HOW THE HELL DO YOU BEAT VEGA AND BALROG? there so damn harrddd to win against… fuck… and i use to main balrog and i cant even beat him… i know all this tricks but he just owns me
Your crouching jab stuffs Balrogs TAP. You can focus his TAP and most of his rush punches that aren’t EX. He eats Ultra when caught TAP or rush punching.
Against Vega go for a knockdown and pressure his wake ups and try to stay on him. Try to cross him up because there is nothing he can do about it. Never throw fireballs when he has Ultra. Learn the timing to punish him when he backflips. If he jumps off the wall, FP Shoryuken him or use a cHP on reaction.
^^ Balrog’s TAP is armor break so don’t use focus against it. I do like to FA a lot against Balrog though until the guy shows me he knows which of his moves are armor break. Once he does just play keep away, if he TAPs through a fireball you can counter with st. hk > BnB, or HK Tatsu or SRK as long as you’re spaced properly to do all these things.
Be careful of his ex moves he’ll use to get through your FB’s so this is a match up that I feel regular EX fb does have some usefulness. You also have tons of ways to land RD in this match. If he TAPs or headbutts through a fireball then you get an RD. If he uses an EX move to come through then again you get an RD. Know about all of these options and try your best to execute, obviously landing an RD never hurts your chances. This is another character that you really just can’t jump against. His headbutt is a great AA and leads to ultra so stay on the ground.
Also while trying to cross up Balrog he can get the headbutt to come out the other way and you’ll get raped for it so I pretty much don’t even try that too often anymore.
On the topic of guile, how do you nullify his sonic boom->advance pressure scheme? do you kill his boom with a jab fireball, or throw off a red one?
I find that when I throw out 2-hit or 3-hit red’s he has so much time to get inside and start to really fuck with me, so I don’t do it as much. I’m still not sure whether I should try jumping over them if hes rushing behind it, or focus and get out or what.
You can focus walldives as long as you’re ready to punish afterward, and against Balrog you should try neutral jumping once you learn the ranges of his dash punches. You could land a falling MK or tatsu if he stops just under you.
okay… I’m a LITTLE pissed cuz I type a big huge response about vega and to the guile question… and it got erased…lol. But I’ll give a shortened version of it…
To guile question:
-Use 3 hit red fb at full range.
-At mid-range you can either: jump in on him while he dashes (not the safest option)
: lp red fireball him (this forces him to instinctively jump leaving
you to be able to possibly anti-air him.
: wait another second…lol…for him to get to “close” range
-close range you either FA back dash or teleport. teleport is the safer option and the one I recommend because being a charge character he can’t punish you for the teleport since he has to revese his charge direction to even TRY and hit you with a SB.
To Balrog/vega:
first off … there is stuff earlier in the thread so check that out. but I’ll give a tiny snip of what I wrote before it got deleted -.-
Vega:
To counter his wall dives stuff either focus back dash (he can still grapple you so its not a 100% effective end all answer) , c.mk (this makes it so your hitbox is itty bitty so he usually will miss hitting you letting you get a follow-up hit on him. As a random aside, sometimes c.lp works and even interrupts…lol…the x.mk gives a lower hitbox so just go with that), teleport (thsi is what you should do if you have a lead. Once you have a lead as long as you aren’t stupid with your teleports he really shouldn’t be able to touch you with his any of his charge stuff), jump back HP also works sometimes but he can grab you sometimes.
Cross him up like you tryin to break his ankles. he has nothing to counter a cross up so just keep on him like mayo on bread.
don’t use your FB against him… unlike the next match-up where you can bait with FB’s … a FB against vega is a no no pretty much 100% of the time. Jump back fireballs are the ONLY viable option at ALL… and if he has super or ultra even those are a 100% NO.
Balrog:
Use fireballs to bait him. you can interrupt him AFTER throwing a fb with your ultra/super. just buffer a demon in after throwing your fireball and, slightly range depended, you’ll be able to punish his charge move before he even touches you. = much rage from rog player lol. And at ANY distance… if he uses his headbutt to dodge a FB, throw out your ultra. It will catch him if its not done way late. so just remember in short ot be buffering an ultra/super every time you throw a fireball pretty much.
don’t abuse FA in this match-up because his c.lp is SO damn fast. but that being said, you can FA most of his charge moves as most are not armor-breaking. If he doesn’t use an EX version, just sHK him. It will interrupt because it has good range and you’ll also get a nice little combo :).
Keep him at middle-far range because at close range his c.lp is just annoyingly fast and the farther away you are the more time you have to input something to interrupt him. Also neutral jumping into a j.mk combo works nicely a lot of the time against rog if you have the range right… this is your option if you see he used an EX version.
Don’t throw FB willy nilly… use them to bait him into doing something that lets you hit with a super or an ultra. Thats part of the reason this and geif are about the only match-ups I recommend tryin to keep a super handy if at at all possible. That and the fact that the only EX that really works well against rog are air FB and those can be EX headbutt through anyway. If you need to get meter, jump back fireball (light or med usually the best options to block charge moves), light SRK at distance, and jump-back tatsu are your best options.
Someone said that EX-fb is good… but I think its not worth the meter except in ONE type of situation. And that is if you have an ultra and need it to land. EX-fb gives knockdown which NORMALLY is rather useless against balrog. BUT… if the opponent tries to use HEADBUTT on wake-up to a lp red fireball (hahaaaa… sneaky sneaky lol) then you can , having buffered an ultra like you do EVERY time you use a fb… …, can hit him with a demon for trying to have been “smart” by dodging your FB chip damage attempt.
Cross-ups work but they aren’t as godlike against him as they are vega and guile because he has some good anti-air options with or without charge. And you REALLY don’t wanna eat a headbutt into super/ultra as akuma…
yo Duggish,
we gonna bump some of this info bout cammy + others to the top? not tryin to ride your ass, but I was just wondering.
Alright, i have another matchup question (yes i am the problem child!)
Rufus: [media=youtube]YQ78yS519sc&feature=related[/media]
why is it that he rarely dive kicks?..everytime i play rufus and try to shry his dive kick we just trade…so is there another way to punish or am i using bad timing?..or is it that the guy is jus scared to do anything against momochi?
Done. And it took a while…whew
Lemme know what you guys think, I added the spoiler tags after seeing them used in the Anime/Manga thread in General Discussion, i think it makes it a lot easier to just FIND the matchup you want instead of sifting through a sea of text.
Enjoy, lemme know if anything’s wrong.
Some new strats with some new exp:
Chun Strat:
Big key. DO NOT try to air-to-air against Chun-Li. 9 times out of 10 you will lose and it will hurt. Don’t do it. Stay on the ground and play patient. Again, patience is your best friend in this match. Don’t let Chun cross you up with diagonal RH, teleport out of there if Chun is pressuring you with this. Outside of this, Chun really isn’t going to combo Akuma to death, but she will pressure you with an amazing poke game. Don’t try to trade pokes with Chun. You will lose. Chun’s game is centered around poke and grab, poke and grab. Try to see your opponents tendencies and start teching some grabs. She really isn’t going to win any other way. I understand that c.lk and c.lp are scary cause she can get EX Legs off them, but really be on your heels and watch your opponents tendencies.
A lot of times, Chun will try Hazan Shu to get in on you when you’re turtling, FA that and punish accordingly. Chun has no reliable AA, so jump in on her and mix her up whenever you get the chance. BUT, I REPEAT, do not try to air-to-air against Chun. If you predict the jump, sure. Basically, let, Chun come to you and keep the pressure on whenever you get the knockdown.
Sakura Strat:
If Sakura has meter, NEVER EVER do a 2 or 3 hit Shakunetsu Hadouken. You will be punished by EX Otoshi. The key to this match-up is simply, don’t get hit. Yeah, it sounds easy, but, really, just don’t. Sakura is a stun machine and if she ever gets HPxxEX Tatsu, you are in a world of trouble. Again, Sakura has no good way to get out of pressure (realistically, her only decent option is to EX Sho’oken and this is generally a terrible idea without 2 meters to cancel it) and no good way of getting close. You can basically Air Fireball Sakura to boredom and there’s nothing she can do outside of EX Otoshi.
Watch out for her FA, it has pretty huge range and most Sakura’s will try to pressure with this, plus crap like neutral jump RH, throw or poke. If they dash forward, 90% of the time Sakura will try something, you can try teleporting out or if you’re feeling lucky reversal DP that shit. Watch out for j.lk cross-up, it’s not that great of a cross-up, but she can get her big combo off of it. Her fireball sucks, her game outside of in your face sucks, abuse it.
More to come.
i assume nobody is having an issue with elf since i don’t BELIEVE anyone has asked about him really. But here is some stuff on him anyway that can at some point be added to the thread.
when he uses his habanero dash at you you have four option . 1. Jump away/teleport. This might be good the first or second time he does it just to gauge which of his options out of it the elf likes to use the most. 2. FA. Focus simply KILLS his dash. The only thing that gets it is HP which is a throw. Every other move out of it really gives you a free bnb off crumple combo. Teaches the elf he can’t abuse the move…which really hurts his mix-up ability. 3. back dash (or even back STEP) and sweep. This works very well once you get him to start thinking he HAS to use his throw to hit you. On the other hand it is weak to his slide kick unless he does it at “tip” range. 4. neutral jump. This kills every option he has and puts you at advantage for a grab or a cross up or block string or whatever.
One last option… but this is once you start getting him to have to think more about your movement… is to interrupt the hab dash with s.HK. it has the distance on it that if you throw it out at a range where the first kick BARELY kicks you’ll usually combo the elf clean.
Wall jumps are not an issue. If you force the elf to come to you sooner or later he’s going to start wall jumping towards you. Unlike seth his walljump mix-up isn’t all that deadly and can be very easily dealt with by simply SRK anti-air if at the right range, sweeping, or pretty much any method you use against someone like vega. But I don’t recommend FA his wall jump because its too easy for him to wall jump and simply throw you. Also jump-back fireballs are an easy keep away tool from his wall jumps.
watch out for his overheads as they are very similar to viper’s. Speaking of overheads… if he gets you on the ground… teleport out. His body slams are not a good thing to eat 3 times on wake before you finally realize teleporting is the best choice.
As for his super, there isn’t too much you can do to avoid this as he can combo into it, but i guess back off and don’t try and chip him from too close of a distance on wake because his super and even more so his ULTRA will make you pay dearly for a little bit of chip. His ultra, similarly to akumas, doesn’t really combo so as long as you don’t do something stupid you hopefully won’t be eating these. And you really can’t afford to because they deal massive damage. Simply jump backwards anytime you see him start up the animation for the ultra. Try and punish but the ultra is safer than most so don’t worry too much if you have a hard time getting more than a sweep in or a weak HK combo (like HK c.mk FB).
if you just stay away from elf and force him to come to you there really isn’t much he can do about it. I feel this is a really bad match-up for elf because akuma can keep him out very easily, punish him hard for mistakes (HK stands crouching opponents remember… so anytime you can sweep you have a 90% chance that HK will hit in range to BnB combo) and destroy his mix-ups rather easily with his teleport if all else fails making it so elf never has a chance to gain the momentum in the battle the greatly needs to pull off a win.
CHUN:
just felt like adding that you cannot abuse your s.HK against her. She can trip you every time if she c. blocks it because the second hit whiffs and her sweep is VERY fast.
and while i assume everyone and their mother already knows this… once she has ultra… don’t throw fireballs anymore. She can punish you almost a full screen away with her ultra. Only if she did something like just dashed forward are you allowed to throw a fireball once she has ultra. And even then its not recommended.
I’ll throw in dan stuff since there is NOTHING on the poor guy… lol
DAN:
When dan taunts…hit him… end of story 
But a litt more seriously… there are two options. There is the I’mma be a dick. and the “i’ll try and be slightly legit.” hmm?
reason is you can honestly simply play this match like gief if you want and simply jump back fireball all day long. His fireballs have seriously … NO range… and his QCB+kick moves are all trash except the EX version…which doesn’t do shit unless it hits… The difference obviously being that at ANY point you feel like it you can just go in and go nasty all over him. Hell… the poor bastards ULTRA can be FA’ed??? gotta feel sorry for the poor guy…
You can also rush in on him keeping note that he DOES have a WORKING (lol…) SRK so you can’t jump in on him completely willy nilly.
okay honestly there isn’t much to say. This poor fella simply sucks and as long as you aren’t stupidly easting reversal SRK in the ass or trying to FA him too much (he DOES have a decent selection of armor break moves) you should be winning this match pretty much EVERY time.
edit:
feeling helpful right now so I’ll throw up some ken strats… and not humorous “just block SRK” either. starts against decent-good kens… (but also works against bad ones…lol
KEN:
First off if you can get a lead in this match then you are at a significant advantage. You can and will win a fireball war against ken…handily. So don’t worry too much about using your 3 hit red FB unless the ken is stupid enough to try and fight you in a FB war at long range. lp red fb is your weapon of choice for ground spacing because …since its red and people like to jump red things i guess…lol (torro torro) you’ll be getting the affect of throwing the 3 hit without the recovery issues. This can come in handy especially when a ken decides he can jump in or jump tatsu in on you and you surprise him with being able to SRK him even though “but you threw a red fireball which have really bad recovery!!!” That being said, about air tatsu, this move hurts you bad as an air to air, honestly you can’t compete with ken air to air so don’t bother. And if he uses it or ex to jump in at you simply SRK him.
this match really is a matter of spacing ken away and coming at him fast and applying pressure, then backing off once you gain a bit of a lead. As with anyone crossing you… teleport. And for that matter if ken hits a jab on you… teleport. You don’t want to eat a kara tick throw. And of course teleport on wake every time. Ken needs his weak-up game to beat you… don’t give him it. Watch out for a ken with good wake-up spacing though as teleporting out therefore isn’t ALWAYS the best choice. If he is within kara throw range… teleport. If he is farther away than kara… stand and block or stand and jump backwards.
don’t FA his f+mp because most ken’s will follow with c.mk which will beat you to the punch as well ass allow him to combo into EX Tatsu…which is very bad for you. And about a ground Ex Tatsu or any other tatsu that HITS… teleport out. The “after tatsu” game is just simply too strong on hit for you to bother playing it with ken. And he has nothing to stop you from teleporting out either, unlike ryu.
DON’T give ken the corner. If you are stuck in the corner try and teleport out as soon as possible or air tatsu out as soon as possible. IF you can land a hit you can also try and recorner him with your EX Tatsu, but its a longshot. Speaking of YOUR ex tatsu… it actually has a use in this match-up. Its a safe move and kills his kara throws… if you aren’t sure what to do to stop a rush at a given time, as long as he isn’t jumping in at the moment… feel free to use ex tatsu to make him “get the hell off.”
don’t jump in on ken when he has ultra. just… dont’ do it…
if he is using f+mk too much stay right outside of the range of it and then use your s.HK. You’ll get a combo on him or force him to block it without him getting a punish against you. For that matter HK is a good tool in this match-up period as ken has a hard time dealing with it.
watch out how close you are when you chip at him on wake… his HP and EX SRK has surprising forward distance on them and he can combo into full ultra on a counter hit HP SRK. MAke sure you learn how far forward your hitbox moves when you throw a fireball… you don’t want to eat that or an ultra for no reason…
If you want to get tricky you can even use c.mk to lower your hitbox when ken tries to jump in on you and then combo him back when he least expects it (but this is risky and GENERALLY not recommended).
Demon flips are fine tool for closing distance or to counter a FB but he can SRK or jump kick you clean/trade hits which eithe way is in his favor… and with an ultra handy demon flip is a complete no no.
in short… take the lead… and back off to keep it. Random SRK are just too damn damaging to risk getting in and keeping pressure with demon flip/etc too often.
Isn’t it somewhat contradictory to jump in on her if you know she has solid Air-to-Air? I find that even if Chun has a slow reaction to me jumping in on her if she jumps late and throws something out it’ll beat me midair. I can’t really find any situations where I can jump and she can’t late jump air-to-air me.
LOL I keep getting rolled by scrubby Blankas… I just hate his pokes and I use too much standing HK against his low-profile hitbox.
make sure to always block low, and use more FA’s. less HK is a good idea.
LOL man, love your posts.
Recently against Blanka I’ve been just counter-picking with Balrog. Blanka’s just too annoying to fight against.
Another thing that would be great for this thread is a little note about what each opponents “zone” is. As in, where will this opponent try to position themselves optimally?
She can’t jump all the time. It’s not contradictory. You jump in on her after you get a knockdown, force her to block an air fireball and put her in positions where she can’t react-jump to your jump-ins. A lot of people will try to battle people air-to-air when they jump. I’m telling you against Chun, don’t do this. You might as well just DP.
To add on to my other strats:
Chun wants to at least a mid-screen length of Akuma, about in range of her standing MP.
Sak needs to be in your grill. Very hard to do when Akuma has teleport.
Go back a few pages in the thread, there are a TON of excellent Blanka strats…MuKen helped me out a great deal with this matchup.
Don’t feel bad though, I just started beating solid Blanka’s on a consistent basis in like late April. Patience is key for me at least. Most of my Blanka matches end with 20 secs or less left on the clock. (Not that I’m particularly a beast or anything, just saying, it takes time to learn the match.)
Gotcha, I didn’t understand what you meant. If I jump in on a Chun point blank, or even a little outside sweep range, they’ll just jump under me and beat me mid-air. Seems like the only time to jump in on her would be on wakeup, and still you have to watch out for spinning bird reversal.