What are some things that separate intelligent use of fireballs and dumb use of fireballs?

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
1

I’ve very new to fighting games in general- I’ve only started playing about a week ago, so maybe the best answer to this question is ‘play more’. But I’d still like to ask just in case anybody can help me understand an aspect of the game that I can’t really wrap my head around at the moment. Let’s just say the game is ST, and the character using fireballs is Ryu.

What are some things that separate dumb fireballs from smart fireballs? ‘Fireball game’ is always referenced when I see people discussing fundamentals, footsies, legendary players, etc., but I’m trying to understand what makes a dumb spammer and what makes excellent projectile game.

My current view of fireballs- influenced mainly by a few fighting game ‘primers’, watching old tournament footage, lurking forum discussions, and playing a bit- is that fireballs are mostly good because they limit your opponent’s options. By this I mean if you throw a fireball, your opponent can’t move like he usually does, and instead has to pick between a few predictable/react-able/bad options- jumping over the fireball, throwing a fireball of his own, blocking it, and maybe using an invulnerable move to move around it. From here, I thought different ranges are better and worse for fireballs. From too far away you the opponent can cancel it with a fireball on reaction or jump over it and there’s not much you can do, and from close up he can probably get a huge punish from jumping over it or even hit you during the startup. But at a certain range, your opponent might have especially bad options- like not being able to react to the fireball and cancel/neutral jump over it. Here they’d have to block or jump over it at you, and then you could DP if they jump in at the wrong time.

But while I’m not even confident in all of that, I’m also confused about a lot of other aspects of fireballs. If certain ranges are good and your opponent is aware of these bad ranges, do good opponents often try to keep their opponent from getting to that range or anticipate certain movement? How does prediction and anticipation change things (like if you read Ryu’s fireball and jump early can you get a punish on it, when is DPing a jump over a fireball a reaction and when it is a read, similar things)?

So to sum up my questions:

-Is a big part of what makes some fireball use intelligent and some fireball use dumb knowing how different ranges give your opponent different options (mainly how they can deal with fireballs and how they can react to them)?
-From there, is a big part of dealing with fireballs stopping your opponent from getting to these ranges?
-Can an opponent who anticipates a fireball and jumps early punish a fireball, and how does this change things?

Another big part of why I’m asking this is to ask whether or not approaching things in fighting games in this sort of way is a good idea. I’ve seen people talk down on people who focus too much on theory and ‘what if’ situations, so I don’t know if trying to go about understanding situations and aspects of the genre like this is useless or not in the long run. This way seems mostly about having a good understanding of what your opponent can do in certain situations, knowing how you can counter these things on reaction and off of a read, that sort of thing. Please give me feedback not only on the subject of fireballs, but also on how to go about learning about fighting games from an almost nonexistent background! I said that the game in question is ST and the character is Ryu, but the way I asked the question is general enough for this to maybe apply to more games.

2

Yes.

Think about what those words mean. A reaction is taking an action in response to an opponent’s action. You see X, so you do Y. A read is taking an action based on the prediction that an opponent is going to take a certain action. You think your opponent will do X, so you do Y without necessarily having seen it happen yet. A classic example is Ryu performing a “psychic uppercut” against Dhalsim’s limbs. A human can’t react fast enough to input a DP to hit something like Dhalsim’s cr.HP, but by observing their opponent a player can make an educated guess as to when Dhalsim is likely to throw one out, and uppercut at that moment. With all this information, the answer to your question becomes obvious. Now, if you have an idea that your opponent will take an action, then reacting to it will be much easier. A jump from an opponent who hasn’t jumped for the entire match will likely be much harder to react to than the 14th jump from an opponent in the last 25 seconds.

Reads also have their place in ‘conditioning’ your opponent. Look at this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH5Vmm982qM

Though it’s not Street Fighter, it still displays the important stuff. The important thing to know is that Daimon, the large grappler character, has both a ground command grab (2 actually, this one specifically has invincible start up), and an anti-air grab. The sequence from 00:15 to 00:23 is a classic example of conditioning your opponent. After Terry was placed in a knockdown state by Daimon’s reversal command grab, Daimon did an ambiguous roll and then command grabbed Terry again. The Terry player, having been grabbed twice already, jumps to avoid a 3rd only to have his action predicted and countered immediately with an anti-air grab. With his every action having been countered, the Terry player is at a loss and hunkers down, a form of panic response that just leads to his getting grabbed again. All this occurs in about 4 to 5 game-clock seconds.

Where a read is trying to take a pre-emptive action against your opponent by trying to see through the pattern of their play, conditioning is presenting a certain pattern to your opponent knowingly so that you can take advantage of what you think their read on you is going to be. This can be as simple as throwing two fireballs at a certain range, and then the next time you’re at that range only throwing one fireball. Ideally, your opponent will think that you were going to throw a 2nd, only to jump and get punched in the mouth.

Yes, yes, yes. A full jump-in punish on a fireball can make your opponent more hesitant to throw out fireballs in the future, at least if they’re not dumb. This allows you to then go about the match differently, since you don’t have to worry about fireballs as much.

It’s always better than not to have a thorough understanding of the game, especially since it’ll help you identify and eventually remediate flaws in your own gameplay.

3

Good question.

Yes there are positions where a character who jumps over a fireball will still get anti-aired. Normally, the positioning you need to punish someone for jumping over a fireball changes based on the character matchup. Even then, these kinds of setups aren’t always practical (or depending on the character or game, posible), so you don’t need to know these to use smart fireballs. A good player can make use of fireballs in any position, so even though some character’s fireballs are better at certain ranges, these things aren’t universal. Instead, lets look at fundimentals.

Like many things in Street Fighter, fireballs put a player in a “read or react” state. The problem is the fireball, and the solution is jump (Or something else. Normally unsafe, punishable, or something that costs meter. You can deal with these the same way as a jump, but they tend to be useful at different ranges where jumping might not be good for that character). There are some situations and ranges where you just can’t jump over a fireball without getting DP’d, but most of the time if you block the fireball, the recovery time means that you can theoretically jump over it.

Of course, theory is not reality, which is where “read or react” comes into play. If they player tries to “read” the fireball, they essentially guess that the fireball is coming, before it comes out, and commit themself to a jump. If they’re right, this can pay off with big damage, but if they’re wrong, they get hit by an uppercut. Weather this works or not is normally based on how predictable a player is with their jumps, and how predictable the other player is with their fireballs. If you know that they’re going to throw a second fireball after you block the first, go ahead and jump over it. On the other hand, if you know the player is going to try to jump after they block a fireball, don’t throw another one, and DP them.

The “react” side is different. Some players have extremely high reaction times. However, fireballs at certain ranges are hard to react to. So are fireballs of certain speeds. But, even at close range, if you focus entirely on reacting to a fireball, there’s a good chance you’ll get around it. However, if you’re putting that much focus into dealing with a potential fireball that hasn’t come out, you risk not being able to react fast enough to deal with another option they might go for instead, like a sweep, jump-in, or walk up grab. When your mind singles out one thing to react to, your reaction time for everything else is lower. Another trick is that players who like to react to your fireballs can be thrown off sometimes with jabs. A player who’s trying to react will often see a fast move that can be done from the same standing position, and treat it like a fireball, giving you a free DP.

The zoner’s job is to combat both of these tendencies. You want to make the player avoid reacting, but too afraid to go for a read, giving them no option but eat chip damage, and let you gain meter. Use jabs to make them afraid to react, but remain unpredictable enough so they don’t get a good read on you. This is easier said than done, but if done successfully, the opponent will become desperate, and more likely to take risks.

The point of using fireballs, other than demoralizing your opponent, is multifaceted. They gain you meter. Good fireball control can allow you to move forward and push the opponent into the corner via pushblock. They can grind away the clock. They can can chip away life in close games. They can even set up the opponent for mistakes that you can punish for damage. Many players like to set up patterns, and then break those patterns when they predict that the opponent is going for a jump in. They can even be thrown out when unexpected, in the footsie game, for damage (Expect a lot more of this in Street Fighter V, as anti-zoning tools make it hard to throw fireballs predictably in that game, sort of how they were in Third Strike.) The versitility of fireballs is why they’re so effective, and such an important piece of Street Fighter.

So TL;DR:
Smart fireball usage is about making the opponent afraid to use their anti-fireball tools. Putting the opponent into a position where they’ll get punished for jumping over a fireball isn’t always possible, and isn’t really neccissary. The two biggest tools of the player fighting the fireballs is reaction and prediction. The purpose of fireballs is to gain meter, push opponents into the corner, waste time, chip damage, poke, and set up traps.

4

Forgot to mention dumb use of fireballs.
*Using a fireball when the opponent is already in mid-air, and will reach you by the end of their jump arc. Characters like Guile, Dee Jay, Nash, and Remy love to throw fireballs during your long distance jump, but your reaction to a close jump should never be “Throw fireball”. They should be “Fast anti-air” or something character specific like “Teleport”, or even something game specific like “block it, and go for a V-Reversal”.
*Throwing only fireballs of one speed. If they know what fireball you’re going to throw, chances are higher they’ll be able to predict what you’re going to do, and they’re going to get in. Even if you mostly plan on using one of your fireball choices, let the opponent know you have the others, because it’ll give them something to think about.
*Throwing fireballs when the opponent is at frame advantage, unless you’re using it to counterpoke. This goes double if they’re just sitting there, because chances are, they’re waiting for it.
*Thowing fireballs at someone with an anti-fireball super and full meter, unless they’re already doing something that would stop them from using that super, or you don’t think they’ll react in time. Nothing is more dangerous than throwing out a fireball against a full meter Honda who’s sitting on his life lead. 90% of the time you’re asking him to kill you and take the round.
*Using only fireballs. Scrubs are stupid. Spamming doesn’t actually work in Street Fighter unless your opponent is really, really bad. Even O. Sagat has to use something other than fireballs at one point. (Ok, maybe there are some matchups where you can do that. Sagat Vs. Hugo on USF4 is pretty bad).

5

One more thing should also be mentioned when talking about bad fireballs: do not telegraph that you’re about to throw a fireball. There are several ways people do this without realizing it, but the most common one is jumping backwards and then throwing a fireball. This pattern is very common at lower levels of play (the space created by jumping backwards makes people feel like it’s safe to throw a fireball), so it’s good to be aware of it both so that you don’t do it yourself, and so that you can punish people that do it.

6

This is actually quite a deep question because it spans across several aspects that people usually think of as distinct (which usually ends up being detrimental to their growth). It’s important to be cognizant of this mistake because it won’t matter how many videos you watch or essays you read if you are looking at it with the wrong frame of mind.

From the perspective of the zoning game, bad fireballs can be thought of as ones where the opponent can react to them very easily and punish you. However, it’s not as simple as that. In certain situations it’s reasonable to throw fireballs from “bad” ranges if you have a good read on your opponent’s habits. eg. If you notice they wait at that specific range for a heartbeat to confirm whether or not you’re going to throw one before they decide to do something else, you can wait just slightly longer (accompanied by whiffing a move), then throw the fireball. Players like John Choi, Yaya, Daigo and Bonchan are very good at this type of zoning game.

Another mistake is to not compensate for push-back after a fireball connects. You may throw one that’s perfectly safe (meaning the opponent will not be able to react in time to punish), but then follow up with another that leaves you unable to anti-air if the opponent decided to jump. This is essentially the same as throwing a fireball from a bad range, but in this case the opponent actually has to commit to the jump (they can’t react). If you suspect they won’t risk jumping, then throwing another fireball from this range isn’t necessarily bad.

Another typically bad fireball is the “retaliation” fireball, but this falls into a different aspect of gameplay so we can ignore it for now (although, in the grand scheme of things it’s an important concept).

But you also get safe fireballs that are “bad”. For example, if you do something like blockstring into sweep xx LP fireball with Ryu, the opponent can neutral jump and now you’re in a bad situation because the slow fireball stays on screen for longer which means you can’t throw another one until it moves off screen. This gives the opponent an opportunity to advance. This will also happens when you unnecessarily cancel a sweep into fireball. The fireball will miss the opponent as they are knocked, and when they wake up you won’t be able to throw another till it leaves the screen.

Those are some of the basics when it comes to fireball zoning, but a key aspect that many people forget is that zoning is not exclusively about throwing fireballs. It’s also about managing your own spacing and positioning using basic movement, and effective use of anti-airs. This is part of what I was alluding to in the first sentence. Instead of always asking “was that a good or bad fireball?”, sometimes you’ll get better results by asking “what was wrong with my spacing?”. Or “Isn’t it better to anti-air with MP DP rather than HP DP because MP DP lets me land quicker and gives me more time to adjust my spacing or setup a meaty?”.

When it comes to the close up game the situation is different. At this range you are basically using the fireball as a poke. Spacing is of course also very important, but at footsie range it’s not about asking about good or bad fireballs. You have to ask about good or bad pokes. If someone jumps over a laggy poke and punishes you, it doesn’t matter if the poke was a slow heavy, or a fireball. The net result is the same. That’s of course not all there is to fireball poking (among other things, they have the property of having more frame advantage the longer they are on screen), but that’s a slightly different topic.

The point is here that you should avoid thinking about fireballs (or any tool for that matter) in a vacuum. Fireballs aren’t scary if the opponent can’t anti-air. Anti-airs aren’t scary if they can’t defend against a certain angle, or if the opponent doesn’t need to jump.

7

I respect you for asking this question and actually thinking about how fireballs are utilized. As appose to the typical new player’s scrub mentality “Fireballs are cheap!”