Follow your heart I say!:china:
Who knows, you might be unwittingly doing yourself a favor by taking a break from Abel.
It’s unfortunate that the very nature of the offense offered by a character like Abel makes it very easy for many players to forget, overlook or deem unimportant; fundamentals which Pills and Guy so eloquently argued for its necessity.
By switching to a character like Ryu whom has nice pokes and a less straight forward ambiguous offensive game, you’ll find yourself in the position where the game will DEMAND from you stronger than before, your attention to such things as footsies and spacing.
Your awareness of such things will surely strengthen and any strong dependance or deep reliance on crude, blunt guessing you may or may not have will surely dwindle!
I say go for it if its what you truly feel!:clapdos:
Learn Ryu, you will be doing yourself a substantial favor
Training and learning a character like Ryu only to come back and reapply what you’ve learned to Abel could be exactly what the Dr. ordered :encore:
Seems more and more like a blocked step kick is just asking for a knockdown, though. I’ve been reading and it seems like at high level play, people know that a grab can beat pretty much everything Abel can throw out. I’ve been doing empty step kicks and punishing the whiffed throw with another step kick but it just seems like step kick pressure isn’t worth it sometimes.
i cant believe some of the things written here… its one thing that youre bad at using one of abels best/most important tool, its another tryin to justify that you dont need it to win… tell me how do you plan to get knockdowns/damage then? from AA-ing, st.lk and sweep only? if you feel like youre doing bad at “high level” with stepkick, im sure youll do worst without.
Lol honestly doubleoh’s post asks for someone to come out swinging lololol.
Regardless of knowing when to do it, spacing, and all that other crap; Stepkick still needs to used smartly. As in always thinking about how opponent reacts to it and how u want them to react.
If they grabbing after step kick, TT beats it as cleanly as possible. Yes it’s a risk, but it would be a risk made after getting a read on the guy or being psychic.
In high level play, the opponents generally tend to go with throw after step kick because high level abels(with exception of rico suave lol that guy is fearless) tend to feel out the opponent after step kick by step kick-> st fierce, normal grab, cr tech, block, jabs , or empty step kick(although this isn’t really an option until you have instilled fear of step kick onto your opponent) and normal throw puts opponent in neutral or favorable position against all abels safer choices. Moreover, unless the opponent is respecting u as a player, the guy will keep on grabbing until u can show u can adapt. Thats when u TT his ass. Now he has no choice to respect step kick. If the opponent respects ur abel and step kick right from beginning, he may backdash, do 3 frame normal, or reversal after second step kick and if u want to win, u have to think a step or 2 ahead: mind games.
now that i think of it though, step kick is a double edged sword against good players. If you aren’t thinking constantly about your step kick, the guy will take advantage of every step kick approach and that is insta death lol. But, if your thinking a step ahead with every step kick…well you gonna get a message saying step kick is hella cheap.
Straight freaking knowledge being spat in this thread. I feel that learning to use Abel’s Step kick in this game has expanded my knowledge of the game in general I play the game differently now when I use other characters for fun, due to what I’ve learned with Abel. I use Step kick in a manner of different ways to feel out the opponent, my favorite being on a dp’less characters wake up to test the waters lol, but I think something that may Help Angry Abel is to first practice using Step kick after far St LK in footsies. I’ve improved with Abel unusually fast in a short time but that being said I’ve been playing SF4 since Vanilla so I had most basics down, but even so Abel has expanded how i think of the game, he’s a real rewarding character in that sense, at least for me personally having mained supposed “better characters” in my character crisis days.
c’mon pills didnt we already agree the other day that i have better execution than you? obviously im the better Abel
anyway all I was trying to say is that a blocked step kick is not the best situation for Abel, meaning it’s obviously less enviable than a step kick that connects. I still go in with my step kick. All I was trying to say with my post is that is some recent matches have made me think twice about how I approach a fight when my step kick is blocked. blocked step kick = 0 frame advantage/disadvantage. considering close standing fierce, abel’s fastest move, comes out in 4 frames, there’s bound to be problems. its up to us to make sure we get our damage in. I’m just rethinking about how I’m gonna do that. in reality, most people don’t even wanna mess with step kick cause the throw has to be frame perfect. in the end it IS a good situation for Abel, but not every situation is gonna be the same. some players are just that good.
what I’ve been doing recently, like I said, is using empty step kick to test the waters. By nature I don’t empty step kick as it is a habit by now, but I always go for fierce first to see how they react cause it’s much safer than TT. From there I develop mindgames. But ya I dunno why my azz is gettin verbally blown up for showing some doubt damn chill homies, being downright disrespectful and twisting my words isn’t going to make me listen to you. We’re talking about a video game… there’s no need to get hostile jeez.
Well…after a couple of days of practice, I can now step kick, Hp quite consistently. Plinking is a huge help. Still can’t link it to CoD - FADC - Cr HP consistently, but I’ll get there.
This was key for me (not to downplay the rest of your post - which was very inspiring). I never looked at playing a game like this before. I train weights, and play Guitar, drums and bass, yet never made the connection between muscle memory and playing computer games. It makes so much sense!
Also, my apologies for bringing the thread off track…
I have read more than once about people asking for cl.hp hiting crouching oponents but… think about it… thats not only givin abel the step kick into cl.hp on everyone its also making his rolls mixups even better because he would be able to hit confirm a cr.lp into cl.hp into hp change of direction on crouching oponents after a roll mixup. That would mean doing more damage and stun on abel mixups and thats definetly unnecesary. But what about making cl.mp 4 frames startup in stead of 5? that would make cr.lp into cl.mp eassier, step kick into cl.mp posible, and cr.lk into cl.mp posible… too much? if thats not posible i would like at least the light roll to be like in super and that change would be okay , no? some back dashes can aboid the second hit of cl.hp after a step kick so what about changing something about the second hit so it allways hits those back dashes? there are more little things that can be changed without making abel to much so think about them capcom
probably mentioned this somewhere…but i want step kick -> st fierce to hit on everybody standing regardless of spacing. I’m talking about like fuerte, honda, vega, etc. I know this will make an already very bad matchup for vega or fuerte even worse for them…but i want some goddamn consistency lol.
I was thinking, Abel’s non-ex version of falling sky should be throw invincible, we already have some hit invincibility on ex-falling sky. I was trying to figure out if Abel’s sky fall has any throw invincibility, but I believe it doesn’t because Akuma’s demon flip can still grab Abel out of all versions of falling sky. If I do normal tornado throw then akuma’s demon flip whiffs because of the throw invincibility, but when I do falling sky on akuma’s demon flip then Abel gets grabbed up close, I can see Abel’s animation or arm out but he still gets grabbed. Sure, you can grab falling sky akuma’s demon flip if you do it early, but up close then Abel loses to the throw. This would apply to Gouken’s demon throw up close as well… Maybe guys flip as well, haven’t tested.
So I think what I’m saying is that throw to throw Abel loses which doesn’t make sense if he has throw invincibility on tornado throw or breathless when charging, would make sense to have it on sky fall. Well hell just make abel’s ex-falling sky hit/throw invincible.
I just wish his hurt box didn’t linger so long. So many times when Abel is in neutral animation I get punished for a st. short that I whiffed yesterday from two character lengths away. Damn phantom hurt boxes.
The step-kick to fierce on all crouchers is overkill imo, it’s already relatively easy to confirm a step-kick counter hit. I agree wholeheartedly with the Vega, Honda, and ELF hurt box fixes. Especially for Honda that damn tank. I guess my beef is mostly hit/hurt box related. I couldn’t care less if Abel got any buffs, he’s already strong enough as-is.
I would like to let mk roll cross up on any opponent after FS backdash or TT forward dash, with some opponents, like Seth, you land on the same site as lk roll , that prevents some of Abels 50/50 game.
, that prevents some of Abels 50/50 game.