My suggestion is to keep your blockstrings short and sweet, especially on offense. Go for a frame trap (cr. lk cr. hp xx mp/hp reflect), a tic throw, cl. mk mixup, linked cr. lks, or otherwise bait a response. If you keep things simple at first, you’ll have more control as you decide to complicate things.
Besides, you’re not in a great position after a blocked spiral anyway. Might as well come up with something else to do at ranges where Rose is stronger and/or has frame advantage.
Edit: Just to say, Rose has the best backdash in the game. It’s a strong option, but reducing the situations you put yourself in where backdash seems like your only option will make backdash a stronger option when it counts.
Actually, I pretty much do the same thing when trying to warm up. I start out by doing cr.lp cr.lk cr.mp xx lp spark > FADC > xN
When I get comfortable with that, I start mixing in just cr.lk cr.mp xx lp spark > FADC > xN. Then, I start mixing in multiple cr.lk’s.
With cr.hp xx lp spark FADC combos, if all else fails and you’re still getting neg-edge hp spark, you could try holding down hp until after you hit lp. That should keep you from getting hp spark.
EX Drill is not very safe but is the only one that will combo usually off of cr.lp, cr.lp, cr.lk, cr.mp. HK drill won’t combo there but is the safest on block.
Usually if you end that in any drill it’s unsafe. HK drill is like -4 there. The only thing that makes it safer from one character to another is whether or not that character has fast enough moves/reversals to punish it. So against some characters you can get away with that blockstring usually but against Ken, Guile, or Dudley, it’s a free reversal FADC ultra.
HK drill will always be the safest on block by frames. Only thing that will make other drills safe in that blockstring will be far spacing.
lk and ex drill are the only ones that will combo out of cr. lp, cr. lp, cr. lk, cr. mp. you have to be as close as possible to them for that combo to connect though so just take out one of the lps and go from there. at least ive never be able to get anything but lk/ex drill to combo out of long combos.
some characters can punish your spark so its not always smart to end your block string with anything. rather than ending with a special, just leave a gap to block reversals and poke with st. far mk or st. hk.
oh I see. I know them as FA. Anyway, it’s entirely possible. focus attack is a good way of starting combos. just make sure to dash out of the focus attack’s recovery animation.
Good advice. Sometimes I end a combo with heavy hits immediately afterward. Not the smartest idea, but it catches people who think they can either shoot a fireball of their own, or try their own bit of footsies. I haven’t played too many people who mash uppercut during my combo, so I’ve lost the fear of it. It’s still a threat, as much as it is a risk for the other player at that range when they can’t fall back on FADC since it’s a “hit-or-miss only” scenario.
Mostly I use pokes after a combo to reset/surprise the other player, so they don’t usually pick the perfect counter.
But yeah, blockstrings are never skin tight when going beyond the chainable normals, so you try anything after that on block, and you could end up sad.
good players will also watch out for your cr. mp and try to dp hoping you will mess up your timing or just wait for the blocked special and reversal your drill or spark, A LOT of characters have moves to punish blocked drills, not just dps. drills can be safe but you have to be at pretty much max distance so only the tip of the drill will hit, then its safe to backdash, usually, but blocking is always smart too!
more often than not spark will trade on his way down from reversal dps and will give you a second to tech your knockdown but still i dont advise getting into the habit of finishing your block strings with specials, it hurts me a lot.
also about poking with far st. mk…you can combo it into cr. mp x drill also, i think only on counter hit though. which is good if youre really paying attention and are close enough for cr. mp to reach.
yep. only on counter-hit. and actually combos into LK drill (not sure if this depends on stand or crouch) as well as EX, which was the only version of spiral able to be combo’d into, in the days of Vanilla. If you have the meter, you can combo any counter-hit combo directly to super (preference of HP or MP) as well.
So the other night I was playing with friends getting ready for a tournament, when, by some twist of might and magic, I pulled off a 6 hit standing combo without meter.
sc.MK, c.LPx2, c.LK, c.MP xx LK Spiral
Since I was in a different state of mind at the time, I couldn’t quite remember which character I was up against, so I went to training and set the dummy to characters that my friends play.
Turned out it was Honda. So even if you can’t find a place to fit this combo in the Honda match, it’s great practice for chains, links, and cancels.
Also from that, I found out there are actually a lot of character/stance specific combos for all the characters I’ve yet tested.
Like did anybody else know that you can’t connect sc.MK, c.LP, c.LK, c.MP xx EX Spiral on Vega whether he’s crouching or not? He will block the spiral, or could even reversal some bullshit before getting caught in block stun.
Well that’s all the news for now. I’m thinking about making a list of character/stance specific combos based off of sc.MK, because I’m real sick of jumping on people to get my combos started.
I did this combo about week ago on Bison in training mode mid screen,not cornered
cl.mkxxEx.SSpark,cr.mpxxSSpiral - iirc its 230-250ish damage
I don’t know if its character speciaific or if i just could hit the link that well since i got it to work again on sim but it was iffy on ken. Just figured was a decent way to cancle off of cl.mk since Ex.SSpark is 0 on block and gives a bit of push back and then on hit it turns into a combo for decent damage.