Top most important techiniques for beginner?

I suppose I should wait for jerky to do this...

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One of the top most important techiniques for beginner is to know what your own skill level is before trying to sound like you are some sort of an expert.

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Very nice Maddy. With wording parallel to the thread topic, you ignite the torch.

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You seem to have a lot of work to do in that category, I might add.

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Then plunge it in a bowl of icewater. This is like a butler sending insults over tea. Dude...we're on the INTERNET. You can find snuff films here. Men shoving baby jungle cats up their ass. Siamese twin kiddy porn. You simply must do better than "you seem to have a lot of work to do in that category, I might add" if you really wanna burn somebody.

I've played your akira. You have a shit-ton more fire than this.

 

Fucking UNACCEPTABLE.

/me lashes out against the back of maddy's thigh with a kendo stick

AGAIN.

 

If you really want to start at the basics, I have a whole different set of items that I think are important.

1. Know how to move. Movements like forward and backward dashing, forward and backward crouch dashing are the most useful motions in this game. Learn how they work with one another. Learn the difference between a successful evade and an unsuccessful evade. Learn how to use these movements in conjunction with one another to control your distance.

2. Learn how to use the Guard button. Use it to clear the input buffer so you can execute the moves precisely. Learn the timing of the input buffer. Understand how to work with the input buffer is the foundation for the advance defensive techs and also
your attacking flows.

3. Learn the Rhythm of the game. Go into practice and set the cpu to guard all and attack back. Try out different attacks with your character and learn when to input the evade for a successful evade. Get used to the timing and this is how you can begin to learn the more advance defensive techs.

4. Learn to hit check. Know when you successfully landed a hit and when you are guarded. If you can not do this, you won't be able to take advantage of each situation or exchanges.

5. Coming from a 2d background, you should already know the importance of frames. Learn the most common frames first like jabs, elbow, etc. Then learn the frames for the common launchers for most characters. Know when you can throw, guaranteed counters, and when you are advantaged, disadvantaged. Know how to open up the attacking flow with attacks that gives advantage on block, what move to use when you guard moves with guaranteed counter.

5. Learn the properties of the moves. Know what is a sabaki and what moves are consider what class of attack. Learn what moves are linear, half circular, full circular.

7. Get used to VF's paper rock scissor game. Some people refers this to the basic nitaku game, or a two choice situation between a mid attack or a throw. Once you understand the relationship between these two choices, you can apply this knowledge to a more indepth idea of the offensive/defensive santaku, or three choice.
Offensive - Mid attack / Throw or Low attack / Full circular attack.
Defensive - Guard / Attack / Evade
You can apply this concept to any situation in VF because these are the most basic paper rock scissor elements of VF.

8. Learn to mix a combination of attack, defense, and movement. Learn how to cancel dashes, evades by movement or attacking. Learn to mix these movements with attacks or defensive techs such as evade-crouch dash-attack, or back dash-evade-crouch dash, or attack-throw escape.

9. ???

10. ???

If you can make it all the way to number 8, you'll most likely figure out 9 and 10 for yourself. It's going to take a long time to get there, but for many of us it's a worthy trip to take on.

 

That about summarizes it all. Srider gave you all you really need to know. Man, this thread became something I didn't expect.

 

Well, yeah I think Srider hit the nail firmly on the head...I just felt the need to add some things I posted a while ago to help beginners...a lot of definitions really but hopefully a new player would find them useful:


1.BASICS

Frames:
In essence VF is built on the concept of frames. 1 frame = 1/60th of a second (ie 60 frames per second). All moves have a set amount of frames (time) associated with their execution and other properties such as hit on a guarding opponent or counter hit for example. Whilst not integral to a new players understanding it is important to have an idea of what they are. If you look on a characters move list on this site you will see the frame data for each move. This lists how many frames it takes to execute and whether you have an advantage or disadvantge on the move being guarded or a normal hit or a counter hit. You may often see people on the forum discussing things like +2 frame adv or when at -6 frame disadv for example. This simply refers to whether you or your opponent has the advantage after a particular move. If you have a +2 frame adv then your opponent has a -2 frame disadv and so on. Some moves will leave you in such a disadvantaged state that when blocked, your opponent will have a guaranteed follow up, for example, Akira's yoho is called a guaranteed throw move since if it is blocked, your oppponent is guaranteed a throw, ie you are at greater than 8 frames disadvantage (this is a slightly misleading description as you shall see later that throws can actually be escaped).

Hit type:
All moves in VF have the property of being high, mid or low in nature (some special moves will be none). Holding will block high and mid attacks and leave you open to a throw or a low attack and holding (ie ducking and holding guard) will let you dodge throws and high moves, block low attacks but will leave you open to mid attacks and low throws.

Counters:
There are two types mC and MC (in FT there are 3 classes of counters):

MC is a Major Counter hit and this is when your move hits an opponent as their move is about to hit you. Flash damage on screen is yellow. MC hits will generally leave you with a large advantage (and do more damage).

mC is a Minor counter or recovery counter. This is when you hit an opponent when they are recovering after doing a move. Flash damage on screen is red. Maybe less useful than MC hits but still useful none the less.

Weight:
There are 3 classes of weight. LWs are Light Weights and include Aoi, Pai and Sarah. MWs are Middle Weights are most common and include most characters. Akira and Jacky are heavy MWs and Jeffry and Wolf are Heavy Weights, HWs. The weight of a character will affect the range of moves or combos you can use against them

Throws:
Throws are initiated with "some direction/motion++". Low throws will only work on crouching opponents and are "some direction/motion+++". There are also catch throws as well. These generally have a slow start up.

All standard throws can be escaped. To escape a throw you must input the last command of your opponents throw++ so if Akira tried to throw you with his ++ thow you would need to enter ++ to escape it. This must be done at the time your opponent tries for the throw.

Evade:
If an attack is made towards you, you can block it, be hit by hit, miss it (eg out of range) or try to evade/dodge it using or . The motion must be quick and the stick/pad must be returned to neutral for an evade. The motion of your character will be quick. If you evade when there is no move coming at you, your evade will turn into a failed evade and this is a slow move. Some moves can not be evaded due to their nature (eg full circular moves) and some moves can only be evaded in a specific direction eg to evade Akiras SPoD you must evade towards his front (half circular moves).

Stance.
This is how you stand with respect to your opponent. If both your backs or both your fronts are showing to the screen this is OPEN footing and with one back and one front showing this is CLOSED. Vs most characters you start the fight in closed footing. Vs Brad you will start in OPEN in Evo. Some combos and moves etc will only work in one footing wheras some will work in all footing.

Inashi, Reversal, Sabaki:
These are special types of "defense".

An inashi is a move that will deflect an attack doing little or no damage but leaving your opponent in a struggling state.

A reversal is a move that will reverse an oncoming attack and cause you to score damage. In general reversals and inashis must be entered as an attack is made and must correspond to the hit level of an attack eg + is a high reversal + is a mid reversal and + is a low reversal.

A sabaki is an attack which will deflect oncoming attacks doing little or no damage. Thers are two types. A sabaki-attack will activate all the time and will do damage, for example Akiras ++. A Sabaki-reversal will deflect an attack doing no damage. It will only activate on successful deflection of an attack.

TR and QR:
This is the Tech Roll and Quick Rise. When knocked to the floor you have a few options of how you get up. You can use ++ as soon as you hit the floor to get up instantly and defend against any ground attacks. You can use /++ as you land to TR to safety or you can use as a rising attack. TRing can be dangerous in the wrong situation though since you are classed as crouched and thus are vunerable to low throws and other moves.

2. MOTION

Dash (forward or back) /

Crouch Dash:
The CD is a quick and effective way of entering a crouched state quickly. The command is or for forward CD/backward CD respectively. It is useful to use this in moving around quickly but also in modifying "from crouching" moves.

Modifying a move:
While of good importance to Kage players in particular (and most other characters) this technique is more or less essential to Akira players. Akira has several moves done from a crouching position:

eg his double palm

To use this move in combos it generally must be modified with a crouch dash to enable it to come out quickly. Direction of the CD won't matter as long as it is done quickly and smoothly. It may not be apparent now but it is the only way to do combos like,

> >

What you'd do is perform the command

or
or
say

The correct name for what you're doing with the crouch dash in this combo is "buffering". Essentially all this means is that you are entering the command for the move before you see it coming out. This leads nicely onto...

Guard buffering.
This is the act of holding buffering a command eg letting go of and entering . This will produce Akiras Super Dashing Elbow (SDE) from a guarding state. This is useful since moves like SDE would normally be given away by Akira twitching on screen or dashing forward.

Guard cancel.
The act of cancelling a command by holding guard. This can be useful in combos to ensure only jabs come out eg using quickly to stop a series coming out by mistake or by using > into a throw to trick your opponent (if your character has a guard cancellable kick/ series). Since they will see the kick animation start up, they may hold guard to protect themself , thus rendering themselves vunerable to a throw.

Fuzzy guarding.
Not really much to due with motion but more to do with the motion cut that happens say when you cancel a CD with . Useful in a handful of situations fuzzy guarding is basically the act of guarding a mid attack whilst avoiding a throw by "ducking" for approximately 4 frames. Seemingly this is cheating but it is actually a very skilled technique and good defense. There is basically a point between holding and holding in which you can avoid throws and block mids. Lots has been discussed about this and it is one of the first parts of challenge mode on the Evo disc.

3. DEFENSE OPTIONS

This is basically the defense options available to you. Some of these idea are from re-charred-sighs Akira FAQ and many other posts around the board. In the tutorial mode of Evo and the challenge section in particular you will find lots of examples of how to use these techniques and I will run the ideas and abbreviations you are most likely to encounter:

GTE or TEG:
Guarding Throw Escape or Throw Escape Guard are the same thing. This is where you enter a throw escape and then quickly release the button and keep the held down. Basically if you think your opponent is going to throw you and you enter a TE command and they don't try to throw you, you will whiff (miss) the throw and leave yourself at a disadv. If you TEG you will guard if they don't go for a throw and will escape the throw if you guessed correctly at the throw they were attempting.

ATE:
Attack TE. The idea here is that you do an attack then buffer on a TE into the end of it. Useful if your opponent always tries the same throw after blocking a big move.

RTE:
Reversal TE. Entering a reversal and buffering on a TE. If the rev whiffs your opponent may try to throw. In which case you have the chance of escaping it. If the rev is successful the TE won't matter.

E-TE:
An excellent form of defense, the Evading TE. Useful after a guaranteed throw move. In this situation if a move gets blocked, enter an evade and buffer in a TE. If your opponent attacks you'll evade the attack, if they throw you'll TE it hopefully.

E-TEG:
Evading TE Guard. Just like the last option select but this time release the as before and keep held down to cut down on any whiffed TEs.

DTE/TTE/QTE:
Standing for Double/Triple/Quadruple TEs. Basically entering up to 4 TEs quickly. This will seriously cut down any options your opponent has of throwing you but obviously the difficulty rises steeply with each number. These may also be combined with Evading and Guarding at the end eg E-TTEG. E-DTEG is probably the most well used defense against throws. Aim to cut out your opponents 2 most powerful throw directions.

(Myke did put up a vid once of Ryan Hart doing E-QTEG but this is quite an insane thing to try and do consistently, most advise to stick with E-DTEG).

ECD:
Evade Crouch Dash. This is entering an evade then CD very quickly and is useful in the fact it requires no TEs to be entered but the timing of it is hard (about 5 frames is all you'll have to enter the command). If your opponent attempts a throw you'll CD under it hopefully and if they try and attack you'll evade it.

ARE:
All Round Escape. Useful to avoid a Nitaku or "forced choice tactics" scenario. A search on All Round Escape should give a link to Myke's post on it.


Apologies for the focus on Akira but it originally came from an Akira piece I wrote. The techniques and all info contained is relevant to (essentially) all characters tho.

 

HOLY!!!!!!!....All da info..G buffering out of dat sounds extremely interesting..is it extremely useful for high level play with all characters.

 

Well, as I said, guard buffering Akira's sde is especially useful (since primarily you want to MC with it). It's been a while since I've used other chars but guard buffering certain moves with most other chars can be useful yes.

 

Thanks Myke.

Ah yeah, you know what, as I was writing down red flash for mC, I was actually thinking "is it?" and couldn't quite recall.

Thanks for clearing up ATE too, I've never really used the technique before but thanks for clearing it up.

 

Wow, I really appreciate all your feedback. Thanks a lot all.

 

Re: Top most important techiniques for beginner?

I confirm what I said. This thread truly lost its truly meaning.


****** I moved the Vanity related stuff to generals ******
-Srider

 

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Ryadus said:

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Ryadus said:
Man, this thread became something I didn't expect.

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I confirm what I said. This thread truly lost its truly meaning.

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No it hasn't.

Take a look on page 3 and answers to the thread title question have been given.

 

Yeah, but AFTER and BEFORE them this thread has only been 'I know the most about VF' thread.
But I do admit that you (and others) gave good and emptying answers.