Within the first 10 - 20 seconds in the Cammy - Zangief video, a couple of things already stand out. You use special moves too much; using Hooligan to close in on someone from nearly full-screen is a bad idea due to how much time there is to punish it, and in Zangief's case all he had to do was a standing jab (including when you throw out a Cannon Strike) to put you in a 50-50 mix-up when you touch the ground. Spiral Arrows and Cannon Spikes were also used too frequently without proper hit confirming, and you only left yourself wide-open for hard punishes which the Zangief admittedly didn't capitalize on. Wake-up Super is also a bad habit to have; might work once every blue moon after a long match / set when player conditioning has taken place, in the sense they might block out that option as a possible counter-attack since more experienced players will know exactly how costly this risk can be when it backfires. In the case of the first round: effectively KO'ing yourself in conjunction with depraving yourself of resources for the next round. The subsequent rounds just further highlight your mash-y nature and come the second match, it became clear as day that these sort of random hits (with a sporadic throw) are your only primary source of damage, if not the only one.
The same sort of fundamental issues persist with your Karin, despite her special moves being even
more unsafe. Constantly leaving yourself extremely vulnerable like detailed above or with careless jump-ins isn't how you play Street Fighter, least of all with characters like those two that not only have good walking speed, but also strong pokes. What you need to be doing instead, especially against an immobile character like Zangief, is play the grounded game and stay at approximately the mid-screen range. Given how easily Karin and Cammy can manoeuvre themselves, from here you can easily weave in and out of certain ranges depending on how he behaves, and react to whatever offense he attempts to mount. Both these characters can also use their longest normals (for example: standing medium kick) whenever he attempts to move forward, and whenever you do score a knockdown, that's where you can go for mix-ups since his defensive capabilities (like many other characters) are virtually non-existent. Meaties, short blockstrings into a throw or other such frame traps, cross-ups, pushing him into the corner, the works. Of course you have to be mindful to any kind of adaptions such as which quick-rise is being used, whether the opposing player is likely to use V-Reversals and the speed of your own moves (since for example you could be jabbed out of them) among other considerations, but what I'm getting here is that none of the above is a part of your gameplay right now.
Long story short: have some composure and make conscious decisions, rather than executing something consequences be damned.
Two ranked sets of my own:
vs Vega
This dude I know is a good player. I just couldn't get anything started. There are a couple of standouts, though: for one, I didn't anti-air enough. I did get some spikes in but for the most part he gets away with jumping too many times. In general, though, I should've gone in far more. He wasn't anti-airing me either too much.
vs Zangief
This was a grueling set. Standouts include trying to punish hard punches with dps for maximum greed. But the good thing was that my antiairs were quite on point and I was mostly good at keeping Gief out. The second round for the first match saw me going in a bit after screwing up the first round and a good share of the second round. I knew it was risky but on the other hand, I was at a massive life loss and wanted some advantage so Gief won't just sit on his lifelead for the whole match.
If there's something I haven't noticed, someone could check those clips. But mostly I'm just writing these notes for myself in public.
I also notice the mic audio is amazingly early but you can mute the audio. The game audio is fine, though.
I get the impression your neutral game against the Vega is underdeveloped. Granted, Cammy can't really press her usual advantage of being able to outpace her opponent on the ground with her walking speed as hard (since Vega's is even better) but I didn't see you contest any of his buttons. He was free to push anything with no threat of you trying to whiff punish or pre-emptively stuff his next normal, regardless of his stance. In a corner this kind of prudence (which can still be taken too far mind you) is entirely understandable, but that's a different matter entirely. Secondly: once you did get in closer, you gave him too much respect. After a limited blockstring you backed off on numerous occasions without him retaliating much, thus resetting it to the neutral where he dominated you from the get-go and there were very few high-low mix-ups coming from you. This in itself is a huge shortcoming, because Vega has little in the way of reliable anti-airs or innate reversal options once pressured. It's fine to try and anticipate something like how you tried to coax him into jumping, but he never really took the bait since he had nothing to worry about. If you had pressed forwards, aiming to get him in the corner or simply entering his personal space, the flow would've been entirely different. I've also noticed you were hardly using your meters; you sat on your resources in vain, whereas if (for example) you had use some for EX Cannon Strike, he would've been forced to make a decision on the spot when blocked since it's safe. To elaborate: from there you can continue setting a rhythm with frame traps, including a throw after a brief block string, Cannon Spike or shimmy him if he's inclined to push a button to counter your grab et cetera. The V-Trigger can naturally also help you with this, otherwise you could've attempted to turn the table around with a V-Reversal once
you were cornered.
The lack of footsies is evident in the Zangief video too and you repeatedly had your back against a wall by your own doing. In essence, again, there isn't anything inherently wrong with caution against a character like him, but you positioned yourself in such a manner that neither of you could really hit one another. You even let him walk out of the corner at one point free-of-charge due to your reluctance to
not move backwards. There was the Critical Art against his lariat at one point, sure, but how often are you going to pull that off generally speaking? What if the Zangief simply walked forwards without pushing many a button, recognizing that you were skittish to take matters into your own hands? You'd be in the same conundrum without much of an opening, while making your movement options more predictable in the process. You need to be more assertive; recognize a character's weaknesses, see how a player behaves and do something that isn't strictly reactionary when applicable. Much like versus Vega, you typically didn't capitalize on Zangief's poor wake-up options; look at what you did in the second round of the second match for a step in the right direction. Cross-ups could've also worked given the slow start-up of his lariat. One final note: your anti-airs were all Cannon Spikes, neglecting how good her b. MP is when a jump-in was beyond the reach of the former.
I'm learning Laura.
This is the fruits of tonight's training sesh. Been playing her for all of a day and I'm liking her.
http://youtu.be/dFH79k_rR14
Advice would be welcome.
Here's a ranked match set as Laura. Look how I progress the more the fight goes on. I can't believe I've only been playing her for a day and I can tangle with 1000 lp players. Still can't win with her but I'm not too far off.
http://youtu.be/w_zh360wFjU
One quick tip against Vega that I also posted in the other thread: simply neutral / backwards jumping and air-to-airing his wall dives is surprisingly effective in SFV, with how much time the game gives you to react to it this time around. If he tries it again on knockdown, I believe you can backdash since it's not a true loop, otherwise you need to quick-rise to avoid it entirely. Speaking of jumping: eventually you realized that neutral jumping was effective against him, and baiting out a move in such a manner is a rule-of-thumb that pays off big time for Laura against opponents that are keen on pressing buttons all the time. To add to that: he would've also been susceptible to meaties, projectile set-ups and Crush Counters with Laura's st. HK after a knockdown, since he was the type of player that was exclusively fixated on his offense. Tick throws with her command grab ought to have also been effective.
Lastly, you were too patient sometimes but I'm sure that's due to general unfamiliarity with Laura for the time being. In the first Vega match for example, he repeatedly went for his target combo with his standing roundhouse whiffing you more than once as you were crouching, but he wasn't punished for it. Doesn't necessarily have to be a combo since I know Laura's are apparently limited; any button press would've sufficed to help keep him in check. With a character like Laura who has very few defensive options, this is going to be crucial, even moreso if you don't have a V-Reversal in tow.
Can't really add much more since you were indeed adapting and trying different things, plus I'm not too familiar with her unfortunately.
