1

As my first post, let me just say hello and bow to the vast amounts of knowledge I will accumulate here. I am looking forward to posting often and spending many nights reading about specific match-ups and futile debates.

I have a few questions I’d like to throw out there:

[LIST]
[]How do I progress once I’m no longer a complete beginner? I’ve learned my inputs, shortcut inputs, basic BnBs, Cross Ups, I know my moves, I use Focus Attack responsibly, ETC, but where I live I literally have one * intermediate opponent that keeps up with me. The rest of the players here don’t progress, or are already experts way beyond my level. What should I be focusing on now to take the next step? Matchups? My mix-ups?
[]Is it just me or is the online pretty bad sometimes? I’ve got good internet yet most matches contain some moments of lag-spikes, or the matchfinding requires several tries. Also, anyone who plays online is out to stun you in ten seconds. :frowning:
[]I’m still new to option-selects, as the only I’ve put to practice is to mash LK+LP while crouch blocking with Akuma. Can all characters perform this OS, or is it just characters with decent jabs and shorts?
[] Would you say the metagame for SSFIV:AE is best for characters with lots of mix-ups and hard rushdown, or zoners with good punish options?
[]I’m currently dabbling (in order from most played/knowledgeable to least): Akuma, Dhalsim, Adon, Sagat, Blanka, and Oni.

Is there ANYTHING super important I should know about my characters, such as terribad matchups or things to watch out for? I know you should only ever “use who you like”, but I like all these characters a good deal and am not new to the nature of competitive fighting games. Anyone I should pick up/drop to help cover other matchups?

:slight_smile:
[/LIST]

2

  1. Learn matchups. It seems that you have the basics of how to do your character’s moves and combos, but now it’s time to learn how to apply them in a match. After all, your opponent isn’t going to sit there and let you do combos, so you have to learn ways to do damage against your opponent, while defending against his attacks. So grind out all of the matchups you can.

  2. Online can be pretty horrendous at times. A minor lag spike will completely affect the timing of your attacks, which is largely why online isn’t taken very seriously on fighting games, whereas the online community is everything in FPS and RTS genre. That being said, you can still learn quite a lot by playing a variety of characters, player styles, and player skill, in the online setting. But I highly encourage you to take what you learn online and go to your local offline sessions and tournaments if there are any available to you.

  3. All characters have option-selects. The one that you’ve learned is very basic, but effective, and all characters can use it. The problem with mashing lk+lp is that it leaves you open to eat a frame trap, which is how you counter that option. Read the stickies and FAQs if you don’t know what a frame trap is.

  4. Yes, this current iteration of AE seems to favor characters with very powerful mix-up options at close range. Generally, each iteration starting from the original SF4 has favored the more offensive characters, but you can still find success with other characters. The tier lists are pretty compressed, and any character can be a true threat in the hands of an expert.

  5. Pick whoever you enjoy playing the most.

Anything else you can learn by going to the SF4 section and your character sub-section for more information. The Domination 101 articles are also an extremely good read.

3

First of all, keep playing the people that are way better than you, as well as the people worse than you. Secondly, you yourself need to determine what to focus on. Focus on utilizing all of your options and reading your opponents.

Mixups are great, but 50/50s aren’t nearly as useful as "This guy is mashing on wakeup, I will meaty him every time and get nice combo and then block the one desperation DP/ultra and kill him for it.

Online with randoms is awful, people abuse lag and think they’re good. Play people you meet in regional matchmaking (a subforum of SRK for finding people) or at least play people online that you meet on SRK. Some randoms will be good, some will be retarded.

Everyone can do OS tech, but even characters with really good cr.lk’s can get blown up for it.

If I personally was going to pick one character right now for the metagame, I would play Fei Long, Zangief, . Look at top 8’s from tournaments yourself though.

That’s too many characters for a new player, drop one.

Adon can pretty much fight anyone, as can Akuma. They have a few bad matchups, but nothing unsurmountable or as frustrating as Zangief vs Chun Li. Dhalsim loses pretty strongly 4-6 to a lot of characters though, unless you really enjoy playing him I don’t see the appeal.

If your character can get unblockable’d by Cammy, you need to consider how much you really like that character.

This tier list is serviceable, although I disagree with some numbers. Seth has an average matchup advantage of 5.42, Vega has an average of 4.87. Note that even the D tier characters aren’t significantly worse than the A tier. Every bad matchup matters.

4

I think I’m going to stick to Akuma and Dhalsim. I like how Dhalsim can calmly handle the matchups against slow characters…I’m learning decent traps and zoning against slowpokes, and playing those matches patiently is what shuts down the opponent. For anyone else, I use Akuma. I’m definitely dropping Oni completely…what a waste.

I like dabbling in several characters for now, so I can get a better feel for what works against what playstyles, but thank you for you consideration. I’d love to look into Zangief after I get super good at reading.

I hate Cammy. I’m so bad at punishing Hooligan setups.

Thank you both for your response. I’m off to read more and practice.

5

Both good choices. Dhalsim is extremely zoning dependent, and you can win entire matches without a single combo. Akuma is an extremely balanced character, who can utilize a variety of playstyles and tools to win his matches. Both characters have low health, so you’ll need to be on point with your defense and mitigate damage.

Cammy’s hooligan setups aren’t that great since they’re quite slow. The EX can be threat if it catches you off guard, but good Cammy’s will usually save that meter for FADC or EX air cannon spikes. With practice, you’ll soon be able to react to and punish hooligan setups.

6

You can react to the setups for hooligan throws, just be more active about looking for them. Most characters can just uppercut them. Other characters have to do a wakeup crouching normal.

Taken out of context, this makes me so mad lol.