What about in the case of a person that can adapt faster than you can at the moment? Do you just have to pick and choose what to attack and defend, or is it basically all downhill from there?
Piggybacking on the ORZ into command grab setup, i DO find it very, very strong, but nonetheless a part of the game. And if it isnt degenerative (not hella) or getting nerfed (not likely), players gotta deal. Its a high paced game of 20% life lost to a combo is almost too small.
I might’ve figured situational escapes out of it but remains to be seen. And even if they’re false, i still feel like there’s enough trade offs.
I think that’s the really cool thing about this topic - I think it truly is one of the most foundational aspects of leveling up our games 
In S1 I was ok at KI, and then in S2 I was pretty good. But I really came into my own as a player near the start of S3, when I moved away from just doing stuff “because it was good” to trying to understand the “why’s” of offense and defense. I was a really reset heavy player in S2, but my resets were all command grab based. Early in S3 I labbed out some anti-jumpout resets, really just because I was tired of losing when people decided to hold up. It wasn’t a super thoughtful decision to be honest, but I started employing them and then began running into really good people who didn’t hold up or who mixed and matched when they held up. And that made me start to question what it was about my play (and theirs) that dictated when and where they held up.
Our play reveals our fears; what we don’t want to get hit by. This is as true of offense as it is defense, and that realization is powerful. When a Jago backdashes after (pre-nerf) windkick, that tells you something. When a player holds up in the middle of a combo, that tells you something else. Crazy-ambiguous safe jumps and hard-to-escape setups tell stories as well - even things that cover multiple options reveal player preferences and predilections. Understand how a player’s actions reveal his fears, and then use that understanding to pick him apart.
As a note, for the Hisako setup we’ve been talking about, many characters can actually forward dash under it (Kim certainly can). The setup isn’t designed to be perfectly meaty, so quite a few characters can actually just slip right under it with a reversal forward dash.
In the event that a player is out-adapting you, or that you just really can’t figure him out, I tend to default to play that covers as many options as possible or that is otherwise not overly read-based. Against Hisako for instance (who absolutely bodies herself on wakeup), I often don’t try to make jump reads. Instead I just down+back on wakeup and try to react to TK air-ORZ’s with counter. This means I get caught with command grabs an awful lot, but I’d rather eat the grab than get caught for full combo for trying to jump out. At a certain point, you kind of just have to make a decision and make your peace with it.
And remember, offense reveals fears too. Something Nicky does against me for instance is delayed input-shortcut shoryu on his wakeup. He knows that I’m afraid of his backdashes and DP’s, so he knows that I’m likely to turn to setups to lock down those options. Try to figure out what options your opponent wants to take from you, and then counter the actions that stem from trying to limit those things.
I decided to go through this thread after putting it off for a while. What a great read, wish I had checked it out sooner
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Lol. I hate you Lemon 
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Sorry, didn’t know it was gonna be this good 
I really liked the discussion, wish I was proficient enough with the topic to add something to it
But you are proficient in the topic.
Not enough I don’t think.
Anyway, I’ll stop downplaying myself, i’d assume nobody wants to see that
Lol. You’re right, we don’t 
It really doesn’t have to be anything super well thought out though - like I said, a lot of this was stuff I was already doing, but hadn’t really thought about systematically until I started writing it down. What are the things you look for as you apply pressure with Fulgore Lemon? What determines the particular brand of offense you employ in a given match?
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I’ll give it a shot then.
By the start of the match, if I get the opportunity to do a pip-cancel fireball setup, first thing I do is to do a teleport behind them and pressure with a low poke. That would help me determine whether or not this person understands Fulgore’s basic fireball setup. Especially against characters like Jago and Orchid, which can DP Fulgore out of it. If they establish that they can do that I’ll have to really shift how I pressure them towards setups that leave me far away or that give me enough time to block the DP.
If I get a setup when the opponent has bar I pressure with medium laser. That way I can beat an attempt to shadow counter, if the opponent continues blocking low then they probably know about this option. By determining that they won’t shadow counter that opens up the possibility of doing overhead.
If the opponent can establish that he can block my setups and is playing patient I can start to do teleport setups without fireball. Even though they are less safe, they give me the option to go for a throw and the pressure is still not easy to block.
I didn’t really think too much about this before sitting down to write about it. Pretty interesting
Im dont really use Hisako, but when I
fight somebody that’s good with her, It
can get frustrating for me quick.
I can feel trapped…
So ill keep this in mind for the future
thanks for the input.
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Just wanted to update this thread with some additional thoughts based on playing a lot of offline matches here in Japan (ran matches against a lot of the JP players, as well as ShinTristan, GnarlyFeats, and ShinPaulo).
While being able to read tendencies is important, I think it’s also important to stress that reading players must be paired with overall solid play. Being able to react to things appropriately is super critical, because it narrows the range of options you have to try and guess at (read). It is the combination of solid play and good patterning that makes a player truly dangerous.
If you can reliably react to jump-ins with anti-airs, it removes the need for you to predict them; your mental energy can then go towards spacing and other things. If you can respond to Orchid rekkas with shadow counter or interrupt charged ichi-ni-san attempts, then you limit the pressure options available to your opponent. If you can also reliably react to her overhead appropriately (counter for Hisako, shadow counter for everyone else), then you’ve now restricted the range of viable pressure options available to your opponent even more. If Orchid can’t rekka, can’t overhead, and can’t jump in, then what are her options for getting in and getting damage? By being solid in neutral and on defense, you’ve now limited your “read” requirement to very small and manageable portions, and the opponent is left with trying to take bigger and bigger risks to try and get damage.
The conversation shifted a lot to oki as this thread went on, but I think it’s important to also discuss the ways in which reads impact and interact with neutral and defensive play as well. It’s nice to be able to make big reads that pay off when you’re in neutral and fishing for that first hit, but having all-around solid play will make it so that you don’t even have to make those gambles. Patterning is a super important skill to possess, but solid and intelligent play is the core around which it exists.
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