Hey everybody.
I’m having trouble getting in with Rog. All I really use is headbutts, and a lot of the times I just get hit on recovery. What are some good ways to get in with Rog other then headbutt?
Thanks.
Jump up, press HP, and hold forward. Need great timing to use it though.
^^
Getting in against who? Projectile throwers? That’s the only reason I’d see for only using Buffalo Headbutts.
Otherwise, rush 'em down with the Dashing Punches, standing fierce, crouching strong, crouching forward, and don’t forget to jab, of course, and soon you’ll be throw looping them.
^^Thanks guys.
Yeah it’s mainly against projectile throwers, but kind of everybody too. I don’t use standing fierce a lot, so that should help.
I officially hate Sagat. I don’t know where they came from, but lately I’ve been seeing really f’in good zoning Sagats lately, and they really give my Rog fits. Besides holding TAP and hoping for a miracle, what do you guys do to get through dem tiger shots? If only Rog could jump a little higher 
Bonus Edit: I just found this video, but apparently Jason Nelson pulled out O. Rog in the Evo 2008 finals. Even though he lost, it is kinda cool to see what Rog could do if his standing rush punch could hit mid: [media=youtube]fFK_fT1GXGE[/media]
Have we done an HDR Rog matchup list yet? I’ll start:
Rog was consider top tier in vanilla ST, but in HDR he got pretty much nothing but nerfed. Does that change anything? Let’s find out…
Rog VS–
Chun: 5-5
Her air game, zone game, and incredible throws make for one hell of a tough time. The tables turn when Rog catches her in a corner and when he gets super. I waffled on giving Chun the advantage here but I seriously think it can go even when both players are evenly matched. Not having to worry about crossup neckbreaker is very nice.
Ryu&Ken: 5-5
Both get lumped together and can be really hard for slightly different reasons. It pretty much depends on who gets the best start to the match. If Rog gets cornered, he dies a slow zone death. If Rog corners or just manages to stay out of zone loops, shotos tend to die quick.
Honda: 4-6
I’ve seen this match go both ways. I main both Honda and Rog, so I have plenty of experience here. Quite frankly, Honda just has too many tools here. The only way for Rog to stay in it is to pray that he can get super and a high tap and get lucky. But if one character can do “lucky”, it’s Rog. He loses, but it isn’t a bad loss. Even or advantage Rog when he gets super.
Guile: 4-6
Guile just recovers way too fast from Booms. Even when you catch him throwing with a jump, good Guiles will smack you out with a cr.HP. I would’ve rated this even to Rog having a half point advantage in vanilla ST, but between his new HK Flash Kick and overhead, he just is nearly impossible to get in on. But when you do, Guile gets messed up in a hurry.
Gief: 4-6
Lariat, sweep, lariat, sweep, splash, etc. Your timing has to be flawless for this match, when Gief can just do the above, knock you down, and go to town. Rog super is more or less worthless in this match unless the Gief player mistakenly uses a punch lariat right in front of you, which they usually don’t. This can be one of the more easy ones to build TAP though, so it isn’t a bad loss.
Dhalsim: 5.5-4.5
Rog barely loses here. His jumping forward MP will trade with nearly everything Sim has jumping over fireballs, so it isn’t too much of a bear to get in if you are ahead on life. Sim has so many shenanigans though that it can make for a completely unpredictable match. I can see this going from dead even to Sim taking a very slight lead.
Hawk: 5.5-4.5
Again I would say Rog barely loses here. In vanilla ST he more or less easily won because Hawk really couldn’t use the Dive. With the new HDR dive and O.Hawk normals though, Hawk can get close and pressure all day with safe jumps into Storm Hammer. Rapid jabs tend to stuff Rog rush in. Essentially another test of reaction time for Rog.
Blanka: 6-4
Originally I would put this at like 8-2 for Rog, but lately I’ve been seeing some absolutely fantastic Blanka play. Rog has serious issues with Blanka crossups. If Rog gets downed once from electricity (a very easy thing to do!), good Blankas will go to crossup town and never let up. With Rog’s gimped throw, Blanka throws tend to win out more often than not. Still, Blanka can’t roll against Rog and Rog super fucks up a lot of Blanka’s gameplan. Cr.MP until the cows come home for the most part.
Cammy: 6-4
Rog wins here, but Cammy can be one tough cookie. Her hitboxes are weird in that you pretty much can’t do a ground crossup after a throw and meaty jump-in timing can be weird. Constant spiral arrow pressure and hooligan shenanigans can also cause hard times. Blocked SRKs = straight dash punch from Rog though, plus his tough overall defense with the headbutts put Rog ahead. That and Cammy’s options are extremely limited when Rog gets super.
Feilong: 6.5-3.5
Rog wins pretty big here. Blocked flame kicks = free dash punch or super. Throw still has better range (from what I can see) than Fei. Chickenwing pressure does suck, but it just takes one good timed headbutt to put that down and start applying some Rog-Brand? punishment of your own.
DeeJay: 4-6
Rog loses to a Deejay that knows how to zone and has excellent patience/reaction time. Even when he gets in, it’s pretty hard to do too much damage before you are ether pushed or upkicked out. Jab headbutt through maxouts can now be easily punished with the extra landing frames. Not fun Rog’s pure speed is what makes this not a blowout.
Vega: 5.5-4.5
Fairly even match. Walldive shenanigans don’t really come into play when you can just safely (or even hit sometimes) HP headbutt out. Vega’s overall jump and ground speed more or less match rush happy Rog. Both have normals and specials that can mess shit up. Vega slide and pokes can fluster Rog and Rog’s cr.MP and cr.MK have a high tendency to hit a lot of Vega’s normals. Both have reversals that make tick throwing and jumping in hard. I’d say Rog wins if he gets super. If not, it’s even-steven.
Bison: 6-4
If Bison just sits at down-back sticking out cr.MK all day, then it can go about even. If they try to engage a charged Rog, it becomes a blood bath for the dictator. It’s an odd match that really depends on the combo skill of the Bison player. Rog still wins, but it more often than not is a difficult win against great Bisons.
Sagat: 4-6
Tiger shots just mess Rog up. If you get caught in the corner you die pretty much unless you have super. Jump back HK into tiger uppercut is just nasty for Rog. Hell, Sagat’s jumping kicks in general are very difficult to counter cleanly. Getting in on great Sagats is just one part of a larger puzzle. Kinda like DeeJay. If Rog can somehow corner (or get close with charge) Sagat, he can pull off wins, but that is pretty damn difficult. Super can once again hugely change the dynamic of the match, but getting there can be a huge struggle if all you can do is block low tigertigertiger.
I think I got everyone. Discuss amongst yourselves.
So I thought I would post my progress with Boxer if anything to at least get some feedback.
So for the past 2-3 weeks I’ve been working on integrating TAP into my play style. There are a few characters I don’t use TAP for at all.
Vega: cr. mk is necessary to stop slides and such
Blanka: I don’t feel like I (me personally) can keep Blanka pinned down to nail a TAP.
Zangief: Same problem, though I think it’s more about my predictability (The last gief I played would lariat out of my block strings. For some reason I didn’t learn until after I was done for the night.)
For the most part I don’t think TAP is a huge addition to my game. In fact I think I overuse it at the expense of wiff kick rush throw. However the match ups TAP helps me out with the most is Sim and Honda. My main tactic for these two is to vary my block strings. Neither Sim nor Honda can duck Boxer’s standing fierce. So my “mix up” consists of rush, rush + standing fierce, and rush + standing fierce + ?3TAP.
In Sim’s case, it doesn’t seem like he can do much about rush + fierce, so I’ll do that a couple of times, then I’ll rush + fierce + TAP. If I hit that’s a bonus, but if I don’t I at least still get appreciable chip. I never had that much trouble with the Sims I’ve met (online only I’m not looking to enter any tournaments yet) but TAP helps win by giving me the opportunity to score much more damage than I could otherwise.
Against Honda this has been a really big help. I used to sit in the corner and take torpedoes to the face like a porn star. I feel like the block strings help me stay in the chip game at the least, and do big damage if they try to counter poke. I haven’t met anyone who tries to reversal headbutt through block strings, so I’m curious to know if that’s a problem. But otherwise the standing fierce catches my opponent off guard sometimes. And if TAP doesn’t hit, the chip damage on block at least keeps me even in terms of a chip damage.
So that’s what I’m up to at the moment. If anyone’s got any advice or other feedback, please feel free to share.
Edit: So sometimes I come across a player who can reversal throw reliably enough to make make me want to stop going for crossunders and fake crossunders after I grab my opponent. What are some safer yet still aggressive options after I throw. There’s back up TAP and I guess sit there rush. Anything else?
Double Edit:
If I’m outside jump in range, I don’t even bother with high tiger shots. I just lp headbutt through the low ones. If I feel like I want to take a chance, I’ll go for a jump in. I usually keep a charge to try to land a low rush. If I don’t want to jump in I’ll just block a few tiger shots to get pushed back and reset. I like to think this keeps me from being predictable. Once you get a knock down from a rush or a headbutt it should be more or less your game, especially so if you know if your opponent likes to uppercut on wake up or not. If not you can keep pressuring, otherwise keep a back charge so you can punish that uppercut with another rush. Sagat is also too tall to duck standing fierce so rush + fierce + ?3TAP works as well. Also, don’t do what I like to do, that is walk up block when I have 1-2 pixels of health left and my opponent has super. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the super flash and thought Man I wish I weren’t an idiot
OK, I’ve been playing Rog since HDR came out and I pretty much main him now. I’ve never done one of the match breakdowns so I think it will be fun to offer my own opinions and experiences compared to yours. Also, the system is W-L against Balrog for the character in question for those who aren’t familiar.
4-6
This match requires the Rog player to rely almost completely on reflexes and counter hits. You’re not going to get in a lot of block strings or pressure here. Trading a very high TAP with lightning kicks or kikoken also tends to work well and it seems like Chun players are not expecting it as they are too scared of low rushes and like to throw those out often. I think this strategy give the Rog player and edge in this match because it give him 3 gameplans to the Chun player’s 1. The Chun player is just going to zone Rog all day long, but the Rog player can alternatively turtle and pressure, and can get the random game changing TAP.
My personal biggest problem in this match is not reacting quick enough to Chun’s walk up throws after a crouching block string. She has throw range advantage and I tend to try make a futile counter throw. The correct move here is cr. strong xx rush or super.
Agreed with one exception. Online Ken is a 6-4 match. Jab Shoryuken is nigh un-punishable online lets the Ken player spam it to counter rushes, and to counter punish attempts. This combined with excellent zoning by the Ken player makes for Balrog’s most frustrating match IMO.
Off-line, a good Rog can jab headbutt through fireballs at far range and fall just far enough away that he can’t be walk-up cr. roundhouse’d or thrown. If Rog happens to be in a range where he can have that done to him then he should block and reset. At that range his is capable of react low rushes to stuff or trade with fireballs, and the Ryu or Ken player may make an error dp and allow Rog to punish that.
For some Reason I feel Ryu is tremendously easier than Ken. The absence of a throw loop takes away some of the randomness, and Ryu doesn’t have an invincible start-up dp, so you can try meaty cr. forwards.
This is the Eye of the Tiger for Rog. You absolutely cannot lose your concentration here or you will lose big time. At match start Rog should throw one jab to stuff a potential headbutt, then get ready to react to hands or buttslam. If it’s hands then cr. strong xx low rush. If it’s buttslam then jab headbutt. Both result in a knockdown. After this Rog should do a meaty low rush. If it’s a knockdown repeat. If it’s a block he can do st. fierce to mixup sometimes. But this shouldn’t be done too often cause I think Honda can forward kick buttslam out of it. The goal here is to get back to mid range and stay there. This is the absolute best place to be in this match and is the only place onscreen where Rog is actually at advantage.
When Honda does a headbutt it should always be followed by a low rush punish attempt. It won’t hit often, and never on good Jonda players, but it keep you in the game. Honda’s super is 100% punishable on block, you just have to be fast.
I do not use TAP in this match unless it seems like my opponent is pre-occupied with HHS.
NEVER JUMP
I’ll put this 3-7 for Guile because you can stuff and trade SB’s at mid-range with st. fierce. This does excellent damage. At far range Rog can jab headbutt over Sb’s and build meter. Once he has Super then Guile’s whole gameplan must change and he must approach you, and this puts the advantage way over on Rog’s side.
The fact that the characters start at mid-range also hurts Guile a lot. I think if the game started the characters from full-screen this match might be a different story!
I’ll say 5-5 because of a recent discovery I made. My strategy I’m using these days against Gief players is to use a st. jab rush at maximum range. This will hit all of Gief’s jumping attacks and standing attackes, will stuff green hand, and will whiff a Lariat. I am unsure if good Gief players will start to do forward moving lariat’s to counter this. Also, low dash upper will stuff a lariat on start-up if you feel like the Gief player is getting to happy with his psychic lariats.
The addition of the above technique turned this match from a frustrating curb stomp for me into one of the funnest matches in the game.
Ugh, this is a horrible match for me. My experience says something more like 7-3. Headbutting threw fireballs is a nearly hopeless proposition, and any sort of forward movement seems to always be stuffed with j. forward kicks and cr. strong from Dhalsim. TAP is the savior here. Rog can afford to turtle a long time in order to save up a 6 or higher TAP and try to fly across the screen and trade with a Yoga flame or fire.
This match is surprisingly like the Honda matchup, but Hawk has a harder time dealing with the same strategies. Use cr. fierce to trade with j. jab from hawk, and jab headbutt for all other anti-air. It’s crucial that you be able to cross-up counter with st. rush if Hawk tries to cross you up. This is a valuable skill worth having as it’s also very important vs. blanka and bison.
If Hawk get’s in it’s game over. It’s worth it to try a jump back strong punch if Hawk is closer than a character space, cause anything you try is gonna get 360’d, and if you try a headbutt and get blocked then that is also a 360. Better to jump back, take the hit, and try to reset.
I think this match is 4-6 for Hawk.
I disagree. This is an easy match for Rog. It may seem like Blanka is in control a lot of the time, but the damage difference is huge. I think it is 3-7 for Blanka. Being able to do cross-up counters are absolutely key here. If you can’t do that then I would put it back to your 6-4. If Rog gets a knockdown in this match he should get to the maximum range of his cr. roundhouse and wait.
This is a strange match for Rog I think. He doesn’t do his normal shenanigans with throws, headbutts, or rushdowns. It’s all very counter-hit based. But practically everything Blanka can do here is a very easy counter-hit for Rog.
Theory fighter says Rog wins this match big time, but in my experience Cammy plays abuse the hell out of that Cannon Spike. They play on your ability to punish spiral arrows appropriately and if you do it too late you will eat a cannon spike, and if you hesitate you will get thrown.
I think with experience I could get better at this match but for me it’s been a solid 5-5.
4-6. The only thing to really look out for is being stupid and trying to headbutt too often, and too look out for tick throw attempts since Fei had quick foot speed and a long throw range. Fei’s ability to randomly land cr. fierce, cr. fierce makes this match a little more even that it would be.
6-4
Rog has to be a beast to compete in this match. You have to be able to appropriately headbutt, low rush, and jump forward for pressure. If Dee Jay starts zoning you at mid range you are in trouble, cause Dee Jay can punish jab headbutts better than Guile, so you can’t use similar strategies. Dee Jay will alternatively want to walk forward or backward to stay out of mid range. You have to know when you opponent has a charge in this match to even stay competitive.
4-6
Ugly match. Rog spends a lot of time whiffing headbutts and low dash uppers trying to tag Vega flying through the air. But it seems like as long as you are fast enough to punish wall dives, and are good enough to throw roll attempts this match is there for the taking for Rog. Vega will get more hits, especially trying to poke rush attempts, but Rog’s damage will even it out. A random TAP is good to throw out from full range too.
4-6
The main thing to look out for here is forward scissors kick and headstomp. Bison doesn’t really have too much else to threaten you with. BUT, it’s Bison, and one screw up can be game over. Also don’t try to counter-throw a walk-up throw, his range is better than Rog’s.
3-7
Yeah, that’s right. This match is completely different than it was in ST. You can TAP tiger shot’s! This match will be a very long battle for Rog. Expect it regularly be over 70 seconds or longer. Management of proper TAP inputs is crucial here. You must keep a charge at all times, usually with all five fingers of your hand. Then you will need to be able to correctly negative edge to release the buttons in order to do a headbutt or low dash upper when needed. Also, you can do a cr. roundhouse while a tiger is onscreen and release all you buttons if you really really need access back to your normals.
Also, you can hit Sagat’s hands much easier with a headbutt from mid-range now that tiger’s stick out farther and last longer.
For fun:
Akuma
9-1
You can’t headbutt through red fireballs! Attempting to punish air fireballs usually just ends up getting you hit. This match is essentially the Akuma players to lose. He just zones, zones, zones, and if he ever gets in trouble just jab dp’s out of it. disgusting.
Rog
5-5
lol. For some reason most Rog players are obsessed with being the beast in this match, and trying to rush as hard as they can. Let them push themselves too far and go ahead and throw them. Rog’s best thing to do vs himself is block.
In ST, all Ryu’s SRKs had more invincibility than Ken’s. In HDR, only Ken’s strong SRK have more invincibility. Ryu can actually stuff reversal SRK-happy Kens just by using his SRK as the enemy wakes up, to beat them cleanly for high damage and another knockdown.
More on topic, top Ryu’s rarely try reversal SRKs on wake up against Boxer because they get punished bad and take another knockdown if they miss or if Boxer expects it. At the proper range, pokes can be sake against SRKs, too. Also, Headbutt has even more invincibility than Ryu’s SRKs, so if Rog uses it on (Ryu’s) wakeup, Ryu has no better option but to accept the chip damage.
Heh. Thanks for going through that wall of text. I put a lot of thought into it! Also, I don’t know why, but for some reason I always did it W-L for character in question.
I’d say the Cammy matchup is 5-5 for sure. I’ve played some EXCELLENT 'Rogs, and the cr. short pressure + hesitating drills is killer. That forces them to jump more, and then you just Front Kick. Throwing in the odd Hooligan can also cause huge problems. Heck, facing Balrog is a match I am comfortable with, though I admit it can get really ugly if my timing on drills is off. Cammy needs excellent mind-games for this one.
Yes, just a few pixels out side of touching a cr. forward will hit, but an SRK will miss. This won’t work against Ken.
Headbutts can be a powerful mindgame tool against Ryu if you put him in the corner. If you hit a grab with Ryu in the corner (or pretty much any other character) and he’s falling down you can do a few of things.
- cr. forward, cr. strong xx low rush. This reset the position.
- cr. jab, grab. A The fastest tick throw set-up.
- cr. jab, cr. jab. If the second crouching jab hits then xx low rush. If not tick throw. Take note the second crouching jab must be a link, not a cancel. If you cancel you can’t cancel into a low rush.
- jab headbutt him on wake-up. Use this when you opponent has gotten wise to your other set-up and you expect him to try to reversal. This is good to use when you feel your opponent is in tilt mode and is desperate to get in some damage to avoid a perfect loss or has very little health left.
and a lot of other options involving j. fierce or walking back.
I’ve won countless matches cause my opponent made a futile attempt at reversal in the corner when they had less than 10% life. The firist headbutt usually takes them down to 1%, then I on wake-up again for the win.
One thing that kills me in this match is that I instinctively try to either throw or st. strong when I see a hooligan coming at me, and the st. strong misses 90% of the time. What normals are good to hit Cammy out of an incoming Hooligan? I’m thinking that st. fierce is probably best since it has a huge hitbox and stays out for a long time.
Also, if I remember right Rog shouldn’t use cr. forward in this match as Cammy’s normal’s and spiral arrow beat it, but most of you guys probably already know that. I haven’t read the whole thread yet.
If you’re in a crouching war with Cammy. your best bet to counter a Hooligan is the headbutt. But that’s where the mind-games come in.
EDIT: I actually stalled enough earlier today and managed to catch a 'Rog in my Hooligan RIGHT as his headbutt came out. Its a tough one.
Against Hooligan combination I usually try Buffalo Headbutt, though 50% of the time we just pass through each other. 
Wouldn’t crouching fierce work against the Hooligan Combo?
I think the most important thing to look for in an anti-hooligan move is duration. st. strong looks like it’s the perfect move, but it lasts too briefly and you usually end up whiffing and getting thrown.
Cr. fierce does great damage and lasts longer. You can also hold d/b to charge a headbutt and to block a low slide if Cammy decides to go that way.
st. fierce lasts the longest and probably has the best change of hitting, but if Cammy falls early you don’t have a headbutt charged and you might get slide into.
I don’t know, it’s something that needs some testing.
Also, here’s something Halfro sent me regarding the matchup vs. Honda:
and my addition:
One thought.
Instead of doing cr. mk, cr. mp xx rush after an empty jump, why not charge kicks and do cr. lp x3, st. lp xx low rush? This combo is slightly harder to do, and does a little bit less damage, but allows me to keep a charged TAP and release it in the case of a dizzy.
Any more specifics on the Dee Jay match-up? His zoning game has really started giving me troubles - I feel like there’s nothing I can do… though obviously there must be. The Dee Jays I’ve run against lately have been very content to play a patient game and seem able to easily counter anything I might try. A link to a good video of the match-up would also be nice.
Cr.mk, cr.mp xx low rush almost always dizzies and is pretty damn simple (i.e. rarely mess up), so I would definitely trade TAP for that.
I played a Gief tonight and for the most part he beasted me. He did a good job of baiting out headbutts then punishing. He also did some other stuff that I’m sure you are all familiar with. Anyway there was one round that I had an amazing amount of success using kick rushes as anti airs to poorly space jump ins and well as Gief’s headbutt hop thingy. Was it just me getting really lucky for a round, or is this actually good against Gief? I’m sure it’s partially dependent on the situation. I didn’t throw it out if he was wiffing cr. roundhouse. By the way, Gief’s cr. roundhouse seems a lot harder to punish online. Could be the competitive pressure getting to me, but every time I went for stand fierce I got knocked down by the next cr. roundhouse. : (
Come to think of it, I have a second question. There was one Gief player that would always lariat after a blocked low rush, so when I went for the standing fierce I would get knocked down. Is there anything I can do about this? Sweep? Or should I just let him spin around like a moron and jump away?
Edit: This is likely to be old news, but if (for some reason) you get Gief in a mash throw and you cross under him, you can jump away and punish a wiff spd with j. fierce/roundhouse. This doesn’t work if your opponent likes to Lariat out of this setup.
Double Edit: Is it possible to make headbutt completely safe by using it as a meaty attack?
Also, does anyone use TAP against Gief? Doesn’t really seem worth it to me. I never find a good opportunity.
cr.mp is Rog’s safest normal.