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

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
841

Wow great performance man. I really enjoyed watching that match. Both you and the chunli had great footsies, I enjoyed seeing you punish those whiffed sweep with cr.mk.

I don’t think you need general advices. Like pay attention to the opponent play style, blablabla. But maybe you should notice that the chunli was a rush down, so the ONLY reason he would step back, is to throw a fireball to bait your jump.

And ALWAYS do a late tech when you are air-reset. Because air reset is kinda like a knockdown, and the safest thing to do is late cr.tech.

I don’t know what else to say, but great match. I think there was a comeback potential if you went for more solid setups after a throw. Like safe jump OS sweep and such. If you are not sure about your timing for safe jumps, here are some auto safe jump setups.

After forward throw: Whiff step kick then nj.mp OS cr.mk, beats all her wake up options.

After back throw: Whiff cr.mp , then j.hk.

But I really prefer a true safe jump, by walking back after forward throw, since you can OS sweep to punish the backdash.

Maybe some more frametraps, and that’s it. Great game man :slight_smile:

EDIT: I fixed some errors and spelling mistakes.

842

I think you might have been a little to worried about her fireball game. As you said, you need to throw more fireballs. She’s kind of similar to Guile with respect to her projectiles, but her’s don’t recover as quickly. She makes up for it a bit with walk speed, but it’s a lot more difficult for her to punish your fireballs. It’s really important to get them off the screen every chance you get. I’m not sure the exact ranges Ken is safe, as I play Ryu for this match, but, from 3/4 to full screen, I throw a fireball on reaction to hers everytime. From 1/2 to 3/4 I empty jump them. From closer, I mix up blocking and focus backdash. You have to mix it up up close as I’m pretty sure she can punish the backdash with hasansho if she does it right after she recovers from the fireball(in other words, its prediction, not reaction). Focusing and dashing forward is dangerous, as you saw in your match.

I also agree with G77. Don’t be worried about ex bird…it’s easy to safe jump. There’s also a range where you can jump and you’ll land inside her ex bird, but not get hit. If you get a shoulder throw, you step back slightly and jump. This avoids the pushback from blocking, and allows you to get a full punish combo on her, instead of just a sweep or dp. It’s pretty precise range, and I used to think it was a bit of a fluke, and you couldn’t set it up consistently, but lately, I’ve been getting the range right a lot. EX bird scares me a lot more when I’m trying to apply pressure on the ground. If you’re on the ground, and she has meter, I’d suggest trying to bait it out to punish.

I wouldn’t suggest throwing fireballs at her max poke range. I’ve run into Chuns that I’m pretty positive were using hasansho on reaction to punish. This also didn’t seem to be a range you were having much trouble in.

843

Thanks for the tips guys, I also got some good info about the match from Banana Ken. More so general match-up knowledge instead of that match I was in. If anyone’s interested I’ll post it for ya.

844

Yes please!!!

845

Chun-Li Match Up

[details=Spoiler]Chun-li is tricky, but it’s not a bad match, most likely 5-5. It just requires you to practice for that matchup since ken needs to use specific tools. The main thing to look out for is to learn to kara focus dash her long range pokes and mid range fireballs, since that’s your main tool to keep her from doing those. This alongside zoning with fireballs (when she has no ultra/super of course) and step kick are your main ways of pressuring chun-li in a neutral situation. Once you get close range you’re basically free to start rushing her down, and that just comes down to how the individual chun player defends himself. You want to mainly use fireballs and poke chun with step kick, but for step kick you want to make sure chun-li is not mashing out her long range pokes, that’s where you use kara focus dash. As long as you’re not too predictable with fireballs you can punish any jump-ins or hazan shu’s on reaction (focus dash into fierce dp is very easy).

If the chun li player likes pressing buttons or doing something on wakeup, chances are doing a fierce dp, especially delayed, will beat just about everything she does, including ex sbk. You want to do this in the corner since she can’t do shit about it except block. If you have the chun li blocking you can start baiting out crouch techs and just kara throw.

Make sure you got the timing down for safe jumping her EX SBK, this is very important since it will limit her options greatly on wake-up. You can cross chun-li up with a j.mk or j.lk and still be a safe jump, but you would have to block the other way depending on the jump angle, so figure that out. Blocked EX SBK after a safe jump is free ultra 1.

Option select sweep is your best tool when she has no meter, so use that. You can also get away with mashing sweep after an ambiguous j.hp, simply because it’ll combo if it hits, it’ll punish focus backdash, and it’ll also catch a plain backdash. It sounds mashy but you need those things to keep her honest! Chun-li can’t punish ken’s sweep reliably, so you can use it by itself as a poke.

Similarly, when you’re close to her (after an ex tatsu on hit, for example), crouch teching with sweep is one of the safest ways of attempting another knockdown. Of course, you want to test her first with a short/jab since you have the frame advantage. If you delay the sweep so that it doubles as a throw tech, you can catch backdash as well, and block any mashed jabs.+

Other notes: punish bad sweeps with reversal f.srk, focus dash sweeps for free f.srk or cr.short > cr.jab xx f.srk. Haven’t tested but cr.short xx lk tatsu fadc cr.short >st.jab whatever might work. I’ll confirm in a few hours.[/details]

846

Great stuff from banana ken, really liked it. It explained all the chun matchup.

So ikaru, I just re-watched the match and I think your fundamentals are way better than mine. Am way behind in terms of footsies and zoning. That chun li knew when to hasanshu. By the way you FA-ed through kikokens in the wrong time. You shouldn’t FA through any fireball if the opponent is already recovered and walking. And yeah I was gonna mention that your empty jumps where a bit obvious, the chun li fill for it for the second time only because when you did it the first time you crossed over, this means he really isn’t good at adapting. So maybe if you mixed it up with safe jumps, empty jumps, safe jump crossups, all that OSing with sweep, it would fuck him up for sure.

Btw, about this (

I KNEW IT!! I knew it was reliable in ATLEAST one situation! I remember when I mentioned Sweep OS tech in the Ken OS thread. And some dude said " Jabs will beat it " made me feel like a scrub. Thanks banana ken for confirming a use for it :china:

847

Thanks again for the compliments, I’m gonna be practicing these safe jump setups in a few minutes, also he os sweep tech and pretty much everything he said to me. I wanna be ready for next time.

Oh wow…after watching this the last day and a half over and over I finally see my biggest problem. You guys were right. All my jump-ins after knock down were empty jump low shorts…no cross up j.mk/ambiguous j.fp/j.lk nothing! Wow I must of been nervous to do that EVERY time.

848

So if you get a knockdown on chun you can empty jump her SBK?

849

Oh yea there be times where I jump in on chun after a knock down. I would go for an j.fp and she would EX SBK and I would just go right through it and it just doesn’t hit me as she keeps spinning. What’s the reason for that?

850

you can empty jump anyone…it’s just jumping without using an air-normal. As for the slip through her ex sbk, that’s just falling through the non-active portion of her attack.

851

Got a question. I played a Chun-Li the other day and instead of doing OS sweep I opted for OS MP SRK instead. Am I really missing out on punishment damage if I opt for OS MP SRK?

Also, doesn’t c.LK > QCB+LP+MK+HK > whatever punish Chun’s backdash during a blockstring? This video says it doesn’t, but I just find it hard to believe… [media=youtube]DAplcUKhtGA[/media]

852

If Chun backdashes, an OS’ed mp DP will whiff and get you killed. Even an EX DP misses. Only fierce DP can catch her backdash.
If you OS an ex tatsu from a grounded block string, Chun can backdash and still duck in time to avoid the ex tatsu all together.

Her backdash is insane.

Peace,

G.

853

That’s a gdlk backdash…
Any grounded blockstring OS that might cover that? Would c.LP > c.HK (really fast) > c.LP work?

854

Let’s talk about blanka.

What do you guys usually do when you get a knockdown on him? Especially when he has EX. I honestly have no idea how to approach this and if he doesn’t turtle he always juts gets away with an ex rainbow ball. I need help desperately as blanka is my worst match up by far.

Any General blanka strategy you guys would want to post would be most appreciated as well.

855

Learn how to stuff electricity with jump lk. Safe jump when he has meter. If you corner him use OS cr.fierce to stop the blanka ball. In corner I do late crouch tech(lp+lk while crouching) then cr.lp + cr.hp. If he blocks you’ll get cr.lk > cr.lp, if he throws you’ll tech, if he rainbow balls you’ll hit him with cr.fierce.

856

Anyone have some tips for playing vs. Fei Long? I’m having trouble with two things. His fake cross under after air to air mp(this will probably click and I’ll start blocking it. Just goofy, looks like he’s going under me.). The other is his corner pressure. I can find a way out, usually, but as soon as I get hit by a combo, I’m back in the corner. When should I be hitting buttons to push him away and what buttons?

857

http://shoryuken.com/f259/ken-option-select-thread-219638/index9.html#post9832816

Meaty cr.lk is actually better than late tech against blanka, since it stuffs all his options additional to grab too. But I can understand if he has U1, or if you’re low on health and can’t take an ex up ball.

Every character has an air reset and most of them look goofy as you mentioned. Just pay attention to where he lands and block accordingly and add a late tech to be safe from throws. And also try not to jump as much so that air reset doesn’t occur.

Every button in this match is useful. Just remember to stick out your normals when you know 100% it’s going to hit him or put him in block stun. You can’t afford whiffing an attack against feilong because a good feilong would punish you on whiff.

Don’t quote me on this, but am pretty sure every rekka is punishable by heavy SRK when ken is cornered. I’m not sure if feilong can space it correctly so it pushes him away to safety while ken is cornered, I just know he can make his jab.rekka safe mid-screen.

LK.chicken wing and F+Mk overhead are both punishable by SRK on block.

A thing to remember against feilong, reacting to his chicken wings as if they are air attacks and SRK’ing them will help you a TON in this match, practice that. If you don’t want to be pressured, try your best to avoid getting knocked down. Anti-airing, blocking, and good use of cr.mk are crucial in this matchup.

I hope this helps.

858

Yea…that air reset with Fei is just weirder than most. I usually don’t have trouble with crossunders, but the one my buddy is using looks like it’ll cross under, but then it doesn’t. I’ll try reversaling rekkas. If they’re punishable it will help a ton. I dp his chicken wing a lot, but it’s difficult up close, probably because we’re playing online. I definitely don’t try to get knocked down, but it’s tough…basically anything fei lands on you can lead to a rekka combo that pushes you to the corner and knocks you down.

859

Hey, I’ve tried searching the thread for some decent match-up advice on Cammy, but the only solid thing seems to be OS cr.tech + mp.

Keeping her out can be a real pain: I’ve been trying to stick to cr.mp as my goto normal, and the occasional st.hk at distance, but when she gets in it can be a nightmare. Had a little more luck when I haven’t respected her all that much and just thrown out mp.dp to put off dive-kicks, though.

Also, what do you guys do on her wake-up? I haven’t the time to check frame-data, but EX spike at least SEEMS like it can’t be safe-jumped, unless my timing is appalling. Is that the case for all her variants of her dp?

860

First of all, cammy has many setups against ken, so becareful. She can do a safe high strike after her HK arrow knockdown, you can’t DP it or your dp will whiff, so make sure to block it ( It won’t crossup, unless you see her going for j.lk ). She has a crossup that can’t be autocorrected after back throw, so just block it. Unless that cammy doesn’t know these setups then any other setup is autocorrectable with mp.dp.

Make sure to beat her at footsies, because ken’s cr.mk has more speed and distance than any of her normals, except her slowass f.st.hk.

Yes cammy can be true safejumped, her dp is 5 frame startup.

Some setups on her:
J.lk or j.mk after srk knockdown stuffs her spike.

After forward throw:
True safe jump (j.hp or j.hk), timed manually by walking back then jumping.
Crossup j.hp, video: [media=youtube]n1nHc5H1ZHQ[/media]
There is also an unblockable j.hk and it’s easy to time if you practice. You take a step back and whiff cr.mk then jump HK, she can’t block any direction, but she can do an autocorrect spike. ( original post: http://shoryuken.com/f259/updated-again-kens-unblockable-jump-fp-mk-videos-both-244023/index4.html#post10138315 )

True safe jump can be manually timed after backthrow too, practice that.

hope this helps.