You're Doing It Wrong (Addressing common mistakes/misperceptions with solutions)

JiBbo

It feels necessary to make a thread dedicated to common mistakes and misconceptions. The game is really fun and good but I fear that people will brush it to the side for the wrong reasons. Anyways...

Gameplay Mechanics

Problem: Stop cross rushing and erasing your teammates recoverable life UNLESS it is a killing combo or that much favorable of a match up situation. You're essentially doing damage to your teams net health which will affect the life lead. It's often not worth the extra 100 or so damage considering the "damage" you do to yourself.

Solution: Ideally you want the opposite effect. Cross Rush into your teammate so that you can RECOVER life back.

Problem: Stop wasting meter. Meter is one of the most important tools in the game and should be used as effectively as possible. An example of wasting meter would be cross tagging more than 2 times in a combo just for the damage. Using ex moves when the round is no longer in your grasp, also.

Solution: You want meter available to open your options up so you can keep your team healthy and in good position. You can't do that effectively if you've wasted it on low damaging combos.

Problem: AWARENESS. AWARENESS. AWARENESS. ALWAYS know what the time is. Aaaallllwwwwaaaaaaayssssasdfjkl;. ALWAYS know how much meter you have. ALWAYS know how much recoverable health you have.

Solution: This game reminds of SC2 at times in that mid-combo I will be looking at the time, meter and health in order to evaluate my options. I keep track of all of the information on the screen as often as possible so I can make the most informed decisions at any given moment.

Problem: Blocked cross rush combos unpunished.

Solution: Find your characters button with reach and preferably earns a knockdown. There are also creative solutions such as Sagat's Kara Tiger Uppercut, which can punish most chains ending in fierce/roundhouse. Supers are also considerable but make it worth the 2 bars.

Problem: Ineffective Team Supers

Solution: 3 bars. It takes THREEEE bars to team super so it better be worth it. Team super at the beginning of the round is hard to justify because it takes away all of your options with meter, won't take away any recoverable health (because they won't have much) and it won't tag your character in so you can recover health, because that character has full health. An example of a super effective team super would be against a mid-health character while your character has a lot of recoverable health, since it switches them out. This makes your opponents character useless with no recoverable health. It's dangerous to keep a low health character in play especially against a full health character.

Problem: I'm stuck getting hit by standing jabs. There are too many block strings. I hate my life.

Solution: Block and examine your opponent as well as the frame data. Observing is key to all fighting games. Cross Canceling can be really really damaging in the right places. Back dashes are still invincible. Also... suck it up and block. It's not that bad. Have you ever played a good sagat in CvS2? His standing jab was yuck and you couldn't mash an invincible back dash out of it.

Good cross rush information by PsychoBlue: http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?threads/seven-minute-saikyo-lesson-maximizing-damage-with-less-buttons.161000/

Match-up Specifics

Rolento
- Has no real high low mixup or three frame jab. His strengths are his powerful footsies and zoning. He's a lame and solid character. However if you have meter and the life lead he becomes extremely free to blocking and cross cancels.

Hugo
- Yes, splash is really good but only if he's already on top of you. Find your character's anti-air against it and he really has no solid way to advance. Lariat isn't good unless you give it to him and his footsies are almost non-existent aside from low forward and stand strong. WATCH him charge lariat and punish him if he back dashes or forward dashes. Just watch and react. Also, to my knowledge, Hugo doesn't have a good anti-air if he doesn't have meter (Ex-back breaker, which is amazing but again costs meter). You can put him in a really tough position where he has to use lots of meter to have options, which really damages the team anyway.

Ken
- Air Hurricane kicks can be blocked crouching. You have to play the ground footsie game with his air tatsu in mind at all times so you can space his jump arch in your favor.



I wrote this quickly so please excuse the sloppy formatting/grammar.

More to come.

Please discuss.

SimSimIV

Happy to see someone who knows what he is talking about, share some thoughts!

SUPARNOVAX

Yes yes, wipe out the troll posts.

I saw a lot of retagging this weekend from Shadaloo Showdown and Season's Beatings. Tons of people dropping recoverable health for an extra measy 50 damage. Totally not worth it. I suspect people are just doing it out of training mode habit.

JiBbo

mowr, post: 6921021, member: 30024 wrote:

Problem: Gems

Solution: Don't play this game

Problem: Can't think for myself
Solution: Troll forums

:D DONT HATE ME BRO IM JUST KIDDING.....

Seriously though, what's wrong with gems? Assist Gems, I can mostly agree with shouldn't be in competitive play but I would argue that boost gems give the game more depth. We do realize that increased stats have been in all kinds of fighting games, right? K-Groove in CVS2 is the first example that comes to mind.

SUPARNOVAX, post: 6921051, member: 2393 wrote:

I saw a lot of retagging this weekend from Shadaloo Showdown and Season's Beatings. Tons of people dropping recoverable health for an extra measy 50 damage. Totally not worth it. I suspect people are just doing it out of training mode habit.

Absolutely. I suspect people do it because it's an easy hit confirm and it seems better to complete a combo rather than do something they're unfamiliar with.

d3v

Thank you JiBbo. Adding this to the list of useful threads.

@mowr
1 more point and you've earned your 1 week break from SRK.

SimSimIV

Problem: The damage is scaling too hard, so it doesn't pay off to tag cancel/launcher into your other character and do longer comboes.
Solution: Train yourself to hitconfirm with links (As few as possible if your second character does a lot of damage | zoner->powerhouse) into launcher and avoid cross rush to avoid lots of scaling. Common knowledge, but a lot of people take the easy way out and punish with lp mp hp launcher.

SUPARNOVAX

SimSimIV, post: 6921093, member: 14854 wrote:

Problem: The damage is scaling too hard, so it doesn't pay off to tag cancel/launcher into your other character and do longer comboes.
Solution: Train yourself to hitconfirm with links (As few as possible if your second character does a lot of damage | zoner->powerhouse) into launcher and avoid cross rush to avoid lots of scaling. Common knowledge, but a lot of people take the easy way out and punish with lp mp hp launcher.

Well for one bar it's worth it, some combos innately build up a good chunk of meter off normals and specials. So you end up spending half or so from the start of the combo after factoring in the meter you build up. Even more so when you can trigger or do it during a boost gem duration. I think for this fact, it is a little deceptive that burning meter for tag combos is a "waste" when most streams for locals and tournaments run it without gems. With the 20-40% meter acquisition gems, there's plenty of room to style.

ShadolooDoll

rolento also has no safe/reliable approaches with his ass walk speed.

As you said, get a lead, down back (his overhead is trash vs anyone who isnt drunk) and he's done.

FlyingVe

Another tip against Hugo. Chain Buffer your pokes. Hugo's normals are very slow, so for most characters he can't punish. This makes lariat useless, and it's not like he can out footsie you with his slow normals.

Jiavin

SimSimIV, post: 6921093, member: 14854 wrote:

Problem: The damage is scaling too hard, so it doesn't pay off to tag cancel/launcher into your other character and do longer comboes.
Solution: Train yourself to hitconfirm with links (As few as possible if your second character does a lot of damage | zoner->powerhouse) into launcher and avoid cross rush to avoid lots of scaling. Common knowledge, but a lot of people take the easy way out and punish with lp mp hp launcher.

Hm, I can agree with that. I have never used the launcher by itself in this game. Also, I have yet to use the LP > MP > HP > Launcher for some odd reason. It's why I've tried to lower my hits with my team to balance out the damage. Especially with my Xiaoyu/Juri team. The best damage I've done with one bar is 19 hits with tag cancels for about 400~500 damage, and the most hits I've done is about 33, but it did about 500 damage and used all of my bars. So I agree with less hits is more.

JiBbo

SniperNightOwl, post: 6921121, member: 23575 wrote:

rolento also has no safe/reliable approaches with his ass walk speed.

As you said, get a lead, down back (his overhead is trash vs anyone who isnt drunk) and he's done.

He's so weak to cross cancels. I've gotten in the habit of cross canceling every patriot circle if I have meter and the life lead because it wastes time and gives me a knockdown and follow up -- not to mention a bit of guaranteed damage. So I just lame him out and keep my meter up. The key to beating Rolento is maintaining your stats.

SamuelVimes

Problem: Losing the match with one high health character in the back.

Solution: Switch more often! Kind of an addendum to the "only tag when necessary," thing, but frequent tags recovering small amounts of recoverable life is safer than keeping someone in too long, switch, then having to rely on that character while your point recovers 30% of their bar at one time. It also does more consistent damage to the opponent, and the switching often of styles can help catch your opponent off guard.
Of course you should not be tagging spastically. As the first rule states, you do not want to burn large amounts of recoverable life (though if you tag frequently it should not build up). Also important to consider is multi-character combos gives the opponent more recoverable life than single character combos.
All in all, it depends on your style, characters, and the situation. I'm not saying tag every combo so much as be smarter about when you decide to do it or not. It's a huge part of this game.

SamuelVimes

Jiavin, post: 6921183, member: 25836 wrote:

I have never used the launcher by itself in this game.

It's dangerous as all get out, but it has its uses. You have invulnerability to lows when doing it, so if you know the opponent is throwing out low strings you can smash them with a Raw Launcher, and the follow-up will be big on account of literally no scaling.

Graphf

One of the biggest things that happens, it even happened multiple times during season's beatings, was not tagging out to recover life.
If you lose and you have a 75% health, or heaven forfend, a Full health character, sitting out, you are doing it wrong.
This is one of the points that Inflitration is so strong on. He is always watching his characters total health and switching constantly.

Another thing it to be aware of how to use meter. 9 times out of 10, a tag combo does similar, if not more, damage than a super which costs 2 bars. The super route is easier, but people posting on this site shouldn't be worrying about that tbh. That said, if a super can seal the deal, i.e. cr.mk into super, then by all means, do it.

SF Punker

On the topic of dying with full-life characters, there is a mindset of "being the hero", or at least not wanting to lose 50% by raw tagging so you keep going hoping you find that opening before the opponent connects with you. That's what you see here in most commonly in these situations. Personally, starting from the beginning of the round, I try to tag out after one character loses 25%-ish life. Obviously if I eat a mis-timed jump-in AA it usually costs my character about 40-50% and I'm immediately looking to tag-out. It's at this point where the cross-road is: do I try and look for a boost combo, look for a safe tag cancel or raw tag?

CapMaster

I just want to say Jibbo, thank you for creating this thread. I too like this game a lot. I can understand that the time overs can frustrate a lot of players, but time over only screws you if you are behind. This makes every moment crucial. The games trains you to be on point with your defense, and ability to convert on the opportunities you may receive during a match.

One other hint I should add: Remember that you have 2 characters. The second character isn't just for show, or just to have someone to do cross rush combos with. Take advantage!

SamuelVimes

Problem: Most of the cast is terrible/useless.

Solution: I'm not arguing that all the characters are balanced. I am arguing that many people disregard much of the roster because they try to see them as fulfilling an entire character, rather than being part of a team. Every character in SFxT has a distinctive role in teams that they can play effectively and be very rewarding. King, for instance, has poor footsies and overheads, giving him glaring flaws, but if you play them on anchor you can have the first character do all the footsies you need and use him for how he was intended: cause big damage, play a very rewarding mixup game on wakeup, and leave. On the other side of the coin, Yoshimitsu was (is?) considered to be easily the worst character in the game, but some of his moves are among the best in the game at tag canceling for huge combos, a valuable asset for many other characters to have.

Thancruz

I'm not gonna lie, I have sat back with a full health character in the back and next thing I know KO!, im like "FUCK!"

ffff

I don't agree with the 'tag out if you're low' philosophy, unless your other character has 100% health. Anything less than that and you're just setting yourself up for a turtle fest.

I see a lot of commentators saying during matches "you should tag out there" and I'm like "no." Having very little health can have its psychological advantages, plus a comeback is a comeback. You need to maul the opponent, not poke them a little bit until you have a slight life advantage - for one, the latter's pathetic, secondly it's not actually a good idea - so it doesn't matter if you're doing it with 50% health or 5% (well there is a difference, but if your comeback is successful it doesn't, and you should be confident enough to believe in your plan). If your point's dangerously low and you've got the life lead, and will definitely still have the life lead after eating a 50% (25%) DMG combo, fine - do it, but that's almost never the case for me.

I also disagree with saving meter for no real reason, or just incase you'll need it for a cross counter, safe tag, or EX reversal. I mean, I don't think it's an inarguably good idea to horde meter. It's up to you how much extra DMG 1 block is worth, in the OP's example I would say 1 block is definitely worth 100 extra DMG no matter what, but it's also situational. If a heavily scaled extra couple hits might kill, absolutely do it. If it will give you significant wall carry, go for it. But as I said it's up to you. There's no right answer for that.

BTW OP when you do a team super the point character goes back on point at the end.

TL;DR: Doing it right is subjective and situational, and your examples aren't convincing me you're not doing it wrong yourself.

SamuelVimes

Well yeah, even the super high risk things can be effective sometimes. It's hard to pick a post apart that speaks so generally. I think what T.C is trying to say is that, as a whole, people are going about it wrong. They are leaving characters in too long and losing a great amount of recoverable life to do the flashy tag combos they worked so hard in training modes.

Granted I totally agree with your post to. It may not seem so at first, but this game is just so incredibly footsy based. When people say that, they usually mean how one touch can lead to huge damage. On the other side, if you have great footsies, you can have 1% life, manuever perfectly, and get an incredibly clutch tag out. I've rarely seen a more exciting play then something with low life waiting for the opponent to be careless, get their hit, make their tag, and win. If the opponent is full on jumping away, a raw tag will work.

Vulcan Hades

JiBbo wrote:

Problem: Blocked cross rush combos unpunished.

Solution: Find your characters button with reach and preferably earns a knockdown.

I'm sorry but this is not good advice. If you block a cross-rush or launcher you should punish with a full combo not a silly knockdown.

You can use a standing medium or heavy right into manual launcher and that will be a better punish than just a sweep.

Thancruz, post: 6922101, member: 22788 wrote:

I'm not gonna lie, I have sat back with a full health character in the back and next thing I know KO!, im like "FUCK!"

Yeah about that,

I see too many players do a raw mp+mk only to eat a full 400 damage combo. Sure, sometimes you have no choice to stay alive, but ideally you want to switch characters using the tag cancel, cross-rush/Launcher or a Cross-Assault/Cross-Art.

Any normal attack can be tag canceled on hit or on block. So you can just AA/air to air tag or poke tag. It doesn't have to be a special move/reversal/alpha counter. The important thing is to get your low health character out.

ffff

Vulcan Hades, post: 6922346, member: 26486 wrote:

I'm sorry but this is not good advice. If you block a cross-rush or launcher you should punish with a full combo not a silly knockdown.

You can use a standing medium or heavy right into manual launcher and that will be a better punish than just a sweep.



Yeah about that,

I see too many players do a raw mp+mk only to eat a full 400 damage combo. Sure, sometimes you have no choice to stay alive, but ideally you want to switch characters using the tag cancel, cross-rush/Launcher or a Cross-Assault/Cross-Art.

Any normal attack can be tag canceled on hit or on block. So you can just AA/air to air tag or poke tag. It doesn't have to be a special move/reversal/alpha counter. The important thing is to get your low health character out.

This is a good point. One of the reasons Poongko does so well is he rarely just tags out, he usually tag cancels during a blockstring and keeps it going with the incoming character.

roknin

Definitely going to be looking through this thread a lot. I'm one of the "dies with a full health character" because I'll get on a good roll, make one mistake, then spend the rest of the round trying to safe tag out unsuccessfully, lol.

SUPARNOVAX

ffff, post: 6922194, member: 65538 wrote:

I don't agree with the 'tag out if you're low' philosophy, unless your other character has 100% health. Anything less than that and you're just setting yourself up for a turtle fest.

Yeah, some grey health is tradeable early on. People may not notice but when your health is at the 100% to 85% mark, the grey health is significantly less than compared to around 50% mark if you were hit by the same combos. I find it okay, if presented with the situation, to start a good launch combo and just re-raw-launch back for some damage at the cost of no meter but just a little bit of possible grey health.

What I'm referring to is the second launcher after the initial one that causes the opponent to be unjuggable. It presents a non-quick recovery state so you can setup midpoint pressure or plan out future tech roll pressure.

Graphf

CapMaster, post: 6921667, member: 703 wrote:

I just want to say Jibbo, thank you for creating this thread. I too like this game a lot. I can understand that the time overs can frustrate a lot of players, but time over only screws you if you are behind. This makes every moment crucial. The games trains you to be on point with your defense, and ability to convert on the opportunities you may receive during a match.

One other hint I should add: Remember that you have 2 characters. The second character isn't just for show, or just to have someone to do cross rush combos with. Take advantage!

see b/u/i above.


Timeouts is an issue that should probably have it's own thread because I think it is very interesting. When is the last time a fighting game appeared where the clock actually mattered?

I think it is a great thing. It adds a layer of fear to the match. A layer of depth; added stratgey. At first the clock kind of bugged me. But, the game was so fun to play that I stopped caring, and tried to look at the game on it's own and not compare it to other fighters. I accepted the fact that timeouts are a part of sfxt.

My point is essentially to use it and not fear it. A win is a win. Right? RIGHT? Or did I forget something... this is SRK right? The best fighting game forum on the internet? The place where they tell scrubs to suck it up and people come for information? A hardcore fighting game site, where players care about winning and not costumes and things you'd see posted on Unity.

If that is the case, then what's wrong with timeouts? The other guy just couldn't beat you. That is his problem not yours. His offense wasn't good enough to beat you. You Win.

Matches in this game can end in 15-20 secs. In the blink of an eye. The offense is there... but are you willing to cross the line (I had to), and use it? Is your offense good enough? Conversely, we can play the side of the defender or keepaway character. Guile, Akuma, Raven and others come to mind. These characters are gonna try to keep you out and whittle you down. The timer makes these characters relevant in a whole new way. I like being able to put up a wall so solid that people die trying to get through. The clock pressures people to make decisions. Even a turtle/lame/Defensive character matchup is now more exciting. How much blood is the offense willing to lose to get it?

The clock speeds all this up but without making an entire playstyle obsolete. Defensive style vs Offensive style as always been the hallmark of an excellent fighting game. Without both styles in a game, it can become stale over time. This game really allows you to play it how you want, and the clock is a part of that.

JiBbo

Vulcan Hades, post: 6922346, member: 26486 wrote:

If you block a cross-rush or launcher you should punish with a full combo not a silly knockdown.

Right right. That's not the point I'm trying to make. Cross Rush combos can seem like they're unpunishable because of the distance it leaves your character. Because of the amount of negative frames incurred from the blocked cross rush you'll be able to punish it with slower moves or more further reaching moves that you normally couldn't. I'm not saying CROSS RUSH? LOL SWEEP. Rather, know that they can be punished for it.

Such is the case with Guile's Low Forward > Stand Roundhouse chain that everybody loves. It's very difficult to punish because of the distance but a lot of supers have the reach to do so (Ryu and Sagat come to mind). The only bargain there is if it's worth it to use the meter. Cammy's chain that ends with far stand roundhouse I know I can punish with Sagat Kara Uppercut on block. Just some examples..

The problem isn't so much the maximum punishes yet, it's that people aren't attempting to punish them at all. This contributes to the notion that the game is defensive and thus time overs occur and blah blah blah etc

On the subject of low health management and raw taging willingly to eat damage.... I'm sort of standing on the fence. Personally I would rather find a way to get my team member out safely AND do some damage at the same time but decisions like these are so dependent on the situation. This is one of the things I think makes the game exciting actually. Do I have meter? What are that characters options? What does my opponent suspect and what are his intentions? There's surely a yomi factor within it.

I'll make some adjustments to the first post tomorrow. Thanks for all the input. Keep it up!

SUPARNOVAX

I do not believe time outs really is an "issue" in this game. You can most definitely clear someone's health way earlier. Look at the Shadaloo Showdown matches and how many time outs versus knock outs there were. You can't make this shit up. You can go offensive just as freely as you can sit back and do nothing for 80 seconds and time someone out. And this is without gems enabled. With gems enabled? Free, especially when given the right team and right setups to initiate 20% to 30% damage gems.

They purposely made it run on the same clock as SF4 along with two health bars, balanced the game around boost gems that includes damage reduction and have specialty gems that add more health.

Time outs are very much a viable method of winning. Most people complaining about time outs one way or another probably lost due to the inability to act enough during a match or they got out paced in health management.

I mean right now, I am just being more conscious about how much grey health I can recover before it's OK to tag cancel a combo or use launcher in my combos again to keep things fresh. There's no more use one char until he's low and then tag out and refresh the situation. It's all part of the meta gameplay.

It's time people approach this game for how it's designed.

mugetsu

Man, when I wake up I'm actually gonna read through the thread and add stuff if it hasn't been said already. Good shit though. It's great to see topics that aren't full of crybabies and people who didn't even play the game longer than the first week.

::high five::

fatboy

JiBbo, post: 6920998, member: 4188 wrote:

Problem: I'm stuck getting hit by standing jabs. There are too many block strings. I hate my life.

Solution: Block and examine your opponent as well as the frame data. Observing is key to all fighting games. Cross Canceling can be really really damaging in the right places. Back dashes are still invincible. Also... suck it up and block. It's not that bad. Have you ever played a good sagat in CvS2? His standing jab was yuck and you couldn't mash an invincible back dash out of it.

Thank you god, I have been trying to make this point. I *love* the fact that SF4 brought a new generation of SFers to the genre, and I am happy they are here. But many of them have not put the effort into to learn the basic fundamentals of SF that have been around for 20+ years.

JiBbo

FlyingVe, post: 6921135, member: 23416 wrote:

Another tip against Hugo. Chain Buffer your pokes. Hugo's normals are very slow, so for most characters he can't punish. This makes lariat useless, and it's not like he can out footsie you with his slow normals.

I agree with this concept whole-heartedly, however there will come a time when Hugo players realize that they can block (UNHEARD OF RIGHT). As mentioned earlier chain combos incur more negative frames to your character so you can potential be punished depending on the frames. I realize that Hugo's normals are pretty slow but even with that considered he can still potentially punish blocked chain combos. An even better option would be a normal like Sagat's standing short which hits twice AND give frame advantage. In addition Hugo's Lariat option also loses to throw.

His answer for that would be EX-Moonsault Press but the meter usage is hurtful and you can punish him hard with a jump on wake-up.

Example @ 1:52 below

Spoiler:

His other solution would be to EX-Back Breaker there which again costs meter and in that situation would have been a guess. Both options he could potentially be punished for heavily.

I will continue to hold that Hugo is great but absolutely needs meter to be a solid character. Hugo gimmicks won't last much longer.

Fatal Error XI

SUPARNOVAX, post: 6922455, member: 2393 wrote:

I find it okay, if presented with the situation, to start a good launch combo and just re-raw-launch back for some damage at the cost of no meter but just a little bit of possible grey health.

What I'm referring to is the second launcher after the initial one that causes the opponent to be unjuggable. It presents a non-quick recovery state so you can setup midpoint pressure or plan out future tech roll pressure.

I know Gems are banned, but I just wanted to point out that re-launch combos are a great way to set-up gem activations. There are gems that activate when you launch, and when your partner launches, so you can set up a non-quick rise knockdown with your point character coming back in with freshly activated gems.

Again, I know they are banned, but if that ever gets worked out, I can see relaunch combos becoming even more common.

ffff

Fatal Error XI, post: 6924351, member: 9167 wrote:

I know Gems are banned, but I just wanted to point out that re-launch combos are a great way to set-up gem activations. There are gems that activate when you launch, and when you partner launches, so you can set up a non-quick rise knockdown with your point character coming back in with freshly activated gems.

Again, I know they are banned, but if that ever gets worked out, I can see relaunch combos becoming even more common.

Yep. I play with gems as much as I can and I frequently sacrifice a ton of recoverable life to get simultaneous 20% stat boosts. For me it's definitely worth it.

roknin

When playing with gems, I need to actively start thinking more about my actual set up and working with it. I generally made most of my sets passive to work with my playstyle - as in, they're not something I actively try to activate and I don't necessarily have to plan around them.

Definitely something I should work on.

SamuelVimes

Yeah. Gems can make the difference between winning and losing online, even just boost gems. Not game breaking in any way, but if you do them right it can only be beneficial. In terms of offense, I feel Onslaught gems are better than power gems in most instances. If they go off during long combos you essentially build infinite meter for that period, and for all teams it only takes three combos at most with meter to kill Hugo.
Speed gems are often neglected, but incredibly important to some characters. Take Bob for example. If you are able to stack Speed gems on him he can combo two jumping heavy attacks together, and it also makes his crossup game nearly impossible to react to. Sure they only last 10 or 15 seconds, but if the extra speed can get you one, maybe two combos you may not have gotten otherwise, that is incredibly helpful.

ffff

SamuelVimes, post: 6924891, member: 66013 wrote:

Yeah. Gems can make the difference between winning and losing online, even just boost gems. Not game breaking in any way, but if you do them right it can only be beneficial. In terms of offense, I feel Onslaught gems are better than power gems in most instances. If they go off during long combos you essentially build infinite meter for that period, and for all teams it only takes three combos at most with meter to kill Hugo.
Speed gems are often neglected, but incredibly important to some characters. Take Bob for example. If you are able to stack Speed gems on him he can combo two jumping heavy attacks together, and it also makes his crossup game nearly impossible to react to. Sure they only last 10 or 15 seconds, but if the extra speed can get you one, maybe two combos you may not have gotten otherwise, that is incredibly helpful.

I said before in another thread about speed gems being incredibly useful... People find Ken's air tatsu hard to block as it is, try blocking it when he falls 20% or even 40% faster, it's a nightmare. My Ken's gems are always 2 20% speed boosts and 1 40% meter boost. Once the speed boosts are activated it's basically free damage because as you said jumping mix ups are extremely difficult to block.

I also said in another thread my gameplan changes drastically with gems equipped, and that strategic variation is something I really enjoy, and I feel is sadly overlooked by a lot of players especially in tournaments due to the fact 'gems are banned.'

SUPARNOVAX

Fatal Error XI, post: 6924351, member: 9167 wrote:

I know Gems are banned, but I just wanted to point out that re-launch combos are a great way to set-up gem activations. There are gems that activate when you launch, and when you partner launches, so you can set up a non-quick rise knockdown with your point character coming back in with freshly activated gems.

Again, I know they are banned, but if that ever gets worked out, I can see relaunch combos becoming even more common.

Yep. I found it funny raw launchers were 100 damage, whereas if you manually used them in conjunction with link combos, they are 50 pre-scaled.

SamuelVimes

Not to mention gems can make "joke" characters surprisingly viable. Movement gems on Bob make him what we on his forum call "X-Factor Bob," female characters/Akuma lose health disadvantages, King does so much absurd damage with power gems or builds enough meter with meter gems to put most enemies away after one post-launch combo and a correct guess on wakeup.

ViolentDjango

ffff, post: 6924951, member: 65538 wrote:

I said before in another thread about speed gems being incredibly useful... People find Ken's air tatsu hard to block as it is, try blocking it when he falls 20% or even 40% faster, it's a nightmare. My Ken's gems are always 2 20% speed boosts and 1 40% meter boost. Once the speed boosts are activated it's basically free damage because as you said jumping mix ups are extremely difficult to block.

I also said in another thread my gameplan changes drastically with gems equipped, and that strategic variation is something I really enjoy, and I feel is sadly overlooked by a lot of players especially in tournaments due to the fact 'gems are banned.'

Speed gems are fucking ridiculous, lol. Speed Gief is hard as hell to deal with, and the changes to jump arcs throw me off like crazy.

roknin

Just to be clear: speed gems only alter movement speed, correct? It doesn't change frame data.... BUT, it does affect jump speed, dash speed, etc., amirite?

So, would they have an effect on say, Julia's EX PC since it's technically coming from a dash cancel? I'm thinking no, but figured it'd be worth it to ask.

Demon Dash

Problem:

Complaining about time outs, low damage, low defense or crappy walk/dash/jump speed.

Solution:

Learn how to construct a useful gem loadout and think about how to manipulate gem activations to your advatage. Consider the scenarios your character has trouble in and design the loadout so that all gems activate as close to the same time as possible for maximum effect. Experiment with different speed advantages 10%/20%/30% etc and see which ones work best for you, speed gems can make okizeme more effective by altering how you approach, opening the doors for new safe jumps and option selects in situstions that your character couldn't use before.

mugetsu

ffff, post: 6922194, member: 65538 wrote:

BTW OP when you do a team super the point character goes back on point at the end.

...no they don't. First character does a small damage combo and sends the opponent to the partner who does their regular super and then continues the fight.


PROBLEM: I want to include gems in my local tournies, but the gem selection takes too long, especially with button checks already taking up time.

SOLUTION: Set up each character with a basic gems setup. I know it sounds like it would take forever but if the people bringing the consoles could go through and give every character a 3 power, 3 defense and 3 meter gem setup then we wouldnt have to worry about people taking too much time with gem selection for people who dont know their gem numbers or are too lazy/dont care enough to make a specialized gem setup for their team. I just went through on mine to see how long it would take and it took less than 15 minutes to set up all the chars with 3 full setups thanks to the gem log. Too easy. One time setup for each console will save tons of time while adding in one of the main mechanics of the game and making it tourney viable. I hope this gets picked up at least after evo.

SUPARNOVAX

roknin, post: 6925129, member: 51740 wrote:

Just to be clear: speed gems only alter movement speed, correct? It doesn't change frame data.... BUT, it does affect jump speed, dash speed, etc., amirite?

So, would they have an effect on say, Julia's EX PC since it's technically coming from a dash cancel? I'm thinking no, but figured it'd be worth it to ask.

Yes yes, walk, dash, backdash, jump, and super jump frames. attack start up, activity and recovery are not affected AFAIK.

SimSimIV

mugetsu, post: 6925371, member: 2283 wrote:

...no they don't. First character does a small damage combo and sends the opponent to the partner who does their regular super and then continues the fight.


PROBLEM: I want to include gems in my local tournies, but the gem selection takes too long, especially with button checks already taking up time.

SOLUTION: Set up each character with a basic gems setup. I know it sounds like it would take forever but if the people bringing the consoles could go through and give every character a 3 power, 3 defense and 3 meter gem setup then we wouldnt have to worry about people taking too much time with gem selection for people who dont know their gem numbers or are too lazy/dont care enough to make a specialized gem setup for their team. I just went through on mine to see how long it would take and it took less than 15 minutes to set up all the chars with 3 full setups thanks to the gem log. Too easy. One time setup for each console will save tons of time while adding in one of the main mechanics of the game and making it tourney viable. I hope this gets picked up at least after evo.

I have been saying this since day 1 too (Even though I would want to choose gems that fit my style, the pre-set atk def and speed gems option is the next best thing). I was lucky enough to play around with the game like 2 weeks before it was released, but it was an earlier version of the game, and in that version, what you just described was defult in the game. Then they released the complete version with defult 2x gems and one empty slot. I have no idea why they changed this.

Cody&Guy18

True. That one "investment" of time making a default gem load out for all characters can avoid the whole hassle of people having to set up their own gem set up. The activation conditions can be set the same for most gems too. Why does it seem to be such a deal?

MuayGio

Good thread, hope to contribute at some point!

Tye@l

The biggest issue that I have with the online aspect of this game, and the one that made me rage quit for awhile, is whenever I went for a cross-up, if I missed, or if it even connected, my opponent would be mashing out jab chain into launcher for a seemingly free punish nearly 90% of the time. It was unbelievably frustrating! So I went for fake cross-ups, the same thing! Mashing Jab. While I'm far from a seasoned veteran, I'm not an idiot when it comes to fighting games. And, maybe it's hurting me that I'm playing SFxT more like SF, with footsies, pokes, zoning, that kind of stuff. Just a bit disheartening when I see my very basic fundamentals get destroyed by Jab chain confirms.

SamuelVimes

Tye@l: While zoning may have taken a little bit of a nerf, footsies certainly have not. As I said, I find them to be one of the most important aspects of this game, because the player who can outfootsie their opponent can not only get combos off them, they can also tag cancel out of danger. You cannot have those Mexican standoffs where you deal most of their damage by punishing their jump or walk-ins with a single attack (I actually saw a match where someone purposely let their opponent c.HP a-air them a few times to burn the clock when the latter should have been attacking), but you can use them in another way.
Also, if you dominate footsies, rolling becomes less annoying: they may have avoided your wake-up game, but you'll have them on the ground again soon enough. On the flip side, it allows the better footsy player to attempt to bypass wake-up and regain a neutral position.

Problem: Zoning is significantly nerfed in SFxT.

Solution: While SFxT rewards aggressive play, I feel not enough attention has been paid to the advantages a War of Attrition can get you. The two person system gives the zoner opportunities they've rarely had. Some characters have difficulty getting in against a zoner, others do not. Use your zoner on the former and your anchor on the latter. Additionally, their partner can gain ground for the zoner, allowing them to walk back again and again. My Guile/Paul team operates because Paul Smashes the opponent into the corner, and gives Guile a whole field to play with he did not have to get himself. Lastly, once an opponent gets in, tag combos allow zoners to do more damage than ever before off their punishes, and some like Guile possess Alpha Counters that can be comboed with a tag cancel (I call it a Defensive Super, since it takes two bars and often does more damage than a regular super). And that's not even going into the timer. The new mechanics not only turned zoners into damage dealers, it gave them an alternate win condition.
I've seen some incredibly dangerous Guiles and Claws out there, even Sagat's weakened fireball game has its perks (low fireballs hit most of the tekken cast's special steps), and he can do 600+ damage with a bar off a poorly timed jump.

Irin

Graphf, post: 6922713, member: 11066 wrote:

Timeouts is an issue that should probably have it's own thread because I think it is very interesting. (...)

I actually thought about making one, but being a lurker long before SF4 that's not the best thing to do when wanting to be taken serious. One thing that is really interesting about timeouts in SFxT is that they are not just a viable victory condition, but that they couldn't be like this in SF4. In SF4 you need to make 1 bar of damage to win. In SFxT it is something between 1 and 2+. So setting the timer to the same speed as in SF4 is working with how the mechanics work and not against them and adds more variance to the match-flow. It's sad most people assume timeouts to be an 'inferior' victory condition and hate on this. I guess this will be one of the things that reminds of the whole hate about things in SF3 that people learnt to value later.

I liked how often the "there's not enough time"-commentary was proven wrong at Season's Beatings. And I think the timer puts the pressure on both players in an interesting way. You can see a lot of people starting to drop combos or rushing in all too recklessly when the timer is breathing down their neck, especially in pools. And you see people switching to 'all defense' with a life lead and the timer on their side just to lose the lead with 2 seconds left. As such the timer seems to be an amplifier for 'tournament nerves' and as always some people probably feel that it is the timer's fault and not their own. Towards finals you don't see people drop everything and give up because there's 10 seconds left and their opponent has committed to 'sit it out', they react with 'hey, free mixups' and come back in time surprisingly often.

HNIC Mike

serious question, no troll. what would you guys suggest about the perceived "problem" that air attacks are too strong in this game?

the 2 most obvious answers that come to my mind are 1. pick at least one character that can fully exploit the weak ground AA options of most characters (like ken and air tatsu, or un-nerfed rufus dive kicks), or 2. pick at least one character whose AA options are blatantly stronger than everyone elses (juri, or ibuki for example)

am i missing something?

or is that just "the game" and its not like streetfighter, and i should pick my characters closer to how one selects a team in marvel based around assists and such. meaning i should pick them as much more of a unit as opposed to individual characters

SUPARNOVAX

HNIC Mike, post: 6928645, member: 10968 wrote:

serious question, no troll. what would you guys suggest about the perceived "problem" that air attacks are too strong in this game?

the 2 most obvious answers that come to my mind are 1. pick at least one character that can fully exploit the weak ground AA options of most characters (like ken and air tatsu, or un-nerfed rufus dive kicks), or 2. pick at least one character whose AA options are blatantly stronger than everyone elses (juri, or ibuki for example)

am i missing something?

or is that just "the game" and its not like streetfighter, and i should pick my characters closer to how one selects a team in marvel based around assists and such. meaning i should pick them as much more of a unit as opposed to individual characters

I feel ya. But with the counter hits juggling, you can punish jumpers for a potential 60 to 300 damage. Super jumps with extra delay are pretty much free kind of. I'm very weary of air to air since I magically lose when I jump first. lol

MuayGio

HNIC Mike, post: 6928645, member: 10968 wrote:

serious question, no troll. what would you guys suggest about the perceived "problem" that air attacks are too strong in this game?

the 2 most obvious answers that come to my mind are 1. pick at least one character that can fully exploit the weak ground AA options of most characters (like ken and air tatsu, or un-nerfed rufus dive kicks), or 2. pick at least one character whose AA options are blatantly stronger than everyone elses (juri, or ibuki for example)

am i missing something?

or is that just "the game" and its not like streetfighter, and i should pick my characters closer to how one selects a team in marvel based around assists and such. meaning i should pick them as much more of a unit as opposed to individual characters

There was actually just a very long discussion of just this point in the balance thread over the past few days. Go check it out, and see what you think!

Cliff Notes: I don't really think that this is a problem. AAs are in this game, and they work, but overall the balance has shifted towards air-to-air attacks to beat out aerial offence. A couple of characters, specifically Rufus and Ken, have been given extremely powerful (slightly overpowered, in my view) aerial attacks which contribute to the impression that jumps are too strong in this game overall.

Like in any other game, if you're playing a character with mediocre anti-airs, you need to play to his or her strengths rather than downbacking at half screen hoping he'll jump wrong. Rush in if you're playing a character like Law, and pressure with footsies. Hit them in their pre-jump frames with your long, frame advantage normals. If you're playing a character like Guile, memorise the ranges where your good AAs (cr. and flash kick) work, and be very aware of the ranges where your anti-airs are not effective (basically anything that threatens a cross-up). Keep moving to prevent your opponent from getting to those ranges.

This is an integral part of the game. I have seen several extremely high level Laws and Kazuyas, both characters with terrible anti-air. Study their gameplay to see what they're doing to stop people randomly jumping in.