1

As I just decided to get back in the game and take it siriously, and Vice being the first fighting game character I picked up, I am left with alot of questions.

First off - Groove Selection. My grooves of prefrence tend to be C, A, and N. (Go Canada!), but I’ve been having some issues with each:

C-Groove: Alot of other characters can take advantage of being able to cancel into some crazy resets, second-supers, or some other trick out their backside with Lvl2 supers. But with Vice being restricted to really only one Super, Negative Gain, I havent found much I can do with it at all save for the invulnerable frames of most level 3s What am I missing?. I do like the dash, which helps land alot of her grapples, and the Roll has been a great boon for alot of mind-games (A little too much for me, actually, I think I am using it too much as a crutch). But asside from that, and air-guard, their isnt much I can find that really helps my gameplay here.

A-Groove: My biggest issue comes down to that Vice doesnt have a super she can land at the end of a custom combo (Save for Dan and Rolento), which becomes frustraiting as I am finding it a hinderance. On the plus side, it’s pretty much guarenteed damage if you can land Gorefest. Again, the dash and roll are there. Seems to be the groove of choice for alot of people, but is it that helpful to Vice who more less does ticks of damage by high hit counts in CC?

N-Groove: I hear alot of people rant about this groove, and right now I am getting the hang of it. More so, the idea of light-jumps. Fact is, coming from SF3:3S I am too use to the idea of overheads, which to my knowledge doesnt exist in Vice’s move-set, so it has come to help me with mix-ups. Not much I can combo when doing so, but it does make for more interesting guess games. Without Dash though, I am forced to run, which feels alot slower and harder to apply. At best, I run two-steps to strike again to TRY for some guard-crushing, but more often than not I am eating a fireball or SRK. Their is also the issue of ‘pop-up’. As I understand it, N-Groove alows you to go into it’s lvl3 at any time and gain invulnerability frames, plus the ones preformed by the Super (Feel free to correct me if I am wrong). How is this preformed so sleekly on the videos? Also, is the Counter-attack option usefull, or is it more just a waste of stock?

Is their other grooves where she is more effective? And why?

To my understanding, Vice is primarily a speedy grappler. Having three command grapples (One being Negative Gain), I am curious as to any applications that can be placed. Thus far, Nail Bomb seems to be more for damage, scaring block-happy opponents, and Gorefest is for placing a person into a corner. Does it range farther than this, or is that about all their is to these two non-super command grapples?

Outrage and Ravefest, aside from Guard-crushery, are their any other applications? I imagine Ravefest can control the air well if you can get the initial jump, but alot of my opponents try to keep me grounded (And I’ve tried to keep out of the habbit of jumping frequently).

Are their any ‘tricks’ to pulling out Negative Gain? Double-half-circles have been a pain for me, as Negative Gain only comes out 7/10 times I try it.

And lastly, Footsies. How does Vice fair using this game, and is their anything in particular that gives her an edge when doing so?

Thanks for any replys head of time (And any smacks upside the head I am about to recieve).

2

vice is a bad character in this game

her best groove is N, nailbomb isn’t for damage, it’s to get them to stop blocking so you can hit them with c lp -> c hp -> mayhem -> decide slayer, which does a lot more damage and sets them up for dash mixups if you’re in dash groove or run -> roll in front/behind/low jump mixups

run rush has proven to be pretty ineffective by now, use run to extend your pokes

her footsie game = c hk, st mp, st mk, RC outrage, not very strong, she should be rushing almost always

level 1 negative gain is all you really need most of the time, all 3 levels have the same range and are all fast enough to grab before invin runs out, more levels is only for bigger damage, but with vice, either way you’re doing bad damage, so I wouldn’t waste the level 3 with her and just pepper them with combos and level 1s

a close c mk is a perfect setup for tick -> negative gain, should give you eons to do the motion

tiger knee’d lk ravenous is great for tall characters (scores about 15 hits on standing sagat)

jumping in with ravenous isn’t too bad of an idea either, especially since you can cancel into it from some air normals (j lk, lp, mp if I remember right…), can mess up their timing and set them up for some tricks, blocked it gives you frame advantage always, so you can always safely get a c lp upon landing

RC outrage is her bootleg safe DP, RC hk outrage inbetween stuff is great

RC hk outrage on wakeup = bootleg RC lightning, works almost as good, especially with the +5 frame advantage on block

the only use for gorefest -> tranquility I can think of is that it gets them out of the corner so you can do her mayhem -> de-cide slayer again, gorefest is a little slower than nailbomb but a little stronger with tranquility, but grabs have the same range, check her moveset post, so unless you want them out of the corner, always use negative gain (or if unavailable, lp nailbomb)

she completely sucks in K to my knowledge, rage just doesn’t benefit her, and neither does JD really, she’s decent in P, best in N, I think her grooves order is this

N, P/A/C, S, K

A and C are almost identical, I’ll give A the benefit of the doubt for the option of CC which might be strong (I dunno her CC), either way she relies on level 1s in both, she can’t do that much off chicken block, so it goes to A

she’s actually one of the better S characters with her decent level 1, but that groove still sucks

K is vice stripped of everything and left with a barebones package, and cannot take advantage of rage because of her innate low damageness and a weak level 3

P solves all problems, P stands for febreeze, she may lose her grab game, but every parry being a free 3k damage ((c hp) -> mayhem -> de-cide slayer) is pretty nice considering it’s vice, she has no use for the super so put her in battery in P, and it’s the only groove that has low jump and dash, both of which vice is good with

3

Her A-Custom can do near 10K damage but it’s hard to get a handle on, decisively when compared to Bison’s or Sakuras easy near 10 K’s.

Though I wouldn’t say that high damage alone is what makes it worthwhile, it should be options added to a character in landing that damage when you choose A. Unfortunately I don’t know too much about her but based off her moveset it doesn’t look near as viable as Bison or Sak.

4

I think the A-custom you speak of is the one in sai-rec’s combo vid, considering it was in a sai-rec combo vid, somehow I don’t think that’s the best custom to actually rely on…

but the custom part did about 8.3k damage (83 hits at 100 each), as easy as it looks, cuz it’s sai-rec doing, somehow I know you need to just frame cancel landing recovery into st lp and JF a SJ into a JF TK ravenous…or something

huge chunk of his damage was done frmo the 15 hit ravenous and BnB before he activated anyways…

she’s lower mid tier in any case, and she really doesn’t get any advantage from being in A groove unless she has a seriously strong do-able CC, she spams level 1s and sprays lights into a really hard hitting combo move

if she has a real CC it should be easy to setup, any gorefest, any slayer or de-cide slayer (including followup to mayhem), which are both things you should be looking to hit anyways

5

you’re making it sound a lot harder than it actually is. The timing is definitely not as strict as a just frame. It’s just s.jab, qcb,u+k, land and then repeat. As long as the qcb+k connects you can cancel your recovery as soon as you land.

6

I just stick to N-Vice nowadays, I used to use her in C alot. Her RC shoulder is really good, and so is RC legs when you need to chip someone to kill’em.

7

generally i stick with c-vice. i use her as a “bang! surprise!” character. i like to catch ppl in a mistake and make them suffer. being elusive with vice is a key strategy, so you can set up her more interesting attacks and combos. im you get into a corner u can blast out with even a level 1 super, and save your bacon. i love vice’s style, just takes some getting used to, since shes NOT a ryu type character, that many sf players are used to. i use c groove for a combination of reasons, but i love roll dodging with vice for some nasty grabs:woot:

as for the double half rolls? practice makes perfect, though i like to start that motion at the tail end of another move to eliminate unwanted lag and wrong input motions.