Punish with 3P+K?

Hi, while this isn't a true solve-all-your-problems punish, thought I'd post what I've come up with as a +15 advantage punish. Obviously, since there's 2 chances to break, it's not guaranteed, but at the same time, it's somewhat of an okay setup, not the best.

So if you block something that's -15 recovering frames:

1.) 3P+K (+12 Frames)
2.) 46P+G (stagger throw, can be escaped)
3.) 66P (stagger can be escaped)
4.) 46K+G -> P -> 43P+K -> 66G -> 2P -> 6PP
Does over 100 DMG, some hits may have to be omitted due to character weight. Only tested on Brad.

Steps 2 and 3 are option points depending on your opponent. You can actually just do his 63214P+G throw if you're afraid of TE forward from opponent. Still a decent punish and a little more damage than simply a throw. Also at the stagger when 66P is time to hit, if you expect and evade or duck (i.e. after you've done the punish once and opponent expects it and escapes the stagger, 6K+G or 3K+G should keep them on their toes. Again, this is not guaranteed further than 3P+K but I can't think of any other way to use this and a simple follow up guaranteed jab seems like weaksauce to me.

Also, I don't know if this has been covered, but while testing this for punishing Brad's 6K+G knee launcher, I noticed that if you guard before the opponent's move is executed, you only get +14 off it. However, if you guard while the move is in motion (not too late, obviously, or you'll lose some teeth), THAT'S when it's +15. I also heard that some moves have lower advantage by 1 or 2 frames depending on the distance at which they were away from opponent when the move was executed, the further away the opponent, the less disadvantage they have on block. Anyone have anything else about this?

Also, 3P+K uses other people have would be awesome to add here. It seems like a really good opportunity, but I can't for the life of me figure anything out other than to start a guessing game for damage.

 

Note on Vocab: When I say MC I mean Major Counter (counter hit during execution of opponent's attack). When I say mC I mean minor Counter (hitting opponent during recovery frames of an attack).

Good to see you on the Lion boards, Hseiken ^_^

I like your sequence (and your creativity!), though in my local metagame almost everyone struggles decently 46P+G... Could be that I'm too slow too, which is very very possible for me lol.

btw, I normally input 662P, do you normally press G during the dash? Is it better to press G? Just curious, because I've never tried inputting it that way

All this said, I will try your sequence out and see if I can work with it ^_^

So the gist is... you know how moves have more than one active hit frame? The frame stats are based on connecting with the first hit frame. However, it is possible to hit with the second or third or later active hit frames of a move.

The most common ways to do this are meaty attacks when someone wakes up -or- hitting someone from far enough away that the first active hit frame whiffs, but the second or third one connects with the opponent.

So what happens then is... for each active hit frame beyond the first one, there's a +1 to the advantage of the attack.

If a move is 15 frames execution and 3 active hit frames... then the first 14 frames are the actual startup frames, the 15th frame is the first hit frame, the 16th frame is the second hit frame, the 17th frame is the third hit frame, and the remaining frames are recovery frames. So if you make contact with the 16th frame, add +1 to the advantage. If you make contact with the 17th frame, add +2 to the advantage.

Hope this helps!

3P+K is especially awesome with opponent side-turned, especially if you don't think you can get the 336P+K mC or better on them (336P+K mC or better on a side-turned opponent = god-like crumple combo).

I love that side-turn 3P+K = free 44K combo.

3P+K MC also = free 44K combo.

Furthermore, you get free PKP if they are side-turned.

Against Taka, I need to test if 3P+K leads to free PKP or only PK, but I imagine just PK... (I think Taka needs mC or better on P to get full PKP combo guaranteed?).

3P+K always brings up PKx imo. Because you always have PKx when 3P+K hits the opponent. PKx is good to know as a Lion player because it can setup a lot of your rush offense. I admit, that if you watch my matches on stream, I overuse PKx (especially PKP in general) but it's really good and can keep an opponent honest.

3P+K is very easy to use because the motion is so simple that it is ideal for whiff punishing. However, from a backdash, you will often get 43P+K (which actually isn't bad, I've found this move to be more useful than I thought and others seem to give credit to).

In Vanilla, 3P+K used to be built into Lion's diagonal-forward steps if you pressed P, this allowed you to slip in and do 3P+K combos under high attacks. This is no longer the case in Final Showdown, but 3P+K is still a very useful attack.

VF4 - VF5 I actually used 3P+K a lot with the aim of MC to land 44K from a poke war (though 44K itself is good at this too, but very committing). In FS, my use of 3P+K has changed quite a bit... That has much to do with FS, but might also have to do with my maturity as a VF player (not saying it's high, just saying it's more mature than before).

In FS, my most common use for 3P+K is whiff-punishing into the PKx offense. After evading a big attack, I use 3P+K if I've been botching 336P+K in that situation.

It is worth practicing 3P+K (MC or side-turn hit) --> 44K combo, because it is rather execution light and a good backup when nerves or "not your usual arcade stick" is preventing you from properly landing the 336P+K crumple combo.

Just my thoughts and hope this helps! You can also read my posts on 3P+K in the Lion thread, I think it is.

P.S. In the -15 guaranteed situation, if I know it's coming (like Taka's 4P+K,P and many other common -15 situations), I like trying to go for pre-buffered 44K combo. That said, I'm lousy at punishing with guaranteed damage... Still working on it, but I'm just so awful at this...

 

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Do you know of instances where it might cause a longer stagger? Also, as I mentioned, it's definitely one of those 'iffy' parts of the sequence. Overall, I'm thinking this has a single good use per match then it's toast if you go with that stagger after 3P+K. After that, simple throw or PK as you pointed out.

I honestly don't know how I do it, I just 'do it'. I wrote it that way so as to make it clear you're just throwing out a 2P after moving closer to opponent so as not to get some other move mixed up in the inputs. Guess I should've just written in plain English "Get up close then 2P"

Looking forward to see how you can manipulate this.

Yes, it does help actually. My only concern is now I need to pay attention to 16 or greater moves for things like this with any character. If I'm not feeling safe with a 15f punish because of these nuances, PK seems more likely. That teetering on the edge of advantage is a scary place to be. I think if it's getting close to shutting the opponent down, and they do something that's -15, I'll probably stick with PK or throw attempt instead of something like this setup.

I was thinking the same thing, but is it really enough frames? I know that 44K has absolute frames but the input+turning lion around seems to be bigger frames than actually stated. That's why I don't really punish with it except for whiffs or super hits that are blocked (i.e. K+G etc.) and even then I'm weary because of the input issues. Guess I need to get better with the buffer.

I totally overuse this. I also delay it when using it normally. It seems to draw an interrupt attempt from most players, so I get a CH on last hit quite often.

I need to study up on my vs. Taka tactics. I honestly don't really do much different against Taka tact-wise. Combo wise, I just take what I can get! lol

Well against seasoned players, it's not so useful. I had a casuals session with LA Akira and he shut my PKP down when not in punish situation about 75% of the time. I had to be very careful about it's use and even then he knows it's 3 high linear hits so getting all three hits to land was literally ST only. In fact, I think I just get away with it online simply because of lag, TBH. I did pull it off against some other people offline but they weren't nearly as experienced as LA, though.

Thanks for the reply and ideas.

 

I will bold some parts just to make it easier to skim this long reply ^_^ It's not shouting or anything like that lol.

One of the most popular uses of 46P+G (if not the most popular) is to setup 46K when opponent's back is to the wall. 46K is pretty hard to struggle out of from the throw (but still doable). With 46K and opponent's back to the wall, you can followup with 9P to get big wall combo. You want 9P to hit them immediately after they hit the wall from 46K.

15 minutes in dojo should be all you need to fully understand the sitaution and how to use it. I think you would be pretty scary once you master this situation and the other wall stagger setups--and Lion has tons, from all attack levels. That said, I'm working on this part of my game too because I'm weak at it but I've been abusing it the past week against local competition.

As implied by my last post, I think PKx is really good and super useful to learn with VF. Another tip, and I assume you know it already, but redundancy is good... I recommend holding forward when doing PK. So... 6_P,K when you want to punish with PK.

The reason, for the people who are reading this that don't know, is 6_P has extended reach for the high jab and no negatives to doing it aside from learning to hold 6 (forward) early. It is especially useful when people use long range but punishable moves against you and you block it and you think you can't hit them with PK. In many of these cases, 6_PK works. A good example is blocking Lion's 6K+G.

This is just a matter of practice and learning that 44K in many situations should be (or at least could be) pre-buffered pretty early in many cases you want to use it. Here's the trick with 3P+K, and it's not an easy trick (and I cannot guarantee it's absolute validity, I can just say this is what I do and it seems to work for me, but what I perceive myself doing versus what's really happening can be two different things):

When you do 3P+K, buffer 44_. If it's a yellow flash, almost right away press K while still holding 4 (you can also just keep buffering 4444 and hit 4+K if you see a yellow flash). If it's a normal hit, make sure the stick is back to neutral and press P,K.

I will admit, I was better at doing the above in VF5 and before as opposed to now in FS. That is mainly because I mostly go for 44K only during the side turn and in many of those cases I'm already going for 336P+K anyways. But I still do apply this here and there, but I've gotten lazier about it in FS in lieu of other options.

Yes, never underestimate the power of a string ending with special high! ESPECIALLY IF IT CAN BE DELAYED! That said, my local metagame now forces me to not use the special high option until I condition them with other options from PKx.

The vs. Taka thread is a good read! Definitely read it, Chibitox's posts on it are the best imo. Though some people like what I've written, but I've evolved some of my options against Taka since then ^_^

http://virtuafighter.com/threads/lion-vs-taka-arashi.16348/

Some noteworthy tips:

• Sideturn game is awesome against Taka, or at least probably the best thing you can do anyways.
• Taka hates PKP, on mC or better it seems to combo.
• HCB+P+G --> Pounce is really hard for Taka to struggle out of.
• Master the art of dealing with 4P+K,P because that thing is good against everyone, but good against Lion because it can stop a lot of Lion's shenanigans. Once you're comfortable fighting this move, I feel the matchup is a lot better.
• If the Taka player uses standing K at all in the match, then you should backdash with caution (or always evade cancel it). His butt-stagger combo is just too much risk for you.
• You can fight Taka from long-long range, but it's longer than normal and takes practice. It's not the typical range-game but you have good tools to punish mistakes.
• Combo practice against Taka because you have a completely different repertoire against him.

PKx is not just the P followup + stance options. It's also simply just doing PK(G) --> options.

For example... LA Akira is a very good player, and he knows how to use fuzzy guard as well as other option selects. Now... he's shutting down PKP and he's hitting you out of PK, P+K+G options. That's cool, that's fine. But this is a very readable situation and one that is so common in the game that experienced players have things they like to do here and mindgames are initiated in this situation often!

So you start using PK(G) which is a lot like everyone's PK anyways. When you normal hit (or minor counter) someone with PK, this is +3 for you (aka -3 for them). Only 1 frame different from the typical PK situation.

And what do a lot of the more advanced players do as a default after getting hit by PK? Not all, but many, fuzzy guard. So watch for a crouch dash.

You have advantage with PK(G), so you can do your basic options like an elbow still beats almost every attack, and throw is still technically valid. But watch for the crouch dash.

If they crouch dash, now you have options like low attack or delay throw (or guard break). If you know for sure they're going to fuzzy this situation, delay throw (especially 336P+G) and low attacks are pretty good and annoying options to shut down their fuzzy guard. If you think they fuzzy and wait (like they take a moment to process the situation after a fuzzy guard), you can do 6P+K+G --> P+K to guard break them into combo, but this one is risky against very sharp (as in fast) players.

Anyways, again... PKx is not just the string or the stance switch, it's also the basic PK(G) --> what you would do at +3 or against an opponent who thinks they are at -4 would do.

Hope this helps, and it's a very useful skill to have and understand because against more experienced players, they usually have post PK (normal hit) situation habits ^_^

Anyways, these are just my opinions and thoughts. We're all learning this together, but I hope I provided something extra useful ^_^