Matt Wilson
New member
When playing online (or offline) I find myself accidently pressing the same set of buttons, performing the same combos and using the same specials to a point where I become very predictable during most matches.
The reason being (at least my reasoning) is because my fingers have become so accustomed to inputting a certain pattern before and after most combos that before my brain can even react and say, "No, don't do that, that's a bad idea!" I've already pressed the buttons, and low and behold, I get blocked, countered, juggled, and eventually defeated. I wouldn't consider it spam, but it's pretty damn close.
We all have out set combos we like to perform, and when the opportunity arisses, we like to chain them together enough to where we can damn near defeat our opponents right of the bat, but sometimes the opportunity DOES NOT present itself, but we find ourselves continuing to perform the same combo over and over again in the hopes that it will eventually connect and we'll do the serious damage we longed after for so long.
Playing like this is a dangerous style, only because it prevents you from becoming 'adaptable' to a match, and instead you force yourself do something that probably won't work, but you keep doing it because you want it to work. (So I guess it kind of is spamming, only with combos) However, the difference between this and actually 'spamming' combos is that the people who get hit with 'combo spam' are the people who can't block or are constantly being thrown for a curve, whether it's constant aggressiveness, a combonation of high and low mix ups, or just the inability to block on time, and they are getting torched by high damage chain combos, or a short burst of quick, low hitting combos that do 10-20% damage.
My definition of a 'combo spammer' is someone, like me at times, who forces themselves to perform the same combo albeit the oppurtunity is not there, or even if they block, because we are either used to it, i.e. our fingers kind of just input it automatically everytime, or we play through the match with an anti-adaptive style; we don't care what the opponent is doing or how they react to our combos. We are going for the same set-up everytime until it hits or works. This doesn't work for obvious reasons, and if your not creating an opportunity for good combo placement, then you're going to keep getting countered, hard.
Much like the spammers who spam the same special move consistantly, the combo spammer will eventually become too predictable, and you'll know how and when to block, and how to counter accordingly with your own punishing moves. (Even without the help of Combo Breaker)
The way to prevent yourself from doing this is two-fold. One, train yourself to look at the screen and not at the controls. I know, I know, we all have to look at the screen to play, duh, but a lot of times we may be looking at the screen, but we are not focusing on what's going on. We want to initate certain combos so bad because we know they have the potential to do serious damage, but we seem to think that regardless if they're blocking, jumping, or teleporting, the combos WILL work, and we actually end up getting beaten faster simply because we are being blocked and countered. Don't enter a match with the pre-conceived notion that you have 1-2 combos stuck in your head, and you're going to aleternate between both until you. Go to training mode, invest the time necessary to learn ALL the combos, or new ones of your one, THEN start sparring or playing against other people.
Each combo has it's mix of highs and lows, depending on the situation and when the need arisses to use them, they can all be initiated in various ways, either through specials, jumping attacks, or just straight up dashing. If you try the same combo and find that the person your fighting against knows what you're going to do next, it's high-time you tweak out your strategy a bit and approach the situation differently.
For example: I'm playing Scorpion. I jump up and do 1,1,1,1, db3 followed by a spear. Sure, it may work one or two times, but if that's the only combo you know, and you approach it the same way everytime, the other person is going to get wise to what you're doing and eventually block up, wait until your down, block down to avoid the sweep kick, then either uppercut the crap out of you or just initate their own chain combo and kick your ass. Why? Because you became too predictable with your combos, and the other guy took complete advantage of the situation, as he should have. Why? Because the oppurtunity presented itself.
Combos can be spammed just as much as specials, but I think people's definition of 'combo spam' is a little off. If someone can chain together high damage combos against you and you're not blocking, then he's obviously playing better. However, if that's the ONLY combo he knows, and he approaches it the same way everytime, then he's spamming. Combos come in all sorts of variaties, and can save your life more often then spamming specials can. So if you find yourself using 1 or 2 of the same combos every match with just a few specials thrown in, try going to training mode and practicing more. You'll be surprised of the insane stuff you can pull off with some practice, and you'll become a lot less predictable when you know what combos to use for multiple situations.
The reason being (at least my reasoning) is because my fingers have become so accustomed to inputting a certain pattern before and after most combos that before my brain can even react and say, "No, don't do that, that's a bad idea!" I've already pressed the buttons, and low and behold, I get blocked, countered, juggled, and eventually defeated. I wouldn't consider it spam, but it's pretty damn close.
We all have out set combos we like to perform, and when the opportunity arisses, we like to chain them together enough to where we can damn near defeat our opponents right of the bat, but sometimes the opportunity DOES NOT present itself, but we find ourselves continuing to perform the same combo over and over again in the hopes that it will eventually connect and we'll do the serious damage we longed after for so long.
Playing like this is a dangerous style, only because it prevents you from becoming 'adaptable' to a match, and instead you force yourself do something that probably won't work, but you keep doing it because you want it to work. (So I guess it kind of is spamming, only with combos) However, the difference between this and actually 'spamming' combos is that the people who get hit with 'combo spam' are the people who can't block or are constantly being thrown for a curve, whether it's constant aggressiveness, a combonation of high and low mix ups, or just the inability to block on time, and they are getting torched by high damage chain combos, or a short burst of quick, low hitting combos that do 10-20% damage.
My definition of a 'combo spammer' is someone, like me at times, who forces themselves to perform the same combo albeit the oppurtunity is not there, or even if they block, because we are either used to it, i.e. our fingers kind of just input it automatically everytime, or we play through the match with an anti-adaptive style; we don't care what the opponent is doing or how they react to our combos. We are going for the same set-up everytime until it hits or works. This doesn't work for obvious reasons, and if your not creating an opportunity for good combo placement, then you're going to keep getting countered, hard.
Much like the spammers who spam the same special move consistantly, the combo spammer will eventually become too predictable, and you'll know how and when to block, and how to counter accordingly with your own punishing moves. (Even without the help of Combo Breaker)
The way to prevent yourself from doing this is two-fold. One, train yourself to look at the screen and not at the controls. I know, I know, we all have to look at the screen to play, duh, but a lot of times we may be looking at the screen, but we are not focusing on what's going on. We want to initate certain combos so bad because we know they have the potential to do serious damage, but we seem to think that regardless if they're blocking, jumping, or teleporting, the combos WILL work, and we actually end up getting beaten faster simply because we are being blocked and countered. Don't enter a match with the pre-conceived notion that you have 1-2 combos stuck in your head, and you're going to aleternate between both until you. Go to training mode, invest the time necessary to learn ALL the combos, or new ones of your one, THEN start sparring or playing against other people.
Each combo has it's mix of highs and lows, depending on the situation and when the need arisses to use them, they can all be initiated in various ways, either through specials, jumping attacks, or just straight up dashing. If you try the same combo and find that the person your fighting against knows what you're going to do next, it's high-time you tweak out your strategy a bit and approach the situation differently.
For example: I'm playing Scorpion. I jump up and do 1,1,1,1, db3 followed by a spear. Sure, it may work one or two times, but if that's the only combo you know, and you approach it the same way everytime, the other person is going to get wise to what you're doing and eventually block up, wait until your down, block down to avoid the sweep kick, then either uppercut the crap out of you or just initate their own chain combo and kick your ass. Why? Because you became too predictable with your combos, and the other guy took complete advantage of the situation, as he should have. Why? Because the oppurtunity presented itself.
Combos can be spammed just as much as specials, but I think people's definition of 'combo spam' is a little off. If someone can chain together high damage combos against you and you're not blocking, then he's obviously playing better. However, if that's the ONLY combo he knows, and he approaches it the same way everytime, then he's spamming. Combos come in all sorts of variaties, and can save your life more often then spamming specials can. So if you find yourself using 1 or 2 of the same combos every match with just a few specials thrown in, try going to training mode and practicing more. You'll be surprised of the insane stuff you can pull off with some practice, and you'll become a lot less predictable when you know what combos to use for multiple situations.