Hey guys. Im not really a Hawkeye player, but ive come looking for advice. Im having a VERY difficult time against the Hawkeye / Missiles shell. Its actually much more difficult for me than a lot of top tier shells like ZMC, Wolv / Doom / Vergil, etc.
My main team is Zero / Morrigan / Dante, and it works really well vs pretty much everything EXCEPT Hawkeye / Missiles. His zoning is just seemingly too fast for me to do much. I mean, In theory I know I can lvl 3 buster through his stuff, I can activate AV and do stuff because he has no way of protecting behind him / etc.
My issue is…that all of that is great on paper. In a match its much more difficult. If it makes a difference, I have a pretty solid Mags as well.
Usually, if I can kill Hawkeye, I nearly always win…but If I cant kill Hawkeye or pick off Doom, then its really really difficult. I just feel like Hawkeyes zoning is so much faster than Morrigan that it makes it difficult for her to start her stuff. On top of this, since Im forced to block a lot, the opponent usually has at least 2 bars for reaction gimlets.
Any opinions as to how I should approach it / what I can do? Please dont just say " Lol corner him with Zero and pressure with Jam Session lockdown". I know that. If I was able to do that consistently against this shell, I wouldnt be here asking. It doesnt help that at the start of the round Hawkeyes jump back creates a lot of space from Zero and Morrigan, even if im holding forward / upforward.
I’m interested in jump height conversions. Specifically what the best conversion you can do is when you go up for forward air H option select and don’t get the grab but get a hit with the button instead.
The way I’ve been converting off of this is fairly simple.
Jump H xx triple arrow (2 hits) jump m jump H net arrow.
From there you can start a net arrow loop.
Its a fairly legit and won’t even take four minutes to learn.
Does anyone have a more damaging way to convert off of jump height air H though?
Your biggest problem is you’re lacking a horizontal assist. Your team seems overloaded in controlling the Vertical/air game, but Hawk dominates in the neutral jump height/ground game. With Jam Session being your only neutral assist, you really don’t have a full screen assist that can make Hawk block or stop missiles from coming out fully. You have to be close to them for Sesh to be useful, but you already know that. TBH, that’s really your only problem lol. Idk if you play Doom, but his beam and the soft knockdown it creates would not only stop Missiles, but Hawkeye tech rolling gives you the opportunity to close in the gap. Other assists that come with viable characters (e.g. not Ironman) that could work are Hawk’s Greyhound, which has good speed and durability, but no knockdown; and Mag’s disrupter, which could work, but I’d rather trade a small increase in start-up for durability with Plasma Beam, especially against Hawkeye.
Not that you suggested it, but don’t pick Strider for Vajra for that matchup, since Missiles tend to hit Vajra assist before he comes down, and Hawkeye’s j.H that he usually does before shooting a neutral arrow completely beats it out. Now, for who to switch out, I’d probably say either take out Dante if hes anchor, because I’m not a fan of him at anchor; or put Dante in for either Zero or Morrigan and Doom on anchor, depending on who you think would be able to perform better with with Plasma Beam, since Morrigan wouldn’t be having Missiles against Hawkeye, who shuts down Missiles naturally.
Yessir, Plasma Hawk is amazing. As for Missiles Hawk,
I feel like missiles Hawk has inherant holes that can be taken advantage of, however your team doesn’t really have a big instant punish type move like Chaotic FLame or something. Ive been scoring pretty well vs Zeros lately (but with Plasma), but definitely you just dont want to let them on you (or to you, you want to let them stay away). I know you know this, but that’s kinda the deal. If I can establish space, life sucks for you. If I can’t, see you at my funeral. The problem is your team doesn’t have much of a fast long range punisher (or even move, really), ie. a beam/tracking assist, a big beam super, a teleport, etc.
Now, Dante does have 2 of those things (teleport and kinda sorta Million $), so maybe you want to try playing him on point, but I’m sure the design of your team is very Jam Session dependent, so the strat only kinda works if it works REALLY well lol
That’s kinda cool, I’ll have to try that, thanks! You wrote this a while ago, I really hate that this ‘new’ SRK doesnt tell me when my posts are answered, but it’s kinda my fault for waiting so long to look lol
I didnt have ANY jump height conversion, and needed one, so sadly Im not posting to give you a better one, but to thank you for this one!
Fair enough. Thanks to both of you for your replies. As was mentioned, Yeah, both Zero and Morrigan use Jam Session quite liberally, as it should be. Its a top 3 assist for both characters (arguably the BEST assist for each character)…that being said, Yall are correct. Jam Session doesnt really help me at all vs Hawkeye in the neutral. Im assuming the key to winning to by preventing Hawkeye from safely calling missiles…which means im going to need a fast / durable projectile. I guess for this matchup Ill just run my Magneto / Morrigan / Dante team.
As I was labbing it up yesterday I found out that if you run doom you can actually raw tag him in after you connect the air net arrow and do a 2 launch combo (3 if you take it easy on the m’s) for about 750k one meter.
Just make sure if you’re midscreen you don’t land on the other side of the body cuz the doom call will mess up and the raw tag will hit them.
Depends what you mean by pretty good. If 6-4 is pretty good, then yeah, I can say he has his fair share of pretty good matchups. However, there are a few top tiers (Vergil; to an extent, Wesker) that completely shit on Hawkeye. Most people say that because they see Hawkeye fight against X/Doom, and if Hawkeye manages to kill X, then he proceeds to make the full comeback or shut down the duo, which makes his capabilities seem a bit more greater than it actually is. Against Zero, the most it could possibly be is 6-4, but the reason Hawkeye does good now is because he fight’s Zero’s normal gameplan. Hawkeye has that little area right above his normal jump height that he can’t do much about, and that’s where Zeros have to attack or wait for Hawk to normal jump, and Buster right as Hawk lands, which will beat anything he does since his nj.arrows will just go over Zero. Also, once Zero goes in, Hawk doesn’t really have a get of me move, or an escape option other than jumping away.
On a different note, I was able to borrow a friend’s Dazzle, and recorded some matches (online unfortunately) with my Anchor Hawk doing work (and then not doing work) against the first more than decent player I faced.
Kinda messed up by using moviemaker and not Pinnacle to record these, so bear with me with the bad quality and no game audio, but any critique is wanted.
As a Hawkeye point player one starts to notice more and more the elephant in the room with point hawk. When I want the opponent’s point characters dead I have to XF or reset.
Its stressful to get that opening round stand M (or launch if you’re feeling big balled) and know that you have to spend the factor and a meter or two to kill.
Blowing x-factor is particularly costly when x-factor vergil has great matchups against hawkeye and doom who presumably a lot of hawk point players will use for any of his godlike assists.
When I play against my training partner who uses team big bodies, I have to plan out two resets and if I mistime one of them it usually results in a happy birthday in my face.
Every successful team composition has a point that can kill the opponent’s point without the factor and without resetting. The only exception is morrigan missiles, which focuses on opening up the opponent and then creating an “inescapable” vortex of chip.
What’s the extent in which hawkeye, presumably with missiles (nothing can lock down the opponent grounded or in the air for longer) can create heavy chip damage setups post combo. Have people really explored extended chip damage setups post combo with hawkeye?
How MorriMissiles-ish can Hawkeye get? How much “free” chip can hawkeye get?
I have a chip string reset that i use with jam session and rapid slash assist. It goes something like double/triple relaunch combo into call jam session and otg poison arrow. Then you do exploding arrow immediately but it doesn’t hit if you are at the right amount of hit stun deterioration. Then you can just do Jump back H(to catch forward techs) xx triple arrow(to lock them down,make sure you time it so they can’t jump out for the next part), st. H xx speed shot, arrow explodes St.H+rapid slash xx speed/triple arrow, you can dash back here if they haven’t pushblocked you away as long as you did speed shot, st. H xx speed shot/triple arrow/piercing bolt. Deals a pretty significant amount of chip and let’s you still threaten with gimlet chip/punishes afterwards.
If you land a net arrow on an airborne opponent you can just wave or plink dash in twice and do a slide into a double relaunch combo. I get full combos off of S.H + Rapid slash xx triple arrow into a net arrow off the assist confirm. Then I just do launch mmhs, Fwd M, relaunch, poison arrow xx gimlet xx spiral swords xx dead.
Zero/Vergil/Hawkeye is the team. would hawkeye benefit more from a sougenmu dp assist or fireball? Fireball allows for a bootleg cross up attempt with tricks into freeze shot. the DP offers a gtfo assist kinda i just wish he had better conversions off of it. I usually set the tone with Zero then get hawk into the game it seems a lot of people are running doom second and he does really well against doom staying out of the get thrown by my randomness zone.
when i’m loaded with bars, x-factor and assist, i can deal with him fine.
without x-factor, assists or meter, i’m having trouble dealing with his f+h foot dive, especially when doom has x-factor on for that speed boost. once he gets in, theres a fair chance that hawkeye will die.
i’ve tried the exploding arrow, yet he can sail over it and even stuff you in the process (into death). his scatter shot and triple piercing gets sailed over too.
jumping h into triple arrows works well against it but doom can get above your head and inch his way in with the h foot dive.
what exactly is the best way to deal with it?
i guess jumping forward h works, but i feel like it gets stuffed or at least loses to dooms jumping normals. it doesnt help that hawkeye has a super floaty jump which makes him easier to get thrown along with bad mobility. its also really hard to escape the corner vs doom.
Any point hawkeyes still out there? I’ve been trying out hawkeye again. I was messing around online trying to figure out matchups and it just seems so difficult to win against serious rushdown like wesker, wolverine, spencer, and even jill with their proper assists. Any advice for these types of matches? Lately I’ve been running hawkeye/doom(missiles)/arthur(daggers). Would I be better off with something like hawkeye/vergil/arthur?
depending on how high he does actions, doing aimed single shots canceled into the L flip into ice arrow stuffs characters who do that kinda deal (any airdash-y actual commiting action to attack in the air, in fact!)
when they try to do anythin’ that lets you escape corners or gain space away from him (f+h footdive is especially this but it’s basically anything they’re definitively committing to) get your ass out there- don’t attack or anything, just wavedash asap and shoot jump triple arrows.
but generally the way most dooms attack means that he can’t force you into the corner- unless they’re doing very strong burst dashes on the ground when you do jump arrows. if they’re doing that, i’d probably risk a slide into l flip ice arrow just to see their level of control on his movement. those types are harder to deal with, but single shots with freeze shots and reaction jumping arrows/dash under to gain space to their air shit is still the general gameplan.
also whenever you see him shoot photons just do a single arrow aimed at him into scatter shot- the single arrow goes through photons and the scatter shot will hit him if he tries anything else and allows you to kinda get in a triple piercing into speed shot or jumping triple arrows vs him for chip
it’s not as free as people say, but it’s still massively in your favor.
edit: also what i said for the scatter shot, that’s the only time you should ever use that shit except for hard reads. none of the DP arrows should ever ever ever EVER be used except for those because his recovery is so long that most characters who would be hit by those can maneuver past the arrows and hit you before you recover from nearly fullscreen (or flat out fullscreen)
i’m really struggling vs this one zero atm and it really bothers me because i know it’s me as a player and not the limitations of the character bc the dude whos whoppin’ me apparently loses to dudes who just flat out dont play anymore even though he’s competent.
so! please tell me as now that i play point hawkeye (with phoenix in the back!) how to fight this little piece of shit because my current approach isn’t as effective as i want vs this dude.
I run Hawkeye/Doom missiles/ Ammy so my team functions quite similarly to yours. With point hawkeye against rushdown the opening of the round is always going to be crazy scary. The most important thing is to have your back wavedashing down pat and careful assist calls. Your assists are your best defensive options by far with point hawk.
Against wolvy, wesker, spencer your priority should be to either get your horizontal/lockdown assist out at about midscreen so you can get to a postion where you are fullscreen. Once fullscreen throw out some of you faster arrow options to hit their assist attempts and get your missiles out. Once missiles are out and you are fullscreen you need to evaluate where you are on screen. If its safe to keep moving back or do you need to dash up and trick maneuver H to get to the other side of your opponent where there is space.
Opponents get frustrated, will take more chip then you in the jocking of position this gameplan involves and will throw out something unsafe you can punish. When your opponent starts avoiding your horizontal assist deftly in the beginning of the round try to start calling missiles earlier and at midscreen range. You will probably have to throw out a button to protect doom so watch out for bionic arm, chaotic flame, quick supers that can blow you up. Remember Hawkeye’s cancelable St. H is a great tool for baiting supers and unsafe approaches.
When playing rushdown players who are superior in skill to your point Hawk it is inevitably gonna look mad free and some rounds you will get grabbed or hit before he can even do anything. But every time you get fullscreen and every time they end up blocking one of your assists know that your gameplan is working and that its now time to focus on creating space.
Hey, I’ve been running Hawkeye/Strange(bolts)/Dante(J. Session) for a few months now and I’ve had some good success with the team. I personally think that bolts works better for Hawkeye than plasma beam since it locks down the horizontal part of the screen for much longer and adds a lot of combo potential for hawkeye (like: otg poison arrow, first bolt, slide xx trick maneuver, second bolt, freeze shot). I can also get around 500-600k of damage if bolts catches them on the ground at full screen (spritzers + gimlet). The only issue with bolts is that Strange is much easier to hit than Doom, but if they’re close enough to hit Strange then you probably shouldn’t be calling him (that’s what J. Session is for). Also, DHCing into book hyper can add a solid amount of damage after a gimlet from anywhere on screen.
You’re crazy. DP arrows are incredibly good with assist support, especially against characters without fullscreen (teleport or random super) happy birthday potential. It’s only if you have no horizontal assist support that DP arrows become self-dangerous. How do you even stop characters from non-stop SJ without DP arrows… j.triple arrow only? Additionally, scattershot is positive on block, so if you can force someone to block it, you can get a free exploding arrow at a minimum. Lastly, in most matchups a dash under can be cancelled to super scatter which stops them in their tracks AND resets to neutral at fullscreen.
DP arrows also completely own anyone who tries projectile reflect game and ruins random Meteor Smash.
