I'll try to keep that in mind. I always feel I have not been too good at the neutral. Now here is my question you say I could punish wall dives with less effort? What moves should be used? People tell me that and yet when I try something I get smacked. What moves exactly. Until very recently I had shit for help.
Her back medium punch (the uppercut-looking normal) ought to suffice since it covers a sizeable area around her head from what I've seen, otherwise just find an air-to-air with good range to it since SFV gives ample time to react to Vega's wall dives without any prior conditioning or set-ups, especially if he jumps back to the opposite end of the screen like the one you faced did.
Also to clarify: Cannon Spike can be a valid solution too, but the wall dive has to be real deep in order for you to not whiff it like you did and secondly, more skilled Vega players will know the space where they can mess up your inputs when directly above you, similar to what Bison players tend to do with Devil Reverse.
Ah, just got out from an hour in the training room with Karin. Enough of that for now, but... Combo extension acquired! cr. MP, st. MP xx qcb+HK 240 damage, off a cr. MP, around 50% of the time, so it'll take some real matches to get used to using it. It's easy to link into cr. MP from most jumpins, so a j.HK/j.MK, cr. MP... starter is not really something I need to practice, it's easy enough.
I'll refresh it tomorrow and go fight real people with it. One or two cr. MPs aren't a rare thing in a Karin fight, so being able to convert those to 200+ damage will be quite useful. It also can be super-cancelled, but I don't know about that... still trying to think if losing Karin's only invincible reversal is worth it. I also attempted the xx qcf K~P launcher extension on that combo. I hit it once. Only once. It's most likely superior, but one step at a time. First learn a special cancel combo, then get fancy with it.
Still, tangible progress, but still only in the training room. Need to try it out for real.
Extending a combo with a Critical Art is fine if you're facing opponents that aren't really giving you much reason to use EX attacks if you're outplaying them with just fundamentals, or if you want to close out a round (unless you're playing catch-up after losing the first one). Certainly worth putting some practice into it all things considering. It also helps that the execution in this game is lenient enough to allow for a wide window to buffer the CA motion in between other manoeuvres without much difficulty once you have a feeling for it.
Going into casuals and I still can't anti-air for the life of me even though I had a pretty good handle on it in the training room. God I am so bad at stopping people from jumping on me.
It helps if you actively reposition yourself to your anti-air's sweet spot as you're anticipating a jump, even if it's only a minimal difference of going forwards or backwards.
Here's another, more elaborate practicing method too.
My biggest problems are leaving damage on the table when the opponent does whiff, and I'm just at a loss on how to effectively apply pressure without getting blown up as soon as I move in on the opponent.
Thanks to those who have given critiques so far!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Zr01fouyU
Little reminder about your jump-ins: Ryu's aerial MP is rather situational, in that it's only really suitable for air-to-air encounters if you have a good read on your opponent's jumping rhythm. Against the Karin there were multiple jump-ins where you could've realistically started applying pressure, especially because she wasn't really anti-airing, but said move didn't connect outright. You missed a number of cross-ups as a result and your general high-low game was less threatening because of said misses. You need to have a closer look at which of Ryu's buttons work at which distances in this context. Outside of that, you're also leaving other options on the table: not spending your EX meter nor really utilizing your V-Gauge in any which way as well.
You've made some improvements though so keep practicing.
Thanks for the advice. Still a lot to learn (not that I thought different).
The shoryuken coming out at the other side of the screen is me trying a hadoken, but failing... It usually doesn't happen, so consider it an incident.
The sweeps... man.. every time I do a sweep up close I should get an electrical shock or something (someone else mentioned this method here)... I keep doing it and I shouldn't.
Any advice on what I can do in my neutral game?
Nothing concrete I can give you other than what I listed previously. Having a good neutral game boils down to having the right amount of patience, knowing how to defend yourself on the ground by blocking + anti-airing + recognizing when the enemy is vulnerable and not overextending yourself by throwing around unsafe attacks (like how often you used the target combo) if you want to mount an offense. There's more to it on an advanced skill level, but this should suffice where you're at right now and you should moreso be concentrating on how to break your opponent out of their comfort zone with standard decision making.
One obvious example I can give you: when you want to throw a fireball, it has to be for a purpose. If the enemy engages you in a fireball war, you could use an EX Hadoken for two hits and move in closer after it connects. If you pushed someone into the corner, a fireball at the right distance and timing forces them to make a call; jump over it, react with their own projectile, block and wait for what happens next, expend an EX attack (or something else) to bypass it on the ground, et cetera. With enough of a gap between you two, you can react to all of these possibilities - so if they jump you could hypothetically Shoryuken it if you hunker down - and even if they successfully escape with an EX Attack or a V-Reversal like's Nash, at minimum you forced them to spend meter that they ideally would've liked to use offensively, reducing their available options.
Knowing the extent of a character's capabilities takes time, but situational awareness is key in fighting games.
I always block in the 50/50 st.hk/throw mix-up against Bison, so this 5+k dictator just threw me like 7 times. He never even tried st.hk. I feel...violated.
It's indeed a scary mix-up. If you're not doing something to halt his forward dashes, then you're already putting yourself in quite the predicament.
