the BRC shockwave doesn't do a hit (which is sometimes relevant - a hit + RRC can break armor, or kill Eddie and then hit Zato, but BRC can't) but it still slows the enemy
i would imagine it lets him catch and punish backdashes hard (and potentially other things), and otherwise put the opponent into a scary strike/throw mixup
Yeah, the blue slowdown effect (and the activation freeze) let you get a guaranteed punish in some cases and is easy to "hit confirm". So like, if you blue drift into someone like that, you can sometimes visually confirm they hit a slow button or backdashed or whatever and punish, if they did nothing they're slowed and you're beside them so you can do strike/throw mix. If you catch a jump you can sometimes reaction air throw off the slowdown. It's even better if you have a DP because you can reaction DP if someone gets a hitbox out on top of your drift.
I play faust so whenever chipp jumps, I jump H which has an enormous hitbox that goes across the screen. I space properly so he has to make some horizontal distance to get to me.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I saw a tekken 6 cutscene the other day and got a hankering to play Tekken since I never have before. So I picked up 7 and hoo boy that's a lot of characters.
I'm bad at fighting games but I endeavor to get better. Who's fun and beginner friendly in Tekken 7? Is Tekken 7 even a good place to hop in now?
BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
If you have some basic defensive rudiments down from other games, it's not that daunting to become decent, if not world beating in a month or so.
Compared to other games you'll want to get a feel for how certain moves track and follow opponents if they try to side-step or backdash to create space, timing on low paries (especially if they try and do sweeps as wake-up attacks), and finding safe launchers and short effective juggles to punish with.
Eddy and Steve are typically thrown out as Tekken for Dummies characters, as they don't have super complicated strings and very friendly/easy combos to pull out your ass and get a flow going. That said, I'd recommend Steve over Eddy as his mix-up potential is better and a lot of moves have built in bob-and-weave motions that can get you out of harms way and has less easily punishable string finishes.
Other characters to consider in the early going would be Paul and Brian. They both hit like trucks without a lot of joystick voodoo a la Akira in VF, not super punishable if you wiff, and good risk/reward ratio on their juggles.
Intermediate I'd say look at Hwoarang or Lee. Both are great at high-low mixups with a lot of sidestep moves, big damage juggles that are easy to hit consistently and are both smooth mfers in cutscenes.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
I started tekken 7 with alisa, and it's the first real fighting game I've played in years
She has good movement, a lot of her buttons are relatively safe, and she has excellent pokes so she's a great character for learning spacing and controlling the terms of engagement, though you dont get huge combos at the wall like with some other beginner friendly guys
Also she takes off her head, gives it to her opponent and detonates it
Katarina, Leo, Law, Shaheen, and Paul come to mind as characters for beginners who want to play a "basic tekken" character. All of them have good generic tools without any huge complicated movesets; you can get super far with just generic mid/low pokes, jab strings, and punishing big moves/whiffs with df2 or hopkick.
That being said, in general I'm a big fan of the "pick whoever you think looks/feels fun" versus "here are the best characters for new players" philosophy, mostly because fighting games (especially tekken) are already complicated enough that I think learning them with a character you actually enjoy playing is the most important thing.
I'd throw Josie in that list too. Her, Katarina, and Shaheen are all new to Tekken 7 and seem to be designed with newcomers in mind.
Gonna echo ph blake here though: pick a character that you think looks cool. You're much more likely to spend the effort and get over obstacles that pop up if you have an attachment to the character.
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I say this about Tekken all the time but the fact that the game is so complex actually makes it easier to get into.
Because for the first half of the game you'll just be hitting people with your jank and getting hit by their jank.
It's only when you're an upper intermediate player that it becomes hard cause then you actually have to figure out how to play.
+1
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
Well, I’m currently hovering right around the Bronze / Super Bronze border. I’ve been bouncing back and forth for a couple of days. I’ve gotten decent at dealing with the Shotos, and most of the others I see a lot of (Ed, Alex, Sakura, Akira, Rashid, Zangief, Balrog, Guile), but Bison, Abigail, Honda, and the occasional insanely good Juri still fuck me up mercilessly. Oh, and a Urien on a 16 match win streak quadruple-Perfect’d me and I still don’t even know what happened there.
Honestly, the hardest part is just not getting frustrated. I’ve made it a point to always accept rematches even when someone absolutely trounces me, and trying to view them as chances to learn, which has helped when I hit the sweet spot of getting beat by someone who isn’t so much better than me that I have no time to pay attention.
Trying to set a goal of getting to Silver within the next month, and I feel like most of that is just going to revolve around breaking my own bad habits.
Everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
Well, I’m currently hovering right around the Bronze / Super Bronze border. I’ve been bouncing back and forth for a couple of days. I’ve gotten decent at dealing with the Shotos, and most of the others I see a lot of (Ed, Alex, Sakura, Akira, Rashid, Zangief, Balrog, Guile), but Bison, Abigail, Honda, and the occasional insanely good Juri still fuck me up mercilessly. Oh, and a Urien on a 16 match win streak quadruple-Perfect’d me and I still don’t even know what happened there.
Honestly, the hardest part is just not getting frustrated. I’ve made it a point to always accept rematches even when someone absolutely trounces me, and trying to view them as chances to learn, which has helped when I hit the sweet spot of getting beat by someone who isn’t so much better than me that I have no time to pay attention.
Trying to set a goal of getting to Silver within the next month, and I feel like most of that is just going to revolve around breaking my own bad habits.
considering how fresh you are to the game the fact that you're even thinking about silver is not bad. at least you're in the right place (ranked), and not casuals, which is a major trap. just take the rematches and learn
Any general advice or combo suggestions for a Ken who needs shit explained to him like he’s a baby?
get comfortable converting Ken's crush counters into combo damage. st.HK and st.HP crush counters in particular.... being able to confirm the counterhit into damage is probably Objective 1 with learning Ken
+1
WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
Block wake up EX shoryus -> Do crush counter combos
Any general advice or combo suggestions for a Ken who needs shit explained to him like he’s a baby?
get comfortable converting Ken's crush counters into combo damage. st.HK and st.HP crush counters in particular.... being able to confirm the counterhit into damage is probably Objective 1 with learning Ken
Any advice on converting those? I’ve gotten alright at landing both of them at the right times, but I almost always fail to link that to any kind of combo. Maybe a fireball, but that’s about the extent of what I’ve managed. I also saw one seemingly great video that suggested linking back st.MP>back st.HP into specials for a solid beginner combo but was never able to make that work with anything I tried.
Everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
0
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
Block wake up EX shoryus -> Do crush counter combos
Learning to be less predictable was such a wild eye opener once I started seeing people who used the exact same moves in the exact same situations long after you’ve caught on and started punishing them for it. I definitely used to be a casual flowchart Ken.
Everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
Any general advice or combo suggestions for a Ken who needs shit explained to him like he’s a baby?
get comfortable converting Ken's crush counters into combo damage. st.HK and st.HP crush counters in particular.... being able to confirm the counterhit into damage is probably Objective 1 with learning Ken
Any advice on converting those? I’ve gotten alright at landing both of them at the right times, but I almost always fail to link that to any kind of combo. Maybe a fireball, but that’s about the extent of what I’ve managed. I also saw one seemingly great video that suggested linking back st.MP>back st.HP into specials for a solid beginner combo but was never able to make that work with anything I tried.
st.HP is your shimmy/punish button... your optimal conversion is to cancel into v-skill, which closes the gap and allows you to do a point blank combo to finish it off.
v-skill 1 works for this. im not sure if v-skill 2 does but i imagine it must. if you start by only doing it to punish DPs then that will get you used to the combo at least.
the trick with st.HP is that if its only a regular hit or a block, then v-skill is either not a combo or in fact risky.. so you need to either confirm it or only do it in situations when you know it will be a counter (such as a DP punish)
back MP/HP is your target combo...its pretty good for a few reasons. the most practical/easy way to get it in a match is off of a jump in... jump in hit, cr.MP, b.MP xx HP xx Heavy Tatsu thats like the basic meterless combo for Ken
there are other ways to get to it but thats the easiest to practice and execute
Any general advice or combo suggestions for a Ken who needs shit explained to him like he’s a baby?
get comfortable converting Ken's crush counters into combo damage. st.HK and st.HP crush counters in particular.... being able to confirm the counterhit into damage is probably Objective 1 with learning Ken
Any advice on converting those? I’ve gotten alright at landing both of them at the right times, but I almost always fail to link that to any kind of combo. Maybe a fireball, but that’s about the extent of what I’ve managed. I also saw one seemingly great video that suggested linking back st.MP>back st.HP into specials for a solid beginner combo but was never able to make that work with anything I tried.
st.HP is your shimmy/punish button... your optimal conversion is to cancel into v-skill, which closes the gap and allows you to do a point blank combo to finish it off.
v-skill 1 works for this. im not sure if v-skill 2 does but i imagine it must. if you start by only doing it to punish DPs then that will get you used to the combo at least.
the trick with st.HP is that if its only a regular hit or a block, then v-skill is either not a combo or in fact risky.. so you need to either confirm it or only do it in situations when you know it will be a counter (such as a DP punish)
back MP/HP is your target combo...its pretty good for a few reasons. the most practical/easy way to get it in a match is off of a jump in... jump in hit, cr.MP, b.MP xx HP xx Heavy Tatsu thats like the basic meterless combo for Ken
there are other ways to get to it but thats the easiest to practice and execute
My advice is just block don't jump and literally walk up to people and throw em don't care if your a charge character walk towards em, no dash just walk you'll learn a lot about pokes and just how flow charty some ranked people are
0
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
Any general advice or combo suggestions for a Ken who needs shit explained to him like he’s a baby?
get comfortable converting Ken's crush counters into combo damage. st.HK and st.HP crush counters in particular.... being able to confirm the counterhit into damage is probably Objective 1 with learning Ken
Any advice on converting those? I’ve gotten alright at landing both of them at the right times, but I almost always fail to link that to any kind of combo. Maybe a fireball, but that’s about the extent of what I’ve managed. I also saw one seemingly great video that suggested linking back st.MP>back st.HP into specials for a solid beginner combo but was never able to make that work with anything I tried.
st.HP is your shimmy/punish button... your optimal conversion is to cancel into v-skill, which closes the gap and allows you to do a point blank combo to finish it off.
v-skill 1 works for this. im not sure if v-skill 2 does but i imagine it must. if you start by only doing it to punish DPs then that will get you used to the combo at least.
the trick with st.HP is that if its only a regular hit or a block, then v-skill is either not a combo or in fact risky.. so you need to either confirm it or only do it in situations when you know it will be a counter (such as a DP punish)
back MP/HP is your target combo...its pretty good for a few reasons. the most practical/easy way to get it in a match is off of a jump in... jump in hit, cr.MP, b.MP xx HP xx Heavy Tatsu thats like the basic meterless combo for Ken
there are other ways to get to it but thats the easiest to practice and execute
Oh shit, I never thought of that one! I just tried it in training and it was fantastic. st.HP, cancel into v-skill 2, into V-trigger. That's a combo my old man fingers can manage reliably and it hits pretty hard.
The only thing I'm having trouble with is that I just cannot manage to cancel into heavy Tatsu reliably after the b.MP>HP combo. I'm only hitting it like one time out of 20 at the moment, so I guess I need waaaay more time in Training running through that one.
Thanks for the pointers!
Everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
0
Euphemonitsudemo sagashiteiruyodokka ni kimi no sugata woRegistered Userregular
Any general advice or combo suggestions for a Ken who needs shit explained to him like he’s a baby?
get comfortable converting Ken's crush counters into combo damage. st.HK and st.HP crush counters in particular.... being able to confirm the counterhit into damage is probably Objective 1 with learning Ken
Any advice on converting those? I’ve gotten alright at landing both of them at the right times, but I almost always fail to link that to any kind of combo. Maybe a fireball, but that’s about the extent of what I’ve managed. I also saw one seemingly great video that suggested linking back st.MP>back st.HP into specials for a solid beginner combo but was never able to make that work with anything I tried.
st.HP is your shimmy/punish button... your optimal conversion is to cancel into v-skill, which closes the gap and allows you to do a point blank combo to finish it off.
v-skill 1 works for this. im not sure if v-skill 2 does but i imagine it must. if you start by only doing it to punish DPs then that will get you used to the combo at least.
the trick with st.HP is that if its only a regular hit or a block, then v-skill is either not a combo or in fact risky.. so you need to either confirm it or only do it in situations when you know it will be a counter (such as a DP punish)
back MP/HP is your target combo...its pretty good for a few reasons. the most practical/easy way to get it in a match is off of a jump in... jump in hit, cr.MP, b.MP xx HP xx Heavy Tatsu thats like the basic meterless combo for Ken
there are other ways to get to it but thats the easiest to practice and execute
st+HP on regular hits lets you link LK tatsu, hp dp. So you're reacting when you press vskill1 on whether it's CC or not, if it's CC, b+mp xx hp xx hk tatsu. If it's regular hit, lk tatsu, hp dp.
st+HK is the one that you should only cancel into VS1 on CC. You're -2 if you cancel st+HK on regular hit, on cc you can do mk tatsu, ex dp (if you have 1 bar), if not, hp dp.
Your basic grounded combo is b+mp xx hp xx hk tatsu. You can link into it from either st+lp or cr+mp, but both of those require you to be very close. If you have bar, use st+hp/cr+hp MK tatsu juggle ex dp instead (you can also do mk tatsu from b+mp xx hp if you did that by accident). If you have 3 bars, do super after mk tatsu.
GENERALLY SPEAKING, you want to use your bars on better damage combos, not super.
Your basic gameplan should be:
poking with st+mk (hitconfirm into hk xx hk tatsu)
poking with cr+mk xx fireball
poking with st+mp xx hk tatsu (doesn't work at MAX range, but generally works).
fish for a CC, st+hk works better than st+hp but it's more risky (minus on block and you have to CC confirm instead of hit confirm). On hit, don't cancel into vs1 unless you want to do something "dumb" (it is useful to do fake, dumb things sometimes to throw off your opponent) like st+hk vs1 throw. On CC you get mk tatsu ex dp (1 bar) or hp dp (0 bars).
counterpoke with st+lk, you can just buffer lk tatsu behind it (input st+lk xx lk tatsu ASAP, it won't come out on whiff, and you press it outside of st+lk range so if they walk into it or hit a button, they get hit. If they block it, that's super bad, so make sure you use it OUTSIDE of st+lk range).
st+hp can work as a counterpoke and is highly rewarding but it's pretty unreliable. It has the benefit of also being a CC fish tool so it's easier to hit confirm, you can just counterhit confirm during the run animation whether they got hit or CC.
if they're antiairing you too much, you can do air ex tatsu to throw off their timing and beat their antiairs. It's minus on block unless you hit SUPER low to the ground. On hit, you do (whiff) b+mp xx hp (hit) xx hk tatsu.
antiair with either mp dp, or cr+hp xx vs1. mp dp is invincible to air attacks, but it has a very horizontal hitbox so it whiffs if you do it at the wrong timing/spacing. cr+hp xx vs1 is really good but it's a normal so you need to have the spacing+timing down. The run puts you an in ambiguous left/right with huge frame advantage as they recover in the air. You can then run any of the following mixups (except shimmy, if they throw mash on recovery you can't get out of the way fast enough. instead you can do neutral jump, falling j+hp into whatever. this is a pretty risky option at high levels but outside of that people won't antiair you so it's fine). VERY IMPORTANT. ANTIAIRS ALONE CAN CARRY YOU TO SILVER AND LIKELY PAST.
Once you get the knockdown, your mixup is either:
fake overhead (tap f+hk) then cr+lk, st+lp xx hp dp
real overhead (hold f+hk) then lk tatsu, hp dp. LK TATSU ONLY LINKS ON CROUCHERS, but usually if they get hit they're crouching anyway.
throw
shimmy (walk up or fake overhead, then walk backwards. this beats throw tech and reversals) then press st+hp and hitconfirm into vskill (if they used a reversal, it's a punish with cc st+hp xx vs1, lk tatsu, hp dp, if they didn't, you might CC a button/hit their throw whiff) which leads into st+hp xx vs1, lk tatsu, hp dp.
meaty cr+mp (press a cr+mp so that it hits RIGHT as they wake up. then you can either do frametrap/hitconfirm with b+mp xx hp xx hk tatsu, or throw, or shimmy.
Then you rinse/repeat. So every knockdown is a 5-way mixup for them and it's highly in your favour. Looping knockdown mixups (okizeme or oki) is what wins you games.
Ken's VTC (vtrigger cancel) is super important. Ken is a super momentum based character, any successful mixup into combo into knockdown is potentially instantly round winning, so using your VTC as a "free" hitconfirm and pressure tool to get upclose with frame advantage is HUGE. Each VTC is potentially round-deciding. For all of these, on block you do throw/shimmy with st+hp/frametrap with cr+mp, then throw/shimmy/frametrap with b+mp hitconfirm hp xx hk tatsu.
VS1 (hold) xx VTC is really strong. People expect you to just run in and try to poke you out/counterhit your button after. Holding the vs1 to get the hit can counterhit a lot of people. On hit you get HK tatsu into knockdown into mixups.
Cr+mp xx VTC is really good too. You usually do it from a cr+mp, cr+mp xx vtc kind of situation. You basically add 1 (or 2) more frametraps onto your existing two frametrap/hitconfirms. Normally if you tried to do cr+mp, cr+mp, you can't really convert off the second cr+mp. Using VTC, you can, and if they blocked it, you get another try. On hit, you do cr+mp, b+mp xx hp xx hk tatsu.
cr+mk xx fireball xx VTC. Hits low with decent range, but fireball doesn't always combo. On hit you do b+mp xx hp xx tatsu.
st+mp xx fireball xx VTC. Same thing as cr+mk, but with better range and hit/hurtboxes and combos better, but doesn't hit low.
st+hk xx VTC. Lets you convert off of a regular hit st+hk with b+mp xx hp xx hk tatsu, on CC you do (whiffed) b+mp xx hp (hit) xx hk tatsu, (juggle ex dp if you have bar, you have to hit the target combo asap).
There's room for an INSANE amount of damage optimization depending on your bars, your VTC timing, whether they're standing/crouching, how close they are to the corner, etc. You can look for/solve that stuff for yourself eventually.
This is just a really really basic guide to playing a basic ass, normal ass, season 1 era Ken. It's more than good enough to get you into gold, and after that you have a basic idea of the game and your gameplan and you can start branching off from there.
one thing about pot is that sure maybe he's not top tier but at least he does the correct amount of damage for a character of his make in that wild ass game
if you get pot bustered you deserve to take 50%
honestly HPB should be a 95% damage attack but Arcsys has stopped answering my mail
+2
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
edited August 2022
@Euphemon i’m gonna be honest with you, I only understood about half of that, but I read it all and am diligently googling things that don’t make sense to me and I’m working on practicing the stuff that did make sense. So thank you for taking the time to write up such an in depth rundown. Really appreciate it.
minor incident on
Everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
0
WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
I played Laura, so we might not have the exact same buttons/combo punishes, but hanging in Silver taught me to - 1) stop jumping in all the damn time, 2) find a one-button anti-air and get good at using it instinctively if I can't do special anti-air at will, 3) stop pressing buttons when I realize that jank is getting thrown at my face, then research the weak spots of that jank (either the move can be dodged/interrupted at start/blocked and punished) after the match, and 4) learn my buttons (which ones are punishable, which ones are good for pokes, which ones I can hit-confirm, etc).
ranks in sfv ladder have gotten really funky over time but people will straight up murder themselves into you comfortably into platinum
what changes as you go up the ranks is how frequently they murder themselves and to what extent
but fundamentally if you can anti-air and identify your punish windows you can just block and anti-air your way pretty much to diamond honestly, if you're willing to grind out that many matches
your punish game just has to take time to evolve. when you start, your probably only going to be punishing the most grievous offenses... blocked DPs and such... but eventually you'll develop 6 frame punishes... 5... 4... down to 3.... and then you'll learn how to deal with -2... and you can take that all the way to the top pretty much
but then you have to map that to all 40+ character opponents, and then develop patience to allow opportunities to present themselves against higher level opponents whose death wish isn't quite as strong
but along the way you'll develop your own offense and become a rounded player in the process. but it starts with just making the most of the gifts your opponent gives you. if you're not doing that then you're giving away the game
one thing about pot is that sure maybe he's not top tier but at least he does the correct amount of damage for a character of his make in that wild ass game
if you get pot bustered you deserve to take 50%
honestly HPB should be a 95% damage attack but Arcsys has stopped answering my mail
@Euphemon i’m gonna be honest with you, I only understood about half of that, but I read it all and am diligently googling things that don’t make sense to me and I’m working on practicing the stuff that did make sense. So thank you for taking the time to write up such an in depth rundown. Really appreciate it.
If you have anything you can't figure out let me know. This link can also be helpful for you: https://glossary.infil.net/
Fighting games can be really deep and technical, there's always more to learn. After you get a vague handle of that stuff, there's also your own defensive options to think about, that should be your next step.
The important parts of that post are knowing your pokes and how to confirm off of them (SUPER IMPORTANT, ALMOST EVERY POKE YOU THROW YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING TO TURN INTO A COMBO), and knowing how to run your offensive mixups. Ken without offense is a nothing character.
Also antiairs as everyone said, but that's pretty straight forward, MP dp or cr+hp xx vs1, that's just something you need to consistently look out for.
Posts
i would imagine it lets him catch and punish backdashes hard (and potentially other things), and otherwise put the opponent into a scary strike/throw mixup
It's also really low risk in most cases.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'm bad at fighting games but I endeavor to get better. Who's fun and beginner friendly in Tekken 7? Is Tekken 7 even a good place to hop in now?
SniperGuyGaming on PSN / SniperGuy710 on Xbone Live
Compared to other games you'll want to get a feel for how certain moves track and follow opponents if they try to side-step or backdash to create space, timing on low paries (especially if they try and do sweeps as wake-up attacks), and finding safe launchers and short effective juggles to punish with.
Eddy and Steve are typically thrown out as Tekken for Dummies characters, as they don't have super complicated strings and very friendly/easy combos to pull out your ass and get a flow going. That said, I'd recommend Steve over Eddy as his mix-up potential is better and a lot of moves have built in bob-and-weave motions that can get you out of harms way and has less easily punishable string finishes.
Other characters to consider in the early going would be Paul and Brian. They both hit like trucks without a lot of joystick voodoo a la Akira in VF, not super punishable if you wiff, and good risk/reward ratio on their juggles.
Intermediate I'd say look at Hwoarang or Lee. Both are great at high-low mixups with a lot of sidestep moves, big damage juggles that are easy to hit consistently and are both smooth mfers in cutscenes.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
She has good movement, a lot of her buttons are relatively safe, and she has excellent pokes so she's a great character for learning spacing and controlling the terms of engagement, though you dont get huge combos at the wall like with some other beginner friendly guys
Also she takes off her head, gives it to her opponent and detonates it
Play who ever you want a god damn Panda won a Tekken World Tournament
That being said, in general I'm a big fan of the "pick whoever you think looks/feels fun" versus "here are the best characters for new players" philosophy, mostly because fighting games (especially tekken) are already complicated enough that I think learning them with a character you actually enjoy playing is the most important thing.
Gonna echo ph blake here though: pick a character that you think looks cool. You're much more likely to spend the effort and get over obstacles that pop up if you have an attachment to the character.
Because for the first half of the game you'll just be hitting people with your jank and getting hit by their jank.
It's only when you're an upper intermediate player that it becomes hard cause then you actually have to figure out how to play.
Honestly, the hardest part is just not getting frustrated. I’ve made it a point to always accept rematches even when someone absolutely trounces me, and trying to view them as chances to learn, which has helped when I hit the sweet spot of getting beat by someone who isn’t so much better than me that I have no time to pay attention.
Trying to set a goal of getting to Silver within the next month, and I feel like most of that is just going to revolve around breaking my own bad habits.
My like two favourite things smashed together clone install and aura souls
I guess most v triggers are but in a boring way I dunno I'm a moron but clone installs always rule imo
considering how fresh you are to the game the fact that you're even thinking about silver is not bad. at least you're in the right place (ranked), and not casuals, which is a major trap. just take the rematches and learn
get comfortable converting Ken's crush counters into combo damage. st.HK and st.HP crush counters in particular.... being able to confirm the counterhit into damage is probably Objective 1 with learning Ken
Any advice on converting those? I’ve gotten alright at landing both of them at the right times, but I almost always fail to link that to any kind of combo. Maybe a fireball, but that’s about the extent of what I’ve managed. I also saw one seemingly great video that suggested linking back st.MP>back st.HP into specials for a solid beginner combo but was never able to make that work with anything I tried.
Learning to be less predictable was such a wild eye opener once I started seeing people who used the exact same moves in the exact same situations long after you’ve caught on and started punishing them for it. I definitely used to be a casual flowchart Ken.
st.HP is your shimmy/punish button... your optimal conversion is to cancel into v-skill, which closes the gap and allows you to do a point blank combo to finish it off.
v-skill 1 works for this. im not sure if v-skill 2 does but i imagine it must. if you start by only doing it to punish DPs then that will get you used to the combo at least.
the trick with st.HP is that if its only a regular hit or a block, then v-skill is either not a combo or in fact risky.. so you need to either confirm it or only do it in situations when you know it will be a counter (such as a DP punish)
back MP/HP is your target combo...its pretty good for a few reasons. the most practical/easy way to get it in a match is off of a jump in... jump in hit, cr.MP, b.MP xx HP xx Heavy Tatsu thats like the basic meterless combo for Ken
there are other ways to get to it but thats the easiest to practice and execute
My advice is just block don't jump and literally walk up to people and throw em don't care if your a charge character walk towards em, no dash just walk you'll learn a lot about pokes and just how flow charty some ranked people are
Oh shit, I never thought of that one! I just tried it in training and it was fantastic. st.HP, cancel into v-skill 2, into V-trigger. That's a combo my old man fingers can manage reliably and it hits pretty hard.
The only thing I'm having trouble with is that I just cannot manage to cancel into heavy Tatsu reliably after the b.MP>HP combo. I'm only hitting it like one time out of 20 at the moment, so I guess I need waaaay more time in Training running through that one.
Thanks for the pointers!
st+HP on regular hits lets you link LK tatsu, hp dp. So you're reacting when you press vskill1 on whether it's CC or not, if it's CC, b+mp xx hp xx hk tatsu. If it's regular hit, lk tatsu, hp dp.
st+HK is the one that you should only cancel into VS1 on CC. You're -2 if you cancel st+HK on regular hit, on cc you can do mk tatsu, ex dp (if you have 1 bar), if not, hp dp.
Your basic grounded combo is b+mp xx hp xx hk tatsu. You can link into it from either st+lp or cr+mp, but both of those require you to be very close. If you have bar, use st+hp/cr+hp MK tatsu juggle ex dp instead (you can also do mk tatsu from b+mp xx hp if you did that by accident). If you have 3 bars, do super after mk tatsu.
GENERALLY SPEAKING, you want to use your bars on better damage combos, not super.
Your basic gameplan should be:
poking with st+mk (hitconfirm into hk xx hk tatsu)
poking with cr+mk xx fireball
poking with st+mp xx hk tatsu (doesn't work at MAX range, but generally works).
fish for a CC, st+hk works better than st+hp but it's more risky (minus on block and you have to CC confirm instead of hit confirm). On hit, don't cancel into vs1 unless you want to do something "dumb" (it is useful to do fake, dumb things sometimes to throw off your opponent) like st+hk vs1 throw. On CC you get mk tatsu ex dp (1 bar) or hp dp (0 bars).
counterpoke with st+lk, you can just buffer lk tatsu behind it (input st+lk xx lk tatsu ASAP, it won't come out on whiff, and you press it outside of st+lk range so if they walk into it or hit a button, they get hit. If they block it, that's super bad, so make sure you use it OUTSIDE of st+lk range).
st+hp can work as a counterpoke and is highly rewarding but it's pretty unreliable. It has the benefit of also being a CC fish tool so it's easier to hit confirm, you can just counterhit confirm during the run animation whether they got hit or CC.
if they're antiairing you too much, you can do air ex tatsu to throw off their timing and beat their antiairs. It's minus on block unless you hit SUPER low to the ground. On hit, you do (whiff) b+mp xx hp (hit) xx hk tatsu.
antiair with either mp dp, or cr+hp xx vs1. mp dp is invincible to air attacks, but it has a very horizontal hitbox so it whiffs if you do it at the wrong timing/spacing. cr+hp xx vs1 is really good but it's a normal so you need to have the spacing+timing down. The run puts you an in ambiguous left/right with huge frame advantage as they recover in the air. You can then run any of the following mixups (except shimmy, if they throw mash on recovery you can't get out of the way fast enough. instead you can do neutral jump, falling j+hp into whatever. this is a pretty risky option at high levels but outside of that people won't antiair you so it's fine). VERY IMPORTANT. ANTIAIRS ALONE CAN CARRY YOU TO SILVER AND LIKELY PAST.
Once you get the knockdown, your mixup is either:
fake overhead (tap f+hk) then cr+lk, st+lp xx hp dp
real overhead (hold f+hk) then lk tatsu, hp dp. LK TATSU ONLY LINKS ON CROUCHERS, but usually if they get hit they're crouching anyway.
throw
shimmy (walk up or fake overhead, then walk backwards. this beats throw tech and reversals) then press st+hp and hitconfirm into vskill (if they used a reversal, it's a punish with cc st+hp xx vs1, lk tatsu, hp dp, if they didn't, you might CC a button/hit their throw whiff) which leads into st+hp xx vs1, lk tatsu, hp dp.
meaty cr+mp (press a cr+mp so that it hits RIGHT as they wake up. then you can either do frametrap/hitconfirm with b+mp xx hp xx hk tatsu, or throw, or shimmy.
Then you rinse/repeat. So every knockdown is a 5-way mixup for them and it's highly in your favour. Looping knockdown mixups (okizeme or oki) is what wins you games.
Ken's VTC (vtrigger cancel) is super important. Ken is a super momentum based character, any successful mixup into combo into knockdown is potentially instantly round winning, so using your VTC as a "free" hitconfirm and pressure tool to get upclose with frame advantage is HUGE. Each VTC is potentially round-deciding. For all of these, on block you do throw/shimmy with st+hp/frametrap with cr+mp, then throw/shimmy/frametrap with b+mp hitconfirm hp xx hk tatsu.
VS1 (hold) xx VTC is really strong. People expect you to just run in and try to poke you out/counterhit your button after. Holding the vs1 to get the hit can counterhit a lot of people. On hit you get HK tatsu into knockdown into mixups.
Cr+mp xx VTC is really good too. You usually do it from a cr+mp, cr+mp xx vtc kind of situation. You basically add 1 (or 2) more frametraps onto your existing two frametrap/hitconfirms. Normally if you tried to do cr+mp, cr+mp, you can't really convert off the second cr+mp. Using VTC, you can, and if they blocked it, you get another try. On hit, you do cr+mp, b+mp xx hp xx hk tatsu.
cr+mk xx fireball xx VTC. Hits low with decent range, but fireball doesn't always combo. On hit you do b+mp xx hp xx tatsu.
st+mp xx fireball xx VTC. Same thing as cr+mk, but with better range and hit/hurtboxes and combos better, but doesn't hit low.
st+hk xx VTC. Lets you convert off of a regular hit st+hk with b+mp xx hp xx hk tatsu, on CC you do (whiffed) b+mp xx hp (hit) xx hk tatsu, (juggle ex dp if you have bar, you have to hit the target combo asap).
There's room for an INSANE amount of damage optimization depending on your bars, your VTC timing, whether they're standing/crouching, how close they are to the corner, etc. You can look for/solve that stuff for yourself eventually.
This is just a really really basic guide to playing a basic ass, normal ass, season 1 era Ken. It's more than good enough to get you into gold, and after that you have a basic idea of the game and your gameplan and you can start branching off from there.
Don't jump against a Potemkin with meter. It doesn't matter how much life you have left, it's not enough.
if you get pot bustered you deserve to take 50%
honestly HPB should be a 95% damage attack but Arcsys has stopped answering my mail
what changes as you go up the ranks is how frequently they murder themselves and to what extent
but fundamentally if you can anti-air and identify your punish windows you can just block and anti-air your way pretty much to diamond honestly, if you're willing to grind out that many matches
your punish game just has to take time to evolve. when you start, your probably only going to be punishing the most grievous offenses... blocked DPs and such... but eventually you'll develop 6 frame punishes... 5... 4... down to 3.... and then you'll learn how to deal with -2... and you can take that all the way to the top pretty much
but then you have to map that to all 40+ character opponents, and then develop patience to allow opportunities to present themselves against higher level opponents whose death wish isn't quite as strong
but along the way you'll develop your own offense and become a rounded player in the process. but it starts with just making the most of the gifts your opponent gives you. if you're not doing that then you're giving away the game
Enjoy my pain.
If you have anything you can't figure out let me know. This link can also be helpful for you: https://glossary.infil.net/
Fighting games can be really deep and technical, there's always more to learn. After you get a vague handle of that stuff, there's also your own defensive options to think about, that should be your next step.
The important parts of that post are knowing your pokes and how to confirm off of them (SUPER IMPORTANT, ALMOST EVERY POKE YOU THROW YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING TO TURN INTO A COMBO), and knowing how to run your offensive mixups. Ken without offense is a nothing character.
Also antiairs as everyone said, but that's pretty straight forward, MP dp or cr+hp xx vs1, that's just something you need to consistently look out for.
its my fault for attempting to do anything against May other than unplug my controller and wait to die
I played vanilla blazblue with a guitar hero 3 guitar once and tilting it performed tager's command grab
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