Defense with GT

Defense 101 : Throw Defense at -5 and Below.

When you are left at a situation that leaves you at -5 or below most will opt to use fuzzy guard (33G) to beat instant mid-throw mixups. The most common way to beat this tactic is to just delay your throws enough to grab them as they stand back up after fuzzy guarding. At this point, most people will begin attacking from disadvantage from fear of being thrown but with damage as high as it is in FS, this is not the best idea. To beat these delayed throw attempts you should use 833G(233G). Evade canceling into crouch dash ducks on just the right frames to beat the delayed throws that fuzzy guard would lose to. Together fuzzy guard and 833G are extremely strong in FS when you understand how they compliment each other defensively.

By using these two techniques against throws, your opponent now has to guess if they want to throw instantly, which will lose to fuzzy guard or delay their throw, which will lose to 833G as well as the 1 in 3 guess that comes with throw escaping in FS. You can also punish the whiffed throw attempts on reaction that are crouched using fuzzy guard and 833G.

833G is fairly safe ducks on the 9th(?) frame which means Jeans 16f high half circulars will whiff up to -5 against 833G but will connect at -6. This makes it really easy to know when high half circulars will work against 833G (16f works at -6, 15f works at -5, etc). 833G has some vulnerability to mid circulars but slow circulars like Akira's and Wolf's 3K+G won't be very effective against it. Low circulars will counter hit.

This is pretty much the basics of how I play defense at -5 below. There are 3 main things you can use after fuzzy or 833 which are :

Fuzzy Guard
- Lazy Throw Escape
- Crouch
- Attack

833
- Lazy Throw Escape
- Crouch
- Attack

Nowadays, I usually just use LTE after fuzzy guard and 833 though there are certain playstyles where I'll opt to use a less conventional defense. If a throw whiffs I'll just punish accordingly. Stick to LTE, but know the other options are there and have uses. This is just the safest way to play defense but doesn't take into account options like abare, crouch, sabaki's, etc.


*Random Tech Sidenote - It's possible to tech throws while holding down to tech instant throws or crouch delayed throw attempts. To do this you must buffer in a TE at the end of your characters recovery window and then hold 2G. So if Goh's 6K knee is blocked press P+G and let go of P as fast as possible then do 2G.

P+G!P > 2G I believe the input would be ?

Think Akira's 1 frame knee except you let go of K instead of G. I haven't been able to get much use out of this as it's very difficult to use in a match but the option is always there. This is pretty difficult to use overall. : (

More to come...

 

Thanks for the excellent article!

I imagine it probably seems basic and straightforward to you, but in addition to how you apply things logically and with good reason--you explain things similarly with sound logic and good reasoning. I think you see "the truth" faster than most others and it shows in your approach, your game, and your writing. I fully admit I see what I want to see, flaws and all.

Not trying to ride you, though I guess I naturally ride everyone (lol), but just pointing out why I like your posts, share them, and express gratitude for it. And also pointing out one angle on why you really stand out above most others.

In any case, I have only been using ECD with half the reasoning you have given--your article made it clearer to me why it was working when I used it and is helping me be more thorough in my understanding of the situation. Thanks for filling in the blanks and making it much clearer for me and everyone else!

And I'll try to apply all the above better (well except the tech sidenote, I think that's something that will take months to work into my game if I commit to it--but it is awesome knowing it)!

 

Nice Information.... Let see if people take heed realizing its free. Lazy TE fucked me up taking away my defensively activity... I need to break this habit.

 

Too much guessing gets boring IMO.

 

So that's why you play Taka... HA! I kid I kid

Cool thread.

 

The laughs are too much. Dat taka yomi.

 

@Marly - I know you didn't specifically say this, but I felt the need to mention that using a delayed mid to beat ECD is somewhat difficult. It's possible, but the mid has to be fast enough like an elbow. Delayed launch won't work at all against ECD and they will just block it and ECD throw will get ducked because it's a delayed throw : D.

@Chanchai - Thanks! It's good to know that my posts don't come off as the ramblings of a crazy person. It's difficult for me to look at things I write in VF objectively because I just automatically understand certain things that others may not.

@YOMI - Get out!

 

Too funny. No hate to you yomi, you just set yourself up for that one man.

 

I wonder how powerful my Akira would be if i were to master these techniques? I guess there's only one way to find out. Time to hit the lab.

 

Hey man, yomi is the japanese word of READING, as in it's FACT, not a guess. As in take a look, it's in a book, YOMI RAINBOW.

 

Yomi as it's applied to Virtua Fighter means reading your opponents. In this context, if you have good yomi, you are making good guesses in terms of what your opponents will attempt.

Try again?

 

Offtopic:



ontopic: good stuff GT!

Nice to see you arrived to same conclusion about punishing Evade-dashcancel as I did quite a while ago. Note: the bigger the disadvantage the defender does evade dashcancel from, the easier it is to punish. At around -5 an elbow is pretty much the best delayed attack you can use as punishment.

 

I didn't really understand the *Random tech sidenote*
Anyone care to take a stab at explaining it to me. I mean, i read it and i understand the button combination/execution, but i don't really understand why or when it should be used.

 

Fyi fuzzy guarding at -5 will lose to Wolf 's 6p+g throw. And ECD will lose to delayed Burning Hammer if not escaped (due to long exe already).

 

ECD will lose to just normal throws if not escaped, the CD in it doesn't duck throws, its there to duck high circulars etc (due to the instaducking of highs being extended into crouchdash as well in FS) ECD is so slow to duck it might actually duck burning hammer..

 

LOL manji you are retarded. yes it will duck burning hammer, but not delayed burning hammer. burning hammer loses to ECD normally. read it before you reply pls.

 

The CD part is also meant to beat regular delayed throws in addition to ducking circular highs. You'd have to do a 2nd fuzzy after the ECD to deal with burning hammer delayed, or just stay ducking.