How does one develop good movement in VF?

How does one develop good movement in VF? As primarily a Tekken player, I would use BDCs and sidesteps to force whiffs and punish accordingly. Can the same be done in VF?

 

Not sure about the comparison with Tekken, but in VF:

- A backdash can be cancelled with a defensive move (DM) ( or ).

- The DM can then be cancelled with a forward dash or crouching forward dash.

- The forward dash or crouching forward dash can then be cancelled by holding guard. So your sequence is (for example):

,,,

Both the backdash and the DM have the potential to bait a whiffed attack to punish.

When you do your DM you generally will have two outcomes. Either your DM is successful, in which you can go for a punish, or your DM is unsuccessful and you are vulnerable to attack until you cancel the DM with a dash/crouching forward dash (or the third outcome is that during your evade you get hit by a circular attack or throw!).

In either case you may want to buffer the dash/crouching dash regardless of the outcome, as you can cancel it straight into an attack or guard depending on if your DM was successful - If your DM was not successful, you will want to dash cancel out of it ASAP to get out of your vulnerable state.

Whether or not you forward dash or crouching forward will depend a bit on what your opponent is doing. Being in a crouching state may be advantageous if you think your opponent will throw or use a high attack, where as a standing state will block mids. Regardless of which dash you use, if you hold only guard you will return to a standing state - It's just a matter of if you want (for a crouching forward dash) to have those few moments when you are in a crouching state and are unable to guard.

See also:

http://virtuafighter.com/wiki/vf5/system_part_1#dashing - For explanation of dashing in VF

http://virtuafighter.com/wiki/vf5/system_part_2#defense - For explanation of fuzzy guarding in VF.

 

You can basically still do it Tekken style but you have to input G after the second dash (as explained by DrunkenCat) and the entire process is not as fast or constant as in Tekken. Basically Sega wants to allow you to move a lot but not allow you to abuse it as a mindless Option-Select to evade anything like in Tekken. The gameplay in VF is VERY VERY DELIBERATE.