(OLD) "Dear Doctor!" Ken Match-up and Insight: Ask a question, get an answer!

thanks everybody the zangief was my friend and I won 6-2

one thing that was effective for me was to do a haddouken to make him do a lariat and quickly follow up with a jumping fierce kick to crouching fierce so it sweeped him that worked almost every time

…if Geif is that close to Ken when he throws a fireball, what he should be doing is jumping it and punishing you. c.mk, c.hk, s.mp, c.hp, s.hk, f.mk and mp.srk are your friends for this matchup. Punish all his whiffs, he has a shit ton of health, every little bit helps, keep him out thats all you have to do. If you get in the corner be patient and ex air tatsu out first chance, don’t get headbutted, for the love of buddah, don’t get headbutted.

Hey what are some of your suggestions for long-limbed characters (namely Dhalsim, Seth, and sometimes Guile because of his normals having crazy reach)…I find it hard to get around their very good-recovering projectiles (Sonic Booms/Yoga Fire) and defending against their j. long arms that hit you when crouched)

I know i have to stand there and block standing initially, but even when i try to jump in, the arms hit me before i can do much (even beats air tatsu (not, ex)…)

So what’s the best strategy against them? Is there a normal i can use to beat those jumping arms, which they throw immediately after fireball/sonic boom? Or do i have to Focus Absorb and hope to SRK before the limbs hit? Which isn’t easy at all…

Not even used to fighting these guys, maybe faced about 10-15 total in my SF4 lifetime, lol…but they do give me a hard time…until i get in, then it’s not so bad. But teleports also make it a nightmare because they reset so easily with teleport against Ken.

I’m haven’t had a lot of matches with these players, but eventually their j. fierce will get predictable, I would m. srk them. This will pass through the projectile and hit them with their stretched limbs, but your punch has to hit their punch, not their punch hitting you (unsure about this). although fierce shoryuken will dodge the projectile more likely, getting baited into doing it will be worse than doing a medium, but i think being baited into doing a medium will probably bad as well.

now that i read your post again, are you two roughly spaced out half a screen?

I honestly can’t tell you a thing about guile, I don’t even know what I can do when facing guiles as I usually encounter them turtling 90% of the time, so i just throw out some balls of fire and pause so that they jump into my srk (yeah it sounds scrubby but I dunno what to do)

I guess I could be asking how to overcome turtles? but I’m assuming someone already asked this.

I like that Gief write up, Golbez. Some good shit I need to add to my game in there!

As for Sim, you wanna find his rhythm. Does he hit with two c.fierces in a row after you block one? If he does that consistently, mash lp SRK when you’re blocking the first c.fierce. Does he like to throw a poke after you kara focus fish for a limb? If so, kara focus dash, then lp shoryu. You wanna get him afraid of throwing pokes at you so you can walk forward more.

You have to be bold and kara focus. It pays off. And, since Sim does no damage anyway, it’s not too bad if you take a few hits getting in. From full screen, I’ll usually throw hados and lp srks to build meter for EX Tatsu. It’s pretty easy to EX Tatsu yoga fires from full screen.

If they like to jump back j.Fierce a lot, MP shoryu that shit. Again, if you mess up, the damage you take isn’t TOO bad (but of course you can’t just sit around fucking up).

Try not to jump in too much. The Yoga Fire has such a tricky movement… you’ll end up jumping in to them a lot. Also, his AA normals are pretty good, though you can beat them with an early j.Fierce (Though I’m sure yoga flame beats that shit).

I usually mash jab when he tries to teleport, so I can hit him and air reset him. Then go for mix ups from there. If I was good, I’d mp shoryu the teleport.

For Seth, good luck… He’s my second worst match up, just due to not knowing it. If they spam j.fierce and standing fierce, Kara Focus that shit for for free. Release for the standing fierce and you’ll at least hit him with a level one and get a life lead. Dash forward and mp shoryu the j.fierce. Try and do the same for his wall dives, so he can’t pressure you with BS. I like to save two bars to shoryu FADC any tandem engine or his shoryu FADC bullshit… Aside from that, I don’t know what beats what. If they miss a lightning legs, though, you better c.mk xx tatsu his ass! That’s like 50% health right there. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for the info, i’ll see if i can apply that, next time i face one of those (rarely face 'em so i’m just sooo not used to the matchup)

Its ok to make dumb decisions playing Seth. You gotta take risks to win this match. You do want to minimize losing health on getting in on him. Advance slowly and patiently blocking his arms and booms. Choose which booms to jump and which to focus, know when to just block. As soon as he gets his ultra meter if he runs to the other side of the screen, you should let him hit you with it. It does NO damage and if you’ve been playing smart up till this point you should be around 80%. Seth having ultra limits lots of options and its best if he doesn’t have that when you have no health, hes most likely gonna hit you with it anyways. Take away his teleport also, just srk when he does it also srk any of his stomp resets, they love there mixups and want to use them, don’t give him any options. Be ruthless at first but take it easy later on, they’ll remember and be looking for baits. You should be punishing the following: SRK whiff, teleport, lighting leg whiffs and wall jumps, wall jumps should be free with j.rh or fierce. If he catches you with that vaccum only try and punish if he doesn’t have super, it could be a trap. Obviously this won’t beat Sabins Seth but it works for your typical xbox matchup.

Explain this further. How would you determine which to absorb, block or dodge?

Spacing really. If you jump at certain distances he can tandem engine and you will get sucked in. He can j.hp on your way down, but I believe you can srk that if you are expecting it. You also have to watch out for his srk. He gets free extra damage and about 400~ stun if you get anti aired by his lp srk.

Hey i was playing a viper today and was getting killed by random ex.seismos and ex.seismo->feint->throw. He was doing c.mk thunder knuckle block stings and would randomly throw out an ex seismo and go into seismo strings for free chip damage every now and then and i don’t seem to be able to punish it even when i anticipate it coming.
Also is there a good way to tell which way the burning kick is going to land? Or is it a real 50/50 wakeup? Can’t seem to shoryuken it. Also, i checked the frame data on burning kicks on the viper forums. Ground burning kicks are +0/+1/+2 for lk/mk/hk versions on block and the air versions are even worse. +8/+6/+4 for lk/mk/hk. Is it advisable to use more than normal focus attacks against viper? Seems to be the best thing to do against her seismo strings and burning kick shenanigans

You should always crouch block when Viper starts shining light. When she’s far away, either jump over or Kara Focus through it.

Punish C. MK > Thunder Knuckle with a reversal SRK or Ultra; that would stop her from abusing it. Treat it like Shoto’s C. MK > Hadoken.

If the Burning Kick is ambiguous, it’s usually a cross-up. Burning Kick never crosses up in the corner. Focus is good once in a while but you’ll be at a disadvantage if she crosses you up. The best thing to do is use C. MK to go under the Burning Kick.

After throw or sweep, ambiguous safe-jump option select F. SRK. It beats out her AA, back dash, and EX Seismo > Cancel. If she uses EX Burning Kick, you guys will both whiff and nobody gets hurt. She also wastes 1 EX bar. If Viper starts to abuse EX Burning Kick on her wake up, do not input any option select during ambiguous safe-jump. Her EX Burning Kick will go over you and you can punish it with a Kara Throw or sweep resetting this whole process.

If you’re doing a meaty C. LK or C. LP on Viper’s wake up, option select sweep. It’ll sweep her back dash forcing her to AA or block.

My brother plays a mean Viper. Hope this helps.

opyion select mp srk does nt lose to ex burnkik

I’m having trouble with the dhalsim match up, can anyone give me some good tips on that?
thanks in advance!

i’m not the greatest at the match myself but basically when your outside of his zone you need to try and play a tiny bit of footsies with his outstretched limbs, sweeping his fp works really well. basically your just trying to make him slow down/mix up his poke game more. from there you should have a little more freedom to focus dash your way in. once in you just need to keep in mind that he is looking for one of 3 things:

  1. to throw you back out because that reestablishes max range

  2. to push you out with pokes

  3. to escape your rushdown and run away to re-establish distance.

so knowing this you should know to /not/ go for a cross-up unless your positive he is trying to poke you because doing so allows him to slide for a easy escape, and then try to lock him down in block string/throw mixup while pushing him to the corner (easier said than done i know)

also when he is zoning try to figure out when he likes to yoga fire because those are a free opportunity to ex tatsu inside which is double the fun because that actually puts you in his face with frame advantage… and as such you can lock down all 3 of the options he is looking for because he can’t poke to push you out or your cr.lk wins and you get a free combo, he can’t throw you out because again your cr.lk will stuff that attempt and if he tries to teleport anywhere but straight back (towards the corner, ie good for you) then he is still right next to you and open for a combo.

I need help with Rufus, guys. I have lost to Rufus players before, but last night, I ran into a MEAN Rufus player. Granted… I was a little buzzed, so he wasn’t able to always MP shoryu his bad jump in dive kicks. And I was still coherent enough to know to bait the EX Messiah with c.lk so he passes over my head and I get a Tatsu punish. But the dood was still a beast. I basically didn’t know what to do, so I was just forced to sit back and take standing shorts til I thought he was going to either dive kick or throw. If he dive kicks, then it’s just more bullshit pressure. If he attempted a throw, I would tech and kinda reset the match.

I was kicking his ass in footsies with c.strong, and I was doing ok with zoning and AAing bad jump ins (but not great, thanks to the buzz). It’s just his rush down was basically game. If he got in, he pretty much won the round in that instant.

thanks highlulu!
Great info!
We should get some games in again sometime.
You still working with gen or is cammy your alt now?

i’m still trying to learn gen, but honestly idk if i’ll ever have good enough execution to feel comfortable enough with him to play as him for a tourney. cammy on the other hand i feel really confident about her chances at a tourney. but yeah i’m generally down for more games, you keep catching me at bad times though, just need to find me not in a match with free time on my hands :stuck_out_tongue:

Not sure if this has been asked already. But i really need help with Viper, the speed of her and her flame kicks especially any advice would be more than welcomed.

Block better. It’s that simple.

Wow thanks I’ll start blocking with my hands instead of my face.