Yes you can AA with FA sometimes, but I wouldn’t get too predictable with it, as the opponent can do an empty jump and throw you, or just hit you more than once in quick succession to knock you out of it. FA and then backdash on jump-in is something that has potential, although personality I haven’t played around with it much yet.
If the opponent blocks your FA and you dash out of it, you usually have a chance to defend yourself or attack. Oftentimes people will try to throw you, so you have to watch out for that.
There are a bunch of ways to use FAs that apply to all characters - you’ll have to learn those or read about them for yourself. I’ll mention one use that’s especially useful to a Sak player, and that’s when playing footsies. Once you know your opponent well enough to know when pokes are coming, you can FA for absorb and crumple. This is great for Sak because she often has to approach people on the ground, and she often ends up in poke-wars with certain characters, and it helps that her FA has a tremendous range. You can even use it if an opponent throws a FB just inside your FA range. Instead of absorb and dash like usual, absorb and attack for some free crumple.
I was playing against a guy last night who was really good at FA. he whoop my ass, it was a lopsided battle. maybe i’ll upload some videos later. but damn dude must of been psychic or something. i take it the concept of FA is to bait players in and wait until they react then release? some people just have good reflexes i guess.
I got an idea for my next video upload, it’s a compilation of clips of sakura doing her EX shoryuken and it cutting thru peoples ultras and supers. So far i got footage of it going thru Akuma’s raging demon, Zangief’s spd ultra, and cammy and chun li’s ultras too.
Yeah, FA’ing is very reliant on being psychic. I need to work on this a lot myself, but I really think it’s a great tool, and at the moment at least, underrated. I caught some vids of Poongko (Korean Champion dude) playing his Ryu very aggressivley and using FA’s in his rushdown. It’s great stuff, I don’t have the video on hand, but it’s definitely worth a look.
“Psychic” is kind of the right idea, but really it’s simpler than that. When you get familiar with a certain character and play style, you come to know when certain attacks are coming. The first thing you’ll notice yourself doing, say when playing footsies, is you’ll automatically block when you know a poke is coming. After that becomes second-nature enough, you’ll realize “hey, there are other ways around this.” You can use a move that out-prioritizes the poke, or you can FA. Of course when someone does that to you, you have to change up your game so you don’t get FA’d all the time.
Baiting is oftentimes a bad idea, because any skilled player will see you focusing and plan a way to capitalize on your temporary lack of options. You have to FA when the opponent has no choice but to hit you, like when they’ve committed to an attack already. It’s part reaction and part knowing it’s coming.
Very nice Sak. One thing I noticed is there were quite a few times you performed an ex-hurricane kick -> otoshi where you ended up on the bad end of the corner.
Typically in this scenario I would dash/walk a bit to push the guy forward to give myself some room, or jump air hurricane kick to the other side. Being stuck in the corner just sucks after a nice combo, especially since it is at the distance where a crossup LK won’t connect.
Too much throwing out moves that leave you open when you aren’t sure they’re gonna hit. You got punished a lot for that, and would’ve taken even more damage if your opponents had known some longer combos.
Also, it looks like you could benefit from a bit more patience. You jump in a lot and leave yourself open. Instead, get close enough to put some mental pressure on the opponent, and wait for them to create an opening. If you jump-in, make sure they’re in the middle of an FB or something so you know they can’t retaliate. Don’t be afraid to neutral jump over or block attacks and wait for an opening. In other words, be like the Ken in the second match of this video: http://zoome.jp/nsb/diary/78
I think I’ve gotten stuck in a bad habit of waiting too long for an opening that either never comes or I simply miss it. Whatever, how can I go about creating an opening with Sakura or in general?
Well I was talking specifically about when you’re getting close to the opponent, and in those videos you were either jumping in dangerously or using long-recovery moves to get in, and then get hit. Sometimes with Sak you gotta just walk up close (like poke range, or slightly further away, depending on your opponent and their character), and work for an opening.
To create an opening, you’ve got FA, FBs, and pokes as your main tools. You put on pressure with them (again, how you use them will depend on exactly what your opponent’s doing), and you hope to either score a hit with those or get your opponent to leave an opening.
More notes: c.mk, dp is a great combo to use here, and gets knockdown. c.mk, tatsu is also good. If you’re not close enough then lk.tatsu won’t hit, but then you’re right in front of them and you can throw or combo off of light hits. You can also c.mk, FB a blocking opponent to do a bit of chip damage; this can be somewhat dangerous at max range because Sak’s FBs are slow, but it’s good to know.
Remember, when you get close to people, they will get nervous. If they don’t, then that’s a calm they’ve earned with practice, and you’re just gonna have to get that much better so you can beat them. But if you get close, put on a little pressure, and then see what your opponent does, you’ll often be rewarded with some mistakes on their part.
Nice match. poke wars with Balrog are never fun. I think in that match you could’ve thrown out a lot more flower kicks, stop him from ducking so much n make em play honest.