I’ve seen that vid, but thanks alot anyway!, btw Graham does rogs s.fierce hit any other crouching characters? also is s.mp ever a better option to use than c.hp for anti air? oh and also i remember you told me befor to mix in some punch rush punches against ryu, what advantage does this have over the low one? thanks 
Some people miss Hyper Fighting. Invincible uppercut is pretty good, and so is walk forward into sweep without getting stupid fancy kicks.
Standing fierce hits dj (somewhat closer than other chars to hit low), dhalsim, sagat, honda, zangief, thawk, fei long, balrog, vega. Hits all of them crouching.
Using standing midpunch is good for distance jumpers instead of crouching fierce which needs them to be closer. I’ve used it vs enemies who jumped backwards in the corner when im kinda far away and not charged. Mainly its nice when im not charged or if im holding tap and need some range to hit a far jumper.
The straight running punches not only have instant hit properties like older balrogs, but have a very big hitbox. lets sya you’re fighting ryu and he forces you to block a fireball close, if he attempts another fireball you can do a straight running punch and trade hits with him doing more damage. its just good for some situations like that.
The mentality i use nowadays when i play rog is im not about getting clean hits, but killing my opponent. If that means 10 or so trade hits in one round thats fine, my life bar is expendable as long as i win the round. Dont feel like trading hits is a bad thing, its always a good thing with rog since he hits so hard.
He’s not featured in The Insanity DVD, but you can see Gunze (another very good Gief). Pony Gief was in one of the X-MANIA DVD’s…either 4 or 5…or maybe both…
I can’t remember exactly, but it’s a fair number of pages. Maybe around 200 or so…?
I’m curious what more you could possibly ask for from a guide?
Let me bring you one of my alpha 2 guides to look at at evo finals then you’ll know what a guide should have in it that yoga book is lacking.
Thanks for the help once again Graham:tup:
Graham - OK, sounds good. (But you know The Yoga Book Hyper also has a strategy section too, right? It’s not just frame data and hit boxes.)
The strategy section probably gets overlooked since you HAVE to know Japanese to get any useful information from it, while the frame data for the most part is intuitive.
To follow up on a few things, I’m surprised that O. Boxer isn’t more popular. The straight rush punch comes out faster and from farther away than the low rush. It’s a lot better at stuffing/trading fireballs. But O. Boxer stand rush punch also hits duckers where N. Boxer doesn’t. I also remember that O. Boxer stand fierce is better somehow (hits all duckers? Help NKI?) but I don’t remember exactly how. O. Boxer is one of the few O. characters that has a real legit advantage over N. at least in some areas.
Also on Zangief vs. Hawk - (warning - name dropping!) at an old ECC in casual play my Zangief destroyed Jason Nelson (I think) as Ryu and Wes something (midwestern dude - llpftr or something like that here) as Guile landing maybe one SPD in each match. Because just the threat of an SPD changes the way people play. They start to jump around or throw out too many low forwards and leave themselves open to normals, which Zangief can take good advantage of. Against Guile in particular low roundhouse will trade/beat low forward and from there you walk up and get into a situation where they have to try a reversal or get stuck in a tick attempt, and if you end up hitting with another low roundhouse you get a crossup attempt.
It’s much harder for Hawk to take advantage of that sort of thing. His low roundhouse is pretty sucky overall, both in range and priority and the fact that you can’t do much after it because it’s so slow with the double hitting. Hitting with a low rh gets you a knockdown but nothing else. Hawk doesn’t have an air attack as good as splash or knees, or an anti-fireball air attack as good as Zan’s jumping fierce.
Zan can also combo pretty effectively, whereas good T. Hawk combos require point-blank range.
It’s rare to see Hawk win without landing an SPD, because against most chars his normals allow him to break even at best, and more likely fall behind. T. Hawk is all about getting that opening you need to land an SPD and go from there. A lot of the time that means landing a DP (hard to do), getting a jump-in jab (also hard), doing his dive into the ground as a sneaky way to get in, etc.
The difference between getting every SPD you can and not is usually the difference in the match. For example against Boxer you can defend against rushes pretty well using low strong (and maybe low jab) but if you can tack an SPD on afterwards you are in 100x better shape.
This maybe true. However, the advantages of having the best super in the game far outweigh those of o.boxer. Now if o.boxer had invincible TAP instead of that stupid head butt of his, you might find a legitimate excuse to play o.boxer.
Couldnt have said it better myself. Standing fierce for o.boxer is identical to st balrog, BUT did you know that hyper balrogs standing fierce hits a few more characters crouching than st balrog? at least its how i remember it, ill go test that, im almost positive it hits bison ducking and maybe blanka. As for o.boxer having advantages over n, to be honest i dont think that straight running punch is much of an advantage, mainly due to his lack of followup.
I can’t read the strategy section because its in japanese, but from the looks of it, its not very in depth. Not their fault their book had a size limit, but that is why I don’t call it the ‘greatest guide ever’ because technically speaking its lacking in that department.
As for gief over thawk, he is immensely better. For some retarded reason capcom decided to make Thawk have no normal moves that have any purpose. He has like 30 or whatever number useless attacks. He has less range than gief, dont ask me why they did that. Gief has been around for 5 versions and they’ve been fine tuning his ground moves and specials all this time. He is crafted to beat all the characters.
(disclaimer: alot of thinking, if you’re a meathead dont read)
I think Thawk players in japan play him for novelty, players over there tend to do this. Although I dont see the purpose, you cant win a tournament using silly goofiness. But I think they arent as hardcore about winning as about being ‘different’. Which is one of the things i criticize about their gameplay, they will purposely use stupid moves/techniques to be ‘different’ where it clearly gives them a disadvantage. Take for example this balrog player i watched, me and sirlin call him the fancy final punch player. Because every round he attempts to charge up a final tap and his entire goal each game is to sock someone with this, even if it means he might lose the round. Before you say ‘he was prolly just being silly that day’ these actions are repeated daily or frequently in vids ive watched. Vids of other players that is and their “style”. I’m sure if i took a course on japanese culture in any college, id understand the ideology behind being different I guess in the US since we all physically look different and alot of us act different, its not as necessary? But for them they must express their differences by action and appearance changes. Ahh whatever gonna go back to watching spike tv and stop thinking.
I don’t think what you are talking about is any different than it is in the US.
Why did Valle use team Shotokan in MVC2 and why does Choi use teak Shotokan + Sagat in CVS2? Everyone has their quirks.
People play for different reasons. Some people choose characters and styles that appeal to them. For some people certain characters and styles may simply work better for them, even if those are not the best characters and styles overall. Why did Cole play Dhalsim in A2? Maybe A2 Dhalsim is kind of sucky but Cole does better with Dhalsim than with other guys. Or maybe Cole just likes Dhalsim.
Maybe some guys, instead of being the 5th best Ryu player, choose to be the best T. Hawk player.
Different areas develop different styles. The EC is known as a runaway/turtle style to a lot of people. In Japan I did see a lot of people throwing out DPs way too often, to the point where the best strategy was simply to do nothing, let them whiff a DP, then go from there. But then again people in Japan were also doing combos that you rarely see in the US, even among top players.
If Sirlin is going to call someone the Final TAP guy, can we call him the low strong guy? Is Justin Wong whiffing Chun’s fierce in 3S 20 times in a row really an optimal strategy?
What about someone like Bucktooth, who uses Iori and Morrigan in CVS2? Is he a non-optimal player, or is it everyone else that is non-optimal? If Iori and Morrigan were as popular as Sagat and Blanka would they be as dominant?
Overall I think it’s a bit silly to get on Japan for their playstyle given that the average skill level in ST is an order of maginitude higher…while you are wondering why some dude tries for a final TAP every time they are over there wondering why they’ve never seen a US player combo shorts into super.
you misunderstand my post completely. there is a difference between variety and picking the worst character in the game or doing moves for no other reason than to be different. im not ragging on the japanese, im saying its a very strange behavior. and no, all those examples of american players are not what im talking about.
As for sirlin doing low strong, thats nothing different than low fierce with sagat in cvs2 (guess who popularized that one, me). thats called abusing what works.
the whiffed dps in japan, thats a style of play, its a necessary tactic to win vs some characters. Its also a very aggressive but effective style, i use it myself when i play ken vs my brother or even ryu. the trick is to attempt to knock them down so you can do a crossup guessing game.
Non optimal is very normal, but thawk as i said before is like the worst character. For them to pick him is something besides character choice for style. Buktooth is prolly the best player in the US at cvs2. His character choice became a powerful team because of him, people didnt know how much potential they had. I’ve played level 4 dan for fun in casuals on cvs2 at various arcades and gone on winning streaks but you dont find me at cvs2 tourneys playing level 4 dan. Understand my difference in examples? you see top notch players using thawk but almost never winning with him no matter how much they try.
As for the insult toward americans about short short into super. Its great their scrubs can do combos, too bad thats all they can do otherwise they wouldnt be scrubs. If you consider that a magnitude higher then maybe you should be playing one of the latest games that rely 90% on combo and 10% on skill.
While your point about players having their own style and adopting characters that they’re comfortable with is a good one, and the Japanese have shown that it can be more viable with weaker perceived characters than most people expect, the above example isn’t a fair comparison. The difference is in motivation. Attempting to end every round with a final tap is a showboat gimmick, while repeatedly using low strong is done with strategic intent.
There are a lot of people that purposely have non-winning tactics for various reasons, defense mechanisms, overcompensation, they don’t care, makes them feel better, lots of reasons. But in the US, there’s no comp and arcades, handed to them, no internet fame, so they usually don’t develop the base skills to be known for their trick, much less want to travel to big tournies and show it off.
So how is this different from NKI playing Chun, who was considered a low-tier character for a long time. Or Jumpsuit playing Fei? Or Bob Painter playing Honda? Or James Chen playing Cammy? Or Valle playing team Shoto in MVC2? Isn’t Cammy usually considered one of the worst characters in ST? And team shoto is a sucky team in MVC2.
I just don’t see how this is a Japan thing. Sure, some players choose weak characters to be different. Some players try to hit certain combos or moves to show off. Usually in the open rounds of a tourney you see a lot more character variety, with what are considered really bad characters being chosen. Dhalsim in A2? He sucks. Anyone who played Dhalsim in A2 did so because they love Dhalsim, not because they wanted to win.
As far as playstyle goes, there are plenty of MVC2 players who play characters/teams to hit flashy combos and show off - for example basically anyone playing Iron Man.
I get what you are saying, but I don’t see how that is a Japan thing. People have different reasons for playing they way they do and choosing characters.
To some degree that is true, but it’s not like in Japan every Boxer player is trying to win every round with a final TAP.
Why did Sirlin play Zangief in the B2 finals? In that same tourney Choi played Guy and Gen IIRC. (Not the whole time) Those are good strategic decisions and not showing off and having a bit of fun?
Reasons to play O.Ken over new Ken, in order of importance:
- NO FUNKY KICKS
- slugball
- crossup forward
- red looks good on Ken
- invincible DP
The fact that something as negligible as a different crossup move is more important than the DP should tell you something.
There are legitimate reasons for selecting a non-top tier character, but doing it for the sake of being different isn’t one of them.
LOL! Yeah, red does look good on Ken :tup:
I think I should’ve stated my question more carefully. When I said:
I meant that they play Ken at all. New or old. I just don’t recall seeing too many tourney matches in the US with anyone using Ken.
so if this is not a legit reason, what is? choosing a character because you like him? Who’s to say what’s legit and what’s not?
Being critical of player’s character choices is a tangent we need to get off. Criticize the gameplay, not the fact that they chose X character to begin with.
Just be glad that some people chose low- mid tier and we don’t see a top tier fest of Dhalsim, boxer, claw, o.sagat all the time.