Yeah! The Sean Thread!

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
1

EDIT: Got a text file with the flowchart, and I added stuff that Septimus Prime mentioned.

Hey. I made this thread cos

  1. I was bored
  2. I didn’t wanna go to sleep just yet
  3. I took the time to learn some things about playing with Sean, because even though I’m not a Sean player (I play Elena, fyi), I think it’s important to try and learn a little bit about what every character can do when you play a fighting game.

So, here’s what I’ve learned. One short disclaimer: Again, I am NOT a Sean player. I don’t guaruntee this information is going to get you to the top, so don’t poop your pants if this isn’t great info. Maybe it isn’t even anything new. I don’t know. There just doesn’t seem to be any general Sean Strats thread and I thought I’d make one.

I. The normals you should use: I really think most of Sean’s normals are fucking worthless. So, here’s a list of ones I’d say are actually usable:

  1. Close S.Strong - This is the beginning of his only target combo (S.Strong -> S.Roundhouse). If that weren’t the case, I’d throw this move out too. This just makes an occassional tough parry for your opponent when you cross under a jump attack. That’s IT.

  2. Far S.Fierce - I don’t see anyone use this. I think this is Sean’s best mid attack. It’s his longest range poke, and it’s pretty fast. It’s also a Fierce, which means decent damage, too. If you wanna even THINK of getting close to your opponent when you’re on the ground, you might wanna incorporate this one into your repetoire.

  3. S.Roundhouse - The far one is not bad anti-air every once in a blue moon, and SOMETIMES, the close version can be nice for a once-a-year changeup too, as it can cancel into special moves and supers. If you’re just poking, stick with S. Fierce for mids.

  4. C. Short - This is part of Sean’s mixup game…which is atrocious, btw, but nontheless, it’s still a part of the only thing that can save Sean’s ass. It links into specials and supers, and leaves him within decent throw/kara throw range.

  5. C. Strong - It’s kinda quick, so it can stuff things sometimes, but more importantly, it’s his best meter building attack, because it’s a fast medium attack. Mash this attack if your opponent isn’t in your face.

  6. C. Forward - It’s his longest range low poke, and it’s his easiest and safest normal to hit-confirm with (which isn’t saying much). It’s slow as fuck, though, so don’t use it too much.

  7. C. Fierce - Not half bad anti-air, but very easy to parry, so don’t use it too often.

  8. C. Roundhouse - It’s a sweep. It’s a really bad sweep, but the only way to get any sort of momentum going for Sean is to knock an opponent down. Don’t use it too much, but if you need it, it’s there.

  9. Toward/Backward J. Forward - It’s a jump in that crosses up. Use it sometimes.

  10. J. Roundhouse - The neutral version actually beats a lot of stuff, but it’s a little slow. The Toward/Backward version is there because if you land it, you can probably combo into a super. If you’re not feeling lucky, stick with J. Forward in these cases.

  11. UOH - I threw this in cos it is pretty important. This is the other half of Sean’s abominable mixup game, making it a key move. When you’re throwing out random moves, be sure to throw this one out every once in a while, too. It also can link into supers if timed/placed properly.
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II. Special Moves - Which and When: God, DAMN, Sean’s special moves suck. But, some of them are salvagable, I guess. Here’s how I’d say you use them.

  1. Sean Tackle - ONLY ever use the Jab version…EVER. Use it to cancel your close S. Roundhouses in the rare event that you use it, and use it moreso to cross under jumping opponents. And for christ’s sake, don’t try to fucking land the tackle! Just use it as a ghetto dash.

  2. Prutz (Qcf+K) - WTF is the real name of this move? Anyways. Short version, VERY WELL TIMED, can stuff a surprising amount of stuff, but don’t try it very often, if at all. The Roundhouse version actually is the quickest of all of them, so if you’ve got your opponent cornered, use that one. Don’t EVER use the Forward version. The EX version is okay sometimes if you can anticipate a really slow move from your opponent, or a fireball (which is kind of like a really slow move, I guess…). All of them do the exact same damage, btw.

  3. Sean Roll - Tell me WHY would you EVER use anything but the Jab version? Jab version is nice to cross under jumping opponents, but you have to anticipate a little. It also goes through some projectiles, but you also have to anticipate that. Not very good overall.

  4. Slam Dunk of Gayness - Wow…so yeah. All of them do the same damage except the EX version. The Jab and Strong version go the same distance foward, as do the Fierce and EX Version. That being said, only use the Jab version and EX version, as the Strong and Fierce versions do the same damage as the jab, and are easily punishable. The EX is more important for reversals, but it does go a little more forward than the Jab version, so use it for anti-air in a pinch.

  5. Tornade - Sweet christ, this move sucks. If you ever, ever use it, never use the Forward or Roundhouse version. Throw out the Short version SOMETIMES with the intention of landing in front of them IF you anticipate that they’ll block it (pretty situational, huh?), and use the EX version primarily, because it’s the least likely to put you at a frame disadvantage (though it still can).

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III. Super Arts: This is where I talk about which one to pick.

So, which one DO you pick? Most people I know choose Shoryu-Cannon (SA2), cos it appears to have the best damage potential and EX potential of all his supers, at first glance. It does about the same damage as Hyper Tornado (SA3), except for that you can stock two (4 EX) as opposed to one (2 EX). However, I think Shoryu-Cannon might even be the worst Super Art. I prefer Hadou Burst (SA1). Here’s why I think the order of SAs goes SA1 > SA3 > SA2:

  1. SA1 stocks three supers and 5 EX attacks. That’s not a lot more EX than SA2, but it is one more super, and it’s quicker to stock than SA2. Basically, you have more chances to land SA1 in a round than SA2, and you can do two EX attacks and still have two supers stocked. Pretty nice.

  2. SA2 can very easily whiff when canceled from the max range of some of his attacks, particularly C. Forward, which is the most important one. SA1 and SA3 do not have this problem. Basically, you’re more likely to connect with SA1; SA2 and SA3 might be at about the same, since I think you can hit people out of the air with SA2.

  3. Using all your SA2 supers does about the same (maybe a little less) than using all your SA1 supers. Since you’re more likely to land SA1 anyways (and you’ll probably have it stocked more often than SA2), the damage potential of SA2 doesn’t shine forth in comparison to SA1.

  4. SA1 and SA3 are both quick, forward-moving attacks, making them better for punishing whiffed ground attacks; SA2 is simply bad at doing that. :stuck_out_tongue: SA3 also goes under fireballs, and SA1 can pass through normal fireballs (EX fireballs will stop SA1), adding more possibilities to punish whiffed attacks with SA1 and SA3.

  5. Something Septimus Prime pointed out is that SA2 has hella high priority, and will beat out pretty much anything. You can probably use this to your advantage in specific fights where you know you’ll have opportunities to react with it, but it’s an isolated case.

That being said, I think SA1 has the clear advantage. SA2 and SA3 MIGHT be better in a few matches, but it probably isn’t. I don’t see any reason to not use SA1.

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IV. A little strategery: Here’s a few pointers.

  • Random pointer number 1: Don’t use the fucking basketball like a projectile. When I first started trying out Sean, I thought the basketball would be like, my saving grace or something. It’s certaintly funny, but it doesn’t have a lot of practical uses. Here’s the few things I use it for:

  1. When I play Twelve and he taunts, because the Basketball is appearantly a heat-seeking basketball

  2. All the way across the screen, if I have meter (cos otherwise, I’d be building meter), and I wanna distract my opponent to get in close (not quite as effective on opponents with projectiles). This also works if your opponent is waking up.

  3. On opponent’s wakeup, as an extra step in my mixup game (explained more in detail later).

  • Random pointer number 2: Sean’s got a decent Kara-Throw. His Kara-Throws are S.Fierce and Toward S.Fierce, but Toward S.Fierce is better. This is pretty important in Sean’s mixup game, too. Now, onto more general pointers…

  • Random pointer number 3: Sean only has one Reversal attack that can be called anything close to respectable, and that’s the EX Slam Dunk. Do it if you must. Septimus Prime pointed out that you can be thrown out of ALL versions of the Slam Dunk, so don’t think you can just roll out on people with EX Slam Dunk Reversals all day.

  • Don’t take jump-ins to the face! Jump up and use J. Roundhouse to counter, use Jab Sean Tackle to cross under them, (and peg them with your target combo; don’t risk trying to tag them with SA1, cos they can still parry your attacks if they haven’t thrown out a move yet) or jump backwards and keep your distance. You can always parry, but remember that Sean doesn’t decent anti-air moves. Hold up on parrying until you have/get a lead.

  • Be building meter as long as you can. Unless you’re playing Q, who can totally capitalize on your turtling, stay the fuck back and mash C. Strong. Occassionally jump away with J. Roundhouse as needed, and cross under with Jab Sean Tackle when necesary. Try not to get cornered!

  • Most people can fish for supers with their C. Forward, or their Crouching something-or-other; you can too…kind of. Sean’s C.Forward is very hard to hit-confirm, but you can improve your reflexes with a little practice. It’s worth it to work on it, since this will punish dashes and whiffed attacks as best as Sean possibly can.

  • Sean’s ghetto ass mixup game is basicaly a high-low guessing game. Nothing too different from most characters, except for that it’s really hard to get a person in this situation, and Sean can’t deal with tech rolling opponents very well, making this mixup game really unstable unless you’ve got your opponent cornered. Here’s the flow chart:

http://www.rpgclassics.com/staff/SG/sean.txt

…Aaaaand that’s pretty much what I got. If I didn’t mention something, I probly thought it was stupid and useless, and probably too dangerous to try (which is funny, cos damn near everything I posted was dangerous). Anyways, I hope my knowledge wins you one round, or something. Rock on. I’m totally done with Sean.

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Two things to note:

  1. Any character can normal throw Sean out of his Slam Dunk of Gayness, including his EX version, with relative ease.

  2. Sean’s SA2 is the highest priority super in the game and will blow through other supers if you need it to.

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Truth and truth. I imagine there are probably specific instances where SA2 and SA3 might be better than SA1, but I think that for general purpose, SA1 is the best.

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skankin I use SA2 with Sean, and I’ve been playing for a while. Try this setup for Sean with medium roll written below (from the other Sean threads) and tell me what you come up with. Actually take a look at those threads good strats in there. And another thing I can and have beasted with Sean in tourny play I got 9th with him in the Charlotte major, beat some Kens even almost beat flash’s Ken with him. I know 3 good Seans, me, C-Royd I’ve heard from True Tech has a good one, and Sean P in Japan has a pretty good one. But yeah I prefer SA2 generally. But love f’ing around with SA3 because it links off of c.RH and d+MP. One more thing, don’t sleep on Seans u+MK!

Basically, I’ve gotten it to work on Urien and Chun-Li. But it was done on Dreamcast, which unblockables don’t work of course, but basically it’s like this. Hit someone with Shoryu Cannon (works best if they are grounded. Sometimes they fall strange if you hit them out of the air), either directly or cancelled into. Anyway, if you noticed, the only move Sean has which can’t be tech rolled is SA II: Shoryu Cannon. Now after the Cannon hits and they are falling, dash forward and throw the ball. Then immediately after you throw the ball, do the Strong Punch (MP) roll. You will end up on the other side while the ball hits from the front. I have gotten it to work perfectly on Urien and very well on Chun-li. One tournament a Chunli parried the ball but I was behind and he got hit from the back. Also, at Final Round 8 I did it against a Ken player and it worked (Both situations were on SF3 Arcade Boards). Basically I knew it was unblockable because he got hit by the Fierce first from the back then the ball hit for 2hit combo. So basically, if you can perfect the technique, you can combo to SA II, do unblockable ball setup, combo to Sa II again, unblockable setup, combo. I was very happy indeed to find this because it brings new hope to Sean. I hope some of you peepz try it and get it down pact so we can rep Sean.

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i don tknow wether to thank you for som esean strats or to be angryu the whole thing was you dsyaing how shitty sean moves were if your going to make a thread of sean strategies why fuckin put him down every sentence

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Eric J, I could not, for the life of me, perform that combo on the PS2 version. I’m PRETTY damn sure I’m doing it as you said, but no way, I couldn’t do it. Urien gets up waaaay too fast for starters, and Chun-Li actually flies backwards if she gets hit by SA2 sometimes. I tried it also on Ryu, but Ryu was weird. I’d either have the same problem as with Urien, where I was too slow, or sometimes, I’d even be too fucking fast, and the ball would hit the ground before Ryu got up.

sweetypiejohnson, if you get angry about what someone says on the inner net about a video game character you like, you might try stepping outside and doing something else for a while…

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I FOR ONE WOULD LIKE TO SEE A VIDEO OF THIS DONE. IF YOU COULD MAKE ONE THAT WOULD BE GREAT.

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i didnt mean it like that i ment why do a thread on a character you hate?

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Nah, I like Sean a lot, but he still isn’t very good. He’s got stuff he can win with, but none of his strategies are solid enough to be relied upon. Let’s look at what he’s got:

Ranged game - Sean has no ranged game. None of his attacks are long in distance, and he has no projectile on top of that (no, the Basketball is not passable as a projectile). This makes it impossible for Sean to play any sort of ranged game.

Getting in close - Most people get in close with things like projectiles or special attacks that can move you forward quickly. Sean has neither of those. Tornade gets pwned, even on hit. Sean Tackle has no hitbox as it moves forward, making it an unsafe way to approach. Prutz is the easiest move in the fucking game to parry outright. Anything method that Sean has to cover distance while his opponent is standing is unsafe.

Defensive game - Sean’s anti-airs are kind of low priority for anti-airs. SDoG gets worked unless it’s EX, S. Roundhouse can be beat pretty easy by light attacks, and C. Fierce…well C. Fierce is pretty good, but its angle isn’t all-purpose; it doesn’t work against every jump-in. He also has neutral J.Forward or Roundhouse, but that doesn’t go a long ways, because it becomes easy to parry after a while, and he can’t use it to gain any sort of momentum. Defensive game is a dead end game for Sean.

Close game - Sean’s close game is pretty damn good. He’s got a good high/low/kara throw game, but it’s got its flaws…the high mixups are kind of predictable, so he can’t get big damage from overheads like, say, Elena can…His best method of doing damage is cancelling into supers, but Sean has no easy hit-confirms. It’s not a horrible mixup game overall, the more that I think about it, but it’s a lot easier to break than some peoples’ games. Also, worse yet, it’s very hard to get in close with Sean, making the meat of his game very hard to even get the opportunity to land.

Basically, Sean can only fight in close, and it’s waaay hard to get in close. You pretty much need to dash in at random times to go for throws, or fish for sweeps at max range. Once you do that, you can actually do some nice stuff with Sean, but yeah…nothing that can’t be done by someone else. Sean is hard to use and brings nothing new to the table.

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his distant s.fp is fast as hell id have to say thats its probably the best poke in the game. Itll smack just about anything since it has awesome priority and It makes for a decent anti air too. Since the move is fast already it gives you plent of time to mix it up against jump ins.

fwd+fk awesome and decieving range. Decent psychic anti air if you know how to play that game.

s.fk distant also another good anti air\poke but easily parryable against jump ins. When you mix in the s.fk distant and the s.fp distant as anti airs it gives you ton of priority against jump ins. Not to mention you could always c.mp or s.jab them and put them into resets.

But honestly sean game truly shines during his ball knockdown game. It makes the opp think ahead of what your going to do and from that point on you have the advantage. I like to toe the c.mk and cance into the ball. Most people dont expext the ball while they arent knockdown. Its just a gimmick that works for a while but if the person your going against doesnt know it, you can inflect some fast damage.

baby kick cancel roll is another decent trick but a trick none the less. short roll puts you on the other side and a medium roll gets you out most move ranges.

use your sean tricks sparringly seeing thats most of his game. The more tricks you have the better off you are with him IMO.

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what is a kara throw?

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you can move then throw almost instantly. It requires cancelling a move though

with ryu its like fwd+mp then throw immediately

the timing is kinda tricky to learn but its easily done when learned. I can do it probably like 90% of the time and I dont even practice it.

If you wanna test it out pick akuma in training mode. walk back so that full screen from the dummy. fwd+mp then throw immediately. If you hear akuma grunt then throws youve done it. Also when your full screen you can see how far the character actually move from judging from full screen to where your currently are. its not like a half screen throw more like baby kick distance with ryu and akuma.

Best way to actually do it though is with 3 fingers on an arcade stick. Much harder on a dpad and almost impossible if you dont even know what it looks like.

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It’s not THAT hard on a d-pad; I don’t even play with an arcade stick. :stuck_out_tongue:

And, btw, Sean’s kara throw is Fierce or T.Fierce; T.Fierce gets him more distance fyi, but you’ll usually be using it in close enough proximity that it shouldn’t matter either way.

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Yeah, I have tried it on PS2 Urien and couldn’t get it. ??? I don’t know if the game is somewhat different on PS2. I know Urien’s mirror unblockable setups are different on PS2. Well, our arcade scene is dead in Atlanta and there are not really any machines. I have a friend that has it on arcade but actually lives very far away and I can’t try it. Well, I don’t have the PS2 version on hand, but I’m definitely going to work on it when I get it. To be honest, Urien’s is kind of an assumption, because I first thought of this technique on DreamCast when looking for something Sean had people couldn’t tech roll. And SA2 is the only thing. I figured that the only thinOn DC you can do SA2 dash forward immediately ball, MP roll, after you come out of the roll MP and ball hit exactly the same time if you time exactly. Yeah like I said to, it actually worked on Ken at FR8 (arcade version). I did the setup FP, ball hit same time, cancelled to uppercut with JP but since hit stun off off ball is very short, uppercut missed. So actually in that case, I should have wait a little before doing FP. As far as Chun-Li flying back, what do you mean? Because every one flies back (if hit off of ground). If you hit people in the air with SA2 they fly weird sometimes. Also you know people fall different according to weight in SF3. So if you want to test it I guess it is about timing after all, and how people fall then. It might actually work better if you hit certain people out of the air with SA2 rather than on the ground. Well, I will test when I am able to.

ps try this little poke scheme with Sean that I use. close RK, d+MK into JK tornado, or JK Ryuubi Kyaku, or JP dash. Annoying! And d+JP,d+FP into RK Ryuubi kyaku (doesn’t hit but lands behind opponent, no recovery, people almost always stick out low attack, parry or super setup lol but use sparingly of course)

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whats the “slam dunk of gayness”?

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nvm its the uppercut for sean

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I think it’s important to learn cr. LK. LP, LK, SA1. No damage reduction only a few points less of damage than cr. MK, SA1. Flexible & verifiable. Including the fact when they block cr. LK, LP, LK ( NO USEY THE SA) you are quite safe unlike if you were to use cr. MK.

The Tornado seems alot like Psycho Crusher when it hits, Sean can throw u, or u can throw Sean lol stupid. I have yet to get a tech throw here…yet

oh and Sean’s reset to super are useless (f + HK to SA1 or air-to-air attack, SA1)

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I’d like to see Sean’s unblockable actually used in a match vid

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The more I play Sean, the more I agree with this notion. I still think that C. MK is better to do if you’re trying to fish for supers, but on your opponent’s wakeup, C. LK -> C. LP -> C. LK XX SA1 is much safer and easier to hit confirm (strangely enough).

EDIT: Something to note, C. LK -> C. LP -> C. LK doesn’t work on Urien, Necro, or Q; you have to omit C. LP (so just do C. LK x2).

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WTF, that dont make sense?