Don't get me wrong, A3 is definitely crazier and flashier and funner than A2, but it has some hilariously broken bullshit. A2 is just a wildly solid game all around.
I think the most fascinating thing about MvC2 is that the small handful of top tier characters are well balanced against each other, but also serve as the only things that keep the Really Fucking Bonkers Broken shit in check. Like, goddamn Blackheart breaks that entire game completely apart and is totally, insanely broken. But, the top tiers destroy him, so he can't really be played seriously. The stale, stable top-tier meta is the only thing stopping the entire game from devolving into gibbering madness.
The rogue gatekeeper, content to make sure the game is unplayable for weird teams while resigned to eternally be checked by MSS and Cable. Why can't you play Amingo or Guile in Marvel? Blackbeard is why. Godspeed, you black emperor.
The rogue gatekeeper, content to make sure the game is unplayable for weird teams while resigned to eternally be checked by MSS and Cable. Why can't you play Amingo or Guile in Marvel? Blackbeard is why. Godspeed, you black emperor.
It's just like the banlist for a trading card game.
i need to pick a main in SFV sometime this month and I'm still pretty stumped
though Ed is buffed, they made a change to him that has corrupted my muscle memory. I played Ed mostly as a matter of convenience, he happened to fit my style and happened to not require much practice at all, and I never really "loved" him per se.
Therefore it's not much worth it to me to bother remapping that memory just to keep playing a character I don't love
I've been doing some Kolin and while she's good and I've got some pieces put together, I don't know if she's 100% my style and I'm finding her very hard to play online (1-hit confirms, precise anti-air selection)
A lot of the characters I think suit my style happen to be charge characters, but I don't think I'm ready to make that leap yet. For example I think Balrog fits but its TOO MUCH to learn at once... to learn an entirely new control scheme in addition to a whole new menu of setups and tech
the only thing I'm certain of at this point is I don't think I can live on CFN without a consistent fuck-off anti-air option on at least some ranges. Upkick was the cornerstone of my Ed, and if I don't have something like that I can't play online
The rogue gatekeeper, content to make sure the game is unplayable for weird teams while resigned to eternally be checked by MSS and Cable. Why can't you play Amingo or Guile in Marvel? Blackbeard is why. Godspeed, you black emperor.
in my defense he was considered really good when the game was new iirc and I just refused to learn anything else
There's still that one person out there that will assure you that Anakaris and Dhalsim are top tier in MvC2 but nobody has ever reached their full potential.
Maybe today that person will be me, maybe tomorrow that person will be you.
There's still that one person out there that will assure you that Anakaris and Dhalsim are top tier in MvC2 but nobody has ever reached their full potential.
Maybe today that person will be me, maybe tomorrow that person will be you.
Friends don't let friends get into MvC2.
I played once in college and I'm certain that my Sakura/Ken/Tron team is secretly top tier.
i need to pick a main in SFV sometime this month and I'm still pretty stumped
though Ed is buffed, they made a change to him that has corrupted my muscle memory. I played Ed mostly as a matter of convenience, he happened to fit my style and happened to not require much practice at all, and I never really "loved" him per se.
Therefore it's not much worth it to me to bother remapping that memory just to keep playing a character I don't love
I've been doing some Kolin and while she's good and I've got some pieces put together, I don't know if she's 100% my style and I'm finding her very hard to play online (1-hit confirms, precise anti-air selection)
A lot of the characters I think suit my style happen to be charge characters, but I don't think I'm ready to make that leap yet. For example I think Balrog fits but its TOO MUCH to learn at once... to learn an entirely new control scheme in addition to a whole new menu of setups and tech
the only thing I'm certain of at this point is I don't think I can live on CFN without a consistent fuck-off anti-air option on at least some ranges. Upkick was the cornerstone of my Ed, and if I don't have something like that I can't play online
I think it's important to understand what are the elements of your playstyle that you liked in Ed in order to identify other candidate characters.
If 1-hit confirms isn't your bag and you want consistent AA options, and you don't want a charge character, and you want a character that has some strong horizontal movement options, you can always consider Cammy.
If you'd prefer a character that has stronger zoning options at around midscreen range, has hold-the-button-to-charge options, and the fast dash isn't the key thing for you, you could consider Birdie.
If what you really liked about Ed was the fact that he punched people a lot, and you want to punch people a lot, you definitely want Guile with VT1.
i need to pick a main in SFV sometime this month and I'm still pretty stumped
though Ed is buffed, they made a change to him that has corrupted my muscle memory. I played Ed mostly as a matter of convenience, he happened to fit my style and happened to not require much practice at all, and I never really "loved" him per se.
Therefore it's not much worth it to me to bother remapping that memory just to keep playing a character I don't love
I've been doing some Kolin and while she's good and I've got some pieces put together, I don't know if she's 100% my style and I'm finding her very hard to play online (1-hit confirms, precise anti-air selection)
A lot of the characters I think suit my style happen to be charge characters, but I don't think I'm ready to make that leap yet. For example I think Balrog fits but its TOO MUCH to learn at once... to learn an entirely new control scheme in addition to a whole new menu of setups and tech
the only thing I'm certain of at this point is I don't think I can live on CFN without a consistent fuck-off anti-air option on at least some ranges. Upkick was the cornerstone of my Ed, and if I don't have something like that I can't play online
I, too, would like to finally settle on a main after some time away from the game.
I'm very terrible (not an understatement) at SFVall fighting games and yet for some reason I really want to play FANG or Dhalsim. What the hell is wrong with me?
I'm very terrible (not an understatement) at SFVall fighting games and yet for some reason I really want to play FANG or Dhalsim. What the hell is wrong with me?
Play people that are better than you and ideally able to tell you what areas to focus on.
Yeah, despite their complexity they are very fun characters. I just need a lot of fundamentals work and maybe (maybe not?) these two aren't the best to do it on.
there are definitely flavors of dhalsim in SFV that have nothing to do with street fighter, but can only carry you so far online until you meet people who will shut you down
I would say that with FANG you generally need to know what you're doing to succeed at almost any level. He has cheapness about him, but it's less built-in and more earned, and his ability to zone is much more rigid and demanding than Dhalsim
I don't think I would accuse anyone trying hard with FANG that they were omitting fundamentals, but go ahead and try and prove me wrong :P
The only fundamental flaw that you can get away with as FANG is hucking fireballs nonstop and other players running into them stupidly because they are too stubborn to try to NOT jump at you, which results in you learning to huck fireballs nonstop and expecting them to hit all the time. That and maybe
Dhalsim teleportation is such a powerful but also such a key tool that it's entirely possible to fraud out win after win by just constantly teleporting against players that can't figure out how to counter it. Even at higher levels of play, the teleport is still a vital move, but it isn't the FREE WINSSSSS move that it can be at lower levels of play.
Dhalsim's teleport as a reversal wakeup can't be hit, but it can be grabbed before frame 5. Was it that way in SF4 too?
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Euphemonitsudemo sagashiteiruyodokka ni kimi no sugata woRegistered Userregular
edited January 2019
IIRC SF4 sim had fully invincible teleport but had huge recovery grounded, so everyone did IAT. As a reversal option it was pretty bad because literally everyone OS'd against it (lol sf4) or just punished its recovery (since you had to do the grounded version, IAT would get hit during prejump)
I remember hearing something back in the SF4 days, not sure if it was accurate or not, about how if Zangief knocked down Dhalsim in the corner, every single option Dhalsim has on wakeup either loses to SPD or loses to lariat. If he could possibly teleport out of either, I'm not sure if I saw it happen.
@Knob there were some thoughts I had in my head after reaching the glorified heights of yellow rank in Tekken 7 with Josie that I wrote down, from the perspective of somebody who still doesn't really use many of the game mechanics at all... because I'm still not very good at the game. I'm curious what your thoughts are on my thoughts!
Maybe I'll post it to r/Tekken and see what the people there think, too.
HELLA TEXT in the spoiler
The Idiot's Guide to Defeating Josie
(A)-losing because of lack of character knowledge
(B)-losing because of misguided thinking
The two are not the same, though they are often related.
Josie is a character that can be played idiotically and that can be defeated idiotically. Actually, one of the things that often bugs me is that I have to stop myself from using some of the things she has because they work way, way more often than they should, and often as a case of (A). For instance, somebody who is not familiar with her Switch Stance (SWS) will try a variety of buttons to defeat it, but there are only a handful of things in the whole game which will, and so in the entire time that they are trying to figure it out, they eat a combo each time. This results in me getting outsized rewards for doing brainless things while my opponent is methodically doing something that isn't brainless (i.e. trying to find an answer). Some players are wise to the SWS and know not to challenge it with buttons when they block the hit that transitions into SWS, but they still lose because they focus on things which give them small rewards for large risk, while leaving open options that give me big rewards. This represents a mis-application of their knowledge, often as a result of a miscalculation on their part. The more stubbornly they continue to press on in that path rather than re-assessing and changing what they're doing, the more I get easy wins. Since my goal was to climb out of the green ranks, I'm mostly happy to take those wins.... mostly.
So here are key points I've found to playing Josie like an idiot, and defeating Josie by being an idiot.
JOSIE KNOWLEDGE PART 1
- blocked attack -> SWS
Three of her SWS moves are full combo starters on CH, and NONE of those moves are combo starters when they are not CH.
Literally every blocked attack that Josie has that goes into SWS puts her into SWS at a whopping +11 according to rbnorway frame data. Her fastest SWS move that is a combo starter on CH is 14F.
This means that unless you have a move that is 3F startup or high crushes by frame 3, you cannot challenge her with a button when she does "blocked move -> SWS 1".
FYI, most d+1 jabs don't high crush until frame 4. So if you duck jab, you will still get CH and combo'd. Stop pressing buttons.
Some of the i3 moves in the game that have the possiblity of challenging this are Asuka's counter and Geese's counter(s)... but for the most part, very very few characters can push a button and get a good outcome.
SO STOP PRESSING BUTTONS
- multiple ways into crouch dash, multiple things from crouch dash
Josie has a crouch dash (CD), but the only way for her to end the CD early is by doing a move. The fastest move she has from CD is CD1, which has 9F startup given the CD. The move that is going to hit you the most is CD3, which is the low kick and that has 20F startup given the CD. CD 1+2 low crushes and gives her advantage on block and is a CH combo starter! Her mid-hitting Rage Drive also comes from CD, and it low crushes, starts combos without CH, and is advantage on block. Scary stuff, but she can only do that move once per round.
She has multiple ways to go into the CD which make the CD more dangerous to challenge, and these are:
3, 2~f
d/f+3, 2~f
SWS, f
b,1,2,4~f
Also, none of her moves from CD are homing.
- none of her lows are combo starters or knockdowns without CH
Literally none. If all you do is eat the low, the only damage you are guaranteed to eat is the low itself. No knockdown, no wallsplat, no nothing.
- common lows of hers offer weak punishment opportunities on block.
CD 3 is -13
d+4 is -10
SWS 3 is -12
d/f+3 is -13, but she almost always chains it into 2 or CD
FC d/f+4 is -15, which offers more, but generic hopkick from FC is i16
d+3 is basically always done as d+3,4, but since the 4 is a high, you get a real punish opportunity if you were ducking the whole time
- SWS 3 is -3 on regular hit (hit, not block!)
This is the tracking low she can do immediately from SWS, and at 20F startup if she does it immediately from "blocked move -> SWS" only things that low crush or otherwise startup by frame 9 will beat it.
GAMEPLAN PART 1
From these few bits of knowledge, a really simple gameplan emerges. You may see the players that beat Josie at tournaments sidestep her linear attacks, you may hear that she's "very linear" and "SSR everything", but there's a simpler and dumber set of counters to her to consider.
- if you are going to crouch, do it to avoid highs, and take its coverage of lows as a bonus
Her lows don't give her knockdowns or a lot of damage, and often are difficult to punish meaningfully when blocked. If you crouch block her SWS 3, she's at -12. How much damage can your character dish out from crouch from i12? For most characters, it's not a lot. So don't bother. If you crouch block her d+4, you are lucky if you even get a duck jab. If you think a low is coming, you do not get good rewards for taking the risk of trying to block it given that you are guessing against mids like d/f+2 (launches always), u/f+4 (launches always),
- hopkick whenever you see her CD
Unlike Mishimas, Josie doesn't get to choose to interrupt her CD and block. If she does a CD, she has to either let the CD run its course or do a CD attack during it. If you hopkick, you are guaranteed to beat the always-annoying CD 3 and empty CD, plus you'll usually beat CD 2, and that leaves her with CD 1 and CD 4. CD 1 is fast enough to float you, but if she has to decide to keep doing CD 1, that's already a win for you. CD 1 is -3 on block and a high, and even if she floats you she might screw up her combo anyway. On top of that, being hopkick-happy has the side benefit of beating her throws as well as doing an empty CD followed by a throw.
- if she lands a duck jab or just plain goes into full crouch, either hopkick or sidestep
Josie has nothing from crouch that is fast enough to stop you from sidestepping to the right if she is in crouch without frame advantage. A common gimmick is for Josie to make you guess whether she's going to do WS 2 (a 13F mid that leads to a combo on any hit and is safe on block) or FC d/f+4. Hopkick straight beats the FC d/f+4 for good reward, choosing to try blocking the FC d/f+4 runs the risk of you eating the WS 2. If she lands the FC+d/f+4, she scores a bit of damage and is +7, which all but requires you to shift into blocking. Duck jab is a common tool to stop pressure and reclaim the initiative, and in her case, entering crouching at +6 from successfully hitting you with a duck jab, means that her WS 2 with its 13F startup is extremely dangerous. But at +6, FC+d/f+4 is still not fast enough to beat the average hopkick because the hopkick will be in jump state and thus low crush long before her kick is active. Rather than trying to block the low at all in this situation, you can just roll the dice between blocking high and hopkicking and put her into a mixup.
- when in doubt, stay standing and eat the low
She's in SWS and you're scared? Block high. If she did SWS 3, you eat 20 damage and she's at -3, so now you have the initiative. If she did any other SWS move, she's even more minus. She's doing CD and you can't react in time? Take the damage, it just puts her at +3, it's not the end of the world. Her lows are annoying, but really that's all they are. If you don't block a snake edge, you eat a full combo. If you don't block a hellsweep, you eat a smaller combo and get knocked down. Neither of those are the case with Josie. Josie wants you to crouch so that she can spring her arsenal of mids and highs on you, and threaten you with her throw that can wallsplat. But if she wants to actually kill you doing nothing but her "biggest" lows, she will need to hit you 9 times with them. If you can guess hopkick even a few times right, the trade is in your favour. If she wants to kill you with only d+4 as the source of damage, she will need to hit you literally more than 20 times to do so. d+4 puts her at +1F on hit and +6F on CH, but an opponent getting +1 frame advantage is far from debilitating.
So with this, you should be able to test your opponent on whether or not they can adapt to no longer getting huge rewards from some of the tools that let her play brainlessly while feasting on opponents who are spooked or are trying to figure out answers. A surprisingly good answer most of the time is to just stand there and block. She has a lot of good quality high and mid hitting attacks, but she is not uniquely powerful in this regard overall. By choosing to just disregard her entire set of lows when it comes to blocking, if she wants to "open you up" either in full neutral or in slight frame advantage, she's going to have to do it by throwing... and we've already established that we're going to be hopkicking like an idiot often, which beats her throws even when some of those lows successfully hit. Either she's going to have to play for counter hits / whiff punishes, or she's going to have to do an awful lot of CD 3 -> throw in order to win.
KNOWLEDGE PART 2
- all of the moves that give her advantage on block can be sidestepped, and the ones which don't go into SWS are particularly linear, namely:
1
2
b+2
CD 1+2
f,f+3
f,f,f+3
RD
These are literally all the moves of her that give her plus on block without SWS. Most of them you can sidestep in either direction and come out just fine.
- u/f+3+4 is a pretty important move
This is that jumping double-knee. It's a 14F mid-mid which low crushes and always knocks down, and during its startup she suddenly moves forward a surprisingly large distance. If you are face-down-feet-away, this move can hit you in the head and pick you up off the floor. If she can't dish out one of her 15F launchers, it is a go-to move for punishing opponents who are low-profile.
- 1,2,2 is her main punisher when standing until i14
The damage isn't bad for a jab string, but the real danger is that it puts her at +9 when it hits, which means there are going to be very few buttons anybody can press that would be better ideas than just blocking after this lands. Josie will often try to throw you or launch you after landing this, knowing that those will beat just about any attempt to challenge them. Remember: if you just stand and block, there is no strike she can launch you with.
- her wall game is surprisingly damaging
If Josie just always does b+4,3,4 for wall damage and ignores wall/floor-breaks, she's still doing good damage. In fact, that string will reliably tack on about 23 extra damage!
f,f+3+4 throw will wall splat from which she can do either a floorbreak or just b+4,3,4
b+1,1 will wall splat and is i11, and b+1 is the start of her wallbounce string
WS 1 CH suddenly becomes hilariously dangerous because it will lead to 75+ damage
etc.
Because of her big arsenal of mids, getting away from the wall can feel very dicey, especially when her best homing move is a mid that wallsplats (f,f+4). Her main combos provide solid wall carry, so you can very quickly find yourself at the wall if she launches you.
- she has no meaningful way to punish quick side roll, and many things she can do if you don't quick side roll
So unless you see a real good opportunity for a spring kick, do that quick side roll.
GAMEPLAN PART 2
The hypothetical Josie we are considering is an idiot and this guide is presenting an idiotic way to defeat her, but we're going to take the above into consideration anyway.
Sidestepping is a genuinely good answer to a Josie that is making an effort to sustain frame advantage on block on you. Because of the short range of f,f+4 and the slow startup of b+3, once you have a sense for her trying to create a situation and you see her movement suddenly pause at like range 2, you can just sidestep and suffer no real penalties, hooray!
If you can start laying on the offense onto her in a way that leaves you in a crouching or other low-profile state, her punishment options are weak. In fact, her ability to flatout secure any kind of frame advantage from that is weak, since the moves that will hit mid and give her frame advantage on block have substantial startup (i20 or worse). As opposed to choosing to crouch when on the defensive which requires you to take on a lot of risk, finding ways into crouch when you have the initiative is oddly good against her! Just beware of hopkick and d/f+2, but those are both i15 and thus are not unique among the cast in the threat that they pose to you.
If she knocks you down, quick side roll. That's literally it. Siderolling into the corner might not be the best idea, but other than that, just sideroll, because if you don't she can d+3+4 you which will result in you getting flipped face down every time she does it... which is an elmost endless number of times if you are against the wall. She can guess u/f+3+4 against any non-springkick wakeup option, and it will also re-wall you if you are FDFA. Just quick sideroll, the worst thing that can happen is that she does one of the above mentioned "plus on block" mids, but blocking one of those from quick sideroll is easy.
Because of her wall splat potential from her f,f+3+4 throw, you can expect her to try for that if you decide to just stand and block at the wall. If you have enough health to just eat some lows and feel confident in breaking throws (i.e. can you mash 1+2 on reaction), you will have sidestep opportunities if she tries to get frame advantage. f,f+4 is her primary homing move, and it and 3+4 are both 16F startup but also -9 on block, which means if she just throws either one out in the hopes of catching you guessing a sidestep, you will have a big window with which to fight back. Remember also that having your back to the wall doesn't change how minus she is when you block her moves: that pokey neutral 3 is no safer when your back is to the wall than when you are in the middle of the arena.
So you should be able now to see a pattern emerging:
If you just keep standing against Josie, you can take risks when you think she is going to try to get through your guard with throws or chip at you with her lows.
If Josie gets desperate or wants to make an entrance, your best two options are either to sidestep or to hopkick.
If you can't escape her f,f+3+4 grab reliably, figure out what your character's best high-crushing panic move is, and just do that when you feel you a throw might be coming. If that move leaves you in crouch on block, hooray, you're (probably) safe from major retaliation! If you haven't got a quality move like that, guessing hopkick against throw is definitely not the worst thing in the world.... just beware that it probably won't work if she's trying to throw you immediately following a 1,2,2 that hits.
FURTHER READING
I've basically ignored systems like parrying, sidewalk, KBD, your-favourite-option-select, power crush, rage drive, rage art, supers (for those that have them), guard breaks, etc., all in the name of boiling the knowledge and tactics down to a bare minimum at a level I've commonly encountered online and that I myself play at. I wanted to see if I could derive a strategy for fighting against myself and other salt-of-the-earth Josies like myself (i.e. idiots) beyond just doing a ton of snake edges or hellsweeps or rolling death cradles: actually trying to understand key weaknesses to the character and how common a common playstyle can be countered. It's not just assessing counters to a handful of key moves: it's about seeing how an entire class of key moves work (or don't work) for the character, how they drive the character's strategy, and how in turn that strategy can be fought against. Because of how counterable moves are in Tekken, there's a tendency I see in Tekken forums to simply talk about "well just do this to counter that move" or hindsight analyses about how a player should've just done a tracking move/high crush/whatever. I don't really feel that those speak to strategy, because the latter really is just "you should've guessed right instead of guessing wrong", which is not a plan.
@Knob there were some thoughts I had in my head after reaching the glorified heights of yellow rank in Tekken 7 with Josie that I wrote down, from the perspective of somebody who still doesn't really use many of the game mechanics at all... because I'm still not very good at the game. I'm curious what your thoughts are on my thoughts!
Maybe I'll post it to r/Tekken and see what the people there think, too.
HELLA TEXT in the spoiler
The Idiot's Guide to Defeating Josie
(A)-losing because of lack of character knowledge
(B)-losing because of misguided thinking
The two are not the same, though they are often related.
Josie is a character that can be played idiotically and that can be defeated idiotically. Actually, one of the things that often bugs me is that I have to stop myself from using some of the things she has because they work way, way more often than they should, and often as a case of (A). For instance, somebody who is not familiar with her Switch Stance (SWS) will try a variety of buttons to defeat it, but there are only a handful of things in the whole game which will, and so in the entire time that they are trying to figure it out, they eat a combo each time. This results in me getting outsized rewards for doing brainless things while my opponent is methodically doing something that isn't brainless (i.e. trying to find an answer). Some players are wise to the SWS and know not to challenge it with buttons when they block the hit that transitions into SWS, but they still lose because they focus on things which give them small rewards for large risk, while leaving open options that give me big rewards. This represents a mis-application of their knowledge, often as a result of a miscalculation on their part. The more stubbornly they continue to press on in that path rather than re-assessing and changing what they're doing, the more I get easy wins. Since my goal was to climb out of the green ranks, I'm mostly happy to take those wins.... mostly.
So here are key points I've found to playing Josie like an idiot, and defeating Josie by being an idiot.
JOSIE KNOWLEDGE PART 1
- blocked attack -> SWS
Three of her SWS moves are full combo starters on CH, and NONE of those moves are combo starters when they are not CH.
Literally every blocked attack that Josie has that goes into SWS puts her into SWS at a whopping +11 according to rbnorway frame data. Her fastest SWS move that is a combo starter on CH is 14F.
This means that unless you have a move that is 3F startup or high crushes by frame 3, you cannot challenge her with a button when she does "blocked move -> SWS 1".
FYI, most d+1 jabs don't high crush until frame 4. So if you duck jab, you will still get CH and combo'd. Stop pressing buttons.
Some of the i3 moves in the game that have the possiblity of challenging this are Asuka's counter and Geese's counter(s)... but for the most part, very very few characters can push a button and get a good outcome.
SO STOP PRESSING BUTTONS
- multiple ways into crouch dash, multiple things from crouch dash
Josie has a crouch dash (CD), but the only way for her to end the CD early is by doing a move. The fastest move she has from CD is CD1, which has 9F startup given the CD. The move that is going to hit you the most is CD3, which is the low kick and that has 20F startup given the CD. CD 1+2 low crushes and gives her advantage on block and is a CH combo starter! Her mid-hitting Rage Drive also comes from CD, and it low crushes, starts combos without CH, and is advantage on block. Scary stuff, but she can only do that move once per round.
She has multiple ways to go into the CD which make the CD more dangerous to challenge, and these are:
3, 2~f
d/f+3, 2~f
SWS, f
b,1,2,4~f
Also, none of her moves from CD are homing.
- none of her lows are combo starters or knockdowns without CH
Literally none. If all you do is eat the low, the only damage you are guaranteed to eat is the low itself. No knockdown, no wallsplat, no nothing.
- common lows of hers offer weak punishment opportunities on block.
CD 3 is -13
d+4 is -10
SWS 3 is -12
d/f+3 is -13, but she almost always chains it into 2 or CD
FC d/f+4 is -15, which offers more, but generic hopkick from FC is i16
d+3 is basically always done as d+3,4, but since the 4 is a high, you get a real punish opportunity if you were ducking the whole time
- SWS 3 is -3 on regular hit (hit, not block!)
This is the tracking low she can do immediately from SWS, and at 20F startup if she does it immediately from "blocked move -> SWS" only things that low crush or otherwise startup by frame 9 will beat it.
GAMEPLAN PART 1
From these few bits of knowledge, a really simple gameplan emerges. You may see the players that beat Josie at tournaments sidestep her linear attacks, you may hear that she's "very linear" and "SSR everything", but there's a simpler and dumber set of counters to her to consider.
- if you are going to crouch, do it to avoid highs, and take its coverage of lows as a bonus
Her lows don't give her knockdowns or a lot of damage, and often are difficult to punish meaningfully when blocked. If you crouch block her SWS 3, she's at -12. How much damage can your character dish out from crouch from i12? For most characters, it's not a lot. So don't bother. If you crouch block her d+4, you are lucky if you even get a duck jab. If you think a low is coming, you do not get good rewards for taking the risk of trying to block it given that you are guessing against mids like d/f+2 (launches always), u/f+4 (launches always),
- hopkick whenever you see her CD
Unlike Mishimas, Josie doesn't get to choose to interrupt her CD and block. If she does a CD, she has to either let the CD run its course or do a CD attack during it. If you hopkick, you are guaranteed to beat the always-annoying CD 3 and empty CD, plus you'll usually beat CD 2, and that leaves her with CD 1 and CD 4. CD 1 is fast enough to float you, but if she has to decide to keep doing CD 1, that's already a win for you. CD 1 is -3 on block and a high, and even if she floats you she might screw up her combo anyway. On top of that, being hopkick-happy has the side benefit of beating her throws as well as doing an empty CD followed by a throw.
- if she lands a duck jab or just plain goes into full crouch, either hopkick or sidestep
Josie has nothing from crouch that is fast enough to stop you from sidestepping to the right if she is in crouch without frame advantage. A common gimmick is for Josie to make you guess whether she's going to do WS 2 (a 13F mid that leads to a combo on any hit and is safe on block) or FC d/f+4. Hopkick straight beats the FC d/f+4 for good reward, choosing to try blocking the FC d/f+4 runs the risk of you eating the WS 2. If she lands the FC+d/f+4, she scores a bit of damage and is +7, which all but requires you to shift into blocking. Duck jab is a common tool to stop pressure and reclaim the initiative, and in her case, entering crouching at +6 from successfully hitting you with a duck jab, means that her WS 2 with its 13F startup is extremely dangerous. But at +6, FC+d/f+4 is still not fast enough to beat the average hopkick because the hopkick will be in jump state and thus low crush long before her kick is active. Rather than trying to block the low at all in this situation, you can just roll the dice between blocking high and hopkicking and put her into a mixup.
- when in doubt, stay standing and eat the low
She's in SWS and you're scared? Block high. If she did SWS 3, you eat 20 damage and she's at -3, so now you have the initiative. If she did any other SWS move, she's even more minus. She's doing CD and you can't react in time? Take the damage, it just puts her at +3, it's not the end of the world. Her lows are annoying, but really that's all they are. If you don't block a snake edge, you eat a full combo. If you don't block a hellsweep, you eat a smaller combo and get knocked down. Neither of those are the case with Josie. Josie wants you to crouch so that she can spring her arsenal of mids and highs on you, and threaten you with her throw that can wallsplat. But if she wants to actually kill you doing nothing but her "biggest" lows, she will need to hit you 9 times with them. If you can guess hopkick even a few times right, the trade is in your favour. If she wants to kill you with only d+4 as the source of damage, she will need to hit you literally more than 20 times to do so. d+4 puts her at +1F on hit and +6F on CH, but an opponent getting +1 frame advantage is far from debilitating.
So with this, you should be able to test your opponent on whether or not they can adapt to no longer getting huge rewards from some of the tools that let her play brainlessly while feasting on opponents who are spooked or are trying to figure out answers. A surprisingly good answer most of the time is to just stand there and block. She has a lot of good quality high and mid hitting attacks, but she is not uniquely powerful in this regard overall. By choosing to just disregard her entire set of lows when it comes to blocking, if she wants to "open you up" either in full neutral or in slight frame advantage, she's going to have to do it by throwing... and we've already established that we're going to be hopkicking like an idiot often, which beats her throws even when some of those lows successfully hit. Either she's going to have to play for counter hits / whiff punishes, or she's going to have to do an awful lot of CD 3 -> throw in order to win.
KNOWLEDGE PART 2
- all of the moves that give her advantage on block can be sidestepped, and the ones which don't go into SWS are particularly linear, namely:
1
2
b+2
CD 1+2
f,f+3
f,f,f+3
RD
These are literally all the moves of her that give her plus on block without SWS. Most of them you can sidestep in either direction and come out just fine.
- u/f+3+4 is a pretty important move
This is that jumping double-knee. It's a 14F mid-mid which low crushes and always knocks down, and during its startup she suddenly moves forward a surprisingly large distance. If you are face-down-feet-away, this move can hit you in the head and pick you up off the floor. If she can't dish out one of her 15F launchers, it is a go-to move for punishing opponents who are low-profile.
- 1,2,2 is her main punisher when standing until i14
The damage isn't bad for a jab string, but the real danger is that it puts her at +9 when it hits, which means there are going to be very few buttons anybody can press that would be better ideas than just blocking after this lands. Josie will often try to throw you or launch you after landing this, knowing that those will beat just about any attempt to challenge them. Remember: if you just stand and block, there is no strike she can launch you with.
- her wall game is surprisingly damaging
If Josie just always does b+4,3,4 for wall damage and ignores wall/floor-breaks, she's still doing good damage. In fact, that string will reliably tack on about 23 extra damage!
f,f+3+4 throw will wall splat from which she can do either a floorbreak or just b+4,3,4
b+1,1 will wall splat and is i11, and b+1 is the start of her wallbounce string
WS 1 CH suddenly becomes hilariously dangerous because it will lead to 75+ damage
etc.
Because of her big arsenal of mids, getting away from the wall can feel very dicey, especially when her best homing move is a mid that wallsplats (f,f+4). Her main combos provide solid wall carry, so you can very quickly find yourself at the wall if she launches you.
- she has no meaningful way to punish quick side roll, and many things she can do if you don't quick side roll
So unless you see a real good opportunity for a spring kick, do that quick side roll.
GAMEPLAN PART 2
The hypothetical Josie we are considering is an idiot and this guide is presenting an idiotic way to defeat her, but we're going to take the above into consideration anyway.
Sidestepping is a genuinely good answer to a Josie that is making an effort to sustain frame advantage on block on you. Because of the short range of f,f+4 and the slow startup of b+3, once you have a sense for her trying to create a situation and you see her movement suddenly pause at like range 2, you can just sidestep and suffer no real penalties, hooray!
If you can start laying on the offense onto her in a way that leaves you in a crouching or other low-profile state, her punishment options are weak. In fact, her ability to flatout secure any kind of frame advantage from that is weak, since the moves that will hit mid and give her frame advantage on block have substantial startup (i20 or worse). As opposed to choosing to crouch when on the defensive which requires you to take on a lot of risk, finding ways into crouch when you have the initiative is oddly good against her! Just beware of hopkick and d/f+2, but those are both i15 and thus are not unique among the cast in the threat that they pose to you.
If she knocks you down, quick side roll. That's literally it. Siderolling into the corner might not be the best idea, but other than that, just sideroll, because if you don't she can d+3+4 you which will result in you getting flipped face down every time she does it... which is an elmost endless number of times if you are against the wall. She can guess u/f+3+4 against any non-springkick wakeup option, and it will also re-wall you if you are FDFA. Just quick sideroll, the worst thing that can happen is that she does one of the above mentioned "plus on block" mids, but blocking one of those from quick sideroll is easy.
Because of her wall splat potential from her f,f+3+4 throw, you can expect her to try for that if you decide to just stand and block at the wall. If you have enough health to just eat some lows and feel confident in breaking throws (i.e. can you mash 1+2 on reaction), you will have sidestep opportunities if she tries to get frame advantage. f,f+4 is her primary homing move, and it and 3+4 are both 16F startup but also -9 on block, which means if she just throws either one out in the hopes of catching you guessing a sidestep, you will have a big window with which to fight back. Remember also that having your back to the wall doesn't change how minus she is when you block her moves: that pokey neutral 3 is no safer when your back is to the wall than when you are in the middle of the arena.
So you should be able now to see a pattern emerging:
If you just keep standing against Josie, you can take risks when you think she is going to try to get through your guard with throws or chip at you with her lows.
If Josie gets desperate or wants to make an entrance, your best two options are either to sidestep or to hopkick.
If you can't escape her f,f+3+4 grab reliably, figure out what your character's best high-crushing panic move is, and just do that when you feel you a throw might be coming. If that move leaves you in crouch on block, hooray, you're (probably) safe from major retaliation! If you haven't got a quality move like that, guessing hopkick against throw is definitely not the worst thing in the world.... just beware that it probably won't work if she's trying to throw you immediately following a 1,2,2 that hits.
FURTHER READING
I've basically ignored systems like parrying, sidewalk, KBD, your-favourite-option-select, power crush, rage drive, rage art, supers (for those that have them), guard breaks, etc., all in the name of boiling the knowledge and tactics down to a bare minimum at a level I've commonly encountered online and that I myself play at. I wanted to see if I could derive a strategy for fighting against myself and other salt-of-the-earth Josies like myself (i.e. idiots) beyond just doing a ton of snake edges or hellsweeps or rolling death cradles: actually trying to understand key weaknesses to the character and how common a common playstyle can be countered. It's not just assessing counters to a handful of key moves: it's about seeing how an entire class of key moves work (or don't work) for the character, how they drive the character's strategy, and how in turn that strategy can be fought against. Because of how counterable moves are in Tekken, there's a tendency I see in Tekken forums to simply talk about "well just do this to counter that move" or hindsight analyses about how a player should've just done a tracking move/high crush/whatever. I don't really feel that those speak to strategy, because the latter really is just "you should've guessed right instead of guessing wrong", which is not a plan.
I haven't played as much this season (living my best SC6 life), but as a Josie main this is all spot on. All of my Josie victories are from people getting anxious, or else I irritate them by pecking with d+4 into trying to force something, and I get free CH combos.
But I want to emphasize how big a role f,f+4 plays as an approach tool. It's both tracking and a CH launcher. You can also f,f,f+4 to do a micro dash before doing it, so you can hit with it from outside range 2.
Played some DOA 6 yesterday. Even though I know nothing about DOA other than what the buttons do, I had a good time. It was nice playing a fighting game after playing nothing but smash bros and dragon quest for a month.
I will gladly play more if it follows the same model as 5. Gematsu did report that a core fighters pack appeared on the Microsoft store.
I actually want to switch off Leo cause she doesn't have many cool counterhit confirms. (B1,4 was her main one but that one is gone now).
Was thinking of maybe using Josie since counter-hit confirms seem to be most of her game.
I think it's important to recognize that while Josie has a lot of CH combo starters, a lot of them come from fraudulent strings/setups. SWS CH combo starters work entirely off of either opponent ignorance, or extreme desperation (e.g. opponent would be killed by just the damage of SWS 3, guesses a low crush move to counter it, gets CH by SWS 1). Getting a CH FC+d/f+4 is mostly silliness. WS 1 CH is awesome, but since it has the same startup as WS 2 while having shorter range than WS 2, you scoring that hit is often a gamble done in the hopes of scoring higher damage because you have the wall or a rage drive.
Backsway 1 when it hits is a sweet combo starter, but it tends to be done as a punish to a move evaded by the backsway than it is a frame trap counter hit, except when you are doing WS 2 and then backswaying for safety and then your opponent just doesn't know that Josie can do that and then eats it.
f,f+4 is a no-fraud CH combo starter, though. d/f+2 and hopkick and her butterfly kick all start combos without needing CH.
So a good question when it comes to CH combo starters is whether the kind of CH you want is the kind that results from a frametrap possibly from a string (e.g. blocked move -> SWS), or where you are in neutral and fencing with your opponent and you score the counter hit that way. I personally think that if it's the latter you want, Geese is a way more awesome character for that.
The real key to dealing with SWS is to stop playing at ranges where she can touch you with the moves that transition into it. She can't go into it raw, so focus less on the stance mixups and more on the moves that go into stance.
If you're punishing correctly, you pull a lot of her peskiest options off the table. Ideally you want to punish everyone correctly, but Josie has some really annoying tools in the -10 to -13 range. You absolutely cannot let her do shit like df+2 or uf+3+4 or 1,2,3 unchecked. If she can df+2 without worry, pack it up.
The funny thing for FC d+4 for me is that if you have no problem seeing it and so just choose to stay standing in case WS 2, you may as well hopkick it? For the characters which I played, blocking and punishing it gives worse returns than just straight up hopkicking it in the first place. Certainly, hopkicking on a guess means you might get hit by WS 2 on a guess, so if you can get by without guessing, not guessing is definitely better! Unfortunately, I'm not good enough to be able to do so, but since I need some kind of countermeasure, that's what I've gone with even though it's definitely sub-optimal.
Definitely agree on not letting people get away with unsafe launchers. Unsafe moves that aren't punished are practically safe!
I think playing around the range of entry into SWS is a good idea, but there are times when you don't have the luxury of that. It is definitely true that if you let her get away with 1,2,4 unchecked, she's just gonna do that allllll the time. But it's also true that there are situations where she can get into SWS, and you still gotta be prepared for how to deal with it.. if she knocks you down and you quick side roll, it's pretty easy for her to do a d/f+4 that you might not have options around except blocking, and then she gets into SWS, and now you have to deal with SWS. If she has a 10f punish opportunity, she can intentionally not do 1,2,2 and roll the dice between 1,2,3 and 1,2,4. 1,2,3 as you've mentioned is punishable, but if the "1,2" part connects (say, as a punish), unless there's some technique to it I think you have to make a guess between blocking high and not taking damage or ducking and possibly getting hit by the 3 of "1,2,3".
Ducking is not a bad choice at all, though, given that the cost of that 3 isn't much and it can give you a big punish on the whiff of the 4 of "1,2,4" or outright discourage the usage of 1,2,4.
I honestly always flash duck the first two or three 1,2 strings I see from a Josie. I'd rather duck into a 1,2,3 than guess SWS stuff early in the match. If I duck the 1,2,4 I'm getting damage, and if he does just 1,2 then we're neutral. Its gonna force him into using 1,2,3 occasionally if he isn't already, which means he's guessing on his offense which is good for me.
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fRAWRstThe Seas CallThe Mad AnswerRegistered Userregular
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Me: "I think you'd like A2 better"
Guy: "Nah, A3 looks really fun"
*one ryu cc infinite later*
Guy: "I think I'd like A2 better"
i also didn't understand this distinction until i saw v-isms in action
then it all became extremely clear
it's a terrible shame that Alpha 2 wasn't given an online matchmaking tool in the collection
A3 feels like mvc2; it's fun in a wacky anthology way, but there are a lot of trap choices.
Throwing goblins at dudes is my aesthetic
Steam: YOU FACE JARAXXUS| Twitch.tv: CainLoveless
The rogue gatekeeper, content to make sure the game is unplayable for weird teams while resigned to eternally be checked by MSS and Cable. Why can't you play Amingo or Guile in Marvel? Blackbeard is why. Godspeed, you black emperor.
It's just like the banlist for a trading card game.
Dude on the right is Lars, right?
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
though Ed is buffed, they made a change to him that has corrupted my muscle memory. I played Ed mostly as a matter of convenience, he happened to fit my style and happened to not require much practice at all, and I never really "loved" him per se.
Therefore it's not much worth it to me to bother remapping that memory just to keep playing a character I don't love
I've been doing some Kolin and while she's good and I've got some pieces put together, I don't know if she's 100% my style and I'm finding her very hard to play online (1-hit confirms, precise anti-air selection)
A lot of the characters I think suit my style happen to be charge characters, but I don't think I'm ready to make that leap yet. For example I think Balrog fits but its TOO MUCH to learn at once... to learn an entirely new control scheme in addition to a whole new menu of setups and tech
the only thing I'm certain of at this point is I don't think I can live on CFN without a consistent fuck-off anti-air option on at least some ranges. Upkick was the cornerstone of my Ed, and if I don't have something like that I can't play online
in my defense he was considered really good when the game was new iirc and I just refused to learn anything else
shuma gorath/blackheart/sentinel 4lyfe
and sometimes jin
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Maybe today that person will be me, maybe tomorrow that person will be you.
Friends don't let friends get into MvC2.
Be the change you wish to see in the world
I played once in college and I'm certain that my Sakura/Ken/Tron team is secretly top tier.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
I think it's important to understand what are the elements of your playstyle that you liked in Ed in order to identify other candidate characters.
If 1-hit confirms isn't your bag and you want consistent AA options, and you don't want a charge character, and you want a character that has some strong horizontal movement options, you can always consider Cammy.
If you'd prefer a character that has stronger zoning options at around midscreen range, has hold-the-button-to-charge options, and the fast dash isn't the key thing for you, you could consider Birdie.
If what you really liked about Ed was the fact that he punched people a lot, and you want to punch people a lot, you definitely want Guile with VT1.
I have, of course, entered in the Windjammers tournament
I, too, would like to finally settle on a main after some time away from the game.
I'm very terrible (not an understatement) at SFVall fighting games and yet for some reason I really want to play FANG or Dhalsim. What the hell is wrong with me?
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
Play people that are better than you and ideally able to tell you what areas to focus on.
Dhalsim in particular is an extremely robust character in SFV... he has a huge toolset
you have to be willing to teleport about 50 times per round though
XBL: InvaderJims
Bnet: Pudgestomp#11153
it depends on how you play, and at what level
there are definitely flavors of dhalsim in SFV that have nothing to do with street fighter, but can only carry you so far online until you meet people who will shut you down
I would say that with FANG you generally need to know what you're doing to succeed at almost any level. He has cheapness about him, but it's less built-in and more earned, and his ability to zone is much more rigid and demanding than Dhalsim
I don't think I would accuse anyone trying hard with FANG that they were omitting fundamentals, but go ahead and try and prove me wrong :P
Dhalsim teleportation is such a powerful but also such a key tool that it's entirely possible to fraud out win after win by just constantly teleporting against players that can't figure out how to counter it. Even at higher levels of play, the teleport is still a vital move, but it isn't the FREE WINSSSSS move that it can be at lower levels of play.
Maybe I'll post it to r/Tekken and see what the people there think, too.
HELLA TEXT in the spoiler
(A)-losing because of lack of character knowledge
(B)-losing because of misguided thinking
The two are not the same, though they are often related.
Josie is a character that can be played idiotically and that can be defeated idiotically. Actually, one of the things that often bugs me is that I have to stop myself from using some of the things she has because they work way, way more often than they should, and often as a case of (A). For instance, somebody who is not familiar with her Switch Stance (SWS) will try a variety of buttons to defeat it, but there are only a handful of things in the whole game which will, and so in the entire time that they are trying to figure it out, they eat a combo each time. This results in me getting outsized rewards for doing brainless things while my opponent is methodically doing something that isn't brainless (i.e. trying to find an answer). Some players are wise to the SWS and know not to challenge it with buttons when they block the hit that transitions into SWS, but they still lose because they focus on things which give them small rewards for large risk, while leaving open options that give me big rewards. This represents a mis-application of their knowledge, often as a result of a miscalculation on their part. The more stubbornly they continue to press on in that path rather than re-assessing and changing what they're doing, the more I get easy wins. Since my goal was to climb out of the green ranks, I'm mostly happy to take those wins.... mostly.
So here are key points I've found to playing Josie like an idiot, and defeating Josie by being an idiot.
JOSIE KNOWLEDGE PART 1
- blocked attack -> SWS
Three of her SWS moves are full combo starters on CH, and NONE of those moves are combo starters when they are not CH.
Literally every blocked attack that Josie has that goes into SWS puts her into SWS at a whopping +11 according to rbnorway frame data. Her fastest SWS move that is a combo starter on CH is 14F.
This means that unless you have a move that is 3F startup or high crushes by frame 3, you cannot challenge her with a button when she does "blocked move -> SWS 1".
FYI, most d+1 jabs don't high crush until frame 4. So if you duck jab, you will still get CH and combo'd. Stop pressing buttons.
Some of the i3 moves in the game that have the possiblity of challenging this are Asuka's counter and Geese's counter(s)... but for the most part, very very few characters can push a button and get a good outcome.
SO STOP PRESSING BUTTONS
- multiple ways into crouch dash, multiple things from crouch dash
Josie has a crouch dash (CD), but the only way for her to end the CD early is by doing a move. The fastest move she has from CD is CD1, which has 9F startup given the CD. The move that is going to hit you the most is CD3, which is the low kick and that has 20F startup given the CD. CD 1+2 low crushes and gives her advantage on block and is a CH combo starter! Her mid-hitting Rage Drive also comes from CD, and it low crushes, starts combos without CH, and is advantage on block. Scary stuff, but she can only do that move once per round.
She has multiple ways to go into the CD which make the CD more dangerous to challenge, and these are:
3, 2~f
d/f+3, 2~f
SWS, f
b,1,2,4~f
Also, none of her moves from CD are homing.
- none of her lows are combo starters or knockdowns without CH
Literally none. If all you do is eat the low, the only damage you are guaranteed to eat is the low itself. No knockdown, no wallsplat, no nothing.
- common lows of hers offer weak punishment opportunities on block.
CD 3 is -13
d+4 is -10
SWS 3 is -12
d/f+3 is -13, but she almost always chains it into 2 or CD
FC d/f+4 is -15, which offers more, but generic hopkick from FC is i16
d+3 is basically always done as d+3,4, but since the 4 is a high, you get a real punish opportunity if you were ducking the whole time
- SWS 3 is -3 on regular hit (hit, not block!)
This is the tracking low she can do immediately from SWS, and at 20F startup if she does it immediately from "blocked move -> SWS" only things that low crush or otherwise startup by frame 9 will beat it.
GAMEPLAN PART 1
From these few bits of knowledge, a really simple gameplan emerges. You may see the players that beat Josie at tournaments sidestep her linear attacks, you may hear that she's "very linear" and "SSR everything", but there's a simpler and dumber set of counters to her to consider.
- if you are going to crouch, do it to avoid highs, and take its coverage of lows as a bonus
Her lows don't give her knockdowns or a lot of damage, and often are difficult to punish meaningfully when blocked. If you crouch block her SWS 3, she's at -12. How much damage can your character dish out from crouch from i12? For most characters, it's not a lot. So don't bother. If you crouch block her d+4, you are lucky if you even get a duck jab. If you think a low is coming, you do not get good rewards for taking the risk of trying to block it given that you are guessing against mids like d/f+2 (launches always), u/f+4 (launches always),
- hopkick whenever you see her CD
Unlike Mishimas, Josie doesn't get to choose to interrupt her CD and block. If she does a CD, she has to either let the CD run its course or do a CD attack during it. If you hopkick, you are guaranteed to beat the always-annoying CD 3 and empty CD, plus you'll usually beat CD 2, and that leaves her with CD 1 and CD 4. CD 1 is fast enough to float you, but if she has to decide to keep doing CD 1, that's already a win for you. CD 1 is -3 on block and a high, and even if she floats you she might screw up her combo anyway. On top of that, being hopkick-happy has the side benefit of beating her throws as well as doing an empty CD followed by a throw.
- if she lands a duck jab or just plain goes into full crouch, either hopkick or sidestep
Josie has nothing from crouch that is fast enough to stop you from sidestepping to the right if she is in crouch without frame advantage. A common gimmick is for Josie to make you guess whether she's going to do WS 2 (a 13F mid that leads to a combo on any hit and is safe on block) or FC d/f+4. Hopkick straight beats the FC d/f+4 for good reward, choosing to try blocking the FC d/f+4 runs the risk of you eating the WS 2. If she lands the FC+d/f+4, she scores a bit of damage and is +7, which all but requires you to shift into blocking. Duck jab is a common tool to stop pressure and reclaim the initiative, and in her case, entering crouching at +6 from successfully hitting you with a duck jab, means that her WS 2 with its 13F startup is extremely dangerous. But at +6, FC+d/f+4 is still not fast enough to beat the average hopkick because the hopkick will be in jump state and thus low crush long before her kick is active. Rather than trying to block the low at all in this situation, you can just roll the dice between blocking high and hopkicking and put her into a mixup.
- when in doubt, stay standing and eat the low
She's in SWS and you're scared? Block high. If she did SWS 3, you eat 20 damage and she's at -3, so now you have the initiative. If she did any other SWS move, she's even more minus. She's doing CD and you can't react in time? Take the damage, it just puts her at +3, it's not the end of the world. Her lows are annoying, but really that's all they are. If you don't block a snake edge, you eat a full combo. If you don't block a hellsweep, you eat a smaller combo and get knocked down. Neither of those are the case with Josie. Josie wants you to crouch so that she can spring her arsenal of mids and highs on you, and threaten you with her throw that can wallsplat. But if she wants to actually kill you doing nothing but her "biggest" lows, she will need to hit you 9 times with them. If you can guess hopkick even a few times right, the trade is in your favour. If she wants to kill you with only d+4 as the source of damage, she will need to hit you literally more than 20 times to do so. d+4 puts her at +1F on hit and +6F on CH, but an opponent getting +1 frame advantage is far from debilitating.
So with this, you should be able to test your opponent on whether or not they can adapt to no longer getting huge rewards from some of the tools that let her play brainlessly while feasting on opponents who are spooked or are trying to figure out answers. A surprisingly good answer most of the time is to just stand there and block. She has a lot of good quality high and mid hitting attacks, but she is not uniquely powerful in this regard overall. By choosing to just disregard her entire set of lows when it comes to blocking, if she wants to "open you up" either in full neutral or in slight frame advantage, she's going to have to do it by throwing... and we've already established that we're going to be hopkicking like an idiot often, which beats her throws even when some of those lows successfully hit. Either she's going to have to play for counter hits / whiff punishes, or she's going to have to do an awful lot of CD 3 -> throw in order to win.
KNOWLEDGE PART 2
- all of the moves that give her advantage on block can be sidestepped, and the ones which don't go into SWS are particularly linear, namely:
1
2
b+2
CD 1+2
f,f+3
f,f,f+3
RD
These are literally all the moves of her that give her plus on block without SWS. Most of them you can sidestep in either direction and come out just fine.
- u/f+3+4 is a pretty important move
This is that jumping double-knee. It's a 14F mid-mid which low crushes and always knocks down, and during its startup she suddenly moves forward a surprisingly large distance. If you are face-down-feet-away, this move can hit you in the head and pick you up off the floor. If she can't dish out one of her 15F launchers, it is a go-to move for punishing opponents who are low-profile.
- 1,2,2 is her main punisher when standing until i14
The damage isn't bad for a jab string, but the real danger is that it puts her at +9 when it hits, which means there are going to be very few buttons anybody can press that would be better ideas than just blocking after this lands. Josie will often try to throw you or launch you after landing this, knowing that those will beat just about any attempt to challenge them. Remember: if you just stand and block, there is no strike she can launch you with.
- her wall game is surprisingly damaging
If Josie just always does b+4,3,4 for wall damage and ignores wall/floor-breaks, she's still doing good damage. In fact, that string will reliably tack on about 23 extra damage!
f,f+3+4 throw will wall splat from which she can do either a floorbreak or just b+4,3,4
b+1,1 will wall splat and is i11, and b+1 is the start of her wallbounce string
WS 1 CH suddenly becomes hilariously dangerous because it will lead to 75+ damage
etc.
Because of her big arsenal of mids, getting away from the wall can feel very dicey, especially when her best homing move is a mid that wallsplats (f,f+4). Her main combos provide solid wall carry, so you can very quickly find yourself at the wall if she launches you.
- she has no meaningful way to punish quick side roll, and many things she can do if you don't quick side roll
So unless you see a real good opportunity for a spring kick, do that quick side roll.
GAMEPLAN PART 2
The hypothetical Josie we are considering is an idiot and this guide is presenting an idiotic way to defeat her, but we're going to take the above into consideration anyway.
Sidestepping is a genuinely good answer to a Josie that is making an effort to sustain frame advantage on block on you. Because of the short range of f,f+4 and the slow startup of b+3, once you have a sense for her trying to create a situation and you see her movement suddenly pause at like range 2, you can just sidestep and suffer no real penalties, hooray!
If you can start laying on the offense onto her in a way that leaves you in a crouching or other low-profile state, her punishment options are weak. In fact, her ability to flatout secure any kind of frame advantage from that is weak, since the moves that will hit mid and give her frame advantage on block have substantial startup (i20 or worse). As opposed to choosing to crouch when on the defensive which requires you to take on a lot of risk, finding ways into crouch when you have the initiative is oddly good against her! Just beware of hopkick and d/f+2, but those are both i15 and thus are not unique among the cast in the threat that they pose to you.
If she knocks you down, quick side roll. That's literally it. Siderolling into the corner might not be the best idea, but other than that, just sideroll, because if you don't she can d+3+4 you which will result in you getting flipped face down every time she does it... which is an elmost endless number of times if you are against the wall. She can guess u/f+3+4 against any non-springkick wakeup option, and it will also re-wall you if you are FDFA. Just quick sideroll, the worst thing that can happen is that she does one of the above mentioned "plus on block" mids, but blocking one of those from quick sideroll is easy.
Because of her wall splat potential from her f,f+3+4 throw, you can expect her to try for that if you decide to just stand and block at the wall. If you have enough health to just eat some lows and feel confident in breaking throws (i.e. can you mash 1+2 on reaction), you will have sidestep opportunities if she tries to get frame advantage. f,f+4 is her primary homing move, and it and 3+4 are both 16F startup but also -9 on block, which means if she just throws either one out in the hopes of catching you guessing a sidestep, you will have a big window with which to fight back. Remember also that having your back to the wall doesn't change how minus she is when you block her moves: that pokey neutral 3 is no safer when your back is to the wall than when you are in the middle of the arena.
So you should be able now to see a pattern emerging:
If you just keep standing against Josie, you can take risks when you think she is going to try to get through your guard with throws or chip at you with her lows.
If Josie gets desperate or wants to make an entrance, your best two options are either to sidestep or to hopkick.
If you can't escape her f,f+3+4 grab reliably, figure out what your character's best high-crushing panic move is, and just do that when you feel you a throw might be coming. If that move leaves you in crouch on block, hooray, you're (probably) safe from major retaliation! If you haven't got a quality move like that, guessing hopkick against throw is definitely not the worst thing in the world.... just beware that it probably won't work if she's trying to throw you immediately following a 1,2,2 that hits.
FURTHER READING
I've basically ignored systems like parrying, sidewalk, KBD, your-favourite-option-select, power crush, rage drive, rage art, supers (for those that have them), guard breaks, etc., all in the name of boiling the knowledge and tactics down to a bare minimum at a level I've commonly encountered online and that I myself play at. I wanted to see if I could derive a strategy for fighting against myself and other salt-of-the-earth Josies like myself (i.e. idiots) beyond just doing a ton of snake edges or hellsweeps or rolling death cradles: actually trying to understand key weaknesses to the character and how common a common playstyle can be countered. It's not just assessing counters to a handful of key moves: it's about seeing how an entire class of key moves work (or don't work) for the character, how they drive the character's strategy, and how in turn that strategy can be fought against. Because of how counterable moves are in Tekken, there's a tendency I see in Tekken forums to simply talk about "well just do this to counter that move" or hindsight analyses about how a player should've just done a tracking move/high crush/whatever. I don't really feel that those speak to strategy, because the latter really is just "you should've guessed right instead of guessing wrong", which is not a plan.
I haven't played as much this season (living my best SC6 life), but as a Josie main this is all spot on. All of my Josie victories are from people getting anxious, or else I irritate them by pecking with d+4 into trying to force something, and I get free CH combos.
But I want to emphasize how big a role f,f+4 plays as an approach tool. It's both tracking and a CH launcher. You can also f,f,f+4 to do a micro dash before doing it, so you can hit with it from outside range 2.
Was thinking of maybe using Josie since counter-hit confirms seem to be most of her game.
I will gladly play more if it follows the same model as 5. Gematsu did report that a core fighters pack appeared on the Microsoft store.
I think it's important to recognize that while Josie has a lot of CH combo starters, a lot of them come from fraudulent strings/setups. SWS CH combo starters work entirely off of either opponent ignorance, or extreme desperation (e.g. opponent would be killed by just the damage of SWS 3, guesses a low crush move to counter it, gets CH by SWS 1). Getting a CH FC+d/f+4 is mostly silliness. WS 1 CH is awesome, but since it has the same startup as WS 2 while having shorter range than WS 2, you scoring that hit is often a gamble done in the hopes of scoring higher damage because you have the wall or a rage drive.
Backsway 1 when it hits is a sweet combo starter, but it tends to be done as a punish to a move evaded by the backsway than it is a frame trap counter hit, except when you are doing WS 2 and then backswaying for safety and then your opponent just doesn't know that Josie can do that and then eats it.
f,f+4 is a no-fraud CH combo starter, though. d/f+2 and hopkick and her butterfly kick all start combos without needing CH.
So a good question when it comes to CH combo starters is whether the kind of CH you want is the kind that results from a frametrap possibly from a string (e.g. blocked move -> SWS), or where you are in neutral and fencing with your opponent and you score the counter hit that way. I personally think that if it's the latter you want, Geese is a way more awesome character for that.
If you're punishing correctly, you pull a lot of her peskiest options off the table. Ideally you want to punish everyone correctly, but Josie has some really annoying tools in the -10 to -13 range. You absolutely cannot let her do shit like df+2 or uf+3+4 or 1,2,3 unchecked. If she can df+2 without worry, pack it up.
You can see FC df+4, stop guessing there.
Definitely agree on not letting people get away with unsafe launchers. Unsafe moves that aren't punished are practically safe!
I think playing around the range of entry into SWS is a good idea, but there are times when you don't have the luxury of that. It is definitely true that if you let her get away with 1,2,4 unchecked, she's just gonna do that allllll the time. But it's also true that there are situations where she can get into SWS, and you still gotta be prepared for how to deal with it.. if she knocks you down and you quick side roll, it's pretty easy for her to do a d/f+4 that you might not have options around except blocking, and then she gets into SWS, and now you have to deal with SWS. If she has a 10f punish opportunity, she can intentionally not do 1,2,2 and roll the dice between 1,2,3 and 1,2,4. 1,2,3 as you've mentioned is punishable, but if the "1,2" part connects (say, as a punish), unless there's some technique to it I think you have to make a guess between blocking high and not taking damage or ducking and possibly getting hit by the 3 of "1,2,3".
Ducking is not a bad choice at all, though, given that the cost of that 3 isn't much and it can give you a big punish on the whiff of the 4 of "1,2,4" or outright discourage the usage of 1,2,4.