How to take advantage of same minded timing

#1

i know the title is really ambiguous, so let me give an example. my question involves how both players tend to time their attack at the same time after a situation where both players are cautious and block:

someone jumps at you and you reset them with an anti air normal. you guys are both really close to each other, and you advance on him before he completes his backflip to bait a reversal or throw attempt. he however does not take the bait, and both of you are now down down-back blocking (or you are walking back) out of throw range but very close together nonetheless.

very commonly, after both of us block for a bit, both of our minds think to hit a button at the same time (like a crouching short or jab or something), but this just ends up with both of us hitting each other with a normal and sort of resetting the situation. this kind of situation also occurs during footsies.

how would you guys take advantage of such a situation? i think using a FAST startup special move with invincibility (lol srk) in rhythm with their jab/short might be a good idea, especially if you have fadc to make the guess safe. unfortunately not every character has this option so what do you guys suggest? i suppose you can also avoid the risk of a special move by backdashing out, but this is not taking advantage of the situation!

#2

Well, there are a lot of variables usually involved. Like who has the life lead, or which characters are involved?

Me personally, in situations like that…well let me give you an example. Let’s say it’s a ryu mirror match, and both ryu players hit crouching medium kick at the same time and their attacks clash. Both players are hit and the match essentially restarts-both players are pushed back to medium range. What are the options at this point?

  1. fireball -beats virtually all ground attacks
  2. jump- beats fireballs, many ground attacks
  3. walk forward throw- beats block

Now what do i usually do in the same situation? I’ll usually roundhouse hurricane kick? Why? If they jump forward, i’ll safely travel underneath their jump, and i’ll be in the perfect range to start a fireball trap. If they fireball, often times my hurricane kick will trade with their fireball (experiment with that and you’ll see what i mean). Their fireball will knock me down, but i’ll hurt them a little bit in the process. If they
walk forward to throw (3) my hurricane kick will knock them down.

Now that option, roundhouse hurricane kick, beats my opponents three main options. BUT, it’s very easy to punish for big damage. However, in situations where your attack trades with the opponents attack (the original point of the thread) usually both parties are caught off guard. Since you have the element of surprise, your opponent won’t be expecting the hurricane kick.
**
As a general rule of thumb, when two attacks trade, both sides weren’t expecting the trade. after rare/ unexpected things happen, you can get away with performing more risky moves/tactics. Often times things that are usually unsafe or stupid, are often the best thing to do in these situations.**

Now, that’s all what I’d do personally. I’d be really interested what other people have to say.

#3

this is interesting. you’re talking about AFTER the trade. my question above specifically was for AVOIDING a trade and somehow winning. so let me lay this clear and add your situation to the question list since it’s equally valid:

what are solutions to same minded timing if:

  1. after both of you are blocking on the defensive expecting the other to do a move, and then after a few seconds you and your opponent time a move at the same time and trade. what do you guys do to win? (this seems like a matchup specific/character specific question). This is what intangiblz was talking about.

  2. now, assume that you want to avoid this trade. after those seconds of expecting the opponent to do a move (what I was talking about in my post above), what do you do to win?

#4

Oh okay.

Well, let’s say you’re expecting them to perform a ground poke. The default answer would be to jump forward into a tick throw. Jumping forward avoids most ground pokes, and after they see you’re jumping they’ll usually block, so you tick throw them. I do that a lot, even though it’s very predictable.

hmmm what else.

Who do you usually play as?

Many normal moves, for just about any character, that seem completely useless, have special properties that make them good for avoiding trades. I’ll give you an example. Blanka’s standing roundhouse, in just about every game, is really good for avoiding low pokes. He does a flip, and kicks at the top of his flip. While in the flip mode, (oh god this whole post probably sounds retarded) non of his body is low to the ground. So if your opponent did a crouching short, blanka will avoid being hit by the short, but his feet will his the opponents body. You know what i’m saying.

so, let’s say the blanka player inputs the much slower standing roundhouse, while another player inputs the faster crouching shorts. The blanka player won’t get hit by the shorts (he’ll dodge it), but the say…ken player, will get hit by blanka’s standing roundhouse. The blanka player wins!!!

Just about every character has a move similar to blanka’s standing roundhouse. Where they will avoid low the ground attacks. If you look around you’ll see what i mean.

#5

lol i know what you’re talkign about. it’s sort of like guile’s jumping ground normal that hits lows and avoids lows.

i play bison, and yea scissor kick can go over low attacks, but it tends to get stuffed unless you are pretty far away from them during its very vulnerable startup (which can get hit by low attacks).

in this situation where i expect a poke i occasionally walk backwards for ~1 second into a range where scissor kick’s startup is harder to stuff and then lay it on them.

#6

Try doing a focus attack and charging it to level 2(unless they get out of range) if you hit you’ll get the crumple and if they block you’ll be at a frame advantage to continue pressure

#7

Kelter that’s a pretty bad move considering they can just backdash and punish you.

#8

hurr durr then you can backdash cancel your focus attack aswell

like I said in my post and I’ll quote it for you and bold the specific segment:

maybe I should have add this for the more simple minded

#9

Have a backup plan. So when you want to bait something and he does nothing have a plan for that. So instead of waiting with him and have that awkward were-both-just-sitting-here moment move right in for the throw or stick out a quick poke with good frames on block immediatly instead of pausing.

#10

^ training yourself to take the initiative faster than the opponent in such a situation is a good idea.

#11

uhhh you can backdash on reaction to an FA after they let go.

#12

The true best answer is to do nothing and wait for an action by the opponent. Using HK hurricane at a point like that is really gimmicky because it beats those things but if your opponent just waits they basically get to do whatever they want to you.