Foot stance oddities and fuzzy guard...

Greets, I have two questions.

I'll begin with the more generic one.
How do you deal with fuzzy guard? Surely I'm not supposed to wait it out.
Throws don't work, 2KK doesn't work. Lows, well, what lows?
I didn't meet fuzzy guard very often so far I believe, but when I do notice it, I don't know how it works. I try stuff, and said stuff fails.


Second question.
In Dojo I noticed that if you set the AI to block and punish with P, you can perform 4K,FL3K and interrupt their punch.
But it only works in closed stance AND at the starting position.

Is that a training dummy failure? If so, does anyone understand what causes this exactly?
(I do understand that in normal ciscumstances, 4K,3K won't interrupt P.)


I made another test related to that.
Aoi vs Sarah, guard and punish with P.
Aoi 6K,4P+K. 4P+K will reverse the P in any stance and at any distance.
However in closed stance, she'll move her head a little before the actual reversal. In open stance, her head won't move at all. It would mean that, like above, frames seem to differ depending on which stance you're in. Plus, unlike above, the difference is not range dependant.

Any explanation?

(I like complicated stuff, please don't simplify your replies.)

 

To beat fuzzy guard you can low attack them. When people fuzzy guarding they see their move blocked, hold G and tap down. They don't carry on tapping down so they don't block any low attacks.

With Sarah her lows are either shit or slow. You could maybe 3K+G sweep them when they fuzzy to go under highs or just generally beat their fuzzy and score knockdown.

You can also delay your throw to beat fuzzy guard (it will be a 0frame throw too!). This is the more common way and what I primarily go for.

When you done 4K, 3K with Sarah vs on block P who were you practising against? That should only work vs 12f jabbers (Wolf, Jeffry, Aoi)

It should not be stance dependant whatsoever.

You see FL 3K is a 16f move. 4K FL entry gives +4 on block. If the other character has a 12f jab that means your 3K then becomes 12f due to the advantage (or their jab becomes 16f due to disadvantage; whichever way you want to look at it really). Because 3K does more damage than a jab and the moves collide on the same frame that means that the 3K will beat the jab and score you a nice CH stomach crumple + combo.

I'm not sure if you were aware of that already.

I would look into this on dojo but I'm sending my stick away to get a replacement otherwise I would see this for myself.

 

Thank you for the reply, but I don't understand what you mean by "generally beating fuzzy and scoring a knockdown". Do you mean those moves that guardbreak?
I'll try that delayed throw though, I wasn't aware that people usually don't keep tapping down.

For the dojo thing, I tested Sarah vs Sarah.
And like I said, it only works in one stance.
Closed stance, FL 3K will always interrupt P. But open stance, P will always interrupt FL 3K.
So even if it clashes, it would still only clash in one stance heh.
Edit: The Sarah vs Sarah part only works at starting position though. One short step backwards or forward and it won't work anymore. So this certain situation isn't that important.
But the Aoi vs Sarah situation might have a bigger impact on gameplay since it doesn't depend on range.

 

Jabs can hit your opponents out of fuzzy guarding too, provided it is entered with a crouch dash (entered at -6).

The foot position quirks you find are hitbox related. Another instance is when you guard Akira's . His Shldrm should CH the opponent's elbow retaliation from the closed foot position I think.

 

Well what I meant was that 3K+G with Sarah is a full circular low sweep which knocks down even on NH. It's a very good low but only if your opponent is too slow to react to it and block low. If your opponent reaction blocks that move it is absolutely useless other than beating evades as it will get you launched.

She also has 2K+G leg slicer but that move is pretty shitty unless it CH's and therefore it wouldn't be particularly good for beating fuzzy guard. -15 on block (you will get punished). -6 on hit. Crumple on CH then you could net 40-55 points of damage. Not too great at all seeings as it is 20f in execution and crap if not a CH.

Her 1K low is pretty standard nothing amazing there, shares the same frames with 1K+G apart from being 1f slower in execution at 16f.

Her 1K+G is a deceptive low attack but as far as frames are concerned it's not worth using. It is -14 on block meaning that you WILL get punished if it's blocked. It's -6 on HIT meaning you must crouch dash fuzzy. It's 0 on CH and on CH you can chain the next part, K. 1K+G,K as I said only connects on CH and will leave you -2 on hit and in FL stance.

So yeah, her low attacks aren't all that.

The other option players will do at a fuzzy disadvantage instead of fuzzying is to 2P.

2P will beat throw and delayed throw attempts, along with any other high move you may use (unless it's special high).

At +2 you must use a 14f mid to beat their 2P.
At +3 15f mid... etc up to +5.

Some people may not even fuzzy guard at all and instead just mix up between using 2P and stand blocking. (2P to beat throw, stand block to block the mid and get advantage)

 

Her lows are far better then VF average (average lows in VF are admittedly though not very good, but not supposed to be either).



<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Some people may not even fuzzy guard at all and instead just mix up between using 2P and stand blocking. (2P to beat throw, stand block to block the mid and get advantage) </div></div>There's a lot more options then guard, fuzzy or attack.

 

I can't replicate that...
Shoulder ram is FullCrouch 6P+K, right? Akira vs Akira?

And thanks Hazzerone, I must have read your sentence poorly, I didn't realize you were still talking about 3K+G.
I think I simply dislike Sarah's lows though. 3K+G is fine in some situations against good players but it shouldn't be depended upon...
I'll stick to delayed throws and maybe try crouch dash punch.

 

I don't believe it does.. It MIGHT depend on character but generally I say this doesnt work. Not that I am in a habit of trying to abare with ShRm.


On topic:
The most universal way of dealing with fuzzy is delayed throw. Sarah has guard-canceled kick ~. Feel free to use it as a delay.

If the opponent fuzzies in -6 with a crouchdash, then you can them. (Akiras ~ and sidekick for example). I dont know if there are many players besides myself who do that a lot though. Most would opt to just evade.

Other than that its mostly a case of just resuming pressure with things like . Or +~ -> FLA ~+ etc.

Hazz is right, Sarahs lows in offline arent very useful. None of them are very safe against better players. + second hit can be ducked unless first hit hits as counter, + is punishable on block, is punishable on block, + is launchpunishable on block. Most useful out of normal stance lows is in fact + because it also beats evade, but then it depends whether the opponent can block it on reaction.

 

FLA is 17f according to the movelist, so (blocked) -> FLA shouldnt be interrupting any punches, unless said punches whiff somehow.

I havent tested this myself yet.

 

I tested this. Its not stance related.
(long distance) blocked -> FLA beats 12f punches. I tested against Aoi, Wolf, Jeff. Works in both stances. I believe its caused by the switch kick connecting on its latter active hitframes (it has 4 active frames) therefore causing more advantage than the standard +4. This is not really unheard of. When doing the switch kick at pointblank range the punches will interrupt Sarah.

EDIT: tested further. Also works against 11f punches meaning majority of the cast. However, I couldnt make it work against 10f punchers like Pai and Sarah.

Conclusion: correctly distancing yourself with Sarah will make this a powerful tool.

ps. Plume I bet you used +~ to switch stance therefore closing the distance too much

 

That's nice to know, that means it's even better as an oki move than I thought originally.

Also sorry to all of the 12f jabbers/2Pers I swore at online! I was certain that FL 3K was a 16f mid and that I should have beaten that abare crap!

By the way Plume, I know I said her lows aren't that great but if your opponent can't react to 3K+G you can employ some bullshit on oki with it.

Say you knock somebody down and they get up right? 3K+G will not only catch them if they stand block expecting a mid (Something like serpent smash/4K/P+K) but also if they try to evade. This means to beat it they must anticipate the low and block low. And when they anticipate the low wrongly and you mid them (P+K here works a charm, as it will go into FL stance and produce a stagger where the 3K is very very hard to shake out of giving you a crumple combo, something like P, PPP4K)

I will admit this is pretty much an online tactic and I'm sure someone here on the forums will tell me how shit doing this is but 3K+G/P+K mixup probably caught them out anyway! Next time you play see how it works for you and if they can reaction block it then scrap the idea and go for some other oki.

 

Hey now, quit the insults.
And of course it's what I did at first, but then I tested by changing the starting position settings.
Sarah vs Sarah, closed stance, starting distance, 3K interrupts Sarah's P.
Sarah, open stance, starting position, 3K doesn't interrupt Sarah's P.

And in closed stance, it only interrupts if you're at the starting position. One milimetre closer and she interrupts your 3K, and one milimetre too far and she won't retaliate.


But even though I don't understand the execution frames perfectly, I more or less understand how it affects Sarah's 9K evading properties, so I probably understand the logic, it would make sense.

Sadly though, this test is pointless. (Unless it is more consistent against slower punches... Sounds like it might be the case but I didn't test that so I might not understand correctly.)

You need to be in closed stance at that very, very precise location. It's simply impossible to perform in a match no matter how good you are.
This test simply intrigues me because it might matter in some other situations. If my theory is correct and that frames differ, it could potentially strongly affect the way FL 2_8P+K is used. At least by me...

That's why I included my test with Aoi vs Sarah. That might, ...or might not, be more meaningful. Depending if it acts the same way against a human opponent or not.


Edit: Hazzerone, I think the sweep can be fine once in a while against evaders or those who are approaching, but I prefer to not abuse it at all heh. My style right now seems to be to play rather safe with low risk low reward... I'm faring better than in the past, so it might be the correct path for me. With experience I'll raise risk/reward to spice things up.

Against evaders, I usually use 44KK. More style!

 

I just tested it again myself. Switch kick needs to hit block at the very tip of her boot and then...yes, its still stance-independent and interrupts 10f punch. In both stances. I admit that against 10f punches this has no practical value. Against slower punches its here and there. It may be that the distance is slightly different depending on stance and therefore hitboxes, but Im still pretty certain that my earlier explanation holds. That active hitframes is the cause.

But hey, I only sought to find an explanation what you experienced. no need to get touchy.

In order to explain bit more: Attacks cause certain invariable amount of blockstun when they connect. The switch kick has 4 active hitframes, meaning it can connect on any of them. If the kick is used at pointblank range, it will connect with the earliest of these, and causes x amount of blockstun. This translates to +4 frames advantage if the total amount of frames of the switchkick is taken into account (total time Sarah spends in the kick animation). However, if the opponent is bit further away, its possible that the first active hitframe whiffs (because the kick is traveling forward), and the kick connects on the second. This still causes same x amount of blockstun but now 1 more frame of the total animation time has passed when opponent goes into blockstun, giving Sarah one extra frame of advantage. Same goes
for the later active frames.

If only the last active frame connects, she gets +3 extra frames of advantage totaling +7. FLA df+K is 17f move, so 10f punch and the flamingo df+K will hit on same frame, and the kick will win because it does more damage.

But in all honesty, getting the kick to connect with the very tip of the boot is much too difficult for real matches.

 

I wasn't getting touchy, it was just some failed humor...
I really appreciate that you tested this, and I agree that this situation is useless anyway.
I still think it might make a difference with other moves though.
But the subject is too obscure and uncertain anyway. For now I'd better just worry about studying more basic stuff. Learning different timings for FL 2K+G won't really make much of a difference for me...

I also appreciate your explanation in the last post, so thank you for both.
I think I might not fully understand still, but I see the logic. Maybe I just need to let it "sink in" and I'll understand perfectly later.