with as much damage as some V-ism characters can do, what strategy should an A-ism player follow when fighting a v-ism player ?
(plz dont say switch from A to V , thx)
well eventually youre gonna have to
what kind of problems are you having specifically
do you notice that when you do certain things you get caught into v combos
also remember that the v combo activation can go through projectiles
so dont just do random hadoukens @ them (from close far is cool though) remember that its not just projectiles that can be dodged then punished by vc’s
alpha counter is good when u have low guard/health but dont go wasting a bar just cause you in the corner
and also what character you use ?
and which char do you have the most trouble fighting against?
One basic thing : Always have some meter for Alpha Counters. If you don’t have meter, run away and get it.
This alone won’t win you matches, and If the other guy is looking for the AC you might get baited… But if you don’t have meter for an Alpha Counter, a V player can turn being next to you into free damage. Sometimes BIG BIG BIG damage.
to reply to Rob … its not so much a specific question in regards to certain matchups
i just wanted to know as an A-ism player what are your options to countering VC’s in general
kinda like what BKB has mentioned that was one idea i had… always keeping at least some meter to AC
im kinda looking for more tips like that
(1) As long as nobody is using meter, the A-ism player will do more damage. Playing a strong footsie game often is the key to win. Be VERY smart about getting in with a jump when they have full meter, only do it if you are sure they don’t expect it. Hopefully your character is good at whiff punishing into super.
(2) Don’t get cornered. Positioning game is very important in A3, and even moreso for an A-ism player. A lot of V-ism characters have hella good stuff to to bring you down in the corner. Look for EVERY opportunity to stay away from it. And like BKB said, always have an AC ready for use when it’s getting rough.
(3) Anti air as late as possible when they have meter, to give them less reaction time to drop through your attack with activation. This also gives you the opportunity to empty cancel into a special that can safe you. Example = Guy’s c.MP, very solid anti air, and can be cancelled into hurricane kick when they go for activation. Try to avoid anti air normals that you have to do early and/or are slow to come out (example: Karin s.HP got me into trouble more than once). Straight jump is your friend, and, with some characters, air throw.
(4) Bait activation. This is easier said then done, but every character has specific stuff to do it, and there are always things safe jump in’s and intentional whiffs. If you can make them waste their meter, you are most likely on the way to victory. Try to make them nervous, forcing them to think they can’t use their usual stuff to beat you. If you get it down what i said in (1)-(3), they will have a way harder time activating against you.
Hope the things i mentioned weren’t too obvious for you, but it’s all that i can think of without getting into character specific stuff. I’m not saying “good luck”, because it isn’t as bad as many people think. With a lot of A-ism characters you have all the tools in the world to beat them. Show 'em :karate:
thanks so much iczer !!! and rob and bkb
your info helps alot
Don’t jump-in. Against V characters, I might be hesitant to anti-air VC, because they can counter activate, but there’s nothing a character on A/X can do except eat it unless you’re Akuma, Gen or Dhalsim.
It is if CC infinites are allowed. If both you and the guy on V are equally skilled, you’re going to have a hell of a time beating him, because he always dictates the flow of the match.
Haha. Where’s all your pessimism coming from ? Don’t you ever say things like “yeah, go for for it :nunchuck:”
You don’t have “a hell of a time” unless it’s a natural bad matchup. I don’t know where that “always dictates the flow” is coming from, but now i’m very interested in what A-ism character you play. Maybe someone can help you out of your misery 
I play V-Cody, and a damned good one thank you very much.
The only A characters I’ve lost to in ages are A-Chun’ and A-Dhalsim, and I usually only lost to Chun’ in matches where I wasn’t using the infinite.
Tell me how the person on V doesn’t dictate the flow of the match?
I’d love to see you argue against some of these:
- If they have meter, it’s not safe to be near the corner, because you’ll get caught in a GC VC and either be forced to AC and waste super meter/guard meter or get guard crushed and CC infinited.
-It’s not safe to jump-in, because they’ll anti-air VC and once again CC infinite, round over.
Plus certain characters can get at least 50% meter back from the CC juggle alone. That 50% is all I need to get you in to a mid-screen set-up for another infinite.
-It’s not safe to anti-air their jump-ins, because they can activate through it, land and VC you.
-It’s not safe to poke, because if you get too predictable, they can activate right through it.
Especially in Cody’s case, since he can dodge high/mid’ normals and cancel the animation into an activation. Once again, round over.
-It’s not safe to throw projectiles from mid-screen since a lot of characters can activate through it.
-It’s not safe to air recover, because a lot of characters can walk under you and activate.
-It’s not safe not to air recover, because you end up getting VC’ed anyway.
-It’s not safe to get knocked down, since that sets you up for unblockables. Cross-up or otherwise.
-It’s not safe to blow your meter, because then you’re open for jump-in unblockables and being pushed in to the corner for a GC VC.
-Even if they mess up and blow their meter, they can just run and throw/special spam until they get it back. You can get 50% meter back VERY quickly with a lot of characters. You can try to blitz me down when I don’t have meter, but then you’ll end up being careless, and all the while I’m building meter. I’m still dictating the pace at that point. I’m making you come to me, and if you don’t, I’ll gladly throw spam until I’m at 100% again.
Hell, with Cody, all I need is a single :d::lk: :qcb::lp: launch to win, because I can just do jump activate :lk: and infinite. Same with Karin and her command throw on knockdown and Akuma VCing off his LK hurricane. I don’t know a single A character who can win a round based on one knockdown.
Unless you’re on V, there’s not shit you can do about that, besides hope I screw up the timing.
I mean, for crying out loud, you can’t even be high blocking when they activate, because they can Valle VC you before you’re able to switch your block.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to win, and obviously, I’m over-simplifying this stuff a little, but if the person on V is competent in any way in their execution, you are in for one hell of a fight.
The bottom line is that if I’m on V and you’re not, then I’m constantly forcing you to second guess yourself. Stuff that would normally be safe or guaranteed, isn’t anymore.
A3 is a meter cold war as Slide once put it, and top level A3 players rarely miss opportunities to use that meter and activate. If V-ISM is like having nukes in that war, then A-ISM is like trying to appear threatening with a pair of firecrackers.
If you’re on A-ISM, there’s nothing you can do that scares me besides wake-up super or random super between pressure strings. Even if you hit me with a level 3 super and I’m at 10% life, all I need is one activation and if there’s enough time left on the clock, the round is mine.
If you’re playing A-ism vs V-ism, then never leave the ground, unless.
Otherwise against certain characters, that’s a free round. Simple as that. That’s why people have problems with a3. Someone could just go Practice Mode on you the moment you leave the ground.
For A-ism to fight V-ism, there are KEY moments:
Note that knockdowns are VERY important, because it does not matter what character you are or what ism you’re using. Knockdowns are a threat to everyone cause it allows the other person to make the first move. So that means usually, under almost every other circumstance V-ism always has the initiative due to activations. Knockdowns level the playing field. You can put someone into a mix up, where you have the ability to make the first move. Just make it known that you have that ability(to make the first move), is all that takes. Your opponent can get antsy.
Jump ONLY when you can get a safe jump. Safe jumps are important because you can make them empty as bait. Where you’re in the air, and land right as they wake up, avoiding reversal timing. I’m talking those deep jump ins after a knockdown, on a character waking up. These are key, because it’s important that A-ism puts V into guard trouble. Deep jump roundhouses and fierces into a guard string. DON’T LEAVE A GAP. Unless you make it an obvious gap. Then leave it wide open and wait for the screen to flash(activation), if nothing happens then don’t move, give the momentum back to the v user until you can interrupt their next move with something that knocks down. And then repeat the process again until they get into guard trouble.
When a V-ism character gets into guard trouble, then predicting activation becomes alot easier. It’s almost always smarter for a V user to activate instead of using an alpha counter… especially when battling against A ism. If it were a V vs V match then that would be different, even in guard trouble the V user would be hesitant to activate even in the BEST time to do so, because that best time now becomes the worst time, because it becomes so predictable and in a V vs V match you get counter activated.
Play a very slow time wasting offensive(guard pressure), based on absolute advantages like wake up pressure as I was saying, and guard crushes.
Waste time on the clock. Why? because as the time winds down, your combos now become just as powerful as theirs. Not due to a damage increase(that doesn’t happen), it’s because the closer the timer gets to running out each hit counts even more. And most importantly, CC infinites can’t be completed, since they become 1 pixel for each hit after damage scalling, the time is winding down and they can’t finish you off in the round.
Think and know the obvious most smart and best risk/reward situations for V activation. Understand the win/win spots for them. An example of an obvious win/win v activation spot would be round 3/final round, someone without meter jumps in on a 100% charged V character. THEY WILL ACTIVATE, no questions. Know stuff like that, and you’ll have more control than you know.
Reserve one stock for alpha counters.
Figure out what makes certain V characters so good.
i.e. a couple reasons why V-Sakura is so good:
She can probably guard pressure better than you. That’s why everything she has, works.
Back+fierce is such a dominate move, it forces you to avoid it or block it. It dictates play within it’s range.
stand+roundhouse makes you stay further away. Sakura can keep you ranged right where she can react to any move of yours upon site, when you’re outside of her stand+roundhouse range.
You only jump at Sakura, because now you’re in guard trouble and she created a lose/lose(you stay there, you’re hit. you block you’re guard crushed. you jump, you’re VC’d). This is why V-Sakura has such a huge advantage over A/X-ism.
The usual Sakura advantages, such as the cross up and the bnb(2x cr short, st short, fierce dp) mix up loop. The huge ranged punch throw(the headlock) leaving a cross up opportunity, as well as giving her back+fierce or punch throw mix ups. Those things should be the first obvious stuff you already can get past in order to fight Sakura anyhow. Otherwise you’ll probably be losing to A-ism Sakura, and probably even worse vs X-Sakura(damage boost to the usual moves) too.
Ah yeah. Controllable normals like back fierce and shoto back RH totally slipped my mind.
Good general tips though
The ownage is so palpable in this post
Oh, and Kyokuji was informative too :lovin:
Good posts guys :tup:
@Kyokuji:
The stuff you mentioned is not A-ism specific, all that can happen to you in a V vs. V match as well. And i can’t believe that you never had problems with V-Cody, as he’s lacking in 2 very important areas, poking/footsie and defense (that’s why Chun owns him for free). He NEEDS his V-ism stunts, otherwise he would be far worse (he’s low tier in Upper, that’s for sure).
Yes, but on V, you can always counter with a counter activation, which then makes ‘them’ have to second guess themselves. If you’re on A, they can always activate without fear of repercussion unless you’re Gen.
I never said I didn’t have any problems, I meant I don’t have any problems ‘now’. I’ve been playing the game long enough to know most of the match-ups inside out and I’ve spent time playing some of the better people in the states/Canada. You’d be surprised how good some of the unknowns are when the pros have abandoned the game. A3 plays quite differently now than it did in 2001, and you can generally tell who kept playing the game after it “died out” and who didn’t just by watching how they use activations and the kinds of VCs they use.
Yes, Cody VS Chun’ is a lousy match-up. I believe it’s 3-7 even with V-ISM for him. Again though, if I have meter, she can’t jump at me, which shuts a large part of her game down, and is also part of the reasons why shotos do well against her. It doesn’t matter so much how badly she out guns me on the ground, because all I need is one chance to activate and I can end the round and start the next one with at least 50%. She can’t use her tick throw crap on him either, because he can dodge and punish.
I didn’t say it was easy though. When I don’t have meter against her, I’m generally stuck backing up and using the occasional counter poke (his normals out prioritize some of her’s if you time them right). I can usually jump at her pretty safely though if I space it properly though.
Now if she’s on V on the other hand, I’m in serious trouble.
Cody does lack in footsies yes, but he can activate off just about anything and he can do it from quite a ways back. Not as far as someone like Sodom, but pretty far none-the-less. He also has a fantastic wake-up game/corner trap, tons of priority on his normals (including a lot of great anti-air ones), some of the easiest CC combo set-ups, and one of the best projectiles in the game (it owns 'Gief for free unless he can kara cancel). If you space carefully with him and learn to punish after a dodge on reaction, then his weaknesses seem a lot less pronounced. Watch VER for example. Dude’s almost always making the other person back-up. You can make people ‘hate’ you by utilizing his dodge properly. It’s not just there to avoid attacks, it’s there to help you set up some offense.
Chun’ and Karin are the ones who mess up his whole spacing/zoning game, because they walk so fast they go right under his rocks rather easily and make it difficult to hit max range low ruffians. Even worse, his hop kick misses completely against them, which takes out a huge chunk of his mid-screen game. Karin is just as bad a match-up for him as Chun’ if you ask me and the Japanese seem to agree, since they rated her a 3-7 for him too. If she gets one knockdown, she can keep him in proverbial lockdown with rekka strings until he’s GCed, and her sweep is long/fast enough to reach after a blocked c. LK > QCB+LP (as is Chun’s), not to mention all her 5 billion VC set-ups. The plus side is that her large horizontal hitbox makes her one of the easiest characters to hit the corner trap on.
I think one of the biggest reasons why the Cody/Karin match up is so lopsided into Karin’s favor is because of her ability to knock characters down from further distances and from more confirmable moves. Coupled with the poor guard meter Cody has. Once Cody’s guard meter is stuck on “danger” he loses to Karin for free.
That’s another waaaay overlooked key point of both Sakura and Karin for instance, they have a huge guard meter. Sakura is one of the best guard pressure characters in the game, and to add to that her guard meter is one of the largest. That makes her be able to cover up some of V-ism’s inherent weaknesses.
So again, that goes back to another one of the key things i brought up, which is the knockdown, and guard meter pressure.
Look at the A-Guy vs V-Cody match up, we know so much, and how it’s WAAAAY in Cody’s favor as far as control and pace is concerned. With Cody’s dodge, it’s near impossible for Guy to knock Cody down, unless taking a retarded risk like a deep cr roundhouse.
Guy’s cr forward trip kick. Can be air recovered.
All of his specials can be air recovered.
This leaves Guy with df+roundhouse, supers, ff chain, etc. All of which can be dodged.
note: of course he has his ranged moves and pokes, but the best of them can be dodged(st strong, st forward), or simply guess activated on(in which the guess activate puts Guy into the corner, qcb+punch abused, and GC’d into the CC inf).
Guy lacks a rapid fire low hitting move(that’s something that characters like Karin and Sakura both have, that lead them to knockdowns aswell. Both bread and butter combos.)
For that entire fight, Guy needs a blocked jump in, so he can get his ff chains blocked to take the guard meter down, then he gains control. What’s a good way to get a blocked jump in? Safe jumps.
When Guy has control of a fight, all of his moves that allow him to stop short(qcf short, kick. qcb jab. air d+strong, etc.) work.
Bottom line:
The point of the above was just to show an example of how important it is for A-ism to get a knockdown on V-ism characters. A knockdown means a safe jump with a possible guard pressure string. And V-ism can’t take as many of those as A-ism can.
Wow, thanks for all of the great advice here for A vs. V. I just copied this whole post into a text file for reference.
No problem.
Here’s something else, i forgot about that was brought up real quick by Middlekick in the other A-ism/V-ism thread.
Vary your anti-airing methods. Don’t get into a predictable pattern on how you anti-air a V-ism opponent. Simply because they can v-drop in. In a3 there’s some pretty simple solutions for anti-air in the game, like st jab from some characters(like Dhalsim for example) can pretty much take out all air options from another character. That “beat all” solution, becomes useless when it’s predictable and the obvious best answer. You need alternatives. V-ism has free reign on jumping in all day long against A/X-ism, due to threat of air activation.
So varying your anti-air options is key. You hit them early or late, making your opponent guess just as much as you have to, on when they should actually activate while in the air. This can actually make air activations predictable. Learn and know more than one way to take the opponent out of the air.
Some typical anti-airs:
You want an anti-air that can be used crouched and extremely deep. i.e. a crouch* jab from just about anyone.
One that reaches vertically high and is fast, that can be used extremely early. i.e. a crouch* fierce(not Sagat). Charlie’s is a good example.
Anti-airs that can be started while the sprites are near colliding while standing. i.e. Karin st fierce, alot of character’s st jabs. <- these are the riskiest ones because they are’t disguised. Yet, these are alot of times the ones that beat the most attacks.
*crouch jab and crouch fierce are good because they both look the same in preparation. -> You crouching. Yet have drastically different hit boxes.
Also keep in mind that not attacking at all works really well, just allowing them to jump in on occasion. Especially on the most obvious jump ins(ones that A-ism should never do but V-ism can get away with).
Another BIG important air defense is the air throw. Dhalsim is probably the best air thrower in the game.(IMO Charlie is up there too though).
Your opponent is in the air, you jump in the air too and air throw. This helps you defend against v-drop ins. If you watch videos of an A-ism opponent vs V-ism, air throwing is a common air defense tactic. Especially with A-Guy and Dhalsim.
And one last thing I just remembered:
If you are going to use a super always combo into or out of it.. Playing with or vs V-ism you start to train yourself on how to react once the screen flashes. Especially with counter activations being a key part of the game. If you do a super that’s NOT comboed the opponent will activate on you and end the round. For the most part, you shouldn’t be using supers anyway(to save meter for alpha counters). Some supers are good anti-air otherwise i.e. Rose, Charlie, Dhalsim, Chun, etc. but they’re completely useless unless they’re comboed, otherwise it’s a free round for a V-ism opponent.
If I remember anything else, I’ll post try to post it. I’ll try to make the posts smaller, but it’s difficult when trying to make it as easy to understand as possible.