Does sims new yoga up flame work vs dives? I don’t run into a lot of hawks…
I have been fortunate to play with Jiggly and believe it or not it works great outside of thawks dragon punch move. I find I have a better time trying to time with jab than using it for the condor dive. I also think this is a matchup where sim needs to stay relatively close, basically right out of thawks rh. sweep. If Sim sees T.Hawk go up punish immediately. You cant be careless with the pokes because as with Gief the trades are not in your favor. But as Kurropi, Jiggly and some of you others have said, the risk reward is definitely in Hawks favor. And if Hawk gets you in the corner, it is ggpo. His tick loop is very, very tough to get out of. It may be easier off-line but on-line can be detrimental. I personally think it is even or even 6 to 4 T.Hawk.
Any links to vids of Sim vs Hawk in HDR where people spam the dive? I’d really like to see this tactic in action.
If not, could someone record a set showcasing this?
I wouldn’t call it spamming but Hawk shouldn’t be afraid to dive at Dhalsim. I would say I use the dive a lot though. But the most effective way to use it IMO is to mix it up well with fakes or jumping fierce, etc.
Eggo put up a number of videos of our Dhalsim-Hawk matches however these are from very early in the HDR time frame so we were still feeling out the way the new matchup was playing out. I think we were kind of playing a mix of ST strategies and newfound HDR strategies and I’m sure he missed a number of chances to punish some fake dive attempts and other opportunities. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any newer videos of this matchup.
I did notice that Eggo does standing RH to counter the dive in Part 8 I believe, which I totally forgot about since I never see Dhalsim players here use that. It does good damage and it’s a pretty even trade. But there are a couple of instances where the dive is too high for the RH kick to hit or he mistimes it and Dhalsim eats a dive, which is why I think he stopped doing it. The standing jab seems like a much safer option to use as a counter.
I do remember that David Spence (NLP OU) countered with a jump back fierce on occasion but that was kind of rare. I think that takes very quick reactions to pull that off and it’s a high risk strategy because if you screw up, Dhalsim’s floaty jump leaves him vulnerable for a long time and you wind up cornering yourself.
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First, thanks for the videos. It’s nice to see things in actual matches.
A couple of remarks:
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Clearly condor dive is intimidating. Definitely helps Hawk in this match.
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Maybe this is one of those matches that now requires a lot of dexterity to overcome. That is, if you can b+jab Hawk out of the dive reliably, then I think you’ve taken Hawk’s advantage away, and the match will be more in Sim’s favor, not as much as in ST, but still in his favor.
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I’d love to see you and Eggo go at it again, just to see if he would do anything differently now that there has been a couple of years to digest all of this.
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Maybe the way to handle Condor dive now isn’t necessarily to b+jab it, but to avoid it entirely. If Hawk isn’t too close, and you can’t teleport on reaction, I actually would try to LK drill over it if I see it coming. I’d have to delay my jump, but I would watch yours and see if you did it during the middle of yours, when you hit the apex of it, or if you did it before you hit the middle but after the apex of it. It’s tricky to verbalize, but I would take advantage of the fact that you telegraph the dive by jumping. I wish I still had XBL or a PS3 so we could test this out, but I think this response is worth investigating.
I don’t know, man. Buffering fierce hands off of, say, low short is absurdly difficult in ST and potentially damaging to your tendons. I’ve certainly never seen Kusumondo use hands the way Thelo used them in the recent tourney video that was posted and I’ve watched every Kusumono match I could find on the internet. I’m inclined to say that easier mash moves should be taken into consideration when comparing HDR and ST Honda.
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NLP OU is a very strong sim player. he beats me when I play shotos. but with hawk vs sim, I beat him convincingly. I haven’t ever had a hard time with any sim player on HDR. I usually play NLP in ranked so I have to beat him 3 out of 5 to win. I’ve played him 6 games straight once and I only lost once. When I do lose to him its mostly if he perfects me and plays every move perfectly. extremely stressful to keep up for the long haul.
here is a vid of me vs sweet JV.
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I’ve played a pretty set with JV on GGPO in ST and I lost to him something like 7 to 3 out of 10 games. We’ve played on HDR a bunch of times as well and in HDR I always get more wins then him on HDR.
this sucks for sim as well, watch the vid where I do a low hawk dive on sim’s up flame and beat it clean. the angle of sims up flame is too high, hawk can hit sim right under the flame.
PS.
Don’t forget that HDR hawk has all of O hawks normals plus a super. I notice that a lot of people here on the forum write off hawk’s super as some useless flashy show off move. I use it every chance I get not just to show off, but the super flash eats inputs causing the other player to have a harder time reversing. being able to tick into super really ups hawks game. plus the super has a physiological effect on your opponent. a lot of times after I play someone that i beat with the super, they tend to think they got destroyed brutally when in fact it was really actually a close game. they give you an extra bit of respect that they wouldn’t normally do if you didn’t use that super on them.
I’ve avoided this discussion so far. Mostly because the tiers are so compressed in this game, that I don’t think they really matter. Match-ups matter, but being ranked #3 vs #10 doesn’t really mean much IMO. Also, I don’t think there’s been enough BIG tournies, where the top players of most/all characters are involved. We can draw conclusions about match-ups based on smaller regional events, but for an overall tier placing you really want all of the experts present to see how things go.
Anyway, there’s been a lot of talk about Sim (Is he “top” tier?) and now there’s a video of me. So, I figure I’ll throw my 2 cents in on him specifically:
TLDR: I don’t think Sim is “TOP” tier in HDR. I think he’s somewhere between average (Which isn’t bad in this game) to above average, but not TOP.
To explain why, let me take a step back. This should be obvious to all of us, but I think it’s worth re-iterating - different characters have different play styles. Some characters are gambler types (Gief, Hawk, Bison). They gamble that they can make you screw up once really bad and make you pay ultimately for that. For them, any changes that make it easier to bait you, to capitalize on openings, etc. make them stronger. Some characters are zoners (Guile, DeeJay, Ryu, etc). Anything that makes their zoning game stronger/weaker affect them. Some characters are rushdown (Balrog), shenanigans (Blanka), etc. There’s a lot of different styles, and what makes these characters effective or not is mostly based around how strong their game plan is.
Sim’s often zones, but I believe his real style of play is a well-rounded “technical” style. He has an answer for almost any situation, but the answers are very case specific, require exacting precision, and rarely do big damage. He doesn’t have a single go-to move (SRK, Headbutt, etc) to respond with, nor does he have big combos he’s looking to land. Instead, he’s looking to use calculated attacks and precise responses over, and over, and over again with robot-like accuracy. In many of his matches, 1 or 2 slip ups can cause him to go from a commanding lead to the danger zone, or dead, in the drop of a hat. So, his effectiveness revolves around how easily he can respond to his opponents in a consistent fashion.
In ST, I fully agree that Sim was top tier. He had a number of matches that were easily in his favor. He also, in general had more simple, solid offensive/defensive options. For example, harassing Guile/DeeJay with far cr.MP/cr.HP was easy. If T-Hawk dives and it’s not gonna whiff, just block and cash in your free roundhouse, if anyone jumps at you destroy them with Super, etc… In HDR, none of those hold true. Most of his easy match-ups are now close to even, and some are arguably no longer in his favor. Also, more characters have more shenanigans/trick moves to take into account now. Regardless of how effective each of these are, fake fireball, new SBK, Ken’s new SRK, Honda’s headbutt eating fireballs, Fei’s chicken wing, Blanka’s ball changes, Sagat’s TK, etc, etc. all mean that you need to be a little bit more on the ball. It’s not that all of these moves are awesome, it’s that the Sim “flowchart” is already very complex and these make it become more so. Everything that complicates his choices makes it tougher to be on point, hence more chances to screw up and throw away an otherwise solid match.
Sim’s changes
Super - It’s no longer a brain-dead go-to move vs jump-ins and deals less damage. This makes using it require more precision and makes it less of a threat. Having it as a reversal does help, which is nice. However, where that matters the most (Gief/Hawk) it also makes it bait-able. Still, that’s a mostly positive change. Not being able to cancel off of slide hurts because it takes away the threat of the only universal big-damage shenanigan he had. Not a giant loss, but it’s something.
MP Throw Range - I’ve only skimmed over the discussions on this, but I think the most important point (IMO) has been overlooked. The absolute biggest change is that you can no longer piano throws in many situations. If someone is harassing you with tick-throw/ tick-tick-tick mix-ups (ex. Bison, Chun, etc.), mashing both throws piano style in block-stun shut that shit down fast. If they went to throw or left any break in their spam you would throw them with your awesome range. If they do that in HDR and you use this technique and they’re outside of your nerfed MP throw range, you will whiff st.MP and get hit or thrown. This also comes into play if Blanka tries to tick throw you but doesn’t push you outside of your HP throw range. That is the biggest change IMO. But the nerfed MP range also hurts your offense vs Bison, Vega, and Chun - some of his more annoying matchups. With Bison and Chun, mixups between drill-throw, drill-block, drill-drill, etc. was where you kept the pressure on. Unless they’re in the corner, you’re usually better off with noogie, because it resets the situation. Nerfed range takes this away. Vs Vega in ST, if you did a perfectly timed/spaced MK slide after noogie it would push them outside of their throw range, but inside yours. So, if you read it right you could re-throw or bait the reversal and throw. You can still do this, but now you only get to HP throw which stops the pressure. Subtle, but it does change things.
I could go into more detail, but I don’t think it’s worth it. The main point is that overall most characters got better and most of Sims matches got more complicated. The reason we rate matches 7-3 and 4-6 vs. of 1-0 and 0-1 is because we’re not robots. The out-of-10 system takes the amount of screw ups and mind-fucks into account. Yes, Sim still has all of the tools to respond to most everything. If he was played by a robot, he’d be top. But when played by humans, I think he’s maybe above average but not in the top 3~4.
Great post and well written bro.
Also the fact that you can do ST Hawk option selects with it which nobody ever mentions for some reason.
I think sweet JV’s post is spot on. and aside from JV, and NPL OU, I’ve also played cvital and axe ono. And my position about the hawk vs sim match up still stands. maybe not 8 - 2, but I’m firm on 7 - 3. its just to stressful for the sim player in this match because of the risk of big damage is constantly there. if at any time sim gets dizzy, cross up down fierce, stand short, fierce DP takes off something like 60 percent of sims life. and a hawk dive followed by a jump fierce will randomly dizzy. easy set up. low risk setup and super high reward for hawk.
Watch Babynine. He’s better IMO.
Also I can Lk hit into hands is easy in ST(hit), but whiff Lk hands is not so easy. You’re better off using St. lp, hands or Cr. lp, Hands.
Hands in HDR have sucky damage, and they are easier to punish. I get punished on hit all day in HDR, but not so much in ST.
Wasn’t the only damage modified, is the chip in HDR for hands? Concurred those things are easy to punish, unless you’re Cammy. Lol cammy.
Yeah chip was nerfed.
Lol… Cammy is like the only character that gained no advantage vs Honda in HDR. Doesn’t matter for me though because I’m GOD LIKE with O. Cammy. That’s my real main <3
I think hawks match up is still the same with honda, I know gief has an easier time now.
Yeah, I’ve watched Baby Nine’s videos too, but I’ve never seen either of those guys use hands like Thelo and Mad Possum. In situations where HDR Honda players are using fierce hands, ST Honda players seem to use strong hands instead since they require 1 less input than fierce in ST. The Japanese guys also tend to use easier buffers, like jumping attacks, f.HK, c.MP, c.FP etc.
Did they really mess with the frames? I thought all they changed was the damage and possibly the hitbox (I don’t have a copy of HDR anymore so I can’t compare them in training mode). I’ve never noticed a difference, to be honest.
How many chip hits though? Blocking meaty fierce hands is like a heavy hit worth of damage in hdr.
1.) Hp hands is actually easier to do and less effective IMO than Mp.
2.) Who cares if they messed with the frames or not… I get punished my a Mp and it does more damage than my hands! HDR Honda is so butt.
harder. no more safe jump o/s spd/dp. and for being a fat fuck, hondas throw-able hit box is really fucking small. i feel like they have to be touching in order to be in SPD range. the numbers say that hawks spd range is farther then the ochio, but it doesn’t feel like at all.