Alright so I played plenty of Cinder on Ranked to practice my more advanced combos but I find it can be pretty rough.
I once thought fighting Glacius was a tad unfair becuase of Glacius defences but I have just fought with Gargos and fighting him is actually pretty hard.
Firstly he has a track portal punch and his rush in attack easily beats out Cinders. Granted this doesn’t surprise me since Trailblazer despite it’s uniqe movement is the lowest priority move in the game. So I can’t really use it too much from my experience in getting close to him.
Anyone got any advice on what I can do against him?
Well the regular versions of PP only track your last known position. Shadow PP tracks all the way till it’s over. Reckoing also goes far…but don’t be deceived by it’s range.
Portal puchs can be negated with your normals. A bit hard but possible.
If you get a knowkdown, never let him go. Inferno work wonders here
If you have to choose arms or legs, burn legs. It seems he needs more his punch specials and normals. but without kicks he cant sweep you or hit you with the annoying wing strike in the air, also reckoning, a great anti Cinder tool, would be forbbiden too.
Minions can be a real nightmare, so you have to learn how to destroy them fast. Inferno can be used both destroying them and to press Gargos.
Portal punch doesn’t do a lot chip damage, but builds meter on block. Be patient, he can’t mix you fullscreen. Block, get closer, and anticipate a portal punch and use shadow trailblazer, it will ignore both portal punchs and minions
Wouldn’t burning the arms be a better choice since he’ll be using PP’s for meter gain more then anything? That and the minions count as arm moves so when he summons then he’ll just fan the flames?
Typically I usually do burn the arms in case he does get away from me. Which from my experience so far it’s easy for him to do so. I had been lucky in the last fight and I was able to light him on fire completely. But even so. The hard part is getting in close.
Exactly. So when you DO get in and burn the arms then if he gets away, making PP’s fan flames sounds like a good plan to me. That just means when you get close again that white life should be nice and juicy.
The problem is when he does get into PP range I have trouble getting to him because of the portal punches. XD but in all honesty I am open to all forms of strategy
Well my general strat against portal punches is rather simple. Light PP is -11 on block. So say you block it. Then immediately dash. You’re safe from the next PP. Rinse and repeat. HOWEVER, keep note. If he wants to use another L PP after you block the first one it will whiff when your dashing. But since cinder’s dash is pretty meh, I recommend doing one dash then block again.
Now when you get close from blocking the PP’s gargos will most likely do 1 of 4 things (if minions are out then his options increase as well as his safety) which are:
For cinder, when you get close you’ll have to go into the lab and try and counter each of these options somehow when you’re close to him. Because obviously he’ll probably want to run away from you.
Here’s the meter building for PP’s on block (for gargos meter gain)
L PP: 13 hits on block to build on bar (actually just over a bar maybe 1-2% of the next bar?)
M PP: 8 hits on block to build one bar (slightly over actually)
H PP: 8 hits on block builds one bar
Shadow PP: 0
Pp are more easily avoidable than K buttons. If you ever jump, j. Hk will put you fullscreen in a blink, and if you dash his seeep will put you down. Two well placed trailblazers will avoid pps, but not wing attacks. Also his only (bad)reversal, heavy reckoning, its a k. Burn kicks+knockdown=block or die. You can harass him to death
Oh yeah, the arm animation threw off me. For a moment thought it was arm moves because you know…arm summons and all. But I forogt, I got alot on the mind. Keeping track of all this data is quite taxing at times.
Trailblazer has much more recovery then a dash (the total frames of trailblazer) so if he’s read on his trailblazer then he’s going to be in trouble.
The point its mix dash until trailblazer its on range. His k buttons can throw you out easily, at the correct range, a good read makes trailblazer beat pp and open a combo.
Besides, if you burn him, he should’t be fullscreen, and you should put a pyrobomb on him to condicionate him into not using PP
I found recently that if you keep your spacing up, a fast moving move that gets you in can pretty effectively punish portal punch. Something like Wind Kick, Trailblazer, Slide for the characters that have it, Blade Dash, etc can be use on the start up of the move to close distance pretty safely and even lead to a combo punish.
You can also make even more liberal use of these type of moves if you use a fireball (or in Cinder’s case, bomb) as a chaser and force Gargos to block.
Cinder probably has a bit of an easier time getting in because of his Multi-Air Trailblazer and his bombs (which look like they can be used to punish a lot of stuff reaction if you can get a few stuck on him) and Inferno looks like it’d be good for making him block at a mid range or burning out minions.
I’m not a Cinder expert, but I hope it helps dude!
The only issue reallt is Cinder’s trailblazer doesn’t go quite as far as any of the other get in moves.I admit it is tough but worth a try. But the case really is stopping before his second dash which more or less is the moment when I’m usually caught by portal punches.