Questions about Balrog, and Balrog vs Ryu

I posted some of these questions in the Balrog combo thread, but figured I had more general questions that are noobish so thought I’d ask here.

For Balrog’s jabx3 sweep combo, is it possible to do cr. jab cr. jab cr. jab sweep or does it need to be cr. jab cr. jab st. jab sweep? Can it be any combination of jabs? Can you use a short in there?
Apart from cr. lp cr. lp cr. lk xx hp headbutt, cr. mp xx headbutt ultra 1, and that jabx3 sweep combo, what are other bnb combos that I should use?
Also what are some useful Balrog OS’s? Look as I have I haven’t found anything.
When I see good Balrogs play when they get a hard knockdown, it looks like they TAP then straight rush to build meter. Is it lvl 1 TAP and jab straight?

I tend to play really well, even against more experienced players, whenever I play in a slow-paced, footsies heavy, chess match. But then when I play against the crazy mixup characters, your Yuns, Yangs, El Fuertes, and so on, suddenly the game is going too fast for my brain to comprehend, and I die from a lot of mixups and oki setups. Any advice on surviving fast rushdown characters as Rog, and/or making them play my slower game?

Most importantly, my friend is mostly playing Ryu, so we’ve played Rog vs Ryu a million times (not always, I’m also trying to pick up Vega and he’s also trying to play Dudley and Rose). It feels like I get free chip damage and can close the distance really easily with jab straight rushes. Unless he preemptively throws out a fireball, a low jab, a low forward, a focus, or neutral jumps, it seems really safe and abusable for me to be able to freely just rush punch him to death. And whenever he tries different tactics I can mix up my own tactics, use ex rush punches to get through his preemtive low forwards, do dash upper to catch his neutral jump, or tornado rush to beat a focus. Most of the time I end up getting just free LP straight rushes.

My question is, what’s the safest, most reliable tactic to beat my tactic? Up until recently I lost like 75% of matches vs him until I picked up Balrog and started winning more day 1. He’s figured out the crux of my winning being jab straight rushes, ex rushes (to get around his preemptive moves) and headbutts (going through fireballs and other stuff). It’s frustrating for him, and less interesting for me, as all I seem to need to do 90% of the time is a simple charge move, but he has to fight around it with Ryu using pre-emptive strategies that may or may not work, or having lightning fast reactions. And he has good reactions, but not always fast enough. Doesn’t help that he recently picked up stick, but he had the same problems on pad.

It just seems weird that as far as I can tell, at the level we’re playing at, 2 noobs with only a few months of experience in the game, where I can abuse a really safe easy tactic, and he has to work several times as hard to get around it. Any advice I can share with my friend?

Finally I’m trying to play Vega, and the most damaging combos seem to involve that DF HK move cancelled into his flip kicks. How do you do this since you lose charge by hitting DF instead of DB?

Thanks for advice!

As for the combo, the standing far LP gives you a better chance at linking the CR RH. Because a cr lp on hit is +7 while st lp is +8. Lvl1 tap and jab straight.
Boxer has tools against other characters like Yun, Yang, Fuerte. You just have to be patient and believe in your buttons and make educated guesses.
As for your friend all he has to do is learn spacing and force you to do things that frustrates you. Things like fake fireball and stuff your straight with dp

So even new players realize that charge characters are easier to play than motion-input characters… haha

As a Ryu player I think something to learn is to bait rog’s dashing straights and punish with neutral j.mk/hk, cr.mk/hp xx hk tatsu. Maybe he’s already looking for that but if he neutral jumps too much then of course you’ll adjust accordingly with the tornado rush. Maybe he telegraphs too much (like when new Ryu players jump a lot fishing for j.mp juggle to ultra).
I still need to learn more about the match up but that’s all I can offer your friend for now

The hit right before the sweep has to be a standing LP. It’s a one frame link. The crouching LP has less frame advantage than standing jab, so it is not possible to do crouching LP into sweep, unless the crouching LP is counterhit. counterhit grants more frame advantage on hit so its the only case a crouch LP can then link into sweep

Your punish combo should be close HK, stand LP xx rush upper loops. You can end the combo with MK rush upper instead as it’ becomes a mixup. MK upper is +1, so you are now free to reset them into strings/tick throws

If you feel more confident, do close HK link into crouch MP (1 frame link) and then xx rush upper loops

Meaty crouch lp, crouch lp~hk is a good OS for backdashes