I honestly have no idea how you Seth players manage, I’ve been maining Gen and Adon since super and picked up dictator in ae and I’ve always felt the need to have some form of footsie control. Seth is really solid and I’d love to be able to play him well but how do you people get around doing high risk mixups without the fear of getting mashed out on and losing 1/3 of your health? ex. lets say I’m going for a jab, jab, spd, how do you NOT get reversaled in between the gap of the jab and spd? you’d think that after playing super gen (a.k.a. weak old man) up until now I’d be able to pick up Seth, I’m not complete ass with Seth but my viper is more solid however playing viper feels routined and boring imo so I’d rather play Seth.
High risk high reward. If you don’t do high risk mixups, you lose the match 
And it’s as simple as baiting. If they’re mashing DP after your jabs, you do the best mixup of all, you block and punish. And yeah Viper in general is more “solid”, because her stamina isn’t as low and her mixups aren’t as risky. I do think Seth has better normals than her, though.
it gets difficult when playing offline though because the person sitting next to me can hear my stick and judge whether i block or srk/spd (atleast that’s what i’ve noticed from personal experience) how do you people manage when playing offline?
map 3p to nothing and press it a lot
I’ve learned to press buttons quieter when playing offline, and I’ve found it to be very effective
Hit the buttons louder and never stop hitting them. Check out poongko on excellent adventures for a good example or any vid with his input display on.
And I’m not saying just mash everything. You’ll notice he keeps tapping buttons while special moves are being performed. It takes practice but you eventually develop a rhythm.
And when doing combos really hit the buttons EVERY TIME you do the combo. If you make sure each button press is a definite action/movement you’ll develop muscle memory, then no more dropping combos in high pressure situations. Not only does it make you feel more confident but you’ll seem confident and well practiced which can have an effect on the person sitting beside you. ( wink wink if they think you know what your doing then either through fear or respect they’re less likely to constantly mash out that DP, which is what will help you with your jab jab SPD problem)
p.s but always remember, as very wisely pointed out above, block + whiff punish can always be your most devastating option!
I am the alrighty Bison!
Appreciate the help guys! (keep the tips/advices coming because they’re actually useful)
Not trying to sound stupid or anything but could you elaborate on that because I got confused lol. Also, even though there’s 100+ guides on how to play Seth (which in my opinion, I’m somewhat capable of if we’re talking plinks, basic combos/punishes, when to tandem engine etc ((it’s more the overall gameplan that I’m messing up)) ) but is there anything that YOU’d like to recommend, like a thread or whatever that you personally consider to be really helpful.
he means just press a fuck ton of buttons during the combo. in all honesty this does not help much, most players do it simply out of random habits (some players like to press buttons during ultra combos, some do it during the pre-fight, some do it during animations, some do it out of habit from marvel, etc…) sometimes it is a method to help with timing. it doesn’t really do much from stopping your opponent from reading you though (helps during prefight but only sometimes.)
that’s why mapping one of the macros to nothing helps a lot. you can do the stick motion and press it and nothing will happen. sometimes you can just start mashing and hit the no function a lot and people will stop, thinking you’re going to do it. but if you’re getting spied on from the corner of someone’s eye / heard doing a motion before you actually spd someone, you’re doing spd motions waaay too slow or aren’t moving around enough.
alternatively you could just buy one of the new silent buttons/sticks, which is a google click away. this will more or less stop audio cues. if people keep eyeing your stick and you’re paranoid you can just, well, sit farther from them or some shit. or do it korean style and put something between you two.
getting a feel of when to do spd/dp and os is something that nobody can really tell you. it’s a learning experience and good players are going to try to do what you don’t expect them to. if someone is forcing a 50/50 situation with dp or jump back when you do a block string, you wait and os dp them in return until they stop. or just do a chain and bait it out. or let them jump and u1 them as they fall. lot of options really. people hate on seth’s 7f inv mainly because it forces them to stop playing stupid. it’s all about conditioning.
Well by ‘really’ hitting the buttons I don’t mean hitting more buttons during a combo. Just make sure you hit the buttons with the same velocity and rhythm every time. Hitting it harder just helps you with the rhythm. And if you make the conscious effort to do that every time especially in actual fights it will help with muscle memory and just your own ability to nail them consistently.
I am the alrighty Bison!
appreciate it guys!
Let me get this right. You’re asking how people who pick one of the top 3 or 4 players in the game “manage”? “How do you guys muster the courage and commitment to pick up a top tier character?” Really admire and marvel at that, fellas. Seriously ya’all. Respek."
Your post is hilarious.
why the 3p and not 3k? there’s only one move that uses 3k and it’s ex legs, as opposed to 3p which is used by about half a dozen of moves.
I’m doing my best to decipher what you’re trying to say (I’m guessing you think I actually admire Seth players even though I was only asking for help) but it’s difficult to understand you when you’ve got salt running through your veins.
I am literally admitting the fact that Seth is top tier and asking for help because even though he’s one of the best effort is still required to be able to play him.
Make sure your opponent is scared to press buttons during a blockstring. People will Dp you when the opportunity presents itself, then again you could all was stop their dp with your own since you can do low lk into DP.
The key thing with seth, is you want your opponent to be scared to do stuff, like once youve spd’d someone 2 times on their wakeup, change it into a dp because you not only should have the meter to fadc out, but they are most likely to jump to avoid the spd, giving you a free mixup if you choose to do headstomps into dive kicks
You have to be take absolutely ridiculous, unsafe risks and shield yourself from getting exposed by playing solid just enough to frustrate the opponent and conceal your true intentions.
You don’t have time to condition an opponent in a short tournament set. You have to know every single thing the opponent is capable of doing and anticipate their potential responses.
You don’t HAVE to do an SPD or an SRK in blockstrings. The fact that you have these options completely changes the match just based on the their threat.
I don’t ever try to get into a linear guessing game with Seth, like SPD/SRK mixups. I get to decide when and how you have to guess. Being hard to read is the most essential skill as a Seth player. Part of that is using all of your options. Part of that is shifting gears in the middle of the match.
As an example, let’s take SPD ticks. An opponent who doesn’t understand Seth will get SPD’d a lot. However, lots of players will put themselves out there and call out an SPD tick with a neutral jump because you lose if they guess right. All Seth has to do to beat this is nothing. You can just see them jump and anti-air them with HP SRK or U1. The opponent has better options for countering you, like backdashing, but you have other ways to blow them up for that. If you go for a crossup off a cr.lp and they backdash, you get pressure at least, even if your jump doesn’t punish (unless they uppercut on reaction here, I would put money that they don’t even at the highest level). You have lots of coincidental soft counters going on when you play Seth offensively.
To put it another way, your offense should be designed so that your opponent has an extremely strong counter to every option if they guess right (this is always true with Seth), but you make it so that your offense is varied enough where you force them to commit to a huge guess to do so.
Seth’s ability to control the pace of the match is strong even though he can be blown up for trying it because he has so many options. If you were to remove any of his options, his other ones would become significantly worse because they would become more telegraphed. This is also why I’m really scared for nerfs, because Seth just doesn’t have a lot of things other characters take for granted (a safe poke that leads to knockdown, 3 frame normal, walkspeed, fireball that blockstrings off mediums, anti-air crouching normals, high health, a strong sweep, and meterless offensive pressure off a midscreen BnB, to name a few). He does have very unique tools, however they all have significant designed weaknesses. For example, there are a myriad of ways to blow up Tanden Engine pressure. Jab SPD does less damage than some normal throws, and you can’t afford to get punished for trying it in a game where backdashes are impossible to punish on reaction and get you out of most pressure.
tl;dr You play Seth by never giving the opponent the chance to hit you. It’s like Chipp in Guilty Gear. Either you win, or you lose horribly.
Appreciate the help guys!