I’ve been looking at Whiff Punishing lately, and trying to figure out how to incorporate it into my game, as it seems like part of the core “Attack/Walk/Whiff Punish” footsie game. But the thing is, it feels like everybody gives the same example and I am wondering how many moves can be whiffed, and what moves I can use to punish them.
The one example I always see is:
Player A walks into range, then blocks. Player B does a crouching MK, blocked. Player A remembers this.
Player A walks into range, then walks out. Player B does a crouching MK, whiffs. Player B does a crouching HK ( sweep ), knockdown.
So that’s great. I can see this works well, because an MK has a hurt box that sticks out for a long time, and the sweep covers this nicely. Plus, the priority of the HK will beat the MK even if it is active.
But can you Whiff Punish other moves? Can you punish a standing MK instead of the crouching MK? Or standing MP? And if so, what moves are good to punish standing normals ( I assume that the sweep won’t work here )? Can I ever punish using light attacks?
Anything with a hurt box can definitely be whiff punished. I’d recommend you spend some time in training mode and see some hurt box interactions for yourself. For example, Ryu can whiff punish ken’s St.Mk with his own St.Mk. I’ll attach some videos below that will aid you some more.
You can also install Frame Trapped to help you understand what you can whiff punish. It’s a free tool that allows you to see all hitboxes and hurtboxes and even slow down the game to see them better: http://frametrapped.com/
e.g. you can see how far the hurtbox for Karin’s st. MK goes in SFV and find a move that can whiff punish it easily.
I don’t like that video - nothing against Juicebox; he just rambles on and on with very little information being presented compared to the amount of time you have to watch the video for.
Great link (quick read):
Great video (inside a great playlist I’d recommend watching as well):
Thanks for the links! Some good explanations in there for sure, very helpful.
Hey, one thing I keep wondering: why does crouching MK get used so much as a poke in the footsie examples? It seems like a fairly slow normal with sub-par range ( compared to standing normals ) for most characters. I know it’s often special-cancellable and hits low, but in terms of max range pokes it seems like a disadvantage. Is there something about the hitbox/hurtbox that makes it really useful?
You nailed most of it. The fact that you can cancel most into a special or super and that it hits low are huge factors. That doesn’t mean other pokes are worthless or that cr. MK is the best poke for every character. I think cr.MK is just the easiest example to help explain the idea. It’ll never be a max range poke, but you must also consider the negatives of throwing out a max range poke; they will be slower to start up, longer to recover from a whiff, and worse on block.
“… but you must also consider the negatives of throwing out a max range poke; they will be slower to start up, longer to recover from a whiff, and worse on block.”
Yeah, and I think I may be particularly befuddled here, because I am playing Bison in SFV. And his crouching MK has worse stats than the standing MK in almost every way, EXCEPT being special-cancellable.
And that it hits low, that’s important. If they are walking backwards, the st.MK will be blocked, and the cr.MK will hit. If you have them blocking low, that means they can’t walk back.
So that’s really interesting. I have wondered if that was a big reason to use crouching MK ( the fact that it hits back-walkers ), but it always confuses me, and here’s why:
Typically I feel like I see the most “dancing” back and forth around the edge of a max range poke. This makes sense, because if you are trying to shimmy, that’s your best bet for a whiff punish. Once somebody decides to close the distance, there is usually a lot less “dancing”; at this point they have committed to the throw/light/whatever, and are moving in fast. That’s not to say they won’t get cold feet at the end, or perhaps try to play mind games by not attacking. But if they abort, then usually they blow low, as opposed to walking back.
So for that reason, it feels like the crouching MK is in a weird range to me. It’s not long enough to hit people trying to shimmy at max range, and when somebody is closing on me, if they block it seems more likely to be a crouch block anyway. Whenever I use it, I typically wish I’d used crouching MP for better speed and frame advantage.
But maybe I’m just not encountering people who actually shimmy at closer ranges. Is it an effective tactic for players to bait out throws and lights at close range, in addition to the max range pokes? If so, I could see how the crouching MK would handle that well.
