I still find hard to even break her ad, though I manage to break her delayed manuals (that’s when they start counter breaking me, lol).
By the way I don’t get that wrath bar too much…Can I counter her when she attacks or with that bar she will always have priority in her attacks?
I’m asking tfor help since the training I couldn’t do much and since I can’t spend more ours your help will do a lot in this case. I’ll work more on her later, but any tip you can give me will be much appreciated.
PS: I’m Wulf Main, and my playstyle against her is trying to bait her counters (empty jumps, grabs, avoiding shadow eclipse at wake ups or early pressure that she can counter…). But once she jumps with forwar u + p or start a combo I find hard to get away.
Well to be honest, against a Hisako that has a read on you, there isn’t actually much you can do to get away once she’s got you in her vortex. Wulf’s options against her are pretty manageable to be honest, and she can pretty much always counter anything he does if the Hisako player has a sense of what you want to do. On defense, I recommend being obstinate to a certain extent - simply don’t let her dictate what you’re going to do as you get up. If I’ve stuffed you trying to jump out on me twice in a row, a lot of times I’ll assume that I’ve taught you a lesson and that you’re ready for a command grab. It’s super risky, but against Hisako in general you have to disrespect her. Force them to prove that they can consistently punish your jumping outs or forward dashes.
On breaking her, I recommend going for the linkers. They’re both very slow in general, and the heavies in particular are very reactable.
Her wrath bar simply allows her to cancel some things (normals, rekkas, possession) into counter if it’s higher than 50%. If it’s full, it will also allow air-ORZ recaptures and full combos from influence command grabs. If she has a full wrath bar WHILE she’s comboing you, HOLD UP. Hisako command grab resets are incredibly dangerous, but only possible once she has full wrath. Wrath does NOT give her any additional priority, but when it’s full her buttons do get extra hitstun that makes trading with her undesirable.
Both of her command throws have a lot of recovery frames, so a jump will precipitate a punish opportunity for you.
She can’t Vengeance counter a fully-charged Overpower, for what that’s worth (just an observation).
Most Wulf players tend to go bananas with the buttons when they’re in instinct because they can Feral Cancel. Hisako players know this and will counter you - so try a Feral Cancel into nothing to bait a counter whiff.
Like STORM said, holding up while being combo’d is a great idea if she’s sitting on wrath. Similarly, holding up while in blockstun isn’t a half bad idea either - Hisako tick-throws are no fun to eat, and if you jump out of her throw, you can punish for a full combo on the way down.
I’d like to emphasize STORM’s comment about disrespecting Hisako. Obviously you’ll still have to keep your timing unpredictable to avoid counters, but being a bull about the match is going to be fairly effective since we’re have to make good reads to bring home the bacon.
lol, thanks, I read that thread to do everything the other way around. And yes, breaking her isn’t easy at all. Thanls for the wrath explanation, I will use Hisako a bit more to understand it better.
Surely overpower is risky, if I don’t time it right I will be in big trouble (against a good Hisako). What do you think about this MU: Fulgore vs Hisako? Do you think is a better counterpick than Wulf? That’s my second main and I want to train him better (he was my second main in older KIs)
Not really. I’d actually much rather fight Fulgore than Wulf. His knockdown pressure isn’t nearly as unpredictable, and his damage isn’t high enough to have a match get quickly out of hand. Fulgore has to open you up repeatedly, and his ways of doing so just aren’t as scary to me personally as Wulf’s are.
That said, if you want to zone or annoy Hisako with fireballs, then Fulgore is obviously the better choice. I just personally find it to not be that hard of a MU for her. You have to play very patiently sometimes, but it’s not particularly challenging in most cases. I’d peg both fights as 5-5, so really just comes down to your own preference.
Not quite a risky as you might think. Hisako can’t counter the fully charged one, and Wulf can hold it for however long he wants otherwise. Countering it is quite a bit tougher than you might think because of the whole variable timing thing, so most Hisako’s are more likely to either try to poke you out of it or jump out of it, both of which get caught if you decide to release a little early. Again, Wulf doesn’t have ANYTHING that Hisako can’t counter or escape, so you have to be willing to take those occasional counters and disrespect her to a certain extent. Being afraid of “what if she counters this” is how the Hisako wants you to feel - if you get caught in that mentality you will lose.
I have so much trouble against Hisako. I feel like I cannot even attack because I get countered most of the time. Then when I get opened up, the combos are damn hard to read. She has so many good tools, so a good Hisako is damn tough. But in her defense, anyone who can master a character in KI is tough anyway. The game has great balance, I am just mediocre.
If you feel like this, then to a certain extent you’re already playing HIsako’s game. You have to respect the option to counter, but you cannot be afraid of it. If you’re fighting Hisako you will be countered - accept it and continue trying to play your game. Bait it out where possible, but sometimes you just have to throw things at her. If you’re afraid to hit her, how can you win a fight?
In terms of reading her combo I can’t really help you. I personally recommend trying to break her linkers, as I have an easier time recognizing those.
I had the pleasure of fighting one of the better Hisako players online and in truth the one thing that always helped me was to keep my character’s style eratic. As a Sadira main, I will use every web in her arsinal to keep Hisako guessing. I will mix up jump in attacks with jump in throws. If the player has no idea when I will actually attack or throw it’s going to be very difficult for them to use a Counter. For me, from start to finish, a Hisako fight (unless the player sucks) is a high octane chess fight.
In these friendly matches (3 vs 3 between Argentina and Chile, organized by the cool chilean community) I / we had to deal with two things: Hisakos and a terrible LAG (mother of al Lags lol). I was nervous, and broke very, VERY bad. I couldn’t tell heavies from mediums nor in manuals and linkers, and got so scared of the setups that I couldn’t react too much, but I can say that many bad reactions were because of lag and out of desperation (I threw many counter breakers, since I got tired of being broken). You can see that at times I wasn’t even sure with what he was hitting me. Really hard. To beat something like this I need a lot of training (when you put it all together with the lag).
Oy…so to be honest, the amount of advice I can give in conditions this laggy is limited Teleporting characters is always bad, and tends to make even really good players annoyed or flustered. So yeah, good games in spite of horrible, horrible, lag
One thing I did notice though is that you probably want to try and read your opponent’s habits a bit more. That Hisako vey rarely went for meaty button pressure, so at a certain point you probably should have switched over to jumping or backdashing on wakeup later in the set. Backdash in particular would have been good against this Sako, because he rarely went for possession, and your backdash would have beat his meaty buttons and influence setups. I get the reluctance to move on wakeup, because Hisako can punish all your options, but letting them condition you into sitting still will get you killed. Also: hold up when a Hisako is hitting you, until they prove that they can punish you jumping out. Getting tagged with repeated command grab resets is no bueno.
On the other stuff, I get the feeling you kind of know where it went wrong. I think a lot of the bad breaks were probably due more to frustration than anything, as after a certain point you pretty clearly weren’t trying to react, and were moreso breaking almost exclusively on reads. I get it though: Sako’s tough to break, and her teleporting all over the damn place certainly didn’t help with that.
General other observation is to encourage you to be even more buttonsy on Hisako’s wakeup. You disrespect her pretty well, but you could do even more on that front if you wanted. Throwing Hisako is ok, but I tend to think that mixing up meaty buttons is the better option. You’ll eat a few counters that way, but the reward is better, and it’ll force the HIsako to go to an option (wakeup counter) that she probably would prefer not to have to do. Throw every once in a while to keep them honest, but definitely press the issue with buttons. Wulf’s offense is varied enough that you can pretty reliably open her up.
Thanks a lot Storm =)
So far when they try to grab me I press up. but yes, on wake up I’m afraid they’ll go meaty + QCB Kick (I think I have to jump that). I won’t go for wake up shadow eclipse anymore unless theyare jumping, and I won’t try to shadow counter when they have enouth wrath to cancel. I’m still afraid to backdash though, but you are right, this Hisako player based his gameplan on foward dash grab too much =S
Do you mean you’re afraid of meaty->rekka? Cause if they’re hitting you with meaty->CQB+K(possession), then you’re still fine holding up, as that’s just a tick grab setup.
Don’t wake up with shadow eclipse if you can help it. My general rule of thumb to people is to never freeze the screen against a good Hisako. Obviously it can work out for you sometimes, but good Hisako play works very hard to ensure that it won’t.
And really, really, don’t be afraid of backdash Maru. Hisako only has two good options to deal with it - cross-up ORZ, which is 0 on block (and you have better light buttons), and possession. If she possessions you, then you’ve just eaten 10%. Not ideal, but not the end of the world, and you’ll get up fast enough that she doesn’t get to refill wrath and get a good setup. She can only toss out possession twice on your wakeup before she runs out of wrath for the cancel to keep herself safe if you jump. That reality looms large, and will tend to direct her away from using it too often on your wakeup. She’s tossing it out because she wants to condition you into jumping or sitting still, not because she wants to kill you with it.
I get a lot of trouble reading Hisako as well… People keep saying that i can punish rekkas, but the window to do it seems to be so small. Most of times i end failing the punishment and receiving a ■■■■ load of damage. Also the timing to counter shadow On Ryo Zan is weird, everytime i try it i end up in a lockout.
Depends which rekka and when. You can poke in between her mix-up rekkas, but the heavy versions are frame traps. If you block three rekkas in a row then the punish should be super easy - the least negative she can be after doing all three swipes is -10.
Teleporting characters is always bad, and tends to make even really good players annoyed or flustered. So yeah, good games in spite of horrible, horrible, lag 
