My crutches

I'm going to do something that tournament players are often not able to afford doing. I'm going to expose what I perceive my own weaknesses to be.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to Tony Familia about Brad, and some of the tricks that he finds useful. We were talking in the Shoutbox at VFDC, a chat program that everyone on the site can see from most of the pages, but Tony requested that we switch the discussion to PM. His logic was fairly sound - he didn't want to have his opponents gain too much of an insight into how to defeat him right before NYG7, a decent sized tournament and Virtua Fighter gathering (that I couldn't make).

I don't fault Tony with this at all, and would probably take the same approach if I was going to be playing in an upcoming tournament. However, I'm a firm believer in what I call the "liquid strategy" approach to gaming. I believe that if I can expose my own weaknesses to people, that will encourage them to exploit that part of my game. In turn, I will be forced to either continue losing, or adapt my strategies to adjust with what my opponents are now using against me. This process of adaptation is what makes for a strong player, and so this is what I hope to do.

Virtua Fighter can in many ways be seen as having an optimal way of playing. All though there are many different choices that you can make at any given point in the game, for specific situations, there is almost always one "best" action to take (naturally once your opponent starts to get wise to this, you will have to adapt, but let's keep things simple for now).

The flipside to moves that I use too much are moves and techniques that I use when I shouldn't. As an example, Brad is disadvantaged by 5 frames after he hits his opponent with the last kick in his PPK string (two jabs followed by a low kick). At 5 frames of disadvantage, Brad is able to perform a fuzzy guard, and avoid any throw attempt while still managing to block any mid-attack that the opponent can hit him with (for those new to the game, a fuzzy guard is performed by holding down just long enough to have Brad enter his ducking animation, then releasing down while continuing to hold guard). The problem is that I'm cheating these optimal plays, and am resorting to tricks that work against lower level players, but get me crushed against players of higher skill.

Let's get on to my crutches:

• Tech-roll recovery

Almost everytime I recover with a tech-roll, I automatically input Bra'd PK string. There's a couple of reasons that I do this. The string starts with his fastest move, an 11-frame jab, meaning that it can interupt a lot of heavier moves that opponents will throw out. It is also semi-circular, which can punish a lot of people trying to evade to crush whatever rising attack I'm doing. Generally speaking though, there should never be an automatic combination or input that I'm entering upon tech-rolling, aside from holding down the guard button (and even then I should be careful).

How can you beat this? Easy, knock me down with a move that I can tech-roll, feint a follow-up attack, and then just duck and guard. As the entire combo string is high, I'll whiff both attacks right over you and find myself in the undesirable position of being about 11 frames at disadvantage. Almost enough for a guaranteed throw!



• Lack of defense, too much abare

Abare is a japense term used by the Virtua Fighter community, and means (I believe) wreckless. The term is generally applied when someone attacks from a disadvantage. The greater disadvantage you have, in terms of frames, the less likely you are to successfully hit your opponent, and the more likely they are to successfully hit you.

My big problem is that whenever my opponent successfully blocks or ducks under my PK string, I instinctively either evade and attack or enter 2P. This will work some of the time, but if we go to the command list and look up how much disadvantage I have on PK being blocked, it's quite large - 8 frames. The upshot of this is that the opponent has a very large window to hit me out of either of these two approaches. What's the correct thing to do? Evade, enter a throw-escape, and guard. This will allow me to avoid being thrown, evade any initial attack (thus leaving the opponent at a disadvantage) and block and circular attack.

How can you beat this? Easy. Since I'm playing wrecklessly whenever I whiff or get a PK blocked, start by going for your fastest mid, which, at 14 frames, will crush my low punch. If I get wise to that and start evading, you can use either a circular, or delay your attack (which will cause me to enter a failed evade animation, and let you hit me successfully).



• Always evading to the background

For whatever reason I always evade to the background (up on the controller). This is more a force of habit than anything else, and is generally because I find it easier to guarantee an evade with this direction. Hitting down on my controller makes me feel more inclined to enter a duck rather than to successfully evade.

Why is this bad? Because a very skilled opponent knows that some of their moves are only half-circular, and will automatically hit me when I evade in a specific direction. By adjusting their stance to ensure that the circular property of their move matches the direction that I'm evading in, they will ensure a large number of free hits against me.

How can you beat this? Determine which moves your character has that are half circular, and learn to recognize which direction they will sweep through based on your stance. Brad has a half-circular move that is the start of his Lumpini combination, executed with 4P. By learning which direction this move will come out in (circular through the foreground or the background), you can adjust Brad's stance accordingly and guarantee free hits against me when I evade up.



• Reversal everytime my opponent rises

Brad has only one really useful reversal, and it's mostly only applicable in one scenario. By inputting 1P+K, Brad is able to catch mid-kicks and reverse them. The only time you can really rely on seeing a mid-kick from the opponent is when you have knocked them down. In this situation, Brad can reverse almost every rising mid-kick. This is a great boon, and really intimidates your opponents. By using good yomi, you can scare your opponents into rising holding the block button, opening up your entire wake-up game.

However, too much of anything is bad, and that applies in droves to Brad's reversal. First of all, this is a gamble at the best of times. Even if I know that my opponent will always use a rising kick, I still have to guess whether or not they will go mid or low. If they go low and I enter the reversal input, I will get hit with a counter hit, taking extra damage and finding myself at an even worse disadvantage. If my opponent elects simly to rise, I still enter the failed reversal animation, and my opponent gets to be the first one to press the attack.

How can you beat this? Easy. Just rise with low kicks. Don't feel like doing that? Just rise and wait for my failed reversal animation (Brad will raise his knee and hit his elbow against it). Once you see that, throw my ass across the ring. That's all there is to it. This is really the worst habit I have, and there is no excuse for throwing reversals out more than once or twice a match, or if the opponent really has no ability to play intelligently. Punish me for this and help me learn!

Okay, those are the major crutches that I'm currently working through. I have a lot of things that I think I do fairly effectively, but the next post I want to focus on moves and stances of Brad's that I don't use enough and would like to introduce more into my standard arsenal. Top of that list? Sway-back (4P+K+G). Stay tuned!