R.Mika Beginners Thread: "All right! Let's begiiiin!"

cr.HP is such a great and versatile tool for moving around. If you can get it early enough, it’s definitely a great escape from cross-up. Not so much from wake-up though. If your opponent’s got their timing right, it’s usually just a little too slow for that.

You can aways wake up with EX Wingless Airplane if you think cr.HP won’t be fast enough. Hitbox is huge and the startup is way faster (5 frames instead of 11 of cr.HP). Besides, it has some frames of invincibility.

A good cross up is always going to stuff Mika. She just has to block some things.

Been playing around 3 weeks or so, but I can only play for around 1.5-3 hours every other night. Currently I am floating around 1900-2100 LP range, playing in Japan (if the LP and region mean anything).

I’ve played fighting games for a while, but mostly the Guilty Gear / KoF / Blazblue / Skullgirls types. I think I’m above average in those types of games. My previous “training method” was to play nonstop until I just kinda got better, but that doesn’t work for me anymore because I lack the time. I feel I’m doing pretty badly here and am hoping to get advice to speed up the process of getting better. I at least want to get to gold for the meaningless validation of getting the trophy. Here’s a sample video I recorded:

https://youtu.be/5CET0s7ULBQ

Also some more specific questions:

  1. I keep reading stuff like “when Mika gets you in the corner you’re dead!” but I don’t really get that much mileage from cornering my opponent. I basically just juggle with c.MP and then try to meaty a f.HP, MP / command grab / go for side-switch mix-up. Sometimes this works out. Often my opponents just YOLO-DP out of it.
  2. I have trouble pressuring opponents. I generally start out with a LP or c.LK, then maybe a MP or c.HP. I go for Passion Press if MP counter hits or if HP hits I command-grab / LP / MP. My main forward momentum comes from c.HP and when I’m too far I have a habit of jumping for cross-up. Sometimes this gets me blown up. I’ve read about “waiting for your turn” in SF5 but am not sure exactly what this means. I assume it means waiting till the opponent is not at frame advantage.
  3. I never know when to use v-skill. Sometimes at the beginning of a fight I back off and throw one out there. When I get my opponent dizzy I do it there too sometimes.
  4. I feel like I should be doing way more Passion Press, but am unsure about how to go for it safely. I keep getting blown up when it’s blocked.
  5. I particularly have trouble fighting Nash and Ryu. The fireballs make it hard to approach. This hurts me a lot because like 70% of my online opponents are playing Ken or Ryu.
  6. I realize it would be more useful to upload a match I lost against a shoto. I just didn’t think to do it. I really only uploaded this one because I got excited over making Silver the first time.

Someone was saying this thread was dead. Let’s make it less dead. SEASON TWO BEGINNERS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!

Basic Brimstone Meaties ala Luffy: