So when I play online and I get a good sweep or grab and I get the opponent on the ground I have no idea what to do while they get up. I here the term “meaty setup” thrown around and I don’t know what it means. I play Karin and I don’t know what to do when my opponent wakes up, so I usually try to grab or crossup and that’s it.
This is kind of a tricky question because what you do is based on what you think you’re opponent is going to do. The most basic way to look at it is: 1) I’m going to keep you in place or 2) I’m going to do something you won’t block.
Option number one usually involves making sure you block something so that I don’t let you get anywhere. This is where meaties come into play. A meaty is an attack that is going to hit with the later active frames of an attack. This does two things for you: if it hits on the last frame, you’ll get an additional frame of advantage on whichever move you used (in the case some moves, it can let you link things you normal can’t after that attack) and because it hit it stopped whatever button your opponent was using, and 2) it forces your opponent to do an invincible reversal or block. Once your opponent is in place you can continue pressuring in hopes that you get a counterhit and score some damage or get an openning for a throw.
The second option is the mix up: you’re going to do something you think your opponent won’t be able to defend so you can score more damage. This is where stuff like cross ups and doing ambiguous stuff while their character rises comes up. Mix ups force your opponent to make a decision on what’s happening and afterwards how to defend it properly. Depending on the knockdown there might be situations where Karin’s jumping MK hits as a cross up or where you could make it land in front. If you know how to create those situations after a knockdown, you force your opponent to have to guess and if wrong, they get to eat a lot of damage.
So that is the most basic way to go about things. Things get a bit complicated in SFV because your opponent can maneuver out of a knockdown in various ways. This forces you as the attacker to pay attention to which option your opponent resorts to the most in order to maximize your pressure. Might check this back for editing and to add more later but this should be a decentish start towards the thought process of knockdowns.
On wake up you have various options. if you only ever go for a block or cross up then you are not forcing them to guess. Very quickly your foe will figure out that if you jump you are going to try to cross up and if you stand there you are going to throw. they have the answer to beat you every time. Every time you do something different on their wake up you have showed them you have different options and they are forced to guess. Other things you can do is walk up on them like you are going to block then walk backwards as they wake up(called a shimmy) if they wiff a throw tech attempt you walk back forward and punish. You can jump straight up (neutral jump) and either hit them with an air attack, push no button(empty jump) and attack low or throw them. sometimes stick out an attack like HK, HP or crouching HP to go for a counter if they hit buttons. Stick out a crouching mp and if it hits do combo of choice. You can also go for an overhead (forward MK)
depends where you are on the screen, how much life and meter u and your opponent has, what you think the opponent will do, etc.
a good idea is if they are somewhat near the corner, dash as many times into them as you can before they wakeup and still have enough advantage to jab them to lock them into pressure. this pushes them into the corner. it should be a specific number based on distance and recovery of attack.
another good idea is if you need only a combo or hit or you have the life lead, position yourself for her best footsie move also judging how good your opponents footsies are.
another is a well time jump. if you do it right, they shouldnt be able to reversal, and you get some nice pressure. can also force a mixup with a crossover aerial if you need to switch sides and get away from the corner.
if you watch pros and play the game you will think less and do more and know what to do and when. so watch some high level play and get in there and fight til you drop