I was playing an Akuma online (I was playing Ken) who had this totally fixation on jumping in and going for crossups. I got him a few times with anti airs but my question is let’s say I miss the window of opportunity to shoryuken, how would I deal with an opponent who’s jumping in? Also as far as wakeup options are concerned if I’m pressuring an opponent how do I more confidently/safely anticipate whether or not they’re gonna wake up with a SRK or something? Sometimes I guess right but sometimes I guess wrong and get uppercutted in the face. I feel like at this point in my playing dealing with a grounded opponent is a guessing game for me.
- Dash forward or block.
- You can’t safely say if someone does this or that. It’s a gamble and people who can read opponents well, guess wrong less often.
Crossups
Ken his go to anti-air is his MP Shoryuken, it doesn’t go straight up so whenever someone goes for a crossup there is a big fat chance it’ll whiff. You can delay the uppercut at the very absolute last second and input the shortcut version of your uppercut to get a auto-correct shoryuken. However this autocorrect shoryuken mainly works against bad crossup attempts. There are a few things you can do to stop an opponent that is obsessed with crossup attempts:
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[] Stand at a space where he can’t go for crossup but can only land in front of you, this way you can always try to uppercut him.
[] Go air to air with him, so jump neutral or jump back with an attack. If you are getting beat out try a light attack as they are the fastest in startup.
[*] Use the focus to dash away at the last moment. When someone jumps over you and they are almostto the other side, perform the focus, hold it until you see an absorb and dash away.
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Reversals
The dreaded “will they uppercut or not” is one of the biggest and most annoying guessing games games in USFIV. The problem is if you are playing a smart player or a dumb player. And even then, a smart player might uppercut also. Best way to deal with this is to go for setups that make the shoryuken whiff. Ken has some common setups which can be performed after either a throw or an shoryuken. Look up some vids of good players(Momochi, Michael-Tan, Chris Tatarian) and see which setups they run and practice them in training mode. Player 1 is the character you want to try the setup against, player 2 does the setup. IN training you record the setup with player 2(Ken) and you, player 1(Akuma or any other character) will perform a reversal and see if it whiffs, gets beaten or actually connects.
Keep in mind what options the opponent has on their wakeup with and without meter, also are they close to stun or not, which might make the more prone to do a reversal. Are they in need of a comeback and do they have meter, if yes they might be more likley to do an uppercut. If they don’t have meter and a lot of life and you also don’t have a lot of meter they might do a shoryuken because they know you cannot punish them hard etc etc. All these factors can determine if the player wants to do a shoryuken. Beginners simply want you to stop pressuring them regardless if it is smart or not to do a shoryuken.
A few good options for grounded pressure are to perform a delayed meaty attack, this way you block the shoryuken and you get a chance at pressuring your opponent from the ground. This gets beaten however if the opponent does a wakeup throw immediately. Or if they press an attack immediately, this opens the window for them to go on the offense. nother option is standing a bit out of range from their throw range, this way you can still pressure lightly and their wakeuup light attacks will whiff as do their throw attempts. If you backdash at last second a few times on their wakeup you give the message that you are trying to bait them, so they might now be less inclined to do a shoryuken on wakeup.
Another way to deal with shoryuken mashers during your blockstrings is to do chain attacks, chains are light attacks that cancel into eachother. These chains are airtight and after blocking the first normal they cannot do anything. You cna do chain of 2-3 attacks and just block and see if they are mashing or not.
Anyway, i agree that in USFIV it can often feel that the agressor isn’t at an advantage at all, even if he has gotten a knockdown.
He’s talking about cross up’s when he’s waking up, those deep meaty ones that land at center of your head, where sometimes not even the person doing the cross up is sure where he/she is going to land, but has an idea where he/she might land. I’m a huge fan of this mix up, and hate easy mode shoryuken characters. You already have a cheap 3 frame reversal man, but that doesn’t mean it will get you out of every situation or else i’d be playing Ken too.
Block, focus dash, and auto correct DP are pretty much your main options.
If he likes to crossup, block crossup. As far as reversals are concerned, respect the wakeup at the beginning, figure out if he’s DP happy, then keep respecting it until he stops DPing on wakeup. That or you could do sick crossup setups that get beaten by autocorrect DP.