When is it safe to jump in?

REALVINNYBLESS

Ok so lately I have been playing online and no one so far has been on my level, everyone has a billion points and I have 0 and I noticed watching over some videos, I always get hit when I jump towards them to get in. I also recently started playing Guy and he has the move where you jump towards them and you can do down and punch to start a lot of combos, but I can never get in. The only progression I have made in this game is combos, on evil Ryu I was able to land his FADC to ultra 1 about 2 times in a match, but even then it was lucky. It is hard to get better when you practice it wrong the whole time lol

Ryuken9

I find that it's really hard to anti-air Guy properly, your typical uppercut won't even work against certain of his jumps. Look at the Guy forums, and see how you can fuck people up with his various jumps.

littlescumbag

Ryu's st.HK and cr.HP doing great work for me

MissionSchabernack

dont jump. It's safe to jump when you do a "safe jump", mostly after a hard knockdown, every character has several, you can try it out and find some new ones easily by using the training mode and the recording tool.

Kikuichimonji

Don't jump. Play footsies. With Guy that's s.mp (buffer run slide for the knockdown) and s.mk. With E Ryu that's cr.mk, cr.mp, far hp, fireball, and cr.hk.

With Guy, your anti-airs are far hk and cr.mp. Cr.mp is actually really good but requires precise timing. EX tatsu is a great anti-air if you have meter. Tiger knee EX command grab is really good. Bushin flip throw will beat most everything in the air.

With E. Ryu, your best anti-airs are HP shoryuken (best anti-air), far hk, cr.hp, and cr.mk (go underneath their attack).

Read this. http://sonichurricane.com/?p=7110

REALVINNYBLESS

Kikuichimonji, post: 7974187, member: 11194 wrote:

Don't jump. Play footsies. With Guy that's s.mp (buffer run slide for the knockdown) and s.mk. With E Ryu that's cr.mk, cr.mp, far hp, fireball, and cr.hk.

With Guy, your anti-airs are far hk and cr.mp. Cr.mp is actually really good but requires precise timing. EX tatsu is a great anti-air if you have meter. Tiger knee EX command grab is really good. Bushin flip throw will beat most everything in the air.

With E. Ryu, your best anti-airs are HP shoryuken (best anti-air), far hk, cr.hp, and cr.mk (go underneath their attack).

Read this. http://sonichurricane.com/?p=7110

Oh ok, just a noon here that thought the right thing to do is jump constantly xD what about other times, how do you know when it is safe to do like a jumping heavy kick? I noticed sometimes even daigo will jump, although that's extremely rare

Kikuichimonji

REALVINNYBLESS, post: 7974237, member: 83218 wrote:

Oh ok, just a noon here that thought the right thing to do is jump constantly xD what about other times, how do you know when it is safe to do like a jumping heavy kick? I noticed sometimes even daigo will jump, although that's extremely rare

It is never safe. That's the point. It's a risk. You're giving up the ability to block and hoping that your opponent doesn't just call you on your bullshit and anti-air you for free. Jumping is one of the least safe things you can do, outside of ultras and uppercuts. You're using the word "safe" with "jump." Jumping is a risk, unless the other character literally can't stop it.

In some matchups you can jump at specific timings. For example, some pokes can be punished by jumping. Some characters rely on normals to anti-air, and if they are whiffing a poke when you jump it might be literally impossible for them to recover in time and anti-air you. For example, Guile throws a Sonic Boom and you psychically jump right as he's throwing it and do Ryu's j.hp early. You can't punish him (he can block), but he really can't do anything to stop your jump. But you are prone to baits like with any jump.

http://sonichurricane.com/?p=944

That article talks about times when jumping can be useful. But the answer honestly is "don't jump." Play footsies. Play reactive.

REALVINNYBLESS

Kikuichimonji, post: 7974280, member: 11194 wrote:

It is never safe. That's the point. It's a risk. You're giving up the ability to block and hoping that your opponent doesn't just call you on your bullshit and anti-air you for free. Jumping is one of the least safe things you can do, outside of ultras and uppercuts. You're using the word "safe" with "jump." Jumping is a risk, unless the other character literally can't stop it.

In some matchups you can jump at specific timings. For example, some pokes can be punished by jumping. Some characters rely on normals to anti-air, and if they are whiffing a poke when you jump it might be literally impossible for them to recover in time and anti-air you. For example, Guile throws a Sonic Boom and you psychically jump right as he's throwing it and do Ryu's j.hp early. You can't punish him (he can block), but he really can't do anything to stop your jump. But you are prone to baits like with any jump.

http://sonichurricane.com/?p=944

That article talks about times when jumping can be useful. But the answer honestly is "don't jump." Play footsies. Play reactive.

Oh, I'm literally doing better right now, but I can't react fast enough to antiair, plus when I play online I panic more and mess up a lot

DrGulag

The thing is that this game doesn't punish random jumps enough as it is, especially when your character is able to change its jump arc significantly. So the advice "don't jump, play footsies" doesn't really work with SF4.

A game where characters like Cammy etc jump constantly to just get that momentum going. This is only amplified when you play online, because people have less time to react so too often you get punished with shitty normals and that's nothing really.

Obviously it depends on the character. You shouldn't jump too much when you are playing against Ryu or Gief but the risk reward changes when you are playing against a character like Juri with a dive kick character or something. Jumping is the way to go there.

But just to answer the question in the first post. Look for any patterns in their game play. With Guy you can bait out reversals with your elbow jump arc etc. With certain match ups you can react with a jjump and start your pressure game even if your opponent manages to block (like jumping right away when Rose fires plasma).

Lots of jumping with purpose I say.

Kikuichimonji

DrGulag, post: 7974341, member: 18477 wrote:

The thing is that this game doesn't punish random jumps enough as it is, especially when your character is able to change its jump arc significantly. So the advice "don't jump, play footsies" doesn't really work with SF4.

A game where characters like Cammy etc jump constantly to just get that momentum going. This is only amplified when you play online, because people have less time to react so most of the time you get punished with shitty normals and that's nothing really.

Obviously it depends on the character. You shouldn't jump too much when you are playing against Ryu or Gief but the risk reward changes when you are playing against a character like Juri with a dive kick character or something. Jumping is the way to go there..

I hate to use Daigo as an example here, but his anti-air record against divekick characters is amazing. Saying "Cammy can just jump constantly" is misleading, you can anti-air even the lowest EX Cannon Strike on reaction if you have a decent anti-air DP (Ryu, Ken, Seth, Oni, Akuma, Fei, Cammy) and you are really looking for it. Not talking about TK strike in pressure, I'm talking about jump in EX Strike to get ground.

Juri can't shenanigan well with her divekick because her divekick is always down or even-ish on block (often unsafe enough to reversal hp SRK with Ryu). She can't alter her jump arc down safely like Rufus or Yun, so the best she can do is neutral jump and threaten divekick.

I should have talked about the huge risk difference between neutral jumping and forward jumping probably. Yeah, Guy can just jump forwards and immediately d.mp to control a lot of space relatively safely (but can be punished with stuff like Ryu's sweep or Seth's s.hp on landing). But I wouldn't call this "jumping in" any more I consider Honda doing floating j.hp "jumping in" when he does it at midscreen.

But like Maj writes in his article, the big thing is just to know why you're jumping and to have a specific reason. And to understand the counters to your jumping so that you don't fall prey to "I don't know what to do, I guess jump?"

DrGulag

I hate to use Daigo as an example here

1m55s.

I watch streams from time to time and some people base their entire game plan on jumps - from time to time. Neutral jumps, empty jumping Aquasilk Giefs to mess up your concentration and so on. Lets be honest here, people talk about not jumping but count the number from your own replays.

I'm not advocating jumping around like a moron but if you are trying to psych out your opponent or making reads, why not. If your opponent is not loaded with an ultra the damage is often not significant.

Kikuichimonji, post: 7974389, member: 11194 wrote:

But like Maj writes in his article, the big thing is just to know why you're jumping and to have a specific reason. And to understand the counters to your jumping so that you don't fall prey to "I don't know what to do, I guess jump?"

This, pretty much!

REALVINNYBLESS

Ok I know it doesn't match my title but can someone tell me how to punish someone if I get a knockdown? I was playing online and I got a lot of knockdowns, but then when I tried anything as they got up, they just killed me

Kikuichimonji

REALVINNYBLESS, post: 7974437, member: 83218 wrote:

Ok I know it doesn't match my title but can someone tell me how to punish someone if I get a knockdown? I was playing online and I got a lot of knockdowns, but then when I tried anything as they got up, they just killed me

Learn setups for your character. It's all character specific. You have to know their options and your own. Throws and frame traps, crossups and fake crossups, lows versus overheads, whiff punishing, baiting reversals... you could write a book about knockdown pressure.

After a run slide with Guy, if you neutral jump lp it's a safe jump against most of the cast (not Ken, Ryu, Akuma, Oni, Cammy, Blanka, or Sagat).

After they block that (they have to) you get to do frame traps with cr.lk, cr.lp, cr.mp, cr.hp, s.mp, cl.hp, and cl.mk. If you time your string right, you'll catch them if they try to throw (or tech your throw). If you do the frame trap sometimes and the throw sometimes, you can get damage.

Guy's overhead is also useful, but it is slow like most overheads. You can kara cancel it into his run slide for the world's most hilarious and unsafe gimmick ever (fake overhead, go low).

REALVINNYBLESS

Oh ok, thanks everyone, I actually got better today

REALVINNYBLESS

Lol I've played like 50 games and have only won 2 because they were worse than me lol, I keep getting close to winning against some people that are good, but i can't punish them when they wake up xD I accidentally keep using H shoryuken lol

AmigoOne

Jump when you know they are going to press a button that has a long ass recovery.

Or if they are so mindfucked that they will not anti air it.

1 is much more likely to happen than 2.

ugo_2u

From the sound of it you are still new to this game and it's okay that you lose alot. Even I was getting bodied 20-0 35-2 when I started. My advice is to watch YouTube videos of your character yogaflame24 channel is great. As for anti airing you have to train in training mode. Wolfkrone one told me to go to training mode and set the dummy to jump and kick while I anti air them 100 times daily. I did that for a week and got alooooot better. Next I trained not to jump by playing arcade mode and trying to beat it without jumping on the hardest mode.

Practice the above two I just talked about ok. And make sure you have your basic combo down ok.

REALVINNYBLESS

ugo_2u, post: 7975372, member: 42313 wrote:

From the sound of it you are still new to this game and it's okay that you lose alot. Even I was getting bodied 20-0 35-2 when I started. My advice is to watch YouTube videos of your character yogaflame24 channel is great. As for anti airing you have to train in training mode. Wolfkrone one told me to go to training mode and set the dummy to jump and kick while I anti air them 100 times daily. I did that for a week and got alooooot better. Next I trained not to jump by playing arcade mode and trying to beat it without jumping on the hardest mode.

Practice the above two I just talked about ok. And make sure you have your basic combo down ok.

I already watch that channel all the time xD I love watching videos even though I suck lol. I already broke that jumping habit lol xD getting in is so hard though, I have the combos, but not the fundamentals lol. I've gotten used to spacing a little too lol but evil ryu is kind of hard to hit people unless its another character that needs to close the distance lol

ugo_2u

REALVINNYBLESS, post: 7975429, member: 83218 wrote:

I already watch that channel all the time xD I love watching videos even though I suck lol. I already broke that jumping habit lol xD getting in is so hard though, I have the combos, but not the fundamentals lol. I've gotten used to spacing a little too lol but evil ryu is kind of hard to hit people unless its another character that needs to close the distance lol

You still have fear of getting hit. You can get in by walking in, evil ryu has a fast walk speed and even faster forward dash, walk your way to mid range, if your opponent walks forward u walk back a bit and throw some wiff light attacks, then walk in to his attack range then block low once you blocked a medium attack feel free to walk up and poke with crMk. Or jump from max range and do a dive kick, that will get you in. Usually a good way to get in is also by anti airing your opponent. Also dash up throw works

Murdurus

If you're a new player with Guy, it's very tempting to always jump at your opponent. Unfortunately, as much as Guy is a rush down character, you also need to play him patiently for the opportunities to apply pressure. It's difficult to really say when is a good time and when is it not, but generally speaking, it's a good idea to jump in if/when your opponent feels a bit too comfortable sitting back chucking fireballs. To do that, jumping over fireballs and using the Elbow Drop to change your trajectory helps a lot to accomplish this as they're going to think to themselves "Oh, he's just dodging over my fireballs again" versus "He's trying to jump over my fireballs to punish me" because for the majority of the cast, once they jump, they are going to move at a certain trajectory and they are committed, but with Guy, he can change it.

Also, be mindful of how far you are jumping as well, you can Elbow Drop early in the air to gain some ground or jump in a bit further to bait your opponent to DP you, then you can punish. Or you can get your jump to complete the trajectory and go for the throat, but again, it is up to you to decide when that is a good time and when it is not. In some ways, it is playing mind games with your opponent to keep them on their toes. If you play against characters who don't have a good DP and uses a normal to anti-air instead, baiting with the Elbow Drop and using D+HK (slide) is a punish, albeit not as good as getting a full punish but it gives you the opportunity to apply pressure.

This is not to say that Guy only has the air game, he does pretty well on the ground as well, but the above is just some notes to keep in mind for when you are far enough from your opponent (full screen or 3/4 screen) and need to gain ground. Also, Guy has EX Run-Slide to get through fireballs OR if your reaction and execution is fast enough, you can use MP/HP Hozanto to get under fireballs (with some exceptions like Guile, low Tiger Shots, and Juri). Aside from that, if you want to keep pressure after a knockdown, you pretty much need to get his 1f link down (cr. LK, st. MP xx Run Slide) and learn his Run Stop game. Hope some of this helps.

BDl

When you are not punished for it obviously

chubbyfingerz

Here's a general rule:

If the guy is just standing there or walking or crouching, DON'T JUMP IN. He will simply anti-air you. A thousand times. 

If you see that he is going to do something you can jump to avoid and hit him, wait til he does it and JUMP IN. Then hit him.

These rules should get you going for a while. 

Next part: crossups, safe jumps and dive kicks.

The-Olympian

Jump in reaction to FA charge. Then hit with jhp/hk into dp/ultra. If u hold focus u basically give up ur aa options.

Also with my characters cammy/rose I can aa all of guys jump options. Fake jump early elbow, elbow, jump hk, crossups.... Etc.

Kikuichimonji

The-Olympian wrote: »

Jump in reaction to FA charge. Then hit with jhp/hk into dp/ultra. If u hold focus u basically give up ur aa options.

Unless you threaten Focus Attack and immediately back dash. Then you can recover in time to uppercut a jump.

Some characters have backdashes that can completely avoid the uppercut. Unless you're Cammy.

Some characters can anti air with the focus attack itself unless they move too far forwards. Also dashing forwards and then uppercutting the other direction is good.

AA with focus is a gimmick. But you really can't take away focus by jumping because they can dash out of it.

Chocobuny

Jumping in requires you understanding the enemy character rather than your own. Some characters have special ways to jump in e.g dive kicks, but you need to know exactly what your opponent can do about it. Against a shoto character, jumping in requires good timing, as if he is ready for it he can use a shoryuken to easily hit you out of the air. But against other characters, lets say Bison, his only decent anti air move is standing heavy kick. Once you can jump in a range that will get over that move, he has no option but to block the jump in.

I think the best way to improve in this game is get a fundamental understanding of all characters, so you can know what your opponent wants to do and counter that.

GetSalty

The answer depends largely on your opponent. If they have no reactions or constantly spam non anti-air moves, you can jump at them all day.

If they have reactions, you need to get their mind to focus on something else to slow down their reaction to jump ins.

If they're not spamming non anti-air moves, you need to do something to get them to start doing non anti-air moves.