What's all this fuss about A groove Bison?

Classic Fighting Games Capcom VS SNK 2
1

I’ve been playing Bison for yeeears (more than a decade actually), and in CvS2 he is quite a good character but I never bother with A groove. C groove is your best friend IMO. I’ve tried the paint the wall tactic, it’s really good but not my style of play.

My philosophy with Bison has always been PRESSURE. Beat the opponent down as much as you can cuz Bison can be very intimidating. Don’t use the psycho crusher unless you are absolutely sure you will land it. Finally use the cheapest tactic of all…

It takes a lot of practice but if you can pull it off, you will become unstoppable. What I do is quite simple, you roll through an opponent and just before the roll ends you do your lvl 3 psycho break smasher, the opponent will not be able to block it because he is already the opposite direction. This tactic has helped me win several matches in CvS2! :smiley:

Universal Bison combos have always involved crouching LP and MK, followed by either a psycho crusher, knee press or throw.

MP is also your best friend, Bison’s fists in general should always come in handy. They do a good chunk of damage.

Bison has always been known of being a cheap thrower, so live up to the tradition and throw people whenever you get the chance.

Using his flying attacks (head press and devil’s reverse) to confuse your opponents is also an excellent tactic.

Teleport only if you know how to teleport and if you wanna get out of corners (which you should be able to do without trouble).

HP is deadly, especially if you use it as an anti-air.

The best piece of advice I can give to ANY Bison player is to ALWAYS be charging. I’m charging when I’m jumping, walking, running, or doing other attacks. This takes a bit of practice but if you succeed you will be able to do any move at any given time without the opponent realizing that you’re charging.

I never really liked the Psycho Banish, it works well with A groove but I generally have no use for it. Roll is better.

If you know how to use K groove (which I sometimes use), go for it. Pure POWER! You can fuck up people and turn the tides of battle rather quick with it, it also compliments Bison’s aggressive gameplay quite well.

Just my 2 cents on how to be a good Bison player. :slight_smile:

Btw I love this forum! It attracts Bison fanatics like myself. :smiley:

2

You can be thrown out of rolls.
You’ll probably be able to use the tactic you’re talking about once or twice, but the opponent will catch on quick, so you shouldn’t rely on that.
In this game, I’d say his #1 most reliable combo is: c lp *2, s lk xx scissor kick (lk or mk), but c lp *2, c mk xx scissor kick (lk or mk) is pretty easy too. Combos should involve lots of hits before the special move finisher in case you were crossed up or something and lost your charge…more hits = more time to charge.
I think most of his normals can combo into both of his supers, one obvious exception being c hk (s hk doesn’t work either, and I think s hp can’t, although c hp can).
IMO, his kick throw is a lot better than his punch throw, cause after the throw (if they don’t have safe fall), you can walk up a bit and super jump hk for an ambiguous crossup.
Pokes: s hk (don’t abuse), c mk, c lk, c lp (these two stuff pretty much any normal)
A to A: j mk (good priority), j mp 2 (counts as a knock down, follow up with a mpc)
Anti-airs: (for far) c hp (for crossup) s hp + pray or jump back mp2
Best normal for building gauge: c mk
Good specials for building guage: whiff d (2 secs) u + p, or dp + lp
lvl 1 kpn has interesting abusability…try in S

Psycho banish isn’t just for nullifying fireballs (indeed, I never use it for this). It is very good for meaty chip damage…knock them over, dash next to them then do this move and they’ll have to block it and take 4-5 hits of chip damage. Also good as a combo finisher if you don’t want to knock them down for whatever reason. RC makes it a funny anti-air (don’t do this, just an observation of mine)

As you said, the psycho crusher doesn’t really belong anywhere except in combos, unless you need a full-screen punisher. But, Bison should be used no farther back than 1/3 screen (imo), so you wouldn’t need a full-screen punisher unless they sj back and whiff a normal or something…

Actually, C-Bison shouldn’t roll around everywhere, his dash is really good. You can dash over ground fireballs, over knocked down opponents, etc. I wonder if you can dash over Rolento’s super…
Good lvl 2 cancel: kpn xx hp psycho crusher

3

I forgot about Psycho Banish doing so much chip damage. It also causes several hits. It is good but only in a few circumstances, like when your opponent is cornered or like you said, when you come out of a dash. I still rarely use it. :slight_smile:

Also, rarely do opponents throw me out of a roll because whenever I do roll, they are probably attacking or doing something. It catches them by complete surprise. :slight_smile:

The Psycho crusher is good in several situations, punishing people if they miss an attack, like a shoryuken for example. Also punishing people when coming down from a jump. It comes out really fast, so the distance should matter much.

4

Psycho crusher is a bad choice for a punisher that’s less than full screen. Here are the reasons why:
CLOSE:
Just walk up and do your B&B (c lp *2, s lk xx scissor kick). Why? It builds more meter, does more damage, and you end up closer to them after the knockdown. Nice opportunity to use that psycho banish, huH?

1/3 SCREEN AWAY:
If you have a dash, use it and start a poke string (like dash, c lp *2, c mp). This is if they block. If they don’t, just go right into the B&B. If you have meter, use it, unless their airborne, in which case just use the scissors, cause you can either activate the CC off of it or do the mpc for lots of damage. I think the scissors still might build as much meter as the psycho crusher, might do less stun. Dunno. At least you are close after the knockdown

1/2 SCREEN AWAY:
Dash, run, get in there any way you can. This only applies to really laggy moves. If not, then scissor if you want to be close after the knockdown, or psycho crusher if you want to end up in the corner (not that great, trust me)

Anything else is truly a tossup between psycho crusher, scissor kick, and sj hk. Scissor kick will probably only hit once, but you’ll be close after the knockdown. Psycho crusher will also probably be close enough, but you’ll be nearer to the corner. sj hk might work, depending on how laggy their move is, but it takes longer than the other two.
Ok, so I lied. 1/2+ screen away isn’t full screen, but in any case, I think the psycho crusher is not as good as the scissor kick.

5

The big deal about A-Bison is the fact that he can setup and combo into his cc from a large variety of situations (one of the reasons why he’s the best A-groove character in the game) like mk scissor kicks (mid screen even), after jumping mp x2, activate then s.mp into psycho vanish for anti air start up, devil’s reverse, etc. It’s really a lot of bullshit since his cc does madd amounts of damage to begin with.

6

Just to add something with Bison, in C- groove, I’d rather use his lvl2 scissorkick nightmare then cancel to a psycho smasher (paint the wall), instead of lvl3 psycho crusher. Bison fills up energy bar soo quickly, specially in C-groove. I only use lvl3 PC on opponents with a pixel of life, and I usually do it as an end game, land it as an anti-air (no-guard). :stuck_out_tongue:

7

Basically bison sucks without meter he doesn’t really have a dominating ground move

you have to build meter and play footsies

He should usually be played as a floaty charachter

read kcxj’s notes

PS:c.lp,c.lp,st.lk,mk scissors activate… GGPO games done

by the way its paint the fence not the wall:lol:

8

Yeah, pity he doesn’t have a sakura s hk or a chun li s mp or something like that…at least he has c lp, c mk.
c lp is so fast… :slight_smile:

9

If he had something like that he would be the most broken character

your cheapest tactic of all is the stupidest tactic of all:lol:

10

wtf are you guys talking about “doesnt have a dominating ground move”? 1. RC scissors 2. RC psycho crusher 3. c.MK (+5) 4. s.MK has decent range 5. 2 frame close/crouching jabs 6. far 4 frame s.MP can beast on blanka/sagat’s guard bar all round when comboed into 1-hit scissor or followed by walk up c.MK/s.MP

he also puts you at constant threat even when his meter is around 85% full, since he can easily combo into CC at that point

11

He’s right man, Bison REALLY is a pest on the ground too. Kinda annoying though, specially when he randomly throws psycho crusher and all along twas a RC! Hehe, Bison may not be the perfect ground battler, but if you know how to manipulate characters and put effort on it, you can really make something out of nothing. Bison got alot of potentials, and he should be used not on A-groove restrictively. He can also be powerful at other grooves (K -Groove perhaps) Sorry for “paint the wall”, hehe my badd. :confused:

12

although bison c.mk is extremely good he doesnt have a move like blanka’s c.fp or sagats c.fp or sak’s s.rh which helps alot when playing against opponents such as cammy who he has alot of trouble against

against sagat however you can see that bison has a great ground move in s.mp and that is one of the major reasons why sagat gets owned by bison

7witch~

Paint that shit!:lol:

13

I mean…he doesn’t have a dominating ground move :smiley:

Unfortunately, they don’t have retardedly dominating range. cf Blanka hp, Cammy hk, Sakura hk, Sagat mk/c hp, (to a lesser extent Yama hk, Iori hk) Also, notice that 1 & 2 are RC (which is bad if you rely on it too much…pretty much everyone can punish a blocked psycho crusher, most can punish a 2-hit blocked scissors. s mk is ok, but it is not abusable. Neither is c mk, although it is better than s mk. s hk has more range than any other move, but it has lots of recovery frames.

5: I agree…this is a great move. I said so myself. The problem is, it isn’t abusable cause: A) it has no range, B) on its own it does no damage, so you shouldn’t just throw it out when you don’t have any follow up C) it doesn’t give you meter…something which Bison desperately needs. 6: Is a nice move, nice range, a little longer recovery than preferable, but it does damage, charges meter, and beats out lots of stuff. Nice, but not great. Again, you can only use this when you’re within Blanka/Sagat/Cammy/Iori/Yama’s zones of attacks.

Forgive me for negating this comment, because it is an extremely valid point…but this isn’t a poke. Just because you have 85% full meter doesn’t mean that you can get in. Watch SBO, where the last match is Bison vs. Blanka (I believe Bison killed Cammy and Sagat or something…) He can’t get in. (I dismiss the fact that he has no life because it doesn’t really matter whether or not he had life, he was hesitant to get close because he knew no matter what he did Blanka could counter.)

In conclusion: capcom did a good job making Bison a playable character again in this game (unlike any crossovers, alpha 3), but he’s still got issues. <----(My ending “WTF???” statement)

14

At Evo, I saw Fatty using Bison s.MK and s.HK a lot actually. He was fighting against A-Sakura’s and winning! :eek:

15

:eek: wtf?!!

16

My sentiments exactly…

17

how is that possible haha

that sak must whiff like crazy :lol:

18

Lol, nice avatar 7witch. I got my friend into 3rd S after sending him that vid during work :smiley:

19

haha

20

mmm, maybe I should change the background to a girl instead of a man in drag. Maybe then I’ll get more smileys.