Strategies against E.Honda with T.Hawk

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

I main with T.Hawk and for some reason I can’t seem to find a consistently effective way to counter E.Honda’s moveset.

I’ve done everything I can think of. Heavy Body Presses to Light Jab/light jab/medium punch combo
Heavy Body Press to Mexican Typhoon
Condor Dive to low kick
Just walking up to him and being heavily defensive or aggressive.

The closest thing to consistently beating him is waiting him out to attack, but since E.Honda is all about the counter attacks, players or the CPU rarely ever make the first move.

Any tips?

2

I played a decent Honda last night and unfortunately there’s no consistent approach to the match up. You have to take chances and capitalise heavily. I think against a patient Honda the match up ranks as one of Hawk’s worst.

Last night my opponent was learning Honda and played solidly aside from a single continuous error, full screen Headbutt. Despite this mistake I only won 4-2.

My advice isn’t original, corner Honda and go ham. Standing jab and maximum range spires are safe, if he tries to head butt while you’re blocking you can punish. When he knows that isn’t a safe option he’ll try to jump or butt slam out, anti air him back in and punish butt slam on block.

When he feels he can’t get out he’ll just start blocking and that’s when you can win.

Tldr: match up sucks, play Chun Li.

3

Can you be more specific? I don’t believe there’s one hawk move that can punish all of honda’s headbutts?

4

Once you corner Honda, his recoil reduces so you can punish very headbutt.

5

Yeah, cornering Honda is very important because he won’t be able to headbutt for free. The corner shortens the distance he recoils after you block it, meaning you can punish it. I will often squat in front of a Honda in the corner just to see if he’ll do that so I can make him eat the damage. Don’t forget to empty jump bait the ex headbutt and punish that as the recoil on it is now pretty much gone.

From there standing hk and jump hp are the biggest worries with the match.

6

I just played a match where the honda EX headbutt on each of my jump ins where I was buffering HP Typhoon. Since I end the circle with a back in this situation, it blocked every time and the typhoon doesn’t come out. It’s an Option Select.

The thing I was having trouble with though, is on my knockdown he would wakeup buttstomp or EX buttstomp and I couldn’t find a button to punish it on my wakeup. Am I just supposed to block?

7

Blocking is good because you get an spd, best option is focus dash for a full punish.

8

Won’t focus be broken by the reversal?..

9

Praying is also an option.

10

From E. Honda’s point of view
T. Hawk actually has more options when it comes to punishing ex headbutts in Ultra.

Against far/fullscreen EX Headbutts you can do the following options on block to punish it:
LP, LK, MP, c.MK, s.HP. You can also light Tomahawk Buster if you stand block

Against close EX headbutts (on his wakeup or when empty jumping), you can do the following major punishes on block.
LP, LK, MP, MK, s.HP, All Tomahawk Busters, All SPDs, Super and Ultra 1

Jumping in on E. Honda
Jab Headbutt as an AA loses to body press and air dive if it’s done too early. It also universally loses to deep jumpin attacks so you shouldn’t worry too much about it.
What you’ll most likely expect Hondas to use as an AA is Buttslam (especially EX buttslam), EX Headbutt and nj.HP.

In AE the rule of thumb for Honda was to just always do **late **anti air EX Headbutt and EX Buttslam if u think T. Hawk is going to dive and your reactions are on point.
Even if T. Hawk did an empty jump and EX Headbutt was blocked, you as a Honda player created massive distance between you two which is absolutely great for Honda.

In Ultra, this isn’t the case anymore. Doing late EX Headbutts to counter deep jumpins and air dives will now be countered by an empty jump.
The empty jump will be able to block EX Headbutt which leaves Honda super close to T. Hawk who in turn can punish it with SPD, Tomahawk buster, Ultra and so on.

Neutral game
If you play more lame than E. Honda then you force Honda to approach you.
In AE it wasn’t viable to lame Honda out without eating a fullscreen headbutt trade or you condor spire being punish on recovery by Honda’s s.HK
Now, with the walkspeed and condor spire being that much faster, you’ll be able to meter build and play lame once u have the lifelead. Doing condor spires in neutral is also now lot harder to punish for Honda on reaction and it usually trades or outright beats the attempts Honda will do and puts him on knockdown nightmare (I think, or else I was just sucking bad).
When you’re close/midrange, you can do EX condor spires (in true blockstrings for example) to beat out Honda’s reversal attempts:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsRA6O6kgug

In general the most important thing to do is to walk Honda in the corner or to knock him down to severely limit his options.

11

If you stand block on Honda’s wakeup (this is I think universal for all characters), the light buttslam will only hit once (on the while rising part).
The 2nd part will whiff and he’ll land in front of you, as long as u don’t crouch or do an attack.
That’s your chance to put him on knockdown again by punishing him on whiff.
He has 18 recovery frames after landing (just to give you a general idea on what to do).

If the 2nd part of any buttslam connects, you can still punish it with an SPD or U1, though.

12

I’ll test but I thought the armour break properties were only on the first hit.

13

It breaks