What's more important, hitting or not getting hit?

thread

there both important actually

But which one is more important

Depends on the game. Defense is more important in SF4.

Clearly a solid defense is the most important part of any conflict. It’s actually not that difficult to land a hit occasionally. Skilled as I am, even the most inexperienced player will likely cause some damage to me at some point. You don’t necessarily need to do lethal damage, just more than your opponent by the end of the round. By the same point, it is incredibly difficult to consistently defend against every attack. A solid defense will force your opponent to take risks. When those risks fail, that’s exactly when you can punish them with easily executed attacks.
However, in any good game, no defense is impenetrable, nor any offense unstoppable. There is an answer to every threat and at least an answer for every answer. Although defense is the most important thing to have, you will never win if you don’t offer threats of your own.

If you can block properly, you will be able to create opportunities to deal damage. It doesn’t necessarily go the other way around.

sure it can definitely go the other way around. if you can keep an opponent constantly pressured, you might be able to prevent him from even starting his offensive game (especially against characters with no or a bad reversal).

to op: depends on the character/matchup. some characters/matchups are better played offensively, and some are better played defensively. and i’m assuming by hitting/not getting hit you mean offense/defense, because hitting/not getting hit are both important and both apply to offense and defense.

Don’t get hit. Make your opponent
Come to you
Hit them they step to you. Be sure
Not to whiff
Attack at your own candance.

It depends always on the matchup, and usually on whether or not you have the life lead.

defense keeps you from losing.

offense lets you win.

ultimately offense is more important, at least at the higher levels of play.

Defense is more important for casual players, new players, and the like. At lower level play, you can go defensive and punish mistakes, and thats all you need to win.

At higher levels of play, your opponent is not going to make mistakes, your not going to get enough chances to punish. You use your offense to make your opponent make mistakes that you can punish, you don’t wait for them to screw up, you make them screw up, and their not gonna do that if your just blocking and teching throws the whole time.

Just watch the high level players. notice how aggressive they are?

you need defense first. Once your able to protect your self you can start working on your offense.

Your ultimate goal is to be able to be “defensive” even when your going all out offense. Thats the whole premise behind “footies”. Footies is the way you play defensively by making it look like your being offensive to try and trick your opponent into countering, or once you figure out the things he won’t bite on, you can base your offense on that. But thats the thing with footies, your trying to trick them into making a mistake, but if they won’t, then your looking for the holes in their defense you can exploit with your offense.

If I had to chose 1.

I’d say hitting. You cannot win without hitting. You cannot block and evade your way to victory if you play 0% offense.

You need both to be complete. It is like asking, what is better cereal or milk? If you missing either one, you can’t really consider it a good breakfast.

A player with no offense or defense, isn’t a good player.

Defence and offense
Go hand
And hand. They change at lightning speeds. When 2 attack and when 2 defend is at your command. Why would not want 2 protect your-self? Your defense are your guns and your shields. Fear the turtle. But you must have the courage to defeat them. The truth lie in the heart of battle…

With Akuma not getting hit. With Zangief hitting.

I’m going to say that this is a Loop question, one that really is a useless one to ask because each have their bases as to the outcome of the match.

You basically asked: What’s more important in a sport: scoring the most points or hindering your opponent from scoring?

Seriously, stop looking for excuses to just start a TheoryFighter Debate. Because, here’s the answer to your double-dilemma:
If I play super defensive and DONT get hit, I could argue ‘Defense is better because you restrict the other player from dealing damage.’ This could mean that one could run away for an entire match and take no damage, but also not deal any damage either, which means your defense was pointless, because your goal should be to win the match.
On the other hand, one could argue ‘Offense is better, because the goal of the game is to kill the other player’. But such a thought would be one-sided, because you could deal loads of damage but still take more than the next guy, and in fighting games, winning is the goal.

Offense and Defense are equally important, there’s no elevating one over the other. Stop trying to cause a debate over simple elements of the game. Rushdown players are going to be more inclined to say offense, and similarly with defense.

I mean, which would you say is more important, breathing oxygen or drinking water? Both are essential for life, but which is more important? Yes, it’s a very senseless double question, just like the original one posted.

i lose because im overly concerned about not getting hit. that’s when I get tick thrown and then i really break down.

This is blatantly untrue. No character in this game has an offensive game good enough that you can attack endlessly without ever needing to worry about defending. Not Akuma, not Seth, not Ibuki, nobody.

In any high-level competitive activity, defense is ALWAYS more important. It doesn’t matter how good your offense is if your defense can’t stop your opponent, because inevitably everyone always gets their turn.

Why do you think all NBA Finals games have been low-scoring games? Even teams that can consistenly score 100+ in a normal season game crank up the defense and we see Finals come down to 70, 80 point games. If you watch the Superbowl, the team with the better defense almost always wins.

Even in FPS games defense is more important - why do you think people camp all the time? Because it makes it easy to defend yourself, especially if you only have to cover one or two different angles rather than all 360 degrees around you.

In Street Fighter, if you are good enough at defending, opportunities to go on the offense will automatically present themselves. Sure, offense is important so that you know how to maximize damage when you are punishing, but if you never have the opportunity to punish it never matters.

You can practice every high-damage combo in the game and have the execution on them down so well you could do them in your sleep, and it wouldn’t matter if you could never find the opportunity to use them, or if you never recognized the opportunities to use them.

Defense is better, always. Period.

This wins before the footsie talk

I actually want to argue this in fact isn’t a double question (at least not when you’re talking about SSF4, which is most likely what OP’s talking about)

In a game like ssf4, defense will always prevail against someone who is more offense-oriented, its simply the way the game is played. Someone’s best offense will never be better than someone’s best defense. Even some of the strongest characters in the game are characters who sit on downback(Balrog, Bison, Honda, Guile).

You really need to evaluate the message you are sending Snake, because, while it may be addressing one absolutely basic fundamental truth, its clearly missing another important fact: Both are equally important, because without one (or maybe I should say a lack of one), the other wouldn’t have opportunities to present itself.

If two parties decide to play total defense in anything, they can’t win. Whether its FPS, fighting games, Sports, its the same. Obviously, one of the parties HAS to always be playing Offense, and the other HAS to be playing defense. So you cannot say that defense is always better, because they switch at instances of time in fighting games. Neither is offense better.

Just think about if 2 hondas decided to play turtle, not attacking the other, but waiting for the other to attack. Or think about if all 8 players in a FPS decided to camp an area for a whole 10 minutes. How much offense would get accomplished? Offense is necessary for defense to even exist, and vice-versa. While defense may be more important at higher level play, somebody HAS to be attacking at any given time, because 2 players playing defense is basically a reset, a stalemate. Just like 2 players going offense is a trade-off tit-for-tat checkers game, where whoever gets the most damage done the fastes wins.

Both are equally important, but this is the kind of argument I was trying to avoid. Not discrediting anyone for their viewpoint, but Offense and Defense go hand-in-hand, and change frequently. Without one, the other simply has nothing to do.

I don’t think that’s true.

Sorry if I was misunderstood. I don’t mean to say that all you should do is defend, and that defense alone wins games. I of course understand that offense and defense go hand in hand, but of the two I firmly believe defense is more important.

Obviously, in football and basketball, neither team only plays defense the entire game (and by “team” I mean the entire team as a unit - just getting that in there to avoid smart-ass comments about football teams having separate offensive and defensive teams). They spend some time on defense and some time on offense.

All I’m saying is, defense is more important because it serves more purposes than offense does:

  1. If you are in the lead, it helps you keep your lead.
  2. If you are not in the lead, it prevents your opponent from extending their lead.
    3. Regardless who is in the lead, it can create openings you can utilize to score (or in the fighting game sense, deal damage).

1 and 2 both apply to Offense, but 3 does not. You wouldn’t be able to say that if you are on the offense, you can create openings. It might be technically true (baiting reversals by stopping in the middle of a combo, for example), but utilizing those opportunities involves defending - blocking the reversal, then continuing your offense. Even in sports, #3 applies only to defense and not offense. In football, you can make interceptions, which puts your team on the offense, and in basketball, you can steal, which does the same. In neither of those activities does offense create those possibilities. In fact, while on the offense you are at risk of those options, just like you are at risk of getting hit by a reversal uppercut.

Again, I’m not saying you should only play defense. I’m saying defense is more important. Yes, defense and offense are related and you can’t have one without the other, but there is a reason that in high-level play, you hardly ever see players rushing down.

I totally couldnt agree with you more Snake, but for the sake of argument, I absolutely COULD make #3 apply to Offense, in fighting games at least.

Mixups certainly create more opportunities to EXTEND your offense/deal more damage. Take for example Ibuki’s mixups on wakeup, or Akuma’s tricks.
You say “while on the offense you are at risk of those options, just like you are at risk of getting hit by a reversal uppercut”, but the truth is, if you are on offense, you could use mixups to your offensive disposal, to keep your opponent guessing, which will show the true holes of their defense. In fact, if they guess wrong with a reversal uppercut, you’ve just created more opportunities to deal even MORE damage.
Through the use of mixups, you can condition the opponent to play your game. Defense isn’t winning that battle, offense is (although, like you said, defense is what will get you out of that predicament). A good offensive player always keeps the defender guessing as to what’s next, and this is what extends their offense, or damage dealt, even more. I don’t need to necessarily apply any factors of defense in my offensive mixups if they are working, I just need to force the other person to find an outlet. I mean, if they haven’t found a counter for your offense, why would you need to revert to defensive maneuvers? They’re the ones in trouble, not me.

True, this only really applies to Fighting games in this discussions, since things like sports change possessions after an offense (or defense) has scored. My point is, both are equally esteemed, but on totally different values. There are levels of Defense that could NEVER accomplish what Offense is made for, and vice-versa.

You could just as well argue that in at least fighting games, those 3 things you listed apply to both offense and defense. Like I said, there’s no way to find out whats more important. Both equally share a role, just on different planes.