Looking for some friendly advice

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

I recently got back into Street Fighter after a long time, and when I left I wasn’t very good at all. But now I’m back and am looking to really just figure out how to deal with some of the problems I had before I quit and have starting back up again. I guess one of my main issues is performing a mix-up in the safest way possible. I usually find myself not trying to jump in on a downed opponent usually because I fear the dp, a lot. I usually just kind of test the waters to see what they like to do on wake up (remember I’m a scrub playing scrubs) so I’ll walk up the block or jump in early just to get them riled a bit, just to see if their go to is dp on wakeup, and then afterwards I’lll try to jump in but I still seemed to get stuffed with a dp way more often than I’d like to. So I was wondering what I could, other than jumping on them on their wakeup, in order deal some damage, and mixup them up a bit or just give them a reason to fear using their dp.

My other problem comes from a few different situations I find myself in more often than not. Like when I hit someone out of the air and they flip out back on their feet and sometimes they’ll dp, or sometimes they’ll throw, which is fine I can kind of deal with that, but what I have trouble understanding is when lets say I’m going for a cr.lk their jab or lk or w.e 3 frame move their using usually ends up hitting me first. Just can’t wrap my head around that one. I’m assuming I’m just being slow about it, but when I try to throw it out their early I’m usually not hitting anything. Another situation I find myself in is the very close staring contest between me and my opponent, and honestly I’m not sure what some of my best pressuring tools are. I would assume standing jab but I usually just get hit low when I attempt it. I’ve tried cr short but then I just get jabbed out. I dunno if my timing is off or what, and maybe I’m still just trying to get a feel for it all.

And then some other issues are just personal counters, or rather just people I don’t know how to deal with properly, and I may be lacking the patience to do so. I usually have the most problems with Dhalsim, Blanka, and El Fuerte and I just can’t help but feel if I had an actual dp, these matchups may be easier.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

2

"mix-up in the safest way possible"
I don’t know whether I’d say “safest”, but the typical “mix-up” Sakura uses is frame-trap vs grab. Sakura has great up-close buttons that all can lead into great damage (lk,lp, and close hp are fast and lead to dp or tatsu loop). When you get consistent at hitting them, people will either respect your up-close pressure (block/backdash) or just try to dp you. Keep in mind that dp, without meter, usually only means approx. 100 damage to you? compared to potentially 300-400 damage with 0-1 meter if you block their dp (with just a basic tatsu loop, or just a simple dp ender combo). To know when to go for pressure or try to bait a dp is just something you’ll need to have practice against by playing more though, against better players ideally. The simple rock-paper-scissors though is: If they mash a lot on wakeup, press buttons. If they dp, block. If they block, go for grab (this is possibly overly simplistic though, as character MU is a big deal, as well as other things).

If you want to jump on wakeup and they dp a lot, either go for an empty jump (you can’t be hit if you time your jump right), or try for a ambiguous cross-up. Reveral-timing dps will not auto-correct against your cross up jumps, depending on the dp (ryu’s dps come to mind here). Non-3-frame dps you can just safe jump. This stuff just requires practice in training mode though, learning specific character things (ryu is a good starting point though to test stuff against).

"their using usually ends up hitting me first"
This just sounds like you’re timing your “meaty” wrong. jabs and shorts have only a few active frames usually, but that shouldn’t matter at all with some practice. You can’t push the button too fast though, or the active frames will go away, and your move will just whiff/lose to their mashing. you can maybe practice this against training mode dummy by trying to sweep, and pressing cl.hp as early as possible where it will actually hit the opponent. As long as your goal isn’t going for “perfect meaty” setups, doing this should be very easy (it is basically like a 6 frame timing to hit meaty in a way that’ll beat all non-invincible options).

Dhalsim, blanka, fuerte, you just have to learn character mu stuff in training mode + watching videos + playing them repeatedly. an “actual dp” is not actually a factor against dhalsim though; ryu has one and the matchup is still terrible. Dhalsim basically tests your patience. Blanka, keep slide and blanka ball in mind. Mashing jab can hit ball out of the air, and slides can be beat with focus or neutral jump (or space yourself to punish whiff, or punish the recovery on it since it isn’t great). El Fuerte? fuck el fuerte. You can punish his q-bomb, and you need to know how to or he’ll get away with stupid stuff. EDIT: fuerte is just “Stupid stuff: the Game”

tl;dr -> Use practice mode. Or find your local fighting game scene.

3

Thank you for the feed back, seems like I just need to practice more lol. Another thing I would like to know is when I knockdown with sweep what are some of my go to’s? Usually I jump hp or go for a cr lk into whatever, but I feel like I may have better options. I’ve also run into a few problems after I get knocked down, well probably more than a few, mostly I don’t know what I should do. I’ve gone with blocking and what I usually do is just press grab on every blocked hit as to avoid being thrown after they see me blocking. Sometimes I end up getting jabbed into a combo and I’m assuming that is some kind of frame trap just trying to catch me hitting buttons, but when I don’t do it I end up getting grabbed, it’s very frustrating.

4

There are some setups/unblockeables after sweep.
The grabbing is a guessing game. Though you shouldn’t cr tech after every hit, they do get out of grab range after a few hits!
Though with enough playing, you can feel when most ppl want to grab online.
what helped me out was watching my replays and considering what the good/neutral options are.

5

Wakeup is intentionally not in your favor in terms of risk/reward. Your options on wakeup are: block, ex dp, backdash, jump, and mash a fast move. Theres also teching/crouch techs. Out of all of these, block is generally safest. Getting grabbed is nothing damage-wise when compared to getting counter-hit. The same could generally be said for overheads. If you want to play safe, just crouch blocking is not bad, without even trying to tech.

Really the only way to “know” what to do on wakeup is for you to detect patterns from your opponent. If an opponent does jab,jab, walkforward grab, twice on you in the same round, chances are they might go for it again (so you can backdash after the two jabs, try for grab yourself, invincible move, etc.). If they do a “blockstring” that clearly has a gap that lets you push buttons, chances are they’re fishing for a frame trap. The question shouldn’t quite be “What should I do on wakeup”, it should be “what is my opponent doing on my wakeup”. If you can answer that question, the answer to the first will generally be obvious. It seems frustrating to you when you change up your options on wakeup and still get hit, and its because you’re probably not actually thinking about your opponent. But that comes with more practice playing against real people.

Setups and combos, that stuff is relatively easy in comparison. It just takes (lots of) practice in training mode. I’m sure there are plenty of resources on that kind of information on these forums (maybe not organized in one neat place though, I don’t know).

Sorry if this sounds vague, but its unavoidable. Fighting games at the core is just predicting opponent’s moves and making educated guesses (setups/combos are just the reward for right choices).

6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjfug0O8uWM

Watch this and understand the part about crouch teching in offense on the frames right after someone wakes up. This is a really safe and easy way to apply pressure and figure out if someone is mashing DP. From this you can put in throws, frame traps, true block strings, whatever you want.

But aside from tips… everything these guys are saying. Think more about what they are doing during your pressure rather than just what they are going to do on wake up. Against a lot of good players they will play solid defense the only way to break it is to understand what they are doing. When are they teching? What timing are they using? Stand tech or crouch tech? Option select tech? Do they react fast with throw when I walk forward or is it delayed? Its just a constant battle of mind games.

You might knock Ryu down and try jab, jab, throw. But he does cr.mp tech as you walk forward. So we know he reacted to jab jab fast, maybe next time I’m going to try and walk backwards and whiff a s.lk or a move that would beat the cr.mp hitbox. The walk might bait him into thinking I’m walking forward for throw and he might react with cr.mp and we have a s.lk already waiting.

If you go back to that situation on a different Ryu player and this time instead of a cr.mp as we walk forward, we got a crouch tech. So this person is most likely not reacting to the walk with crouch tech and just wants to try and throw when I throw, or their reaction is slower than the previous Ryu. In this situation we can do long walks forward and then try to catch them pushing buttons with a frame trap.

Anyways, things like that. Hope that helps a bit.