Zangiefs U2 0+3 means that its zero frames startup before the ultra flash. 3 frames after ultra flash before active throwbox comes out.
Going by the numbers, if Zangief empty safe jump U2 on you, EX tatsu would win. But I’ve seen U2 snatch up SRK’s that SHOULD have hit them if U2 had no invincibility at all. Somethin ain’t right with that data.
U2 does seem inconsistent at times. its like it has the properties of hakans and many others U2 , youll be like “shit Im on the ground!”, although I can get it to auto correct whiff on certain setups.
Flip throws and subsequent pressure after this type of knockdown are greatest when you take immediate advantage of the timing and setup another flip throw. flip throw him all the way til u2 is charged. Will win vs all lariats, green hands, wakeup st.lp’s , except when they wake backdash, thats when you read em and go for flip slide, rinse and repeat!!!1
nj air tatsu and ex air tatsu work great against gief. vs close lariats ive been using more dj.mp>tatsu to combo him outta that shit.
Also on the “not so perfect” oki setups cr.lk will again duck alot of this bs, also dont forget about nj fp vs those tricky empty jumps, also lp kongo will duck and recover in time if he tries crossup dj.lk
Thanks for explanation on the frames. I thought as well that Zangief U2 be should be beaten in these scenarios, but we’ll see what happens in the lab.
I love your enthusiasm for the data…but I’m curious about the benefit of it. If Gief delays his U2 a split second, you are going to get grabbed. Don’t forget that he needs to actually leave the ground himself to do the ultra. Also, the arc of Giefs launch is somewhat controllable and perhaps he would/could go slightly under the tatsu and then slightly back into you, but your tests will confirm this better than my theory fighting.
Thanks man. I did indeed check. I did a couple different setups last night, and it seems that Zangief is completely invincible while U2 is active. So the first hit of tatsu whiffs, Gouken then goes airborne and as soon as he does, its clobberin’ time unfortunately. 
I love your attitude, the dude! Perfect avatar. When I read your posts I hear Mr. Bridges with uncanny pauses and exaggerated vowels lol.
Can anybody list what I can link after a fireball? I know about s.MP and sweep, but are there any other moves I can link?
It depends on distance…any move that is 6 frames or less, according to frame data…
Hey, first time poster here. I’m not extremely new to fighting games (though I am a supposedly dreaded ''09’er") and have been playing with Gouken primarily in training mode since 2010, nearly every day since my internet was ass for the most part. I’ve got most of his combos down, I’ve got his 1 frame links down pat and I know the spacing and ranges of most of his normals and such. But while it’s all well and good to have that, as far as I can tell, Gouken has a couple really hard matchups, specifically against characters that can set up really good, safe offense and wake-up pressure.
Characters that come to mind that have given me considerable trouble are: Sakura, Cody, Abel, Zangief, Rufus and the bane of my existence, Dictator. Zangief and Abel aren’t overly hard for me, since I can zone them out easy enough, but if I don’t have EX and I get knocked down, I’m pretty much dead. But alas, to the question the post is about: What is a good sub character for Gouken? Somebody that covers his bad match-ups really well and offers a somewhat similar playstyle? I was thinking of picking up Zangief, since he seems like (when played well) a heavily defensive character that turns on the offense when he gets a knockdown, but I wasn’t 100% sure he was the best pick.
To any Gouken’s here that sub characters, what do you use against the bad match-ups? Thanks.
Edit: Oh, I should also add that I’ve dabbled in a bit of Dudley and T.Hawk, but I didn’t think either of those two lent themselves well to being subs for Gouken.
I’ve been dabbling with Akuma, Bison, and Sagat here and there.
I think Akuma is a good alt as he does what Gouken can’t and vice versa but they share the flips and fireballs. IMO, Gouken’s divekick is better in regards to hit box and EX flip is just awesome. but Akuma has the advantage with normals and fireball game and his wake up tricks are godlike. His shoryuken is okay…just okay, but it does the job. Also, teleport. Don’t like wake up pressure? You can avoid about 70% of it with teleport. The two biggest hurdles with Akuma are his low health and the need for a preposterous amount of timing/spacing practice to really play well. Someone who doesn’t know how to time/space Akuma looks pretty damned silly playing him. (I fall into that “silly” category)
Sagat is similar to Gouken in that he’s a strong zone character. He has a great armor breaker that can be spaced to be safe and many ways to combo into ultra. Kara tiger uppercut is an amazing tool.
Bison…well, I’m pretty awful with him but if you get bored, he’s a good character to just play rush down and mind games with. He is a bit like Gouken in that eventually, he will have to fool the opponent into doing something stupid.
Sakura: A pain when shes in her tatsu loop, otherwise she is weak. Knock her down and safe dive her trying to open her up for some damage and another knockdown. Keep divekicking her until she either cracks or figures out a way around it. Focus her cr.fp anti-air and beat the living shit out of her. If she is savvy to your gameplan, then play option 2. Make her come get you through a storm of fireballs. You can bait her ex srk pretty easily and her ex jumpy fireball punish move (hammers you in the head). Remember that most Sakura players want to be pressing buttons on you. Use this against them.
Cody: See Sakura. He can get in a bit easier though but be aware of his options and your spacing. His zonk punch is really his most dangerous move but you can bait this and knock him down. Use a lot of cross ups, and pressure him hard on wake up. If he knocks you down, Don’t press 80839 buttons while you are getting up. Just block, tech if you know it’s coming. After he throws out 2 or 3 cr.lps he’s probably going to do his f.mp move to frame trap you. This is when you mp.kongo. Take this tool away from him and he starts taking a lot more risks that you can punish for big damage.
Abel: He kills me with his tick command grab. I’m not much help here except that you need to watch his meter and which ultra he has. His wake up is awful as well and a simple flip grab when he’s getting up works pretty well. Hell, do it twice in a row. I do. Ex tatsu beats his wheel kicks and he can be thrown out of his roll.
Gief: There are two kinds of Giefs. The ones you can control space with ( I eat these for breakfast) and the ones who slowly constrict your area until you have no options left. These are the same ones that cross you up and make you guess on your wake up whether you will be grabbed or hit by lariat. I don’t do well vs. them.
Rufus: You are probably losing because of one thing, his EX messiah kick. He hits you like 4 times while he’s spinning around glowing like a yellow zeppelin, then he does either an overhead, a belly flop, or a sweep. Bait that damned move out and use ex kongo or ex tatsu when he gets to the second portion of it. His divekick pressure can be intense but kongo owns it. Mp. fireball can zone him very well.
Dictator: Make him jump and anti air him with ex tatsu. Kongo his devil’s reverse (glowy arm coming down). St.fp trades or beats his st.hk at the right distance so watch for patterns. He can be safe jumped but his ex crusher makes it difficult to keep him down. If he has no meter, corner him and don’t let him out because that’s what he wants to do to you. Use cl.st.mp to hado madness and watch him try to press buttons. FADC the shit out of him. When he gets meter, don’t stop pressuring him but change your mode to bait his reversals.
Hope this helps and if there is any better or smarter help from the other Gouken veterans, feel free to add or contradict of necessary.
Okay, yeah. That all sounds like great advice thanks. But another flaw in my game is I’ve only got two (one with two varients) safejumps and those are both off of forward throws. The first is the atypical forward throw > dash forward > medium kick demon flip > dive kick, with the variation being hard kick to cross up. The second is forward throw in the corner > dash > dash > jump forward lk which I use against shotos most of the time.
What are some good safejumps, specifically against those characters but moreso against three frame reversals? I know the hard kick one can make it whiff, but I’m pretty sure I need safe jump set ups off of something else, maybe sweep?
Yeah there is some off of sweeps, I’m just putting together a video on tips vs. C.Viper that has them included. (Post it soon)
Essentially: Sweep > DF Dive Kick (LK if close, MK if long range with sweep)
As for 3 frame reversals, sorry not possible, due to 3 frames needed for a safe jump to work.
The best you can do is a ‘faux’ safe jump, which isn’t a safe jump at all. This is a safe jump done 1 frame earlier.
This means that you’ll land without actually hitting the opponent, but if they SRK’d then you’d block and punish like normal. (As it looks like a safe jump)
The drawback being if they just block, they’ll be able to punish you, they’ll only have like a 1 or 2 frame chance to do so but it’s there.
Have this conversation here:
Lots of good info!
I’d have to agree with Climaxter. It sounds like you like grapplers but I mained Akuma all the way up to AE and he’s a phenomenal character with no bad matchups. In fact I play a vortex version of Gouken because thats how I played Akuma. He has a teleport which is very rewarding because you dont have to deal with any wakeup pressure but it was spoiled me with an uphill battle in having to learn how to play defense when I picked up Gouken. EX DP is the best DP in the game minus Seths and Oni’s, he has an almost instant armor breaking palm which you can use as a mixup, he can cancel any normal into Demon which is an amazing property and one that no other character in the game has. I mean, I could go on forever. I feel that Gouken and Akuma are opposites in the regard that what one character can do the other cant but they have alot of similarities and therefore feel they compliment one another almost perfectly as a sub/main and vice versa. My opinion though. Beware that if you want to really be decent with him, there is a relatively heavy learning curve. Execution is key with Akuma and Gouken is pretty lenient in that department (compared to Akuma). Hope this was somewhat insightful.
Ahhhhh flip, whif palm, super to end matches…memories.
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i was watching evo this weekend and i saw some pretty cool stuff… mostly i wanted to ask about what this one gouken did. he did ex palm, and i can’t really remember correctly… but i think he fadc’d and dashed twice, and did a jumping mk… and it was this mega ambiguous cross up. i can’t replicate it in training room though. Does anyone know what i’m talking about? = /
also why can’t i do lp lp lk into lp palm?
It’s a reset. The jumping mk makes the opponent do an air flip and land standing and you might be able to catch your opponent off guard.
lp lp lk in lp palm doesnt work because its a special restraint specifically only in this game that if you chain lights (mash) then you cannot cancel into a special. Characters like M. Bison with cr lk x3 flipkicks have lights that cannot to chained (they don’t cancel and you have to manually time the combo/light kicks) or try to link the last light ie Fei Long, cr lk cr lp x2 rekkas, (mash the first cr lk and cr lp, then time the the last cr lp so rekkas come out) I suggest you try it out a bit in training mode to see what I mean.
Gouken doesn’t have any of those options because Gouken does not get frame advantage on his lights on hit. So there is no way to link them nor the special.
Question: What is the main benefit of doing fireball EX dash into EX senku (CS. MP > C.HP > LP Fireball > EX focus dash > C. HP > EX Senku) over just doing CS. MP > C. HP > EX Senku into Tatsu. I see a lot of players prefer ex dashing after the fireball, but I personally like to hold on to more bar in case I need to use it to get out of situations with EX Demon Flip or EX Tatsu. Both combos seem to push the opponent into the corner just as much so not sure why the preference.
Thanks
Also 2nd Question:
When I try to apply Safe Divekick pressure, and follow up the divekick with a CS. MP, sometimes characters will be able to dragon punch or hit me in between the divekick and CS. MP. Is there a specific timing to use to make this a true blockstring? I feel like its a very slight difference.
Firstly, if I am punishing, say, a fireball with a dive kick and am 90% sure it will hit, I will usually forego the st.mp and the fadc and just do the combo starting with hp to save meter and lessen the chance of missing the st.mp > cr.hp link. It’s not a terrible link to do but online can be funny sometimes.
A few reasons I prefer the fadc version:
*Lessens the risk if you are doing this on a neutral opponent (not in the middle of doing something punishable). It allows more time to hit confirm as doing the non-fadc version, you might get blocked when you go to do the cr.hp and then you are ex palming into a disadvantage usually. Of course, you could then fadc out…but then you used the fadc to get away instead of doing more damage.
*It does more damage and more stun
*Pressure. Applying pressure with Gouken causes a lot of people to panic and make mistakes. If they see you are able to do a 10+ hit combo for 400-500 points of damage, you get in their head and make them more hesitant. This reason is not the main reason but psychology is a big part of this game…
*Juggling act, one of Gouken’s strengths. The fadc will push someone into the corner with you able to juggle them against the end of the screen from more than half screen. The non-fadc does not always push people to the corner. You need to be less than half screen. Your follow up will if you palm or tatsu…but they are on the ground whereas in the fadc version you are able to juggle them further in the corner.
Perhaps you are hitting the mp button too late…
or…
I’ve recognized a “problem” with our dive kick. If you hit most characters high up (like on top of the head area), they sometimes can recover before you can follow up. This becomes more of a problem vs. tall characters like Sagat and any character with a 3 frame invincible reversal, especially if they block. If you are having this issue, try delaying your kick a frame or two (not easy and not always safe)…or try using following up with cl.st.mk xx lp.palm. This is usually safe.