Learning Characters that make your main even better.

Critical-Limit

Critical-Limit

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Forced aspect learning

(This does not apply to everyone, but for those of you sort of dwelling deeper into competitive gaming here is something for you to think about.)


What I mean by this is, Lets say you play Johnny cage. Most people would agree he's pretty much rush down, with a little bit of anti-pressure as he has a decent EX kick. He has very moderate zoning game. Sort of more like you would just shoot just a couple projectiles perhaps to "meaty" someone as they get up. or catch them out of a jump from a distance. Or even using EX to keep up pressure/chip damage. Whatever the case. he's mostly rush down.

Now because lets say you main only johnny. Your experience with zoning will be lower than your knowledge of rushing down. Your knowledge of how to DEAL with zoning will increase, but not so much your knowledge of zoning people out yourself. You may understand the concept but practice is a whole other thing.

Lets say this johnny cage player goes and messes around with Noob Saibot for a few months. He ends up focusing alot more time into zoning now, and not so much rush down. He's alright at noob upclose, but he's really understanding interval timings and waiting for jumps/baiting them out to drop block by walking back and forth ect.

now he goes back to johnny cage, and his zoning with johnny although is different from noob saibot. his mind is opened up to whole other elements he didn't really think of before.

I call this....

Forced Aspect Learning

You could have learned all that stuff just by playing johnny. And focusing solely on your Zone game. But because johnny's rush down is so good... why would you just focus on that? Well since you're forced to learn Zoning tactics as noob. You can now apply it to your johnny cage for those rare moments that you need to zone, or have the opportunity to.

does this make sense?

A personal example is I played Fox in SSBM.

I also picked up marth, and Falcon and Zelda.

Marth is all about spacing, Falcon is too... but he focuses the MOST on tech chasing, and Zelda is forced to learn really good SHIELD play.

Learning these other 3 characters... improved my fox. My fox's spacing abilities increased, so did his ability to tech chase, as well as my defensive shield play. Fox may not focus as hard on these as the other 3 on their key elements. But for any situation where I need to use those 3 things.... I've improved greatly.



Anyone got some examples where this happened to them?

To be honest I can't get through kitana's fans w/o Jade's glow... So someone like me needs to play someone like Johnny cage to learn how to get through that mess w/o it. Just incase I need it. ECT ECT.
 
This thread is awesome.

Mostly because of how true it is.


I main Sektor, I later picked up Baraka.
Baraka is a corner god so I worked on corner combos with him.

While playing as Sektor, I noticed I did my midscreen combos in the corner.
I went into the lab and tried some corner combos with Sektor.
45% with no bar.

The rest is history.



Your threads are great Critical :)
 
back said:
This thread is awesome.

Mostly because of how true it is.


I main Sektor, I later picked up Baraka.
Baraka is a corner god so I worked on corner combos with him.

While playing as Sektor, I noticed I did my midscreen combos in the corner.
I went into the lab and tried some corner combos with Sektor.
45% with no bar.

The rest is history.



Your threads are great Critical :)
Click to expand...

Thanks man I'm just raising awareness of things I've experienced in the past.


another example.

I picked up kung lao a while back. I got punished for my spin alot. So I became more careful with it on wake up/ throwing it out in general. And because of me being punished for my spin ect. I learned how to use other specials w/o getting punished.

For example, doing ermac's lift on wake up. I barely use ermac but because of how more focused spin is on wake up. I was able to be more smart about waking up with lift. As I would only do it if I see a jump, or if I believe pressure is coming my way. and the best way to get them to pressure you is to not spin/lift in the first place. If you're alwasy getting up to their block and attacking them lol they'll start hitting you on wake up.
 
My main was Mileena for a while and I was SUPER rushdown.

Recently I picked up Stryker and I'm like 60% rushdown, 40% zoning with him.

So now I can rush and zone with both characters.

Is that what you mean? If so then awesome thread. But wait......when aren't your threads awesome? Lol
 
back said:
Also Sheeva has taught me to attack wake-ups head on.
Click to expand...

You mean... head on as you are the one getting up? Or attacking the one getting up? I'm assuming you're the one attacking the guy knocked down. But "wake-ups" is a scenario so just making sure.

I don't know much sheeva so please enlighten me in greater detail.

Shirayuki Mizore said:
My main was Mileena for a while and I was SUPER rushdown.

Recently I picked up Stryker and I'm like 65% rushdown, 35% zoning with him.

So now I can rush and zone with both characters.

Is that what you mean? If so then awesome thread. But wait......when aren't your threads awesome? Lol
Click to expand...

lol thanks, <3

YEah that's what I mean. Did playing up close and learning mix ups help your stryker up close with mix ups? And did zoning with stryker open your mind to mileena's zone game?

That kind of stuff.

like you know how you grenade for jumps? (gun too if timed right/delayed to catch as they fall/rise) And gun for when they approach on foot. Did learning mix/ups. reactions of yoru opponent carry over to when you try zoning as mileena.

like "well most of the time I shoot their block they jump so I throw a grenade."

Scenario as mileena "now I throw a pair of sais... then jump and throw a pair a littler higher to catch their jump"
 
Yeah I didn't use Mileena's sais at all for zoning until I picked up Stryker and realized the usefulness of his gunshot.

I try to catch opponent's in their jumps with Strkyer's gunshot and now I try the same with Mileena's sais. Picking up different characters really does help!
 
I main Mileena also and when I started playing with Shang Tsung I had no other choice but to zone...so when I went back to Mileena and seen how awesome and fast her sais were and how easy I could bait my opponent, I just fell in love with her even more
 
Yes exactly I picked up Johnny Cage and Liu Kang. They both are decent zoners but grat rush down. Then I found Smoke.

100% Better in no time. I soon picked uup Cyrax and Jax who are both alllllright zoners. But I am getting better.
 
I've been a cage player since day one.

I've since then learned every characters set ups and have studied chains on my other favorites so I know how to counter with Cage and pretty much only Cage.

Learning the movesets and the way each character moves is extremely beneficial and really gives you a winning edge in nearly every matchup.

this can be applied to every fighting game really.
 
I was the same really. I played Noob for a while and got used to his zoning. I then managed to get used to his rushing by messing with Johnny cage. Then my alt characters spiraled out of control and I couldnt play anyone to a significant standard XD But thats a story for another thread. :P
 
I found that after using Kitana my air game improved greatly with Kung Lao and my rushing game got better when playing as jade now I want to work on my zoning. by the way what does ftw stand for.
 
I love this thread and your 'learning to lose thread' both have made me a better person and better player.

You already know that I'm a straight up Cage player. But as soon as Kenshi came out I started using him. After that I understood timings a bit more. It's pretty cool. I'm still not fully into using cage's forceballs unless rushing. But it definitely helped me a bit on learning to get in on zoners.
 
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