Hisako: For Beginners!

Hello everybody! I’m looking for a character to play until Shadow Jago ( learned to play Aganos, but looking more kinda till Kim Wu because I’ve kinda been a Jago Specialist) and I actually didn’t want to play as Hisako (Never touched her since release :frowning:) . But One day to find out why I was getting countered so much, I hit the lab. And I almost instantly fell in love with her gameplay style. So I have one question.

How in the world do you play as her?

@Marbledecker @Infilament @STORM179 , add more if you know more Hisako players!

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Oh wow. I’m officially known across the boards as a Hisako now? :sweat_smile:

There’s kind of a lot to cover if you leave it really general like that. I’d say the base thing you need to know when playing her is that a huge portion of her gameplan revolves around forcing your opponent to approach and respond to you the way that you want. She’s actually terribly unsafe on just about everything she does, so to play her well you need to train your opponent to respect things that he probably shouldn’t respect.

Use the heavy version of her ORZ to teach someone that they can’t mash or jump out of your rekka pressure, and then switch it up to the high/low mix-up. Use meaty cr+MK on the opponent’s wakeup to teach him that he’s not allowed to jump out on knockdown, and then switch it up to command grabs as he rises. Do the reverse and punish him for trying to jump out of command grabs by meaty-ing his wakeup. Do terribly unsafe things like repeated possession grabs on a fallen opponent, and then cancel it into a wrath counter if they try to shadow reversal out. All in all, try to maintain enough wrath at all times that you always have enough to cancel into a counter - even if you rarely or never use it, just having it forces your opponent to respect Hisako in a way he would not otherwise have to.

And air-ORZ is your best friend. It’s the only pressure special Hisako has that is plus on block, and it has a magnificent hitbox that shuts down a lot of things and lets you set up point blank cross-ups on a downed opponent. It’s the gateway to a lot of her stuff, and leads to knockdowns, recaptures, tick grabs and more.

Also, never let an opponent jump in on you with buttons. People should be afraid to push buttons against you. Ironically, the real strength of counters isn’t always in using them, but rather the simple threat of them. As you get better with Hisako you’ll actually tend to use less counters, but you’ll pretty much always have to toss out one or a two a fight just to catch something and make the opponent think before he tries that again.

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Interesting. Thanks. And your just one of the names Most posted on the Hisako Boards. What is your main?

I’ve pretty much said everything I know how to say about Hisako on my guide page: http://ki.infil.net/hisako.html

Her buttons are spectacular, air ORZ is amazing, and both of her command grabs serve real purpose. It’s hard to explain when to use counter… you just have to get used to when you think opponents will press buttons. Hisako can counter almost every shadow move in the game on reaction, though, so you don’t ever have to block non-projectile shadows (exceptions being Jago, Fulgore, Orchid, Thunder, Aria shadow DP and Sadira shadow Reculse). If they do shadow wind kick or shadow eclipse or shadow ruin or shadow anything, just press the counter buttons during the screen freeze and you’ll always catch it.

I’d move around with dashes and try to avoid using teleport too much. Make people nervous about your ranges and then dash -> shadow influence (or even regular influence). You need to hold your ground with pokes and anti-airs (cr.HP usually) because you can’t get out of the way of your opponent’s offense that easily.

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Oh yeah. I forgot about your site. I’ll be sure to bookmark it. Thanks for the info! If I have any more questions, I’ll be sure to ask!

EDIT: Hey @Infilament, I just wanted to ask. You are the one people ask for info about a character due to your guide, but honestly, what character do you actually main?

Lol. I’m technically still a Sadira main, but in all honesty I probably play Hisako a lot more than Sadie now. Only pull Sadira out in certain MU’s, or if I’m just really annoyed and feel a burning urge to win at all costs :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: Hisako is in many ways a reactive character - if you don’t have a good sense of what your opponent is going to do in a given situation then you will have a very difficult time winning consistently with her. Sadira is one of those characters who largely gets to do whatever the heck she feels like, so all in all she just feels like a lot less work.

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Lol I understand. I main TJ Combo when I’m tired of using Jago, or certain matchups, like Jago vs Glacius…

Cries Inside

My best character is Jago.

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I’d say Storm and Infil definitely covered a good swath of what a beginner should know about Our Dear Onryo™.

This statement…

That’s really saying a mouthful. So many topics of gameplay discussion revolve around this concept. Think of Hisako’s move-set one tool at a time, considering what you could influence your opponent to do with each.

New Hisako’s tend to be too limited by the walk speed issue. Spend some time in practice mode getting used to using her dashes, and don’t be afraid to go airborne. She has great air normals, air ORZ tweaks her jump arc, and the frame advantage on her airborne attacks allows for some sweet setups. Between her dash, air mobilty and teleport, she has some great ways to get around and/or punish projectiles. She’s quite a mobile character if you want to play her that way, it’s just that her mobility is quite non-standard and risky.

I’d like to add that you are your own worst enemy when you play Hisako. Many of your weaknesses as a player will be magnified and exploited. Thankfully Hisako has most (arguably all) of the tools you need to build stengths out of your weaknesses.

Teleport is mad slow and definitely exploitable, but it’s indispensible in certain matchups. For instance, I love to frustrate Kan-Ra by simply teleporting to the other side of all that sandy/insect-y madness. It’s also a great choice if you’re absolutely positive that someone is going to throw a fireball.