I just got blown up by a super sick Dudley at my local arcade

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
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EDIT: I moved this from the Ken specific forums in the hopes of getting more eyes on it. Let me know if that’s not cool and I’ll move it back.

Last night I got my shit wrecked by a superb Dudley player. My background in fighters is basically about 2-3 months of daily training in SF4. I never got that good at it but I was putting in real effort. I stopped practicing when I had to sell my stick to move here to Portland. When I showed up and looked around the arcade I decided I would make 3rd Strike my game since I didn’t have a stick anymore to play SF4 and there was a 3rd Strike cab 5mins away from my house. Since I played Ryu in SF4 and I knew Ken was better than Ryu in SF3 I decided to go with Ken. I did pretty well against most players for a couple months. The anti-airs and spacing I had learned from SF4 served me well against most opponents. I could pretty reliably get big damage off a throw into cross-up mk, target combo, fireball, super. I never ran into anyone who could beat me as often as I beat them.

But then last night I saw a guy playing by himself. I looked at the screen and saw him get a double perfect against the cpu and a crazy high ranking. I think it was XS or something. I’d never gotten anything more that a B+ I think. So I was scared and excited to play against someone who was really good. I played him 9 games ($2.25 worth) and he beat the shit out of me in every single one. I only got like 2 rounds in over the course of the session. The crowning moment was when he punished my ex-tatsu ON HIT with a super. I didn’t even know that was possible. When I left I felt like I just got hit by a truck.

The main issue it seemed to me was that he really incorporated the parry into his game. Every time I tried to anti-air dp his jump-ins he would parry it and blow me up with a huge combo. Before I just thought the parry was gimmick. Just a crazy little add on for novelty’s sake. But that’s simply not true at high level; it’s a core part of the game and you have to use it if you want to be good. No matter how good my reactions were with my anti-airs it simply didn’t matter, they just got parried and punished. I didn’t know what to do. To his credit he started throwing me some really obvious jumpins towards the end so I could practice parry-ing them. But it didn’t help me I still lost every game.

The other big thing was that he would quick-rise after every knockdown. This is something none of the other players that I had played against and beat regularly did. Before, every throw was a free mix-up for me with a cross-up, empty-jump, or throw. But this guy would quick-rise after every sweep or throw and I found myself jumping in and getting blown up for it. I didn’t even know how to quick-rise and figured, like the parry, it wasn’t really necessary anyway. Well that’s simply not true.

Aaaaaanyway. That’s the story of my first arcade blowup. It was kinda crushing but also kind of exciting. Now I get to learn about all this stuff I never noticed was there. Could I hit you guys up for some advice? I spent the afternoon at a coffee shop jotting down some notes and thoughts on the beatdown. Just let me know if my thinking is on the right track.

http://i.imgur.com/MngMWod.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/36ouQwN.jpg

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it’s funny cause Metric’s vid has Dudley in it.

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If the opponent jumps in with an attack they cannot parry.

To beat jump in parry you have many options including but lot limited to: Dash under the jump in, jump back nothing or jump back round house, mash st jab, cr fierce parry short tatsu/ex fireball, short short super.

Those are some of the good options vs a empty jump in.

Ex tatsu on the ground should never be used. Unless specifically vs Dudley and you hit confirm cr mk.

Dudley only you can do cr mk jab tatsu on their wake up for an almost 100% safe meter building okizeme move. If the tatsu hits you can confirm to super.

Vs Dudley if he rolls in the corner you can ground cross him up by dashing. Otherwise there are no way vs Dudley that you can punish quick stand.

You should quick stand about 99% of the time. You get meter and it gives you space.

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By the way, good job on taking notes and analyzing why you lost and why this or that doesn’t work. Your first step to becoming a better player!

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Crossups work better after a hard knockdown. You force those by hitting your Super

Where’s your local arcade?

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There it is visually, and showing Dudley and Ken. The jabs can also cancel to shoryu. Special cancelling can be a part of beating jump in parry.

Seeing an attack, uses up his air action. And if you can reach, you can punish.

Don’t worry about tricks yet, that seems like its skipping a lot of the basics and fundamentals right?

Think of the matchup without gimmicks if you were thinking that, but instead the specific things Ken can do to Dudley, that aren’t even tricks or something to have an edge up on the Dudley which probably won’t be the case either.

Strong moves, which include normal attacks. Ken can do this, Dudley can’t do much about it. Experiment with his moves and think about how they hit, at what times and in what ranges. If they are dangerous to use as they can be parried and punished after is another step ahead.

For example: Far Forward (Med Kick) is 2 hits. At an upward angle. You can also hold it after the first kick to do Ken’s overhead. It won’t work everytime vs Dudley’s high risk reward on his jump in (that will land in your face and hit you before that overhead occurs) and parry things away, but giving him different looks will make jump in parry, not a go to option anymore. If you didn’t know, now you have 2 more things there to try and consider. Far Forward by itself might be the best, or it might not be depending on where Dudley is, its a movement option by Ken also with how far he moves and where he ends up after the kick right?

Were you holding block after EX Tatsu?
The punish can tell you that you should not use that anymore, if you think of it that way. That’s more specific to SF4 where you combo into it, confirming and ending with that.

How did you use it? Alone, or Raw EX Tatsu on the ground? Cancelled from a low Forward? Consider learning that a low forward can combo to Ken’s Super 3, instead of just the EX Tatsu, and there’s your hard knockdown you need for crossups where he can’t quickrise. Your choice to crossup or not and be ambiguous comes later as you learn more. Low Forward to Ken’s Super is a bigger threat than just into EX Tatsu.

Ken has a use for EX tatsu in the air. Don’t consider it a BnB on the ground so much, because of very fast supers that can punish you, and maybe you didn’t see everything hit there-where he could’ve dropped out and buffered a super right from a being hit animation-now he’s back in control.

Walking up to someone can show your hand, or telegraph you want to do those things after a throw. While if you crossup everytime you jump there, that also becomes information your opponent can see and break your mixup down, as predictable and can take care of it by knowing exactly what you want to do, in a game with his parry can create an opening from any one of your attacks. This game has the onus on the player to be unreadable and vary what you will do in different situations, like when in neutral or after a knockdown. Hide what you are doing or turn 50/50’s into 3 options or more everytime. Don’t worry too much about that though while you figure things out.

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@ryan.

Thanks for the tech dude. I think I’m going to try to write everything you put down and slowly think and process it all. You gave me a lot to work on and it will take me while to incorporate it fully into my game. I played a bit today and had to stop myself from anti-airing the cpu with DP and throwing out raw on-the-ground ex tatsus. Old habits die hard I’m afraid.

@WTF-AKUMA-HAX‌

Thanks a ton for that video! It kind of feels like it was made just for me lol. Again there’s a lot there so it’ll take some time for me to understand and implement all the tech. My local arcade is Ground Kontrol in downtown Portland. If you’re ever around I’d love to get some games in. And yes it was a raw on-the-ground ex tatsu that hit him point blank. I’m 99% sure I was blocking properly. I was ready to block his super and punish and I couldn’t believe I got hit by it.

One last thing that I’ve been thinking about is Ken’s general strategy. It seems to be largely based around hit-confirming, which is something I’m not terribly talented at. When playing SF4-Ryu most of my game plan revolved around being on point with my anti-airs and controlling space properly at the right ranges. I’d get so much damage out of DP-ing a jump-in and nailing them with a super or ultra. But all that’s out the window and it’s uncomfortable to play without that option. But I suppose if I want to get better at any fighting game I’m going to have to learn hit confirming eventually so I might as well start now.

Anyway, thanks for the tech guys I really appreciate it.

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Hit confirming has nothing to do with talent. Practice them every time you play, then take those skills into matches. Eventually you will do it without even thinking about it.

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Ken is a great footsie character in 3s, with mostly everything comboing into super. Look to just play that low forward range for now, then rush in once you get the super confirm. After that, Ken has great rushdown with upclose mixups (cr.lk’s into super, mp>fp super, throw, etc).

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Feel like you owe us money if this was technical support. Yeah I know, words for everything in the scene.
:tup: Just joking here.

From how you used it, consider he maybe couldn’t believe he was hit by what you did. It all worked out in the end for him, though. If you were using it to kill, you might need to look into both damage and also chip damage on that, since in general use you won’t be doing that, but it will have its use sometimes, if you choose that option.

That could be one of your tricks to pull, put it in the your ideas category more than what other people try to do with Ken. How he should generally play. Or I guess that goes into meter management too. Why blow meter on this thing, vs better things.

Spacing still works out in this game by controlling the ground and forcing a jump, if they get frustrated at being forced out of the wall you put up and may not have any other way in. Granted your matches were like Dudley jumping all over you for not taking care of anti-air which is different in this game. But you’re on your way now right!

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I also reccomend watching a shitload of videos. All the time. When you’re bored, when you’re dumping, when you are going to sleep. It helps to see how the game is played. I’d stick only with high level Japanese videos. Check out the weekly streams from game versus and game newton. Also, any past coop cups or tougeki are great.

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Check out these channels for high level 3rd Strike footage (y)

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man i am excited for u… you’ve gotten a taste for one of the things that makes 3s so good and it’s only just the beginning :slight_smile:

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THE PATRUIOTS?!

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Correct dander you can just walk under those rather than dash is the only movement and be out of position

a ggpo or online warrior move

But speaking of position, it depends on the where and when, where saying they are over your head-might be too late so how about an example in SF4, because that keeps being talked about here like its all the rage (or if you started there), maybe the characters follow and watch the opponent jump with their fat heads

with their 3D model swivels technology

at a 45 degree angle, so you can just look at your own character the whole time. You can’t do that here, but with that position that’s where you can continue walking under them and end up on the other side, or by seeing the attack completely miss you - you don’t have to wait to go low and miss trip guard due to timing or even other factors but just shoryu him in the ass or some other similar move that can reach. He used up his air action by attacking. And they can’t turn around in the air, once they left the ground jumping forward they’re going to be facing that way even if you’re not there on that side anymore.