Theory Fighter: Volume 2: Bread and Butter combos

A little introduction: Given the amazing success of Street Fighter IV already (it was sold out in Japan on day 1 and is tough to find a launch copy in Canada/USA) and the massive influx of new players, the Street Fighter community is bigger than ever. Even though the game is new, there are already a lot of very good players out there, but for most people, this will be their first Street Fighter in over a decade! To help those people, I welcome you to "Theory Fighter." In each installment I will try to explain some of the concepts that seperate a noob from a pro using practical examples and setups for varying characters. For the most part, these are concepts that can be used in any Street Fighter game, and in some cases, any competitive game period.

Note that this series of articles will very much be geared towards newcomers, so if you're a Street Fighter Veteran the information here may be of limited use. Also note though, that these articles will assume you're at least familiar with the Street Fighter (IV specifically) core mechanics.

Remember, there's a huge difference between a noob and a scrub. A noob knows (s)he's a beginner, but willing to learn. A scrub is convinced he's already good before (s)he's learned anything.

You can find Volume I here

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Lexicon

Here's a short list of words I'll be using that you need to be familiar with. You can skip this section if you're confident you understand this terminology.

Combo

A sequence of moves that, if the first hit connects, cannot be blocked by the opponent until the combo is complete. A combo can come in two varieties: Chain and Link. For this article we will focus on chains.

Chain

A chain occurs when you use one move to "cancel" the recovery animation of another move. If done correctly, this results in the first move never entering its recovery animation phase, and if you land it then you will get a combo. For example, Ryu can chain his cr. MK into a Hadoken fireball. When done correctly, Ryu goes right from the active frames of his cr. MK to the startup frames of his Hadoken, without ever showing the recovery frames of his cr. MK. For more information on frames, see Volume I here.

A correct chain with Ryu. Notice that he goes straight from his cr. MK's active frames to his fireball's startup.

There isn't really a trick to performing chains. Just press the button or do the motion for your next move while the previous move is still in progress. You want to time it so you complete the next command just after the previous move connects with the opponent (be it a hit or even if blocked). Note that not ALL moves are chainable. For example, unlike Ryu, you CANNOT chain Fei Long's cr. MK into any of his special moves. Finding chainable moves must be done through experimentation (or through Street Fighter IV's excellent Challenge Mode). Also note you cannot chain from a whiffed move. A move must connect (hit or blocked) to chain into the next move.

cr
Anytime you see the letters "cr" followed by an attack (LP, MP, HP, LK, MK, HK), this indicates "crouching." Otherwise, assume standing.

Main
Your primary and best character.

Priority
One move's ability to win when it comes into contact with another move. Contrary to popular belief, people do not get "lucky" when they hit you out of an attack with another attack. These are all predetermined by the priority of the two moves. For example, Ryu's crouching MK has higher priority than Blanka's crouching LK. Therefore, if the moves ever clash during their active frames, Blanka will always get hit.

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Theory Fighter: Volume 2: Bread and Butter combos

Before I start this article I'm going to make something abundantly clear:

Beginners put way too much emphasis on the importance of long combos.

I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's because they're flashy and impressive. Maybe it's because its the primary thing you can practice in arcade mode against the CPU. Either way, the fact remains that long, complex combos, despite being damaging and invigorating, make up a relatively small part of a Street Fighter match. Check any Street Fighter IV tournament video on youtube (you can find a ton here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Min0ra). I wager you see very few long combos. Conversely, I also wager you'll see the same 3 to 4 hit combos used over and over again. These small combos might not be as flashy, or do as much damage, but their effectiveness comes in the number of times you can land them, and the safety they afford if you miss them.

These are your "bread and butter"

The Bread and Butter combo (bnb)

When choosing a character to main, it is absolutely imperative you find a bread and butter combo. This is your all purpose go-to move to punish your opponents mistakes. Your bread and butter doesn't need to be complicated, it can be as few as two hits, but you must constantly work on it so that it becomes automatic. When your opponent whiffs something, or you block a move with a lot of recovery frames, you should automatically go for your bread and butter. You absolutely, positively must execute this combo with near 100% consistency.

Phew. I hope I got across the point that this is important.

So what goes into a good bread and butter? An optimal bread and butter combo starts with a move that has quick startup, good range, high priority, low recovery, and leaves you relatively safe even if blocked. A bread and butter combo also shouldn't use any of your EX meter, since you want to be able to perform it in any circumstance. By that same token, you should be able to perform your bread and butter combo from the ground without a jump-in. Jump-ins take too long which cost you many opportunities to deal guaranteed damage.

Example # 1
Ryu can chain his cr. MK into a Hurricane Kick. This is not a long or particularly flashy combo, but what it lacks in pizzazz it makes up for in consistency. You will land this, a lot. The cr. MK is a relatively high priority move with good enough startup time that it can punish many moves on block. If you connect with this combo it leaves your opponent on the floor, but if done at the right distance, the LK Hurricanne Kick is difficult to counterattack even if your combo is blocked. Thus, this combo fulfills our criteria of being simple, moderately damaging, yet also safe.

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You can have more than one bread and butter combo. In fact, as you get better, its a good idea to have a number of them for different situations. In high level play, it is often smart to maximize safety even at the expense of losing some damage potential. Although the above bread and butter is relatively safe, a blocked Hurricane Kick can still be punished by very quick opponents.

Example # 2
An even safer bnb combo for Ryu is his cr. MK into his Hadoken fireball. True, this combo does piddly damage even compared to the combo in example # 1, but it's so incredibly safe that you can throw it out repeatedly without fear of counterattack, especially when done at a range just inside Ryu's foot. Check out this video from one of the best arcades in Japan and count how many times both players (Ryu and Akuma) use this simple combo.

A slightly less obvious but crucial thing you want to be careful of is that your bread and butter combo of choice works on characters of ALL sizes, whether they are standing or blocking. This is important because no matter how safe a move is on block, almost all moves are very punishable if you whiff them.

Example # 3

Consider Ken's standing mp, standing HP chain. This is an easy chain combo (unique to Ken) that doesn't have a lot of recovery that you can further chain into ANY of his specials. It seems like a pretty good candidate for a bread and butter. Unfortunately, the standing HP will completely whiff small to regular sized opponents when they are crouching. This is a HUGE liability, because even if you connect with the MP, it means you could potentially whiff the HP on a crouching opponent, giving them ample time during both your active AND recovery frames to launch a counterattack.

Changing the properties of your moves

Bread and Butter combos can have some unforseen advantages that you may not realize right off the bat. The three major benefits are confirming, hiding recovery, and block switch.

Confirming

Confirming is a technique in Street Fighter where you only finish a combo when you know the hits before it have connected. This is useful because combos often end in risky, high recovery special moves. This essentially lets you "fish" with the beginning of your bread and butter with significantly less risk.

Example # 1
One of Cammy's primary bnb combos is cr. LK, cr.LK chained into her Spiral Arrow special. However, her Spiral Arrow has a lot of recovery time if it gets blocked, making it rather dangerous to use her bread and butter. However, with enough training and good reflexes, a Cammy player can learn to perform the Spiral Arrow only when they've confirmed the cr. LK, cr. LK has hit the opponent. Most people do this by performing the first cr. LK and then performing the motion for the Spiral Arrow (down, down-toward, toward), but ONLY pressing kick again if/when they confirm the second cr. LK has hit. If the cr. LK is blocked, then the Cammy player simply doesn't press kick for the Spiral Arrow, leaving her relatively safe since the cr. LK has very short recovery time. This essentially allows you to hide bad recovery moves behind much safer, short recovery moves.

Example # 2
Let's take a look at that Ryu vs Gouki match again (above). Notice at 4:20, Ryu jumps in and fishes with his cr. MP, cr. MK and then his cr. MK again without getting punished! If any of these hits connected, you can bet he would have confirmed into a Hadoken or Hurricane Kick.

Confirming can be difficult even for elite players. There are always scenarios where players inevitably read a hit/block wrong, or act before they've confirmed, which leads to blocked specials (hence why you'll still see this even at the elite level). However, even if you only confirm with a 50% success rate, that's 1/2 fewer combos you will eat as a result of blocked bnb combos.

Hiding Recovery

This is basically the opposite of confirming. By chaining moves together, you can hide long recovery moves by chaining short recovery moves to them. This is important because it gives you a use for some moves that would otherwise be too slow and dangerous to consider.

Example # 1

Rufus's standing HP leaves him at a considerable disadvantage if blocked. Conversely, Rufus' special move "Galactic Tornado" has unusually good recovery time (it only leaves you disadvantaged for 1/60th of a second!). Therefore, whenever trying to attack with his HP, it is generally a good idea to tack on a Galactic Tornado, which leaves him significantly less vulnerable if he gets blocked.

Rufus' HP is blocked, but he chains a Galactic Tornado to hide the recovery.

Block switch

Block switch isn't real Street Fighter terminology, but its a relevant topic that many players take for granted. By chaining moves together, you can effectively change the way these moves must be blocked. This is very useful for confusing your opponent with mixup games.

Example # 1
Let's examine Ken's Hurricane Kick. Normally, Ken's Hurricane Kick can be blocked high. However, if you chain cr. MK into a Hurricane Kick, this must be blocked LOW (because his cr. MK must be blocked low). This essentially gives you a Hurricane Kick that must be blocked low.

You can also think of it as adding free extra hits/damage to your cr. MK. Either way, the result is the same, you are getting more damage than a Hurricane Kick or cr. MK individually, but stealing the "block low" property of the cr. MK.

Example # 2
Now let's look at this the other way. Normally, you would block Rufus' cr. LK by crouch blocking. However, Rufus has a command normal called the Dive Kick, which allows him to drop very quickly from a jump at an angle. This move MUST be blocked high. By jumping and performing this move while you are still very close to the ground, you can surprise a crouch blocking opponent and then combo into his cr. LK (which you can further chain into a Galactic Tornado).

Rufus performs his dive kick very low to the ground, which hits a crouching opponent. This is often called "Instant Overhead"

Like the previous example, this changes the property of one move by "attaching" it to another.

Note: I have just discovered, much to my embarrassment, that Rufus' dive kicks can actually be blocked low. Now, this doesn't completely invalidate the above example, because you can often catch characters when they attempt to poke you back, but I would be remiss not to mention my mistake.

Conclusion

The key to playing a successful game is consistency, consistency, consistency. Flashy combos are great when you have a solid, obvious opening. However, more often than not, you will need to rely on a short, sweet, non-risky combo over and over to get you consistent damage on your opponent. This combo is like your best friend. Even as your game evolves and you learn new tricks and strategies, it will stay with you all the way to the end. It will give you a way to poke at your enemy's defenses, it will give you a way to punish their mistakes with a healthy amount of damage.

In short, it will make you a threat.

Next time: Offense and Defense 101

Theory Fighter: Volume 1: Breaking down normals and specials

A little introduction: Given the amazing success of Street Fighter IV already (it was sold out in Japan on day 1 and is tough to find a launch copy in Canada/USA) and the massive influx of new players, the Street Fighter community is bigger than ever. Even though the game is new, there are already a lot of very good players out there, but for most people, this will be their first Street Fighter in over a decade! To help those people, I welcome you to "Theory Fighter." In each installment I will try to explain some of the concepts that seperate a noob from a pro using practical examples and setups for varying characters. For the most part, these are concepts that can be used in any Street Fighter game, and in some cases, any competitive game period.

Note that this series of articles will very much be geared towards newcomers, so if you're a Street Fighter Veteran the information here may be of limited use. Also note though, that these articles will assume you're at least familiar with the Street Fighter (IV specifically) core mechanics.

Remember, there's a huge difference between a noob and a scrub. A noob knows (s)he's a beginner, but willing to learn. A scrub is convinced he's already good before (s)he's learned anything.

------------------------

Lexicon

Here's a short list of words I'll be using that you need to be familiar with. You can skip this section if you're confident you understand this terminology.

Frames

A central principal in Street Fighter is understanding that the game runs its animation in frames. What is a frame? Street Fighter IV runs at 60 frames per second. Therefore, a frame is 1/60th of a second in game time. When you perform a move, it takes a certain number of frames. In this series of articles we will NOT get into specific frame counting, but it will refer to the duration of moves in both frames and seconds (you'll see why in this article).

Normals

A normal is any move you get when you press a face button on your pad/stick. The normals are Light Punch (LP), Medium Punch (MP), Hard Punch (HP), Light Kick (LK), Medium Kick (MK), Hard Kick (HK).

Command-Normals

A command normal is a character-specific move you get when you press a certain direction + a face button on your pad/stick. For example, Ryu's overhead punch is toward + MP.

cr
Anytime you see the letters "cr" followed by an attack (LP, MP, HP, LK, MK, HK), this indicates "crouching." Otherwise, assume standing.

Specials

A special is any move that requires a joystick motion and a face button. For example, Ryu's Hadoken is done by pressing down, downtoward, toward + punch.

Blocking/Guarding

Blocking is your primary defensive technique in Street Fighter, and is performed by holding away from your opponent. There are two kinds of blocks: a standing block and a crouching block. Standing blocks will block any move that hits high or mid. Crouching blocks will block any move that hits low or mid. It is important to note that most jumping attacks hit high and most crouching KICKS hit low. Therefore you must block these accordingly.

Whiff

To miss a move completely.

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Theory Fighter Volume 1: Breaking down normals and specials

In this first installment we will be looking at the composition of each move in your repetoire.

Every move (normal, command, special, super, ultra, you get the idea) in the entire game is composed of three parts.

• Startup - The number of frames from the time you input a command (i.e. press a button) to the the ACTIVE time (see below). These are non-hitting frames.
• Active - The number of frames that a move can actually hit someone.
• Recovery - The number of frames after the active time to the time when you return to a neutral stand/crouch at which time you can perform another move.

Understanding these three factors is VERY important, and the first barrier to shedding some common bad habits. Contrary to popular belief (among noobs), not EVERY move for EVERY character is useful. Some characters have moves so bad you don't ever want to touch them. Strictly in terms of time (there are other factors like range and priority which we will leave for a later article), a GOOD move is one with short startup, long active, and short recovery.

Example 1

Let's compare Sagat's Tiger Upper and his Tiger Knee. Both moves have near instantaneous startup time. Both moves also have a very long active time. However, if you miss a Tiger Upper, it leaves Sagat far off the ground. The time that it takes him to fall from the peak of his uppercut to the floor again (and for the half second it takes for him to gather himself after he lands) is the recovery time. At any point during this recovery your opponent can (and should) exploit you and attack since you cannot block during recovery. This makes the Tiger Upper a very dangerous move to spam indiscriminately.

Sagat whiffs a Tiger Upper and gets comboed even AFTER he lands.

Now compare this to the recovery on the Tiger Knee. Not only does Sagat have less distance to fall, but he also falls faster. This gives the opponent much less time to think of a counter before you are in a state in which you can block again. In fact, the recovery on this move is SO good that often times you can block your opponent's counter attack and counter his counter!

Balrog blocks Sagat's Tiger Knee, yet Sagat still returns to his neutral stance before Balrog can act.

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Speaking in more general terms, LP/LK usually have few startup and recovery frames (and thus are safe to whiff or have blocked) while HP/HK can have long startup and recovery frames (making them very dangerous to whiff or have blocked). MP/MK is often somewhere in-between (obviously the tradeoff here is that LP/LK do far less damage than HP/HK).

This is also true of special moves. Special moves performed with LP/LK often have less startup/recovery than the same special move performed with HP/HK.

Example # 1

Consider Sakura's Hurricanne Kick. Performed with HK, this move is very dangerous to have blocked because she moves so far into her opponent and the recovery is quite long. It is almost a sure thing that getting this blocked up close will result in you eating a combo.

Sakura whiffs a HK Hurricanne Kick and eats a reversal combo

Now consider Sakura's Hurricanne Kick performed with LK. She travels almost nowhere and barely leaves the ground. However, she also spends barely any frames recovering from it. This means you can use it without much fear of retaliation. It's no coincidence that her LK Hurricanne Kick is considered her best special.

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It is KEY to recognize recovery times. Some moves may not look like they're in recovery when they really are. This is especially true of forward moving body attacks.

Example # 2

Consider Cammy's Spiral Arrow (also known as the Cannon Drill). In this move, she propels forward close to the ground with her legs extended out. The HK version of this move hits twice, but travels a very long distance. Although it does not look like it, it has fairly long (and easily punishable) recovery time.

The "active" frames of the Spiral Arrow. These are the ONLY frames that can hit.

Let's say Cammy performs a Spiral Arrow on you at close range, and you've blocked both hits successfully. AS SOON as you've blocked the second hit, the active frames of her move are over. The trick with this particular special move is that her recovery frames look VERY MUCH like her active frames. As a result, you may be afraid to counter her due to a fear of a phantom 3rd hit (which is impossible). The important thing to remember is that the move can only ever hit twice. Therefore, as soon as you've blocked that second hit, you HAVE to launch your counter attack despite the fact that she is still in her Spiral Arrow animation. In fact, this is the whole point, because she won't be able to block.

Despite the fact that the recovery LOOKS like it can hit you, it can't! Be like Fei Long and go for a reversal!

Note that in this particular example, Cammy can use her LK or MK Spiral Arrow, which only hits ONCE. You can still counter these versions, but if she decides to mix them up, then you need to be cautious.

Recognizing situations like this will be difficult at first, but with more experience it will become second nature.

Conclusion

So what does this all add up to? The core mechanic of Street Fighter, like any competitive game, is capitalizing on your opponent's mistakes. The most basic way of doing this is to abuse an opponent's recovery time. How many times have you fought scrubs that show off dragon punches at mid screen for no real reason other than to declare to the world that they can do them? Punish them in their recovery and, if they're smart, they'll quickly stop doing it. If you block a combo that ends in a high recovery move, punish them! The absolute key difference between being afraid of an opponent and not being afraid, is whether or not (s)he can properly punish you for making mistakes. If (s)he can't, then what's to stop you from going for risky high-damaging combos? What's to stop you from relying on a single strategy and riding it to a win? Why should you be scared?

If there's any takeaway from this first volume, it's that Street Fighter is about minimizing the risks you take, while maximizing the risks of your opponent. Play tight, don't put yourself in situations when your recovery frames will get you killed, but at the same time, actively LOOK for (or even better, predict) situations when your opponent will be in recovery. I stress again that it will take a little while to recognize these situations, but they WILL come naturally with time. It is also important to note that, although it is definitely important to recognize the recovery of specific moves for specific characters, you WILL form a GENERAL understanding of recovery which is applicable to all opponents. This is the first barrier to entering high-level play.

Next time - Bread and Butter combos

Joysticks part II!

Street Fighter 4 is preordered.

My new joystick is preordered.

My parts are ready.

Fight night is coming...

So now that I have a new joystick on the way (thanks Yuk!), I've really started updating the template I had on here earlier.  Unfortunately this new joystick, unlike my old EX2, has a little less face real-estate which meant I had to shift some of the characters so their faces could be seen.  This created a problem (especially in Chun's case) where they looked uncentered which weighted the joystick too much to one side.

To remedy this solution I pulled some ink splotches from the internet and fused them into the stick.  Tada!

Let me know what you think.  Personally, I think it's an improvement over the white designs, but I'm not sure I'm quite done with Chun-Li's.  I really want the splotches to look wave-like and I'm not quite sure I accomplished that yet.  I think I will also make the splotches on Viper's arc a little more.

Edit: Congrats Yuk for winning the SFIV CE Cover Contest!  The only "bad" thing about this is that the images on my joysticks are NO LONGER UNIQUE!  (*sad face*)

My desk

Usually I'm too lazy to do stuff like this, but what the hey, it sounded fun.  That and I seem to have worked myself into a predisposition to do anything Yukiko asks me to (mental note, check for signs of brainwashing).

Were we supposed to clean our desks before doing this?  This is the craptacular state mine is usually in.  Objects of note include the incredibly chinese mug, my joystick parts (which I still haven't had a chance to install yet!), some reminders to renew my license, and some random sketches.  Oh right, and a vial of anti-malaria pills I was SUPPOSED to take after Mexico... but then never did.  Oops.
My computer setup.  Notice my shiny nice Macbook Pro next to my ultra shit tablet laptop (which, yes, is broken into two pieces).  Also note the calculus book propping up said crappy laptop.  Also of note is the "Ultimate Ninja's Handbook," which I have yet to read.

And, just because I can, here's my workstation at the office.

Other than needing a much larger monitor, notice the awesome Locco Rocco (which my coworkers call "the smiling orange"), which is my favorite thing to randomly play with when I'm waiting for builds to load.  In a close second is "The Trial of Colonol Sweeto," and of course the requisite Duplo Batman and Jack Skellington.  Oh right, and a Mortal Kombat branded squishy toy... in the shape of a human heart!

Er, I guess I tag Lynn... since she's the only other blog I know that hasn't already been tagged.

Jay's Peak in Vermont

Here's a little thing I put together after our trip to Jay's Peak this weekend.  Enjoy!

Hadoken!

I recently entered an online contest related to SFIV. The rules? Present the "hadoken" in as interesting a way as possible.

I figured what better way to present it than a hadoken... made of hadokens!

This mosaic is made up of 101 other hadoken pictures, spanning every game I could think of that featured a shoto, from the original Street Fighter and its iterations to some really obscure shit (SF: Mouse Generation? SF: The Korean Drama??). It took quite a while to assemble. Click the image for a larger version with a full list of references.

Here's hoping I win.

Joysticks!

SFIV is coming and I can't wait. In commemoration of such an event, I've decided to mod my joystick. This is the first time I'll be attempting something like this (and I'm a little nervous since I haven't really done any electronics-related stuff since, oh, High School).

I'm going to do one first, see how that turns out, and then hopefully do another for my brother.

This is a three-fold process. First I'll be pulling out the old buttons to make way for some new Sanwa OBSF-30 buttons. These are much quicker reacting than the stock and a little bigger.

Next I'll be gutting the stock Hori stick and replacing it with a Sanwa JLW-TM-8 balltop joystick. This will be a little looser than the default configuration and hold up better over time. Apparently, there are different "gates" you can get (the plastic part that locks the joystick in place) and I'll be going with a square gate. The only real difference here is that a square gate will lock to the corners when you move the stick, whereas an octagonal gate won't. It's strictly personal preference (I'm used to square, so I'm sticking with square).

And finally, the piece-de-resistance, I'm going to take off the boring cover panel and replace it with some SICK new artwork courtesy of Yukiko.

Now, if all that goes well, I'll probably have the confidence to do another. Imagine THESE twin babies, one with blue buttons/ball-top and one with red!

For anyone interested, I'm getting the parts from Lizard Lick (http://www.lizardlickamusements.com), which has good prices and cheap shipping. The total price of this project will probably come in just under $50 (which is not bad, + joystick that'll be about $90... a retail stick with Sanwa parts sells for about $140).

I know this seems a little obsessive of me, but frankly, I had a good time learning about what all this stuff does, and it'll be a fun time getting my hands dirty in some electronic work again.

Plus... it's gonna look/perform so sexy.

Now, I'm just saying, if anyone wants to buy me the parts to mod that second stick... my birthday is riiiiiiiight around the time SFIV comes out... I'm just saying. = D

Addendum: What looks better, my initial design, or this slightly reworked one?