Group effort to learn each character?

So you guys will be playing Mirror Matches?

I thought Mirrors only showed you how to play against the same character, using that same character. Unfortunately in some character's cases, they don't match up against themselves to well and basically can destroy themselves or stalemate themselves, so it's who can throw out the most mixups and shenanigans. Do the research yourself if you don't believe me.

I agree with Leonard, this would take you guys too long, and you'd be further and better off with just using your own main against whomever is the strongest with 'insert character'.

The only cool thing I see you guys could get from this, is that since you'd be so far out of your comfort zone(not using your main) it would force you to rely on, or actually use and learn the basic things just to survive and you'd pay more attention to the player.

Since you guys are on Sarah, I could probably tell you some effective shit you could do against her with the character you actually use, in some of the most common situations.

 

Well I wrote something for Sarah. I'm definitely not the best source, but better Sarah players might appreciate having just add stuff to it instead of having to write the whole thing.
Unless the whole thing is seen as terrible.

Sarah
(Version more serious)

I will omit ++ from all the notes because in general it simply puts everything back to neutral. This move alone makes flamingo rather safe but removes all its rewards.
Even though it's a very important move, it's not worth mentioning here.
One thing that goes in Sarah's favor is that while she's in flamingo, she is nearly immune to throws because her options will almost always beat throws one way or another. Only exception is ++, but it's possible to input throw escapes during the animation.
Only consistent threats for ++ are full circular kicks.

In general, Sarah will want to enter Flamingo through cancels, but , + and + are threatening on block too.

What you have to do:
1. Recognize blocked moves that are "dangerous" on block.
2. Recognize moves that are not dangerous on block.
3. Recognize cancels and react quickly with a punch in the teeth.



Flamingo moves analysis

FL is -31 on block. A foward dash and throw should be guaranteed punishment.
On hit, she loses the offensive.
Sarah won't use often because of the poor risk/reward.

FL can be followed by a -12/-3 low, or a -6/+1 mid, or a +1/+6 high. If you don't evade, it's a guessing game.

FL is probably the most used one of the three though, so it makes FL even more threatening, but it's also a double edged blade for her. If Sarah likes to abuse that, you can crouch block once in a while and have the additional effect of nullifying FL.

FL+ is a good tool against , especially at disadvantage, but if Sarah is too obvious with it, she'll get punished hard. It goes under in some cases though. (Depends on range and foot stance.)

Other than that, nothing should really be noteworthy, but other moves remain useful outside of theoryfighting.


Entry to Flamingo

is where the low tier shenanigans begin. It's -6 on block. It gives her enough time to FL+ (sweep) under opponent's .
should beat anything except maybe _+(). It's not a move that you'll see often because its evade frames make it very unreliable.

and + give +2 on block. FL will beat any retaliations at a certain range.
and + give +4 on block. FL will beat any retaliation.


At +4, FL will beat anything except, I assume, evade to her front. At +2, will stuff FL.

At +2, she can interrupt any non-crouching retaliation with her P string.
The P string is low risk low reward, so eating it should be no big deal. You should only block if you really expect it - and even then I doubt it's worth blocking.
If she tries to avoid 2P, her options all put her in danger of anything else. Her best offensive option remains FL which is vulnerable to .
If you choose , your only "danger" is FL+ sweep, and I assume that some moves can stuff FL and FL+.

is -1 on block. High high if you can react fast enough.
+, is -2 on block. Second kick high.
is -3 on block.
+ is -3 on block.
is -4 on block. High high if you can react fast enough.



Other stuff

is obviously very unsafe. (-18)

and can both be followed with a quick BackTurned sweep. If you always block it, though, you'll get surprised by BackTurned .

+ : After +, if you see a punch, try to right away (or other if you feel creative.) Most importantly, if you react too late, be sure to block mid for the last hit in the string. It's a mid that "stumbles".

+() : If the second hit is a kick, the third hit will be a high. Only thing to "worry" about is a cancel into flamingo, but if you punch her, all your worries will be gone.

FL+::: : If you crouch block the first kick, the other two won't come out.

WhileCrouching +, (Delayable) the last knee is -14 if partially delayed, -17 if completely delayed.

In disadvantage, her low sweep is her only viable option outside of ++. You might eat FL+ once in a while but it most likely won't happen again for the rest of the year.


And one thing that has to be kept in mind: Sarah's flamingo really starts to shine when the entry move successfully hits.
When it hits, in general you shouldn't attack. You should concentrate on blocking properly and avoiding throws.
once in a while can be useful even in severe disadvantage to keep her worried, which limits her options, but that can be very risky on your part.

And on Sarah's side, when the entrance move is blocked, she has to ++ away or take a certain risk at disadvantage (or even at small advantage)

Sarah has tools against (FL+, FL FL and FL, but they put her in a dangerous position. The least risky choice is FL which is only weak against .
So I think that is good at shutting her down, as long as you don't use it too often.

 

I disagree that learning other characters will in any way hurt. It's all individual though, some people make playing multiple characters seem easy while some will just always feel uncomfortable playing one, neither way is "right".

I can say though, that pretty much every top VF player plays loads of characters that we rarely see in videos.

End of the day, what's important is getting good at VF, by learning to play almost every character except like 2-3 in the game I feel like I've gotten more adept at VF and not just playing on character gimmicks. Multiple characters can give you new angles you haven't seen with your main, as well as make you realize weaknesses in your game that your main never exposed. It is also a good shortcut to get knowledge about characters you don't get to play against regularly.

I don't know if this particular plan is the most constructive way, but it does not hurt to try for the people who want to.

 

You guys surprise me. Dont you know that the best way to learn to play against a character is to play that character yourself? Every single top player knows how to play a multitude of characters.

Im going to write something when I have some time. This has been hell of a week.

I also agree that mirror matches dont server much purpose. We should take turns playing Sarah I guess.

 

I'm in class right now, but since you asked me earlier to comment on your post I'll do so real quick. Sorry it won't be so thorough but in reality flamingo isn't so complicated to deal with.

There's just a couple things to remember when Sarah enters it. The defending opponent should most often crouch immediately and then stand up right away, this allows you to crouch the 9f P and duck under FL K.

Any mid hit you guard in flamingo stance, puts Sarah into disadvantage, and she'll more than likely want to take an out.

Typical outs:

FL P
FL 4PKG
FL 2K+G
FL 2/8P+K

-------

And finally I agree with you Jeneric, but that takes a much longer time and a much larger commitment that some people might not have for the game.

 

Ok, since we're talking about Sarah, is there any real difference between the flash piston punch variations???

What breaks should players normally look out for when facing her and what moves do some players tend to follow up with a throw attempt???

 

Throw breaks against Sarah:
+
+
+
+ (techable, make sure you tech on spot cause this is facedown/headtoward situation)

Most damaging directions are + (sweet pain) and + (fallen angel and guaranteed ground kick).
Guaranteed ground kicks after:
+
+
+ (if you dont tech)

Ground kick is NOT guaranteed after:
+ (struggle and backroll) "wrap legs around your neck"-throw
sweet pain (struggle and any direction)
+ (struggle and sideroll) The "trip you to your knees and crescent to the face"-throw

Note: Sarah has no downforward direction throw, so escaping that direction is useless.
Note: In flamingo Sarah has only catch throws that cant be escaped, so you dont need to worry about throwescapes when you evade flamingo attacks etc. If youre going to get thrown, best defense is ducking or an attack. Escapes dont help against flamingo.

Certain common attacks that are punishable on block:
= -12 This is Sarahs forward flip two-legged attack, cannot be sabakied, does not cause clash.
= -18 Note: if second hit(special mid) is crouchblocked, the knee becomes safe.
~ = -12 Note: this is the midhitting downward kick as the ender. The crescent ender is safe, high fullcircular. PK punish.
= -14
+ = -13 This is the midhitting fullcircular crescent ender. By pressing stick forward you should be able to get PK punish, as long as you were close enough to start with. Sarah can also cancel the kick into flamingo.
+ = -15. This means CH elbowspeed punishes.
FC + = -14..-17 The rising doubleknees are at least -14.
DM + = -14
= -18 when lowsweep is blocked. Launch time.

FLA + / + = -15

FLA (double highkicks->lowkick) = -12

NOTE:
FLA + (flamingo lowsweep) is less punishable than would appear. PK punish seems guaranteed, but in at least certain cases she can avoid elbows with immediate +/+ or ++. I havent tested this throroughly yet. Its possible that the move has multiple active frames and punishability might depend on distance the sweep is performed at, possibly stance and characterspecific hitboxes. Initially I tested against Kages elbow. In any case: dont overextend yourself after blocking this low sweep.

More to follow.

ps. For those who think this is waste of time: Researching character like this makes me find things that I didnt know about or ensure certain things I wasnt sure about. This kind of project is great motivation for in-depth research. Very useful for me and others.

The SLOW midhits from flamingo, FLA + and FLA + exit flamingo and are advantage on block (+2).

At +0, she can interrupt any non-crouching retaliation with her string. +1 for Vanes DS meh. NOTE: her FLA is +0 on block.

Last note of today: She needs to be at least -5 in flamingo before you can interrupt her FLA with an elbow.

 

There was some talk about 2P yesterday.

I'm conscious that Sarah has some ways to deal with , FL+ being the scariest one, but I still think that 2P is a viable way to shut her down when used only once in a while, mixed with other moves.

The reason is that her anti- moves put her at risk if the opponent decides to do anything else, especially FL+.

Do the more experienced Sarah players agree, or do you think that 2P is really always a bad idea against Sarah in any context and frequence?

There doesn't seem to be one. ...Not long ago I started getting an idea of what use it could have, but I can't remember right now. Must have been too meaningless.


I know the votes for Sarah were a joke, but still, does anyone have any question about playing against her?

 

Low punch is an ok option, but the question is when. If you block a flamingostarter, immediate low punch is usually a bad idea that loses to instant FLA K usually, not to mention FLA P+K. Thats why I have always recommended to wait a fraction of a second before you lowpunch, to make FLA K and FLA P+K whiff. For highpunch you might as well punch instantly.

Throwing Sarah from flamingo also works, especially if she whiffs some high attack.

Her safest method of dealing with low punch is FLA : that not only jumps over instant or delayed low punches, hits mid beating crouch guard, and on block is only -3 with pushback making punishing her ++ very difficult.

 

Yep.

PP2K is high high low.

P4K is high mid.

P, G, 6P is a basic flow.

PP8P the 8P in the series looks exactly like the initial P. You can slightly delay the piston series. However the last hit is -8 on guard.

If you use PP2K, P4K,, P - G 6P, etc. your opponent will start to respect what follows P, and will react with certain things because it happens very fast.

This is when PP by itself becomes pretty strong, then you can do things like PP, G, P, or PP, G, 6P and lock them up making them impatient.

It's A LOT of highs though, but you want your opponent to crouch in Sarah's face anyway because that can open up things like Serpent Canon checks.

It's all a conditioning thing, but it happens so fast.

P4K is super important for Sarah.

 

Nice post. FL is better than what you give it credit for though. I used to use it alot after FL to piss off the other player. It's also punishable by far reaching moves, and I believe can be punished if they dash in and hit you too.

As for vs. FL stance yes it is definitely effective and a perfectly viable way to beat out FL stance. Slide has already told you all that crouching vs. FL and then standing is the best defence, which it is but there's more too.

FL will beat on the first hit of the kicks as the first hit is special high, however if you delay your past the first hit then you can beat it out. also directly deals with things such as FL and which the Sarah user may be looking for to give herself advantage.

If you want to know how to beat out Sarah's FL effectively then I would advise doing what Slide suggested, using , slight delay , and evading to her back then launching (this is because Sarah's FL is half circular towards her front). If your character has any sabaki's feel free to use them also, Sarah's most common moves out of FL are: highs: , , , and , mids: , , (cannot be sabaki'd) and lows: (hit throw) and . That means her most used move classes are: HP, (, and ) HK, () MK, () LK, ( and - note I'm unsure whether that is sabaki-able or not though) and SK () so I would definitely advise looking at your character's moveslist and seeing what can beat HP/HK/MK/LK/SK. Sarah likes to utilise her tools ASAP when she is in FL, there really isn't any reason for Sarah to delay anything she is going to do in FL stance so, if you can, make her pay for this very reason or for being predictable for using moves such as FL upon entering stance. Another note for FL stance is that if (FL entry move) counter hits this gives her +10 and she gets garaunteed from there. Also if any FL entry moves stagger you, such as and I'm almost certain it leads to garaunteed aswell

General advice versus Sarah is always evade to her back as she only has 1 mid half circular out of stance and that only covers her front.

Her elbow () also has a special mid followup () meaning that if you block her elbow if you attempt to afterwards the follow up will catch you.

Sarah also has no situational throws which gives ring out potential or any sort of stagger, she is very weak at ringing out on half fence stages using moves and outside of FL entry hitting crouching opponents (almost certain crumple combo follows the stagger) her wall damage is particularly weak aswell.

 

It can be sabakied by Vanes . I dont think that is relevant though.

 

Are people even using Sarah? If not this thread has pretty much been a waste.

 

Well TBH I thought we were gunna all pick a char,use her/him and play together for (2?) weeks. All this typed info is nice but if I wanted that I could just go plow through the Sarah forum. Much more interested in the hands on approach.

 

Exactly my point. So who wants to use Sarah?

 

I'm taking on Sarah, and also learning Akira as well, as he was my project prior to this thread... Taking one step at a time though...

 

I'm up for it, but I don't play VF often enough to carry this project although I'm happy to participate in it.

 

Allow lol

 

If Sarah staggers opponent with the entry move, then FL is propably best bet instead of just PK, leading to huge advantage when it hits. (huge= +6)