Any advice on practicing evading?

Any drills, or anything I can do in training mode?

 

Thanks, I know how to do that, I mean are there any drills I can work on to help my muscle memory learn to evade in real matches? I'm not even really sure when to use it. Do I use it at a time when I would otherwise guard?

Also if I'm at a disadvantage, is it usually better to guard after a successful evade, or will my opponent still have enough recovery frames before they can move that I'll be able to attack in most cases?

 

you will always have SOME advantage after successful except for late evades on P / 2P

you should evade in disadvantage instead of guard if you expect your opponent to throw out linear attack. On other hand, you are more open to throws and circular / proper half-circular moves will hit you with MC, what can hurt a lot. Delayed attacks also can hurt.
Because of that, do NOT evade too often and/or do not become predictable with your evades

 

Thanks that is very useful, except I don't understand what MC is. What is MC?

 

MC - Mayor Caunter - counter hit - CH - yellow flash. There are plenty of names for it, you probably just know some other one

 

Definitely set cpu to attack mid, 2p, or p after guarding for basic evade training. Use different moves that leave yourself at different disadvantages and work on understanding what defensive options are available. Failed evades will occur from time to time therefore practice canceling them with 66G or 33G to block delayed attacks will improve your defense and regain the advantage. For more advanced stuff I tend to record jacky attacking, guard briefly then immediatey input 46k+g or using half circulars. Attack him when he guards then evade in correct direction or evade cancel guard.

 

One thing I would suggest doing is putting the dummy on a character that has a lot of string variations (like Jacky and Sarah), record some strings, put them on random and practice evading properly to escape the string during different points (especially if one or more of the hits are half-circular). For Sarah I set her in Flamingo stance and record different set-ups originating from it and place them on random trying to not only evade but fuzzy guard as well (two birds with one flamingo so to speak).

 

Try initially to work evades into your game after your attack is guarded by the opponent. The blockstun will help with setting up the timing, where as if you and your opponent are just freely moving around the ring it's harder to guess when they will strike.

Then you can practice a few different tactics:

For single attacks - Evade and immediately attack or throw.

For string attacks - Evade and hold guard, or Evade and make no inputs so that the remaining attacks in the string won't track. You can input a throw escape immediately during the evade, but if you hold guard or make any input afterwards the remaining string attacks will track.

For circular attacks, or if you fail an evade - Evade and cancel with ,, (you'll need fast timing to cancel in time to guard a circular. Use a slow circular like Wolf's to practice).

For all round defence - Evade and cancel with ,, (hold) then hold to also escape a throw.

 

What is really important to know about inputting evades is that for the evade to register, you must return the stick to neutral. I always think (whether I am right or wrong) of an evade as:
neutral, up, neutral
-or-
neutral, down, neutral

If you come from other 3d fighters, it may surprise you that this is more or less the input for an evade, because many games encourage you to input up, neutral, up -or- down, neutral, down.

Bottom line is, I return the stick to neutral before doing the evade and after inputting the evade.

I recommend to beginners to think of evades as a "defensive technique" in VF. As your question implies, it is a substitute for guard.

In advanced play, evades can be used for positioning but it is applied differently from other games and for most people I do not recommend worrying about the advanced movement/positioning/baiting until you are very comfortable with the basic "successful evade." The advanced stuff is mostly taking advantage of "failed evades" and cancelling it, but again, a topic saved for when you've imrpoved in many other areas of the game first. Understanding the basics of "successful evades" is enough to fight with and will feed into success with the advanced stuff later on.

Here's a link to a small thing I wrote about beating evades--it should help you better understand the basics of evades in VF5:FS ^_^

Back to the direct answer of your question: If your goal is to evade an attack, then you should evade only when you are at a disadvantage. Being in a disadvantage increases the chance that the evade will register while your opponent is already executing an attacking on you--which is the requirement for a "successful evade."

Generally, if you evaded an attack that wasn't a high or low jab or Vanessa/Goh's short uppercuts, you're usually at an advantage. The more aggressive/committed the attack seemed, the more advantage you have.

But what is also important is when you evaded your opponent's attack. The earlier, the better. If it was late, you probably only have a tiny advantage and a basic poke is then advised.

For a person like myself who is not that fast, if I evade a jab, then I recommend defending right away because I usually lose an exchange in that situation due to my slowness.

1. For an evade to be inputted, the stick/d-pad should go back to neutral. Many people don't realize this and struggle with evades. Basically tap up or tap down, don't hold.
2. For a successful evade, you should do it when you are at a disadavantage. You are generally at a disadvantage when your attack is blocked or you whiffed an attack. Dashing is another way to put yourself in "disdavantage."
3. I don't recommend trying to evade just on reaction, at least not until you're stronger and more knowledgeable of the game. I recommend buffering an evade when your character is stuck in some sort of recovery or non-cancellable animation.
4. If you evade a fast attack, be cautious.
5. If you evade a slow attack, you have the advantage.
6. If you evade early in a string of attacks and your opponent is going to keep going with the string, be careful--pressing any button P,K, or G will cause the opponent to track you almost right away and you will probably get hit out of whatever you are doing.
7. If you evade a super super slow attack, like ridiculously slow attack, I recommend waiting for the attack to whiff before striking your opponent. This applies to charge-attacks too.

There is a general principal in VF, and it is a result of the way the game is designed...

In general:

• When you succeed at something (your attack hits, you block your opponent, you evade your opponent), you have the initiative, you should attack.
  • Easy general exception to remember are low pokes that are not low punch. Aside from low punch, most low pokes are disadvantage even on hit--especially if they are quick, this is by design to discourage excessive low poking.
  • There are still many exceptions, check the command list and frame data when you get to a point of needing to know and apply this.
• When you fail at something (your attack is blocked, your throw escaped, your opponent evades your attack, you whiff, you tried to do a reversal and failed), your opponent has the initiative, you should defend.
  • Basic Defending includes Guard (#1 most reliable), Evade, Reversal (I discourage this), Backdash (higher risk, higher reward), Sabaki Attack (need to read your opponent), and Attack if you are certain a throw is coming (I don't recommend doing this too much).
  • There is Advanced Defending. You will want to learn advanced defending eventually. I won't go into all of the Advanced Defending techniques much here, but there are two types I recommend at early level VF because they are less complicated and useful right away: Guard-Throw-Escape and Fuzzy Guarding.
    • Guard-Throw-Escape: Whenever you would guard high, you should do this technique, which is also called Lazy/Easy Throw Escape and Throw Escape Guard. First press and hold Guard to put your character in a Guarding state. Once your character is guarding, keep holding G and then press and hold a throw escape direction and Punch.
      • For example, when fighting Kage, you're afraid of his Ten Foot Toss Combos. To escape that throw, you want to have inputted or held down FORWARD+P+G when he tries to throw you. Therefore, when you would normally guard high against him, you will want to work on doing something like this: Press and hold G to start guarding. Soon after, press and hold FORWARD+P, while holding G. Now you are holding FORWARD+P+G while blocking. This is a guard that will block high and mid attacks (and Ex Low like the low punch), and you will escape throws that end with FORWARD+P+G.
    • Fuzzy Guard - I've already made this post complicated, so I will suggest you search Fuzzy Guard when you are comfortable with frame data ^_^
      • A tip though, for fighting fuzzy guard... If your opponent does something like crouch dashing after you block his elbow or after you hit him with PK, he is almost certainly fuzzy guarding. In this situation, a quick low attack (not low punch) will hit him. If your character has a low throw, a low throw will grab him and it is hard to escape the low throw when fuzzy guarding without breaking one's flow or being super fast with reflexes. A delayed throw or guard-breaking attack is also good in these situations.

Hope this helps, sorry I went on to many other topics ^_^