Keeping up the Soul Gauge...

lobo

lobo

Luminario
Tactics for building and maintaining Soul Gauge.

Well, I don't have much...seeing as I play online and GI's are pretty much nil.

Quit blocking. Evade. GI if you can. Be weary of Astaroth...

Come on I know someone has better advice than me.
 
Lol.
Lobo sucks at advice.
Not all characters can keep this up
Not all GB's do the 1/7 Soul Damage that they should be expected to do to make things easier.
Things like Sophie 66B/66A, if you can anticipate. I guess try and GI them (Since 66B is slow anyway.)
Things like Taki PO B/Hover B you would step since they're telegraphed/i100000.
 
When you are about to be critical finished (and it happens that you still have at least half your life bar), i.e. your bar is flashing red, I recommend you use a bunch of your B,B and A,A mixups, trying to keep offensive; GIs are also wise in such a situation. If your lifebar is almost down . . . who cares, keep guarding, let him waste his CF.
 
One thing Maxi users thought would work is that his constant stance shifting and aggressive play would cater to the CF feature...one oversite.

You cannot CF while in stance. Meaning if a Maxi wants to CF he must either:
1. Slow down his pressure game and go for basic mix ups or heavy attacks
2. Continue stance heavy onslaught and go for a CF via moves that take him out of stance.

So for Maxi players, getting you in the red primarily is pushing you to start being aggressive back only to eat something nasty on CH or possible Ring Out.

Lizardman, Setsuka, and Yunsung actual have some decent poweful shit that sets up CF, from what I've seen anyway. Yoshimitsu has potiential to rape the SG too.
 
Evasive attacks are awesome. I have also been messing with strategies based around pushing people into the red and then using attacks that dont damage the SG just to get people desperate and making mistakes at disadvantage.

I do have to say I dont worry about my own SG I just try to get the opponents down first so then if I can get a few attacks to land in a row itll give me a good amount back where I dont have to worry about it.
 
Critical Finish has yet to be an issue for me. I've only achieved one Soul Crush online and only been Soul Crushed once online, and neither time led to a CF. I think that ultimately if you are in a situation where Soul Crush/Critical Finish is an issue, it is a result of playing far too defensively.

Admiral TvS makes an excellent point about allowing it if your life is low enough that you don't expect to win the round either way, but really the best way is to land hits on your opponent. Know your character's evasive moves, and use them in combination with 8WR and stepping to get your opponent to whiff hits leaving you an opening.

If you are truly worried about CF and have enough life that you'd feel like you wasted the round on a CF (for instance, came into a round with very low SG and were Soul Crushed in the first 5 seconds, blocking 3 out of 3 hits) then eat some hits for life - Soul Crush can only occur on block of a powerful hit, and I'd rather eat a combo for 1/4 of a life bar than block 3 hits and lose the round.
 
I do agree that online they aren't as much of an issue. Most players will spam lows that are hard to block on reaction due to lag or other moves that usually require quick reflexes to avoid/block.

Offline, though, is a different matter altogether. CFs eventually can happen 2-3+ in a single battle, depending on the player/character (of course). I generally play the way Bibulus mentioned. I try not to pay too much attention to my gauge. I just play and try to get out of the red.

Your best bets so far are to listen to what Bibulus and Admiral said.
 
I forgot to mention about how to play when the opponent is at low life and gets redded out... I usually back off and defend for a short while. Mix it up a bit to throw them off and then look for freebie attacks into mixups... IE free A,A into throw. Make sure you know attacks you have that do little damage to the SG and use those... your usually dealing with pokes and low damage attacks that have setup value many times. So use your setups and go for the kill. Also guard and frame trap throws are awesome... maybe take a free throw attempt instead of a free A,A.

Also NEVER and I mean NEVER just eat an attack if your in the red... try to GI. worst case you still eat the attack but its better then just bending over and it will force the opponent to change. If they see your going to look for GI and they adapt it will give you an opening. either they will change hit levels from high to low or they will change the speed of their attack. You can deal with all those things differently or maybe you have a speedy jumping attack that solves your problems.

G - I feel you on that but internet play and playing someone who is next to you are 2 compeltely different beasts
 
With a little testing

1. Staying neutral without any hitting both players soul gauge increase. Trying to play a game of footsie is not a bad idea for either side trying to stay away from the grim reaper.

2. Seems like the moves that soul crush best on block also bring you out of blinking red the best on hit. Just going into a poking frenzy doesn't work. Some of the pokes I tested soul crushed on block way before they brought you out of blinking red on hit. Amy's 6B+K stops the blinking in 6 hits, but her commonly used 6BB took 26 hits just to stop the blinking.

3. GIing is about as useful as going into a poking frenzy, you'll soul crush them before you get out of danger yourself.

Summary: looks like the whole CF is a tug-a-war. When you're in the mud or close to it it's hard to come back.

Personally I've only had a few CF's done on me (offline, don't care for online), but since the whole strategy against Amy is to keep her outside it's easier to build SG playing footsies to get back inside.
 
There has only been a few cases where I've actually willingly ate a soul crush, and they're normally when I'm up 2-0 and don't want to have to deal with trying to conserve the bar against people like the sisters, who have surprising breaking power.

Alot of whats been said in here is spot on. Though be weary of poking strings. As far as my experience goes, a Perfect GI breaks a flashing bar instantly. Even with online delay, if they see your berserk B's coming, you may very well cut your own throat.

With the lesser amount of GI's online, I find I'm fighting the foe's soul gauge more then them. I'll give up the 28bg air throw and instead go for a AG airgrab to set up a 1(A)A or 1 (A)B just to keep them gauge trouble. No one likes being flashing against Astaroth, and once they are unless you seriously lose your cool and give them openings, you're going to force them to eat alot of things. 66AB in particular.

Online, I'd wager about 1 in 3 of my matches ends with a 3rd win CF. Offline, I'd need more practice to see, since its much easier to intercept and GI alot of Astaroths big meatie Soul Gauge eating swings.
 
BeefyLoveLord said:
Online, I'd wager about 1 in 3 of my matches ends with a 3rd win CF. Offline, I'd need more practice to see, since its much easier to intercept and GI alot of Astaroths big meatie Soul Gauge eating swings.
Click to expand...

see this thread? you did this to me. got me all twisted.
 
Use other characters online. It's rare that I use Raph online (I can still use him how I normally do either way). And there are a ton of crappy Raphs online. All you see is 4B, and 6BBB.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom