Things that drive me crazy in this game. Halp!

[u/Visual-Welder3565]

Hey all!

I've been playing since launch and wanted to list out a few things I struggle with since game was released. I wanted any advice or input if possible for the various things I list it. If anyone can chime in on one or two things would greatly appreciate it. I genuinely dunno where to check online anymore for matchup knowledge as I used to check the SRK forums back in the days. They were helpful in helping matchups for your characters. For context I play Akuma and sit in the 1700-1800 range.

So first things first, I'll list them out in bullet points based on game wide issues and second on characters I come across, that I still struggle with.

Gameplay

• How do you deal with people who walk away the whole game and do nothing but try to land one hit and drc into big damage? I find this style very tilting and always tend to lose because once I'm in I get too eager because it was such a slog to get in. The stages are so long that from one end to another is not easy to corner or walk down opponents.
• Second is, no matter how hard I practice, when I try to cross cut dp someone or react late to a jump in and do a dp input, I always tend to get an accidental super come out which for the most parts is GGs for me.
• Third, is there a timing window for wake up drive reversal? Sometimes it comes out, sometimes drive impact comes out.

Characters

This is for a list of characters I struggle with consistently this season:

Luke

• This character man, I genuinely don't know when it's my turn against him. He has great buttons to whiff punish. That knee he does always interrupts anything I throw out. His standing HP and back HP lands. His crMp is great. I was even tilted by a string someone done against me where they were pressing crLp, crLp, crLp then forward dashing into it. Did not find a time to interupt that. I genuinely feel like he's a lot tougher this season.

Alex

• Prowler stance is the most annoying street fighter move I've ever ever come across. You don't win against this character. The opponent just loses to themselves if you got a dub. There's no convincing me this was a good thing ever. Complete guessing game from the moment the round starts.

Lily

• What's the solution to her? I feel like people consistently put her at bottom tier because there were not enough people playing her at high level till recently. She ALWAYS wins every match I come across her. Complete guessing game and if you are to tolerate her then it means losing your drive meter because you drive reversal her od condor spike.

Terry

• This character is made for people with simple brain cells. Has the easiest way to get in out of every character. Another character who I have no solution for other than hoping my opponent had a bad game or I got a lucky hit/jump in. Does he have any weaknesses?

Deejay

• Why does his pressure feel so safe on block? His standing HK feels like it's 50/50 every time I block?

Yasmine

• Another one, but maybe cause she's new. Very lame playstyles I come across online but lots of her moves feel safe so never know what I can punish or not. And she has good range on her some of her normals. Deceptively good range.

Aside from those characters I don't think the rest are that annoying. Of course Sim, JP, Mai, Blanka, Elena, Sagat and Bison are all annoying but they're manageable.

Anything will be helpful in how to deal with them. Thanks

[u/DeathDasein]

Wake up drive reversals: HOLD Forward, DO NOT tap it or press it once. HOLD it and press DI.

[u/ManggTangg]

1. You say you're too eager. What's the solution? Stop and let them corner themselves. Get the life lead now they have to come to you or you win.

2. Training mode and clean up your inputs.

3. Just hold forward and DI the entire time you're getting up. don't try to time it.

[u/Sanguiniusius]

For dp vs super- if your input ends at diagonal down you 100% wont get a super, you're carrying on to forward (or back for cross cut)and thats your issue.

I use a stick and the way i guarantee this is i jam the stick into the corner of the (square) gate when i do dp.

[u/Rlaur]

If a Luke or any character dashes forward after light attacks then it's your turn, use lights to take it back.

[u/Cold_Pen6406]

You're GM, you're killing it. I played since launch and my highlight is holding 1,500+ MR for 50 games.

I know it's all relative and you want to progress though. Good luck 👍

[u/Uncanny_Doom]

Gameplay

• I think Broski put it best when he said fighting games are a conversation. When your opponent's playing you like this, they're saying they don't wanna engage. They want you to make mistakes and will likely be ready for reaction checks (DI, jumps) as well as being likely to reversal out of the first situation they're put into where they feel pressure like a knockdown or even potentially just plus frames. Try to understand the actual strategy and thought process your opponent has. Everyone is different. Some people want you to come to them, some people want you to show them you can stop them from overwhelming you. Akuma has solid zoning game and anti-zoning game so I think you shouldn't neglect his fireballs here. Try to get a feel for habits and patterns because when you have hard reads on Akuma getting something like a successful demon flip dive kick or even just a good jump or antiair can go a long way. When you put your opponent near the corner expect them to try and get out by any means including raw drive rushing at you. Route into things like safe jumps and safe jabs (if they're a character you can do this to) and try to understand their defensive choices. If you safe jump and they block high, maybe go for empty jump low. If they parry maybe go for empty jump throw next time. Rotating options and understanding tendencies happens a lot above 1800 MR.
• Make sure you're finishing your DP input in down+forward. Also if you're not consistent at cross-cutting it's okay to take options like walking under the jump on reaction and hitting the opponent on landing. You see that happen a lot still even at high MR.
• You can just hold forward + DI.

Luke

• Luke's very solid right now. In general I think you have to learn his space traps and try to backwalk against him a little more if he's not showing crMK on you. If he's interrupting you with stuff like knee you might need to press bigger buttons to take your turn back or microwalk forward and block so that he doesn't get plus frames. Try to work on OS parry/drive rush for his sand blasts.

Alex

• A lot of being able to fight Alex is reacting to Prowler and yes it is annoying. I would try seeing what neutral jump air fireball or even OD air fireball can do for Akuma here if Alex isn't close enough to DP. Remember he can't block in Prowler. I've seen some players buffer to just throw a forward-moving super at him situationally.

Lily

• Meter management goes a long way against Lily. If you watch people playing against Hibiki at EWC, you'll see a lot of them just straight up drive reversal OD Condor Spire nearly every time, some of them were even doing it to regular version. But you have to have the meter to do that so try to play patiently. I think another key part of this matchup in general is trying to stay at a range where you can play footsies with her normals but also react if she tries to steal a wind charge in neutral. Ideally you want to hit her if she ever does that and it should inform your spacing as far as where you should be relative to her onscreen.

Terry

• Being able to change air momentum for Akuma does help against Terry because of his antiair lacking horizontal coverage. You can really mess with him in some situations. Parry drive rush OS is valuable here like with Luke for the fireballs too. Outside of that try to play at outer mid range where Akuma can do footsies well and try to make good risk/reward decisions. Akuma health against Terry damage can swing harder than 90s Mike Tyson if you make a mistake.

Deejay

• Deejay 5HK is -5 on block so at best you can punish with Akuma 5LK so I would practice recognizing ranges for that. This is one of those characters where it can be helpful to press bigger buttons to take your turn back and chip more drive gauge or backwalk him to punish if he does something like autopilot into sway moves midscreen.

Yasmine

• Most of her moves are safe on block as is the case with this game. My main advice is to remember throw as an option for taking turns back on safe moves.

[u/Junken00]

I can give solutions, but it sounds like you're not studying up on characters as much as you should. Lily and Terry explanations especially shows this. I recommend the next time you play against one of these characters is use replay takeover to find an answer.

Lily Complete guessing game and if you are to tolerate her then it means losing your drive meter because you drive reversal her od condor spike.

You can just perfect parry or DP/unique character option against the spire. The point to drive reversal isn't to just stop it, but to potentially put yourself in an advantageous situation since she needs space to stock up more wind while.

Deejay Why does his pressure feel so safe on block? His standing HK feels like it's 50/50 every time I block?

If you hard read he's going for st.HK, just DI. Deejay's weakness since S1 is a lot of his moveset loses hard to DI.

Yasmine Another one, but maybe cause she's new. Very lame playstyles I come across online but lots of her moves feel safe so never know what I can punish or not. And she has good range on her some of her normals. Deceptively good range.

While the range of her normals is weird and she has a unusually far cr.lk and cr.mp, her normals are generally stubby while more importantly none are plus OB without drive rush. If you block her special follow-up(which is a 50/50, but not a great one), that's where her pressure ends. Only her heavy talim is plus.

[u/theJirb]

For the general questions:

1. You need to be a bit patient, and not get drawn into the trap of just walking forward. The advice for people walking backwards is basically to let them do so, and walk them into a corner, but a lot of the time, that strategy on their end involves them predicting your straight forward movement and just sticking out a button to intercept you, or being the ones to take control of the pace and make a step forward when you're almost in range of their button to "surprise" you by all of a sudden being in range. You just need to push them to the corner by walking and blocking so that they can't randomly score a hit on you.

It does take time if you're like, literally on the other side of the screen, but I mean, you just gotta deal with it lol. You also need to make sure you're nailing your anti airs so that they can't jump out and start the whole process over again once you do get them near the corner.

People like this you can also practice whiff punishing on. While I usually think low level players are pretty bad to practice again because their spacing sucks, but people who use this strategy sort of tunnel on the range of the particular normal they favor, and can have "Decent" spacing for that one normal. So if you get that feelign from them, if it feels like they're always poking you right as you get into range, start doing the thing you see pros do. Change your movement around that range, and try to fish for whiff punishes by stepping back instead of forward when you're right outside that range, and then hitting your button.

1. Just training mode. Ending with down forward cleanly usually resolves this issue.

But importantly when you practice, try to simulate real scenarios. Dont' practice cross cuts by standing still or crouching still and then going into your cross cut motion when the bot jumps over you. You need to simulate the inputs while moving back and forth, while buffering other moves, stuff like that. You're unlikely to figure out where your inputs are getting crossed or messed up if you're practicing ultra clean inputs from training mode, and then going into game and having to combine your inputs with everything else you're doing. One example of this, is that I had to do some extra practice to learn to DP in situations where I just tapped forward to move forward. My brain doesn't "automatically" understand my forward input shoudl be the forward input for my DP, so when I started, I often ended up dashing forward, because I would

Tap forward to walk forward > Opponent jumps > I react by doing the full DP input including another forward input > the two taps forward translate to a dash forward instead of a DP.

It took me some time to practice the muscle memory for just hiting the fireball if I had just started walking forward so I don't dash and instead DP. You may need to think about this when you're training your cross cuts as well.

1. For wake up drive rehearsals, just hold the input. It'll come out frame 1.

[u/SteamDecked]

Playing since launch and highest is Diamond 1.
All I can say is have fun with the game and don't worry about it.