Frustrate your opponent

I hope this video will be a welcome addition to the videos already out there. Some people prefer to watch instead of read so I made the video below. I hope some people can get stronger using these strategies. Thanks Cozby on your comment.

Please follow this link back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gipHPj9foxM&fmt=18

The text below describes the situations and can be a guide to follow.

These are some tools in VF5 to frustrate your opponent:

1) VF5 Movement

escape, back dash, escape, forward dash
escape back crouch dash, escape forward crouch dash
back dash, back crouch dash, forward dash, forward crouch dash
repeat crouch dash cancel
etc.

Most people do not enjoy playing a turtling opponent, an opponent that backs up to the edge of the ring or one that continues to purposely stay at mid distance.

2) Sabaki

hp/hk sabaki can be used after 2p is guarded or against abare opponents. For example after Akira's DE is guarded many Akira's will abare with p.

3) Bait a whiffed attack

Use movement to back up or stand still and wait for the attack. Many opponents will continue to advance to place pressure on the opponent. Keeping space and patiently waiting may cause your opponent to whiff attacks. You can also keep a mid distance space to purposely seek to interrupt your opponents forward dash attack. In a mid distance Lau should use 33p or 9k, Shun can use 3p or 2_4p, Akira can 3pk, 2_46p etc.

4) Keep your defense ready at all times

Commit to a defensive strategy when your moves whiff, are guarded or when you are counter hit.

5) Watch your stance

Use the correct combo to take maximum damage. For Lau one of his best attacks to start a combo opportunity is his 14 frame 46p. This move is mainly used in the following situations:

1) Delay this to beat dodge, such as an opponent who likes to ETE
2) Land guaranteed damage on guarded -15 moves like akira's double palm and yoho
3) Beat attacks from abare opponents who try to guess a big attack at a disadvantage

6) Have a 50/50 setup to force a guess

This is mostly for psychological purposes to make it appear that you are able to outguess your opponent. For Lau a simple setup is 42pg, p, 4p, p. After42pg, the opponent is side turned and can't immediately attack, fuzzy guard or escape if p, 4p, p is entered correctly. Further, p, 4p, p does not knock the opponent down until the last hit. The opponent will be forced to guess if you will complete the combo. If the opponent continues to attack after Lau's p, you will deal out additional blue color side counter hit damage from 4p, p completing.

You may have seen someone unable to escape the correct ground throw direction even though it is a 50/50 choice between two directions. Applying the above is an annoying way to take away the motivation of your opponent.

 

Cool video bro. I enjoyed it. If anyone needs help with spacing and baiting they should play kingofvf4 to see how it done. Great Aoi and lots of fun to play again.

Oh I only recommend playing him if you have mental toughness because he has the spacing, baiting game down to perfection. I think we played for like 4 hours straight yesterday. Great stuff a lot of back and forth action. I didn't want to stop, but I had to get some food... plus some chick wanted me to do her on a fire escape... damn it sucks I didn't have one.

 

good shit! applied in actual matches which is even better! props

 

A lot of the concepts displayed are definitely of a higher level of play and aren't easily acessible to most players; this is the type of stuff you may not find on paper. Id recommend it to anyone trying to step their game up. If you're trying to get to China next year, check it out

Make one!
Put your TV in the window with the couch and put Lethal Weapon on.

 

good stuff keep it coming.

 

outstanding video i'll try to practice these concepts. i alway felt like i hit a wall and cant improve but this vid was the sledgehammer i need that will break that cycle,

 

great vid azu. Nice movement.

I liked that showed that jacky getting the excellent against u, and that u said to "if u can see the stance..." or whatever the exact words were. It's a good example for people who are new and feel like they will never turn the corner. No matter how good you are, people will get excellents against you, and u will sometimes miss the stance.

 

This video makes me want to play again.

 

DO IT!

 

You got something totally different from what Azusabo was trying to point up.

Andy was showing stance specific combos with Lau's ; urging players to check for foot position so they can do maximum damage.

 

no. i got it.

 

Frustrating opponent's is a cornerstone of my game, given that I suck at frame advs/disadvs, but have pretty decent yomi (or at least, I'd say that's what my game replies on). The more you can frustrate your opponent, the more predictable they'll become, and the better you'll be able to apply yomi.

I can't watch the video, so forgive if these tips were already covered. These are what I would regard as some of the basics for frustrating your opponent:

Jab, repeatedly.

- I don't mean mashing the P button. I mean hitting it once, clear the buffer with G, and repeat. Good opponents will generally figure this out fairly quickly, but you don't need to change your strategy until they start doing something to counter this. The basic jab has a few things going for it, including advantage on hit and block, and ability to follow-up with canned combos. If your opponent starts to get wise the single jab, start adding in the next hit of the canned combo every now and then.

2P, repeatedly

- When up close, use your 2P's. If you hit the opponent with it once, throw it out again. If they blocked it, throw it out again. I have won far too many games online by finding myself in a situation where the opponent blocked my first two 2Ps, but then lost his patience and tried to attack me, eating a counter-hit and follow up combo.

Force your opponent to make tough decisions, not you.

- By forcing your opponents to make decisions on the spot repeatedly, you wear down their mental stamina. This technique applies well to characters with good mid attacks, and is especially powerful with Brad. His elbow is 14 frames, can be followed up with a kick for a canned combo, and can be broken into a number of his stances to cancel frame disadvantage on block. All of these present good reasons for opponents to block after initially upon seeing the elbow come out, and wait to see if you go into stance (at which point the correct technique is 2P). However, by repeating the elbow, they are forced to make this decision, on the spot, repeatedly. Test your opponent's patience, and see where it lies. My own experience is that people will usually break from blocking and switch to attacking me after they block the third elbow. Now you've gained a piece of information that you can use against them. Next time hit them with two elbows and then a throw. Did they wise up to that? Hit them with two elbows and then a third, or two elbows and the canned follow-up.

Finish bad combo strings

- Once you've got your opponent expecting repeated jabs, go ahead and finish that awful combo string that leaves you at a large frame disadvantage. Don't make a habit of doing this - do it only enough to throw your opponent off guard. There's nothing more frustrating to someone that getting hit with "that n00b combo that no one uses because it's so bad". Use moves that are bad once in a while.

Throw immediately on your opponent rising

- It drives people NUTS to get thrown, tech roll the recovery, and immediately be thrown again. Opponent's that rise holding block are immediately susceptible to this, while opponent's that repeatedly rise with kicks may require a little bit of training - show them that if they do a rising kick, you're going to club them in the head when you block or counter it.

- Peck, often

If your character has combos that end safely with a low attack, use it, frequently. Just chip away at your opponent's life until they start to adapt. In the words of the very wise David Sirlin, you are always better being in the position where you do not have to adapt - let your opponent do that. The longer you can safely chip away at your opponent's life total, the greater the pressure they come under the adapt, and the more predictable they'll become.

Above all, remember that frustrating your opponent isn't always about doing the move that provides you with the best frame advantage - it's about throwing them off their game, putting them on tilt, and acting in a manner that they are unable to predict. Sometimes this means making genuinely bad plays, or taking risks at the times that your opponent is least likely to expect it. This doesn't mean playing stupidly (don't try and throw out a move with 30 frames of execution time in the middle of your opponent's canned combo).

Understanding the difference between bad play and unpredictable play can be difficult to reach, and requires a solid grasp of the basics. When playing, continually ask yourself "Now what does my opponent think I'm going to do next?", and play accordingly.

 

Everything you said Deathsushi with get your ass handed to you bad....... repeated P? Against who a 2 year old? Pak sao and Sabaki crush this and frustrates you.

2p wont get it done.

Peck - See P.

what your doing Deathsushi is abare.

Azusabo got it right with the deceptive movements and Whiffs.
You can beat what you can touch and nothing frustrates more than swinging at something you though you saw and miss completely lol!!!

 

I agree with Deathsushi on the repeated standing P tactic. That works and its annoying

 

2P all day, baby.

 

I won't comment on azusablo's vid since, well, the video can be resumed to "advice for keepaway Lau" really. I'd like to comment on deathsushi's post though.

spam works online. Most blatant example i can think of is John's Up who always, always doubles his low punches. Lag makes it "link" like hitting low kicks in street fighter, even if you block it and try to retaliate buffered low punches can still beat your elbow/midkick. Just don't try this against characters with tech-jumping launchers (shun's mulekick & jeffry's blaargh cme to mind).

Online advice again. Sure, why not, if lag means you won't get punished for it, go ahead. I remember playing some Brad player (coincidence?) who kept doing his entire string. Every time i tried to throw him i got CH with Brad's . Serves me right for not adapting by switching to OS i guess.

Most players on XBL will abare on wakeup so that's actually BAD online advice.

This can work. But only after having trained your opponent. I've went for the old p > throw flowchart a bunch of times. I feel confident my opponent has caught on and will probably try to interrupt me with his own launcher. Repeated jabs could be a fun way for me to demonstrated my superior yomi. Emphasis on "fun". My own P > CH launcher is the most efficient answer.

Now that's good advice for offline too. If your character has a safe low attack spam it. I'm looking at you lion, pai, akira, blaze. Other characters have lows that are just hard to punish like aoi's sweep (will she block, bokutai or abare?) or lau's sweep blocked at max range. Keepaway > sweep is actually considered a "legit" strategy - just look at the video azusabo posted, everyone approves & applauds

Eh, that goes without saying. It applies to everything really, from fighting games to chess, to running a business, hell, it even applies to marriage

 

Really what you're all hinting at is doing the unexpected or to be so loose and direct with your offense that it will disrupt your opponents mental game. So a tactic like 3 low punches become viable when it becomes the option your opponent did not expect. What I take from advice like finish bad combo strings, and spamming pokes is that most vfdc players facing others have this expectation with how people are supposed to play. Defying that constantly can get you very far.

 

I guess repeated low punches work wonders if you have a bad connection. I have no problem punishing repetitious low punches if the connection is decent.

Feinting with steps I think is the most effective shit though, if someones got a good step game I know I'm in for it. 2P is good strategically but as a go too will get you killed. (against some players I almost never 2p, if you abare a lot I'm hittin knee caps
though)

 

Chefboy, you put it pretty concisely.

_Does_ it really go without saying, erdraug, that you should force your opponent to make the decisions, and not you? I don't think it does. It certainly wasn't something intuitive that I naturally was able to articulate to myself until I started to think about the game and the strategy surrounding it. Maybe to you that is second nature, but I certainly would have found this advice helpful when starting out.

2P, repeatedly? Yup, I do think that's a viable strategy. I think I provided the disclaimer that I only get to play online, so you're definitely entitled to suggest that I wouldn't get away with this in person. I'm not suggesting simply ducking and punching though (what I would term spamming). I'm suggesting that when you have an opponent frustrated and trying to abare, repeated 2P will let you open up space between the two of you and set up your better combos.

None of what I suggested is advice that I would suggest doing frequently or predictably. If I see someone consistently follows their 2P with a second, they'll be eating my combo launcher right after that first punch. Again, ultimately, the aim here is yomi, which comes from training your opponents and predicting (and reacting to) their response.

Finishing bad combo strings - I don't suggest doing this because the lag means you can get away with being left open on completion. I suggest it because it's one more way of being unpredictable. After a number of hard matches playing against my Brad, most opponents learn to expect either the low kick, or a stance switch and an attack after seeing two jabs. Delaying the timing and finishing with the tempo that comes from PPPK adds one more variable into the mix that they have not been dealing with up to that point.

Notice that SDS_Overfiend's response assumes that he's reading everything that I'm doing and predicting it. Of course, my advice is based on acting in ways that are _not_ predictable. If you become predictable with repeated jabs, _of course_ you're going to get your ass handed to you.

Some of the responses lead me to assume that most of you already have a solid understanding of how to frustrate your opponent and be unpredictable. But try not to forget that a lot of people do not know how to break down the advice "don't be predictable" into specific things that can be beneficial to them. I am not suggesting that learning flow charts, the fundamentals, and what moves are "safe" and "unsafe" can be foregone in favour of what I wrote above. I do find, however, that the suggestions I've made above provide additional specific approaches to changing your predictability and further frustrating your opponent.

Glad to see a solid set of replies guys!

 

It goes without saying that if opponent eats repeated low punches and bad strings they get frustrated, but to say you should purposefully do those things in order to frustrate opponent is wrong.

Opponents frustration stems from you being in control of the match, and/or punishing some glaring hole in their game. For instance if they are unable to punish a punishable move and eat it repeatedly. But I can't for the life of me recommend doing shit like that. You should concentrate on how to get 'in control' in the first place. And I guarantee that does not happen by repeating punishable moves on block unless the opponent is a noob.

There are much more useful things to abuse than low punch, but these are character-specific.

When I saw ShinZ do Jackys f+PPd+K I laughed aloud... but its not like ShinZ repeated it. He used it for the unpredictability value.