Dealing with the "5"

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
#1

Guile. Akuma. Seth. Sagat. Blanka.

I can’t beat em. I’ll go over some details in a sec, maybe i could get some advice.

Guile: 4-6 MU

I have no idea how its a 4-6, this matchup to me is easily a 3-7, maybe even a 2-8. Guile is worse than sagat ever was. At least against sagat when i got close i won. This guy, you never can get close. My biggest problem, is easily getting around his fireballs.

He Throws a lp SB After, he can do a few things.

Jump in Air grab
Spinning Back Fist
Sweep
Run away.

Air grab beats any attempt to jump over the fireball, and as far as i have seen is unbeatable. I tried everything, but nothing hits him and he just comes back down to the ground and throws me or backdashes.

SBF loses to lariat

Sweep is tricky, i have to anticipate it, which is very difficult, and block and punish.

It seems that no matter what i do he is 100% safe in anything he does after a fireball. The whole match i feel as though i either,

avoid his fireballs through lariats "which get punished by a sweep or something"
jump over them and get air throwed, or hell FKed since gief jump is fucked.
Block and take chip damage till i die. I am at a complete loss in this whole matchup.

Akuma: 3-7 MU

I can feel the 3-7 all the way, its simple, you can’t get close to him, his air fireball beats everything so he has complete air superiority and his s.rh is like giefs. Plus his teleport. Any ideas would be great.

Seth: 4-6 MU

I have no idea how this went from a 2-8 in vanilla to a 4-6. This guy is still broken as shit for all the same reasons. Yeah, U2 helps, but all it does is mean you can at least get a hit in on him. But it won’t insta kill him, and its impossible to do mixup games on him due to teleport and just his speed in general.

Sagat: 4-6 MU

Same old same old. How this is a 4-6 and not still a 3-7 is beyond me. Sagat can still zone like a mofo and. Even though they reduced his damage, gief lost health so its still pretty much the same imo. Any tips would be great.

Blanka: 4-6 MU

Same as it used to be, still not sure how it went to 4-6 from a 3-7. Blanka didn’t change hardly at all and gief got nerfed. How does that make the matchup better? Terrilble matchup for all the same reasons. Unpunishable ball among other things. As well as completely negating any mixup game.

#2

See matchups thread

#3

Unless there is a new one thats not stickiee, matchups thread is out of date. Otherwise i woulda have.

#4

I agree Sagat/Seth are STILL 3-7 match ups. The match up data is just whats happening at some select tournaments so its not entirely accurate but close.

As far as Blanka, and Guile go… I learned that the issue here is not just the character, its dealing with lameness (turtling). If you are not good at that, you will struggle with these matchups (as I do). Add Honda to that down-back list as well. The idea here is to make them press buttons and whiff then punish, easier said than done, but just be a copycat and watch some of the good Giefs how they do this…

To be honest I’d rather fight Blanka than any of Giefs worst match ups because he is VERY VERY punishable. Only the Blanka’s that insist on playing lame should give you trouble once you get more familiar.

Yeah the matchup thread is dated but there is still valuable information (if you can find it). Unless I have a specific question tho, I check you youvids to get match up insight. You should have no problem finding VS vanilla characters. I however am having a ton of grief finding vids vs new cast especially my most hated, Juri.

#5

Guile : Lariat beats his turnaround punch on startup, you can use it to go through a Sonic Boom and punish it.

You will have to push Guile into the corner, no matter how much damages you have to take. This should not be too hard since he usually have to go back to load his SB. Don’t jump over the SBs, as he can easily counter you in the air (the SB recovers much more quickly than a Hadoken). Once he’s there, you have everything it takes to turn the fight into a nightmare for him. You can just go forward and grab him (use the great range of the LP SPD), or just feint a grab. That will force him to jump, then you can high kick/Lariat/EX Hand to punish. Again, avoid jumping, or at least learn to know when his sommersault is loaded. Once you got that, the match is not so bad.

Seth is a pain in the ass, it’s impossible to get close to him and he can teleport when he feels you coming. Try to catch st.HP with KKK Lariat and jump HP with PPP Lariat. Then try to stay alive.

Akuma : it’s not that hard to break his fireball game. Just use a good mix between focus and KKK Lariat to avoid them, so you will force Akuma to get close and try a combo. Watch out for every far st.HK that would go in your guard, as 99% of mainstream Akuma will try to continue ther block string, and allow you to land a free SPD right after the second hit of the HK (SPD catches anything but jump and teleport in this case). For every jump-in, there’s a Lariat to punish (remember that PPP Lariat is invicible to air fireball, even the EX version). PPP Lariat can also trade with his Demon Flip, which is always a good thing considering the poor life Akuma have compared to yours. Just watch out for the Demon Flip > Grab trap. Trying to land a Wakeup game on Akuma is almost pointless since he can do a reversal teleport to get away. In this case, you’ll have to know how to option select an green hand into a jump HP, so you can quickly run after him and try a combo/grab/super/ultra.

Sagat : if you’re comfortable with safe jumps, fake crossups and option select, then all you have to do is to knock him down just once (easier said than done), then the round is yours.

Blanka : another pain in the ass, as the character seems pretty random to me. However, you can punish his rolling attack on guard with a kara-ex green hand ([media=youtube]QT4QQgBPVFM[/media] basicly done by cancelling the startup of a RH with an ex hand). Remember you can focus every single rainbow rolls, except the reversal ones. If Blanka has Ultra 1, try to force him to launch it on wakeup by doing some whiffed jabs right before he gets on his feet, the guard and wait.

When you block his ultra 1, depending on which ultra you choosed :

With U1 : wait till the last hit, then get close with a cr.MK and buffer a 720 that will come out right when he lands. Don’t wait to much or he will jump before you can grab him.

With U2, tho methods : after you blocked the first hit, you can quickly buffer a 720 and perform an instant air ultra that will grab Blanka’s leap during his ultra. Kinda dangerous, but that way you don’t have to take all the chip damages.
or you can : wait for the ultra to come out completely, then jump and grab his jump back with your ultra 2. A bit more easy to do and less dangerous.

Voila, I hope it will help you to have a better day in those matchups.

#6

For guile i use greenhand from about mid to far range to catch a SB, this makes guile have to constantly back up to keep you zoned but eventually he’ll run out of room. dont lariat through the fireballs unless hes too far away to punish you. building meter is really helpful if hes too far away because if you catch him with an exGH through a fireball hes all yours. U2 is a godsend to counter his airthrow, just jump forward over a SB while buffering 360s and if he attempts an airthrow hit the triple macro.

Akuma is much easier IMO. if he airFBs backward godhand or lariat, if he airFBs forward dash and spd or lariat. his ground game is hard to counter but at least its easier than ryu. just standing strong and clk. if he ground fireballs short-hop and use knees to avoid getting dp’d

#7

all of my “insight” comes from an amateur at best perspective with a lot of trial and even more error. so don’t take it as holy word because i’m probably completely off with a lot of my ideas and that’s why i lose to these characters the most. :lol: so yeah, i guess you can say this is my plea for help as well. in any case, it’s healthy discussion.

like someone else mentioned, some of these matchups feel like they require you to turtle it out and be super patient in hopes that they get impatient themselves and start throwing out random pokes that you can capitalize on. blanka for me = down back. most of the blanka matches that i comfortably win end in time over’s or close to it. it’s a boring way to play, but sometimes doing nothing is doing a lot. i have the most trouble myself when playing competent blankas who turtle themselves from the getgo.

-as far as guile goes and getting around the SB’s. i’ll try to take time at the beginning of the round to build as much meter as i can, and also build the ultra meter by focusing as many SB’s as i can. doing this may also get them to try to advance to tack on extra damage while focusing. this is usually where i feel i have my best chance to get in some damage and i’ll try to get something done right here. in my head, this is my best way to turn the SB trap against him. LP SB’s ruin my life though.

for the guile air throw set up, i’ll pick u2 and eat a air throw on purpose in hopes of conditioning them to do it again the next chance he has. then i’ll try to bait them into going for it again and hope that they don’t know that i have a U2 on deck :lol: this has varying levels of success for me. i might land u2 once, but they’ll learn and never let me get it again. on the flipside though, i feel like that’s where the meta game of u2 comes in, and from there it gets a little bit easier to close the distance since they aren’t going for air throws anymore.

backing him into a corner is like a double edged sword. sure, he can’t move back any further, but he’s in the corner and naturally holding downback. so he pretty much always has something charged. i’ve been having a lot of trouble with figuring out what to do in that position. i get chipped to hell with rapid fire SB’s if i sit there or i’ll take a FK or cr. HP if i jump in. seems like nothing gets accomplished for me by pushing guile to a corner. it feels like my best chances are when they are in the open and have room to throw out normals i can try to beat out. when they’re in the corner, they seem untouchable.

-for akuma, i’ll lariat and focus fireballs to try to get him to advance. i’ll try to find a spot from there to land something. then i’ll sit on a life lead and hope that they’ll crack. i’ll usually try to get him into the corner and be spaced out enough to make him think twice about teleporting/air tatsu’ing out. but close enough to still make him feel pressured. i try to keep him there long enough to get a life lead to sit on. from there i’ll jump rope fireballs the rest of the round until they decide to take a risk and come to me. which is a risk i’m hoping they’ll take.

other than that, it really depends on how the person is using akuma. obviously, the ones that are content with running out the clock and running away are the most problematic for me. going on the full all out offensive usually ends with me frantically chasing them down for entire rounds.

-with seth. i just hope they’re bad. :rofl: good/decent ones usually have their way with me. advancing without meter seems like a bad idea, so i’ll try to build meter/ultra while they throw sonic booms until they’ve got me backed up into the corner where i’m then in their arms range. from that point i find myself taking huge risks and trying to guess when they’ll throw out limbs and hopefully catch them with something that leads to a knockdown. sometimes i’ll luck out and just catch em and put them away. but it’s rare. on a positive note, i feel like the pressure is on them to play a perfect game. one slip up for them is a lot of damage. it’s just a matter of me getting them to slip up, but not being able to comfortably advance makes that extremely difficult.

-with sagat. i just play patient and try to close the distance by jumping over tiger shots and advancing on the ground with baby steps or cr. mk/hk. i stop jumping when i’m in their HK range. from there i just gun for the knockdown. and rinse and repeat when necessary. i’m a lot more comfortable with the sagat match than i am with the rest of these folks.

that pretty much sums up my experiences with the DO NOT WANT list.

sorry for the theory fighter wall of text. i’m hoping that being a little thorough with what i’m having trouble with can lead to some knowledgeable folks giving some good advice for these spots i’m/we’re stuck at. am i on the right track? or are there things i’m approaching in the completely wrong fashion?

also. nico - nice avatar. :rofl:

#8

With Guile, your goal isn’t about jumping over the sonic booms.

I repeat, it’s not about getting around the booms.

They only do 50 damage, only 12.5 chip damage.

Your goal is to make guile do something that gives him worse positioning and lose his charge, eventually working him to the corner or getting the untechable knockdown.
If he’s afraid of you jumping over a boom, and so he jumps after it to air throw or J.MK, he’s jumping closer to you, closing the gap. He’ll then have to jump back out of SPD/Green Hand Range, allowing you to walk/dash/green hand in.

However, if he wants to punish your lariat, focus dash, or jab green handing the booms, he’s gotta walk forward after the boom, lose his charge, and also lose the the best angles to anti air you with. When you’re doing these options, it’s best to also change it up.
1.Use Both lariats
2.after green handing a boom, every once in awhile immediate EX Green hand to snag a mistimed punish, or simply keep walking forward.
3. when focusing booms, vary it up between forward, back, and holding the attack to see what he does.

In the air, vary it up between jump LP or MP to stop the air throw, jump MK to snuff regular flash kick when he doesn’t have meter (don’t jump if he’s down charged w/ meter at all), or empty jump at the right range to get C.HP to whiff. Knees can work too.

I just said all that shit. You wanna know what the breakdown is?

10% jumping
10% lariat/focus/green handing
80% neutral jumping and bulldogging’

Seriously. The only reason to use the 10% and 10% is to make him AFRAID that you’l do it and by trying to counter, lose positioning. You can actually gain ground by bulldogging against mostly slow booms. Fast booms (and especially EX booms) are easier to counter because they have significantly longer recovery time.

Once you’re in, have fun crossing him up, making him block high to lose his down charge and doing whatever. Remember the worst thing that can happen to you is that you get thrown or he hits you with Flash Kick FADC back. Gameplan to avoid that.
Also, if he uses sonic hurricane as a reversal, just EX SPD him out of it for free. That shit sucks.

#9

GUILE
Honestly I’ve learned jumping over booms from certain ranges shouldn’t be done and isn’t even necessary. So the use of u2 here just seems like your going fishing looking for the big catch.

But I do feel your pain about Guile in the corner. Everyone says its supposed to be a rape fest but he has godly buttons, a nice jump back HK, and well lets face it, for the most part he is down back and his U2 is a huge threat and he is inviting you to jump in. The Giefs that excel here just anticipate really well, have godly reactions and are able to actually bait him instead. So there’s no real formula and will depend on the Guile your playing.

One thing that worked for me one time out of like a 100 tries was a cr.lk o_s EX GH. I would stand just outside the range where cr. lk whiffs but would connect if he pressed a button. I want to work on this more but at my level, Guile’s just throw out lp booms because he knows its 99% safe, so somehow you have to get him to play footsies in the corner

SAGAT

Your strat works pretty well against the average or so gats, but I actually befriended some really good gats and I can tell you they put the FEAR OF GOD in me to jump.

3 reasons. KARA TU/TK, U2, Gief’s shitty jump

I mean, these 3 things completely shutdown the jump over tiger shot game for me. jumping over tigers at even 3/4 screen isn’t safe if he karas. And even regular ex TU can catch you as well, where as before it was much easier to safe jump. I’ve tried knees to fall faster and I still eat TU. And U2 just fucing hurts man, just when you think you have him at a good distance he feints a tiger you jump over just to eat u2. Really demoralizing.

So overall I think you’ve got some good strats but the better players, and I’m not even talking evo caliber players, can eat some of this for lunch.

#10

Get Guile in the corner, that’s my main goal every time this fight comes up and once he is there, he’s finished. A Guile that’s trying to chip you to death with booms is constantly backing up, which should allow you to corner him more easily.

I often see Guile’s try to bait me to jump-in, then do a Flash Kick for a knock down and try to run to the other side of the screen. Bait the Flash Kick every time and punish. I like the idea of countering his air throw with U2, I haven’t testing that yet…

As for Blanka, I feel U2 is extremely good in this match. If he’s using ultra 1, you can grab him out of his leaping ball animation with ultra 2, provided you have good timing. If you don’t grab him, he’ll roll under you dealing zero damage.

#11

many guiles are afraid of gief, so i just walk up to them and do lp spd at max range. They would charge downback and expect you to jump. You’ll be suprised how many times it work.

#12

Man, now I kinda regret posting.
These strats are 100 times better.
Thanks guys!

#13

Since you are playing with Gief, you must understand that fighting Guile requires a single knock down for you to win. Ofcourse you must not jump or kkk lariat the boom unless it is safe to do (full screen), and continue to bulldog him until he reaches the corner. It is a very long fight for both sides, so be patient and avoid your urge of jumping, he can counter every single jumping option, with Cr.hp, St.Hp, St.mk, St.Mp, Downforward Hk, air throw and Ultra 2. Dont jump, countering jump ins is one of Guile best damage output he can deliver to Gief.

Once you reach to the range of his pokes, you have to use variety of Gief’s tricks. You can stand just outside of his Cr.mk range and use Cr.lk OS EX green hands for a counter poke into a knockdown, one of the most effective ways for gaining knockdown with Gief. If the Guile Player is using St.Hk (a long reaching kick, where he hops slightly forward and extend his kick all the way out) excessively, you can counter it with early Focus attack, absorb, dash in and Ultra 1. Timing is very difficult, but you could put the fear of using the move (very good to push Gief back) if sucessful.

I tried to find a counter for Guile St.hp with Gief, right now I think St.lp OS ex green hand can be used except at max range, where EX hand whiffs if done at max range from both characters. St.mp is good too, so use it to discourage Guile from pushing buttons.

Once you put the fear of pushing buttons to Guile, just walk in and SPD. It works soo many times, I face palm myself when I get grabbed by it.

Also, whenever you grab Guile with EX Spd/ 360k grab/ Ultra1 / Ultra2 or knock him down with ex Green hand, the tide of the battle switches swiftly to Gief favour. Just exploit his fail cross up defence and rape him.

#14

man don’t get pissed man. What you said was valuable info and the people know who to listen too. I just kind of wish you added some input on sagat and maybe chun .thanks though much appreciated.

#15

I bookmarked this post. Saw lots of data, but I wanted to put this up as a reply, I got lots of info. Yeah there is SF4, but for the most part it translates. The 2nd is SSF4.

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I hope this helps.