I want to start again

balrog
#1

Whats up everyone

as the title says i want to start again with Rog

Had a tournament weekend gone and my performance was appalling

i never even made it out of groups

before the tournament i made up my mind to drop rog for Cammy

But some kind words from rmz(fellow rog player) and seeing pr rog playing i changed my mind and now i am going to stick it out with him

PR is a beast im not saying i am gonna be as good but when i play someone i want them to fear my rog lol

So i want to start of fresh

from the bottom up

where should i start?

all help is welcome

#2

I found that when I started playing, I focussed too much on BnB combos and the likes that I neglected Normals. To this day after over a year, I still cannot combo a FSJab into RH or Sweep unless lucky.

I rely on meter with a character that doesn’t need a lot of meter to be effective in the first place and the core of my damage comes from BnB combo’s typically into Ultra - This is something I need to work on, myself.

I would suggest that if you’re going to start fresh then leave the combo’s for the icing to your Future FightMoney cake and work on the core of Balrogs strengths - Footsies, Normals, Zoning. You can effectively pick apart a character with footsies alone, nevermind his specials or combos and this is something I really wish I could work on.

That may be over-emphasising my own weaknesses but I know in my heart that if I played to Rog’s strengths rather than my own preference and playstyle, people would fear me a damn lot more and I’d get more Fight Money.

That’d be my advice anyways.

#3

Definitely have to agree with that. I’d say first re-learn the BnB’s if you forgot. Typical ones include your crouching jabs > cr short > headbutt. Just because you need to know these. Maybe not practice them, but definitely make sure you know them. Then you need to work in your footsies, zoning, and such into your match-ups. Know how to play each character. Know when to turn punch or jump in on a fireball character. Know how to keep out a cammy or fei long with cr fierce (AA) or cr roundhouse as your poke. Rogs I see generally are tanks. They sit there and defend, but when they need to, they’ll put up dmg. Personally, I’m a bit of a rushdown Rog. But as Rope said, learn your basics. That’s almost the whole fight right there.

P.S. Why did you drop Rog for Cammy? She requires much more skill I say but Rog destroys her free and has better match-ups than her. Well that’s my opinion. Obviously I think you should use Rog but if you decide to pick up a sub, I’d recommend someone to compliment him like Sagat, Ryu, or Akuma. They zone very well. If you want to try someone like Rog, I’d say your best bet is Rufus or Fei Long.

#4

Not to sound noobish but what is footsies and AA? I play Rog alot but not familiar with the lingo. LOL

#5

footsies: usually when people say ‘footsies’ they’re referring to two characters spacing each other out trying to poke them with normals(or in rogs case also well spaced dash straights) to either interrupt the starting animation of the opponents move or punish the recovery of a move. in general you want to remain at a distance just outside the range of where your opponents ‘footsies’ will miss thereby allowing you to punish the recovery of said move. It’s important to note that your opponent will be trying to do the exact same thing so spacing is paramount.

AA: anti-air. in balrogs case it is using his crouching HP or standing MP to knock the opponent out of a jump in.
Air to Air: like an anti air, except you use either neutral jump HP or a horizontal HP to knock an opponent out of the air

In general, footsies + AA = zoning: controlling the space on the screen and making your opponent think twice before doing anything other than hold downback.

Balrog doesn’t have a strong offensive mixup, but his ability to control the space on the screen and create damage opportunities from your opponents relatively ‘safe’ options is what makes him good.

i usually have mantra when I play Balrog: Don’t give up anything for free

#6

Good explanation of footsies. I’d say Rog’s best footsies are: Crouching LP, Crouching HK, Standing HK, Standing LP, crouching MP, standing HP. Maybe even in that order.

#7

cr.mk is a great footsie and stuffs a lot of startup animation of opponents attacks.

#8

The best thing you can do is try to win games without using dash punch for a while, or at least not in predictable intervals. I notice a lot of boxer’s losing games because they choose to dash punch when they could have waited.

It is unfortunate, but the cost of godlike normals is high risk specials that can either be focused or full punished when used predictably or incorrectly. Work on your ground game with normals only for a while and you’ll see high rewards.

#9

Thanks for the descriptions and tactics. This will be helpful.

#10

play a game with only specials when u hit confirm. and only normals
s.fierce and s.rh is your best friend