[SF4] Hit confirming

[cidbahamut]

So how does one hit-confirm? I see it referenced a lot on these boards and I think I understand the basic concept, which is that you want to make sure the first hit of a combo connects before you start executing the bits that will leave you wide open if blocked. But as for how to actually pull it off I’m kinda left scratching my head.

The one really simple combo I know I need to figure this shit out for is Juri’s cr. :mk: > Senpusha, because a blocked Senpusha leaves plenty of opportunities for me to get punished. But by the time I’ve figured out whether or not the first part connects, the window to cancel into Senpusha has passed so I end up with either just the kick or I have to blindly cancel into the rest of it based solely on instinct. It feels like I need super human reaction times to do this.

What do I do?

[OMG_its_a_duck]

The basic idea is you do a few moves that if they get blocked are safe, but if they hit you can go into a combo. An example with Ryu would be crouching jab jab, then if they get blocked you just stop, and if they hit you get to do a shoryuken and have it combo. I’m not sure what the specifics are for Juri but a way that most characters can hit confirm is something like light light medium special, so maybe low short low jab low strong pinwheel would work?

Hit confirming with 1 hit is rarer than doing it with a few moves, and generally much harder than giving yourself more time with a few moves.

[AzureXIII]

I’m having some trouble practicing this. Is the general idea that you just set the dummy to 'Random Guard" and keep practicing your hit-confirms until you can differentiate between whether you can go into a combo or whether you should continue pressure via muscle memory?

[Murdurus]

I’m having some trouble practicing this. Is the general idea that you just set the dummy to 'Random Guard" and keep practicing your hit-confirms until you can differentiate between whether you can go into a combo or whether you should continue pressure via muscle memory?

That is the general gist of it. So I see that you have Guy as your SF4 character. For Guy in SF4, his hit confirms come off his cr. LP or cr. LK. Say for example, you throw out cr. LK, cr. LK and both them connects, by now you should be able to tell whether the opponent is standing or crouching, if the opponent is standing, you go into the Bushin Chain, if the opponent is crouching you go into st.MP or target combo. That’s the general idea of it anyway. It was difficult for me to react on whether my opponent was standing or crouching but after a while, you start to get used to it.

@cidbahamut Unfortunately, this is the problem with Juri; her hit confirms are somewhat difficult to confirm due to her lack of comboability of her normals. Her BnB one is cr. LK, st. LP, cr. MP/MK xx Senpusha, however, the problem with this combo is that her st. LP doesn’t hit crouching so it’s really used more as a punish more than it is used as a hit confirm. The reason why I say it’s a punish combo is because since it’s so difficult to tell if the opponent is standing or not, if you can guarantee that the opponent is standing (say from a whiffed DP), then you can still use this combo for extra damage/meter. I’m also pretty sure she can do cr. LK, cr. LK, cr. LK xx LK Senpusha as a hit confirm but you don’t get too much damage from it. Alternatively, you can do cr. MK xx LK Fuhajin (fireball), cr. MK xx Senpusha but this combo requires you to have a fireball charged. There’s not much time to confirm this combo but it’s very damaging and if the fireball gets blocked you can do cr. HK.

[cidbahamut]

So basically I need to have a longer string to give myself time to react and Juri’s hit confirms are just harder in general? If I’m not mistaken that first combo you list requires a 1-frame link, which is why I’d been trying to rely on the simpler :mk: > Senpusha combo to begin with. Figured I’d start out simple and work my way up to that because holy cow are 1-frame links hard to perform.

[SirMixahLot]

Start with longer strings…

When you get better, move to shorter ones. The damage buffering will be less, so you can deal more damage.

[dx2]

You can buffer qcb into the cr.mk for Juri and decide whether or not to press a button based on whether it connects.

Just be careful not to 2 in 1 the input and end up with an mk senpusha because of the negative edge, but having clean inputs is important, get used to tapping the down + mk at the same time, and releasing the mk button promptly without sitting on it and then roll the stick into the qcb motion as the kick comes out, you can then decide whether or not you want to press buttons based on the hit confirm.

It takes pretty good reactions to hit confirm a single hit normal into a special.

[Murdurus]

So basically I need to have a longer string to give myself time to react and Juri’s hit confirms are just harder in general? If I’m not mistaken that first combo you list requires a 1-frame link, which is why I’d been trying to rely on the simpler :mk: > Senpusha combo to begin with. Figured I’d start out simple and work my way up to that because holy cow are 1-frame links hard to perform.

Alternatively, she can do cr. LP, cr. LP, st. LP, cr. MP/MK xx Senpusha. You’ll have to chain the LP’s because you can’t link them into each other, they can only be chained together but that will give you a 2f link into cr. MP/MK.

One frame links are difficult but again, it’s one of those things that you sort of get used to doing after a while. Also, majority of links aren’t linked into light attacks making plinking possible.

[Captain_Salty]

Assuming [j.MK, cl.LP, cl.LP, cr.MK xx Senpusha] is your combo of choice, you have plenty of normals in there for you to figure out whether you’ve connected or not - way before the Senpusha anyway.

Once you’ve got hit confirming that down, you’ve just got to make sure you’ve got the link from cl.LP to cr.MK down (it’s 2 frame link, or 1 frame if you use LK).

[AzureXIII]

For Guy in SF4, his hit confirms come off his cr. LP or cr. LK. Say for example, you throw out cr. LK, cr. LK and both them connects, by now you should be able to tell whether the opponent is standing or crouching, if the opponent is standing, you go into the Bushin Chain, if the opponent is crouching you go into st.MP or target combo. That’s the general idea of it anyway. It was difficult for me to react on whether my opponent was standing or crouching but after a while, you start to get used to it.

And if I can tell that they’re blocking I go into, say, lp Hozanto or into Run > Stop pressure shenanigans?

[Murdurus]

For Guy in SF4, his hit confirms come off his cr. LP or cr. LK. Say for example, you throw out cr. LK, cr. LK and both them connects, by now you should be able to tell whether the opponent is standing or crouching, if the opponent is standing, you go into the Bushin Chain, if the opponent is crouching you go into st.MP or target combo. That’s the general idea of it anyway. It was difficult for me to react on whether my opponent was standing or crouching but after a while, you start to get used to it.

And if I can tell that they’re blocking I go into, say, lp Hozanto or into Run > Stop pressure shenanigans?

Yep. Pretty much anything you want out of the target combo depending on what you want, who you’re fighting, etc.

[Lamme]

You can also do something like st. LK > st. LP > cr. MK > Senpusha
Practicing single move hit confirming is not something you should be spending time on as a beginner.

[Murdurus]

You can also do something like st. LK > st. LP > cr. MK > Senpusha
Practicing single move hit confirming is not something you should be spending time on as a beginner.

The problem in his case isn’t really about hit confirming necessarily, it’s about whether being able to confirm whether the opponent is standing or not because st. LP in his case whiffs on crouching. There’s not much point in it if you do st. LK and it connects but the opponent is crouching and the st. LP whiffs. If you can confirm that the opponent is standing by a single hit of st. LK, I would consider your reaction godlike.

Now, he can do st. LK, st. LK, st. LP as a hit confirm but that would require him to be standing right next to the opponent otherwise the second st. LK becomes a far one and that won’t combo. However, if he is that close in range, he can do cl st. MP (or even cr. HP) and cancel straight into whatever instead of having to do the links and potentially dropping it (although he does build extra meter).

Again, that is why I’m saying that Juri has very limited comboability off her normals because her st. LP is really the only reliable normal to link out of but it requires the opponent to be standing. Hopefully the update will change that but until then, Juri’s hit confirms are limited.

[xeikai]

[FORSALE] Custom Arcade Joystick(s)

So how does one hit-confirm? I see it referenced a lot on these boards and I think I understand the basic concept, which is that you want to make sure the first hit of a combo connects before you start executing the bits that will leave you wide open if blocked. But as for how to actually pull it off I’m kinda left scratching my head.

The one really simple combo I know I need to figure this shit out for is Juri’s cr. :mk: > Senpusha, because a blocked Senpusha leaves plenty of opportunities for me to get punished. But by the time I’ve figured out whether or not the first part connects, the window to cancel into Senpusha has passed so I end up with either just the kick or I have to blindly cancel into the rest of it based solely on instinct. It feels like I need super human reaction times to do this.

What do I do?

The basic idea behind hit confirming is to do a chain of moves which will give your brain time to register if the hits were blocked or not, if they were you can stop or continue into a safe block string or a focus cancel, if they weren’t you can finish the combo for the big damage, If your doing just cr.mk + Senpusha, that’s extremely hard to hit confirm, If you want combos to hit confirm you can go with cr.lk st.lk cr.lk > mk Senpusha. You can also try cr.lk st.lk .cr.mk > Senpusha, but that link is pretty tight, it’s easier if you replace the st.lk with st.lp but the st.lp will not connect on smaller characters who are ducking. If you’re close enough you should just use cr.mp with a fuhajin store, which is safe on block and will give you a fireball store to work with to continue to apply pressure, also if you score hits, you can use it to get a hard knockdown and contiune with crossup pressure or a bait or whatever, if you’re too far for the fuhajin to work use lk Senpusha which in my experience has been safe at father spacing. only use Mk or Hk Senpusha if you know you’re going to hit, or if you’re going to focus cancel it to continue your pressure.

[IglooBob]

You can also do something like st. LK > st. LP > cr. MK > Senpusha
Practicing single move hit confirming is not something you should be spending time on as a beginner.

I don’t really agree with this. It varies on game and on which move we are talking about. You either have enough time to confirm a hit or you don’t. There are plenty of viable one hit confirms, just need enough hitstun.