I am thinking of shifting mains, been with Gen a long time and I want to go to a pure footsie character and balrog looks to me as one to perfect my grounded training. SO what do I need to learn to be a great balrog player?
Thanks!
You helped me out a lot on the Gen forums so I’ll try to help you with my main.
Footsies: Especially with Balrog these are a necessity.
Frametraps: He has a weak mixup game so his frametraps are your only offense other than gimmicks.
Execution: Sure cr.jab cr.jab cr.short headbutt is the easiest combo in the game but you need to be optimizing your damage and range with 1 frame links into cr.mp
And this is where I give up because I’m having a hard time answering your question. I don’t really know how to answer because what you need are footsies really and good reads. He’s as basic as Ryu. No cancels, no constant reset playstyle, not many gimmicks just raw footsies and reads.
I’m really sorry I dwelled on your question for a while but couldn’t come up with a response. Maybe I’m not a good boxer at all and that’s why I can’t answer.
If you could be more specific I could try my luck again if not hopefully the other great Balrogs could help you out.
thanks man, thats a start. The thing with Balrog is that I have to play alot more solid and patient with him and I dont really have the ability of going attack and defence whenever I wish like I can with Gen, I guess the more I look into the character I will get better, Javitas Arias is also helping me learn the ropes. But man I love Balrogs HK button.
To be good with Balrog you need fundamentals.
No, really, that’s pretty much it. The character has no big gimmicks(well okay, armored dash punches) and a relatively weak mix-up game, but his basic neutral game is good. Like, really good. If your basic spacing, footsies and mindgames are good, you can do work with him. You probably want to learn his optimized combos considering that it’s relatively hard to open people up with him, but if you can use Gen, said combos shouldn’t be much of an issue.
So… I honestly don’t think there’s much more to it than that. Rog is a pretty honest character imo, and one of the best at teaching fundamentals since fundamentals are all that he’s got. Practice footsies and you’ll be punching people for their lunch money in no time.
Make sure to upload some matches and you’ll learn to love cl hk. It’s about as good as it gets.
THANKS
Will do that sir. will do
Crouching HK until you get good!
defense u need a good defense.
thanks guys, I will do my best to step up my Balrog.
Well son. you need fire. heatt and fire, heart and fire. and desire.
a desire for those cocoa pebbles and that picanick basket and there’s only one way to get em. nobody’s gunna give you those pebbles.
good frametrap timing, good reaction, footsies, execution
Patience: knowing when to go for the kill, when to sit back and put up a wall, and when to walk forward.
As a beginner with the character I feel those will be the deciding factors once you learn the basics that will distinguish your balrog from being good or bad. I’ve been on the Gen forums, so I know it won’t take that long for you, but I think more with this character than Gen because his playstyle isn’t so “narrow” at low to mid range there’s a lot of ways to play him.
Thank you for the advice. Will keep it in mind
Got royally mugged by a Bison,Gen,Seth player, Balrog is sooo hard, I have to inch my way in and do footsies 
set finished 8-14. had to relieve the salt so I picked up gen and went 3-1 before winning 13-0.
Damn with Rog I only win when I think so hard what my next move will be in getting in and setting up, I realize playing Gen has made me rely so much on ambiguous jump ins. and since rog is an honest boxer its difficult to get used to.
Boxer has a lot of gimmicks too. He’s still very honest, but he’s got tricks. Think more simple: 3f jab, 3f grab. meaty jab, meaty grab. His walkspeed is faster than Gen’s when he has access to his faster normals (Crane is faster while Mantis has the better pokes IMO). His normals are kind of like Gen’s in that each has a specific purpose.
Given you had some of Balrog’s harder matchups lol. You may find it less of an uphill battle against a Ryu (this is probably the more even matchup balrog has) or Guile or Honda. Generally the ST matchups are easier to understand how to play with him than the newer characters IMO.
I am falling in love with the TAP, damn that stuff is sweet
What realy importent is u need to hide your tap’s in normals, dashes ezt. And try to bait your oponents backdashes or back jumps or os throw tech u become a counter hitand u can link in to c.lp stuff like that.
still a bit clumsy with TAP, although seem to be getting it down after throws, but really what do you guys think of cross over light headbutt, is it a viable mixup or will it be viable since the speed is getting an increase in USF4
Its usable, there were some setups in super (i don’t remember them), no-one has really went down that path in favor of the headbutt, instant jump hk etc for the ambiguous cross-up. It doesn’t hit, but its hard to tell what side he’s going to land on if they tech the knockdown. I’ve got the goods in this spreadsheet:
Meaty TAPS are also nice, but telegraph really bad. Headbutt, crouch, Release TAP (for the quick rises) or Headbutt, crouch, Release TAP, Release TAP. TAP is really fun, but a bad habit the better your opponent.