How would you advise handling the post-blocked-HK shenanigans?
I beat a very, very good Akuma player yesterday (despite the 26 hit combo) by basically being very patient and being very evasive. The only time I put any pressure on was block strings ending in F+MK pressure. He wasn’t very fond of throwing out unconfirmed HK though.
I asked him after the match how I could have done better and his answer was to use even more F+MK. Seems obvious to me that Akuma could just teleport out of that whole situation on block, but there it is.
What post-blocked shenanigans? After you block it you end up neutral, and if he tries to go for another HK or a cr.mk or w/e, just use st.lk. It’ll beat almost ALL his follow ups (unless he goes for srk, in which case he’s taking a huge risk)
S. Lk Is godlike vs. an akuma who is trying to random S.HK. It beats out cr.HK as well and forces akuma to find another way in. Against good akumas you gotta air to air for your damage and poke here and there. Otherwise play very patient and keep a keen eye for any openings.
don’t jump in on him, he has a lot of anti-air options. Empty jumping usually beats his dragon kick but will lose to his crouching forward which then combos into hands… you can safe jump his kick. It has a crazy hit box I have not yet figured out (does it lose to low meaties?) but it can always be thrown on start up
standing close fierce completely shuts down Gen’s jump if he is starting to cross you up a lot
I find his jump is otherwise too short and fast to properly anti-air with crouching fierce or crouching forward
Gen has some nasty neutral jump mixups that are best hit with c.mk although that will probably trade
punishing
Bait EX Oga. You can punish it with ultra - wait until he is about halfway down from the top of the screen to do it. If you do it too early your ultra will whiff and then he will get his massive retaliatory combo since that kick launches
I personally have a hard time punishing his whiffed dragon kick since it doesn’t seem to have many recovery frames on the ground. You can falling sky or I usually reset him with standing far fierce. Does 130 damage/200 stun in one hit and since you just stuffed his only good reversal, he is unlikely to mash out another one so you get a good reset opportunity. If he does an extra kick to go over your head, falling sky him
Blocked dive kicks… if he hits you too soon the best you can get is a close fierce (sometimes) or a normal throw (most times). They can space them to be safer, but Gen tends to backdash after this since he is within TT reach so punish the back dash with CoD
Gen has a lot of tricks in this matchup and I don’t know them all… in the corners watch out for stuff like cross ups that hit you in the back, but he lands in front… stuff like that
Regarding the Bison matchup, it’s not always safe to go for Falling Sky when he does Reverse, correct? Maybe I’m mistiming it, but I felt like his Reverse was going directly on top of me rather than a little bit in front of me for FS’s range. I use the lp FS so, it should cover that whole area. I see it come out too so I don’t think I’m doing it late. Early or just well-placed reverse?
Being a cammy player myself I have to call out juice and say that he has some wrong info on the Cammy match-up. Cannon strike CAN cross you up in the corner, And when cammy starts doing cannon strikes on you it becomes a guessing game. If cammy see’s that you like to throw she’ll just come down with a second cannon strike and land a big combo. If you try and jab out of it she’ll go for a counter hit setup.
I got owned by Chun’s instant overhead j.HK on wakeup on the weekend, went to training mode and found something interesting. Even when hit by the instand overhead, Abel can MP/HP CoD while Chun Li is in the air and combo into exFS or ultra! The CoD needs to be reversal timing or close to reversal and its actually easier to do it when hit crouching then when hit standing. So no need to fear the instant jump away HK on wakeup.
My friend mains Cammy, so I play against one all the time. Abel’s one of the characters I use the most so yeah. Anyway, Cammy can also set up a SAFE, meaty RH Spiral Arrows on both forward and back throws. If they time it correctly, only the tail end of the second hit of the RH SA will hit on our wakeup, and at this point, we are at negative frame advantage. From here, they go into her standard mix-up, pressure game (throw [where they can set it up again], TK CS, etc.).
Some things to make note of:
Reversal EX Roll will get us out of the meaty SA
Regular reversal roll gets hit by meaty SA
The timing to input meaty SA on back throw is right after her cr.RH
The timing to input meaty SA on forward throw is shortly right after the throw animation
Ultra doesn’t seem guaranteed when I was testing it. Even if Abel blocks it, she’ll either be able to block in time or Abel will overshoot her. Once in a while it works but the timing is very strict. Same as getting the CoD to connect as a ground combo. The only reliable punish seems to be CoD as she is in the air.
HAV sorry I’m doing this so late. I dont check PM’s
I feel the match is 5-5 but Abel has to work a little harder. Balrog dominates in footsies because he better ground pokes and a reliable anti air. Abel has to work harder because he has to try to get a knockdown to begin his mixups. Once Abel knocks down rog though, the momentum shifts into Abel’s advantage. Abel’s crossup MK works wonders against rog because it makes rog EX rush punch try to auto correct which ends up staying right next to abel open to a sweep. It is also safe from headbutts so it basically forces rog to block on wakeup which leads to empty jump throws, tick throws, etc.
When I fight abel, my main objective is also to knock him down so I use a lot of standing jabs since he cannot crouch them and if it hits i can easily hit confirm into his sweep. it interrupts most of his attacks except i think his cr. RH. Abel can also EX tornado throw me out of my standing jab pressure but rog’s standing jab has very long range for being a 4 frame with only 4 frames of recovery. Trying to EX tornado throw it every time is not the smartest idea. My standing jabs force abel to back off or try to counter poke me but i find that i usually stop him from jumping and attacking. I actually find it hard when the abel player is patient and willing to block all of my standing jabs until i decide to try something different. When i get that sweep on abel is when i feel i have complete advantage. The mixup on abel is relatively simple, meaty throw (beats EX tornado throw but loses to normal TT), mixed in with meaty cr. jab or cr.forward (beats normal TT but loses to EX TT), mixed in with neutral jump fierce, or neutral empty jump throw or cr. jab. If i empty neutral jump throw it beats TT, EX TT and rolls. Abel is the one who has to guess when he gets knocked down and guessing wrong leads into another knockdown which can potentially lead into dealing with the same mixup again, especially in the corner. I’m not really hesitant to jump to abel because he doesnt have good anti airs but I don’t jump that often either because I don’t really need to because i can control the ground. I find that abel players that can anticipate my jump and air to air me with jump MK do well because it is a reset that puts abel in an advantaged position because he can dash under or stay in front and get tick throw mixups which could lead to knockdown. I don’t think abel should ever be jumping to rog unless its a crossup. Defensively dealing with abel’s mixups is not so bad because mashing on backdash seems to work most of the time because balrog has a long range backdash. Other characters cannot backdash all day on abel as easily but so far i haven’t had too many problems doing that. I’m not saying that mashing backdash owns abel because i know he has tools to stop that like COD or sweep but as a balrog player it’s very effective. I’ll add more to this later but I think covered the basics (ground game, knockdown mixups)