Couple basic pieces of feedback:
- you showcased some patience against Mika, which is a valuable skill to have against grappler-esque characters. Karin also has better normals than Mika in this case, so taking advantage of your superior range with moves like her standing medium kick or crouching hard kick for example (both preferably nearing the tip of her feet) does a lot to help control the pace and avoid being caught in their command grab mix-ups. Have to be mindful of the likelihood of them throwing out armored attacks, mind you.
Yeah, if there's one skill I start with for this, it's patience. Need to practice it more, but I am not above playing "lame" if it means I don't get command thrown. Heck, I'll win by Time Out if I have to. I wonder if i should apply this to more fights than just grapplers.
- On that note: if Mika and Laura go for their Critical Art when you're standing up post-knockdown, you should normally be able to jump out of it as the animation ends, so just hold straight up to escape from that sort of predicament. Necalli's isn't a grab if memory serves, so you can block that instead. Zangief's has a 0 frame start-up, so if you're in range during the animation it's already too late.
I knew that as soon as it hit me. "Oh, wait. Mika has a super throw... I should have held up, but instead I get the butts. Next time."
- Watching your Ryu matches, two fundamental reactions worth mentioning... For one: if one starts throwing out fireballs from afar like these two did, there's two simple things you could do more often to avoid chip damage. One being simply neutral jumping and doing something about his next move, or jumping forwards when out of Shoryuken range. The latter could be done when closer too if the guy is being predictable, and with the recovery or long wind-up animation that most fireballs have in SFV, that'll net you the opportunity for a juicy punish. The other being (I believe it was) Karin's V-Skill, or whatever the input for her single-handed palm thrust is. This snuffs out one-hit fireballs outright and if it builds V-Meter too, then that's something worth practicing until better players start going on offense after their projectile pressure. I'm uncertain which of her command dashes (with the "Right there!" voice-over) go through or under fireballs, so have a look at this if any version at all has that trait.
As far as i can tell, the in-air part of her Ressenha jumping attack is fireball immune. It's why I use it to counter fireballs. Timed right and it should reach Ryu before he recovers. Timed wrong and it's unsafe on block... So, I should think more of neutral jumping until I'm sure I got the timing right to win the fireball war by hitting Ryu in the face. Ideally, Karin leavves the ground when Ryu says "Ha-".
- Another relatively easy adjustment once you have presence of mind: punishing whiffed or blocked Shoryukens with a Crush Counter. Moves like this (including Cammy's and Necalli) have this kind of innate vulnerability to them, and landing Karin's standing Crush Counter will give you another big opportunity for respectable damage. Worthwhile for gaining some V-Meter too, and plenty of Ryu's at your skill level like to throw an SRK out willy-nilly.
Noted. I will have to find out which button that is, but I'm thinking standing HK is her Crush Counter. I'm not sure exactly what Crush Counters do, but they're better than normal counters, apparently. They give more V-gauge or something?
- A more general critique: have to be a little bit more careful about pressing buttons on defense. Makes you susceptible to others dishing out the hurt after neutral jumping or via Crush Counters once you meet more aware players, and if need be you could always resort to V-Reversals until you're more accustomed to gaps in between block strings or knowing which moves leave the opponent at a disadvantage on block. V-Meter builds fairly quickly for characters with only two blocks, after all.
I panic, fall back to SF4 habits and spam jabs. That's no good in SFV. Even if cr. LP is three frames. I really need to calm down while on the defense. Respect that the opponent has initiative and sit tight until they don't.
- Your Rekkas after V-Trigger activation could use a tad more variety as well. I think she has four options to choose from? Either way, you only changed it up once in those three matches, so improving on this could prove to be helpful with opening up defensive players when they're pushed into the corner for example.
Yeah, I need to do the other variants, find out what they're for. She has a throw one that I just find baffling what it's for. Takes like half a second to hit where she's just spinning in front of the opponent, and it's an attack, not a throw, so it can be blocked. What the heck is that move for? I will accept "For styling on the opponent" as the answer, of course.
But the fakeout, the overhead and I think she has a low one, too, should all be part of my tools. the fakeout would work so well against a Shoryuken spammer. Get blocked, command backdash, watch Ryu soar, do it for real.
- If an enemy is pressing buttons a lot on you when you're knocked down, her EX Uppercut-y move could be a good enough "get off me" move on wake-up at this skill level. Very unsafe if you're predictable with this and certainly something you absolutely have to be cautious about against better players, but versus these Ryu's it would've bought you some breathing room... and you didn't utilize much of your EX meter regardless. Not that saving up for your Critical Art is incorrect if you're confident and can execute it during combos.
Yeah, I have to rely on match experience here. Some characters probably need to be EX'd to get in, others i can save up for a super. I think Ryu might be one where I have to use EX moves more. Fireball immunity is a nice thing to have at perfect Hadoken range. If he thinks that's safe against Karin... it's not.
Not much character-specific stuff relating to Karin unfortunately, but hopefully the above standard decision-making proves helpful.
Very helpful. I need to up my punishes and just gain more matchup experience is what I take from this. And work on my execution some more so I can use my super exactly when I need to. I figure that's an appropriate punish for a missed Shoryuken, too. I mean, if raw super damage is offered, I should take it. I wonder if the super is projectile immune, too. That seems worth taking to Training to find out.
age doesn't matter