ummmmm Street Fighter IV anyone???

[Merk]

I really wish they would have added a stun gauge to this game and I have no idea why they had this feature in SF3 but removed it in SF4. Oh well whatev, 3S had characters that completely revolved around scoring a stun and from what I can tell no one in SF4 is really stun heavy.

Of course I've only been playing this game for less than 6 hours.

[Riot]

Nah there are characters in 4 that are stun heavy.... Ibuki, Akuma, and Viper come to mind. There are probably more but I'm not that well versed with the cast. If I was actually good at the game, I would be better at scoring stuns with Akuma but I usually don't apply enough pressure and start playing keep away when things get scary and lose the built up stun. I also don't use my EX tatsu enough in combos, which does crazy stun. Ibuki's EX neckbreaker for instance does 300 stun alone... many characters have combos that dish out 400-600 stun. To put that in perspective Akuma only has like 850 defense, so I can get dizzied in like two well-executed combos

http://www.eventhubs.com/guides/2008/oc ... fighter-4/

[Merk]

Alright so I did a bunch of training mode stuff and I've gotten fairly consistent ways of comboing into Dudley's U2 off of a j.HP, c.HK, and s.HK. Of course doing them in a match is entirely different than in training mode but whatev at least there is hope. The combos do around 400 damage which I guess is good? Dudley's s.HK -> EX MGB -> c.HK -> U2 does about 60% on Akuma.

omg roit watch ouuuuuuut

I still need to get good at doing combos off of LPs and LKs since getting damage off of quick moves is how to win at these games. I absolutely love Dudley'd mix-up game and his overhead is a godsend in this game.

I'm having lots of trouble with charge characters though like Balrog and Bison - Guile isn't too bad though and is a matchup that's in my favor. Zangief is a bit troublesome as well since I can't really get in his face or jump at him and have to wait for him to jump at me or try to poke at him when he closes the gap with his DP+P move.

[Riot]

I have the most trouble with charge characters too. Bison and Balrog are horrible for me... same with Blanka too since he ducks under my stuff. I played against that Glenn guy from the arcade last night and was doing pretty well with my footsies, using my standing roundhouse and crouching medium kick to hadoken to get damage in. That and I stopped jumping so much to try and get in with combos, since I ALWAYS get punished. It's just bad habits.

Yeah Dudley's strength is his combo ability, especially with his U2. It does seem hard to get close to the big grapplers for you... what about jumping hard punch at them? Can you initiate some target combos after hitting with a jump in punch? Even if they're blocked it seems like Dudley pushes himself far enough way that they'll be safe after the block string. As usual, the key to winning a lot of matches is to bait and punish... wait for them to do something unsafe and launch into a punishing bnb combo. As for Bison, whenever he jumps at you just walk backwards and he'll land right in front of you. I'm still trying to figure out that match up even a year later, and his new ultra is good against me since it punishes fireballs and jumping.

[Merk]

Yeah Bison's new ultra is all kinds of fucked up and I do not understand how it hits. Jumping up after he initiates the ultra still results in me getting hit. I guess all you can do is standing block it but I'm pretty sure it crosses up at certain distances.

Bleh, it's just really hard to be offensive against Bison / Balrog / fucking Blanka since they're great at turtling and poking.

The other grapplers aren't really too bad it's just that Zangief's D+PPP spinny punch works as a solid anti-air and jumping-in is a no go. Zangief's major weakness is fireballs and poor Dudley only has a little rose that does literally no damage. Most T. Hawk players so far are pretty bad and just try to spam Condor Dive which an uppercut can beat / trade with and I have played zero Hakans so I don't know anything about that matchup.

I do not know who Glenn is who is this Glenn?

God dammit why couldn't this game and the Starcraft beta come out when I was unemployed?

[Riot]

Can you jump backwards out of Bison's? I think you can as long as you are not point blank in his face when you try to jump out. Otherwise I guess you just have to be careful when he has his U2 ready so you're not being overly offensive and eat a random ultra. When Zangief does his spinning lariat just try and walk up and sweep him out of it... so I guess wait for him to jump at you and then punish him with anti air or DP moves, or try to bait him into the lariat or something. But yeah I can imagine it's one of your harder match ups... not for me, I annoy the HELL out of Zangief players and just fireball and teleport away. On my gamercard rep, 70% of players who cared enough to vote to prefer or avoid me picked avoid, and I'm guessing all 70% are zangief players because they always send hate mail.

Glenn is that kid who wandered up while we were about to play our team tournament at DAT. He was the guy on your team who played Makoto.

[Merk]

Oh I thought his name was Darryl or Derek or whatever lol my bad.

I'm not sure if you can jump backwards to avoid the ultra - maybe from certain distances. I'm fairly certain I tried jumping back when I was close to Bison and got caught by his U2. I'll have to check my replays.

[Riot]

I'm looking at the Dudley threads on shoryuken. Apparently you can counter a blocked sweep from Akuma and Ryu with U1.

Some initial thoughts for some characters in here if you scroll down: http://www.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=233849 though it's pretty new so more match ups are still being figured out. What I have to start practicing, and you too, is spacing and footsies... gotta bounce in and out of the opponent's sweep range and just get in pokes as hit confirms. As for Balrog:

Recommended ultra: Corkscrew Cross

-Without meter, Balrog's footsies are generally beaten by Dudley's. Standing HP has enough range to keep Balrog out and prevent him from using any rush-punches. s. MP and c. MP are also effective in keeping Balrog out.
-With meter, a good Balrog will know that HP has enough recovery to be hit by a rush-punch with super armor.
-Corkscrew cross in reaction to rush-punches and turn-punches is extremely effective. Dudley must be buffering the ultra to use this on reaction.
-A well timed "people's elbow" (j. HK) will sometimes beat Balrog's headbutt. I also traded with him and ate an ultra because of this as well. It must depend on the timing of the attacks which I need to test out later.

Overall i'd say its a pretty even matchup.

People saying Dhalsim is really tough.

[Merk]

Yeah I read that Dudley's U1 will go through fireballs which is why I was using it against you on Tuesday but I'm bad with the Xbox pad joystick so I was never able to pull it off. Interesting that it can punish a blocked sweep though.

[Riot]

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Street-F ... 580&sr=8-1

get one of them fightpads if you wanna use d-pad

Do you have any tips on what to do against Blanka? I just get raped usually... can't really fireball or jump against him, I usually just have to get a few sweeps in and then wait for him to EX blanka ball against me, block it, and then punish with an ultra. I hate how he ducks under everything I do.

[Cactusjuice]

You're chewing on the wrong Brazil nut

[Riot]

I do not know what that means but I do not like nuts and I do not like Blanka.

[Merk]

Do air fireballs shut his vertical ball down? If it did I'd imagine you could spam that all day and he'd be fucked outside of a well-timed EX Blanka Ball.

It seems like in that match up you just want to get close to him after a knockdown and bait a vertical ball that you can then punish or try to mix up. If you can't get close then just spam air fireballs. Again, these turtley charge characters are a real bitch in this game and the solution is pretty much just get in their face and throw them or do an overhead.

[Riot]

Well they do (I don't think for EX balls though... don't remember), but the problem is the minute I jump usually they launch into their stupid ball before I can get anything to come out anyways. I don't know of any ways to punish blocked balls unless it's super close up. His stupid sweep thing that he crawls on the ground rapes me with it's range if you ever throw a hadoken that's not completely full screen distance away. I can't really do my vortex on him because he'll go electric or do his little ball to knock me away. I think the solution is to do more c.mk > hadoken and maybe some st.mp as an overhead or something and then just block instead of trying to continue the combos so he doesn't spam something out to interrupt me.

[Merk]

Well playing Blanka online is a little tough because the natural lag that comes with playing online makes Blanka balls nonpunishable. Have you tried an air tatsumaki to stop them ball sacs?

Really its just a shitty matchup and you gotta turtle him and wait for him to fuck up a ball.