Rufus is a terrible matchup for Sakura because she has no good options on wakeup or against divekick pressure. Normals are not a solution against divekicks. Yes, if you are fighting a scrub you can abuse that hp+throw option select, but a good player will destroy you for it. Anti-airing a Rufus divekick is a pure 50/50 guess against a top player who can control his dive timing. You get very little damage on a correct guess, but Rufus gets 200-400 damage without using meter.
Your best options against divekick pressure from a top Rufus player (JWong/Ricky level) are blocking and jumpback roundhouse. Other options like ex shouken and cr.hp+throw or st.hp+throw are only effective as reads and have to be used rarely, because they only beat low dive kicks and throws, but lose to everything else.
Compare sakura to a character like ryu (who is at least 6-4 against rufus). ryu's options against divekick pressure are completely different and it shows. even without meter to fadc, fierce shoyru completely changes rufus's options because it deals high damage and beats all options except blocking. ryu has cr.mp+throw option select, which beats low dive kicks but also recovers fast enough to block high dive kicks (unlike sakura's hp option selects, which recover slowly). he also has a superior zoning game, and a reliable escape with fadc backdash
On September 21 2012 18:05 Wangsta wrote: Rufus is a terrible matchup for Sakura because she has no good options on wakeup or against divekick pressure. Normals are not a solution against divekicks. Yes, if you are fighting a scrub you can abuse that hp+throw option select, but a good player will destroy you for it. Anti-airing a Rufus divekick is a pure 50/50 guess against a top player who can control his dive timing. You get very little damage on a correct guess, but Rufus gets 200-400 damage without using meter.
Your best options against divekick pressure from a top Rufus player (JWong/Ricky level) are blocking and jumpback roundhouse. Other options like ex shouken and cr.hp+throw or st.hp+throw are only effective as reads and have to be used rarely, because they only beat low dive kicks and throws, but lose to everything else.
Compare sakura to a character like ryu (who is at least 6-4 against rufus). ryu's options against divekick pressure are completely different and it shows. even without meter to fadc, fierce shoyru completely changes rufus's options because it deals high damage and beats all options except blocking. ryu has cr.mp+throw option select, which beats low dive kicks but also recovers fast enough to block high dive kicks (unlike sakura's hp option selects, which recover slowly). he also has a superior zoning game, and a reliable escape with fadc backdash
Start using s.lp against Rufus's divekicks. The hp option select is okay to use sparingly but you're right, it's pretty easily countered by a smart Rufus player. S.lp and LP Sho are your best bets against close and distant divekick setups, respectively. I still lose a bunch to Rufus but I theoretically know how to fight him haha.
use air-to-air fp, lp shou, s.lp, s.mp, and s.mk vs dicekicks as well. if you only use your fp of course youre gonna get opened up. i have a couple very strong rufus practice partners, and while its very momentum based, sakura wins that matchup pretty clean. having low stun is a big big problem for rufus. when i played jwong at april duels he said the same
next you'll be saying seth beats her? lol :D
oh uand sakura has like an identical c.mp/tech option select to ryu in that matchup lol
On September 22 2012 01:42 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote: use air-to-air fp, lp shou, s.lp, s.mp, and s.mk vs dicekicks as well. if you only use your fp of course youre gonna get opened up. i have a couple very strong rufus practice partners, and while its very momentum based, sakura wins that matchup pretty clean. having low stun is a big big problem for rufus. when i played jwong at april duels he said the same
next you'll be saying seth beats her? lol :D
oh uand sakura has like an identical c.mp/tech option select to ryu in that matchup lol
Look at this namedropper. Also I have some issues against Seth, mainly how to get in since his SRK beats everything and how to defend against his super ambiguous divekick/crossups and tanden/360/SRK/throw/blockstring setups. Once you get in you're fine, but when you're on the defensive he's prettttty scary.
I don't have issues against Seth at all, you just have to play patiently. you know that when you get that knockdown he is fucking dead, so play with that in mind and approach him more carefully, be more proactive when defending your space, like jumpback normals insteada grounded anti-airs etc. air tatsu is good vs him and his SRK is worthless if you can set up proper jump-ins. if you're jumping from neutral at a seth who is doing nothing you are totally doing it wrong haha
he's definitely got options, you can afford to guess wrong a couple times. Seth guesses wrong once = sakura takes that round in most cases
im not sure if playing patiently is the right idea against seth. the thing that works best for me is to just gamble and make major unsafe guesses (i.e. jumping during block strings, focus backdashing on wakeup). seth has great setups but at the end of the day they are 50/50s and the odds are in sakura's favor if you guess and punish hard. seth dies in 3-4 guesses while sakura can take 4-6. its a good matchup on paper but i still dont like playing it because its so unstable
about rufus, sakura's cr.mp is nowhere near as good as ryu's. ryu has a better hitbox and gets better options if he hits rufus out of the air, or on the ground (easily 200 damage into sweep). ryu also gets more chances to actually use his cr.mp, because the threat of fp.shoryu forces rufus to block frequently while pressuring. with sakura, rufus can just go crazy and be safe against reversals most of the time, as long as he uses jabs or shorts.
also, the things you guys are mentioning (st.lp, jump mp, etc.) are not solutions against dive kicks, those are unsafe things you can do if you have a read. 90% of the time you have to block. A character like ryu has good solutions against divekicks, sakura doesn't
More Sakurachat. I'm pretty good with combos, frame traps, unblockable setups, but my main problem now is just getting in. Sakura has to get in to do damage and she can't really zone effectively, but getting in is the hard part. When I'm playing against Kimo's Juri/Hakan or Rich's Oni it's tough to actually close distance.
Juri's got a c.mk bufferable into pinwheel which means it's not focusable, it goes under s.hk, her s.mk has equal range, her antiairs are very good (c.hp and c.mp will either trade or win/lose depending on timing, intercepting j.mp is fast and effective). I can use c.mk buffered into Sho but the range is a little short and it's whiff punishable, and I can throw out random HK tatsus but those can be c.mp'd on reaction and lose to neutral jumps, also I'm at slight disadvantage on block so I can't maintain pressure.
Hakan is a little more susceptible to c.mk xx Sho but it's difficult to control space against him. He can oil mainly without repercussion and an oiled Hakan is pretty dangerous via dash normal canceling and mobile focus. I don't know if you've seen really good Hakan play but anything that isn't cancelable becomes focus bait and you eat a full combo. Hakan's f+hp and s.hp outrange Sak c.mk and he can control the distance with dash normal canceling. Random HK tatsus can be backdashed on reaction at mid range and punished with either s.hp or 360 (or 720'd on block). Hakan's antiairs are also pretty good between s.hp, f+lp, or dash up/f+mp 360 when you land. I should probably try mixing in more air tatsus into my game, maybe that would help.
Oni is a tough battle because of f+mk and c.mk xx fireball but also his long-range pokes like f+hp and s.hk. Sort of like Ken but with more brutal frametraps and endless pressure. I face similar issues against Ryu but Oni has those irritating slash mixups once you're down and it's harder for me to block normal/crossup than it is standing/crouching. In any event, actually getting in is tough and c.mk goes about 50/50 with f+mk, but if I eat a counter-hit it's going to cost me 40%.
I missed a lot of top 8 but I saw the results, did Dieminion go pure Guile or did he break out his new character yet? I just want to know who he's going to sub.
I hear he's got a pretty good Gouken and Guy. Dude sure loves his G's.
EPT
