DrakeAldan
Follow the rules!
I've been playing Street Fighter as of late, and learning various things about the game. I was watching a video by Juicebox on footsies, and he said something interesting- basically, if you step forward when the opponent does and interrupt him, you can negate his range advantage. Or, rather, short-ranged attacks become more viable.
It made sense, but it seemed odd to me that I hadn't thought of it before. I feel like I should be fairly strong in footsies, since... well, I'm coming from Soul Calibur where the whole game is spacing. I thought I'd test this principle to see if it worked here.
Sure enough...
And apparently this works with other moves, too.
The way this seems to work, is... basically, when both players step forward, the distance between them is reduced dramatically (read: twice).
You can see here how Ezio ends up in AA range. There's interesting implications from this.
---
So, from what I can tell...
- Pick a short-range move that you'd like to extend the range of. Something that's good, but just happens to be out of reach most of the time.
Like...
Pat - 1B
ZWEI - 4B ~ BE
Ezio - 1K, 6B, 3B, 1BBB
Raph - 33K BE, 66A+G
Viola - 3B
Maxi - 6A+B, 4BB
Yoshimitsu - 3B
Astaroth - Command throws
Algol - 6BBB
Omega - 4B (Difficult 'cause it's slow!)
You can probably think of more applications than I can.
The slower the move you use, the more open you leave yourself/the harder it is to time correctly.
- Read your opponent's habits. When you get the feeling that they want to step forward, step forward before they do and throw out your attack. If you did it right they should run face-first into it.
Most moves will work with this; BB (neutrals), 3B (unidirectionals), and 66/33B (forward-facing 8WR moves). You can use other 8WR moves, but rolling from 6 adds time to your attack, and you're trying to land it early.
Tapping G to cancel your forward step might help with inputs. e.g., 6~G~6B.
You will probably land CH doing this, but I wouldn't count on it.
There seems to be a lot of ways this can go wrong.
You need:
- your opponent to step forward.
- your opponent to step forward and attack. (They can run-up guard, step, GI...)
- your opponent not to react to your forward step.
- correct timing.
If they just stand there and attack from one spot, then... you won't be able to get in. If you guess wrong, you'll step forward, attack... and whiff. Oops...
I suppose you could stand outside of their range, wait for them to step closer to try to hit you, and then do it.
To top it off everything might fail horribly because this is a weapons-based game, and you can attack at a distance while keeping yourself relatively safe...
---
I began to wonder why I never learned or picked up on this before... It looks pretty obvious!
I think it's because I never really had to.
There are lots of good "keepout" moves in the game, such as Pat's 66B... 66 moves in particular have built-in forward movement, so I suppose I had been doing it and not noticing. (I love my sudden run-up 66K.)
It also seems like a bit of a hassle. If I predicted a forward step and I was playing Omega, for example, I'd just toss DNS B out. Ranged attacks and basic keepout seem better than putting yourself in harm's way for an interception... so I don't know how useful this would be.
I guess you could apply the principle to longer-ranged moves, but then we're talking about playing fullscreen.
Who does that?
I'm sure a few people around here probably knew this already... Maybe?
It made sense, but it seemed odd to me that I hadn't thought of it before. I feel like I should be fairly strong in footsies, since... well, I'm coming from Soul Calibur where the whole game is spacing. I thought I'd test this principle to see if it worked here.
Sure enough...
And apparently this works with other moves, too.
The way this seems to work, is... basically, when both players step forward, the distance between them is reduced dramatically (read: twice).
You can see here how Ezio ends up in AA range. There's interesting implications from this.
---
So, from what I can tell...
- Pick a short-range move that you'd like to extend the range of. Something that's good, but just happens to be out of reach most of the time.
Like...
Pat - 1B
ZWEI - 4B ~ BE
Ezio - 1K, 6B, 3B, 1BBB
Raph - 33K BE, 66A+G
Viola - 3B
Maxi - 6A+B, 4BB
Yoshimitsu - 3B
Astaroth - Command throws
Algol - 6BBB
Omega - 4B (Difficult 'cause it's slow!)
You can probably think of more applications than I can.
The slower the move you use, the more open you leave yourself/the harder it is to time correctly.
- Read your opponent's habits. When you get the feeling that they want to step forward, step forward before they do and throw out your attack. If you did it right they should run face-first into it.
Most moves will work with this; BB (neutrals), 3B (unidirectionals), and 66/33B (forward-facing 8WR moves). You can use other 8WR moves, but rolling from 6 adds time to your attack, and you're trying to land it early.
Tapping G to cancel your forward step might help with inputs. e.g., 6~G~6B.
You will probably land CH doing this, but I wouldn't count on it.
There seems to be a lot of ways this can go wrong.
You need:
- your opponent to step forward.
- your opponent to step forward and attack. (They can run-up guard, step, GI...)
- your opponent not to react to your forward step.
- correct timing.
If they just stand there and attack from one spot, then... you won't be able to get in. If you guess wrong, you'll step forward, attack... and whiff. Oops...
I suppose you could stand outside of their range, wait for them to step closer to try to hit you, and then do it.
To top it off everything might fail horribly because this is a weapons-based game, and you can attack at a distance while keeping yourself relatively safe...
---
I began to wonder why I never learned or picked up on this before... It looks pretty obvious!
I think it's because I never really had to.
There are lots of good "keepout" moves in the game, such as Pat's 66B... 66 moves in particular have built-in forward movement, so I suppose I had been doing it and not noticing. (I love my sudden run-up 66K.)
It also seems like a bit of a hassle. If I predicted a forward step and I was playing Omega, for example, I'd just toss DNS B out. Ranged attacks and basic keepout seem better than putting yourself in harm's way for an interception... so I don't know how useful this would be.
I guess you could apply the principle to longer-ranged moves, but then we're talking about playing fullscreen.
Who does that?
I'm sure a few people around here probably knew this already... Maybe?