You phrase it nicerly, but it contains a huge logical error.
‘U2 mantis is safer on block’
But why would you do it on block anyway, and why would you whiff your ultra out of nowhere considering all off the relatively easy options you have at hitconfirming it?
I think it is rather a misunderstanding of my sentence rather than a ‘huge logical error’. Of course the idea of whipping out an ultra is to connect to do damage but if it is blocked it will be safer than if mantis U1 ultra is blocked. Are you telling me you never have your ultra being ‘blocked’ before in your entire SSF4 career?
In terms of whipping it out of nowhere I am sure the act of ‘Random Ultra’ is certainly not unheard of in the arena especially if one sees enough of tournament stream. It may not be the best strategy but you certainly still see people doing it all the time and thus it is a valid strategy. Having an ultra that is safe on block meanwhile can facilitate more risk taking behaviour such as dashing up ultra/ultra through a block string/ultra on wakeup and add variety to your strategy which I think in its own right is a valid option and deserves some merit. Of course you can also mantis U1 ultra on wakeup through things such as a cammy divekick but if she safejumped and blocked the punish is guaranteed. If you mantis U2 on wakeup in the same situation and she blocks you may still have a chance she couldn’t punish.
At higher level play I dont think you see too many random ultras. More the player made a “read” and decided to take a risk on the ultra given the situation. And even so I dont think its smart to rely on this. Mantis U2 being safe on block is fine but you still have wasted your ultra. Which means if you were using it to shut down someone’s FB game you no longer have that option anymore. Lets say you do manage to land it you still have to put in more work to make the damage count. If you were going to rely on an ultra that you can use as a “guess” or in block strings might as well use Mantis U1. At least that way if it does hit you get real damage.
I do not misunderstand it at all. Like you’re saying ‘if’ it is blocked, but like I said before at high level play no one is going to throw out some random ultra unless they’re doing it based on reading the opponent correctly and even then they’ll probably only do it at a point of desperation. Furthermore, you still waste your ultra with a blocked U2. Also, I pretty much never use ultra randomly, at most I’ll misread an opponent, like when I’m almost KO and my opponent has been neutral jumping after every fireball he threw. I will get in the proper range and might attempt crane U1 only to have him not jump.
The thesis should not be ‘if they block your ultra’ in the first place in my opinion. Any discussion is being done to apply (and operate if proven effective) at the highest level of play. No point on discussing ‘what if’ as it has no solid roots in high level play.
EDIT: Basically, everything Severin-X said LOL
I do agree ‘random ultra’ is probably a misnomer but rather the person did a huge gamble and it worked out for him/her. Some examples of ‘random ultra’ at higher gameplay are as follows:
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I am not advocating relying on guess work to win but with an ultra that is relatively safe if it is blocked allows you more options and variety for your gameplay and the option to take a risk and go for it while not losing all if it is blocked.
An analogy would be the game of ‘black Jack’. I reckon you are familiar with this game. If the banker hold an ace you are allowed to put some bet into the ‘insurance’ area in the event that if the banker really does get a blackjack eventually you do not lose everything.
Transplanting this concept to Gen gameplay you will be looking at sacrificing the range and pure damage of Mantis U1 for the relative safety of Mantis U2 (as a form of insurance).
Now if we reference this to my scrubby match vs Ken. The last part I was able to mash my way through his blockstring and connect the mantis U2. I did that because I know that if he blocked it (and he has every a chance to as well) I am relatively safe though the ultra is wasted. True, if I had used mantis U1 I may still have mashed it through and connect but if he blocked it not only did I waste the ultra; Gen’s ass will be exposed to Ken for him to at least ignite it with a fireball and lose the match.
Therefore by choosing U2 in this case I have sacrificed combo ability, damage and range to buy the difference between ‘Could lose a match due to blocked ultra’ and ‘Will lose a match due to blocked ultra’. Whether that is worth it is really up to individual interpretation and preference.
Also I do understand the technical difficulty with having to follow up attack to achieve full damage in U2. But take it as a challenge! I think most of us use Gen to impose a challenge on ourselves to excel despite the odds. And what more befitting to have a challenging ultra for a challenging character? I gives me great satisfaction to land ToD on my opponents all the time and when I win I can even say I did it with ‘double handicap’!
Regards
Gecko
By this I can see that your argument is flawed. Even at highest level gameplay mistakes can be made and combos can be dropped and ultras blocked. A lot of gameplay is to anticipate what the opponent is going to do and act accordingly; hence the ‘what if’. Haven’t heard of ‘psychic uppercut’? Not heard of ‘Ume-shoryu’? All these are guess work and guess work depend on a lot on assuming hypothetical scenarios and therefore ‘If he is going to do this (and I think he will); I will do THIS’ . Having a back up plan and some form of insurance if things go wrong is always a good thing. In my profession we pay huge amounts for annual subscription against liability for complications that could arise due to procedures even though complication rates are rare like 0.1%. We pay them because we know despite safety precautions and everything excecuted as intended things can still f*uck up. That is real life. Saying things such as discussing ‘what if’ has no solid roots just tell me either you are not in real life or real life doesn’t affect you. And perhaps there is even no need to further engaging with your commentary.
Regards
Gecko
You’re right, you don’t actually get what I was referring to at all.
I’m saying theory fighter should revolve around perfect play as much as possible. If it doesn’t -like psychic shoryukens- it is more shenanigans/footsies material. That is why option selects exist, in order to create multiple solutions for common situations (or sometimes, not so common, like you said ‘insurance’) so I removes some of the guessing. All of the examples you give are, most of the time, option selects, at worst they’re reads based (though not always) on patterns and behavior of your opponent.
Also, comparing street fighter to a real life is hardly a strong argument point. I never said they do not make mistakes at high level play, I’m saying we as a (Gen) community should do our best to limit the amount of guessing by studying concrete values such as option selects/frame data/normals/combos.
Lastly, I am a man of science and pretty much rely only believe facts, which is probably why I think like this. ‘what if’ has no real value for me whatsoever in this game unless there is actually a chance (%) of my opponent reacting/not reacting to something I do in a match. For example, today I fought a Ryu that backdashed everytime he threw a fireball. Noticing this early on I did nothing with this observation, but nearing the end of the second round I had my super and I blocked his c.mk hadouken. As soon as I blocked it I did mantis super and he backdashed like he had done 95% of the time before after that particular blockstring. True, it was a ‘gamble’ but I was certainly based on something.
I like this discussion.
I would choose guaranteed damage over safety anytime. In some situations Mantis U2 would be better against blockstrings, but U1 would be better in more situations nevertheless. Mantis U2 is not ultra fast enough to begin with (cannot even punish blocked EX MGB), and doesn’t work very well against Shoto c.MK -> hadou string either (yes, it could work, but what if your opponent cancels it with Tatsu? Boom 23 damage). It doesn’t work as well as U1 in terms of wake-up random ultra either since the 1st and 2nd hit miss on low profile normals (+ 2nd hit whiffs completely on crouchers period), letting them recover in time to block.
-10 is still enough for most casts to mash out a special anyways, and this game is almost mistake-proof when it comes to mashing.
Probably the only reason I choose U2 all the time is cuz of Crane U2.
EDIT: O yea, I think I need another help: in Sakura match-up. It’s fine until I make one mistake and a Sakura manages to get a hit in me. I gets connected with a usual EX Tatsu reset and if I guess once wrong, I end up getting dizzied. Then I start having doubts in myself which negatively affects my gameplay, then I end up losing 5 matches more to other players.
EDIT2: Nvm, turns out that I’m just having a terrible week. Either that or I’m playing Gouken better after getting used to stick.
Well, what actually constitutes ‘perfect play’? Play when you ‘perfect’ your opponent? I don’t think ‘perfect play’ exists as one side has to lose you know. Until you define ‘perfect play’ I fail to understand why good shenanigans/footsies and good reads like psychic uppercut doesn’t consitute ‘perfect’ play.
I do not think you can ‘option select’ an ultra especially on knock down. Perhaps you can teach me how to ‘option select’ from quick recovery like Marn into ultra.
On one hand you are telling us to limit our guessing and on the other hand you ‘gambled’ ie an educated guess. Your disucssions are at best contradictory.
Regards
Gecko
Perfect play does not exist, but it the ultimate goal to achieve and ultimately what a player is working at.
Option select an ultra? I was not talking directly about the issue at hand, I was continueing my argument on limiting the amount of guesses in general.
My points are not really contradictory. Limiting the amount of guessing does not necessarily mean one cannot calculate a guess based on data acquired during a match/set. Much like perfect play, a game without any guessing does not exist in most cases (assuming 2 evenly skilled players fight). I don’t see how that is contradictory. Working toward limiting guesses while at the same time seeing play patterns/footsies and taking an educated guess are an equilibrium; a balance of two axioms, 1 constant (framedata, matchup info etc.) and 1 variable (footsies and such). Any player works towards creating a good mixture of these two, yet at the same time will try to base even the variable information on statistical likelyhood, patterns, chance, and in Marns case (lol) pure luck. Marn is crazy though 
Anyway, we should probably go on-topic as this discussion is pretty pointless for this thread.
U2-shotos(except akuma), sagat, rose, gouken, juri, seth, chun
U1-everyone else
deciding factor is shutting down opponents options. if i feel like i can punnish a fireball at mid range on reaction and force my opponent to play footsies, U2. if i cant i pick U1. just having the second ultra will stop most opponents from recklessly tossing fireballs. i never use the second set with the intent of landing mantis U2
i pick U1 against sim because i can punnish instant overheads, and against akuma because of air fireballs and teleports
Ah, uh… as for theory fighter and perfect play… for a footsies character?
Getting them into the corner where they cant backup seems like an ideal position, and Ive toyed with the idea of using KKK cr.lk launch into Hands to effectively ‘launch’ my opponent across the screen, as hands tends to do a huge knockback when touching someone airborn.
Coupled with jayesen and gekiro, which carry opponents a distance, perhaps we should be considering a strategy revolving around corner pressure and corner combos.
I like the standing mantis strong pressure actually, I also like to get untechable knockdowns and start up with cr.lk mantis into mantis links and so on.
If more of us could execute mk hands we could keep persistent, meter generating pressure, fast enough to break focus armor and capable of naturally pushing the two of us into the desired corner.
I expect, with the AE changes that using something more simple such as PPP cr.lk cr.lk cr.lk cr.lk cr.mk lk.gekiro-finish and start over, an easy blockstring that can be interrupted with a kara-throw.
Gen can stand pretty far back and still stuff attacks with s.mk and s.hk after most blockstrings.
Expect a jump? mk.gekiro reaches to the tip of his foot.
Can you do that stance change jayesen type blockstring? Fadc -> throw
All of these things are not always being used by myself however for my execution at least does not yet yield mk -> hands as yet.
as a change of topic. gens worst matchups imo are abel, cammy, rufus, gief and seth
Interesting, would be great if you would explain why you think that way, because currently abel, rufus and gief are not in my worst match-ups. I’m having more problems with Honda, Ken and Adon than those three, but I cannot exactly point out why, I’m basically in trouble when I see those three + cammy. Can’t say anything about Seth though.
mostly because once they find a way to get in, you can lose the round on one knockdown. basically these characters are mix up city, and each wrong guess is another mix up.
honda and ken are tough. i just find them slightly less dificult than the ones i listed. bananna ken lives near my scene now, so i got a chance to play him for a bit (6-7 matches). he lit me up, but i felt it was more him being a better player than the matchup itself. if you can space yourself to whiff punish step kicks, that match gets a lot easier
i dont really know adon well enough to comment.
My personal hard ones are Honda, Adon and Zangief.
Adon just feels really random to me at times and I can’t really get a decent grip on him if I fight a strong one. They’re constantly bopping 'round jumping in with cross-up j.mk into throw/ bnb jaguar rising, or doing jaguar heel kick to get in. They also love to neutral jump at times to mix it up, very annoying.
Well Honda is just hard period due to the ridiculous amount of damage he can do and his ability to complet6ely rape Gen with his (air) normals. Zangief is just Zangief aswell, your footsies have to be on point on this because a few wrong reads and it’s a knockdown leading to his famous j.d.lk (I think? That knee move) into his backwards grab or a combo into lariat, ugh. The match is just you walking on thin ice basically.
I spam (Mantis) cr. hp in the Adon matchup. Also, because of the angle of his DP, I have a much easier time crossing him up. I don’t know. Don’t focus, if you can help it. It’s really a matter of baiting his DP, teching, and getting Gekiro in at the right time. Gen can lock him down if you don’t play too aggressively.
Honda is Honda. I need more practice to give a more informed opinion, beyond godlike reactions with Crane s.hk. Honda and Blanka I think are my worst matchups.
I use U2 for the Gief match. Crane cr. hk is good, as well as TC and instant jump-away Crane j.mp. Crane j.hp is great too if you need to hit lariats. Neutral jumps. Dunno, I alternate between being airborne, sweeping, and mk->hands a lot in this match-up. Bait and PUNISH blocked green-hands for free with Gekiro combos.
Don’t drop combos, try your hardest not to get vortex’d. Learn instant crane u2 on jumpback for lariats and whiffed grabs. DO NOT roll. Frustrate your gief with footsies and AA normals.
I dont really think of Abel as one of Gen’s worst match ups. I mean I dont think its 5-5 or anything yet but usually Abel’s mix ups in general are overrated to an extent. Plus Gen controls mid range with his better footsie. Abel is who I have used as main since Vanilla and have more knowledge on than anyone else. You didn’t say specifically what you were having issues with so I will just give a general run down. Be warned is a little TL:DR but good info methinks
Abel’s Ultras
Breathless: This thing is so overrated in general its not funny. I see no reason for Abel to try this on Gen. He has no spacing shenanigans he can use to set it up since Hands armor breaks. He also cant use it to try and punish Oga since that armor breaks too. All this gives Abel in this match is breathing room on his wake up but he looses what makes him scary in that one poke = death
Soulless: This is the only option for him in this match because it can turn one poke into 500+ damage
Abel’s Footsie : Abel has only four real go to moves in footsie
-Standing Short: Contrary to popular belief this is his best actual poke. Its very quick and the range is deceptive allowing it to stuff other pokes easily. It also sets up perfect spacing for Abel to whiff one and dash in into mix up. However, Gen’s sMK has more range on this and coupled with Gen’s better walk speed you should be able to stay out of range and harrow him with MK xx Hands
-Far Standing Strong: This poke comes out pretty quickly and has several active frames. It also has really good priority as an example this is the tool used to stuff Akuma’s far standing RH clean. Some theory fighter here since I havent tested it but I would guess this thing can beat Gen’s sMK if done properly. But it looses to low pokes I know which Gen has plenty of
-Sweep: This is far more useful in Super as the range was increased and being able to cancel it makes it pretty safe on block. The thing to remember here is Abel’s hit box is still very large when sweeping and it can be counter poked pretty easily.
-Step Kick: On hit everyone knows this thing is beastly since it leads into damaging combos. Its range is good but not as good as sMK. Also I believe Gen’s cMP could give this fits because of the angle it hits at but it needs to be tested for sure. Range and priority on Step Kick are good but better on your MK anyway. Now on block (dash in)this sets up one of Abel’s mix up situations. Abel is at +1 on block -> dash but he also has no three frame poke below are his best options and what you can do
-Reg Back Grab: This is an underused option by most Abel’s but its very good. This beats any of your attempts to poke and sets you up for Abel’s full mix up on wake up
-Losses to: Back Dash, Jump Back, N Jump (Note: Abel’s reg grab being so fast at 3 frames with many N Jumps he can whiff the grab and still have time to punish with sFP. I dont think he can on Gen in Mantis because of the speed of the jump but it needs more testing to be 100%) Any Gekiro, Tech (Note: Stand Teching will also beat any poke attempts he does since all reg grabs are three frames)
-TT: What can I say its throw proof, comes out in five frames and sets up some pressure options if he lands it. It also takes forever to recover on whiff
-Looses to: Back Dash, Jump Back, N Jump, Any Gekiro
-EX TT: No smart Abel should really do this here but its the same as above except it also looses to reg grabs
-OH: Hits high, leads to a combo on counter hit though in my experience its iffy on if it will hit or not. Beats back dash and any jump outs. It also takes forever to come out
-Looses to: Grab, Block, Gekiro
-Pokes: All of Abel’s ground pokes are 4 frames so they become three in this situation. LK hits low obviously but LP gives more frame adv for doing a tick throw
-Looses to: Back Dash, Block -> then Back dash
Looking at that you can see most of his options, especially the damaging ones can be beaten by a common theme of either back dashing or jumping. Which in some cases allows you a solid punish. You are going to have to make some smart reads in this match for sure but if you not sure what to do in this case either BD or just Jump back. You may eat his OH but so what if you do. All that does is set up another step kick scenario and thats better than eating big dmg
As for him pressuring your wake up there are only two really dangerous positions. If he lands a back grab or falling sky. Both of these set up perfect ambiguous rolls into whatever on wake up. So you have to worry about blocking high or low both left to right or eating a TT or tick throw ect. However, chars with good back dashes nullify most of this and Gen has a good BD. You can get out of all his major pressure save for the OH or an OS (like sweep or ultra). And for the OS to work he is gonna have to meaty short OS into something and timing is tight. Most other situations you find your self in are not that bad
-Landed TT out of the corner or Landed COD combo out of the corner: This means he cannot do any kind of safe cross up either with roll or dash then jump. He can safe set up the front but you know where its coming from so there is less to deal with. If he does try a cross up just EX Gekiro him. The roll he would use to cross you up is MK or HK which have longer recovery and the jump is not safe
Abel’s Wake up: Rush the over sized Frenchman to death. A simple safe jump or meaty into OS grab stops ALL his major escape options on wake up except for Breathless
-Reg TT: Comes out to slow and gets hit by your jump in
-EX TT: Looses to Grabs
-EX or LK Roll: Looses to Grabs
-EX COD: Looses to Grabs
All he can do on wake up is Block. His BD is garbage and will be hit by the jump in. Once he is blocking you can work your offense for some damage and go back to controlling space with footsie.
Very Nice analysis Severin! I have to say I usually get bodied by Abel pretty bad so its great to have an Abel user spelling out his options/weakness. Will work on the throw OS though I have problems buffering it and then continue on a BnB. Thanks dude!
Regards
Gecko
PS: One particular difficulty for me is that Abel seems to have so much air superiority against Gen , especially that jumping horizontal punch thingy. And his jump arc and speed make it difficult to gekiro him… at least for me anyways. Any tips?
Anytime I could easily do another post as long if not longer on other Abel stuff but I like to try and space out my term paper sized posts some.
As for the OS the trick to that is first get the timing down the OS and once you do you just poke as you normally would as though your doing a block string. You input the grab during the jump in or meaty animation and the game will do the grab if it needs to or let you poke if it didnt. I also find the jump in OS easier than a meaty OS but thats just me.