EDIT: There’s super easy OS for this that pretty much invalidates most of the stuff I say in the original version of this post. I’m gonna leave it there in case someone finds it useful or wants to laugh at me wasting my time though.
The Option Select here is that you do an attack of some kind that’s + on block, then a second attack followed immediately by a V skill input. An easy example is cr.LP, MP (V skill). Just hit crouching light punch, then medium punch with normal timing, then immediately tap V skill. So if they just block it then all that happens is those two normal moves, the parry doesn’t happen because when you press the buttons you’re already in the middle of the medium punch… But if they do a v reversal when the jab hits the momentary flash freeze will cause your medium punch to never happen even though you hit the button. This will cause the parry to come out instead. You have to work a little bit on the timing to make sure the parry isn’t too early or too late, but it’s not terribly hard to do if you set the dummy always block and use the guard recording option to make it V reversal.
You can react to a successful parry and punish Birdie, Bison and Ibuki with combos that start with HK, and punish Alex, Balrog, Cammy, Dhalsim, Guile, Juri, Karin, Laura, Necalli, Mika, and Ryu with f+HP.
A few caveats, against Chun Li, Ken and Zangief this will only work against them using V reversal against a jump in attack. If they immediately V reversal against any grounded normal then it will hit you either during the recovery of the initial move or during the start up of the parry. Also a significant portion of the cast have V reversals that don’t hit you, so obviously you can’t parry those.
I’ve done some more testing now. Turns out there’s a bit of a mix up to this. There’s an early timing and a late timing for both the V reversal and this OS. If you do the OS early and they V reversal late then you get hit and the same goes for the other way around. I still think it’s very much worth it though seeing as it’s a 50/50 where you get a giant punish and they hit you with a measly bit of grey life damage. Though it does make me think that if you have a read that they’re going to V reversal it might be worth watching and trying to react instead of OSing it.
So if Ryu wasn’t already top tier enough for you, now he can automatically turn a V reversal by 2/3 of the cast into a huge punish with the easiest OS since crouch techs. Brace yourself for nerfs when that balance patch comes. (in hindsight this was a bit hyperbolic of me)
ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS
Saw Tokido do this in pools at CEO, though he didn’t manage to follow up with a punish. Decided to look into it and share what I found.
Obviously against Rashid, Vega, Fang, and Nash they don’t hit you so there’s nothing to parry. You just have to chase it down.
Additionally Chun Li, Ken, and Zangief’s V Reversals are significantly faster than the rest of the cast. A V Reversal from these characters will consistently hit your blocked MP before you can recover. Even if they use the reversal against something fast like a jab I’ve found myself unable to react fast enough that the parry clears its startup period and I just get counter hit. It’s still possible to do and very rewarding if successful, but seems to require a hard read and if you’re wrong you open yourself up to high damage counter hit combos. Personally that’s a risk I would very rarely take.
Against all the characters who don’t fall into the categories above Ryu can see an opponent’s V reversal against any of his light normals and most medium normals and react by parrying the V Reversal. This gives you an excellent chance for a high damage punish, and if you mess up the worst that happens is you take some grey life damage and get knocked down, probably too far away for the opponent to get a proper meaty attack on you. There is one tricky part of punishing V Reversals after a parry though. V Reversals stay invincible for a very long time, through their active period and even through part of their recovery. If you use a fast attack immediately after your parry then it will whiff straight through them as they are still invincible. I find f+HP to be an excellent solution for this problem. The startup is long enough to let the invincibility wear off and you don’t have to worry about timing out your attack, just do it immediately.
At the moment I’ve only tested this as Ryu vs Ryu and Ryu vs Ken, but I plan to explore it with every character and update this post with what I find.
UPDATE: For roughly half the cast Parrying the V Reversal and then doing f+HP and comboing from there is ideal. Characters this works on:
Alex (slower than the rest of the cast, parry has to be times slightly later)
R Mika
Ryu
Cammy (watch for the side switch, airborne for part of recovery but f+HP won’t hit until grounded)
Necalli
Guile
Laura
Karin
Dhalsim
Bison and Birdie are a little different, their V Reversal recovers too quickly for f+HP to land. There is still a brief moment of invincibility that will cause immediate MP or cr.HP to whiff. You need to slightly delay your attack. You’ve got time for a very short period of walking forward if you want to get closer for a bigger punish. ANOTHER UPDATE: If you want a good balance of damage and reliability for these two use standing HK and combo out of it. I’ve never had it whiff. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it right away.