Do you guys have any tips against Decapre? Dunno what to do against her except bait out her dp (down, up + punch). I can’t pressure her on knockdown because she can just fly away!!
For anyone who still has a problem with the oni matchup.
Sakuras reversal dp seems to punish a lot of things on block from oni.
I have troubles dealing with Elena and Posion now - unpredictable, anti airs and reversals me much more than I would like, and especially Elena: strange animations / hurtbox + floaty jump. I’ll get used to it eventually I think, but maybe some tips about how to fight those 2?
I’m having a lot of trouble dealing with E.Ryu in this version, anyone have tips? J.Tatsu DP baits are much harder to do with the nerf, his fireball game feels extremely oppressive, his cr.mk seems to always smash mine despite being slower, and if the player knows how to input autocorrect DPs he feels kind of impossible to oki without really out there shenanigans. All in all he feels like a better version of Sakura, lol
Anyone have tips/knowledge against Poison?
It’s kind of a tough match, I made this back before 1.04, there’s a couple of points that are a little dated but most of it should still apply: http://thesassageking.tumblr.com/post/100445414699/usf4-sakura-combo-compendium-4-poison
Things that are different from what I wrote there and put in the video:
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Poison apparently had a slight hurtbox adjustment, CL.MK > L.Tatsu > CL.MK > L.Tatsu > CL.HP > L.Tatsu > CR.MP > Shou only works from EX Shou FADC vs. standing now, and only midscreen
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Her hurtbox extends far forward during fireballs, between that and their slow startup it’s pretty easy to EX Shou through them on reason. I usually back off and try to build a bar through zoning, then walk up close and EX Shou as soon as I see her hand raise up for the fireball startup.
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You can safejump her with H.Shou > microstep forward > late jumpin
Here’s a universal punish for Rufus’s EX Messiah kick (punish’s all options) that I saw from Sako. This is news to me but may be old to some of you guys.
(02:05 min)
Block EX Messiah and just hold up. Since you’re stuck in block stun, you’ll keep blocking and you’ll automatically jump (if possible depending on the ender) allowing you to punish. (You can see Sako transitions from a crouch block to a stand block because he’s holding up while blocking the EX Messiah Kick).
I tested all the possible EX Messiah enders and this is the results:
EX Messiah (LK - flip kick): You stay grounded and can punish
EX Messiah (LK - delayed): You jump (Rufus crosses up underneath you) and can punish
EX Messiah (MK - low): You jump and can punish on the way down with a jump in
EX Messiah (MK - delayed): Same
EX Messiah (HK - overhead): You jump and can punish on the way down with a jump in
EX Messiah (HK - delayed): Same
EX Messiah (nothing): You jump but he recovers in time where he can punish your jump in. If you don’t jump, you can punish him.
tldr: Holding up allows you to punish all EX Messiah Kick enders, but Rufus can punish you if he does no ender. If you think Rufus won’t do an ender, don’t jump and you can punish.
Awesome stuff, thanks for posting this Hombre.
That is absolutely game-changing, thanks! That makes it totally viable to just apply meaty jab pressure on his wakeup into a full safe blockstring
So after mp.srk in the corner if you go for the 5f safejump (immediate neutral jump hk) and they don’t quickrise then you can get a 50/50 on some characters (unblockable on Dudley), unfortunately a lot of the characters it works on have 4f or better reversals but it’s still a guaranteed safejump or 50/50 on quite a few characters.
mp.srk, nj.hk (no quickrise), whiff cr.mp, j.hp (fake crossup)/j.mk (crossup): Abel, Hakan, Blanka (1st safejump whiffs on blanka but it’s still ‘safe’ from his reversals), Ryu, Ken, Seth (j.hk also works), Gouken, Dan, Sakura, Oni, Elena, Yun, Yang, C.Viper, M.Bison, Cammy (late j.hp),
Rolento, Evil Ryu, Guile (j.hk also works), Zangief, Rufus, Balrog, Fei Long.
mp.srk, nj.hk (no quickrise), dash, j.hp (fake crossup)/j.mk (crossup): Dudley (unblockable), Juri, Sagat.
You have to input the cr.mp/dash as soon as your nj.hk whiffs on the first possible frame, this isn’t difficult to time but just make sure you don’t delay cr.mp/dash at all.
Also that’s some really nice tech vs Rufus but be wary of lk.ender because he can vary the timing of delayed lk.ender and can catch you jumping and can even juggle into Ultra without needing to FADC if he catches you at the right height, also cl.hp xx lk.tatsu beats everything he does too besides lk.ender and will catch him if he does nothing so depending on the habits of the Rufus player you should mix it up between neutral jump, cl.hp and just blocking.
Edit: Oh yeah and I think non-reversal U2 (kicks) will beat anything he does for full hits, although it might trade so I wouldn’t do it if you’re very low on health.
Just following up to say that the hold up vs. Messiah thing won me a small tourney over the weekend (had to play Rufus in losers finals), he tried to delay LK flip kick after the first time he saw it, missed the timing and it went underneath me and I still got the punish lol
I was having some trouble vs Viper players that liked to mash burnkick in blockstrings and I was trying to find a way to hard counter it when you KNOW they are mashing it but all I could come up with was like trying to reaction cr.hp or just getting an air reset. But I was randomly watching a stream on niconico and this one Sagat player was doing like cr.lk, cr.lk neutral jump and I realised this works really well vs burnkick mashers. With Sakura you can do jab, jab or some basic string and then neutral jump and if they are mashing burnkick then you catch it in its grounded recovery with nj.hk for a big punish, although be aware it won’t avoid them mashing hp.thunder knuckle.
A local friend is starting to go toe-to-toe against my Sakura with Vega, so I wanna deflate his dreams. Any tips for fighting Vega in general?
I’ll list a couple things I’ve noticed (I only really play my friends Vega, so forgive me if I miss big stuff).
-You can’t focus too recklessly. Vega can react to focus with flying barcalona (raw or off cr.mp).
-His normals have ridiculous range; it is hard to both walk into range to use your cr.mk AND also avoid his normals, since he can react right around a certain sweet point (outside sak’s cr.mk and inside vega’s longest range normal).
-cr.mk in general seems bad besides to punish very specific attacks. cr.mp seems much better for footsies.
-Vega’s anti airs are fairly ass, so I can get in fairly free sometimes.
It seems trying to fight Vega on the ground is a losing battle. I felt like the only real approach was to push very little buttons, walk him back a lot, and wait to whiff punish into cr.mp-> shouken. Then get a random jump during the middle of something, and never let him out.
Also, the fact that cr.lk->cr.lp->cr.hp whiffs so often was very frustrating. I need to make it a habit to use cr.mk instead even at close range.
I hate the vega match up, if the vega knows the match up it can be so frustrating. One thing you have to watch out for, if you’re at max whiff punish range of his cr.mp, make sure you have meter to fadc or else you’ll end up getting punished for it yourself. What happens is the cr.mk hits then only 2 hits of shouken hit while the remaining hits will sent you flying, which results in you getting punished for making the right read T_T. It’s really frustrating when you forget about it in the heat of battle.
Also don’t try to anti air his jump hp, if done right you will either trade or eat a full combo, I’d say air to air is better option for that, but then you have to watch out for air throw.
There’s an unblockable in the corner on him after otoshi, but honestly I prefer to keep him in the corner by doing the meaty fireball setup.
I noticed that about vega’s jump hp as well. I still have a couple habits that get me killed, and one of them is trying to anti air every jump with one move (cr.hp for sakura). I need to adjust to using more stuff (nj.hk, jump back hp, cl hp, far mk, far hp,etc).
The more I think about it, the more I believe this is just a match where Sakura just has to play patient/lame a majority of the time, push the vega back into the corner, then pressure him to death. My whiff punishing and counter poking game really has to be on point to win this I feel (and I should work on them in general, of course). I rely too much on focus attacks to avoid playing that game sometimes. Aggressively poking at midrange, fishing for cr.mk dp just isn’t enough against Vega. And I hate relying on jump ins to win matches. Its just tough practicing general footsies though. My local scene is still fairly weak for now, so I really can get by with a basic gameplay against most players here.
That dp whiffing situation happened a couple times for me also, but that happens in quite a lot of other matchups too. Its just a dumb thing in general.
Remember that jumpins are just another tool that there’s a time and a place for, using them if they’re the best available option in terms of risk/reward doesn’t make you bad at footsies.
The reality is that Vega wins on the ground and has mediocre anti-airs. He’s going to have to successfully anti-air you at least 8 times to KO you, and you only need to land one to take control of the round, it’s good sense to at least force them to prove that their AAs are on point before deciding to go for the uphill neutral game battle. Even if it doesn’t hit, just forcing him into blockstun so you can get close makes a jumpin a worthwhile gamble, just be sure to vary up your jump distances and attacks between HP/HK/Tatsu.
A new thing I found vs. Balrog