I’ve been having some trouble against certain players online recently. They’ll pick a character like Karen or Chun-Li (anyone with long kicks really) and just crouch block. When I try to close in on the ground they just chip at me from outside of my range and when I jump in they anti-air me. As Ryu my overhead is far to short to hit them so I’ve tried throwing fireballs to get them to jump in then DP them but eventually they’ll stop jumping in or they’ll just get close and block low so I can’t space that maneuver. Am I doing the right thing but executing it poorly or is there something I’m missing?
As a continuation of the question, what if I was playing a character who couldn’t overhead or out poke the aforementioned characters and had no projectile? I don’t know if character like that exists, I’ve only really played a few guys since I’m trying to learn the game on one person before I stunt my growth by changing characters too much, but if a character like that did exist what would be the optimal thing to attempt to do?
Thank you.
Overheads usually aren’t the best answer against crouch blocking opponents. Let me tell you about my playstyle against such opponents. I’m a Bison player and he has no projectile outside of EX and stored V-Skill, so they are only availability is limited. Bison has no overhead like Ryu or Ken, either.
Your go-to strategy is a good footsie game combined with throw-shimmy mix-ups. So, if I see an opponent crouch blocking all the time and using their best pokes when I try to close in, I get in the footsie range and try to outpoke them. This can primarily be done in two ways; 1-by understanding the pattern in their footsie use (ie the amount of time you have between each footsie they throw out) and 2-using a longer-reaching poke than theirs. The first one helps you if you manage to initiate a poke before your opponent does their second and counter/Crush Counter them. For instance, When I see a Karin spamming crouching medium kick (or maybe something faster like standing light kick, but your problem was with long pokes, so I’ll stick to that in my example), I try to block the first poke and counter attack with a faster poke of mine (ie standing light kick). The process goes: Karin does coruching medium kick -> I block it -> Karin remains in hit stun -> I remain in block stun -> Karin recovers -> I recover -> Karin goes for another crouching medium kick -> I counter hit with something that comes out faster (standing light kick in Bison’s case, but any light attack is faster than a medium attack) -> I hit Karin -> I follow up with a combo (standing light kick > light blast as Bison). As for the second scenario, I observe Karin’s crouching medium kick extremity and if I expect another one coming, I try to stay outside its reach and punish it for missing (called a “whiff punish”) with something appropriate, preferably one of my longer pokes (standing medium kick in Bison’s case).
I hope I was able to help. Others will be more clarifying, I’m sure.
Edit: This should help better understand the idea behind the basic concepts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Kvjwad_Uk
Thanks for the response, it helps. I’ve also noticed from watching my replays that I have a really bad defensive game and a lot of times players will backpedal away from me and I’ll follow them but then they’ll throw out an ability and it’ll catch me while I’m still moving forward or I just walk into their sweeps and pokes like a dumb ass so I just gotta take it slow and apply pressure in a more thought out way as you described. I’ve been working on spacing and making sure to block then counter with light attacks and I’m holding my own better against them. Your advice is much appreciated.
I would say victory depends 60% on a good defense and 40% on a good offense in this game. Thus, improving your defense will automatically allow you to win more. And patience plays the key role in a good defense. You can crouching block and mash buttons like there’s no tomorrow, but that’ll only help you get CC’d more.
Good luck on your journey, warrior!