That’s a good point. Maybe he plays Ken properly and with Cammy he jumps and divekicks all the time and hangs himself.
Well, I would consider myself a more defensive, reactive player (part of the reason being that being defensive gives me more time to think).
Staying far away and reacting to jump-ins and such just feels so much easier and beneficial with Ken than with Cammy.
I try not to do too many jump-ins with Cammy, I rarely approach with divekicks. When I get in, I have problems keeping up the pressure.
I also realized that I do too many unsafe spiral arrows. Gotta work on that, it’s a bad habit.
I should also mention that I’ve watched a lot more shoto matches than matches with Cammy, mostly because she isn’t used much in Ultra anymore.
I probably have a better understanding of shotos than rushdown characters.
Like watching Smug puts me at a mental loss, I can’t follow his actions.
I’ll play some ranked in the next few days and record the matches. Maybe I can get you guys some examples of my play style.
If you’re a defensive, reactive player, you would do better with Ryu, Sagat, and/or Guile. Ken is meant to be played aggressively.
Surprisingly, I have a hard time using Sagat defensively. I’d rather go in with him, it’s way more fun to me.
Weird how that works for me, I can’t put a finger on it myself.
Alright, I got some examples of my play.
The first round was a complete blowup. I hadn’t played a Dhalsim in a while, and they are pretty rare.
I really struggle against Dudley. I don’t know how to get out of defense against him.
Zangief is tough. I think I played this match pretty well though.
I played this guy for a few matches and realized that he very rarely used SPD, none of which were standing, so I assumed that he couldn’t do standing SPDs, hence why I played more gutsy in this one.
Any advice appreciated, don’t hold back on the criticism.
Sometimes you click better with some characters than others. I love playing hugo, but my T.Hawk is infinitely better currently. Part because I play T.HAwk in ST and unfamiliarity with a lot of Hugo matches. I also know I am not doing optimal stuff, but its something I work on.
I can’t watch them all atm, but vs Dhalsim you need to show the threat of focus otherwise he will poke you all day. Focus dashing and hitting limbs will cause a lot of sims to be more cautious with spamming pokes. Also if you do a cannon strike with light frame advantage and they mash throw (he threw you after one) you can tk EX to score a fat hit. You can also OS backdashes although Im not sure if that is something you incorporate in your game play. Once close you can alter timing on jumping on Sim with EX strikes in the air which can land you good damage and a knockdown. When he does a instant teleport you can focus dash his jump attack or just hit c.fp to stuff him. Adapt to your opponent.
Use better frame traps up close, at one point you did c.mk on his wake up which does nothing for you. Stagger jabs, use c.mp, close s.mp, c.fp in frame traps. Walk in, block, walk in, block until in ex cannon drill range and punish yoga fire. Watch his patterns, if he always does double s.fp, focus dash the second one or tag it with lvl 1 or 2 focus.
That’s all for now. Here is a vid showing how useful option selects can be when used in matches. I played a long set with this japanese Honda and he completely stopped using wake up and backdashing once I had ultra 2, letting me get a lot of 360’s on him. Train your opponents to fear your options by doing them. It happens fast , but I OS my s.lp to activate a Ultra 2 if he reversals or backdashes.
Well, part of the reason why I don’t OS backdashes is that so far I think I’ve only had 1 opponent who actually backdashed. I see it so rarely that I don’t think about OSing.
It’s also a bit too complicated for me at the moment, I havn’t got the grasp of it yet.
Walking into the double sHP was pretty stupid. I agree. I was trying to whiff punish it, but I forgot that my hurtbox gets bigger when I crouch, so I got hit.
I do have to use Focus more often, that’s very true. I could have also Focus Cancelled the unsafe Spiral Arrows.
I’m having trouble with Focus Dashing, so I don’t trust myself with focus that much just yet, hence why I rarely use it.
I’ll work on it, thanks.
One thing to remember is this is no longer the arcades. You dont have to care about losing. Go into matches and just practice what you need to. You arent trying to save money, you have free play. There have been times when I wanna work on my ground game and don’t jump forward at all. You’ll lose a lot at first, but it pays off in the long run.
Edit: We all have walked into s.hp multiple times, it happens.
Yea, I just need to get more comfortable in my skills at this point. Then I can move on and learn OS and using the Focus in a good way.
I’m currently learning how to safe jump correctly. It’s pretty difficult, quite a small time window to actually make it safe.
What I need to do is play more matches, I’m lacking the experience to confidently go in on my opponents.
I am seeing improvement though. You should have seen me a month ago 
As a new player that wants to jump into the upcoming SFV, how should I approach learning characters?
I played the beta and have a slight idea on who I’d like to main. But should I take the time to learn every character and understand them? Or can I get away with focusing on my main(s) and learning the rest through trial and error fighting matches?
Are you new to fighters or Street Fighter in general? I would say its a good idea to know how every character works however you should just focus on who you enjoy playing the most. First and foremost, you won’t be as open to learn if you aren’t having fun so find that character and grind the ins and outs with them. You can learn a great deal from your matches and remember when you lose try and ask yourself why it happened. If it isn’t something you can answer on your own there is a thread here where new players can submit videos for advice and critique. I can recommend some web pages that are think are absolutely critical to someone learning fighting games if you are completely new to the genre.
I’m no pro or anything, but I sure can get you started in the right direction.
I’ve always had a passing interest in the genre, but I’d say I’m new to competitive play. I played SSFIV and USF4 but I didn’t like it enough to learn it that deeply.
I’m mainly asking this because I stumbled across some videos featuring Gootecks and he mentions how players should start with Ryu to learn the game. But other players, such as Xian play everyone to get an understanding of the game.
Ya man I’d be down to check out the web pages, I’d appreciate that.
So honestly I think the advice that Gootecks is giving about learning Ryu is pretty good for people trying to get a grasp of the system. You will get to the point where you will learn multiple characters so I wouldn’t worry about how a player like Xian approaches the game at this point. However I will just repeat what I said earlier, SFV is fairly simple on the surface, there isn’t anything too complex at this point. So while Ryu is a good character to learn the basics, you could do the same with other characters if you understand some basic concepts.
This link should pretty much be your bible. It is something I think everyone who is trying to take that next step in fighting games should read. It goes through basic concepts and is separated in chapter format so every section is easy to grasp. This should be your first stop.:
http://sonichurricane.com/?page_id=1702
While your ingesting that, get in tune with some of the lingo used so you have a better understanding of what is being talked about around here in the forums. Its good to read up on things here, but often times the language can seem foreign to someone new. Here is a good link to a glossary of FG lingo. It’s not something you should try and memorize, just keep it handy so when you are reading up on something and there is a word you don’t understand you may get a better understanding of it here:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_fighting_games
These two are pretty decent places to start. I would also recommend browsing these forums, when you are ready there is a pretty good thread about reading frame data by some folks who are very knowledgeable on the subject. Don’t be afraid to jump right into a character thread in the SFV section and just read up on how others are approaching the character, watch videos and at this point just try and absorb as much information as you can. Prepare yourself for release, because when it comes you are going to lose. This is where most fighting games lose their audience because most players don’t know how to take a loss. Set small goals for yourself and just work on improving and understanding what your weaknesses are.
Alright this question is a bit silly, but oh well.
I recently got my fightstick so I’ve been practicing execution in USF4. This Plinking stuff is so handy like I’m actually landing stuff I never could before. Feels like a whole new world and shit.
But for the SFV can I still use Plinking (e.g can I practice this in the upcoming beta)? Or is this like a technique exclusive to the sf4 series.
Plinking doesn’t work according to Combofiend even though it shows up when you check the inputs. Double tapping is more effective with the input buffer system since it has 3 frame leniency. As for practicing for SFV, if you are familiar with SF in general you can pick up whoever. If you want to ge a grasp of everything is general then Ryu is usually a solid pick due to him being jack of all trades. You still will need a proficient fireball game and footsies though. I wrote a litttle on using training mode as a tool on my blog so I’ll just quote myself off of that.
"I want to explain for those who do not know how to use training mode properly. It’s more than just a mode to practice combos. Most season veterans on our genre know how to train up or don’t even use training mode as much due to old school play and figure it out style. Regardless it is a essential tool as most people actually do not have a big competitive scene such as Cali, NY, Texas, Fl, GA, etc.
First off is basics. Figure out the feel for you character. This includes testing out various normals, uses for dashes, throws etc. Test out specials and get used to the recovery. Once you get that down start to test anti airs. I usually choose a wide range at different angles and normals. This includes testing anti-cross up tech. It doesn’t have to hit to be useful, evasion normals are great also. An example of this is R.Mika’s c.fp, where she rolls in the recovery to avoid the cross up.
Next start to figure out some basic combos. You aren’t gonna be a master combo maker, but just some good punish and bread and butter. Keep it simple for now.
Ok now that you got the basics down hit online for some matches. Use everything you tested in training and keep a note of what you have problems with. One example is when I was playing the beta with Charlie, a Karin player beat my c.mp anti air with j.hk. Noteworthy things like that keep in mind. Write everything down you lose to or haven’t seen.
Next head back to training. Everything you had issues with you need to find out how to counter. This is how you improve and is something you should always do for the life of the game. If something gives you trouble figure it out. You are going to repeat this cycle til you get in a good place.
From here you start trying more advanced combos and heavy punishes. There may be character specific combos, you want to learn those. Experiment with the new systems more such as V-Trigger and V-Skills. Find what you can cancel into trigger for good damage or mix ups. One mix up I found with R.Mika for example:
- s.fp xx Neutral V-Trigger, c.lk or instant grab
– If you did the c.lk route
---- c.lk hits, dash forward s.mp, s.fp xx heavy peach
---- c.lk blocked, dash forward, frame trap/grab etc
So stuff like that just comes from experimenting. Now this is just basic stuff that should help quite a bit (hopefully). If you have any questions, drop me a comment below."
Hey all, thanks for having me here.
I’ve been losing lots online on USF4, and I think a lot of the reason is because I don’t punish the opponent for the stupid stuff they do.
When I’ve tried, say to punish a blocked ultra they do, as I do the motions for say a DP I let go of block or something dumb and eat the rest of the ultra…
When can I let go of block?
Secondly, what’s the best way to go about learning which of my moves punish what?
As a Ryu player, what are some good moves I can use to catch them once I’m out of blockstun and they’re in recovery? I often try DPs in unfamiliar matchups but they typically whiff…
Thanks for your help guys!
If the move/combo you’re blocking is a true blockstring (as in, you have no time to start any move inbetween the opponent’s attacks), you can let go of block after blocking the first hit. It will block the rest of the attacks automatically, even if you hold forward (be aware of your opponent delaying his/her attacks though).
If you want to block Evil Ryu’s Ultra 2, you’d have to keep holding back after he did the 1st of the 3 shoryukens of his ultra. You can punish him inbetween his uppercuts, but for now, just wait it out until the 3rd one.
I assume you’re rather new to using Ryu, so a basic punish is crouching Medium Kick into Fireball. It’s an easy combo that does decent damage and pushes your opponent away.
Another one being crouching Medium Kick into Hurricane. That covers quite a lot of ground, can be used if you want to get out of a corner situation.
Regarding you whiffing uppercuts, keep in mind that the Medium and Hard Shoryuken have more range than the Light version.
You can test this stuff in training mode.
Pick Dan as your opponent, and use the “record” feature to make Dan use his Super move right next to you.
Now go to playback and block the first attack of this super. You should be able to move your stick freely after blocking the first hit (I’m not 100% sure if it’s a true block string, but you’ll get the idea).
Next, see what moves have enough range to punish a blocked Light Uppercut from Ken/Ryu. Standing Hard Kick should work, so should your Medium Shoryuken (Light can whiff depending on the spacing, so pay attention).
Don’t forget to learn combos. Single button punishes aren’t always the best way to go.
You’ll get the hang of it, it just requires some time.
That’s one of the nice things about training mode. You can record a situation and try to figure out a punish/solution for it.
If you’re having trouble understanding if you can punish something, hit the lab and figure it out
Welcome to Street Fighter
FAI is right.
Everything you’re asking can be answered in training mode. Go into training mode and record every ultra for every character (or at least the more popular Ultras) and learn what they do.
It depends which Ultra you’re blocking. If you’re blocking Ryu’s Ultra1, you can let go of block after you’ve blocked the first hit. If you’re blocking Dee Jay’s Ultra1, you have to block the whole thing because there is a gap between the last 2 hits (IIRC). Furthermore, since there is a gap, you can avoid some chip damage by countering the final hit (IIRC).
You can also look at frame data, but I think training mode is better because frame data doesn’t account for spacing, plus you’re ACTUALLY punishing the move instead of just reading about it.
Hey guys,
Thanks so much for answering. You’ve been really helpful.
FAI, thanks for giving me the idea to use cr.Mk xx Hadouken…I never even thought of punishing them with the medium kick because I’ve been so tunnel vision in thinking it of an isolated “poke” move.
And Greenwood, thanks for the info on ultras. I’ll try it out!
I guess there are just somethings obvious to you guys that I don’t even realise you can do! Cheers.
Oh, and one more super dumb question. To do a delay stand, it says to press 2 buttons before you hit the ground in the manual…is that right? All it does it quickstand me…
Visually, what’s the difference between a “delay stand” and a stand up where I press nothing? I feel so dumb trying and failing to do this…
If it is a hard knockdown, you will do the delayed stand. There is no visual difference, just the amount of time it takes to stand again.