’t need to play aggressive to always win, patience is a virtue. I usually just walk forward trying scare my opponent, if they run I take the hint they don’t like balrog pressure, so I get in with TAP, walk, or headbutt ( If safe).
This is a good example for applying pressure safely without killing yourself. ( I imagine 3nigmat1c, or pr balrog have better footage but for the sake of time i’m usuing this.)
- IF you’re getting focused attack successfully it generally means one of two things: you’re jumping really predictably because they can charge up to lvl2 and releasing it as you touch the ground or you’re pressing something as soon as you land like jab. The absorb animation/hit stop does some things that don’t quite make sense (you’ll notice that generally you always get hit by focus attacks released as you land after absorbing a hit). So if they release as you land, don’t press anything. If someone focus backdashes a lot, land, hold forward and press st.hp, cr.hk after a short delay.
2)After knockdown, build meter and sit. You can spend some time figuring out how your opponent deals with throws and use that to open them up. e.g. they stand-tech, so shimmy (walk forward, then backwards out of throw range and do cr.mp xx special), they crouch-tech, so frame trap, they just sit there, throw. Look at their meter, if they have meter what can they do with it (e.g. rufus has three bars, you shouldn’t apply any laggy pressure outside of jab because of ex.messiah). At a high level it’s almost impossible to open people up with Balrog. Only time you should be attempting to cross people up is after a teched knockdown with headbutt. Otherwise you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.
This may help: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL465EB3F77ED8C007
3)You have to have some level of aggression with playing Balrog, if you don’t eventually you’ll find his holes and you’ll lose (a lot). Balrog has to maintain control of the match and a lot of that has to do with pressure if your opp doesn’t make mistakes.
Recently got B rank with rog on PSN… I’ve found my biggest weakness is defence (particularly crossups) and proper pressure with rog? Tips anyone? I had a terrible ranked session today. From 5200 BP and 1700 PP to 4700 BP and 1200 PP -_-
I’m still figuring it out, but think of it this way: if someone jumps on you from “neutral” they have like 30+ frames to start the jump and then perform the jump-in. You have plenty time to either cr.hp (8f) st.mp (7f) or headbutt (8-12f). You have plenty of time to anti-air from neutral. Don’t be afraid to trade,it’s generally in your favor, especially if its a j.mk cross-up. you can also use cl.hp for cross-ups too if you’re timing is really good. Trust in your cr.hp and figure out how to use cr/st.lp as a defensive tool, it’s almost impossible to react to since its 10f total.
It also may make sense to approach a matchup from a spacing potential. e.g. I’m playing evil Ryu, i want to STAY out of his cr.mk range, so i get just at the tip of my cr.hk range. I stay in that range the whole match and/or walk him to the corner, he can’t press any buttons or he has to do something incredibly ridiculous to get in on me. If he jumps i can AA and all i have to worry about is his dive kick which can change trajectory. Play to boxer’s strengths and control the ground.
Start there and improve your defense.
Many thanks nigmatic… there’s just one thing on my mind… how should balrog be played across all levels of play? I feel like I play way too aggressive or is it just me?