Help against fighting Brad

Hi all, I'm new to the VF5FS scene and have a question dealing with Brad. I've been playing a lot of Brads online and getting bodied really easily. The player sticks doing the basic jab weaves all of the time and I am just having an impossible time countering them. I play as Pai primarily and would love any insight on how to get by the constant barrage straight jabs. I can't seem to duck and when he weaves I can't seem to hit him with anything. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

Welcome! I'm no expert player, but, when I fight Brad and they continuously hammer with high jabs, I usually go with one of two strategies: sidestep or block until I can jab low to break him out of his rhythm.

Although better Brad players will throw in more sweeps and mid-attacks to scare you out of ducking or stepping, a lot of Brads early on love to take advantage of the safety of his standing jabs and only mix it up with a couple of weaves. You can learn when you have enough advantage to retaliate, even if it's just with a crouching punch, and that can be enough for you to launch into a bigger offensive.

I main Pai myself, and I want to remind you that she can reverse high punches, kicks, and more, with back, P+K (4P+K) and mid attacks with down-back, P+K (1P+K), which has limited use unless you can read your opponent really well (and so is perfect against Brads that only high jab). Also, Pai's down, K, K (2KK) is a great low attack for countering high strings and doing good damage, although over-reliance on it against opponents that crouch under the second kick can lead you into a lot of damage.

Good luck! Brad really isn't any scarier than any other characters once you get the hang of fighting him.

-David

 

Yeah my main problem is that Brad, when played right, is a lot like Shun and Lion to me. Their rhythm is so different than what I am used to and I just don't know how to counter it. Those weaves throw me off all together. As for countering, that is probably the hardest thing for me to do as I just can't get the timing right (Something I will be working on hard in the dojo).

Also on crouch punching (wow that sounds weird) I just can't react fast enough to his movements, the way he cancels his punch strings with the weaves and starts them up again gives me little time to react. I just clam up. I think I need to find Brad to play regularly and learn. Experience is my biggest enemy!

 

It's that way when you fight any character that you're not used to fighting, although some are more standard than others, seemingly. That being said, I think that it's one of few things that AI opponents are good for: learning the basics of your opponent's attacks.

Although they don't fight very much like humans, AI's will demonstrate strings and attacks so that you can learn what they look like and get an idea of what certain characters may be likely to use at certain ranges. I think that you're on the right track; there's no replacement for experience, and so I recommend that you go to Free Training in the Dojo and match up against Brad. Set his Health Meter to Type B and his AI to Level 5 (or lower, if you're just warming up), and just duke it out with him for a few minutes, experimenting to see what works and what doesn't.

If you keep a cool head, I know that you'll figure something out, and maybe somebody else, here, can give you some better advice, too.

 

From my experience, there is good solution for situations like this: if you can not beat it, do it. And watch what are others doing to beat it.
In other words - pick Brad and learn the basic strings / setups you have problems with. It will take you like 1/2 hour, because you are not trying to actually learn Brnad - you are trying to learn just the basic setup you have problem with.
Then go online for hour or two and throw it against your opponents, while keep an eye on how they are dealing with it.

Like this, you will
1) learn the flow of the strings so you can read them more easily next time
2) learn the flaws and opening of the string so you will know when and where you can break them
3) learn how to predict the strings, because while using them, you get comfort with them
4) learn which specific stuff works against them and beats them

 

This is useful but might be tricky to find the relevant matchup (your main vs brad online), although some tricks people use to combat some of Brads tricks, may be universal, others may not be.

I think the best bet (as in fastest solution) might just be to use training mode to record what Brads doing to give you issue, then playback those (I assume you can do that on this game haven't actually played around in training much yet).

And if your still having trouble you could read Brads frame-data relative to Pai's to figure out the most effective response to Brads pressure.

 

An update. I have definitely gotten better against Brad. I have been able to get the rhythm right in his weaves to incorporate fast pokes. I am staying more mobile, keeping in a mid range and reacting, baiting out moves to capitalize on. Knowing the spacing of Brad's moves are probably my biggest advantage.