Really need advice to handle shotokans. Getting abused very horribly

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

LONG POST BELOW (pls bear with me, I really need help)

I was playing with a friend who uses Sakura, and I was owning him with Juri by rushing him down. (some of Sakura’s footsies are good but Juri is kinda too fast for her).

Had no issue until he switched to my greatest fear : The Shotokans (Ken, Ryu, Akuma).

Gameplay is basically him doing hadoukens when we’re far apart.
At mid-range, he either shoryukens or hadoukens. When we meet each other in air, he uses jump-forward Heavy Kick (which my Juri lost to every time).
At close-range, it’s pretty much crouching HK and shoryukens.

It got to a point where he was winning like 20 matches and I won 1.
And through the matches, I started to get so scared of the shoryuken that my Juri no longer rush down…she just retreated and blocked and blocked with not much offense.

I tried to reduce my jumping in (I always do that), but without jumping in, it’s really very hard to get close to the shotos, and the hadoukens are chipping my life away.

And when I do managed to get close, I get shoryuken in the face after I finish doing my footsies to open them up (cr. LK, cr. LK, S. MK).

Also, when he does hadoukens, I sometimes managed to punish it with dive kick but it doesn’t really help things that much. I occasionally uses the counter move (sakastushi or something) where she goes past the hadouken but I get shoryuken right afterwards (maybe I’m too far when I did the counter, giving them time to input shoryuken).

People always say Juri is a ryu / ken eater, but my Juri is getting raped very badly. Like 20 (friend) vs 1 (me, and that 1 victory was by pure luck).

Got to a point where he was spamming LP shoryukens CONSECUTIVELY in front of me non-stop cos’ he knew I was scared, and I just move back and back and back and did nothing cos’ I’m scared if I try to punish, the next upcoming shoryuken will over-ride all my moves.

So, my questions:

  1. How do you guys deal with situations like this using Juri!!! I really can’t find a way to deal with shotos, especially shoryukens. Heck, it hits me even when I’m somewhere between close and mid range!!! It’s like, the moment I do anything other than block, I get shoryukened.

  2. When Juri meets ryu / ken in the air and they uses Heavy Kick, is there any normal that Juri has that can beat their Heavy Kick???!!! My Juri’s jump-forward HK and MP loses to ryu / ken’s HK everytime.

  3. When dealing with shotos (especially those that abuses shoryuken), what is the best range to maintain? Mid-range?

  4. Against shotos, Juri should play defensively and passively? No rush down? In the matches, I’m the one going after him trying to attack him while he plays in a more passive manner. But if I play passive
    and he plays passive, the game will never end right? LOL

  5. In cases when you guys managed to get close, you guys do cr. LK, cr. LK to open them up? Because usually when my footsie ends, I get shoryuken-ed for the 47742th time.
    Sometimes I use Fuhajin to open him up but it’s totally useless.

  6. Any other tips would be nice. I see this vid of Juicebox (I think?) fighting a ryu, and he was rushing the ryu down like anything. It’s weird that particular ryu didn’t do much shoryukens, and it’s even weirder that juicebox doesn’t seem to care a hoot about the danger of shoryukens and he just rush-down and rush-down like mad. shoryuken is not just an anti-air move…it’s a really strong move that totally keeps opponents away.

Thanks a lot! :slight_smile:
Xeon

2

hate to break it to you but thats the game. play 3s if you want diversity. just not 3soe.

3

Bait, block, punish. Go in training mode, record Ryu spamming lp.SRK and punish it with cr.mk xx hk.senpusha. It’s -17 on block, so there’s plenty of time to do whatever you want. If you keep getting hit by it, you’re pressing too many buttons, especially for an opponent who you know likes to mash DP. Get used to taking a small step forward, then block and wait. Teach them they can’t get away with it and they’ll stop doing it (and then you have more freedom to do what you want), or you’ll just win until they do.

4

I don’t play juri, but couple of basic tips.
Try neutral jumping or FADC ing fireballs. Mix it up, you don’t always have to block or jump forward.
You have all the time in the world to punish a whiffed SRK, even a light one. Go into training and practice punishing all strengths of whiffed SRKs. Practice until you can punish on reaction. Try to bait your friends SRKs, punish heavily. You could even throw. Not the best damage but it’s a hard knockdown leading to a setup. They are seriously unsafe. He’ll soon stop doing them.
Hope this helps.

5

Was writing that before Zejoeh’s reply, his may be more helpful.

6

Gotta be patient. There’s an old sf2 video of an American using guile vs Daigo ryu. The guile player took his chip and waited and waited annld waited and waited. Daigo finally starts coming in thinking guile will do nothing and got bopped.

You don’t have to counter everything. Neutral jump and be patient. Slowly but surely get in. Chip is nothing when one hit puts you back on top.

7

You got a link for this video?

8

Work on your fireball game. Cancel hadoukens with fireball stores. Make him jump at you so you can do her anti airs (cr.hp or cr.mp). Once he tries to beat your anti airs, now you can jump on his jump-ins with your attacks. Also play with jumping HP. At worst it can trade plus it gives a techable knockdown most players don’t expect. Bait out spammed DPs by simply blocking. Don’t forget your teleports. You can use them to go through projectiles including ultra 1. Thats to keep the info relatively short but that should help you out more.

9

I don’t think matchups are your problem, really
Or rather: They are, but in a different way than you think they are.

Learn how to Quickdive (Upforward > Immediate Divekick input) over fireballs and you can punish the Shotos for throwing them on reaction, the end.
Then learn that Juri isn’t a rushdown character

Oh and if you can’t handle LP Shoryu spam… … …that’s really not a matchup issue. Put a Ken in training mode on record, playback LP Shoryu and keep ripping his ass until it’s second nature.

10

It sounds like you’re kind of new, or inexperienced to SF. So I’m gonna stray way from the jargon.

The fact that you are rushing Sakura down as Juri, and succeeding, shows that he probably isn’t all that experienced either.

LP SRK Spamming - If he is LP SRK spamming, as Ken, Ryu, Akuma…whoever…just sweep him when/as he lands. A simple crouching hard kick.

Dealing with FBs - It’s very easy to dive kick a fireball mid-screen, and even full screen.

How to Approach a Shoto - Well, as with most of Juri’s matches, you should be keeping him away with fireballs and normals. Ryu and Ken especially, you should zone them out.

Getting SRKed while pressuring him with LKs - Simply do one or two lks, block, watch him soar into the air, and punish him. Bait his mashed SRK

I mean, if you want to, invite your friend over. Go online with him and watch how people beat him. You’ll find him getting shut down very quickly.

11

Basically, Xeon, it sounds to me like you need to learn patience. Playing Juri as a rushdown character rarely works well, she’s just not suited for it. If you win by timeout, you still won, it just took a little longer. Think about this: everyone has to deal with fireballs and most of them don’t have fireballs themselves. How do they do it?

Tools everyone has: Block and take that tiny chip damage, Focus attack to absorb the fireball and dash cancel the focus (backward mostly), or jump straight up over it. If you’re in range and have the reflexes you can jump forward and punish them hard as soon as they throw a fireball. A lot of the cast has moves that are invincible to fireballs as well, such as Cammy’s ex.Spiral Arrow.

Juri has additional tools: Do a fireball store to cancel their fireball, throw a mid fireball of your own, use kasatushi/counter backwards to absorb without taking any damage. Going forwards needs to be spaced right and up can get you punished if you’re not careful. Dive kick to punish or just get over fireballs. Juri can dash forward under some fireballs, and cr.MK under some, but you’re probably not ready to practice that yet. Ex.Pinwheel is fireball invincible but doesn’t move very far forward so you’d have to react to a close range fireball.

The fireball game is hard to learn. I’m not pretending I’m an expert at it. But it’s one of the things Juri excels at. She can beat almost anybody in a fireball war once you know how to do it. Here’s the thing though, it’s slow and calculating. It might not be what you’re looking for.

Next problem: jumping. Don’t just jump in. You will get hurt by anyone who knows what they’re doing, not just the Ryus and Kens. Try to stay on the ground. Focus on it all through the match. “I will not jump, I will not jump”. You have no up direction on your stick. When your opponent jumps at you, use cr.MP or cr.HP to knock them out of the air. It’ll work at least 90% of the time. Loses to divekicks mostly. Go 10 matches without jumping once. Even if you lose, you’ve gained focus.

Punishing whiffed moves (shoryukens): Like everyone else said, you just have to practice that. Just mash out a sweep if nothing else. Wait until they stop moving upwards, as soon as they start to fall back down, smack them. The reason most (good) players don’t use shoryukens much is because it’s a huge risk. If they don’t hit you, they’re open to anything you want to do. Sweep? Check. Throw? Check. 400+ damage combo? Check. Raw ultra? In most cases, check. Try this: just do cr.LK, cr.LK, and then stop and just block. See what they do. If they shoryuken, punish. Hard. Every single time.

Practice practice practice. That’s what it takes.

12

Thanks for the advice guys! In particular, the cr. LK, cr. LK then block strategy seems very useful.
Will practice the fireball war thing in training mode later.

I always have this misconception that Juri is a rush-down god cos’ her footsies are really fast compared to the rest of the cast. I’ve also seen players like weirdneo pressuring and comboing like fuck. LOL

You guys are right in that I’m an inexperienced player; been playing street fighter on and off since I the 1990s but has always been a casual gamer playing against the CPU. LOL
This is the 2nd time in my life playing against a human and once the guy changes strategy, I start becoming at a loss cos’ I admit my playing style is very predictable (no mind games etc).

That explains why even when I switch to Ryu (my previous main), I also lost to his ryu / ken. :smiley:

I must stop jumping in from now on!!! Tks guys! :slight_smile:

13

Hey guys! I found a youtube vid whereby the match totally RESEMBLES the one I had with my friend! See this:
[media=youtube]4OBc2E5M5VA[/media]

The Juri in the vid was exactly like my Juri, eating shoryukens non-stop! Maybe his Juri jumped too much and threw out pinwheels nilly-willy? In the vid, you can see Ken consistently pushing Juri into a corner.

14

Well… that said CPU over both players so I think it was just CPU vs CPU. But note that if the Juri had just blocked the shoryukens, she could have punished for over 200 damage every time. And yeah, pinwheels are mostly meant for combos. They’re all unsafe on block, even LK which “feels” safe is -4 at best, which is a free throw, shoryuken, or possibly a LP/LK into full combo.

15

…Bait the Shoryuken and Punish. That is all -_-;

You don’t need to try to out-think an idiot, you just let him play like an idiot and you take whatever free damage you can. The game becomes boring, but that’s how the game is played when you’re playing a dumbass. Mind games won’t work if your opponent doesn’t have a mind to play games with;
(yes i’ve said the same thing like three times, just trying to drive the point home).

16

“You gotta be at least 25 to play Guile. Kids don’t have the patience to hold down-back that long.”

17

Its in the footsies handbook. Will post for you when i get home from work :slight_smile:

18

Wasn’t it the other way round
Guile kept chipping and threw like 50 Booms in a row with the Ryu just not moving
Commentator stating smth like "If you were in this position, could you calmly eat the chip? Just put yourself in the same spot, you’ll want to jump after the 25th Boom at the latest"
And then suddenly he went in and bopped the Guile

E: Right, Footsies Handbook. Forgot where I had seen that.
http://sonichurricane.com/?p=944 Element 13

Daigo is the Guile and taking the Ryu players chip :looney: Misremembering some things…

19

Does this apply to all charge characters, whether in Capcom or SNK fighting games?

20

More on Capcom. For SNK/KOF games, while there are charge characters, it’s still more rushdown based. Charge in SNK games seem to be a cosmetic choice, whereas for Capcom games, it’s for the more turtley kinds of characters.