Question about a common mix-up: Whiff jab -> throw

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
1

So 3rd Strikers love to do whiff jab -> throw as their opponent is waking up from a knockdown.

Why exactly is this so good? It’s obviously intended to be a fake meaty, right? i.e. for shotos st. jab is a fake st. close strong.

But then I see people do whiff st. jab -> throw,
then next time do whiff st. jab -> cr. LK hit confirms.

So now it’s just a regular mix-up. You would get the same mix-up even if you didn’t whiff st. jabs, right? Or do people do this just to “train” their opponent?

Thanks.

2

Works either way. Yeah, I’d use a whiff to train my opponent. With Alex, s.strong over them just before they’re up. They instantly think to block, seeing that, and boom, Power Bomb. Or other things. But like anything, you can’t overuse it.

3

I thought it was done to throw off throw timing cuz you trick them by your sprite position when you do the st.jab (at least the far one, not close). I suck, though so yah…

4

Tell that to Watson, who gave us a good way to use that tech: cr.short, whiff s.jab, throw/cr.strong/whatever other mix-up you can possibly think of in that moment.

5

^^

I created those mixups.

6

and now you have confirmation for why only weak ken players use those.

OH BURN

I always thought those jabs were for conditioning, they don’t really leave you safe or allow for any kind re-distancing after recovery because jabs don’t really move you…otherwise we’d all be doing kara-grabs with jab.

7

cr.short,st.jab hit confirms into jab dp, don’t forget that

8

cr. short st. jab confirms into strong dp and forward tatsu for akuma. jab shoryu for ken too. pretty legit when you don’t have meter imo. i go for kara throw if it’s blocked.

9

But he said whiffed jabs.

10

i said i usually kara throw on whiff… wait i said on block, i meant whiff.

i’m baked and whiff is such a funny word.

11

a lot of people use this just cause they saw it on a video or some shit
very few people actually understand the reasons behind it

whiffin a jab does a lot of things, most of them affect what your opponent is thinking

if you knock down an opponent and you just stand there waiting for him to stand up, your opponent is easily gonna know you’re waiting for something, so he’s gonna be more careful.
If you whiff a jab, you give the impression that you’re busy. You’re not waiting, you’re doing something already, so this tends to make your opponent feel that hes gotta think quickly, and this can cause an impulsive player to easily freakout .

Thats just one reason. You can look at it from tons of different angles. The sad thing is that people emulate stuff instead of internalizing it.

whiffin a jab is one of those things to condition your opponent slowly.
Its popular on 3s cause of its upclose style of battle.

Learning how to condition your opponent is an art form
Have you ever seen Daigo do “psychic dps”???
those arent psychic at all, they’re completely planned since the start of the match,.
He works you and trains your reactions during the match, so he can punish you later.
Have you ever noticed that most of Daigo’s psychic moments occur towards the middle or end of the match rather than the start???

Let me explain how this works
Imma use SF4 for this example cause its a lot easier to understand this on a less complicated game like sf4
on the EVO 09 stream I saw daigo do this

he knocked down some dude, whiffed a jab, walked up, “psychic” dragon punch to ultra.

Now
Ive seen tons of scrubs whiff the uppercut trying to imitate this but they just never get it.
what really happened is this

Daigo knocked down his opponent, he whiffs the jab to make you feel like you need to act quickly
then he waits for you to realize this
he waits for you to realize that you aint moving, and once you realize this…
what do you do???
you move…

Daigo knows this…, he didnt read your mind
the odds that you gonna move are really high, so in reality, he’s not even taking a big risk.

He would apply this same principles on 3s but use a low parry instead of a DP
again, those aren’t psychic parrys.
Its just smart gameplay
Be a fan of smart gameplay instead of being fan of daigo.

12

^^ Not a bad post at all.

Good! When I said I created this mixup, I created them with the purpose of using them the way you described it, of course with maybe few more options.

Many players should take note of this.

13

lolol

14

i invented wake up super

15

…

on their wakeup

16

i love Daigo <3 he is so cool and strong!!

17

Whiffing a st. or cr. lk or lp is usually about baiting a reversal when you’re opponent’s waking up. The player is waiting for the animation to end and is distracted. If they try to reversal and fail, it’s cos you timed the whiff well so you could already block. They also go for the reversal cos they’re expecting a throw to follow after the whiff as an alternative. Necro’s really good at baiting on wake-up and punishing with high damage options, as well as the shotos. I also like to try tapping towards while they wake up, so you can try to parry the 1st hit of a reversal attempt (I think all reversals attacks can be parried high…), or crouching db so they think you’re gonna do a crouching attack into combo. This could trip them up for a moment, and then usually the worst you have to fear is a throw, which you could tech if they hesitate and then go for the throw.