The Guy Q&A Thread: Post your questions here!

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
2221

I can’t argue with any of what you said. It’s all logical, it’s just not the reality.

Frame traps need to be mixed up with grabs to bait a throw tech - yeah, again that plays into your opponent not having the presence of mind to throw tech when they are being grabbed rather than pre-empting it all the time. You also need to get within range to throw comfortably since the range is so mediocre. Which would mean getting through the neutral game.

And of course, the neutral game, where Ryu can keep you out with cr.mk>hadouken for forever and a day because you can’t punish the cr.mk with EX or them doing it clearly out of position. Or screw that - have any positive block string and backdash or DP at the end instant ambiguous loop on Guy who has to choose which or block, opening himself up to throws.

You don’t push your opponent into any situation. They just make unnecessary mistakes. Or you’ve been playing too long a set, lol. I play and win matches based solely on this principle. They either got too defensive for no reason, pressed button for no reason etc. etc. Any character on the roster can start the match with a back dash which you can’t punish and sets that struggle distance for Guy.

Sit and mash poke or projectile and just wait. You can react to everything Guy does. The effectiveness is in people believing you can’t.

Better yet low profile. Guy can’t punish those Ex or not. Good ol’ BSK not being of use once again. And Run slide - 4 frames where you have to run at your opponent with no cover, 22 frames more of you sliding into position. Oh what’s that? They managed to block in those 26 frames?

2222

No it is reality, you can’t expect everything you do to work as you hope, do you honestly watch high level play at all and analyze matches as to why the opponent did what they did and looked at what happened. Have you ever noticed people not punish something that is obviously punishable, then when the opponent does it one more time to try and get away with it again, does the punish and acquires the game/round. It’s having that thing in your back pocket to aid.

If you are grabbing your opponent and they aren’t teching, take the damage and stun, its being given to you. You’re getting a corner push and a setup to boot, if you’re losing to cr.mk xx fireball at max distance that is your own fault. You can poke that with st.mk There is even a range where st.mk will beat both cr.mk and cr.hk of Ryu’s. At that range the move will not hit Guy’s st.mk because it won’t reach his hurtbox, again as I said and this was also said by Juicebox, it’s all on prediction and antipication. If you’re allowing your opponent to bully you, you aren’t trying to stop what they are going for. If they are doing it at the distance where it isn’t a blockstring and you recognize it, why don’t you focus through and punish or even MK tatsu as that has projectile invincibility. If they choose to backdash or DP, bait the move and punish. If they choose to backdash during your string you can still OS, an OS isn’t always meant to be during the wake up, you can do this mid blockstring. You can have them continue this and then blow them up for it later. Like I said you’re being too vague about the game and thinking they can do this and I can’t do anything about it because I simply won’t because I never expect it.

That shouldn’t open you to throws because you can still delay tech, you can stagger things, people do it all the time and it does work out as an option.

At this point all I’m reading is salt and a given plateau you’ve hit because you don’t want to work on your game overall. Low profile doesn’t always beat EX tatsu, more importantly the only characters that still can have to do those normals at a max range distance. Doing a normal run slide without meter out of desperate measure all the time? Why? You’re at best -4, and you don’t have armor to back you up because it isn’t EX, its a long move and easy to react to because you’re doing it at full screen… it shouldn’t be used as position because they can focus, they can neutral jump and punish you or even whiff punish you cause that isn’t too hard to do. If it’s EX you’re at least positive at max distance. Still not a great option without meter, and if they are ready for it, it’s a bad option all together, all you’re doing is continuing the noose they set for you and giving them rounds or games.

Is it easy to react to Guy’s special moves, yes especially if you autopilot and keep doing the moves in the same fashion. Keep cancelling out of TC and going in a pattern, nothing scary there because you have decided to never go for anything new. Cancel from different normals, I’ve caught people with Run OH because I did it off cr.lk, and what did they normally expect from me out of a cr. light. A frametrap or a throw, they hit a cr.tech, I hit them with Run Overhead, and I’d mix it up with throws, delayed throws, etc. It catches people off guard because they anticipate a throw.

If you’re not going to try and change your options and switch up what you are doing then you’re just going to get figured out and lose.

Ever notice when you play a set, people start throwing out tech they haven’t done as the set progresses. Doing more resets and setups, different 50/50s and such. If you’re just going to do the same thing over and over throughout the whole set, you’re likely going to lose because the person is going to figure out how to deal with what you’re doing, and then you lose because you don’t want to change it up.

That isn’t anything about Guy or SF, that’s your own fault on not wanting to change up.

Many top players do it, you should as well.

2223

I think the issue here is that you’re letting matchup knowledge become your entire game. You avoid using certain tools because you know the opponent has a way to counter it. This sort of mindset is really detrimental to your mixups and neutral game. Remember that anything you see in matchup notes are simply an option against another option, not a guide on winning the entire matchup.

You say Guy’s frame traps are pointless, but no matter what character you use, the opponent still has the same options of crouch/stand/late tech, block, mash DP. It’s not Guy that needs improvement, it is first and foremost yourself.

Many players acknowledge Guy’s normals to be strong, and unless you can have reactions/predictions on par with say Daigo, it’s hard to take your opinion seriously of Guy 100% losing the neutral game against Ryu.

2224

I’ve been here less than a year. From then until now my guy Game has increased dramatically by all the knowledge the rest of you guys have given on the character and how to use him. My results are much more impressive now and I take mind of the mistakes I make and go into practice with playback dummy or a friend to explore scenarios that give me trouble and grind into my subconscious the correct response to those situations. This forum is essentially the only place I go to for valid Guy advice whenever I plateau or reach a problem I can’t solve and want to know the answer to.

I know it sounds like salt, but if you stop making dumb mistakes you take away the ambiguity of Guy. Using the cr.mk as an example - I looked up on the forums because I remembered that you had posted about guys mk vs Ryu’s cr.mk before about how it beats the range. I went into training mode to check the range - the range at which Guy’s mk will hit when Ryu’s cr.mk whiffs is too far. Not for the move to connect, but too far for my opponent to sensibly think to press another button. The point is, they don’t. Two blocked cr.mk’s puts Ryu in the danger range where I could whittle health through counter hits so they stop and block. The same for a block string cr.mk>Fireball. It’s shrewed knowledge of the match up (or maybe CH’s happen to Ryu at that range in too many match ups idk him that well) but the tech is simple enough to execute: stop after two cr.mk’s or cr.mk>fireball. I had my friend practice this with me: he’s a rookie SSF4 player, but he mains Ryu. I told him about cr.mk and told him to cr.mk no more than twice and end the block string with a fireball. I told him about buffering the fireball command in the cr.mk as well, so it won’t come out if the command whiff. I told him about Ryu’s aa in cr.hp and told him to use it any time Guy jumps. Once he had pushed & chipped me out of cr.mk’s distance. He learned to wait in cr.block.

This is where the test came in. I told him to cr.mk at this point when I moved forward, fireball if dashed back, wait if I walked back and just cr.mk if I neutral jumped. It goes without saying he aa’d if I jumped from a distance. It was different for him as a rookie because he’s used to mad-hatter rookie play of Street Fighter, so waiting and watching wasn’t exactly a forte. By the end of the day he could close me down like this and just played keep away. Even in the corner, he didn’t feel pressured because he understood it changed nothing on his end. He just watched and waited and didn’t try to press dumb buttons or make unnecessary plays. I didn’t even get to Ryu’s cr.hk, which has a larger range than Ryu’s cr.mk and Guy’s st.mk and can hit from a further distance if Guy is crouching (weird but true, I guess Guy’s hurtbox widens that much in a crouch?).

It only takes one fireball time for me to lose on a time out and all he had to do was not do anything else and remember all I had was the illusion of control. If I ever did get in, he still had some issue deal with my close up pressure, especially if he was already trapped in the corner, but throughout the matches I told him about different means to make space and start over.

I know that not everybody is going to do this - I’ve won enough matches to know people across the grading from D to Master will still make come and unnecessary plays. My concern is that you can do this and do it very easily if you have experienced execution and patience.

I don’t know how you get in on that. What tools are left? Call me butthurt, say that I suck if need be - I can deal with that since I don’t portray myself to be amazing. But don’t tell me I don’t adapt or take note. You’ve not seen me play, you have no idea how diligently I search for ideas and help or how open I am to keeping my tactics fresh. This is not an ignorant rant. I’ve broken down this scenario as much as I possibly can and I have no answers. I’m not asking for an unbeatable flowchart or for a means of option-selecting everything option that may come at me. This is a scenario where I know exactly what my opponent is doing, down to the timing of their button presses.

What the hell are you supposed to do? (Bear in mind this isn’t the only such issue I face in matches but it’s a good example.)

2225

I’ll be belligerent about this because I am asking for a specific answer to a specific scenario. Having told you what definitely happens I am asking what to definitely do. Generic response or telling me to keep it fresh are arbitrary and ignorant responses. I’m not being predicted and the opponent isn’t taking a risk.

2226

For starters you didn’t specify anything besides you don’t know how to approach those characters or how to get around their fireballs.as I stated have you watched any footage of what to do as well, because if a Guile or Sak whiff cr.hp you can whiff punish that, I’ve done it several times and it was key way in for me when I played aganist Dieminion the first time around. Those recoveries aren’t fast by any means, Chun you can’t easily jump in on her air-air is strong and her low profile moves have range so its useless to try to elbow drop in, you can take chip it’s small damage and you can focus through or neutral jump. Also most of their strings into fireballs aren’t true strings so you can mk tatsu, go into training replay the scenarios find ways around it. See what you can do, what’s the best option for positioning and/or damage. I can state that outside of Guile and Sagat low tiger shhot and Sakura’s level 3 Hadouken, you can punish all fireballs at the midscreen with MP hozanto. It’s possible against Guile but requires more of a “read” than reaction and that timing is strict. I also gave you advice in those situation from having done them, You’ll see a lot of people when in range will attempt to sweep Guile when he throws a boom in their sweep range, its a trade sure but it causes a knockdown. Same with Akuma’s who jump fireball, Daigo did this a few times where he wuold trade with the fireball but Akuma is knocked down.

Replay the situations in training mode, see what you can do about it to correct the errors you made. You can’t expect to always jump over a fireball and punish every time, especially Guile.

2227

So if I’m understanding you correctly, you’re basically saying that on a fundamental level, Ryu has a more or less braindead keep away game? If you get too close, they will cr.mk you out just enough to be safe, then wait for you to close in again to do cr.mk buffer fireball? I’ve come across these situations quite a bit. If you anticipate them buffering fireball after a cr.mk, you can either

  1. MK tatsu
  2. Focus dash the fireball
    But if you notice they have adapted and only do one cr.mk without buffering, you can once again adapt by either resuming neutral game or applying pressure by simply walking forward then blocking to see what they do.

I can see what you mean, but there are always options. You just have to be good about either reading the opponent AND/OR conditioning them into thinking you’ll do a specific sequence. Sure Ryu’s cr.mk covers good enough space and is a good footsie tool, but you have to realize that there’s a human playing against you, not AI with SF2 reactions.

Another thing is to walk back and forth, always dancing in and out of cr.mk range. I do it every now and then (albeit not perfectly) and I still get okay success with it. Walk in, they will react with cr.mk. But by the time that’s happened, you will have walked back a step, just outside their reach. And if you had anticipated their poke, you can punish the whiffed cr.mk. Do this enough times and they will very likely hesitate to poke with cr.mk.

Just like the others said, this game isn’t going to be a pre-determined set of moves or plays. There isn’t a “what I should definitely do” mindset. More like “what’s the set of things that can happen and my options for each one” or “what I think is going to happen based on educated guessing.” But once you start to realize this is how the game works, you’ll stop spending time despairing over seemingly impossible situations and start reading and overcoming the opponent.

2228

Okay - you see you’ve once again given a generic answer to a specific problem. cr.mk>fireball can be a true block string. When it isn’t, mk.BSK is fine. I am saying my opponent doesn’t take that chance. They aren’t pressing buttons as a precaution. It’s mk>fireball for chip and then they wait. The distance will always be too far away for cr.mk from Ryu to connect, but far st.mk from Guy can. So they will sit. Far st.mk doesn’t cancel, so no HZO for range and chip. Ryu does not need to pre-empt anything you do. He can just react. The raw reactions aren’t actually that difficult.

I agree - you can punish that second cr.mk or whenever cr.mk>fireball isn’t the true block string. I am just pointing out how easy it is to not press cr.mk when you are out of range or pressing cr.mk>Fierce Fireball when it isn’t a true block string. I accept that typical footsies is a dance that you essentially want to keep in rhythm of and trying to push your opponent out of time or out of position. That comes essentially from fear - the fear of giving your opponent to much room. It makes them press in anticipation, it makes them try and catch patterns in your play, all mind games you can manipulate. I don’t see a mind game in this chip defence. Ryu doesn’t have to respond to twitches. Some might, but that’s bad play on their part, unable to sit out blocked moves that don’t chip. Focus only reaches this distance on lvl 3, which can be back-dashed or jumped. While st.mk does move forward during start up, on block it will ultimately push you further away.

There is nothing you can do that can’t be punished from a cr.block and/or requires Ryu to predict rather that react.

2229

Do you walk in and out of range of what they are doing and see if they press it, are trying to make them press the button at all. At this point you’re acting pretty cynical, you can’t just say this is a generic answer, if you don’t plan on playing footsies then don’t complain about getting hit if you aren’t trying to use your spacing, walk in and out of their footsie range, then try to fake them out. You have to do something to make them press the button and have it whiff. It’s fundamentals, develop them. We can’t tell you how to acquire them, we can tell you what to do in those situation but you yourself have to work on it. Not everything can be spoon-fed to you.

2230

Okay - you see you’ve once again given a generic answer to a specific problem. cr.mk>fireball can be a true block string. When it isn’t, mk.BSK is fine. I am saying my opponent doesn’t take that chance. They aren’t pressing buttons as a precaution. It’s mk>fireball for chip and then they wait. The distance will always be too far away for cr.mk from Ryu to connect, but far st.mk from Guy can. So they will sit. Far st.mk doesn’t cancel, so no HZO for range and chip. Ryu does not need to pre-empt anything you do. He can just react. The raw reactions aren’t actually that difficult.

I agree - you can punish that second cr.mk or whenever cr.mk>fireball isn’t the true block string. I am just pointing out how easy it is to not press cr.mk when you are out of range or pressing cr.mk>Fierce Fireball when it isn’t a true block string. I accept that typical footsies is a dance that you essentially want to keep in rhythm of and trying to push your opponent out of time or out of position. That comes essentially from fear - the fear of giving your opponent to much room. It makes them press in anticipation, it makes them try and catch patterns in your play, all mind games you can manipulate. I don’t see a mind game in this chip defence. Ryu doesn’t have to respond to twitches. Some might, but that’s bad play on their part, unable to sit out blocked moves that don’t chip. Focus only reaches this distance on lvl 3, which can be back-dashed or jumped. While st.mk does move forward during start up, on block it will ultimately push you further away.

There is nothing you can do that can’t be punished from a cr.block and/or requires Ryu to predict rather that react.
[/quote]

I will humor you and give you a very specific answer. The answer is to simply walk in and out of that range. You’re right in that you cannot convert that specific range into any easy advantage. You can’t launch a special or even buffer into one, especially if the ryu is good at spacing then you can’t make him push a button. So really your only DEFINITE option is to continue the neutral game. There’s no EASY advantage up for grabs here.

Hence why we gave “generic answers”. There’s no sure fire normal or special to take advantage of this situation. There’s no guaranteed way to continue pressure. And there’s certainly no guaranteed way to make your opponent push a button. But you know what? There’s always going to be a way SOMEHOW SOMEWAY. Not guaranteed but it’s possible. And as a guy player, no wait, a SF player, that’s all you really need.

So you could take my answer and continue the neutral game until he chips you to timeout or death or you could take our generic answers to somehow get around that keep away. We’re giving you a toolbox so that you can saw a wood in half when all you have in hand are a screwdriver and some pliers.

2231

Walk in and out of the range? Are you kidding me? That was the first response I gave once I realised what the problem was. I wouldn’t be talking to you if I was guessing wrong on footsies. He’s not pressing buttons, lmao. He’s ahead by chip so long as one of his fireballs caught me on block. He knows that. He’s not taking any chances. If he was pre-emptively trying to poke me as soon as I got in range, mk.BSK is right there for use. He’s on guard for the throw and reacting to everything else. mp Elbow gets mk>Fireball’d. Throw gets tech’d, but he’s not throwing out prediction crouch techs. Dude is just stoic with his game plan.

2232

See I have one question, where do you play online, PC, 360, PS3? Have you checked the replays and inpurs, I don’t necessarily want o point the finger at this but you sure your opponent wasn’t using a modded controller, unless you’ve heard of a player named toolassisted who play ABel, his defense is immaculate you wanna know why, his controller allows himt o automaticaly do the best result for any given situation, and his defense is basically impossible to break because he’ll block everything, tech everything, likely will never make a mistake. How to beat him? Uncrouchables.

Check the replay look at the inputs see if the guy is cheating, it’s online anyways and not every player is going to be unbreakable with their defense. Online can make it seem that way though simply because… you can cheat.

Still as we’ve all told you, you have to find a way to make that work out in your favor in the end, go for forward mp, or something, walk towards and HP Bushin, see if he jitters since he reacts to mp hozanto.

2233

Who is this player you speak of? Alex Valle reckons the Ryu-Guy matchup at high level is 7-3 (mostly because cr.mk blows Guy up so badly), the problem is no one sees it that way because 95% of Ryu players are absolute scrubs who have no idea how to handle the matchup correctly.

I’m not going to offer any advice, because to be honest, however well you are trying to articulate your argument, you’re kinda just coming across as being salty and dismissive of the advice people are offering to you.

However, you’re my buddy and a fellow Guy enthusiast, so I suggest you save a bunch of replays of you losing to these players that are making you so salty and I’ll run through what’s going wrong for you when I can watch them with you.

There is also the possibility that maybe those players are just better than you? I remember when Xian lost 10-0 to Daigo’s Ryu, he said the reason he lost so bad is because he had no idea what Daigo was doing. There were so many microscopic high level adaptations Daigo made, Xian couldn’t adjust to it or even understand what he was losing to. And that is coming from an EVO champion who I’m sure could destroy almost all the best Ryu players in the world. Sometimes it’s about more than the matchup, it’s about the person you’re playing, the mind games and personal adjustments made that result in the win or loss. Food for thought…

But for now, get saving replays of you getting bullied where you think there’s no hope for Guy and I’ll review them with you to see WTF is going on.

2234

I also had a salty moment where I questioned whether I was being bot’d or not. I saved the replays to check them over for gameplay review, I’ll turn on inputs and see what he was pressing, I’ll have to get back to you, but much like yourself - I don’t want to dwell on that as an excuse. If I was playing a rush down character and dropping crazy mixups on their asses and they were still immune to it all then I’d have been on that shit from the jump, but realistically, I know Guy’s moves just aren’t that rapid or easy to mistake, so the reactions weren’t too tricky. With the kind of reads that Daigo can make - it wasn’t that difficult to do. mp overhead starts up in 15 frames. I can react to stuff in 15 frames now. I’ve gotten out of enough jumping mix ups without wasting Ex on BSK reversals to know that 15 frames is possible.

Right now I’m trying to work on positioning and timing against certain aerial specials like Tatsus, Tiger knee, E.Honda’s Butt Slam, Oni’s falling elbow etc.

I am aware that in some instances these moves are punishable on block, but unlike the frame data says, they are not always negative on block, and I haven’t figured out the spacing to get a punish away from trying to force the moves to whiff completely. The Butt Slam is the most imperative as that move comes up way to often for me to be unable to cr.lk on a predicted block. That being said, I get some dumb online trades, like being counter hit after Cody’s lk ruffian kick or cr.hp are blocked… even though they put him at -7 and -6 respectively. And the ruffian kick is a standing position, so my chaining lp should be free.

2235

Alex Valle states at high level its 7-3? Then shouldn’t he be beating Marq Teddy for free in all their encounters? I’ve never seen any top Ryu player, beat a top Guy player for free in every encounter.

2236

Well Cody can space his ruffian to be safer which throws off your punish if its still possible. Also Butt Slam can’t be punished on block, BUT you can cr.mp on its ascension and if you see it you can forward dash under and still punish it on whiff in most occasions. You can also TK Izuna it if you have the read. Most of those moves require spacing and such to be safe besides tatsus some can be punished, some can’t. Tiger Knee for example if you block it crouching it hits later so try to always block it standing, It’ll give you a better chance of it not hitting on it’s later frames.

2237

I figured it had something to do with the frame at which it hits, I just didn’t know how to make it hit earlier. I have a similar problem with Guy’s HK and Run Overhead. Sometimes I’ll get a counter hit and still be punished: like an SPD from Gief on a counter hit elbow or HK (that doesn’t KD).

I have trouble with KIO. In a neutral jump it’s not too bad. I just time the jump to rise with my incoming opponent and you know the rest. Tiger Knee’ing it is ruff. 4 Pre jump frames, 3 start up frames after that. It’s like trying to counter with Cr.HK with that 7frame precursor - and cr.HK is one direction and on button, so you can perform the command quicker. I was really hoping the range on the throw would increase, or at least the invincibility on the EX.Version would allow you to Tiger Knee a DP being pulled on your wake up.

2238

And also - do light punches count as mid range moves to get punished by lk.BSK? Or are they immune to BSKs?

2239

You actually can do that, but their DP has to be delayed. I’ve got people like that because they will do do a delay DP in hopes to beat EX tatsu or blow up a delayed crouch tech. If they do it spot on then you’re getting hit.

2240

Sagat and Cammy wake up 1 frame later than normal. I do a runslide safe jump, they do their uppercuts: should I actually be getting hit? If so, why, especially considering Cammy has a 5 frame reversal in Cannon Spike.

And also, I’ve seen advice on Guy safe jumps that talk about using n.j.hp into crouch tech. If the opponent presses throw, don’t they get hit by the n.j.hp?