Flamingo Stance and Throws

Hello everyone, new user here.

I just recently got really into VF5 and I've been practicing with Sarah. I understand throw escapes and am able to input up to 3 when I feel vulnerable to throws, but I have never been able to figure out how the Flamingo stance throws work with this.

Can you throw escape from a flamingo stance throw? And can I still use a throw escape myself if my Sarah is currently in flamingo stance herself? What about escaping while in flamingo stance from another Sarah's flamingo stance throw?

And while I'm here, can you throw escape from back throws? These are things I have never really come across while playing yet I feel like they are important to know.

 

You can't break throws from behind. Both standing and crouching back throws are unbreakable. You can't break hit-throws or catch throws. I think Sarah's throws in Flamingo are hit throws and catch throws. I'm not 100% on that though, I don't know much about Sarah.

Crouching is a decent way to avoid getting eaten by flamingo.

 

From Flamingo Sarah has got 2 Catch Throws (p+g and 8426p+g) and 2 hit throws (2k then p+g and another one i don't recall).

You can't throw escape a catch throw, but you can throw sarah at zero frames if you predict that, or just go for a hit if you prefer. You can also duck, the throws are lows.

 

Thanks guys, I understand now. Seems like there is always something new to learn in VF.

 

You can also buffer throw escapes in the backflip (++), that's probably the all around safest way out of flamingo at disadvantage.

 

As explained Sarah's throws in Flamingo (FL) stance are catch throws and so they cannot be throw escaped and like regular throws cannot be evaded. They are however open to attacks - you see that throw clash that sometimes occurs when a throw and an opponents move startup is on screen? With a catch throw that throw clash does not exist meaning that if you successfully predict an opponent to catch throw you can get free damage in (even big launchers) - actually the way this works is a bit more specific than this... the move you throw out must reach its active hitting frames to be able to beat a catch throw as a catch throw has the property in which it will "eat" moves before they become active. Also, catch throws will never land as a 0 frame throw like regular throws can.

As for your question regarding putting in throw escapes (TE's) during you being in FL stance... Ideally whenever you do backflip you should be trying to put in as many different TE's as what your opponent's character has. An example of when you might want to put in -> TE is after you use FL (sweep) and it is guarded. The reason for this is that when that sweep is guarded you will be put at a -11 disadvantage. At that disadvantage if you were to throw out any move you can almost guarantee the fact you will be counter hit (not good!). A little bit of maths here: Sarah's fastest move out of FL stance is a 9 frame (9f) jab (joint fastest move in the game!) 11 + 9 = 20. Most moves are less than 20f in VF5 and that means any move 20f or lower (even most launchers are 20f or less) will counter hit you - as I said, not good! By using Sarah's FL stance backflip that means that you will be invulnerable to pretty much all immediate counter attacks - and as I said if you implement TE's during this animation you will protect yourself even more! The backflip is invincible even on the first frame and because the sweep recovers crouching I think that even a "guaranteed" 11f jab can't connect in time? (Don't quote me on this one!). A guessing game occurs after sweep... Most conventional counter attacking moves will whiff against the backflip due to it being invincible and because you are putting in throw escapes then a regular throw shouldn't be successful! This means that the opponent should be thinking of delaying their move to hit you towards the end of your backflip, dash up towards you during the backflip and regular throw (if you see someone dash on you during your backflip double-input any previous TE's as your previous inputs may be too late!), dash up towards and catch throw you (unescapable during the backflip) or choose a long animation or long distance move to beat you out of the backflip. Because of the nature of this scenario that means that they have to commit to doing something which takes a long time if they expect you to backflip so they can maximise their punishment...but this gives you an opportunity to do something else besides the backflip while they probably already have their sights set on punishing the backflip! In this situation you should have time to cancel out of FL stance back to Neutral stance and either Fuzzy or ETEG (maybe even predict their move and counter that...such as if you think they will throw go for a ).

Also, whenever you do your own FL throws it is definitely good practice and advisable to put in some TE's here too... you have already committed yourself to a catch throw which is quite a lengthy animation so putting TE's in carries virtually no risk and could prevent you from being embarrassed by being thrown out of your own throw!

One thing to note though is that when Sarah enters FL stance she usually does it with advantage on block (examples include , , , and ) and bearing in mind Sarah is likely going to press the advantage whenever she enters FL (with good reason too - as she is in stance she is unable to conduct usual defense such as fuzzy guard, ETEG, evade, , backdash, crouch backdash etc) the opponent really should not be thinking too highly about actually landing a throw on Sarah. Pretty much any move that Sarah throws out from FL stance will stuff their throw attempts and as a general rule the opponent should only be performing a throw if they feel quite God-like and anticipate you to perform one of Sarah's catch throws, (which we've already discussed isn't that major as it's an open opportunity to enter TE's) if they are thinking of throwing you out of her backflip (as we've discussed - another opportunity to enter TE's) or after ducking under a slow recovering high move (something like ducking under the last hit of FL although this isn't best punishment and again you should be putting in a couple of TE's in this scenario).

On the hole I would say that you really should not be fearing throws while you are in FL stance, and when you are put in a potentially throw-able situation definitely put those TE's in! It's a good habit to be in and good practice, the opponent will be likely be kicking themselves when they opt for a greedy throw which you TE instead of guaranteed punishment.

 

I thought throw escapes had to be input from 10 frames before to 10 frames after the throw. I believe that is what I read on this site somewhere. Is this the case or am I mistaken? Because if its true then wouldn't using throw escapes during the backflip be worthless since its likely that window will pass before the opponent throws me?

Or is this some sort of special case where the throw escape remains in buffer until she returns to a normal position giving her immunity to the throws.

As for using throw escapes after committing to the flamingo throw myself, I am not quite at that level yet but I'll keep it in mind for the future.

 

Alright, I thought the backflip was safe against throws, that is why I was asking about the throw escapes expiring since I thought they could only throw me after the window of immunity ended from the backflip.

Thanks for the info.

 

Personally I think that some part of the animation IS safe against throws, and only the very start and end of the animation are vulnerable (when her feet are on the ground), but then again I dont have anyone to test it with so I cant be sure. I have observed the behaviour of throws against backflip in various real matches.

 

thx posts here helped me out

 

While we're on the subject of throws, what would everyone consider a good percentage of successful throw escapes?

Right now I'm doing maybe 25% even though I know I'm hitting 2 to 3 inputs. Either my timing is slightly off or I'm still not inputting the most common throws for certain characters. And I know I'm only using them during moves that leave me clearly vulnerable so I'm not inputting them all thetime.

 

You want to be able to escape throws as frequently as possible. In VF the throws are actually particularly dangerous...the majority of characters have atleast one decent damage throw (in my opinion, that is any throw 60pts of damage and over) but even a middle of the range 50pt damage throw takes off 25% of your health (in VF it takes 201 pts of damage to KO an opponent) and depending on the throw could also leave you open to okizeme pressure (knockdown pressure).

Let me put it this way right...

Let's say you use Sarah's and the 2nd hit is blocked. That leaves you at a -12 situation. In VF the regular throws execute in 12f across the board (with again the exception of catch throws which have a longer startup phase than merely throwing out the arms) this means that when you are put in a -12 situation that there is no way for you to stop your opponent from throwing you and you MUST put in throw escapes here.

Let us examine why throw escape is so important from -12:

As I said the throws in VF are particularly dangerous and the reason for this is the amount of damage and/or pressure they can deal for a fast 12f start up!

If you let Kage get in his Ten Foot Toss (TFT) throw on you on an open or half fence stage then there is a very real possibly of him ringing you out (even if he doesn't ring you out he will still get a 65ish pt damage combo on you). A ring out is enough for you to lose a round even if you have full health so of course it is VERY dangerous.

Another example would be Akira's sort of TFT throw which is and also carries a ring out threat on an open or half open stage and again even if this does not ring you out you will eat 70pts of damage.

Let's say that you can escape throws consistently from a -12 situation though...meaning whenever your opponent goes to throw you in this situation none of their directional or neutral : throws land, what do they do then? Well...your opponent will likely stop trying to punish you with throws as it does not end up with them getting any damage and also the player who successfully TE's is put in an advantaged situation. Your opponent will now need to think of punishing with something guaranteed when you are at -12 but what exactly can the opponent do? Well...most characters have very poor 12f punishment so most of the time all you will need to worry about is a dealing 30pts of damage and leaving them at a +4 advantage.

I hope you can see the difference between 70pts of damage the potential to being ringed out compared to 30pts of damage with slight disadvantage.

A side note: Sarah has the best 12f punishment in the game. This comes in the form of which does roughly 50pts of damage and gives a knockdown! Bear in mind whenever using this as punishment though that it will whiff against attacks which recover crouching as the whole sequence hits high.

Back on point to what you were saying though...you really should be aiming to successfully input as many TE's as you can and in an ideal world your ETEG's should TE all your opponents throws unless they opt for a delayed throw...during ETEG you likely do not have to time to put in 4 directional throw escapes, and then re-input more directional ones...infact let me rephrase that - you do not have the time!

You mentioned that you input throw escapes after moves when you know that you should, do you care to give the examples of when you do?

 

I wrote some useful stuff regarding throws a while back. I only done Wolf and Jacky's throws and I was doing Blaze's. The formatting for this might be a bit funny and I know I didn't use standard notation for this as it was posted on a site which doesn't have it implemented. Probably should make a new thread for this so other folk can cover their characters' throws but I dunno.

 

It takes 1 frame for it to be registered as a minor counter. Something like that, I remember manji going on and on about it once.