Rog's Tools of the Trade

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
21

I thought about it that way, as a sort of mind-game, hypothetically, you could whiff a headbutt and stand there as if you were still in recovery to bait out something stupid. It’s balsy, i think it’d work against characters with really slow reversals, but those characters usually have other tools that make that a bit risky. For example Against bison a cross-up headbutt after a UKD like fwd throw since headbutt has 50+ frames of total animation. His fastest reversal is maybe 13 frames, but he has a crazy fast walk speed, so if you were in recovery he could just walk forward and normal throw you.

Don’t get me wrong i’m not saying it’s not a possibility, but the risk involved versus the opponent training, don’t think it has immediate use. Useful in a long set maybe, or if your opponent has an itchy trigger finger on ultra/super.

22

Here’s a vid of mine - Contains a batch of the below explained stuff (Resets, Dizzy Combo’s, Mixups, Cancels, Loop Alternatives etc)

It’s sad but this is all very known stuff at this point but in my eyes, a Balrog who can actually play in a way that confuses people can be effective as most players will always expect either standard rushdown rog or turtle rog, so adopting some tricks is always beneficial no matter how simple they are. Anyways, here’s some meat to go with the video.

By all means mediocre (and proud) but I’m going to take a wild shot in the dark with some of the nonsense I’ve pulled off and see if it’s anything remotely useful to others.

We all have matches where someone is on the defense and you’re gagging for an Ultra opportunity - I used to Ultra from BnB’s but now my most common Ultra setups come from FA Crumples on poor jumpins or versus predictable pokes. A Crumple means a free Ultra. In almost all recent movies I’ve uploaded, you’ll see someone eat a crumple and eat a Backdash > TAP > Ultra Juggle… If you want more damage, considering FA’s cause a lot of reduction, you can just Ultra with charge, beit raw Ultra with no backdash or with charge and good execution a back/forward dash into Ultra from the crumple.

My most recent, and almost completely USELESS, discovery was that of Balrog being able to crossup a wakeup Ultra Rufus with NJ Fierce (Forward wiggle) if done point blank and you are already in the air… I don’t see why most Balrogs would really ever try NJump on a Rufus wakeup and even less chance of them just happening to use an Ultra on said wakeup, but yes, if by some fluke of nature you/they do it in a panic, enjoy the crossup assuming you were close enough and you hold forward to go over him. I only do this when I’m actively looking to force EX Messiah’s and don’t want to lose much health from them as you WILL be hit by it during NJump but only for the initial hit, so they burn meter for tiny damage and you can tech-wakeup while they are still in motion // before they can get any time to abuse your wakeup.

If I resort to meaties, CForward is my go-to Normal. It has lopsided frames/looks so if timed right it’ll whiff/recover on problematic wakeups (Scissors, EX Scissors, PCrusher etc), stuff throw attempts, counter-hit wakeup normals and it’s highly comboable… CForward Cjab Cshort Headbutt/Dash… CForward, Standing Jab (Close/Far) Headbutt on people a bit further away for the Headbutt… CForward, CStrong (Or CJab>CStrong), Dash/Headbutt are solid combo’s.

Cancels are good. If you meet Shoto’s, for example, who adore mashing SRK’s on your deep (typically unsafe) TAP, then you can sometimes predict this, fish for a whiff SRK (TAP, Cancel backdash) and this can give you a free combo depending on the strength of the SRK thrown out - I usually fish for this opportunity in those matches where I’m on relatively low health and they’re just itching for chip or FADC Ultra… If it’s strong or fierce you can jumpin for free, if it’s light you can sweep, roundhouse etc. Alternatively you can aim for a crumple on folks without problematic reversals or those who will likely mash those light normals on block, in which case you can B/FDash, TAP into Ultra, or just Ultra if you’re not going for a standard combo.

AE is released on PC soon, so I guess it’s futile mentioning Headbutt crossovers considering AE will inflict me with huge headbutt recovery on whiff… But yes, as a Vanilla player, this gets abused a lot alongside ambiguous jumpovers.

23

I’m going to try that 3n1g.

Rope you’ve a nice Rog man. Stop sounding like your mediocre. You know you’re good :wink:

24

Is there any point in still using a hb after knocking someone down one. I see GhettoPeru using light hb on ppl after a kd all the time now, but I’m not sure why. Any insight into this?

25

I spoke about ambiguous headbutt corpse hops on knockdown, i still think they’re still effective, even that the extra recovery actually makes it more ambiguous because if he’s just standing there you can’t tell whether or not he’s recovered (although you can’t keep charge unless you know exactly when he recovers).

Anyway, two things that I’ve been using as of late are:
[LIST]
[]whiff cr.lp to throw on opponents wakeup - This is something that grapplers use alot. Against a third of the cast, meaty cr.lp is unsafe (against 5f reversals), so my reasoning is if you time it so you’re in recovery as they wakeup, if they reversal dp, you’ll still be able to block (you can tell by the reversal signage), and you can change the timing for meaty timing etc, as a sort of mind-game since it all looks the same. (e.g. cr.hk, empty jump cr.lp, delayed cr.lp etc). [This can lose to wakup throw]
[]When in the corner, backdashing and throwing. For example, you’re playing Makoto and she’s pressuring you in the corner with st.mp over and over again, she tosses it out, you backdash to avoid, and throw upon your recovery. Weird, it’ll work against fireballs if they’re that deep in the corner as well; dunno why they’d be throwing a fireball that deep in the corner, completely possible though.
[/LIST]

26

The two bullets above were 4 and 5 fyi.
[6]Meter Management
Always keep your opponents meter in mind when you’re dishing out the damage, especially in the first/second round (not the final). For example, if you’re fighting Chun, and you hit her with an ultra when you don’t have much life left, or chance of winning, you’re giving her free meter so that she’s closer to having super. If she starts the next round with a full super bar, she’s got 90s to punish any number of your dash punches OR link into super from a connected long range poke. There’s no need to use a high damage ultra/super unless it’s going to kill and win you the match.

[7]j.lk as an air-to-air and a jump-in
This is one of balrog’s most underused buttons in the air (or standing for that matter). In contrast to heavies, jumping lights have much smaller hitbox and somewhat faster startup. The main difference to j.lk is what it does after it connects and how useful it’s hitbox is. When it connects successfully, you fall much faster than your opponent and you have an opportunity to hold forward and switch sides on your opponent like Seth after headstomps. Also the hitbox is really nice in the since that it’s hurtbox is a significant distance away from the hitbox (vertically as well as horizontally, this isn’t the cases with his heavies), so it’s difficult for opponents to outpoke you in some instances. As a jump-in, it can give you enough hit-stun to connect with cr.lp, it can also serve as a frame trap or tick throw depending on where you hit. There’s also been some talk of it crossing up, but i haven’t seen it happen.

[8]cl.hp as an anti-cross up
In situations where the game is at neutral and you can’t reliable anti-air with cr.hp or cl/st.mp, you can AA with cl.hp. This normal can hit on both sides.

[6]Killing back-charge with charge characters
In the corner, there are a few situations where you’ll have the time necessary to take away their back-charge and keep them in the corner. One way to land Ultra, TAP under their body, and hp.hb over their body destroying their back-charge. This removes their wakeup options to some extent and can let you safely eyeball a meaty without fear of certain retaliations. For example against Bison his only escape option is ex.headstomp or devil reverse.

Another situation is using focus resets, some focus resets only work in the corner or mid-screen, but you can use a focus reset when the opponent is dizzy and damage scaling would ruin any long combo to do an air reset into a meaty knowing that they don’t have enough time for back-charge. For example: lvl2 fa, late cr.lp, fwd.dash under, slightly delayed meaty cr.lp would force Honda to block or use ex.ss to attempt an offensive punish.

[7]Counterpicking Stages
Stage selection is weirdly overlooked and incredibly important in some matchups. There are in general, three stages that offer advantages:
[LIST]
[]The Overpass (fat kids under the bridge)
[]The Snowy Train Yard (Russians and snow)
[*]The Training Stage
[/LIST]
The Overpass stage is the shortest stage in the game, horizontally. What this means is that it takes less effort to carry your opponent to the corner, and that if they opponent wants to run away (e.g. Vega/Claw). In contrast is the Snowy Train yard, this stage is the longest stage, so it favors opponents who want to run away, but for matches where you want to keep the fight mid-screen (e.g. Dictator), this will give you more opportunity to keep the match full screen. And the most neutral stage is the training stage, there’s nothing to distract you and it’s pretty average as far as horizontal length. Also keep in mind what colors make the opponent (or yourself) hard to view in contrast to the background (e.g. snowy rail yard with dark colors).

27

Wow,

never paid attention to the stage size at all 3nig.

Any tips for landing armor cancels into super/ultra?

28

armor cancels…i think someone posted situations where AC’s were guaranteed. Those are the times you want to use it, like shoto cr.mk xx hado, usually never a block string (except with ryu at close range). those are the situations where you want to “hit-confirm” an AC if you’ve got the motion down.

29

Thanks 3nig.

I’m having trouble with the motion itself. It seems that I’m going a bit too fast. I normally like to do charge back-fwd-back 3p/k, then forward 3p/k but I seem to be mistiming the second 3p/k. Do you suggest doing the motion slowly as opposed to fast?

30

you still have to do it pretty fast, try to negative edge the 3k/3p, that may help.

31

Accidentally did a double ex RU armor cancel on an ex. tiger shot to win a local tourney last week. I was feeling myself for days.

32

lol. got a vid Squirtguns?

Thanks 3nig, I’ll try negative edging the 3p/3k.

33

Don’t have any vids cuz it was offline. It’s not so impressive seeing as how I accidently did it, but no one else knew that, lol.

34

I’ve got an idea that’s pretty interesting, not sure if it’ll be applicable in the future, but it’s another one of Balrog’s underused normals.

close short

standing short

I think these attacks have two potential uses:
*I think that both close short and far standing short can be used as an anti-air (more so far standing short, it has an anti-air hitbox because the hitbox extends beyond the hurtbox, not as good as cr.hp though). Potentially, it can be a 4f anti-air for those short jump cross-ups like Blanka.
*also both attacks can hit crouchers (i don’t think it’s the entire cast, but i could be wrong). So they can be used to bully crouching opponents like super st.lp. it’s nowhere near as good and the frame advantage on bock for far sucks (-1, close is +2), but both can chain into jab. The hitbox is so far out from balrog, it almost lets you control an invisible space in front and directly above Balrog.

35

I will try it out. Think it can stuff short jumps like DJ’s knee?

36

possibly, it’s an idea as an anti-air. I recently used it against a crouching Gief, and AA’d some of Gief’s jump-ins with it, it definitely requires more testing, but i think it may beat DeeJay’s knee shot.

37

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38

3nig the st. short im going to have to test on a few of my friends that play blanka.

defently gonna get in and try this out thanks, keep you updated.