VF4 [ print friendly ] [ command view ] Basic Guarding and Motion Cut
After play the insane challenge mode in the home version of evo. I
have come to a better understanding of guarding attacks in general
and the fuzzy guard phenomenon.
At this point, I have to explain first on how blocking works in
VF4. As long as is held, you are able to block high and mid
attacks. If is held without or , you can be thrown. If
is held with or , you block low attacks and avoid
throws. Here is a little detail about blocking that will play into
what will be said later. Once the blocking animation starts, for
example, guarding a side kick, there will be an amout of forced
guard animation where any direction input becomes buffered and not
executed. So in said example, while the side kick is in contact
with your character, holding down will not pull you out of a high
guard and let you get hit. Another small detail is that the
animation in between the motion of going into crouch and standing
up from crouch do NOT play part in deciding which level you are
guarding. Which level you are guarding is SOLELY dependent on your
input. This is why sometimes you'll run into situations where your
character instantly stands up and guard and attack while recovering
from a knockdown. Now onto the details.
For anyone that have played the trial challenge mode in the home
version of VF4Evo. The very first section put you in a challenge
where you have to deal with Akira's Dashing Elbow and Low Back Fist
guessing game. (DE and LBF) The first trial is fairly simple, you
can play that just by watching Akira closely. This challenge,
however, exposes a fundamental blocking concept. In VF4, low attack
are generally slower than mid or high attacks. You can exploit this
idea with what is said earlier about the concept of guard being
dependent of input. In this specific scenario, Akira's DE is faster
than his LBF. Once you get a feel for how fast the DE reaches your
character, you can easily block both the DE and LBF solely by
timing. Here is the explaination behind it. If you are just
inputting , you can block the DE, and while you are in the
forced guarding animation, holding doesn't cancel the high
guarding. So if you always start holding after the the time it
takes for the potential DE to make contact, you can still guard
against the DE. Since the LBF takes longer to reach you than the
DE, holding will always get you a low block against the LBF. So
the theory is hold until you see akira coming towards you for
the potential DE, once he gets close and just pass the time that it
takes for the DE to hit, start holding down. You will always guard
both of the attacks this way. Practice this and you'll understand
it easily. You might start out holding down too soon and eat the
DE, but that's because you haven't gotten a feel for how long it
takes for the DE to hit. Keep on practicing until you understand
this bit.
Further on in the challenge, you have to deal with the guessing
game of throw, DE, or LBF after guarding a jab. Now if you hold
down until Akira gets close, you can possibly eat a throw, so
now this is where fuzzy guarding becomes a part of the formula.
When you guard against Akira's Jab, start to hold to avoid a
potential throw, but stand back up in the time that it takes for a
throw to execute. Since a throw is much faster than a DE or the
LBF, being crouched for that quick moment will make the throw whiff
if you've timed it correctly. At this point you have avoided the
potential throw after guarding the jab. Now to guard against the
potential DE or LBF, it's back to what was explained ealier. So in
practice, this is what you have to do to successfully guard against
all three potential attacks. It goes like this, hold until you
see the jab is being guarded, start holding while the jab is
being guarded, let go of to avoid the potential throw, then
hold again when you anticipate the potential DE to make contact
to block the potential LBF.
The last challenge is where you learn another aspect of fuzzy
guarding. While in the animation of crouch dashing, you cannot be
high thrown, but the moment that you cancel the crouch dashing by
hitting , you instantly become throwable. The premise here is
that you must deal with Akira's dblpm, throw, or LBF guessing game
at a small disadvantage situation after being hit by Akira's
,. Now this is where timing becomes very very important.
Putting all the points of guarding and avoiding throws from earlier
explainations together, you can easily beat this challenge. I'll now show
you how. After , hits, when your character recovers
immediately input a forward crouch dash by . Do not at this
point input , because if you do, you can instantly be thrown
since you were at a disadvantaged situation. Practice this part and
don't worry about getting hit if akira does dblpm or lbf, but
remember to not input at this point. The important part here is
to understand how crouch dashing will avoid throws even at a
disadvantaged situation. While you are doing this make sure to also
start getting a feel of how long the delay is for Akira to execute
his dblpm.
The next step now then, is to avoid the throw AND the dblpm. You
now can avoid the throw easily by crouch dashing, and remember that
I said to note how long the delay is for the dblpm to come out?
That is the exact moment when you start inputting and cancel
the crouch dash to go into a high guard. If you input too
early, you can be thrown, and if you input too late, you get
hit by the dblpm. The key part here is to NOT input when you
are crouch dashing until Akira can potentially execute the dblpm.
Don't worry about the LBF for now and get used to crouch dashing
forward to avoid the throw, and inputing at the right time to
guard against the dblpm. When you are able to do this, i'm happy to
tell you that you've learned everything you need to know to
understand how blocking works in VF4.
"What about the LBF? " you ask. At this point, it's easy to see
that holding down after the potential dblpm hits will always guard
against the LBF just like the very first challenge. So the whole
step now goes like this. Get hit by ,, immediately input
, Input and hold when Akira can potentially execute his
dblpm, then start holding after the time it takes for the
potential dblpm to hit to block the potential LBF. Now you should
be able to easily pass this challenge.
Remember the KEY here is TIMING and ANTICIPATION, not reaction.
Once you have understand these concepts, you should first go
"woh........" and then be overwhelmed at how systematic and logical
the VF4 system is. Good Luck!!!!
Posted by
Srider
on 15/03/2003
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Edited by
Myke
on 16/04/2005
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