Branflakes Online

Been back on the horse the past couple days (minus tonight).  Pretty much the same ol’ out there in PSN land.  I feel like I’m actually upping my game up little by little from all this online play.  I suppose it’s not so much upping my technical game… just upping my knowledge of the game.  Technique-wise, online play is probably totally fucking me right up.  Awesome!

Ultra Selection – This has been on my mind a lot during my matches.  As soon as SSF4 came out and Kikosho was shown to combo from practically every move Chun has, I thought this would be the 100% go-to Ultra.  It actually was for a long while.  Lately, this hasn’t been the case.  There are a number of match-ups where I’ve found Housenka (Ultra 1) to be more effective.  There are the obvious cases, such as Blanka and Honda, where Ultra 1 shuts down a large part of their offense and can connect for full hits/damage.  But then, there are also the in-between cases… specifically Akuma and Boxer, as of late.

I thought Akuma would be an easy choice, but it’s turning out to be a difficult one.  In vanilla SF4, I had no choice – Housenka.  It does go through projectiles, and it’s obviously a huge plus against heavy projectile characters like Akuma, but where it falls short is on offense.  When you’re trying to hit Akuma with Ultra 1, because it’s a charge Ultra, you’re almost forced to play mainly defensive.  You can’t run in there, guns blazing, and expect to pull off Ultra 1 for huge damage.  Even if you do manage to get an ex-Lightning Legs on Akuma, Ultra 1 doesn’t connect for full hits/damage.  Not in the corner, not outside of the corner… basically never off a juggle state.

Enter Ultra 2 – Kikosho.  This Ultra thrives off juggle states.  Any time Akuma is in juggle state, you can make him eat Ultra 2 for full damage.  Go ahead and run in there, guns blazing, make him eat that ex-Lightning Legs and finish it off with an Ultra 2.  Sounds so awesome… so why the hell would you pick Ultra 1?  For one, Ultra 2 is straight weak.  The damage you’ll get off a full Ultra 2 is nothing compared to a lot of the other Ultras in the game.  For two, landing Ultra 2 means you’ve managed to get in on Akuma.  Getting in on Akuma can be a problem all in itself.  Ultra 1, Housenka, can potentially connect for full damage anywhere on the screen.

So it’s a toss up.  It’s almost like damage potential vs guaranteed damage.  Ultra 1 can connect for way more damage as long as you’re patient.  The pitiful damage of Ultra 2 can connect basically anytime you get an ex-Lightning Legs, jumping fierce, or df+lk anti-air… all of which should happen more than often in a match.

Needless to say, Ultra selection can be extremely important, depending on the character you play.  It can change your play style and mentality before Round 1 even starts.

Honda – what a pain in the ass this guy can be.  Zoned, Honda is usually easy pickings.  Throw projectiles, wait for him to jump, punish accordingly.  Where shit goes wrong (on PSN at least) is when he gets you down and starts to go butt-splash crazy on you.  I haven’t played against enough Honda players to find a straight answer for constant butt-splashes on wake up.  I still haven’t found the counter.  Focus back-dashing seems to be the response from most players out there, but I haven’t found it as effective as I had hoped.  Until I find a solid answer, I’ll stick to ex-Spinning Bird Kick and straight-up not getting into that situation in the first place.  Maybe jump back HK…

Ultra 1 btw.  Reversal Housenka off of ANY blocked Sumo Headbutt goes for full hits and damage.

Guile – I haven’t had the privilege of playing any good Guile players lately, but the match-up has been on my mind a lot.  I always find myself playing straight offense against Guile.  I get extremely impatient at constant Sonic Boom throwers and start making a lot of bad decisions like obvious jump-ins and Hasan Shus.  I have yet to figure out a solid strategy.  Currently, I’m thinking the best way to approach this one is to push Guile into the corner by walking and blocking, and then pressuring him with long range pokes and anti-airs to keep him there.  Easier said than done, believe me.  Maybe I should play heavy defense and make Guile bring his game to me.  Hmm…. Need to research this match-up way more.  Thanks to Daigo, EVERYONE plays Guile which makes learning this match-up all the more urgent.

Ultra 2 > Ultra 1, imo.  Ultra 1 is difficult to pull off due to Guile’s super fast recovery on the Sonic Boom.  Ultra 1 also does NOT go for full damage off a juggle state on Guile.

Why the hell did it take me forever to write this.  And it’s not spacing the way I want… stupid new theme.

Been a bit busy lately and lazy to post. This is just going to be a quick run down of things I’ve noticed during my online play.

The steady stream of Bison players has stopped. There are still quite a few of them out there, but lately it seems everyone is playing…

Adon. What a pain this guy is. I haven’t really run into anyone that plays him well, so it’s hard to say he’s a problem match up. Though he is really really annoying. Most people seem to spam out his Jaguar Kick and Jaguar Tooth. If you haven’t played against any Adons, you’ll find out quickly that both of those moves are armor breaking moves. That means no focusing. Jaguar Tooth is easy enough to deal with. If they go for any Jaguar Tooth, you can safely jump over all of them and punish on the way down. This might not be applicable to lesser height jumpers at closer ranges, but it applies to Chun and that’s all that matters to me. Jaguar Kick has been harder to deal with. Still not sure what to do against it other than block. Jaguar Kick leaves Adon at -2 or -3 on block, so there is a bit of time in there to retaliate.

Abel. Lots and lots of Abel players. Breathless (his Ultra 2) is so good. Lately, I’ve been trying to avoid Abel’s Ultra 2 by staying close to him. This way, if I see him activate his Ultra, I can safely jump over him and away from harm. I suppose staying fullscreen away would work too, but more often than not you’ll find yourself screwed in the corner. Other than jumping, I’m not really sure what Chun can do to avoid Abel’s new Ultra. If you’re in the corner and Abel has Ultra, there’s a good chance you’ll be taking some big damage real quick. Also, gotta remember that his j.hp is REALLY good air-to-air. Cross up j.mk is tricky to guard. Wake up EX Change of Direction is actually a decent option – the armor and range on it can be useful. Yeah… Abel… Wow. He’s good, if not great.

Ryu/Ken/Sagat. There are always a lot of these online, and they’re not really a problem since I get a lot of practice against them, but I’m thinking Chun’s Ultra 1 might actually be better than Ultra 2. Usually what I’ll do against a projectile spammer is walk and block. I’ll take a few steps forward then block in anticipation of a projectile, then continue to move forward. This helps close the distance without doing something risky like jumping or dashing. Once in range, I’ll try to react to a projectile by focus dashing through it, hasan shu’ing over it, or just waiting for them to do something that I can counter hit/poke. Any of those options are a lot easier said than done. ESPECIALLY online. Walking and blocking on PSN is like asking to eat 10 fireballs to the face. There’s just so little time to react with the inherit lag of playing over an Internet connection. So, instead of eating fireballs, I’ve been thinking of going back to Ultra 1. This way, I don’t have to chase. I can sit back on Ultra and just wait for them to throw something. As soon as I see a limb go out to fireball, Ultra right through it. In some cases, such as Sagat, you have to dash Ultra to catch him mid-fireball. Ultra 1 also has the added bonus of actually working in the corner against Ryu, Ken, and Sagat. About half of the cast won’t eat the last part of Chun’s Ultra 1 off of a corner juggle. Fortunately, these three guys eat it all.

Been taking a bit of a break with the C to Shining C trophy to work on my Chun-Li again. My execution has been horrible with her as of late – missing a lot of easy opportunities that end up costing me matches. So, its been back to training room. I’ve been trying to clean up a few links and develop a better way to do some important combos. It’s painful to start but I think it’ll be worth it in the end. Being back in “the lab” figuring things out is actually sort of fun. A whole lot of learning.

The three most important things to have: frame data, hit boxes, notepad.

No ranking up today. Stupid Seth. He makes me not want to even attempt to play ranked battles unless I’m totally in the zone. And even if I am in the mood to play, I still blow ass with him so it’s not like I’d be getting any wins any time soon. Truely, Seth has potential to give me a lower win rate than Viper did. As if my Viper’s awesome 52% win rate wasn’t enough to screw my record up.

So I ended up buying stupid stuff on the Playstation Network Store today. Originally, I opened up the store to browse around and eventually buy the new SSF4 alternate costumes (which are pretty decent) but I ended up with a bit more. Turns out Capcom is now releasing “Premium Avatars”. Now, instead of my PSN avatar being an 8-bit race car, it’s a portait of Bison (Dic) from SF4. Waste of 49 cents? Maybe. Do I really care that Capcom is totally money grabbing with their SF alternate costumes and avatars? Nope. Should I buy more Capcom merchandise and money grabbing add-ons? Yes. A trillion times, yes.

In other news, StarCraft 2 is hard and I suck big ones at it.