Potato... Potahto? Basic Hugo Q&A Thread

*edited 11/14: Added Baefal Hugo tutorial

Will be updated as time goes on or more questions arrive.*

  1. How do I Hugo?

Although it’s early, it’s pretty easy to tell that you won’t be getting any easy wins with him. He requires a solid understanding of footsies, TONS of patience, and the knowledge and confidence to commit to reads. Don’t think you can play him like Gief or like Hawk. I believe Hugo is better suited for intermediate to high level players. Here’s a good write up that’ll give you a general idea of how to approach Hugo.

General Hugo Rundown by Ben Reed

Spoiler

[quote=Ben Reed]
You do a lot of walking, and a lot of blocking. Seriously, when in doubt, there is NO shame in taking a bit of chip damage on a block in a situation where Focus dashing, clapping, dd+MK, jumping, or super would be too risky. If you BLOCK 15,000 Tiger Shots during a match with Sagat for being a bit too patient, that’s STILL better than getting HIT by 15,000 Tiger Shots because you were unwilling to wait at all. The most important thing you can gain in these matchups is ground, even if it’s only a step or two forward before back to blocking.

The idea is that you tolerate this grueling chip game at neutral so that you eventually corner your opponent with a small enough life deficit (or, if you read/guess well at neutral, a large enough life lead) that your punishes on your opponent’s escape attempts will put you at a big life advantage, that you can defend by keeping the opponent in the corner. Let me emphasize – if you have the life lead AND the corner, there’s no need to be a hero and go in and grab unless your opponent clearly demonstrates that they’re too scared to do anything but block. Your primary corner control is to be ready to anti-air at any time (usually with EX Backbreaker or Megaton Press, although other situational tools may be available) and to space yourself so that you can safely counterpoke and bait reversals.

Your job as Hugo is to preserve your life, because it underscores how much damage you can do when you finally get into range to do so. Not just by grabbing, but also by counterpoking with his powerful MP attacks. If you’re at midscreen and have a big life lead from getting some counter-hit strongs on Juri, that’s okay! Creep carefully on her but don’t be a hero trying to charge her. Just try to preserve your life lead while choking off her airspace with slow, careful advances.

Above all else, this is the IRONCLAD rule of Hugo: if you have 1 EX bar, your opponent should never, ever, ever be able to jump at you.

Jump away from you, that’s sometimes okay, because at least they’re moving backwards. But AT you? NEVER.EX Backbreaker is too fast, too invulnerable, and too easy to buffer (just swish d,df from crouch! Hugo won’t even visually FLINCH!) to not be used EVERY time you see the opponent jump at you. This should be the first thing you practice with Hugo, not just grab setups and combos. Hugo is DON’T JUMP, the character. (If he has Megaton Press, he becomes DON’T JUMP, the character.) You need to be able to snatch them at every available opportunity. Jumping at you needs to NEVER be an option. This is absolutely crucial if your ground game is going to be anything vaguely resembling scary.

[quote]

  1. I can’t do Meat squasher! / Some of my moves are overlapping! / WTF?!?
    Why the fuck is lariat a kick command? I don’t know. Potato, nigga. Your inputs have to be cleaner when you’re playing Hugo. If you’re coming from other characters, your execution will thank you for it. Here’s the deal:

Also, I’ve found the shortcut for super (d, df, d, df + P) doesn’t work. You have to input the full motion (d, df, f, d, df, f + P).

  1. What are the most common options after Ultra Throw?

You can Ultra 2 if you have it. If you don’t, LP Clap into LK Back breaker. Sometimes you may throw them from full screen and LP Clap will whiff. If that’s the case, MP Clap into EX Back Breaker will work.

  1. What if I Ultra Throw in the corner?
  1. How do you do Clap Combos?

Honestly, practice is the answer. You have to find what method works best for you. With that being said, other Hugo players have shared what worked for them. It may help you.

  1. Does any of Hugo’s normals chain?
    Hugo’s cr. LP and st. LP chains, but the timing is almost like linking them. You’ll have to practice it to get the timing down.

  2. Who should I watch?

Corn Alucard, Jibbo, Storm Kubo (The Gawd), DS Khannibal, Weaponer FGC and Katakana De Aoki. Watch this video for some Day 1 tech by the Gawd Storm Kubo:

You should also watch this video that Baefal was so awesome to do. It gives you the Hugo basics. The accompanying write up is here.

  1. How do I kara Ultra Throw?

The command is half circle back (63214) and P~K. You essentially do the motion for Ultra throw and hit P to make to start the clap, but then hit the K or KK quickly to cancel the start up of the clap into the Ultra throw. You’ll jump forward like a whole square and then Ultra throw. Here’s a vid demonstrating it’s usefulness.

  1. How do I kara Moonsault Press?

The Tech is real!!!

[quote=“kikeuy”]

The input is hcb + “plinked” weak punch with any kick o combination of kicks , then but inmediately follow the motion to diagonal back/up. Also It can be done hcb , neutral position , then “plinked” weak puch with any kick o combination of kicks , then but inmediately , up.
Its done with weak punch because the extra range doesnt worth it with the others.
You can do a Kara Gigas this way, but for me at least , is very hard to do.

[/quote]

Anything that I haven’t covered feel free to ask. I’ll update the post with commonly asked questions if they come up.

G-g-ggawdlike.

Where can i find hugo hitbox info?

I don’t think it’s out yet. Brady’s book doesn’t come out until August sometime so I’d expect hotbox info coming out around then.

@‌Aviatrixx
How do you OS out of ground special? I was only aware of chains OS and jump in OS.

Btw, what is this Armor cancel everybody talk about?

After 1:38…

What happened exactly ??
If you said that he did a Focus Attack dash to Ultra throw… please tell me how he did it so fast ??

he did an EX Lariat (armor cancel) into the light kick Ultra Throw. I’m not sure when exactly the EX bar gets burned during the EX lariat, but clearly it happens later in the move as it does not get burned here.

Chain os works by taking advantage of move priorities ( chain > … )

Jump in os works by taking advantage of hitstop.

Clap os works just like a jump in os. On block/hit, there is a really long hitstop take makes this os easy. On whiff, there isnt, and hugo recovers quick enough to backbreaker a backdash. Hp clap has to be meaty to catch fast backdashes.

Armour cancel = karaing an armoured move into another special move/ultra. Startup increases by 1f but you gain armour for the move.

to be more precice you gain 1 (3?) Frames of Armor for the other move; Nice to show off in Videos… Almost impossible to pull off in real matches it would be more like a "once in a set from 50 trys thing… but it could still be nice if you hafe no other options:P

That almost says “patch” to me…

It’s not impossible at all on real matches, basically everytime you were going to EX lariat you already OS it with Ultra Throw or anything. Get used to do this motion.
When they hit you meaty you’ll be able to do it.

Yeah, definitely not impossible. Definitely not useless. You can do this with Gouken’s counters but they can only be canceled into EX counter or Ultras. Both useless for the most part (start up on Ultras).

The problem is if they do nothing, you’ll be doing an EX lariat and getting punished.

BradyGames confirmed to me that a patch is on its way for the Frame data APP next week. source : twitter https://twitter.com/Brady_Games/status/477141899791577090

That’s cool n all but I was meaning since they are not publishing the book until August and the disc release is also in August I’m thinking the game might be patched before then. Otherwise they could release the guide before August.

I’m fairly sure Capcom released Ultra this early so that it could be done in time for Evo. They probably didn’t take that much time to work out the kinks judging by all the random issues that have been found. I wouldn’t do a patch for disc release.

I’m having some real problems getting the timing down for MP clap after Ultra Throw. Any help with getting the timing down, or is this considered one of the clap combos to practice?

Why not do LP clap?

Everything you just said (bar the last sentence) supports a patch for disc release.

I totally didn’t mean that lol. I’m not sure what I was trying to say but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did one.

what the best way to land BNB Clap combo for hugo. I play on pad, but I do the motion correctly sometimg they come out sometimes they don’t and when they don’t I get a random butt attack lol