I know everyone has characters they are strong/weak against… but good Ken players are really giving me problems. It always seems they are one step ahead of me. ><
It seems like his M and H kicks just come out faster than they should.
Any tips on how to mix up Ken?
well obvoiusly you cant safe jump Ken, so usually after the first knockdown ill do a cross up tatsu, because most Kens will wake up dp which will blow up your normal jump attack… after a forward throw dash twice and medium kick demon flip dive kick it stuffs his reversals. when in mid range i like to focus just in case the ken is step kick happy its a good punish…
I can usually bait and punish decently… but I have trouble winning the footsie game a lot. I tend to play rather aggressively with my demon flips… but more often than not his air game stuffs mine…which I’m not used to.
I’ll try more cross up tatsus and more bait and punish. When I can get a few throws in a row in towards the end of the round it is really helpful. With my air game getting shut down/punished I usually resort to zoning him because, as I said, my footsies game seems weak against him.
I don’t have nearly as much trouble with any other character it seems like. =/
Thanks for the response… maybe I just need more Ken practice.
Ken dominates the air when he’s tatsu-happy and you can use that to your advantage. DP won’t do good, because it usually misses the tatsu (cuz it’s fast enough to just fly above the shoryu and land on the other side if done correctly) but it is rather punishable by far st.HP and cr.HP. If you notice that the ken player always goes for a tatsu whenever he takes to the skies (and they do that, they do that a LOT) then just react with a cr.HP or st,HP (depends on the range and height of the tatsu). If you learn to do it, it helps a ton, and takes away a lot from ken’s play, cuz they can no longer jump whenever the fuck they want and that is a pretty serious advantage if you just let them do it 
Thank you! That is some good information I was looking for. I will practice my ranges and see if shutting down his air game changes things a little.
i like to charge up a focus just inside step kick range once they start getting predictable. also, i don’t play footsies against ken at first. i play outside of step kick range and if they try it then I punish with a far st.hk into bnb, or you can just sweep for a knock down.
once you shut them down just outside of step kick range, and punish them with focus inside of their range, then they its much easier to get them into standard footsies mode.
I just play it safe against ryu/ken players. Most of them aren’t good and are just dp happy. It sucks when they even catch you with a mashed fucking ultra when you go to punish his stupid fast recovery dp. Just aa, stay away or sweep step kick. Do not df kick to attempt to stuff dps when he has u1 stocked or you risk eating u1 if you did your setup incorrectly. His fireballs are ass so if you see him throwing them from full screen, theres a free ex df throw/kick into bnb. Just watch out for his kara throw. That is a pain in the ass to tech correctly, almost like Goukens backthrow.
You can actualy bait mashed out reversal U1 from Ken by doing HK DF Kick instead of MK. And if you’re playing DP mashing Ken/Ryu scrubs then DF Dive kick setups work very well against them! They’re too scrubby to know WHICH dragon punch to use and all they do is HP/EX DP all day which is stuffable or at the very least, makes their shit whiff so you can follow up with a punish.
For Ken players, I just sweep them when the whiff DP to get the knockdown. Sure, it would be better to walk in and do a basic BnB, but the recovery on his DP + Online lag usually equals eating a follow up “derp” DP from him. Online Ken players just LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE those follow up DP’s when they whiff the first one…
Yup, which is why I wait until they do the second one usually. You would think after they have been punished like 4 times in a row for doing this shit they would stop. But nope.
Yea I love baiting the U1…that’s where I get a lot of my punish damage in. And scrub Kens that just mash DP are np. What is giving me problems are people that are actually really technical with Ken. They time their air game to counter mine and I can’t compete with their footsie game usually. My only option is to zone them and get some jump in demons off whiffed DP’s…
It’s just a bad match up for me.
Its hard to aa kens air tatsu with dp because often they will do it so the dp whiffs and they land behind you. I just rely on st.hp or cr.hp now every time I see it. Can also u1 it.
I’ve been using C.HP a lot more in general. It has proven very helpful against Ken. His EX air tatsus are still nightmares though. =/
Getting better at playing footsies with him though.
Yeah work on your footsies. Even at a “good” level some Ken players will get a little too pushkick happy. Work on baiting that out and you can punish it with either a focus or a standing roundhouse.
Fundamentals are really key in this matchup for me. That means: controlling the air space with your normals (or dp if you can do it well enough), playing good footsies, and pushing Ken into the corner. Remember that we still have an unblockable against him as well as a setup off of forward throw to make DPs whiff (2x dash forward, mk dive kick). Also don’t be afraid to teleport to safety a lot in this matchup if he’s pressuring you. Ken can’t do much until he has Ultra 2 stocked. Also your ability to zone is better all around than his.
I think a lot of people let the fear of a DP dictate this match for them (at least I know I did). Unfortunately Ken can wait for you to try and bait his DP during a blockstring and grab you from almost any range when he sees hesitation. You basically have to be confident in your reads and combo strings and not get too caught up in Ken hitting you with a shoryuken… its gonna happen.
The unblockable I know about, but I’m pretty sure the Exploding Heart Technique doesn’t work on Ken anymore. At least not in the “classic” sense of throw then dash in twice with DF Dive kick. His MP SRK pretty much stuff the dive kick with that timing. I’d go for the x-up tatsu instead.
Stay outside step kick range, punish with sweep on reaction if they throw it while you’re out there. It’s such a long, elongated motion that it should be easy for all of us.
Yeah… Except in lag! :arazz:
Ok I went back to the lab to reconfirm this. 2x Dash forward INSTANT divekick stuffs mp dp, trades with lp, but loses to fierce and ex. If you delay the divekick slightly however, it makes hp and ex whiff and loses to mp and lp. I also believe slight step forward setup can be used to make dps whiff like with ryu. Anyway, it would be cooler if it stuffed more options with less guesswork, but it still basically forces ken to block or eat a combo.
I don’t see how it forces Ken to do anything but NOT do MP dp… Most online Ken scrubs will mash HP or EX dp anyways, so that setup loses as per your findings. Plus it trades with LP dp, so it’s only viable if your opponent is GOOD so he knows MP dp is Ken’s go to AA in that situation.
Well like I said you can adjust accordingly. If you delay the divekick slightly it will make HP and EX whiff.
Tokido uses this very same setup here: [media=youtube]KCr-y37woqg[/media]
Not that his word is law but I doubt he would be using it if its crap. Plus I’ve used it a lot and as long as you are aware of varying the timings it gives you a mixup out of 2x dash forward along with cross up tatsu. Also if you’re playing against scrub kens who mash HP or EX that shouldn’t be an issue, as I said you can make that whiff and I don’t usually worry about setups as much against guys like that anyway. Anyway try it out, I’ve found it to be useful, or at least 1 more tool in my arsenal. This + small step HK+tatsu gives us 3 actual viable options against ken and makes them guess, which usually forces a block. From that point on if you think they are scared you can get df grabs etc of some of this stuff. BTW I did not come up with this setup, I think it was mentioned a while back on the boards.
Thanks again for everyone who chimed in with good advice. It is appreciated.
I have an online friend that plays a really good Ken game and while we were sparring the other day he mentioned that my issues fighting Ken are rooted in a bigger issue: my time spent in the air. I rely way to heavily on demon flip dive kicks and Ken is a character that can really capitalize on that. So I made some changes. More air tatsus, more sweeps, basically just becoming harder to read… and I saw an immediate difference.
I still feel a little intimidated by a good Ken player… but not nearly as much as before. Seems silly now that something so simple was messing my strategy up so much… I’m not sure when I started “over dive kicking” and being lazy… but by stepping up my vortex game… my footsie game immediately improved.
I guess it was easy for me to fall into that trap because I have won matches by just mixing up demon flips and throwing in throws here and there. I really need to play harder against everyone and not let my skill suffer because silly repetitive chains work on scrubs. =/