If you’re a sitting duck in the air, that’s because you’re stupidly jumping in. Again, you’re just as quacked in the air if you’re C or A jumping in on a grounded opponent or miss a JD/parry with those types of grooves.
I’m not saying that I’d rather not have some sort of air defense, of course. (I would, and I do when I use K from time to time.) Play some ST, where you also have no air defense, and tell me that jumping in is impossible.
It’s not threating, which makes it more dangerous than you think. People do not respect you when you’ve broken a stock, so they are less likely to turtle up like people do againt a K rage or full A meter. If you have a single stock and break it, they usually assume that since you can’t super them, they’re safe. If you had the opportunity for your character’s regular attacks to do 120% damage anytime you wanted, why wouldn’t you take it? If you’ve got two stocks you can quickly pop one and super to punish or to surprise jump-ins if you have good anti-airs, which turns you from harmless to dangerous almost instantly.
I’m not saying that the meter system for N is the best. I can’t argue that C-Groove’s meter can’t be beat. Both C and A can can sit on their meter. Fine by me. Sitting on the meter means you’re not using the meter, which means that they’re not causing any major damage with it. They’ll land their supers and combos, I’ll land my supers and combos, we’ll both miss our supers and combos. The fact that the threat is there means nothing if they can’t land the damn supers or get a combo in.
K Groove is only useful if you have life. If it’s toward the end of a round and both people are close to death, and Mr. K-Groove is out of meter, he’s pretty screwed, ain’t he? Rage only helps you if you manage to actually land your super or get off a few good licks. (N-Groove’s damage boost cancels out the K defensive bonus, another nice feature.) Since players turtle up when someone gets a K-Rage, they’re less likely to actually land it, compared to other Level 3 supers. In fact, N can turn a completely safe burn-off super into a completely unsafe one because of counter roll. Think Sagat can just run up and get some free chip damage? Roll past that idiot and fill his meter up again.
Don’t think I’m saying N is the best groove. It’s not. I am of the opinion that C is the best groove. However, saying the groove is bad or that it sucks without understanding it is stupid. Just respect the groove, that’s all I ask.
Oh, in case you people didn’t know, A-Groove’s meter is 722 long, and N-Groove’s is 723 long. It’s just that N appears to be longer because half of an A-Groove meter is stretched out to basically twice the length.
well, kcxj and windyman covered what i was going to say to REALPLAYER. one thing N-groove has that no other groove has is this…COUNTER ROLL. extremely important, because it makes “safe” block strings or patterns punishable and it allows blanka to not die to sakura.
here’s my question- are all backwards counter movements the same in terms of frame duration and what not or are they different for every character?
I think the only way to properly convey my message is to state an example.
N-Sagat vs. C-Sagat.
The C-Sagat player knows that he can never jump-in from close range or else he’ll get Tiger Uppercuted or Super High Tiger Shotted for free.
This leaves C-Sagat with only two jump-in options…
a. cross-up short which will force N-Sagat to Reverse DP_Super (not always easy, and if you fuck up, you’ll get comboed and knockedown with Sagat close to you = not good) or simply roll,
b. if C-Sagat is going to jump-in, only jump-in from max range where it’s more difficult to counter.
Let’s focus on b right now. The only way N-Sagat can reliably counter C-Sagats far j.rh is to Super him. Tiger Uppercut is NOT a good answer in this situation because C-Sagat can simply empty jump, making the TU miss and N-Sagat is in for a world of pain.
Now lets reverse the situation…now it’s N-Sagat jumping in.
Once again, close jumpins will get you wrecked.
Cross-ups are still viable, but counterable.
But now, because N-Groove has no air defense, far j.rh is no longer a decent jump-in attack because now you can get punished by High Super Tiger Shot AND C-Sagats own jumping air-to-air attack (i.e. j. fierce), both FOR FREE.
N-Groove = Sitting duck in the air.
I could go on stating examples with RC’s and CC activation with various matchups but bah…
**
No disrespect Windy, but I really don’t believe there’s someone out there that thinks powered up normals > Super bar.
Super bar plays a MAJOR role in this game.
I don’t understand how anyone who plays this game extensively can’t see that.
This is true, Counter roll is good and has some guaranteed setups but it’s not enough.
By the way, what characters are you experimenting with in n-groove? When i first started playing cvs2 it was all about n-groove Ryu, Yama, Rolento, Sagat, Eagle, Blanka, and Cammy. I’ve recently tried N-Ken, N-Chun, N-Hibiki, N-Vega, N-Sak and N-Guile…N-Chun being the most successful but still lacking.
Early far s.HK can shut down that silliness. It’s not N-groove specific either. Far s.HK is pretty much the best anti-air for far away jump-ins for any Sagat.
Do you play at CF btw? A lot of good C and K players there, so that would definately be one reason to be biased. Play at other places though (like in Cali) and there are some seriously beastly N-groovers as well. Remember Sagat is still Sagat no matter what groove he’s in. :bgrin:
Backwards counter rolls are like forward counter rolls: they’re all dependant on the character.
Something everybody seems to never realize is that N-Groove has far more groove-exclusive features than just counter roll: it has the combination of run, low jump, roll, and roll cancel. There are a lot of things you cannot do unless you have this combination of features. For a simple example Iori combos into rekkas to knock you down, then proceeds to run and do the cross up roll/non-cross up roll 50-50 mix up. VERY powerful tool, only available in N-Groove. Ken running RC funky kicks. Blanka low jump rh, kkk hop back, counter whatever they might try with RC ball. List goes on and on.
realplayer: you’re totally overstating the importance of air defense. For one, it doesn’t come into play nearly as often as you try to make it sound. Guaranteed counter roll opportunities (or the threat of) come into play much more often from my experience. For another, not every character benefits a whole lot from air block. It’s like saying C-Groove sucks because there’s no counter rolls or something like that.
At the same time, you’re totally understating the usefulness of run and low jump. While they do help, they’re not limited to OMG L33T RUSHDOWN!!11 tactics. Aside from the many set ups that are only available with run/low jump, they are both very useful defensively as well.
That right there tells me that you obviously have NO experience in fighting a good N-Ken, and also you have no idea how to play Ken OR N-Groove. Obot’s RC’ing N-Ken could teach you a thing or to about how Ken supposedly “doesn’t have any good offensive tools.”
I’m not flaming here but seriously you actually said that “he has no quote on quote “braindead” tools” - like it was a bad thing for a character to require skill.
Honestly you don’t know ANYTHING about how to play N-Groove, and I’m not gonna waste an 8-page post and my time teaching you for the sake of some forum argument. Go find a good N-Player, becuase you obviously haven’t encountered one, then you will see how suposedly “rushdown is just slow in this game.”
lol, OBOT’S N-ken is good? that’s news to me (sorry obot, you’re still my boy). togawa’s N-ken would be good. and he does make valid points, although the slow rushdown point is kinda off, plus saying that his rushdown can be “countered for free” is way off.
and he’s right, ken doesn’t have anything that is truly abusable. it’s a valid point.
I don’t think Obot’s N-Ken is a pioneer or anything lol, I just said that he could show him a thing or too with his 100% RC funky kick.
On the note of N-Ken not having anything abusable, he was talking about abusable like Sagat c.fierce, he said “braindead.” Depending on the way you interpret ‘braindead’ you’re either saying he doesn’t have anything like Sagats c.hp (which 95% of the rest of the cast don’t have an equivilent to so that’s dumb) or you could regard it as you said, something abusable - aka Guile’s RC boom. Ken’s RC funky kick is pretty goddam versatile, and people accuse it all the time.
My point was that saying N-Ken has no good offensive tools was just really really wrong. N-Shoto’s have a plethora of offensive tools, and Ken more so than the others.
Ahh, this is exactly what I wanted. Some good debate on CvS2.
kcxj,
Yes I play at ctf and only at ctf. Dude check your PM’s.
Buk,
The only for me to put it is like this. Certain things that i do, require me to have air block or some type of air defense. Without it, the shit simply won’t work. shrugs
vasAZNion13,
Easier?? No. Better?? Yes. You have to time it late so that you get full hits from the Tiger Cannon and not just one or two hits wasting your meter.
Popo,
C’mon dude, spill the beans. j/k BTW, you’re the reason i started (or rather, went back to) using Eagle. I usually used him in C or N, but then tried A. Never realized how damaging his custom was until i tried it. Said to myself “Cotdam, so easy, so much damage!” Got hooked. lol
Ranevski,
I play Ken AAALLL the time. Definitely my most used character behind Sagat. I am WELL aware of what he can do, and what he can’t do…WELL aware. I’m also very well aware of the usefulness of RC Funky Kick, as I use it alot myself, and have had it used on me alot…ALOT. As a matter of fact, I made a post about it in the Ken section. And please, I’d like you to “teach” me how to use N-Groove. That was my alterior motive in my posts…to get player feedback.
So I’m assuming when you play A-Groove you do a lot of blind jump in activates? Because you know, A-Groove’s air defense is so much better than N-Groove’s.
Anyway, there’s about… fifty things I do that require the combination of run, low jump and roll. C-Groove doesn’t have that. Hell, NO other grooves have that. Does that mean people should give up on the other grooves?
vasAZNion13,
High Tiger Cannon would be better than a jumping attack in the said situation, but it’s also more difficult if your opponent jumps in from that range unexpectedly and you’re not ready. And of course it’s easy if you’re looking for it. I do that all the time, but i have to be expecting it. Unfortunately, my reflexes are not fast, but if i see it coming, somebody’s gettin’ fried.
OK, time for some questions about N-Ken. Anyone is welcome to answer.
One of my biggest problems with Ken against grooves with roll, is that from about 2-3 characters distance away, I CAN’T DO SHIT safely. Fireball, s.rh, twd+rh, run, low jump rh, etc. all get jumped, rolled, trade, whiff (except for fb but this get’s rolled and sj’d for free), countered, supered, whatever. I usually rely on RCFK from this range, which works well if they stick something out, but sometimes they won’t, and I’m stuck there feeling like my opponent has control over the match. Seriously, I feel so helpless from this spot as I’m HORRIBLY outranged.
What can you do?
Blanka gives me headaches. All of Blanka’s moves keep Ken out VERY well. Ken can RCFK his pokes, but when you’re playing someone who’s deceptive with their poking, you’ll be hardpressed.
Standing short does OK, but it trades sometimes…NOT in Ken’s favor. I really have no idea how to tackle this match. Suggestions.
Ok, again not meaning to sound rude honestly, but do you know what baiting is? I’m not going to lie, you need to have a good footsie game and above-average baiting skills to use shoto’s well. The thing about N is that you aren’t restricted to playing bait-and-punish like you are in C and A.
You have ‘teh rushdown’ available to you in Run, Low Jump, Roll, and RC. Honestly if you watch Ohnuki in action you can see exactly what I’m talking about. That guy doesn’t let up, really it teaches you a lot just by watching him. Note: His Akuma is dope, and Akuma has much more trouble at the range you described than Ken, seriously go to DC++ and check it out, you’ll love it ;).
Damn, you guys are all talking to this guy as if he sucks or something. I’ll put money on this one that he definately doesn’t.
He’s right about anti-airing being difficult when the opponent does it unexpectedly. I practice dping and supering people out of the air all the time, and I still have instances where I end up blocking an unexpected jump-in. It’s annoying, but it happens, especially when you’re actively focusing the ground game instead. When you can tell the other guy is totally focused on the poking and zoning game is the best time to take the risk and jump in actually.
For example, Sagat just made me block his d.HP and now he is crouching at the moment = a very BAD time to jump-in, as he’s obviously waiting to dp, punish your roll, or poke you further with a low tiger shot if you do nothing or try to counter poke.
On the other hand, Sagat walking back and forth actively looking for you to stick out a limb (so he can punish with s.HP xx super), but you’re not giving him that opening, so he takes the initiative to walk forward and poke you first = a pretty good time to try and get in with a jump-in attack.
Any Sagat player here who can bust out a level 2 super on reaction everytime while they’re in the middle of a heated footsies game like that >>> me playing Sagat. You guys are talking like that super is an instant one button counter to any jump at anytime, no matter what the circumstances. I agree with Realplayer that it’s simply not true.
I put a Ken vs Blanka post in the Ken section if anybody is interested.
Ranevski, you wrote something along the lines of “just bait him!”, but I don’t think it’s really as easy as you make it seem. Blanka is a difficult match for Ken and I think your post would of been better if you gave some examples of things you can do as well.
You’re overexaggerating your vulnerabilty problem. Just because the other guy can roll against your f+HK, is he always going to do it? What if he was hitting a button at that instant, and since your f+HK most likely outranges his own move by a lot, you get a clean counter hit with Ken instead? I say the trade off in being vulnerable to rolls is worth it for the high priority foot, with range AND heavy block stun.
Don’t make such a big deal of it whenever you do get randomly rolled against I think. Just that fact that you can do 7000+ damage from a low short if the other guy ever does roll (because they think you’re going to do your risky Hadouken or f+HK again), makes up for everything.
Once you’ve made the opponent scared, then THEY’RE the ones that are going to feel that they can’t do shit. Press f+HK as often as you’d like then.
