I was responding to ultraman zoffy specifically, I just didn’t quote him. Just like I’m not quoting you now.
Well, Guile is my main, and I have a lot of fun playing him, but if the question being pondered is why don’t we see more of him in tourneys or just in general usage in the SF community, what I posted above were my “guesses”. As far as I can recall, in the older games in the series his links were no harder to pull off then anyone elses, and now they are. That’s just what I’ve seen having played SF games since WW.
Honestly, with Dieminion, LAMERBOI, Warahk, Dagger, and whoever else I’m forgetting, that’s pretty good representation for the US. Name 4 Rufuses beside JWong. Ricky Ortiz, Marn…I’m out.
Anyway, can’t speak for everyone else, but I don’t watch every little stream on the SRK home page, so I don’t know how much “repping” is being done for anyone. I know the name players and who they use. And whether there’s a surplus of Guiles or a deficit of Guiles I don’t really care. I tend to get behind whoever I see using him.
Opinionhaver is well-named. Definitely lacks facts.
Which facts were those? And while you’re here, MagMan, why’d you pick Guile up?
The reason you don’t see much Guile is probably the same reason you don’t see much Chun. It’s because those characters have some bad matchups and are easy to random out. With Balrog, he simply can’t be randomed out. He has a good catch all defensive option, which is his jab. You can’t get too crazy against him, or else you’re going to get jabbed into a BnB. Everyone has to respect this. So as a result or Balrog’s safety net, you see a lot more of him.
Chun-Li doesn't see heavy use because she has a really bad matchup with Rufus. And trust me, you will come up against quite a few Rufus players in a US tournament. Godlike Chun's can handle this matchup, but the average Chun can't.
Honestly, Rufus and Balrog generally puts limits on who you see in tournaments. As long as Rufus is around, you pretty much take out most Dhalsim players. With Balrog, you take out half of the lower tier cast who rely on basic and linear rushdown. However Guile doesn't have the anti-random luxury that these two share. On paper he is top tier, but if you go to a tournament it is a good chance some random Gen could beat you. The thing about Guile is that you have to play a perfect game with very few holes in it. There are few people who have the guts to do that. Guile can't afford any slipups or gaping holes in his game or else he loses for free. And this spells trouble for any Cammy, Fei-Long, or Guy player who you'll meet early in the tournament who feel they have to play a little random against Guile. To overcome the random factor (and luck factor) in SSFIV, you have to know your character in depth.
You will also, as Guile come across a few Viper players, a known bad matchup for Guile. Sure you won't find a lot, but you'll find at least one. And most of the time he'll know what he's doing. Viper always have some level of representation at majors, and she's pretty consistent in local tournies too. Unless you can grind this matchup everyday, you're more than likely are not going to be prepared for Viper.
There is something common with the American top player. The characters they use have readily abusable moves, hard to stop gimmicks, safety nets, or just a really strong initial approach. Abel may not have wakeup, but he has a furious rushdown, so approach the match is fairly simple for him. He just need to look for that golden jump-in or f.mk and start his assault. For Rufus it's even more simpler. Get in, and he has better ways in than Abel. He also don't have to worry about crouch techs because his ways of beating them is easy. Balrog goes without saying. You don't want to be nowhere near him because of his jab.
Bottomline, a lot of characters top players use have really good initial approaches, or even a flowchart of what they should be doing in every situation. So it's just an issue of mindgames after that.
Guile’s initial approach is different. You know you should be zoning people, but it’s not always clear how. You have to be alert at any point of the match. And if someone gets in on you, you have to just learn to grin and bare the pressure. You can’t messiah kick, ex dash punch, ex roll your way out of the situation. You have to just block the crossups, tech the throws, and find a golden escape opportunity. Guile has to be played with perfect guessing and perfect judgement. He also needs perfect spacing. Those are the ingredients to make him competitive, the same that are needed for Ryu. Another character who isn’t heavily used in major tournaments.
haha my bad. I’m stupid.
good points:coffee:
got so close to top 32…:rolleyes::sad::shake:
sigh
Perfect summary of Guile.
well say branh0913
Hey guys, I know this sounds kinda weird (and border line trolling), but I honestly need help turtling with Guile. I’ve noticed when I rushdown, I can take out most opponents so I’m not too bothered about my offence game. But if they rush ME down, I can’t deal with it effectively.
Any advice?
Classic case of overcompensating. You’re probably rushing down because you don’t want to have to deal with pressure yourself. There are tons of players like this, but they tend to use characters they can get away with this with. However as a Guile player it’s not possible to stay on offense 100% of the match against a decent opponent. I would suggest you work on your blocking, then teching. Once you built of the reactions for this stuff, then you can explore your other defense option.
I’m good with the blocking (so far anyway). The real difficulty I face is more to do with handling the pressure of rushdown (e.g. constant dive kicks). It doesn’t happen a lot because online players aren’t that good, but when it does occur I tend to panic or press buttons, then eat a combo and die. How do you maintain your composure under that amount of aggressive pressure? I always seem to crumble under it or luck my way out.
Are you sure your blocking is up to par? Meaning, do you block what you’re supposed to block or what you’re not supposed to block? Everyone blocks an ultra or a full screen fireball. It’s because those things are easy to block. But do you block fast sweeps on reaction, overheads, crossups etc? I’m not putting down your blocking abilities, but just because you can block doesn’t mean your blocking is good. Don’t worry, you’re not alone, blocking has got much worse amongst the Western player base as a whole, and it’s pretty louse online.
I've had to eat repeated divekick pressure tons of times. I have a good friend who I train with often who use Rufus, and another who use Cammy. So I'm quite use to those situations. First thing you need to do is understand if he dive kicks you 3 times, then he's expecting you to block them. He's going for something else, like a throw. Or he may be trying to force you into thinking he has a pattern so he can setup a counter hit. Your best bet is to weight in the risk reward.
When being pressured you have 3 decisions to make. Continue to block. That way during his setup he may throw out something unsafe, and you’ll be able to block it. But in this situation you can be opening yourself up for a throw. But if you eat a counter hit into some fat combo, the throw doesn’t seem as bad.
Your second option is to mash out. I wouldn’t recommend this, but you may be able to luck out on some hits because he’s not expecting you to be mashing (locally we call it swinging) when you’re under pressure. He may be playing you as if he expect you to respect his dive kick pressure, so mashing some random move may throw him off. Unfortunately this is not recommended, because he may be using his pressure situation to deliberately catch you mashing and set up a counter off of that.
The third option is to just jump out. Of course he may telegraph this, but maybe if he’s over committing to his pressure he may not be expecting it. However jump outs can be fairly risky, but this depends on where he’s spaced and where you are.
In general when the other player is pressuring you, you need to keep a eye on his sprite. You know where your sprite is located on the screen, so be watching out for this guy's animation. You may be able to plan a quick escape. Also most pressure is done in some sort of sequence. Very few people keep up pressure and not throw. Eventually the attacker gets frustrated when you're blocking too much and may be "fuck it, I'm going for a throw". At this point you can reversal him.
Dealing with pressure is more a psychological game. It's basically to see if you'll act accordingly to the pressure. It's also good if you can pick up the habits of the other player. If he seems to just want to land a hit, then he's the type of guy who gets frustrated by you blocking too much, and he'll do some silly to hit you. This offense pressure is easy to escape. It's just a matter of waiting it out.
The second type is the guy who loves his mixups. He may do crossups at times he shouldn’t during his pressure because he lives to mix you up and make your guess. If he’s this type, he probably doesn’t have no more than 2 or 3 reps of pressure before he break the mode to try to go for another mixup.
The third type is a combination of the first two, except he employs a bit of strategy in opening you up. His mixups are timed right, either purposely whiffing, or purposely putting himself at ranges where you can’t counter attack or jump out. In this case, you should try to find a sweet gap and counter poke.
In closing, just block. Don’t press any buttons, don’t try to FK out, don’t try to focus out, don’t do anything. Just block, if you have to eat a throw that’s fine. Offensive pressure situations don’t last THAT long. But as the case with many people, under pressure you usually end up beating yourself by becoming to antsy and playing into their strategy. They WANT you to try to attack them back. Also this goes without saying, but being able to recreate these situations in training mode is really helpful. It helps you train your reactions, because sometimes you only have a few frames to escape a gap.
Escaping pressure is one of those things in SF that only comes with expereince. And that’s called judgement. Good players have insane judgement, and make great decisions. My advice is to get put into these situations as much as possible, and you’ll find yourself panicking less, and you’ll find different and creative ways out of these situations that your aggressor may not have thought of.
Fucking love you branh.
Hey guys, second post! Yay…so I’ve been playing Guile a lot more recently, and I’ve run into a little problem that bothers me. Ryus jumping mk, how to AA it reliably without the use of a flash kick. Crouching hp seems to trade or get beat clean when I try it. Any suggestions on what to try? Heading to training mode as we speak. Thanks
Standing mid kick I believe works well.
Whoops! Sorry about that, turns out I was talking about his jumping roundhouse…heh. and oddly enough I’m trying out various options and it’s working perfectly fine, a few trades but that’s not a problem. I must be throwing out the crouching fierce too late. Confusing myself a bit here. 
Thanks though Pakman, I will try that out as well.
Effing great post. I haven’t been using the Family Man recently; but this is a really great assessment.