55

Out of curiosity, why do you and Cole both feel that Honda beats Sim?

56

In my case I have a difficult time choosing the right anti air n most times it trades in Honda favor.
Butt slam.
N not hard for Honda to get sim in the corner which destroys me :frowning:

57

All good points. I really think the key to this matchup depends on a few things:

  1. How well you can keep out Honda at round start and keep him at near full screen distance.
  2. Once you get the life lead, whether you should take trades in order to finish him off, at the risk of lowering your own health.
  3. Not going for trades, and whittling him down slowly, which gives him more opportunities to get in.
  4. Anti-airing buttslams properly when they’re directly above you.

It’s a tough matchup, but most players think it’s still slightly Sim favor.

58

I will maybe detail some of my choices also, and that Honda match especially. I talked with Milanea and we decided to rate it 5.5 in honda’s favor. I will post soon something to explain my opinion.

59

Some Sims make it look easy…




60

I’m stealing ALL of his moves for this matchup. He has a lot of interesting AA choices and trip guard attack strings that are super safe, and somehow able to punish buttslams through the fireball.

61

That Honda was a bit predictable, though. Anyway, I know most of you have already seen it, but it is always nice to check it out again:


Simply BS, simply awesome.

62

dat hindu slide.

63

I agree wit the Honda being a bit predictable but those st back mp anti air vs the butt slam were on point if I could do that it would def make the match up feel a lot better

64

Definitely not one of the easier matches for Sim. Even at high levels of play, most Sims win by the skin of their teeth. All it takes is one or two bad trades and it’s gg.

65

A lot of problems for Sim in that match. Most important one is ochio. It means no throw, or at least no tick throw at all. And that means it’s really a mess getting out of close range, i.e, the situation you don’t want. And Sim takes damage like mad. Huge problem. A lot of setups after Ochio are very good for Honda as well and are very confusing for Sim. HK buttslam for example, is really hard to block if you stay on ground. You can beat it though with an immediate jump back HP. But a clever honda will cr.MK you if he sees you going for that solution too much, and it’s a guaranteed dizzy then after. Also, his bearhug grab is incredibly good, as the follow up is either cross up HK stand MP stand HK (4 hits dizzy, works also for honda on guile and chun), or jump HK blocked by sim, that lets Honda go for another bearhug (working as a tick throw in that case).

HK Buttslam gets beaten by st MP, but you have to time it on the apex of it ; a single flaw means trade / knock down aka 80% stamina. Every trade in this match is really (to extremely) in honda’s favor. Other buttslams are hard to punish (trades and pretty quick ground recovery). Note it’s tough to see what type of buttslam Honda is using at the very moment the animation starts, making it harder to choose the right answer.

Round opening is really tricky. Best choice is cr. back LP to stop hands (but you gotta time it a little after the beginning to counter HP hands). The quickness of the animation let you recover and react if it’s a HK buttslam (then go for stand MP or jump back HP). If it’s a jump in, then go for stand back LP. Another type of buttslam = stand MK. That’s for theory fighter. When you’re playing, a single timing mistake means almost death or at least a very favourable position for Honda.

After pushing Honda back with stand MP/MP, or cr.HP/MP, DO NOT throw a yoga fire after that. That’s the common thing you want to do, but honda can trade quite easily and heavily in his favor with dosukoi.

Anti-air game is incredibly hard and diverse. You have to choose the right one for every situation. Honda can jump with down MK or LK just to beat all the anti air game you just thought would work (such as cr. MP/HP, slides). Good anti-air, I mean crucial, is jump HP. You can beat almost everything with that BUT if you whiff it a single time (and that happens at least once in a round), you’re subject to be dosukoi’d and killed before you blink.

Teleport is ok, but not really good. You have to time it on reaction if you’re in the corner and you see Honda’s jumping at you or something. If you mess up, you’ll get severely punished.
Sim’s super, one of the best in the game, is even breakable by honda with a good jumpin MK to ochio, or it can trade (or even not!) with a well spaced HK buttslam.

It’s just incredibly complex and you won’t know until you play sim, and versus a really good Honda.

Now why didn’t I rate it 8/2 for Honda, with all of this being said ? Because on paper, Sim has EVERY tools to just let Honda away. A perfect sim wouldn’t allow Honda to touch him, every lost round comes from a bad judgement at some point, even a little one. So it’s kinda hard to rate it, because in theory it’s 10/0 for sim, and in practice it’s death if you mess up. So I gave the privilege to practice in my rating, knowing no one is flawless (even more when you have to struggle until second 40 to win a round). I gave as much importance for both sides (theory/practice) and eventually gave a slight advantage to Honda as I play this character as well, and feel more confident playing that match in that way than in the other.

Anyway, that’s an amazing match to learn, watch, and play.

66

Really nice stuff.
Regarding Honda matchups, I noticed that Chris Gamble rated 3 matches as 0-10, which really surprised me. I remember Kusumondo vs Damdai from the last year:

And a match with a major discrepance: Cammy vs Fei Long. Both Okafei and Jumpsuit Jese rate this macth as 7.5-2.5 fei’s favour, while Mongolorobokop calls it 1-9 cammy’s favour ? Very interesting. Unfortunatelly I don’t remember ever seeing this match.

67

It’s Dhalsim’s advantage, esp. because of the projectile. Do NOT rely on Dhalsim’s back+MP! Or at least, be VERY careful with it and only use if you have a knack for hitting it and hitting it consistently (most impressive thing about Kichigai in first vid, ref’ed above). See the first image in Papasi’s post here for why: Old/New Characters Hit Box Diagrams + Drag N Drop Theory Fighter That image shows you only have a few pixels to work with at most, over the span of a critical frame or two, can’t be much more than that can it?
-XSPR

68

ST is a very hard game. It is natural that some things are extremely hard to implement. But even if you get close to mastering self-awareness, distance awareness and game-specific knowledge, there’s the focus AFO talked about in the EVO program doc which can provide opportunities that wouldn’t exist on paper.

It is also important to realize some matches of great players against “mortals” often illustrate things high-level ones don’t, since the players don’t use strategies other top player can counter.

69

It’s in Dhalsim’s favor, but it certainly isn’t an easy matchup to learn. There are so many intricacies in that mu, and you have to focus to maintain proper ranges and counters for all of Honda’s various options. There’s no single ‘win’ tactic or anti-air in this matchup. Everything Honda does needs to be reacted to on a second-by-second basis utilizing proper counters at all times. In theory, Dhalsim has the right tools to beat all of them, but it’s very difficult to to do. It’s significantly more difficult to fight than say a Gief or Hawk matchup.

70

These videos are pretty poor representations of this matchup, and I’ll explain why. There’s a number of tactics Honda can do against sim that I’m not seeing in these videos.

  1. when sim has Honda full screen and throws a fierce or slow projectile, you can use floating fierce punch to steer yourself backwards slightly out of range so Dhalsim will be slightly out of range to hit you with a standing fierce. When you do this, immediately use strong or fierce hands. Due to sim’s projectile still being on the screen, he can’t follow up with another, so he’s forced to either stand still or use a normal to try to poke. Handslap completely shits on his pokes and advances you slightly on the playfield. This is your best option at full screen, since sim has an answer for everything else. I guess it’s somewhat possible that dhalsim can anticipate you’re going to do this and do a back standing roundhouse, but it seems super unlikely because if he’s doing that, he’s already on the backfoot not confident in his poking or zoning.

  2. Controlling how many ticks of hands you get out each time you do it is so crucial in this matchup, and in these videos, it’s not done. Most Honda’s just turn on the handslap when they get a chance against sim, and they don’t stop pressing the punch button. If you corner Sim from a knockdown, it’s in your best interest to do a minimum tick handslap that hits once, then follow up with one that hits twice. Or you do a single tick, then walk up, low jab and cancel into medium hands. then you can do a number of things from that. Simply canceling low jab into handslap is amazingly good against sim since there’s nothing he can do to avoid the chip or threat of doing a single tick handslap from low jab and going into a bear grab or ochio. If you’re really tricky, you can even do a single tick of handslap hits then headbutt right after. If you do manage to bear grab sim, you can meaty crossup on wakeup with Honda’s splash. Though there’s a chance it won’t cross up, it’s worth going for regardless since Dhalsim doesn’t have a dragon punch to put the element of chance on this due to being forced to block regardless of where it hits.

  3. I don’t think I see this often, if ever. If you knock sim down with a handslap or buttslam, you can safely fierce headbutt to the other side of him before he wakes up. You can do just about anything from this. tick throws, grabs, buttslam, ect. The safest thing you can do is to immediately low roundhouse, and even if sim blocks it, you can frame trap into handslap, this will eliminate possibility of getting hit with a reversal throw.

  4. Super’s surprisingly viable in this matchup, since sim’s only punish to block it is a stand forward. It gets you closer to him, regardless. You want the mentality that he’s risking more in doing a move than you are in throwing out a super when he’s throwing a projectile or trying to poke.

  5. This is a tough tactic to execute, but it is possible to hit dhalsim’s stand forward and stand roundhouse with a well spaced floating fierce. This is a total anticipation maneuver, but it works nonetheless when timed correctly.

In one video, the honda player just tries to jump in splash all day with no concern on his position relative to dhalsim’s. The splash will trade with his standing kicks and beat his slide, but you have to be at a pretty far distance to make full use of this. Not sure how well known this is, since most information I read here regarding Honda’s matchups is overly simplistic information borderlining on obvious (and it’s quite possible the information I give here appears the same to others in that light).

I’m afraid to give sim’s best responses to various jump ins and attacks Honda does from X range in fear not having won enough first to 10’s to have earned the right to sharing tested information.

71

Itou thinks Deejay - Honda is only 6-4 ?

72

Totally agreed with Yuu and Riz charts.

I also think the Cammy MU is a lot more even that most people think.

73

because of cross ups and because she is small ?

74

Latest Nakano Royal Ratio

Ratio 3.5
Boxer
Claw
Dhalsim
Chun Li
O.Sagat

Ratio 3
Ryu
Dee Jay

Ratio 2.5
Guile
Dictator
O.Ken

Ratio 2
E. Honda
Fei Long
O.T. Hawk

Ratio 1.5
Ken
Sagat

Ratio 1
Blanka
Zangief

Ratio 0.5
Cammy
T. Hawk