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renic:
3rd Strike Online Commentary 5Star(AK), ReNiC(AL) (by ReNiCGaming)
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3sOE: Raju (Urien) vs Ryan Hart (Ken) @ Capcom Fight Club August '11
Upcoming events
3sos:
Capcom Fight Club - 20th August http://neoempire.com/forum/showthread.php?p=401861#post401861
Capcom promotional event with 3s:oe previews, aswell as SFxTekken and others.
Take All Comers 9th - 11th September https://forms.enfield.gov.uk/peo/
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SMBF Podcast #1
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Toge & Circle Masher discusses what has happened in the local scene. 3s:OE and top tiers in SF4 is also discussed. (Recorded July 2011)
renic:
I feel kinda bad cause I don’t think anyone knows how to really play.. but EH
3sos:
Shin Susan Boyle
3sos:
http://www.b15sdmdesigns.com/
Amazing custom sticks.
A comprehensive writeup of Hugo's clap game: why it's flawed as hell but remains a top tier tool.
anyone who's ever played against a hugo player in 3s will know about hugo's notorious clap move. it is undoubtedly one of the most dangerous and formiddable tools for pressure and mixup in the entire game but is also critically flawed.
what distinguishes a great hugo from an average or worse hugo is very often subtely discernable through the way they are using hugo's clap. it is without doubt the biggest giveaway of a lightweight hugo and a in good hands is often responsible for scaring the shit out of the opponent. the important question is why is this so? also how exactly does the clap game work?
firstly, each different strength of clap has a different startup speed, with fp being by far the slowest. the main quality of the fp clap is it has even faster recovery than the (very fast recovery) other claps. hugo is always able to combo fp clap into lp clap (into ex lariat if the opponent is standing and at close range) and if the opponent is crouching then they are able to combo fp clap, mp clap, lp clap (into sa3 for what is even a 100% stun combo vs certain characters like akuma and remy.
it's important to consider though that due to the varying speeds of the claps, you can find yourself wildly vulnerable to punishes during startup, in particular if you don't use primarily lp clap, although even this is certainly vulnerable to punishes such as ken sa3 during startup!
so what is the primary strategy of a good hugo when using the clap? put simply the most important goal for hugo is scaring the opponent into pressing buttons unsafely and when he learns not to do so in future you punish with mixup options such as his lk meatsquasher, and overheads. naturally from here a hugo is looking to return to exploiting clap only strings again in order to punish any attempt at getting out of predicted meatsquashers. and so it comes full circle.
how does hugo primarily get to land a clap when it has slow startup? traditionally it will be used either after knockdown, a clk, or a jump in (such as jfp, lp clap or splash, clk, lp clap). clap does NOT combo from clk! despite being one of his most typical setups for a clap, it is completely unsafe much of the time. ken can easily sa3 for example in the time it takes for the lp clap to come out so every time a hugo is using this they are taking a gamble, it's as simple as that.
this is where hugo's mixup can come in so important. we all know that once hugo lands one lp clap the odds of him going straight into another are very very reasonable. decent players will often be expecting this and will be readily prepared to either parry the second one or try to punish in the gap. this is precicely the point where hugo's clap becomes such a force. much of the time he can crouch block after a parried clap before the opponent's favoured punish will come out. so if ken goes for parry-cmk-sa3, it's totally possible that hugo will have blocked this and surprised the ken who may cancel into super presuming after his parry that it was an easy follow up.
now we find ourselves in a situation where the defender goes to try a parry into a faster punish. what they often do not realise is that hugo can confirm off am opponent's parry and cancel into 360 or 720. so where are we now? we have a player who is scared to parry any more claps for fear of it working against him!
now hugo gets really scary. with the opponent wary of parrying your lp clap abuse, he is likely to become desperate and search for other avenues out of trouble. he may decide to crouch block and just play the hugo's bluff, expecting a meatsquasher (lk 360) or a dash in to come in sooner or later and either jump out or punish on reaction such as a srk or super. but the claps are much deeper than this. for the sake of speed i may use 2 lp claps in a row which you may crouch block but then i may take a punt on a fp clap or ex clap. this is where their slow startup can actually be their greatest quality. the defender, edge and expecting hugo to mixup from his claps will often see the fp or ex clap but they are not expecting it. for this reason by the time they think 'hey this one has big startup, i'll punish it before it comes out' the clap will likely stuff any button they've pressed due to their being that slight time lag where they notice which strength clap it is.
at this point alarm bells should be ringing because the odds are high due to the range of the claps that the opponent went for a low attack such as cmk. but what is so terrible about this? well check above! when an opponent is crouching hugo can link fp clap, mp clap, lp clap into sa3 for ludicrous stun and damage! if the opponent is dizzied during the claps it actually adds recovery frames to the opponent meaning hugo can often combo into a 4th clap (lp version) without interrupting the dizzy! absolutely crazy.
have we fully explored the clap? absolutely not.
a common option for hugo after a clap is either a sweep, his fk or fp overheads (which do insane stun and good damage) or even a regular mp. all of these will can be used to stuff any pre-emptive attempt at punishing if the player is expecting another clap and tries to do an instant ken sa3 after a blocked clap for example. so now the ken is worried about even trying to go pre-emptive with his punish and is inclined to crouch block more than ever. but a hugo player won't really be concerned if the player insists on blocking all the time because he can either dash in grab or lk meatsquasher at virtually any moment throughout the pressure. so he may go fp clap, lp clap, lk meatsquasher. he may go clk, lp clap, lk meatsquasher, he may do 3 lp claps into dash in 720, he may do lp clap, lp clap, fp clap, dash in- crouch block to bait a punish, etc etc.
so where is ken now? well it is sometimes possible to jump out of his clap pressure game if you anticipate a slower clap or a meatsquasher etc, but this is also extremely flawed. in particular if hugo stands over your wakeup inside 360 range you have to guess if he's going to 360 or even 720 and the fear of this is huge naturally. you could srk, but hugo might be baiting this with an option parry or block and could 720 you for it. so another option is to simply jump on wakeup. but if hugo has decided to do a meaty clk, lp clap you may find the clk hits, then because it's very fast the defender jumps straight after. this is very bad potentially because if he did a lp clap after the clk then it will hit the defender just as he leaves the floor and leave him completely vulnerable much of the time (especially in the corner) to hugo's forwards fp, which is i believe the highest stun (and perhaps damage) single normal in the game. in the event of this happening the lp clap into forwards fp will have done in the region of 45% stun and if it has dizzied them in the corner, you will often be able to do one of hugo's notirious dizzy juggle combos, such as lp, mp, mp, mp, forwards fp (with the opponent still dizzy and hard knock-down, hugo likely just filled all his meter and did 40% damage even before you get up due to the lack of scaling- so this effectively means certain death when you stand back up.
for players who decide to gamble with parries during clap pressure they may be baited out and punished simply with an ex clap. the great thing about this is it does massive stun, decent damage and can be linked into sa2 with an easy confirm, a forwards fp if the opponent is near the corner (this is approximately 50% stun from memory). the other great quality of the ex clap is it is 3 hits so unless the defender simply guesses well or has good reactions to parry all 3 hits, it's very common for a player to parry the first hit, press any button and eat the second and 3rd hits (which still launches as before).
but wait, there's more! for some pretty horific extra mixup hugo can use a uoh after a clap to hop over any incoming low attack and give himself a free 720 window. what makes this extra good is that due to positioning, pushback, the number of claps used etc, you can make nit particularly ambiguous whether the uoh is designed to hit (which makes a great tick into grab). if they block the uoh they may see a grab coming and jump but if hugo goes for clk, lp clap the same scenario can happen roughly as above with the clap hitting them on the way up, forwards fp etc. on the other hand a uoh in this mixup game may be designed to whiff. for good parriers who expect this you will often see them react and try to parry the uoh but you land into a grab before they notice that the uoh whiffed and the parry never came out. alternatively hugo may opt for a complete mindfuck with sometihng like a clap, linked into clk into lk meatsquasher.
a good hugo is adept at mixing up all these options to work regularly in his favour, used in conjunction with punch 360s to bait mistakes, hugo's clap game is exceptionally dangerous. you will also see hugos using lp claps from half screen to pre-emptively stuff dash ins and if the opponent is clever enough to use ken's sa3 from 1/3 screen as a punish to the startup of a clap, you can often use lp clap from such a range that if he tries to super you will recover before he gets you and block it- 720 etc.
another killer tool is to use a clap a couple of frames early on an opponent's wakeup. the ultra fast recovery enables hugo to do it highly ambiguously, the defender may opt to parry or block when he sees this and hugo can 360/720 him effectively instantly.
i hope this demonstrates why the clap game is so deep and so dangerous. it can be particularly risky for hugo to abuse because at any given moment the mixup used is easily punished. what makes it so deadly is it requires the defender to guess very frequently with the odds usually stacked in hugo's favour because the defender is more worried about the pay-off for a bad guess than the reward for a good one much of the time. this is why at top level play claps so often get respected and just blocked because players are worried that the hugo will be one step ahead and punish you very very heavily for a simple error of judgement. that said there's is nothing stopping a hugo preying on a player who loves to block and has good reactions by either using the clap as a tick setu[ at close range for a punch 360 or even using a clap to partition a walk forwards 720 etc. in other words very little is certain when defending clap pressure and without awesome reactions and a bunch of good guesses the only way to be exempt from the fury that is hugo's clap pressure (especially in the corner) is simply to avoid the situation like the plague with a combination of quick rolls on wakeup and very very careful zoning. but by all means respect the clap because even a reaction EX srk on wakeup will trade badly to a clap timed frame perfectly to be meaty.
thanks to anyone who has bothered to read this, i hope you find it insightful. even if you still struggle to deal with claps, at least now you should understand them quite comprehensively.
*special note, any form of clap always has good frameadvantage on hit or block, without being punished during startup (not neceesarily possible if it's meaty) or if it's punished after a parry. this though depends on hugo often not blocking after the clap. finally this leaves an invincible fast startup option like ken's sa3 as the only certain way he has of completely punishing the clap even if it's meaty, however this depends on the hugo not using the clap ambiguously early and block after or even option parrying!*
anyway that's all for now
peace
TM
SMBF Presents: Circle Masher SF3:3s Kumite (Q)
The different stages of learning 3s
in every game there will always be stages of learning. as with any other game, there are key stages of development in this game where the player must overcome significant hurdles in order to continue their progression. understandably many players reach certain cross-roads in their play which will ultimately determine whether or not they have a future as a good, serious player of the game or whether the game becomes confined to the 'too random to take seriously' dustbin of doom or conversely if they begin to stagnate with the same problems for a long time. this write-up is based on the most common experience of a new player which will be that of a sf2 or sf4 player who takes up this game but the same points apply regardless of what gaming background you are from when you step into the world of street fighter 3.
it's first worth acknowledging that 3s is a game famed for it's constant use of the crazy, unknown variable that is the parry system. this is a gameplay mechanic which allows a player with either luck, good judgement, reactions or a combination of each of these qualities to unravel the predictable elements of most other fighting games and reverse the situation favourably. 3s always has had this reputation for being too closely associated with randomness and on the whole that reputation will never go away. but you will see as you read this post why this quality of the game is generally where the cross-roads of a player's development is met with either an emphatic response or a big fat thumbs down. whilst this game does have a strong, unpredictable core, it's far less random than many players appreciate and it's for this reason that through progressing for development stage to stage a player eventually reaches a point of the parry being defensively exploited and offensively far more negated to a point where the best player will almost always win. read on to find out how this relates to the key stages of improving in this game and what can be done to overcome this game mechanic as a potential hurdle to trip you up and force you out of this game before you've even got halfway decent at it.
stage 1: initial reactions to the game (day 1 players)
an awful lot of players are drawn in to this game by a great first impression. in my experience most new players tend to find the fast-paced explosive, often rushdown oriented, gameplay exciting and fun. in this stage they are simply getting to grips with how the characters feel, look, move and work and tend to be pretty happy with the game at this point as a lot of players don't worry to much if they have any success or not because they can accept they are new to the game and it's inevitable that crazy stuff will work against them
stage 2: week 2 players (might actually last weeks)
the player has now reached his first cross-roads where he tries to get some solid grip on the game and realises most of what he's used to exploiting doesn't work very effectively anymore. the whole sf2/sf4 style of projectiles to zone- anti air special move to punish jump ins as a strategy in this game will become woefully exposed at low level and the player is forced to accept that he must change his playstyle substantially in order to not be subject to relentless parry-punish play from his opponents. this is the first stage where players are likely to become frustrated at the game and this is where an awful lot of players will outright give up. to play a playstyle which has traditionally always been effective and be so comprehensively and consistently taken apart is frustrating for any player and this is a point where the player is likely to ask questions about whether or not the parry mechanic is such a great thing afterall.
stage 3: progression but still problem-laden
in this stage the player has accepted the failures of his play during stage 2 and has likely undertaken 2 key changes in order to improve his success rate in this game. the first change is he has simply stopped trying to force the game to play like sf2 or sf4 through acceptance that it simply doesn't work properly in 3s. because of this the player will have likely tried to move on almost entirely towards some new tactics, probably being more offensive, perhaps using more throws and certainly using less anti air special moves. the second key change the player will likely have made is that they will have made an effort to incorporate parries into their own play with limited by still some success. the parries will all be reaction parries generally due to a lack of awareness of what option parries are and how they work. the problem for many players here is when they are trying to learn to parry and due to their inexperience fail to do so regularly, it can be very frustrating and many players at this stage lose heart in continuing becaue parries are this wall of difficulty which they feel are inaccessible for them and it's not worth the effort.
stage 4: a competent player
in this stage the player has become aware of how option parries work and how to do them, although will likely only use them in a few key areas, such as anti air, wakeup, once in a while aerial vs a grounded opponent (anti ground if you will). the player will likely have honed his overall play somewhat to be more effective and use more mixup than in previous stages, but it's really that development of option parries which is the key difference. this is the stage where the player is likely to start winning far more matches than ever before. a potential cross-roads here arises through noticing that an awful lot of their wins and an awful lot of their defeats vs similarly skilled opponents will eventually come down to luck. you can have two hugos who spam option parry-(instant) 720 on their wakeup all the time and sure enough one of the guys stuck out a poke, ate the parry 720 and died. it can quite easily undermine the quality of a win at this point as a lot of this feels like it's just some guessing game. the main quality players will learn at this stage is how to read opponents more successfully because they will find themselves so often parried and punished or will eat a reversal that they have no option other than to get better at reading their opponents or two quite significantly change their playstyle (ideally both).
stage 5: a high level player
this is, in my opinion, typically the final key cross-roads in a player's central development. if a player makes it out the other side of this in one piece they will almost certainly love the game and continue to appreciate, respect and play the game. from here they will have the possibility of levelling up as far as their effort, will and ability can effectively take them because the key development stages have been passed without turning back. but what defines this stage? this is the stage when a player is far less confined by 'bad luck' with parries and have adopted a playstyle which defensively exploits parries highly without playing a stupidly high risk game (preferring to block more than option parry on wakeup being a key example) whilst on the defense as well as offense their play is catered to defeating parries outright, playing around them and even baiting them for punishes. great examples of this are the infamous option selects known as SGGK but there are many very simple examples which don't require a massive backlog of understanding about all the best, technical option selects. many are very simple revisions of previous playstyles. perhaps vs a guy who jumps in a ken player might use fp srk instead of lp because the odds of a player parrying a multi-hit attack are lower, they will mixup both their defensive and their offensive options so that predicting them and option parrying you becomes far more difficult. perhaps as akuma for an anti air you will use option forwards parry-srk-sa1 in order to completely ruin even the best parrying players and discourage them from jumping in. it's not so much the individual decisions a player will make at this stage which are so important (this merely defines the difference in quality between players who have reached this stage). what matters at this point is that you play with a clear comprehension of risk and reward, mixup, reads and it's for this reason that a stage 5 player can usually completely beat down a stage 4 player. It will often be the case that a stage 4 and a stage 5 player may be using virtually the same playstyle and tools with their character, but the stage 5 player will almost always unravel the stage 4 player through this higher level of exploitation of odds in a way which will almost always make him the favourite simply because at this point much of the random element of the game has been substantially nerfed and exploited in a way to favour you more than ever. at this point it puts into perspective how the initial sf2/sf4 way of thinking was simply wrong for this game and you can draw some interesting comparisons at times, where you don't even need to use fireballs or be scared of being parried to have an almost complete lockdown on a character. ken doesn't need to use fireballs to make you jump because his ground game is so solid for example that sometimes jumping in is a gamble worth trying. yet when a ken players knows his stuff, he has a formidablle anti air game which runs so much deeper than just a shoryuken.
in my opinion there is no real need for a stage 6 as whilst there is a massive difference between the worst stage 5 players (such as myself) and the world's best players, all they do is illustrate that superior technique and experience which makes them so much better. the reason why i don't bother to make a separate stage for this is that principally both players in this example are playing effectively with a comprehensive understanding of how the game works and the principle strategies required to deal with and exploit the general mechanics of the game. make no mistake however, the difference in ability between stage 5 players can be huge despite this. this difference between players is more a practical difference in quality as opposed to a hypothetical one in my opinion.
i appreciate that this explanation has made use of a number of references to things which non-3s players may not be entirely familiar with. talking about the details of those is for another day. i also accept that this writeup on development talks in general terms rather than specific ones because whilst i can likely go into detail on the specifics of each stage for each character (apart from a couple like ibuki perhaps :p) i wanted to write this in a way which generally applies to all newcomers and also intermediate players of the game.
if anyone has any specific comments relating to their stage of progression and perhaps has queries of how they can move on to the next stage with their specific character you are always welcome to ask me and i'm sure pretty much any experienced 3s player because almost everyone i know in this scene is happy to help.
peace
TM
"Our Super Street Fighter IV super star, Ryan Hart, has taken off a week ago from the United-Kingdom to land in Japan for a month of intensive training. Here's what happened during his first week there."
Ryan blogs his first week in Japan as he prepares for his assault at Evo 2011.
If news isn't being posted here often, its probably because its now on the facebook fanpage :D We are feeding this blog into the fanpage so you're probably better off liking our fanpage :) Thanks!
Super Turbo Saturdays #10: Unblockable Hurricanes with O. Ryu
Fightclub Invitational 2011 / Grand Finals SSFIV / Nevillebamshew (Gouken) vs Sky (Chun-Li) via teesidefightclub
Despite not playing for 6 months, Sky still pops out of nowhere and BEASTS.
jpj-isms @ SMBF #1
<jpj> i always think the char you pick has a reflection on the player's personality <EvilDindon> right <The Genius> so does that mean you like beats jpeg? <toge> so what does boxer say about us then jpeg <toge> :P <jpj> blanka players are either autistic or have mother issues <prkvid> and o.sagat players are just gay <prkvid> or what is the message <Tofa> lol <EvilDindon> I play ken cause i'm a crusher <jpj> vega players are in the closet <Tofa> o.sagat players probably one way or another lost an eye