The Replay and Analysis Thread

The Dojo
1170

Very frequently, (maybe 90% of the time) after the slide ender, they would short jump > air dash > jumping hk, which you have to block standing, and it hit you with an alarmingly high ratio of success.

This kinda goes into stuff, I feel, you look for as a player when things like damage loops, proper punishes, etc become snap judgments. You start to look even more closely at what your opponent does. Things like, in this case, how they opened you up and where they are finding holes in your defense. Good players are going to know that Hisako is perfectly fine just sitting still and down backing as is recommended. So they will try things to punish that, like these jump ins after slide ender. Should you not down back and hold your ground? Absolutely not. But it is something you should be aware of.

I would not ask you to put too much into it just yet, but it is something that I think you will need to consider as a KI player and especially as a Hisako player. It gets into more mind game-y type of stuff. The other things you and others have recommended should come first.

3 Likes
1171

Oh yeah, I see that. Yeah, my defense is still trash. My mind tends to get stuck in standing block or crouching block, rather than defaulting to crouch and switching upon jump ins.

Yeah, I may still have too many fundamentals to work on to worry a lot about deeper mind games, but I think that sort of thing takes longer to sink in, so I appreciate having it pointed out now. One time, I actually felt myself being conditioned, and it would’ve gone completely unnoticed if I didn’t know it was a thing

1172

Played an extended set with @CodeComplete85 earlier today. Was a bit of a different set because I played a variety of characters, and also because I tried to use each MU to test or train Code on different aspects of his game.

Part 1 - First FT10:

Part 2 - Second FT10

To start off with, very solid job on the defensive breaker game Code. You very rarely locked out. You also had very solid whiff punishes and confirms. You punished missed buttons almost every time.

  • With Hisako, my main goal was to show you how scary she is on knockdown up close since you asked for that. That’s why I just did one-chance into oki repeatedly. Like I mentioned after though - you were also really successful when you decided to go for close range pressure for oki :slight_smile:
  • You block a lot, but you nearly always block high. Watch your toes more than your head, as that’s where you’re most likely to be hit.
  • I’ve mentioned in a few replies that ORZ linker is very slow and easy to react to, so here I tried to make it a point to break every medium and heavy linker you did. Both of them are fully reactable even online. As you level up, I encourage you to start incorporating influence linker even though you’re using CAS - using the default CAS linker will make you too easy to break.
  • Relatedly, I broke you a ton, and generally in the same places. You adapted to the shadow breaks nicely (though I suggest countering on the earlier beats of it, since the last one is too easy to just hold off on), but never punished me for the linker breaks.
  • Good job popping instinct defensively. Now just work on taking that paused moment to actually see what’s going on and react to that. You don’t have to guess a counter - look at where the opponent is act accordingly. If they’re standing next to you, influence them. If they’re hitting a button, counter. If they’re jumping or throwing a projectile, AA or shadow into them.
    

  • With Sadira, my main goal was to try to get you to shadow counter my heavy kunai like we suggested in the GG’s thread. You tried it early on, but I’m guessing the miss made you shy away from trying it again. It’s ok to miss out on it - building the muscle memory for SC’ing there is more important long-term.
  • You didn’t SC my heavy kunai’s, but you did punish pretty well. I tried out a couple of options after the bounce b/c I wanted to see what worked and what didn’t, and for the most part you tagged me for it
  • I shadow countered your rekkas so much because I wanted to make sure you were counter-canceling. You were, which is awesome! Now just try to work on managing your wrath a bit more so that you always have the wrath you need for the cancel.
  • Opener->ultra saves lives. You could’ve beaten my Sadira in game 5 if you hadn’t given me a break window.
    

  • With Jago, my main goal was to test your neutral and ability to get through zoning. You did fantastic on both counts :slight_smile:
  • Because you managed neutral well and punished my fireballs, I started jumping a bunch. This was partially to test your AA’s and counters, but is also the real-world response most people have when you shut them down on the ground. Just be aware of that and work on being ready to punish the jump.
  • If down+HP is hard to get or you think you’re too late, remember that you can simply counter as well. Nets a full combo, so is a great reaction to build up also.
  • Like I mentioned in our messages, pretty much every time you hit me with stand-far-away-on-knockdown-and-use-HP I was trying (and failing :sweat_smile:) to do wakeup DP. Closer oki is much, much stronger with a grappler like Hisako. She has a lot more options at that range than far away.
  • Your shadow cashout does a lot of damage. You could’ve killed me in game 10 (using damage loop probably would’ve done the trick also).
  • You tend to push buttons after getting flipped out. You’re pretty negative there, so that’s usually a bad idea.
  • Good job on using influence to punish my throw attempts. Hisako doesn’t have to tech normally if she thinks you’re going to throw her. :+1:t5:
  • Jago is plus on laser sword. So you’ll generally lose if you push a button after blocking it.

All in all though great games Code. You’ve come really far for someone who’s new to the game! :slight_smile:

4 Likes
1173

Thanks for all the advice and the experience of fighting such a long set with someone able to get a read on me! In Ranked, I can tell when someone has me read, but being under that pressure for so many consecutive matches does force me out of my comfort zone into adaptation.

I’m glad my progress is notable. You and others here have provided such great help, and I want to honor your efforts by fixing my errors and improving.

Low Blocking, anti-airs, Influence linkers, wrath management, and staying on top of down opponents will be my top focuses, since I think they’re the most pressing bottlenecks in my performance. I will, of course, also be trying to incorporate the rest.

Another one @Cabp15 brought up is not going all the way to the 3rd strike of my rekkas when they’re being blocked. In general, I need to be more deliberate with my button choices, how many hits, and the timing to mix people up. I think I read that very-rapid heavy rekkas can sometimes get people to punish themselves.

One thing I need to get used to is hitting counter break before rather than on the combo break attempt. It’s counter intuitive to me, but I just need to get over that. I feel a lot of combo breaks coming that I was just a little too late to stop. I also just learned in the last week that you don’t have to counter break on “3” in the “1,2,3” for Shadows.

2 Likes
1174

I loved the matches!!! It was awesome seeing @STORM179 using Sadira. Yes I am biased. :joy_cat: We SO gots to play sometime!

@CodeComplete85 you are improving every time we play and that’s awesome. You’ve really put in a lot of work and it is showing. Just get the muscle memory down on those TKs. :wink:

2 Likes
1175

I’m down to play you - wouldn’t mind running a character guantlet with you sometime :slight_smile:

1 Like
1176

Yeah, I’m getting some weirdness on those. I’ve had input display on the whole time I’ve been working on it and don’t mind it failing when I do :arrow_down::arrow_lower_right::arrow_upper_right:. That one’s on me. However, I’m doing quick :arrow_down::arrow_lower_right::arrow_right: :arrow_upper_right: or :arrow_down::arrow_lower_right::arrow_right::arrow_upper_right::arrow_up: and still having spotty success, so I’m not sure what the problem is. Something about the tempo? I’d like to see when all the individual buttons are coming up as well as down and on which frames.

Also, it’s kinda funny when I’m feeling frustration over this issue and, on the ones I am successful, Sako’s screaming “rage!”

1 Like
1177

Try Down to Forward pause a half second and hit a button. It Negative Edges the TK. I use this all the time with both Hisako and Sadira.

1178

I tried this when you first suggested it and had no success. Are you sure you’re doing no :arrow_upper_right: or :arrow_up: when you’re doing this? That just seems bizarre that it could happen with no upward input

Also, I’m finding training the heavy cross-up version to be helpful. I’m more consistent when on the left side, and immediately doing it on the right side while I still have the rhythm of a successful TK is making things better. Still, I’d love to know exactly why the game is sometimes not accepting my :arrow_down::arrow_lower_right::arrow_right::arrow_upper_right:s

1179

You have to time the pause right. If you do it too fast you will get the reg command.

It takes a lot of practice, but it does work. It’s just :arrow_down: :arrow_lower_right: :arrow_right: and then a slight pause and then whatever button you want to use.

1180

Hmmm, instead of blindly stabbing in the dark, I can rig up AutoHotKey to input with different pauses and figure out what the minimum/maximum delay for this is.

I’m very interested, because this approach has a safety advantage; an error would either have me throwing a grounded normal or ORZ, not doing a big ol’ jump attack whiff.

1 Like
1181

Haven’t got your trick to work, but I did find, through testing, that there seems to be a 3-frame link time between directions. If you’re slower than 3 frames moving between any two directions, things get dodgy. I probably have a timing kink somewhere in my TK that’s breaking the chain

2 Likes
1182

I also wasn’t able to get that trick to work @WebNRagnarok - I’d need to see footage of it to think that’s a valid input for a TK I think.

Here are the sets between me and Ragnarok from today. I’ll add my thoughts a bit later.

First FT10:

Second FT10:

Jago Mirror FT5:

1 Like
1183

You’re a really good player Ragnarok, so my comments will be pretty brief. I think your play only has a couple of gaps, but they are gaps that can add up really quickly against the wrong opponent.

  • You are too used to jumping after everything. That’s fine in most MU’s, but there are definitely members of the cast who can make you pay for that.
  • Somewhat related, you miss a lot of confirms because you’re jumping all the time. I got tagged quite a few times with jumping normals, and then instead of confirming into combo you immediately jumped again. Gotta be ready to get into the combo game once you get the touch from a mixup.
  • Very consistent combo patterns. From your play I’d guess that most people you run into panic a bit when you hit them and lock themselves out? You rely a lot on heavies and tend to use them in the same places. That’s fine, but you need to adjust faster to someone who can react to them and is breaking as often as I was.
  • Need to maximize lockout damage. The few times I did lock out, you almost never used the full lockout window to pile on damage. Sako hits considerably harder than Sadie does - you won’t beat her if you miss opportunities to do max damage.
  • Don’t guess break. You ate a huge amount of extra damage over the set getting locked out in the middle-to-second-half of my combos.
  • You spend a lot of meter on wakeup escapes. Sadie’s weak on knockdown so I understand why you do it, but it exacerbates the damage disparity between her and Hisako when you’ve never got anything for shadow cashout.
  • Watch my meter. A lot of heavy kunais got SC’d because you tossed them out without paying attention to whether or not I could shadow counter.
2 Likes
1184

I title it The Savagry of @STORM179 or My Salty Tears. :joy_cat:

2 Likes
1185

Oddly enough, when I pulled up my list for songs for today’s church service (I’m the music director), the first hymnal on my list was, “A Shelter in the time of Storm.” I’m like
 WHERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT! :smile:

Very solid advice. I do use a LOT of heavies in my attacks and generally if my timing is good, I will do random Counter Breakers if I see the opponent breaking often. My timing was total garbage last night and half the time I tried to do a Counter Breaker I was doing it WAY too late. I let your prestige get the better of me. :smiley:

I’m still growing in the area of combo variety. Part of the issue I have and it just takes a LOT of muscle memory to work it out, is dealing with Negative Edge. I notice that I do a LOT of heavy linkers, instead of using light or mediums here and there. I’m generally good in Practice Mode, but half the time I try to do something like this in an actual match, I end the combo early. Gotta work on that.

In terms of my own breaking
 Yes I need to work on that quite a bit. I normally use audio queues to tell me what to do for a break, but recognizing animations would also help, as you did a lot of light attacks, and because I heard them hit twice, I thought
 oh yeah
 its a MEDIUM
 :stuck_out_tongue:

I also notice that I got time locked out a lot too.

Now I have a question


I’ve been using Hisako a lot here and there, and I’m trying to use Wrath to blow up Counter Breaker attempts. I have full Wrath Meter, but anytime I try to interrupt a Counter Breaker, my Wrath Cancel is completely ignored. Am I doing it too late? Do I need to Wrath Cancel before I hear “Counter Breaker?”

1186

You can’t use wrath to invalidate counter breakers. If someone counterbreaks and you break, then you’re hosed. If you’re talking about blowing up shadow counters however, then you just do it while the screen freezes and guy yells shadow counter - you buffer the counter in the freeze the same way you do on an instinct activation.

On the jumping thing - I also noticed rewatching the set that I missed four counter breakers across those 25 games, and didn’t get punished for a single one. In each case you just jumped back, because your instinctive reaction to a lot of stuff is to jump back. Make sure you work on that as well; don’t wanna let people just get off scot-free when they make bad calls.

I like that hymn, by the way :slight_smile:

1 Like
1187

And be aware of the high/low. Shago, Omen, ARIA, and Eagle seem to have low shadow counters. Not 100% sure on the last two, since I haven’t successfully parried them, but they at least look low.

1188

For Ragnarok

This is the big issue that i noticed through your Sadira games as well as some of the Jago ones. You don’t seem to be comfortable playing grounded at all. Or maybe it’s nerves? Whatever the case may be, when you were on the ground, your offense was very spotty. I saw a whiffed parry while your were grounded go unpunished; you chose to jump back. I saw twice where you got a raw hit with the instinct webs and you didn’t capitalize; you chose to jump back. I even saw a opener/ender sequence out of Storm that you didn’t break on. That carried over to the Jago games. You did not seem to be comfortable with approaching grounded. I saw a lot of empty jump throws or just jumps to close the distance when neither were throwing fireballs. If it’s because of being uncomfortable, that could be a huge hole in your playstyle. Can you elaborate on this?

I only saw one counter breaker combo and it wasn’t quite all you could’ve made it to be.

You seem to give up ground a little too easily at times. Let me go to 5:25 of the second video for a kinda more clear cut example. There, all Storm did was wait for your jumps, dash in, and you jumped back. All the way to the point where you were cornered and all he has to do is stand at a comfortable position where he could still tag you with a number of options.

Did you notice that after awhile, your medium kunai started drawing immediate down HP’s from Storm after he blocked them? Is there something you can do as Sadira to address that?

4:12 of the second video, what was that?

You could possibly explore the medium drop while in instinct from some of these jump scenarios and use the web to discourage a followup button?

I lost the timestamp, but there was an instance where you had a pixel left and Storm had a full red bar. You got him into a combo that took maybe 20% of that full bar and went for a counter breaker. In that instance, there is nearly zero incentive for a player to break a combo when all they need to do to kill you is make you block a couple of buttons.

When you made the switch to Jago, i feel like you were playing him with a very your-style-of-Sadira mindset and not so much to Jago’s strengths. Or maybe that is how you like to attack the mirror?

I can rarely think of a reason if Jago wants to wakeup DP that he would use shadow DP. Better to conserve that meter for other uses when your three versions of DP are all invincible.

Something i want to ask you about, if you recall. At 4:40 of the third video, there was an exchange where, after landing a jump normal, you chose a sweep manual. And you didn’t escape the corner. What was your reasoning for not going into a combo there as well as, once you got the knockdown, not escaping the corner?

For Storm

More than a few times Ragnarok tried to sweep you, but you blocked, but didn’t get off a punish. I know as Kim i can punish with a 7f cr MP, and i think your cr MK is maybe even faster than that and reaches further?

Saw a tricky little manual st HK to jump HK manual. Nice.

When Sadira is over your head, your instinct is to just sit still for that?

I kinda wished the two of you had picked more different colors for your Jago mirror, but it’s a minor gripe.

1 Like
1189

Omen and Shago have the only low shadow counters in the game. Both Aria shotgun knee and Eagle shadow slide are mids.