Basic Combos:
Anti-Air LP SRK > MP/HP/EX SRK or Air EX Tatsu
cr.LK xx cr.LP > (Kara) HP SRK
cr.LK xx cr.LP (xx st.LP) > cr.MK xx EX Tatsu
cr.MP > cr.LP > cr.MK xx EX Tatsu
cl.MK > cr.MK xx EX Tatsu
Target Combo xx Special Move
st.HK xx SRK/EX Tatsu for punishes.
Ken’s basic game-plan tends to be Step-Kick pressure, Air-Tatsus into BnBs, Air EX Tatsus into sweep, Fireball zoning, or footsies during the neutral game. On offense, you’ll mostly be looking for counter-hits, and Kara-Throw opportunities. You can jump Tatsus if you’re ballsy and if your opponent can’t anti-air them. Ken’s greatest strength comes from his damage and mix-ups.
I dont see here people asking things about the Ryu match up. This match is one of my hardest, I really have trouble against good Ryus. At the most part because of his focus. I cant deal with well placed focuses. And Ryu’s focus is so damn good, sometimes I watch a Ryu player by the name of Jyobin just to learn how to deal against focus, because this guy uses it a lot. Sometimes he does a level 3 just like that. He’s crazy, but it seems that it works well for him. This type of Ryu that plays reckless and does good focus always give me trouble. I dont know if its me or Ken’s weakness, but I find very hard to deal with it. I know how to punish, how to avoid, but on practice sooner or later I always get hit by a counter level 1 or a level 2 between a buffered string, unless I do shoryuken, but if you do that, you can be punished after a bait. It looks like bad luck, but people hit me focus level 2 on the start up of my moves frequently. Hadoukens, jumps, and tatsus, that sucks. Sometimes I think that the problem is me, because I dont practice that much, but I really think that Ken cant do very well against well placed focuses too.
I’ve been doing some research about the Ken x Ryu match and when I find good Ryus, they’re always doing a lot of focus to deal with Ken, not just to stop step kicks, but to go on offense too. Is that really an effective tool against Ken’s gameplay? How do you guys deal against well-played-reckless Ryus that use correctly focus?
It sounds like he’s only doing a level 2 focus,which you can actually focus absorb it’s hit yourself and smack him with your own focus attack.
Also,any focus attack that isn’t level 3 can be blocked,level one is especially unsafe on block,so if you block his level 1 you’ll get a free punish.
And if you’re at the right range to get it out on time,memorize his patterns and hit him with EX tatsu or EX fireball.
EDIT: Good luck though considering that trying to get past some focus attacks are a bitch online.
Yeah Foolinfection, im playing online, and that’s why its hard to get a pattern. Im already using the focus absorb but sometimes things go wrong. And lilsic its hard to always react using srk and tatsu because people that use focus well do it at a good range, that makes kens srk wiff and counter tatsu on start up. You know it has a little startup. As I said before people hit me on the startup of a tatsu and hadouken sometimes. But if I was practicing more, maybe I could improve my footsie and deal better with this.
By the way lilsic, I never saw you doing videos at the On1 Gaming Tv youtube channel again, those videos were good man. Those matches against a good balrog player really helped me out. ^^
Yeah it is indeed difficult. I usually take focus attacks right in the face about %60 of the time online due to lag and delay. Other options to try are neutral jumping and back dashing out of the way of the attack. If you can somehow react quick enough to get out it’s range then their whiffed focus will be very punishable.
For Focus abusers, I simply try to stay out of range of their Focus Attack. If they dash forward, I poke or hit-confirm if possible. If they back-dash, I Step-Kick to gain positioning, or even hit them if it’ll reach. If I have U2 stocked, I’ll U2 as soon as I see the Focus Attack if they don’t have an amazing back-dash.
If I’m within their Focus range, I always Focus charge and back-dash. I refuse to play this guessing game. All they can do is try to Focus dash forward and try to hit me on my back-dash’s recovery; I personally believe it’s worth it over a full Focus combo.
Joutai I think I do the same thing that you do, except the step kick and ultra 2 thing. Im not that familiar to the range and speed of ultra 2 yet but its a good idea to do it on reaction, I saw a video of Its Showtime doing this, but he was very close to the opponent. I have a match from here, I live in Brazil by the way, its a small tournament from last weekend that shows well the kind of Ryu I’m talking about. The Fei Long player eats a lot of focus from the Ryu player. And the Fei Long player is a little more solid than the Ryu player, it seems like he doesnt believe that the Ryu will hold that focus, and at the end he gets hit. Pretty much the same way that happens to me. On the video, notice that the Ryu player is not spamming focus, but when he uses it he uses it well.
+1
i always do this. much better than jumping backwards and getting hit on the way up and much better than naked backdash as you could get hit with the full focus.
From my observation, the Ryu player looks to be using Focus between cr.MP and cr.MK range. Every time the Fei player tried to walk forward and poke at that range, he’d charge Focus. During the later sets, Fei kept his distance to closer outside cr.MK range and I don’t think Ryu threw even one Focus.
I don’t have much to say since it’d be easier to give advice if I can see the Ryu VS You since people do change their tactics depending on the character and the player.
Yeah Joutai, it would be easier indeed. Im not playing lately, a little frustated with my performance, I started to play other games too, rpg at the most, so im not playing ssf4 these days. But reading what people here are saying I got some ideas and I figured it out that the problem is my gameplay, I should be practicing more and improving my footsies and reaction. But we will have a little tournament here on my city this weekend, maybe I will practice the rest of the week for it and get back on track. ^^
Quick note- Ryu can dash cancel after his focus level 1 is blocked to set up frame trap DP fadc ultra. It’s 2012 and that shit still catches people who’d rather press buttons rather than backdash. Most players won’t throw out a level 1 focus unless they were looking for that frame trap or fishing for counter hits.
Ken’s level 1 focus is a little more unsafe on block even with the dash cancel. I get thrown or jabbed trying to frame trap off of it on occasion.
hey guys, I’m new to ken but I’ve played third strike and ST shoto’s for a long time. I wanna know the how-to ken in this game, what makes him different than other sf’s, and why he’s #5 on the latest tier list. Thanks, and try not to mind the laziness of lurking these forums :X
Ken is #5? I would like a link to that tier list please.
I’m not qualified to provide a how-to with Ken, seeing as that I went 0-2 with him (… and Ryu ) at Seasons’ Beatings this past weekend after placing 2nd at last week’s local. I lost a FT5 MM against Valle 5-3, the matches I did win were due to decent footsies, proper meter management (aka not spamming EX fireball whenever I built up the meter for it), and mixing it up on both the offensive and defensive end. The last few matches I got sloppy on offense and allowed myself to crouch tech too much. Why I expected a throw when he had three stocks and ultra at endgame is beyond me. Overall, great experience with the FT5 and something I should do more often.
You’ll find most of the answers you’re looking for from men wiser than myself on the first post on most of these threads.
He’s #5 on the collab matchup chart because people don’t think he has manybad matchups, so he gets a high matchup total. Little else to it. (The chart isn’t a tier list, though, although a matchup chart it probably the most important ingredient of a tier list)
The most obvious are:
[LIST]
[]Good step-kick
[]Good overheads
[]Best Kara
[]Better fireball than 3s but worst than ST
[]Easier hit-confirms
[]Worst walk-speed ever.
[*]No crazy kicks
[/LIST]
Joutai hit most of Ken’s most important points. I would add far st. RH as an underrated poke, good for counter hits and whiff punishes. It is faster than previous versions. Work it (along with step kick) in just enough to get your opponent to start focusing, then catch them with tatsu or c.mk xx tatsu/DP depending on the range.
I wanted to start a “Ask Chachi: advanced mashing tactics” thread as an April Fool’s joke, but I never got around to it and I think that window of opportunity has slammed shut. :sad:
SPEAKING OF st. RH. I was trying to figure out a way to stop goukens who just mash sweep just because they can and ken has really hard time with a normal that comes out that fast.
gouken’s whiffed sweep can be punished with step kick, and st. RH. Step kick for me, isn’t as consistent, and ken’s sweep doesn’t have the range.
ken’s normals: (pretty sure this is 2012 frame data)
far st. RH= 11 frame startup
sweep= 8 frame startup
step kick = 11 frame startup
goukens sweep recovery = 18 frames
Then what is the problem with step kick? Since the human mind takes time to process whiffed moves, then input toward + mk takes like 1~2 frames, essentially the effective startup of step kick to whiff punish is probably 15-18 frames ish. But for st. RH all I gotta do is process the fact that the move whiffed, then just press one button.
And for ALOT of characters that I used to have trouble with footsie wise, st. RH is the only move that has the range, and can hit them fast enough. It’s also lenient on spacing, so you don’t have to be at that perfect spacing where you can sweep their centerline.
adon’s st. rh? get outta here
sakura st rh? get outta here
gouken and balrog sweep? get outta here
Anyways thats my 2 cents, by the time you guys read this I probably gave out 300 st. RH whiff punishes in endless already.
Wassup Ken community. Wasnt here for a while. Did we dig up any new info for ken yet? Also i wanna know. I been using target combo after an ambiguous jump in mk after kara throw. When they block it i end it with a hadontken. What cast can punish TC xx Hadontken. cause i know the ex fireball isnt punishable on block.
) at Seasons’ Beatings this past weekend after placing 2nd at last week’s local. I lost a FT5 MM against Valle 5-3, the matches I did win were due to decent footsies, proper meter management (aka not spamming EX fireball whenever I built up the meter for it), and mixing it up on both the offensive and defensive end. The last few matches I got sloppy on offense and allowed myself to crouch tech too much. Why I expected a throw when he had three stocks and ultra at endgame is beyond me. Overall, great experience with the FT5 and something I should do more often.