A few questions from a frustrated scrub

Down attacks that seem inescapable, particularly the ones that hit despite me having already stood back up completely. WTF.

Kage/Blaze/Wolf/Vanessa players that back up, run in for a hit-throw, then back up again. How is this avoidable? Kage and Lei Fei players also seem to do this a lot with diving and front-spiraling attacks respectively, and the former seems to get me every time.

Eileen. Is she ever at a disadvantage? Seriously. I feel like she can just crank out canned combos ad nauseum and no opportunity to counter ever presents itself. Do I just need to find the windows?

Thanks, love you guys.

 

Lotta Eileen can be side stepped and punished horribly.

 

What characters do you use? That's really important info here because maybe someone will give you tip about sabaki/reversals you have to incorporate in your defense In Eileen case at least.

 

For eileen's case I could tell you all about her holes but I'd need to know what is hitting you. In general a good eileen player will mix up linear strikes with delayed attacks and her half circulars so you can't just expect to evade her always. Once she has momentum she can be really hard to stop as you're put in nitaku situations constantly. Try not to get knocked down against her and learn what strings your opponnent is using that has gaps in them. There are gaps in most all of the strings, but the answer to each is different on the defensive side. Hence why I'd need to know what exactly is causing a problem to tell you the gaps.

If you want to look at my blog link in my signature, I go over what are some potential ways to shut eileen's options down, and what her responses are to it too. It's not really new player friendly as it's really technical talk, but it'd help you with eileen at least.

 

Tech rolling, while hard to master, is an invaluable skill. If you're getting pounced a lot on standup, roll up or down or even back on your tech roll. Learn what can be tech rolled out of, and practice by setting the dojo to hit you with KDs and practice your tech roll. Teching is not something you want to do 100% of the time, but it is a very important skill to work on.

Leap back/leap in, jumpy sorts of characters, like Vanessa and Kage are hard to counter. The best option is to learn their timing, and learn to step in and counter attack during their move, or, if they're throwing you, just do a low attack to knock them out of it. (I like low sweeps with KD for this.)

Eileen's a pain, but there she is at disadvantage at many points. The key is learning to figure out when her string is really over, and when she's just delaying her inputs. Best way to learn to counter Eileen is to play Eileen, learn her strings and pressure and see where other, better players interrupt you. Then, do that to the next Eileen you face.

Take all advice with caution, I am the worst player in the world.

 

Thanks! I couldn't tell you what exactly is hitting me but it is basically that mix-up of strings with delayed stuff, the way she never quite stops attacking and it's hard to find a window. But it's helpful to know those windows exist, so I'll get to work on finding them.

 

I'm a full-time Aoi player. Reversals are hard to rely on because of all the jumping/double-foot/double-fist stuff, but I'm currently trying not to rely on reversals in general so I can get better at the basics.

 

99.9% of the time, all this means is you're not holding guard. I assume you're talking about the big slow pounces where the opponent leaps into the air and lands on you. They're attacks just like anything else, so you do actually have to block them if you're standing... they can only be initiated when you're knocked down, but being knocked down doesn't matter to whether they hit.

If the opponent started the pounce late, you can often hit them with a rising , or just standing them out of the air when you get up, but that's unreliable if the opponent's timing was perfect, and you can punish these anyway, so really... just hold guard and be patient.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Kage/Blaze/Wolf/Vanessa players that back up, run in for a hit-throw, then back up again. How is this avoidable? Kage and Lei Fei players also seem to do this a lot with diving and front-spiraling attacks respectively, and the former seems to get me every time.</div></div>

Again, the short answer is just be patient and keep guarding, all that long-range stuff is punishable, so don't hit buttons, and your chance will come.

However, with Aoi specifically, controlling the range of the fight pretty easy. will beat backdashes and lows cleanly from match-start range (you kind of just die if they evade or block, though). + also lets you close in easily, and then hit the follow-up with a bit of delay, and you can beat evades, and get that extra bit of distance if the first hit whiffs, often getting a CH against people who don't wait for it.

And, of course, just dashing forward and blocking can be great. A lot of people are just baiting a move so they can hit it, so block whatever they do, and you're good. (Crouch-dash if the goal is to beat a throw).