"It's a good day to die!" T. Hawk Match-up/Strategy Thread

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
81

I won two team tournaments this weekend with my bro weak sauc3 and placed 3rd in one singles tourney(small, nothing special) and 7th in a bigger one.

If any of us are going to be successful with hawk we need to figure out strats for guile, juri, and dhalsim, and FAST

82

Judging by the recent Justin Wong vs. Mike Ross match, this is going to be a nightmare matchup for Hawk.

83

Played against some friends of mine, one of them just so happens to be a Seth main, and here’s what little info I could pick.

Seth

  • U2 is the ultra of choice here. Beats Seth’s wallbounces clean and generally keeps Seth honest about jumping in, unless he knows about U2’s funky angle. LP Typhoon beats so much, but you have to play smart. The matchup isn’t Gief bad, but a few mistakes will make you tear up.

Condor Dive beats everything thanks to post lag on most of Seth’s moves, but loses completely to SRK.

Adon

  • Pretty straightforward. Jag Tooth is punishable on block, and Dive trades (at worst) with Adon’s other moves. Don’t get fancy, and the game will get back to the character select screen in no time.

Makoto

  • Weird matchup, since I’ve never seen a Makoto in motion (thanks to never playing 3S that much). Command throw nabs Chesto Berry on block, but that’s essentially all I know. Gut instinct says it’s more or less even for Hawk, depending on how tricksy the Mak player is.

Guy

  • Another weird matchup. I kept forgetting about his invincible wakeup tatsus (which I then found out are beatable with neutral jumping fierce). Seems like a tough but manageable fight with no distinct advantages either way.

Dictator

  • Hated this fight. By this point, my command throw timing was off due to how late it was, so I can’t say for sure if scissor kicks are punishable. U2 came in handy quite often though, enough to save my ass from EX Headstomp. He never used PC against me either, so I can’t say if that’s punishale either. He was playing smartly, tick throwing me and crossing me up. Another match where patience pays off, but not too patient.
84

Mainly just patience. She needs to get in close to do damage and while her fireballs are annoying they actually are rather slow and don’t do much. Basically you win this simply by hitting her once. She has to work harder to deal damage to you than you have to do damage to her. She needs to be close to you more than vice versa and pretty much everything she does is unsafe on block against Hawk.

Work on avoiding her fireballs more than just gaining ground, that will come later. Gaining ground will come normally through practice, but first you need to break the mindset that you need to be close to her otherwise you will make a mistake. If she cannot hurt you with her fireballs she will have to come in close and she will die.

85

Ok, fuck Ryu. How on earth can Hawk get in on this guy? Is it just another uphill patience-fest?

86

In most matchups T Hawk plays against the real trick is just be SUPER patient.
Jump / Focus the projectiles, slowly move in and keep your opponent moving backwards. You’ll get the cornered and then you’ve got an extra advantage.
Resist the urge to dive when you’re jumping the projectiles, you’re just gonna get punished, until you’ve conditioned them to believe you wont dive and you can do a quick dive to punish a poorly timed projectile. But really you’re better off just not diving in most situations.

87

I think this really is his hardest matchup, at least from the ones I have faced.

Even mediocre Ryus seem to give me trouble.

88

Ryu vs Hawk is not unlike Gief vs Ryu:

It’s winnable, but tough. You have to be patient. Focus, and safejump fireballs. Learn to jump and immediately Dive when he does a lazy/poorly spacede fireball. If you Dive on your way up, you can hit him out of recovery.

Hawk’s splash, like Gief’s, can stuff certain reversals on wakeup due to the huge hitbox. Time them right. Dont lose your cool, and be patient.

89

Matchups that have been causing the biggest issues for me so far have been Blanka, Ryu, Ken, Chun, Juri, Sagat, and Guile.

My notes for Blanka

Blanka: My Opinion: 7-3, possibly 8-2.

c.LP + c.MP > Horizontal Ball
Everything except FA < Slide
Dive < Electricity
360/720 > Electricity
jf.HP / j.HP > Vertical Ball
Raging Slash > Lightning Cannonball
c.HP trades w/ Lightning Cannonball in air.
No testing done on Blanka’s U2.

This is a hard matchup for T.Hawk. His options are somewhat limited from what I’ve seen so far. Electricity and Slide beat Dive, Tomahawk, and Spire 100%. If the blanka’s zoning sucks, you can 360/720 the slide on block, but other than that it doesnt seem punishable except for trading, both of the trade options leading to you taking more damage. Vertical Ball up close when both are on ground is 100% safe unless you are ballsy enough to try and FADC it and risk eating a Horizontal Ball. Throughout this match you have to play very defensively and stuff all the Horizontals that come at you. After a bit you might condition the Blanka to not Horizontal at you as much, and you can be a bit more aggressive. Vertical ball can be punished on prediction with j.HP, but its somewhat hard to predict it and it leaves you open to a Horizontal. One good thing about this fight is Blanka’s U1 is useless as you can CD over it on prediction, or do an easy U2 on it. If you’re going to take chip damage from the U1 you can at least make blanka eat some damage as well if you’re carrying U1 by doing c.HP, as it trades.

Btw, if someone could, PLEEEEEASE help with the Chun matchup, this matchup rapes me more than Juri, Sagat, and Blanka put together.

90

Learn to use standing MP more than ducking as your ball counter, as it also counters hops and you will find places where universally stopping both during your footsy is important.

Jump forward and dive counter U2 both on reaction and on block from full screen. Careful for AA version.

Cr MK beats slide and Ball and hits him out of his defensive crouch.

91

Wait, what is this thread for??? Because, by my count, T. HAWK OWNS EVERYONE. Just sayin’…

92

^^^ I see you don’t play anyone good ever.

So I’m having issues with turtle rogs. The lack of range on the command grab is hurting me. What do you do to punish 1/2 screen straight dash punch that rogs love to spam. Is that shit just safe. I think I’m missing something.

93

If they spam dash straight, Focus > punish til they start doing the armor break one. Spd that one.

94

ok I’ve been in the lab for a while with Hawk and I’ve decided I wanna make my first ever T. Hawk tutorial vid. Anyone wanna chime in? Don’t worry I’ll be sure to give you guys credit. I just want everyone’s input on him so I can include it in the vid.

95

Cody is FREE. Rocks are punishable with instant jump and then a dive. Any Cody tries to do a blockstring, free spd. When you have meter, walk forward ex spire and spd. Just do basic stuff and it should be an easy win. In Hawk’s favor IMO.

Just don’t try to win with chip dive. Wake up UI stuffs it hard.

96

O M G.

The Fei Long I just played who wazs at like 2000BP rocked the hell out of me. I had no opportunity to get in, and every CD, HD, or CS was blocked and rekka combo’d into. His normals out prioritize mine.

WTF.

Anyone else find Fei to be a problem?

97

I see you don’t play with enough conviction…

But in all seriousness, Balrog’s been giving me trouble too. If the rog is dumb enough to use a dash uppercut, FADC into a command grab is pretty effective. It’s really a matter of knocking him down and playing wake up games, or at least that’s how I’ve been trying to get by. A good balrog, though, will just fuck me up. Also, I’ve had a problem with rogs that use Dirty Bull. I don’t know if I’m just not used to it yet or what, but it seems like it has good range.

Other bad matchups I’ve encountered are Juri, Guy, and Abel.

I absolutely hate Juri. Her aerial kick attack (idk the name) annoys the hell out of me, but mostly because it has armor break.

Guy’s speed combined with the damage he puts out is deadly. He also has a mean focus attack. I’m getting used to a lot of his tricks, but he still gives me more of a problem than most.

Abel. I love Abel as a character, but against the Hawk, I can’t stand the guy. Getting grabbed out of a Condor Dive is embarrassing as hell, and his command grab beats Hawk’s often. His j.mk beats the tomahawk (but what doesn’t?). But again, crossing up with Hawk’s body press, c.hk’s, a few tomahawks and well timed focus attacks to typhoons can do the trick.

98

Don’t do specials that will be blocked. EVER. Against anyone. Dive and spire are much more useful whiffed, and the dp is kinda bad in general. Only the ex is worth it most of the time. Remember that when you play footsies, and block anything slightly unsafe that doesn’t have much pushback, you can 360/720. I don’t know much about the Fei matchup specifically, but I assume it’s fairly similar to vs. Dudley (with the exception of the chicken wing, but I’m fairly sure you can 360 that on block, so they shouldn’t be throwing it out too much), where you play it safe for the most part, punish things. and neutral jump (threatening dive) (only when far) a lot.

99

If your reactions are good, this is where EX 360 is useful. You just need to land one and they will never dash punch again.

100

Any thoughts on the gouken match? Gouken is my main usually put I’ve been putting time in with hawk. And most of the goukens I fight are solid. And knowing goukens game the way I do. I don’t think this is an easy match up at all. His fireball recovery kills hawk here. Hard to punish with anything other than ex spire but after spire not to close to really apply any wake up pressure on goukens game. Once hawk gets in gouken is in some trouble till he can get away again. Any thoughts on trying to get in besides hoping he times a bad hado?