Having considered the factors that should be considered before you commit to a particular tactic on wake-up, let's now look at some of the more commonly overused and underused options in beginner play. 

Commonly overused tactics on wake-up

1. Parrying

As I discussed some time ago in the post on parrying, parrying always has a significant element of risk to it. Not only does it involve guessing - which means potentially guessing wrong, and taking a huge chunk of damage - but the risk attached to it is the highest when you're getting up after a knockdown. Say you get knocked down midscreen - you have very little control over spacing, no scope for a setup which leads to a predictable response; your mindset should be defensive. In the corner, things are even worse since you have no control over spacing, and the chances of getting a bad result by cold guessing on a parry are the absolute highest in this scenario.

Despite this, it's common for beginners to parry more in this situation. The psychology behind it is understandable - nobody enjoys being stuck in a defensive position, at the mercy of their opponent's rushdown, so they take the most drastic option to turn things around - but it's also a quick way to lose again a strong opponent. Parries should be reserved for situations where you have a really good reason for doing so - you've picked up on a pattern in their rushdown, or it's the beginning of a round against a no-meter Chun and the risk is worth it, etc. Otherwise, be content to block, and wait for an opportunity to reset the situation to a more neutral one.


2. Shoryuken
   
   In a lot of ways, the thought process behind this is similar to parrying - it's a quick way to go from defense to offense if it works. However, it's even more high-risk, high-reward than parrying, since an unsuccessful shoryuken will almost always result in a big damage punish.
   
   Part of the reason this is so high risk is because it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking there's only one or two ways of getting around a wake-up shoryuken, which are to block or parry. However, this is very simplistic, and in reality there are plenty of other options:
   
   1. Backdash (some characters) - also good since it counters a wake-up tech throw
   2. Properly spaced jump-ins - if you time it right, you will be right over their head when they attempt to uppercut, so it won't autocorrect and you'll either hit them out of it, or it'll just whiff
   3. Meaties/high priority normals - these can simply stuff or trade with wake-up shoryuken
   
   The point is, although shoryuken seems like a very effective option to force your opponent to play cautiously after a knockdown, they still have options that are offensive in nature and will beat shoryuken. And when it fails, it fails in the biggest way possible, resulting in you taking a ton of damage. The key is the preserve the element of surprise - hold it in reserve until your opponent lets his guard down, then unleash it at the key moment to turn things in your favor.
   
   
3. Super
   
   This is character-specific of course - there's no point in doing wake-up SAIII with Yun, for example. This is especially common with easily pressured characters that don't have many wake-up options - Makoto SAI is the first one that comes to my mind. Again this is similar to shoryuken, except it's an even worse idea since you don't gain much over a wake-up shoryuken, and you're gambling an entire meter (as opposed to none, or just an EX worth if you need to EX shoryuken, with Dudley for example). If you fail, you not only take a huge chunk of damage, but you're also out a meter, which is especially painful with one meter stock supers like Makoto SAI.
   
   There are other things which also make wake-up super generally a bad idea:
   
   - Your opponent is more likely to play conservatively if they see you have meter (and a viable super for wake-up).
   - The super flash gives away what you're planning on doing, so unless they throw something out before the super flash, you automatically lose in that situation. If your opponent tries to throw you a frame or two after wake-up uppercut, they eat the uppercut, because there's nothing to give away what you're doing; if the same thing happens with wake-up super, they obviously won't do anything.
   
   On characters with good uppercuts (shotos, Dudley's EX uppercut), there is almost no reason to ever pick wake-up super over uppercut (and even that should be used somewhat sparingly). On characters like Makoto, you really don't want to wake-up super unless you're 100% convinced they'll do something that can be punished by it, and even then it's usually a better idea to throw in a cr. LK first, so that you don't telegraph the super, and they have to commit to blocking low in order to block the whole thing.
   

Commonly underused tactics on wake-up

1. Blocking
   
   
This is perhaps the most phlegmatic option available, and (perhaps) consequently the most under appreciated wake-up tactic in the game, but blocking is generally the safest, most consistent option after getting knocked down. Let's consider the reasons why you wouldn't:

1a. High/low mixups: Very few characters have fast overheads that lead into any serious damage. Every character does have UOH, but in and of itself the damage on UOH is pitiful. Most can combo into super with the right timing and spacing, but that timing and spacing is very specific, and usually requires hitting with the very tail end of UOH, which means you have the most time to react and block it. Against characters like Dudley and Urien (with Aegis out) overheads become a much more serious problem, and naturally blocking by itself is insufficient, but even so they have to burn meter to do it, which provides some longer-term relief in terms of pressure.

1b. Throws/command grabs: The standard LP+LK throw is generally one of the fastest, safest offensive options in the game for most characters, but even it has its drawbacks. The short range means their spacing options are limited (bar exceptions like kara-throws, which are extremely powerful), so you know when to be on the lookout for it. The knockdown is huge, but the damage isn't off the charts, and there's no immediate follow up for more damage. You also have 6 frames of throw invulnerability on wake-up, which is a long enough window to do something else that prevents getting thrown. Getting thrown a few times in a row is annoying, but you develop the instinct and reaction time with experience to generally avoid it from happening too frequently.

Command grabs like Makoto's and Hugos are scarier propositions since they either do insane damage, or have painful follow-ups, but again, the 6 frames of throw invulnerability on wake-up give you time to do something to prevent that from happening. Not to mention you can always jump away, which takes us to our second point:


2. Jumping 
   
   On the surface, jumping might appear to be a risky proposition. After it, there's no real offensive element to it - you could throw out a jump normal on the way up, but chances are they'll recover around the time or before you land, putting you more or less where you started. All the same, it's surprisingly effective for a number of reasons:
   
   2a. It avoids throws and command grabs entirely. Most characters are off the ground in 3 frames (some in 4, a couple in 5), which means you can even wait a moment before jumping since you have a little more throw invincibility when you get up initially.
   
   2b. If you have wake-up options like uppercut or super, your opponent is more likely to play conservatively and either fish for a parry, or just wait a moment before doing anything. This is all the time you need to jump away, or even out of the corner, trading places with them.
   
   2c. When you're airborne, it's generally harder to land big damage. Standard ground combos into supers won't do anything when you're airbone, and low pokes that are even slightly delayed will whiff. Even if you get hit, much of the time it'll just be a normal that will result in you getting reset, which is much better than that normal getting combo'd into a super.
   
   2d. You can always parry in the air, which is somewhat less risky than on the ground since there's no high/low mixups to worry about, and most characters have less options against you when you're in the air than on the ground, which means parries can be a little more easy to predict.
   
   Like every other wake-up option, it has its drawbacks. There is a small 3-5 window where they can hit you for free while you're jumping, and once you commit to a jump your options are fairly limited until you land. All the same, it's still effective if not overused, and especially good against characters who are throw/command grab dependent.
   
   
3. Moves that are airborne quickly (e.g. Akuma demon flip, Urien headbutt, etc.)
   
   As an alternative to jumping, there are some moves that will have you airborne within the first few startup frames, and thus share a lot of the advantages of jumping, such as avoiding throws and letting you get air reset if hit. Some examples include:
   
   - Akuma: DP + K (demon flip)
   - Akuma: QCB + K (hurricane kick)
   - Chun-Li: far st. HK (hop kick, not the knee)
   - Urien: Charge d., u. + P (headbutt)
   
   And here are a couple of videos showing such moves, and how they can be effective. In the first video below, Urien either does headbutt or knee drop on wakeup (looks like knee drop to me, but I could be wrong), and Makoto's set-up for the ex. chop fails since he gets air reset by the cr. LK, and punishes by throwing and dropping Makoto in the corner (occurs at 2:17):
   
   

In the second example below, Akuma simply gets out of the corner for free using demon flip, baiting a Chun-Li far fierce in an attempt to punish him before he lands. It fails, and he pulls off a big punish to finish off the round (occurs at 13:53):

4.  Quick roll + Backdash (midscreen)

This doesn't work well with characters who have tech roll slowly or have slow, easy to punish backdashes (i.e.       Chun-Li), and obviously doesn't do anything in the corner. However, this is a very effective wake-up tactic midscreen with characters like shotos, Makoto, etc., since the combination of tech rolling and backdashing puts a lot of distance between you and your opponent very quickly. If they knocked you down with a move that recovers slowly - say, shoto low sweep - then the gap may be too large to safely bridge by dashing, which means a lot of the pressure on you is immediately relieved.

In fact, it's fairly common for beginners (and even better players) to fail to consider a backdash, and end up throwing out a long range move that would hit you without a backdash, but just barely whiffs with one (i.e. Chun-Li far st. HP, Ken st. HK, etc.). In these scenarios you can easily punish such moves with big combos, and turn the flow of battle completely. Of course, like anything else it can be punished if your opponent expects it, so don't abuse it. Use it at the right times, and it can get you out of trouble fairly easily, though. 



Hopefully you have a better grasp of your wake-up options, and getting knocked down isn't quite as frightening an ordeal as before!

One of the most fundamental, yet hardest things to master in 3rd Strike is defense, particularly after getting knocked down. When it comes to offense, a lot of development occurs outside of competitive play - practicing combos until your execution is perfect, mastering the timing for various mixups, etc. This isn't as true for learning how to defend properly - learning to defend well primarily comes from experience under actual pressure against other players. In this post I will focus primarily on how to defend, after getting knocked down.

Despite the presence of numerous factors that should all be considered when deciding what to do on wakeup, most beginners fall into the trap of focusing one just one or two of them, and consequently limiting themselves to one or two options after getting knocked down. This in turn makes them very predictable, which makes the attacker's job much easier. It's important to be aware of all of the possibilities when deciding what to do on wake up.


Factors that should be considered on wake-up:

• Spacing - spacing plays a large role in determining what mixups are available to a character after a knockdown. Throws, for example, usually only come into play at fairly close range; kara-throws and tick throw setups can extend this range greatly. However, it's important not to get too hung up on throw-teching just because you got thrown 2 or 3 times in a row, or because the same tick throw setup got you the previous 2 times. Far more damaging options such as short-short-super (shotos) also exist in this range for virtually all characters, and the risk-reward of going for a throw tech has to be considered.
  
  At a longer range, throws come out of the equation, but new factors come in. For example, moves that would be unsafe at closer range - e.g. shoto cr. hk, or shoto UOH - now become safe or more viable. Since throws are out (barring things like kara-throws), blocking low is often very safe, as very few characters have overheads that can't be blocked on reaction, or lead into big damage. Parrying is also more viable at this range, although it's still risky, and shouldn't be done just for the sake or parrying.
  
  Whether or not you're in the corner or midscreen is also a key consideration. It's much easier to get out of pressure midscreen, since tech-rolling and backdashing can put a lot of distance between you and your opponent. Some players will underestimate this distance and dash recklessly in order to try and stay close, which allows you to counter with stuff like throw or uppercut; more experienced players will close the gap as much as possible, but also accept that some amount of offensive pressure will be lost.
  
  Spacing also comes into the equation for jump-in mixups after a knockdown. If attempt an ambiguous crossup (with Yun or Ken, for example), your options are fairly limited, but so are theirs, since they're airborne. If they come in at a decent range from the front, then you have more freedom to choose an anti-air that suits the situation.
  
  
• Meter, Risk/Reward - Some characters become considerably scarier after getting meter; while getting knocked down against a Dudley without meter might not be too bad, a Dudley with meter has one of the most frightening high-low mixups in the game. Chun-Li and Yun are all about getting meter ASAP; control, and the flow of the game turns drastically in their favor once they get it.
  
  Naturally, the risk of doing something like wake-up uppercut or parrying goes up enormously against such characters; it's important to adjust your tactics on wake-up accordingly. Having your health chipped away by Chun-li's kara throws is frustrating, but when you're below 40% health and one super combo means certain death, it may be a necessary evil, up to a point. On the flip side, if you get knocked down at the start of a round and she doesn't have any meter, taking a risk in order to turn the tables and put her on the defensive (which prevents her from getting easy meter and controlling the flow of the game) may be worthwhile, especially if the matchup is a very difficult one.
  
  
• Your respective kits - both players have different options at their disposal, and this plays into the mindgames that occur after knockdowns. Against characters with wake-up uppercut or other strong wakeup options (like Dudley ex backswing blow, Akuma HK hurricane kick, etc.), beginners tend to take one of two one-track approaches:
  
  1. Play as if wake-up uppercut doesn't exist, continuing to rush down recklessly, or
  2. Play very timidly, usually blocking for an interval after you get up just to avoid getting uppercutted
  
  Now, both of these patterns are very predictable, and have very simple counters. If they rush down recklessly, just wake-up uppercut. Of course you don't do it 5 times in a row, but until they pick up on it and play with enough caution to avoid eating it repeatedly, it'll always be in your back pocket as a get out of jail free card. Against timid players, you take the offensive - if they block a lot, throw; if they're blocking high, throw in stuff like cr. MK xx shoryuken; sometimes, you can take the opportunity to just jump out of the corner and stick them in it. The point is, in order to deal with a threat like wake-up uppercut, you need to know a variety of counters (which I'll cover in part 2), and you need to avoid falling into patterns/habits.
  
  On the flip side, characters with weak wake-up options that are easily pressured - Yun, Makoto, etc. - usually provoke the first style of play mentioned earlier, thoughtless aggression. Although your options are more limited, a beginner opponent will often unintentionally limit themselves in response by committing to their offensive pressure early, not varying their timing, and often forgoing lower damage options like throws in favor of big damage chains/combos, since they think you can't do much about it. If you latch on to a habit like this, then you can turn things around with a parry, or just by blocking and waiting out the pressure until you have some room to maneuver. You don't have to go from defense to offense immediately to turn the tides; if you start out getting off your ass, and end up with a half-screen of distance between the two of you without taking any damage, then the net change in the position is in your favor.
  
  
• Your previous wake-up responses - It's common, and to some extend understandable, to get hung up on what immediately preceded the current state of affairs during the course of a game - "I just got thrown, I don't want to get thrown again", or "He just wake-up uppercutted me, I'd better not let that happen twice in a row". If you get knocked down, try to be aware of:
  
  - How you responded previously to a similar situation, and
  - How your opponent handled your response
  
  The first point is simply a matter of knowing your habits, and consciously trying to break them. Take into account as many factors as possible; there's a lot more to it than just what your opponent did to knock you down. Ask yourself: Am I responding predictably to a particular manner of getting knocked down? (E.g. Always tech-throwing after getting knocked down by a throw?) Do I fall back on a particular tactic when I'm low health? When I have meter? When he doesn't have meter? And so on.
  
  On the second point let's consider an example. If you connected with a wake-up uppercut on the previous occasion, it's a fairly safe bet they are going to be watching out for it, which opens the door to jump out of the corner, throw them, etc. On the other hand, if your previous wake-up uppercut was blocked, then your response should be based on what your analysis of playstyle is - if they're very cautious, then they'll probably be on the lookout again for another one. If they're more aggressive, then they may have mentally ticked off "blocked wake-up uppercut, don't need to worry about it for a while now", and a second one in a row can catch them by surprise.
  
  
  
  This sort of analysis isn't just limited to uppercut or offensive counterattacks on wake-up - it's just as important for wake-up throws, jumps, blocks, doesn't matter. If you're always keeping tabs on how you react to certain situations, and how they react to what you do, then difficult situations like getting knocked down become a lot less painful. In part 2, I'm going to discuss commonly overused and underused tactics/moves on wake-up.
  

Having dedicated a fair number of posts to general 3S mechanics and techniques, I thought it would be good to change the pace of things and devote a couple of posts to more character-specific discussion. Akuma happens to be a favorite character of mine - very well designed, fairly balanced, and generally very fun to play with his vast arsenal of offensive options.

One of the things that Akuma not only excels at, but probably handles better than any other character in the game is anti-air mixups. He has the most versatile anti-air kit in the game, and has a safe, guaranteed counter to virtually any aerial maneuver, offensive or defensive, that any character in the game can throw at you. Let's examine these options in-depth:


1. DP + P (Shoryuken) xx SAI (Messatsu Gouhadou)

Akuma's "bread and butter" anti-air, this has virtually all of the benefits of a regular anti-air shoryuken - fast startup, invincibility frames, high priority - while eliminating the primary drawback to anti-air shoryuken, which is that it can be parried and then punished very easily. Should your opponent attempt to jump-in parry, there are a couple of things which make it virtually impossible for them to get out unscathed:

• They have to anticipate the SAI followup to shoryuken and parry twice before the super flash, which requires a different timing from parrying a HP shoryuken. Many times opponents will forget about the super cancel and parry anticipating a fierce shoryuken, and will end up eating the super for free.
  
• Even if they do anticipate the super and time the initial parry correctly, they don't have the option of blocking like they would if they were on the ground, so they have 2 equally painful options at this point: (a) commit to parrying all 6 hits, in which case Akuma will recover well before they finish parrying, and can follow up with a virtually unparriable air combo, or (b) parry 1-2 times, then eat the rest of the super so that Akuma can't recover and follow up while they are in the middle of the parries.

Here is a video showing what happens even if they anticipate the uppercut super and try to parry their way out of it (occurs at 4:18):

Although this is a popular and generally fairly safe option, there are a couple of ways to mitigate the effectiveness of it, mostly revolving around doing a jump in normal early enough to mess up the timing on this, since he needs to uppercut late enough to cancel into super while he's still on the ground.. Air projectiles like Akuma's air fireball and Ibuki's kunais also prevent him from using this option.


2. SAI (Messatsu Gouhadou)

Unlike the first option, which requires close proximity and a sufficiently late timing, cutting out the shoryuken has the advantage of being able to punish the opponent at any airborne state - about to land, at the peak of the jump, doesn't matter. It also has much more range than shoryuken xx super, and can catch opponents who are jumping away in addition to jumping straight up or towards you,  Here is an example of this option punishing in a situation where shoryuken xx super wouldn't connect (occurs at 4:30):

Early air normals aren't as effective against this, since there's no cancel involved - at best you'll trade a normal for a super (which should virtually always be in Akuma's favor), and often you'll just end up eating the super anyways. The only downside is that his super doesn't have any invincibility frames, so you may end up taking damage more frequently than with shoryuken xx super. If your reaction time is slow and you super very late, you could end up getting hit out of the super before it even comes out, burning a meter to no avail.


3. LP, LP, f., LK, HP (Raging Demon)

A fairly flashy but effective anti-air, raging demon works very well in the same situations that shoryuken xx super would - empty/parry jump-ins, and against late air-normals. Raging Demon has invincibility at the startup, which allows it to work as anti-air against jump in normals. It can't be avoided by jumping away after the super flash, since jumping has a minimum of 3 frames startup for every character, and Akuma will land the Demon on the first frame after you land.

In order to avoid hitting them with the initial jab - stand jab can easily be stuffed with properly spaced normals - the idea is to do both jabs crouching, avoiding any jump in normals they might throw out, then finish the rest of the input normally. So the overall input looks something like this:

cr. LP, cr. LP, QCF, LK, HP

The "forward" part of the QCF counts towards the Demon, and with a little practice the motion and timing become second nature. Below is an example of anti-air demon being used in competitive play (occurs at 5:38):

4. d., d., d. + PPP (KKZ)

Although this isn't used all that much outside of LK tatsu, st. LP reset xx KKZ, it's actually surprisingly viable as an anti-air. Invincibility on startup, great damage, first hit can't be parried, and unlike all of the previous entries, it can hit someone who is directly above you or attempting to cross you up. The only downside is that the startup is fairly slow, so you need to catch them at the peak of their jump. Otherwise, they'll probably have time to land and block it, which would be disastrous.

Below is an example of this being used in play (occurs at 1:13):

5. st. HP

This may come as something of a surprise. After all, all shoto fierces are identical, so what's special about Akuma's?

What makes Akuma's fierce particularly potent as an anti-air are the numerous mixups he has to follow it up, especially if it gets parried.

1. QCF, QCF + P (SAI, Messatsu Gouhadou) - much like uppercut super, the only thing you can do in this situation is parry, and the first two parries must be in quick succession (before the super flash). This only works if st. HP is parried, though - if they get hit, then super will whiff since they are air reset, and you will be punished - so verify that they parried before going through with this.
2. QCB + MK/HK (tatsu) (xx SAI), DP + P (shoryuken) (xx SAI) - these options follow the regular parry timing for the first two hits (instead of one), but since both MK/HK tatsu and shoryuken can also be super canceled, there's also a parry timing mixup based on whether or not you super cancel. These are both also easily punished if fierce air resets them, but after parrying the fierce it doesn't matter what they do, they're screwed.
3. QCB + LK (tatsu) - this plays out like his normal BnB combo, with yet another parry timing mixup - LK tatsu comes out a little slower than MK/HK tatsu/shoryuken, so the parry has to be a little delayed. Should LK tatsu connect, he has all of his standard followups at his disposal - shoryuken, st. LP xx HK tatsu, cr. LP reset, etc.
4. Nothing - last of all, you can just do nothing while they're in the air, waiting for them to land so you can follow up with something like cr. MK xx SAI.

What makes this so devastating is that you have very little choice but to continue parrying after you commit to parrying the st. HP, but there are so many different timing mixups - 2 quick ones, 2 normal parries followed by a quick one, a delayed parry - that it's very unlikely you'll guess right. Even if you do, the chains that end in super are virtually impossible to get out of without taking significant damage.


Hopefully this has provided some helpful insight into why Akuma possesses one of the strongest - if not the strongest - anti-air kits in the game.

What is a kara cancel? Why is it useful?

A kara-cancel involves canceling the startup frames of a move into another move. This is different from a "standard" cancel, which usually occurs during the hit frames of the move; LP shoryuken xx SAI, with say Akuma, involves two distinct moves that both connect with the opponent, with shoryuken only being canceled after it connects. A kara-cancel, on the other hand, usually occurs during the startup frames of the initial move, so the end result is that the canceled move doesn't make contact with the opponent, and the final result ends up looking like one regular move, instead of two (one canceled into another).

Bearing in mind that the cancel usually occurs within the first few frames of the kara'ed move, the timing for the button inputs is generally very quick. In fact, it's pretty much the same timing you'd use for drumming/plinking all 3 punch/kick buttons for tight combos involving supers; the gap between the canceled and final move should be very small, almost nonexistent. Many times, there will be a distinct noise that will help you know if you did it correctly; for example, if you do Akuma's kara-throw (f+MP xx LK+LP) correctly, you'll hear the grunt he normally does with f+MP, since it occurs during the first few frames of the move. If you don't do you it correctly, you'll either get regular old f+MP, or you'll get a throw without the f+MP grunt.

What do kara-cancels bring to the table? In a word, range. Some characters have moves that move their sprite forward a large distance within the first few frames; when you cancel such moves into other moves, the end result is that the final move effectively gains additional range equal to the distance moved forward by kara-canceled move. This leads to short range moves such as throws gaining valuable extra range, and combos that wouldn't ordinarily work due to spacing or pushback suddenly working and dealing free extra damage.


Kara throws: the most commonly used kara cancel

Throws are an important part of many characters' toolsets; they come out fast, can't be blocked/parried, can't be punished if teched, and knock down. The main thing that keeps them in check is their fairly short range; therefore, it naturally makes sense that anything which adds range to them would increase their usefulness dramatically. As it turns out, kara-canceling is perfect for this purpose, and some characters benefit enormously from being able to do so.

Below is a table containing the most commonly used kara-throws:

There are other kara-throws - every character has one, in fact - but the ones listed in the table above are the most commonly used by far. The range granted by other characters' kara throws is generally considered too small to be worth using in actual play.


Other kara-cancels: kara-shoryuken, kara-palms, etc.

Although kara cancels are most commonly used with throws, they can be used to increase the range of certain specials as well. This leads into combos that can only be executed due to the increased range of the kara-canceled move.

Another table containing commonly kara-canceled specials:

This is not a comprehensive table of useful kara-cancels with respect to specials; one of my weaknesses is that I'm not very knowledgeable about characters outside of top/upper-mid tier, and this chart unfortunately reflects that. Other characters probably have useful kara-cancels that I don't know about; the purpose of this chart is just to give an idea of some commonly used kara cancels, and the impact they can have on a character's combos.

If some of the kara-cancels in the chart above look very difficult, that's because they are; thankfully, not all of these kara-cancels are necessary for mastering a character. Some, like Makoto's kara-grab and Ken's kara-shoryuken are very useful and well worth spending the time to get down consistently; others like the Jiro demon and Yun's kara-palms are more for show/flashiness, and are rarely seen in high level competitive play.


Kara-canceling is one of the most common and useful techniques in 3rd strike, so it's well worth mastering and implementing into your play.

Parrying is invariably the mechanic which draws a huge portion of the new/beginner 3rd strike player base. My first experience with 3S was the famous Daigo video, which from a purely technical standpoint is not that impressive - the first parry was a combination of bad decision making on Justin Wong's part and luck on Daigo's (you could see Ken move forward right before the super flash), and the rest was simply a matter of execution, nothing more. Even so, watching Ken, on the brink of death, staving off seemingly certain defeat and turning around a lost situation, and factoring in the stage, the crowd's reaction, and so on, it still ends up being a great moment. Parries possess a certain flashiness, a certain "gotcha!" to them that never gets old, keeps the game still going more than a decade after its inception.

Unlike my previous posts, which have (for the most part) been strictly technical in nature, I want to explore parrying from a slightly more psychological view. Of course, the focus is, as always, on improving as a player, so the technical aspects of parrying will be at the forefront, but this is more a personal view on how to approach parrying intelligently, and is not as cut-and-dry as my previous posts.


"The emphasis on building meter without fighting, just running to a corner and whiffing moves repeatedly, combined with the universal advantage of parrying, is the primary reason I could never get into the SF3 series as a whole."

The quote above, despite the quotation marks, is a paraphrase of a statement I read in a review quite some time ago. I don't think the review was even for an SF3 game, probably for whatever version of SF4 was newest at the time, but of course my mind became fixated on this point since I both love 3rd Strike and don't particularly care for the SF4 series.

Although this is straying off topic a bit, the first point has always been the one massive scratch on the otherwise nearly flawless diamond of 3rd strike in my mind, and I am ready to concede the point to any 3S critic. Allowing characters to gain meter by whiffing normals has had all sorts of negative impact on the game, from discouraging actual fighting - you know, the point of a fighting game - in favor of just mindlessly hitting normals at a safe distance to being a large part of the reason why Chun and Yun dominate the tier lists so thoroughly, for so long. Both characters are massively stronger with meter than without, and being able to get it so freely without any real effort or risk undermines the whole point of a meter system in the first place.

Now, with that out of the way, I am also prepared to say that the second point is not only indicative of someone who is a beginner at best (at least when it comes to 3S), but is completely, utterly incorrect. Parrying does give an advantage if used intelligently, no doubt; however, to characterize that advantage as "universal" is so thoroughly, utterly wrong that it boggles my mind. And if I seem unusually vehement or worked up on this point, it is because this sentiment - that parrying is universally great - is so widespread among beginners, especially among weaker players who have been playing for a long time without actually progressing much in terms of skill beyond that of an early-intermediate player, at best.


Debunking the myth - appreciating the risks of parrying, and not just the reward

The simplest place to start when explaining why parrying is not "universally advantageous" is to point out that "parrying" has two distinct, mutually exclusive modes: high parrying and low parrying. Immediately, there's a dichotomy that can't be bridged - you can't high and low parry at the same time, and the majority of moves fall strictly into one category or the other. Now, one could say "well, given that there are moves that can be high and low parried, doesn't the overall balance fall in your favor?" Putting aside the gross oversimplification involved with such a mindset, it still doesn't remove the element of chance involved with cold, complete guess parrying - you will come out in a disadvantageous situation a significant portion of the time, and you'll do so in a manner that could've been easily avoided, just by blocking, for example. You hurt the consistency of your play significantly by resorting to such chance-related tactics, and consistency will do much more for you in the long run than a flashy parry here and there.

Now let's peel away the layers of oversimplification a bit more - let's add throws into the mix. Throws do have limited range, but they can't be parried and are very fast, and are thus very effective against parry-happy playstyles. Command grabs are also very similar in nature, and often have better range than throws. Now the scales have tipped somewhat more against mindless, "universal", willy nilly parrying.

And once you start playing against more advanced players, numerous other things come into play:

- Parry baits: baiting you into parrying low-forward and then catching you with uppercut, for example
- Safe parries: throwing out a jump-in late enough that it can't be punished even if it's parried, for example
- Varied timing: waiting for you parry, then punishing you in the interval between parries or between parrying and blocking
- Risk/reward analysis: "If I get the parry, my follow-up punish does 15% because I have no meter; if I guess wrong and get punished, he gets 40% off of a big super combo"

And there are many more things that could be added to that list, doubtless there are other considerations that are beyond my level. And all of this is before the biggest consideration of all: there is another human being on the other side of the machine. They are just as capable of dissecting your play as you are of theirs; they are constantly thinking, analyzing, varying their strategies to punish your patterns and mask or avoid theirs.


Before I give the impression of going off the deep end, I do want to come back a bit and point out that parrying can be used to great positive effect, but only if you abandon predictable, pre-formulated strategies - "I'm going to parry xyz seconds before he hits the ground on every jump in", or "after a knockdown, if he's at xyz range I'm always going to low parry" - and put some thought into your parries. Analyze your opponent's patterns - if he follows up 3 consecutive jump in crossups with strong-fierce (with Ken), and shows no signs of deviating, then you actually have a solid basis for parrying high after the next crossup. If your opponent can't discern between hits and parries, and always goes into super after a low poke, then it's fine to parry provided you either block, parry, or safely hit them out of the inevitable super afterwards. If you're at a range where your opponent's character can't hit you with anything low, then fishing for a high parry is fine, provided you're ready to switch back to a safer mindset the moment they get within a high/low mixup range. The more "evidence" you have for why parrying in a particular situation is a good idea, the more consistently you'll get good results out of it.


Ultimately, the point I want to emphasize above all else - and again, I'm more vehement about this because, in my experience, it plagues low-level play more than a lot of other problems - parrying always has a significant, unavoidable risk built into it. Don't fall into the trap of focusing solely on the positive outcomes of parrying; always be aware of the flip side, the risk of failure, and the punishment that comes with it. If you develop the necessary skills to parry effectively - zoning/spacing, meter/stun awareness, the ability to detect patterns in your opponent's play, good reaction time - then a lot of the risk built into parrying is eliminated, and it can be a consistently helpful, positive asset to your play. If you parry predictably or thoughtlessly, just because you have nothing better to do and you can't avoid the temptation of potentially going from a defensive position to an offensive one, you will always be beaten down by more experienced, analytical players who will pick you apart without trying. Think before you parry.

Introduction
One of the most common problems that newer players seem to have with 3rd Strike is the double QCF motion, which is part of virtually every super in the game. Even players with limited or no real fighting game experience seem to know about the fireball and shoryuken motions, and don't have much trouble mastering them, but the double QCF is a somewhat different beast altogether. It can feel arduous and requiring a lot more effort than other typical fighting game motions (QCF, DP, HCF/HCB, etc.), and trying to pull off combos like Yun's 1-2-3 (LP,LK,MP) xx Genei-Jin or Ken's MP, FP (strong-fierce) xx SAIII can be an exercise in frustration. Thankfully, there are tricks that can mitigate or avoid these frustrations altogether.


Double QCF? More like 1.5x QCF

When one thinks of the double QCF motion, it's natural to think that "double QCF" = 2 full QCF motions - D, DF, F, D, DF, F + punch/kick. However, the 3S engine actually interprets the DF (down-forward) positioning of the joystick as both "down" and "forward" for the purposes of a button press.

This actually has surprisingly large ramifications in terms of the joystick motion necessary to pull off moves centered around the fireball (QCF) motion. The double QCF motion, thanks to this mechanic of the 3S engine, can actually be compressed to D --> F, D --> DF + punch/kick, or something closer to 1.5x QCF. Similarly, a regular fireball no longer requires doing the full 90° QCF motion, but just a 45° D --> DF + punch motion, and the shoryuken motion is condensed to F, D --> DF + punch.

This may not seem like much of a difference to the inexperienced player; after all, the gap between DF and F is fairly small, right? However, when it comes to pulling off tight combos like the 1-frame, crouching only combos mentioned in the previous post, the difference between DF and F goes from seemingly insignificant to actually quite important! In addition, more advanced tactics like punishing whiffed normals with Chun-li SAII or Ken SAIII involve very strict timing where good reaction time simply isn't enough - every frame counts, and minimizing your joystick motion by a frame or two can be critical. Even from a strictly mathematical standpoint, a fireball now requires half as much motion as before! How can that be anything but helpful?


Buffering the first QCF into another move

Ok, so we've found a way to cut down on the amount of joystick wiggling necessary to get a super to come out. But even so, double QCF is still a fairly unwieldy motion as a whole, still requires 3 directional shifts to come out. Is there anything else we can do to make getting supers out less difficult?

As it turns out, there is. Another mechanic of the 3S engine which most beginners aren't familiar with is the following:

Joystick inputs for one move will also count towards any subsequent moves in the near future.

As far as the double QCF is concerned, this means that the QCF involved to do, say, a fireball will also count towards the double QCF requirement for a super. So fireball xx super (say with Ken) becomes:

QCF, P --> QCF, K

In effect, you are "hiding" the first QCF requirement in another move which you execute before the super itself. The end result feels a lot smoother, since it involves a nice alternation of joystick movements and button presses, and the end result is akin to back-to-back fireballs rather than a complicated joystick movement followed by a button press. The whole thing still has to be executed quickly, but it feels a lot less clunky on the whole. Here are some common combos that use this technique:

1. b.+HP xx HCF+P (fireball) xx SAII (Chun-li)
2. cr. MK xx QCF+P (fireball) xx SAI (Akuma)
3. st. MP, HP xx QCF+P (fireball) xx SAIII (Ken)

The first two combos (back-fierce super with Chun, low-forward super with Akuma) are actually not very hard to do, even if the fireball is omitted; these combos utilize the extra fireball primarily for extra time to hit confirm. Just as I mentioned buffering QCFs so that you have less to do after seeing confirming the initial hit (just a button press) in my hit-confirms post, throwing out back-fierce xx fireball or low-forward xx fireball leaves you with only one more fireball motion to input for a super after confirming the hit. Both of these are somewhat tighter hit-confirms if you try to do them straight up (especially shoto low-forward, in general), but become much easier with the extra buffer from the fireball. Of course, the downside is that you leave yourself open to having the fireball parried and then getting punished, so you can't just throw in extra fireballs willy nilly, or exclusively use it as a crutch for poor execution or reaction time.

The third combo takes a combo that requires fairly quick hands (strong-fierce-super) and make it much easier to input. You do lose a point of damage because of damage scaling, but you gain a tiny bit of meter as compensation, so all in all it's a roughly even result either way.


Tackling the double QCF beast head on

So far, we've been covering ways to make life easier when comboing into supers, and that's fine and dandy up to a certain level. However, at some point you will run into stuff that you can't skate your way around, like 1-2-3 xx Genei-Jin or strong-fierce-super with Ken; there will be times when you want that 1 extra point of damage over strong-fierce-fireball super, or you just want to become a better player and develop the hand speed necessary to do the optimal combo at the optimal time.

Unfortunately, there's very little one can write on this point, other than "do the double QCF as fast as possible, as soon after the button press as possible" that can really elucidate matters much further. (Of course, I'm still going to try!) A video would be a lot more helpful in this situation, and I hope to make videos to supplement these posts some day, but unfortunately I just don't have the time or resources to do so at the moment.

The best I can do in trying to explain how to pull off the double QCF in combos like the aforementioned ones is as follows:

Whenever you do something involving multiple button presses, say Ken's strong-fierce chain or Akuma's Raging Demon, you're more likely to think of each press as a discrete input. On the other hand, when you consider something like a simple fireball, you generally don't think of it as two discrete motions, not "QCF, then P". A fireball generally feels more like "QCF into P" - like one, smooth, continuous process.

Doing a combo like Ken's strong-fierce-super, you have to think of fierce xx super in the exact same way, only in reverse. Instead of a joystick motion tapering into a button press, it's a button press flowing into a joystick motion. Just as the gap between the end of "QCF" and "pressing P" is more or less imperceptible for a fireball, "pressing fierce/HP" should be followed virtually immediately by the first QCF, as if "HP into QCF" into D --> DF is one continuous idea. That's the best description I can give for the time being.


Hopefully this post has made it clear that the double QCF is not quite the intimidating beast it may initially feel like, and with a little practice you can master the various techniques involves with the motion until it feels completely natural.

Introduction
Anyone who has reached a certain level of competency at 3S knows that crouching and standing affect various aspects of a fight. You've probably noticed that you take more damage when crouching, or that some combos don't seem to work unless they're standing, and so on. So let's tabulate the differences:

1. When crouching, you take more damage. The amount varies based on rounding, but it's ~25%.
2. When crouching, you take more hit stun. I don't have a precise figure for how much more, but it's a fact.
3. When crouching, your hitbox changes, usually becoming smaller. This affects how certain combos work.

Now, let's explore the ramifications of these 3 properties of crouching, as opposed to standing.


Crouching results in increased damage taken.

This is the simplest of the 3 to talk about, because it is exactly what it seems like - if you get hit while crouching, you take extra damage. This serves to deter a number of habits, such as:

- Spamming low pokes, which have the benefit of only being blockable low; if you get parried or punished on a whiff, you feel the pain a bit more.
- Spamming down parry, for much of the same reason as spamming low pokes.
- Always blocking low; although this is generally very safe, characters with good overheads (like Dudley, Makoto, Urien) can punish one-track turtling of this sort.

There is more to it than just "x% extra damage if you get hit while crouching," though. For starters, many moves/combos will result in you being juggled or airborne at some point; as soon as you leave the ground, subsequent hits will no longer benefit from the crouching bonus. This is part of the reason why something like Ken SAIII doesn't really pack much more heat if you get hit crouching; the last half of the combo is airborne, which when combined with damage scaling brings down the damage more than you would expect.

In addition, many moves (especially supers) will force you to stand up after the first hit, including Chun-li SAII and Ken SAIII. If you watch the animation closely, you'll see the character may be crouching when the super flash goes off, but they're standing up for the majority of the super itself. In these cases as well, the crouching penalty will only apply to the first hit, and perhaps wisely so - imagine Chun-li's SAII damage going up by a flat 25% if you were crouching when you got hit initially!


Crouching results in greater hit stun.

In addition to increasing the damage taken, crouching also increases the duration you're in hit stun for, which has two main effects.

In my previous post on drumming, you may recall I said something to the effect of "nothing can bail you out if your inputs are late." Well, upon reflection this is not completely true; since crouching means you're in hit stun longer, combos that are tight on standing opponents can become considerably easier on crouching ones. Classic examples of this are:

1. cr. LK xx LP dash punch xx SAI (Makoto) 
2. (close) st. MK xx SAI (Akuma)
3. cr. MP xx st. LK xx LP dash punch (Yun)

The difference between standing and crouching may only be a couple of frames of additional hit stun, but those couple of frames are often the difference between a successful combo and 1 frame too late, which leads to getting punished.

The other effect of this increased hit stun is crouching-only combos. There are some combos that rely on that extra frame or two of hit stun on crouching opponents to be doable in the first place. The 3 most common, by far, are:

1. (far) st. HK xx SAII (Chun-li)
2. b.+MK xx SAIII (Ken)
3. f.+HK xx SAIII (Dudley)

As it turns out, these are all 1 frame links, so techniques like drumming are especially crucial to landing them consistently. It's also important to be able to verify that they're crouching; sometimes it's easy, if they do something like get hit throwing out a low move, but most of the time you just have to visually verify it. All of these all deal hefty amounts of damage thanks to the crouching penalty.


Crouching affects your hitbox

I'm assuming readers of this blog are familiar with the concept of a hitbox; it more or less dictates how "hittable" your sprite is at any given time. It seems obvious that crouching makes your hitbox smaller; however, this does have the consequence of standing-only combos. It's quite self-explanatory; moves that would hit your sprite while they are standing up fail to do so when they are crouching, rendering the combo invalid.

The most notorious example, by far, occurs when Dudley attempts st. HK xx EX machinegun blow against Chun-li. Chun-li's crouching hit box in general is very frustrating, as it's one of the smallest, and causes a lot of stuff to whiff entirely.



So in conclusion, crouching impacts the game in many ways, and it's good to be cognizant of all the different possibilities it opens up, especially with respect to combos.

Typically, most beginner 3S players would take it for granted that "one button press = one input." I know I certainly did when I started out. After all, what could be simpler? Press kick, see kick. Press punch, see punch. Doesn't get much simpler than that, right?

As it turns out, the truth is a bit more complicated. In reality, one button press = 2 inputs; one input when you press the button, and one input when you release the button. You can verify this easily by doing to following: press any punch, say jab, then hold it down for the duration of a QCF motion, then release it. You will get a fireball to come out if you did it correctly, despite the fact that you didn't press punch at the end of the QCF motion.

So let's begin with one of the most fundamental techniques in 3rd strike - the hit-confirm.


What is hit-confirming? How can you do it?

In a nutshell, hit-confirming is exactly what it sounds like - confirming that a move has actually hit the opponent before continuing with a combo. There are quite a few ways to do this:

- Visually confirm that the move has connected (i.e. "my opponent Ken has a funny, 'ouch that hurts' look on his face'")
- Aurally hear that the move has connected, whether it's listening to the actually sound the move makes when it hits (which should be different from a block), or hearing the opponent's character make the "you've hit me" grunt
- See their lifebar go down after hitting the move, which occurs more or less instantaneously

Although it may seem like overkill to list all 3 of these - why listen for it when you can just see it? - I find myself using all 3 frequently enough to merit mentioning them all. For example, when the arcade is packed and it's very loud, listening for hit confirms is very difficult, so I naturally focus more on visual and lifebar confirmation. After resets where my character lands well before the opponent, I may end up throwing out a move before I can actually see my off-screen character (most common example is 2x air fierce after SAII), so I almost exclusively confirm using the lifebar in these situations, since the window for visual confirmation is fairly small in these scenarios. Ultimately, I find being able to use all 3 as the situation dictates is helpful in hit-confirming more consistently across the board.


Buffering joystick inputs, and how it helps with hit-confirming

One of the things that may initially seem hard to deal with is the combination of a fairly difficult input for supers (double-QCF + a button) with a short window in which to confirm. Even with easy confirms like Chun-li cr. MK xx SAII, you'd need lightning quick hands to get out the entire SAII input in time after seeing low-forward connect.

Thankfully, there is a way to make this process much easier to do, which involves buffering the double QCF during the low-foward animation. In other words, instead of trying to confirm like this:

Cr. MK --> (Did it hit?) --> QCF, QCF, K

You do this instead:

Cr. MK, QCF, QCF --> (Did it hit?) --> K

You do the cr. mk xx double QCF either before or while seeing if the move hits. That way, the only thing left for you to do after confirming that the move connected is to press a button. It may feel like a lot of wasted motion to input the QCFs every time when there's a high likelihood the move will be blocked, but you also have much less to do after confirming the hit, which means your effective window for the hit-confirm increases drastically.


Why is hit-confirming important?

So why is hit-confirming so important? Well, it should be fairly obvious that hit-confirming removes any random element from landing combos - if you're going for, say, cr. MK xx SAII with Chun-li, and you always wait to see that the low forward has connected, then you'll never, ever end up getting punished because they blocked the combo. Once you get good at hit-confirming, you'll find your play becomes considerably more consistent, and your opponents will no longer be able to play with the mindset "This person doesn't hit-confirm, so I can always just sit back and wait for an opportunity to punish a silly mistake." At the same time, they can't play overly aggressively because you will actually have the skills to follow up connected normals with specials/supers for big damage.


The issue of discipline with respect to hit-confirming

A big barrier when it comes to hit-confirming is discipline. It's easy to get frustrated when you miss the opportunity to combo a normal into a super, or the opponent blocks a whole bunch of normals in a row, denying you to opportunity to get off your big damage combos. However, it's important not to fall into the trap of getting impatient, and pulling the trigger just because you're tired of waiting or because you missed 2 or 3 hit-confirms in a row.

Every player, no matter how strong will miss hit-confirms from time to time. Watch enough videos of godlike players like Nuki and MOV, and you will see them miss an "easy" confirm like cr. MK xx SAII, and more frequently than you might think. The discipline aspect comes with internalizing the mindset: Failing to finish a hit-confirmed combo is just a missed opportunity; you still come out on top every time. Continuing a blocked combo is a death sentence; you will end up coming out well behind 100% of the time. (Of course, the major exception would be trying to chip out your opponent.) 

Although MOV and Nuki may fail to convert a connected low forward into super from time to time (say, maybe 1 out of every 10 times), they will virtually never follow up a blocked normal with a blocked super. Not 1 in 100 times, probably not even 1 in a 1000 times. That is the sort of discipline that one needs to develop with respect to hit confirms.

My name is Arindam Bhattacharya, and I have been an avid 3rd Strike player for more than 6 years. My first exposure to 3rd Strike was the famous Daigo video - at the time I'd never played any fighting game seriously, and I didn't have to foggiest clue what actually happened in the video. However, the reaction of the crowd caught my attention...

A couple of years later I moved to Austin, as I entered my freshman year of college, and had the good luck of stumbling across Einstein's Arcade, which was home to one of the largest competitive 3S scenes in the U.S. Although I initially went for the DDR, I saw the 3S cabinets, and I recalled the video which I'd seen years before, and figured it would be fun to derp around on the machine a bit. At the time I was little more than a button-masher, but my repeated trips to the machine caught the attention of a very strong 3S regular, who took me under his wing and helped me evolve from a button-mashing scrub to a real 3S player. 6 years later, I still find myself every bit as enamored with the game as I did when I first started over half a decade ago.

I was encouraged to start this blog by a close friend of mine, who I've known since elementary school - he recently started playing 3S with a bunch of his coworkers, and often asks me for advice regarding 3S. After one such conversation, he told me it would be a great idea to start a blog or website which could serve as a reference for beginner and early intermediate level players. Although I figured there were already plenty of resources out there - the game is more than a decade old, after all - he actually expressed a great deal of frustration at limited 3S resources are online.

Having had the benefit of learning 3S in one of the most competitive scenes in the U.S., I'd never really noticed or appreciated this - any time I had a question I could ask any number of elite players and would have an accurate, thorough answer in minutes. So I figured, why not? Although I don't consider myself to be a particularly strong player, I do think I have played the game long enough and at a sufficiently high level that I can provide good advice to players who are just starting out and looking to improve.

My primary goal with this blog is to provide accurate, easy to understand information that will help beginner and early-intermediate players improve their skills at the game. This isn't intended to provoke deep, advanced discussion for high level players; I wouldn't consider myself strong enough at the game to provide stuff like that. I do assume that the people reading this blog have a very basic understanding of the mechanics - if you need an explanation on what the 6 buttons do, or what the joystick motion for a shoryuken is, there are plenty of resources out there basic information like that. I will try to cover as much ground as possible, including general technical discussion, character specific information, and various common matchups, but this isn't intended to be a comprehensive, wiki-style page either. Most of my experience is with the higher tier characters, so if you're looking for tips on the Remy-Sean matchup, I'm afraid I can't really help you there.

So that should just about cover things; stay tuned for the actual content! I will try to update regularly, but the vicissitudes of work may mean long breaks between updates.