T.Hawk Matchup Thread

The reason for this is partly out of frustration, but also because this appears to be difficult for more than just me.

Some background: from vanilla SF4 a friend played a jumping Gief, basically buffering the 360/720 in the air. If I pressed my advantage I’d sooner or later land right where he landed. So to beat this I ended up spacing correctly, using Falling Sky, and Wheel Kicks at long range to keep him away. Also mixed this up with the TT once in a while when he was concentrating on doing green hand. This took care of Gief until I suggested:

“T.Hawk’s new, and he’s a 360/720 char. Why don’t you play him?”

Bad idea: he started stomping on me, saying it was like a faster Gief w/ more range on the command grabs! Here’s what I saw:

  • T.Hawk’s command grabs, super, and ultra are ridiculously far-reaching. I can’t even jump away when I see the startup animation
  • My EX TT, even though I blinked yellow once, was overridden by T.Hawk’s normal Mexican Typhoon. ARG!
  • Tomahawk Buster trades with my jumps everytime except for j.LP
  • Condor Dive just kills me if I don’t have FS ready
  • Condor Spire keeps advancing him fast in place for a MT, Super, or Ultra
  • One of his moves, either CD or CS, finishes w/ a mini back jump, meaning I have to react w/ a CoD LP or MP to get there in time
  • If you’re playing someone who is looking for block stun, or hit stun to execute the 360/720 motion for a move, it sux for abel on the f+MK -> TT

Here’s what little I could do:

  • FS w/ HP seems to grab him pretty good even in his hit window, but doesn’t work all that great if you are a bit early
  • TT seems to be rendered useless when up close, and needs to combo
  • Wheel Kick seems to just trade w/ Condor Dive
  • U2 works great ONLY if you catch him on the way down from apex of his jump

Here’s some other threads from forums that might give us a clue how T.Hawk players see Abel:
http://shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=237213&highlight=t.hawk
http://shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=161886&highlight=t.hawk

Comments from some of the more advanced players on how to deal w/ T.Hawk are greatly appreciated! Hope this helps us figure out how to beat T.Hawk straight up…

Also tried to do search, but didn’t find much in this forum or others. Saw some info in the master "BREATHLESS… " new SSF4 Abel match thread, but nothing that was a sure strategy…

  • I just mash backdash when I see giefsplash + 1st c.lk. This is a traditional anti-gief measure.
  • EX TT has no throw immunity at all! Even regular throws will beat EX every time. You might be confused :frowning:
  • A bit ago, Sajam suggested I try out s.mp to beat Adon’s dive kick. Since then, I’ve been using the godly stop sign palm to stuff everything. It will work against both CD and CS, though I wouldn’t want to try catching EX CS with it.

Honestly, I think the biggest stumbling block when I started playing super was the memories of playing against vanilla gief, which were kind of like recalling encounters with a child molester uncle.

"- TT seems to be rendered useless when up close, and needs to combo"
comboing tt? wat
anyways, does anyone know the zangeif wake up tt gimmick apply to t.hawk too? or does his srk thing beat it?

  • T.Hawk’s command grabs, super, and ultra are ridiculously far-reaching. I can’t even jump away when I see the startup animation

Cause they are instant (Ultra/Super) after the flash you can’t jump. 360’s you can only TT/U2 or jump/backdash from.

  • My EX TT, even though I blinked yellow once, was overridden by T.Hawk’s normal Mexican Typhoon. ARG!

EX TT loses to any throw, it’s only invulnerable to hits, normal TT beats throws.

  • Tomahawk Buster trades with my jumps everytime except for j.LP

Ok, use j.lp more to get in and bait things, also jumping is a bad habit.

  • Condor Dive just kills me if I don’t have FS ready

Block it then ultra or CoD.

  • Condor Spire keeps advancing him fast in place for a MT, Super, or Ultra

You can hit his recovery easily once you used to it.

  • One of his moves, either CD or CS, finishes w/ a mini back jump, meaning I have to react w/ a CoD LP or MP to get there in time

Not sure what you mean, but whatever it is doesn’t sound good.

  • If you’re playing someone who is looking for block stun, or hit stun to execute the 360/720 motion for a move, it sux for abel on the f+MK -> TT

TT would beat any throw they do, and you can bait and beat shit after a f+mk.

Here’s what little I could do:

  • FS w/ HP seems to grab him pretty good even in his hit window, but doesn’t work all that great if you are a bit early

Yeah it a good AA now.

  • TT seems to be rendered useless when up close, and needs to combo

You are mistiming your ticks if you are getting 360’d

  • Wheel Kick seems to just trade w/ Condor Dive

Ok? Not sure what to say bout this one.

  • U2 works great ONLY if you catch him on the way down from apex of his jump

That’s how it works…

Lol my new sig

Shit too long lol

You guys are really letting this thread rock?

Yeah… there’s nothing much in the match-up thread about T. Hawk yet… that doesn’t mean you go starting a new thread… that means you add to the match-up thread. That’s the whole point of the match-up thread.

Funny that I cant see any mentions of you applying abel’s normals in this matchup (except one of j.lp)… you really need to learn more about abel’s normals. That THawk matchup thread you linked is mad silly, only a few lines of “tips” against abel and starts with “watch the fuck out he has AA now” :rofl:, tell me you aint the kinda player who said “abel has no AA in vanilla” or “he has AA now!” too?

I havent played that many good thawk players that much so i can only say a little on this matchup.

I dont think anyone can really react by jumping away AFTER seeing the startup animation of a grab, you should avoid being in that position, because then you’ll have to guess.

EX TT = loses to throws. (basic abel info)

Dont jump too much (this applies in ALL matchups), youre not supposed to rely on jumping attacks against Thawk except maybe j.hp/mk/lp, even then its situational… again, i have a feeling that youre not applying abels normals properly (you focus too much on special moves)…

Condor dive? BLOCK. PUNISH.

Use abel’s st.mp in this matchup, be it as ground poke or AA, learn to control the spacing and dont allow the thawk to get in.

TT is not useless in this matchup at all, you just dont use it properly.

You cant “beat THawk straight up” if you aint got the proper understanding of abels own moves and the importance of spacing him out and blocking and punishing stuff. You seemed as if you want to beat everything he throws out there, not really the correct mindset imo.

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edit- lol yeah HAV, i just felt like replying… didnt really try to answer everything though. :rofl: yeah i guess this gon be my last post in this thread heh

yeah i freakin hate t. hawk. i rarely get to play him online since hes not used as much, but i get destroyed every time. it seems like everytime i get anywhere close to him, whether dash or roll, i get wrecked by his command grabs. and doing any kind of jumping im bound to get caught by his flying whatever it is. im still iffy about going against 360/720 players so i avoid any close range combat and just wheel kick.

My strategy against T-Hawk is to poke him to death. Use lots of s.Mk, s.LK, and s.LP

Thanks for all the input!

I’m going to go re-work my basic spacing and zoning along w/ the regular TT. It was also getting pretty late, and I think I was trying too hard to get inside, along with mashing too many special moves. I’ll also need to work on just the normal move combos as well.

Started this thread cuz I didn’t find much in the matchup thread, got pretty frustrated, and was hoping this would gather the information for the gief/thawk-type matchup which from vanilla SF4 sounded like there wasn’t a whole lot of options.

I’ll let you know how it goes!