my bad, thanks for the correction.
EDIT- eagle sucks in N-groove, 50 points:(
vices s.mk is a great poke.
she has great medium pokes, but not like Iori’s f+mp into whatever, stuff like that
haha bucks n vice is no joke
buck question - vs me you did i think it was lklk grab super, i was holding up on the stick during your lks but still couldnt jump out of the grab, anything special about this?
not my k-sagat, muahahahahaha
your k fagat would get raped by my iori?
This is a great thread! I’m trying to play N because I like to control when I do supers and I love run. Small jump is a very nice perk.
One question I have, no one here has discussed safe fall. I never use safe fall because I simply forget to (!) I do know how to punish it with certain characters (Hibiki for example), but how important is safe fall to N-groove’s game?
Safe Fall is a bit of a misnomer. One thing people don’t realize is that a Safe Fall isn’t safe. It should only be used when you’re 99% sure you can’t be punished by it (the other 1% being high-risk surprise wake-ups). That is, it should be not used far more than it is used. Most characters have excellent safe fall checks, mix-ups and setups, even more when you throw a running groove in there.
Hibiki is a good example. Her running slash covers a ton of distance in a hurry, and has some tempting recovery too. If you go a bit deeper with it than you would for a safe fall check, you can try a super on them as they think they have a free shot at a botched special move.
The reason why I love Maki against a safe fall groove is because her check is her running slide. It covers full screen, and if they stay on the ground, you can land a free 720 as they get up.
The strange thing about playing at a high level is learning to take into consideration the safe fall. Keeping people on the ground in this game is extremely important for positioning purposes. Until you can learn to incorporate counter safe fall tactics into your overall game, you’re going to have a hard time getting in close to some annoying people, since they know they have a free up everytime you knock them down.
Of course, this only applies when fighting against A, N and K-Groovers. C, P and S groove have Tactical Recovery, which is a whole different beast altogether…
Here’s somethingI find quite interesting. Note this is not a flaw I claim with Buk’s system, rather I find it quite a good system. This is just something to keep in mind.
Ken
-Does this character benefit heavily from low jumps? (+10 points)
Definatly. Incredible help to get in, we all know about his ‘unblockable’.
-run? (+10)
Definatly. Whilst Ken’s Dash is quite good, having Run is better. With the shoto c.lp he can really apply pressure with a great rushdown.
-roll? (+10)
Quite a decent roll.
-roll cancel? (+10)
RC Funky kick. Nuff said.
-Add 20 points if your character benefits from some combination of either run/low jump and roll/roll cancel. Add 25 points if your character benefits from 3 of the above. Add 35 if your character benefits all 4.
Ok.
-Does you character benefit from counter roll? (+5, +10 if your character is Blanka)
Yes. Counter-Roll into close s.hk xx Fierce DP is great damage, great stun, set’s up a knockdown, and doesn’t even need meter. Of course you can always use meter too.
-having level 1’s? (+5)
Ken can make good use of frequent lvl’s. Every jump in becomes serious damage, and shinryuken for free is a nice thing to have. Think S-Ken with RC.
-does your character guard crush well? (+5)
And how. Close s.hk is cheap lol. Ph33r K3n.
-does your character benefit from having a (kinda sorta) stored meter? And/or build meter well? (+5)
Shoto’s like to sit on meter. Pop-lvl3 is a nice thing to sit on when you’re Ken.
-does your character have a level 3 to level 1 combo? (+2)
Actually no. Not a good one anyway.
-an alpha counter to level 3 combo? (+3)
Not that I know of, unless you can AC-Pop-Juggle Shinryuken, which I doubt.
So Ken scores a hefty 95.
This makes Ken look perfect for N Groove, and indeed he is. N-Ken is a monster. HOWEVER, the interesting part is even though he scored 95, it can still be argued that he is better in A and C. Now my explanation of this is that RC-Ken is just a really strong character independant of groove. So just keep in mind that some characters, whilst great in N-Groove, may still be better in others. This of course works both ways.
So, break stock doesnt increase the defense?? doesnt reduce the damage??
i think another big pre-requisite for a character to be good in N-groove is powerful B&B combos. iori, yamazaki, chun li, ken, akuma, sagat, blanka, etc etc etc all have very damaging B&B combos. since N-groove doesn’t have CC’s or level 2 cancels, the big source of damage is most likely going to come from B&B combos (since popping a stock telegraphs your super and break stock super shouldn’t be your main method of landing level 3’s.
peace
A powerful b&b just makes a character a lot better in general… a little too broad imo. Anyway, Ken’s and Blanka’s b&b’s don’t do a whole lot of damage at all.
In retrospect, I could’ve worded a few things on the checklist differently:
- Does your character frequently use level 1’s?
- Does your character need/benefit a LOT from counter roll? (i.e. characters who cannot punish Blanka balls normally, characters with crazy fast rolls like Iori/King, etc)
Of course, pretty much everybody benefits from stored supers also, but hey! I made the checklist in like 5 minutes. :bgrin:
N-groove ken is a monster primarily because low jump adds options to his shitty matchups. add RC + run to the mix and his guard crush game is even better. and blanka is blanka, and N-blanka rapes sakura because he can counter roll through her shoshosho. cuz 99% of the blanka vs sakura matches i see are blanka dominating, then sakura randomly lands her GC custom, and it’s ggpo. but without that, then blanka dominates that matchup.
N-groove is the future. ya’ll need to stop playing easy-mode A-groove bullshit. i’ve got some sick N-groove shit i’m working on right now. i miss old school cvs2 where you actually had to think about rushdown patterns, pokes, etc. sure, there was a bunch of N-ryu, but it’s better than A-blanka/sak/bison all day.
peace
PS- i <3 tokido
@ popoblo -
I hear you man. That shit stil exists though (me for one lol) it’s just a lot harder than easy-mode A-groove. There are still quite a few people who think rushdown has a place in this game, albiet nowhere near enough :(.
Why is it a LOT of people gave up on N Groove anyways? Were there just too many options for people’s brains to comprehend? Or did they just find A Groove, turtle, build meter and land a random CC to win just that exciting.
Popo,
People really overrate N-Ken. They think just because he has low jump and run, it makes him a better offensive character. The truth of the matter is, having those things really don’t make his offense any better, because rushdown is just slow in this game to begin with. Ken really doesn’t have any good offensive tools to work with on top of that. His range is just short enough for the longer ranged characters to give him headaches, and fireballs are TOOOOO risky to use as pokes in this game so there goes his ranged game. If you want to play a good rushdown Ken (or ANY Ken for that matter) your style has to be REALLY REALLY kamikaze for it to work, because he has no quote on quote “braindead” tools. On top of that, his meter is WAAAAY better in C-Groove. The threat of short, short, Super in C-Groove is way more scary than in N-Groove because once you actually DO get those two stocks, your opponent will just play more carefully until your meter runs out.
Why shouldn’t they? They know you’ll be looking for a way to land it, so all they gotta do is sit back and block/counter/runaway until it’s gone, then the match resumes.
So it’s like this…
-Ken can’t play from a distance because he’s too easy to counter.
-You try to rushdown instead but because his offense is so damn slow, you get countered for free.
-So what do you do now?
People gave up on N-Groove for several reasons.
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No air defense whatsoever.
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N-Groove is the premiere rushdown groove, but there are simply too many defensive options in this game…RC, roll, quick building and EXTREMELY damaging supers, JD, Dodge, CC activation, etc. You can’t even fart without it being countered by something in this game. One offensive groove, 6 defensive grooves…you do the math.
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The features that make N-Groove offense based are ineffective when it actually comes to rushing down, mainly low jump and run.
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And lastly, N-Groove doesn’t really have as good access to super bar like the other grooves (sans S-Groove and P-Groove). Has anyone noticed that supers do a considerably larger amt of damage in this game than in other SF’s AND they build faster??? That’s because Capcom, in an attempt to make matches not last for 887967656 hours like in CvS1, upped the damage/meter building of supers so matches don’t last so long. That’s partly why C, A, and K are the best grooves…they allow you to do big damage at nearly any point in matches because the meter in those grooves builds quickly.
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Characters that have good air-to-airs and air-to-ground moves can less rely on air defense. Besides, C, A and S don’t have any air-to-ground defense either (except with a full A-groove meter, of course). Jumping in is a bit more riskier, then, but deciding when to jump and what you do in the air should be based on what character you’re using and what character you’re jumping in on. Don’t forget that P and K people take a risk every time they jump in as well, because not only do they have to worry about getting the parry timing right, they have to worry about getting thrown when they land, too.
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There are 6 defensive grooves. N is truly the only one that is offensive the entire time. Therefore, it’s the only complete offensive and defensive groove in the game. And forget the damaging supers… N has damaging normals. It’s a lot easier to land a string of normals (hit or blocked) then it is to land a super. As I explained earlier, hitting a powered-up combo can be more effective then burning the stock on a super, and even more effective than some Level 3s. Over the course of your three characters, all that extra damage dealt may cancel out that one “EXTREMELY” damaging super they managed to land on you.
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This depends on the characters you use. Telling me that small jump is not useful in rushdown is hogwash. It’s a quick jump, and you do things quickly when rushing down. It’s the easiest way to get people to stand up so you can hit low and go into a combo.
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Totally untrue. If A-Groove’s meter bulids quickly, so does N’s. If you can fill up A in 20 seconds, you can have a Level 3 MAX super ready in N with the same 20 seconds. The A and N meters are the same size, it’s just that there’s more meter to fill up in N. The difference is that the A-Groove meter must be full to be useful, wherein N-Groove only needs that one stock to get things going. Activate it for 20% damage and guard crush boost. Counter roll out of Sakura’s missed A-Groove combo and put the free hurt on.
The misconception about the meter (as I explained eariler) is that it’s the only meter that should not be completely filled. Sitting on three stocks is like you turtling when you’ve got a K-Rage going on. Wherein C, A, P and K’s meters need to be filled completely to have big damage potential, N’s needs to only be partially filled, about to the same capacity of a full A-Groove meter. Any meter built beyond two stocks just makes building back up to two stocks that much faster after using one.
In fact, N-Groove’s meter builds faster than A’s. A is not a rushdown groove. If you have the same character doing meter-buliding in A, they will always build it faster in N’s rushdown mode. You can’t argue this. (Remember, we’re not trying to completely fill the N-meter, we’re only trying to get two stocks, which is equivilant to a full A-meter.)
The reason why people dropped N-Groove is because they do not understand this. For a similar reason, S-Groove isn’t popular because people do not understand that’s it’s not simply a groove with a useless meter. If you’ve ever seen DocB or other S-Groove players, you can see how much of a nuisance they can be. If done correctly, N-Groove can be just as troublesome.
And oh-by-the-way, Buk did make it to the final 8 at Evo. Last time I checked, he uses N-Groove (albeit incorrectly, that Iori scrub :).
Windy,
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The reason why air defense is important is because conventional AA’s (i.e. DP, normal move AA’s) simply don’t work against distanced jump-ins and distanced jump straight up attacks. The only ways to reliably counter these attacks are to super them (i.e. Sagat Super High Tiger Shot) or simply jump forward and knock your opponent out of the air with your own attack. With that said lets look at how the grooves in question deal with both situations.
K-Groove…JD in both situations.
A-Groove…CC activation in both situations (but no one would waster their meter to counter a jump attack).
C-Groove…air-blocks jump attacks but can’t counter supers.
N-Groove…no answer for EITHER situation. Sitting duck in the air. -
Forget damaging supers, N has damaging normals??? :xeye:
The extra damage you receive from breaking a stock is NOOOOWHERE close to being as threatening as having a level 3, level 2, or full A-Groove bar…not even close.
Are we talking about the same game here? lol -
I guess we agree on this. Only certain characters have good low jump attacks like Vega, Blanka, Sagat, Hibiki, etc., but its more because their attacks are angled downward, making them harder to react to, not the actual low jump itself. Characters like Ken and Cammy don’t have effective downward angled low jump attacks. Their low jump attacks are easier to counter on reaction.
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No one looks to build all three stocks in N-Groove, that’s a given. But compare what you can do with C,A,and K groove bars to N-Groove bar.
C can sit on their meter perpetually AND it builds very very very fast.
K, while not having the ability to sit on meter, gets about 2-3 RAGED level 3’s PER ROUND…PER ROUND. :lol: :lol:
A can also sit on their meter perpetually AND it builds fast. According to you, N builds just as fast if not faster than A.
I won’t argue if this is true or not, but the fact that you can sit on A makes it more practical in a real match than N. You can’t argue that.
I think N-Ken is the shit. Running lets him easily follow up after a throw or a non-side switching dp+HP, something which dash-groove Ken can’t do as well. Meaty close s.HK, low shorts, and the jab command roll all pose a serious threat whenever Ken’s standing over you, something which N-Ken does really well since he can pretty much run after any knockdown.
Short, short xx level 1, then super jump forward MK is one of the toughest to counter offensive patterns in the entire game. Not only is the 50/50 block super cheap in my opinion, but Ken can even hit confirm close s.HK xx dp+HP, run after body after the j.MK. If the close s.HK is blocked, +4 sets up a counter hit d.MK or a s.LK xx fancy kick.
(Against K-groove, go for low shorts after the j.MK though, since JDing will throw off your timing for the close s.HK.)
Ken does have a problem that none of his main pokes are really safe (other than the d.MK, which has no range anyway), but that goes for any other Ken as well. My strategy in general is to press forward, but still out of my opponent’s max poke range, and wait for the opponent to give me something to counter (like a roll or a dumb jump). I don’t waste time jiggling, since Ken’s walk is nothing special and his punishing pokes are unsafe anyway. I never take a step backwards. What I do want, is an opportunity to land my f+HK. Once I can get the other guy to at least block that move, that’s when my Ken offense can really start.
That’s my basic Ken gameplan. I believe that N-groove makes it even stronger by giving me an extra tool to work with. Normally when the opponent whiffs a laggy poke like Cammy’s s.HK, that’s when I hit my f+MK. Run groove now lets me run up, d.HK as well. If I manage to land the hit, that’s even better than landing a f+HK! I get the knockdown and can now go for a cross-up or a meaty low jump j.MK.
Only scrubs jump in all day with shoto’s anyway. I honestly believe N-Ken is the strongest Ken, but he’s for experts only. Guile is better in C-groove anyway, so that’s why I play C-Ken for now. But yeah, I would definately use N-Ken if I were good.