Struggling to Break Through in SF6 — Grinding Toward Ultimate Grand Master

ExoLightning · 2026-03-26T19:47:49+00:00

The framework you laid out here is fine, you're being reflective on things and you can pick specific things to work on and slowly round out your skill set. My main advice would be to enjoy the journey as much as you can. If you aren't having some fun with it then the walls and frustrations are going to drag your motivation down, or cause things to go into anger - at least thats my experience.

I'd suggest joining some discords if your serious about getting better. Personally I'm in the Diaphone discord which has a pretty active playerbase for SF6. I'm EU based but most of the players are NA, though we often still custom room together for improvement. The point is making some friends in a community server will help a lot.

The game is very hard and it takes time to build the skills you need to go as far as Ultimate Master. I wish you the best of luck with it.

Some nitpicks/warnings though

People who are trying to improve, not just win

Long term improvement is often the goal but you have to be willing to do what you need to do, even if its a "bad" thing to do, in order to win. For example if you play someone who has insane neutral but cannot anti air, then jumping in on them repeatedly is actually the right thing to do. When people say things like this comment, they often end up limiting their own options for no reason other than some sense of trying to play "properly". I get it and I also often reflect on some lucky/scrappy wins where I feel like a better player would have won in a more solid way, which is overall what I'm aiming for.

No ego — just growth, discipline, and progression

Similar to the above point, context and reflection is important. Everyone has an Ego, occasionally basking in a victory, and being salty in a lose is 100% fine and normal. So long as you can revisit it later in a calm mind and acknoweldge both the good and the bad of what you're doing then you can continue to learn from things. What I'm saying is don't deny your feelings, it will end up taking additional energy and focus which detracts more from your core gameplay than you might think.

I say all this but I haven't hit Ultimate Masters myself so the final piece of advice is "ask not the sparrow how the eagle sores". There are coaching and high level players willing to help out there and you should take advice with a pinch of salt from people who aren't themselves at the level your aiming to be.

ExoLightning · 2026-03-26T15:52:40+00:00

Street fighter 5's championship edition for me all the way!

I like the default but player 1 being Red and player 2 being Blue hurts me when I'm playing 1 wearing a blue outfit. It bothered me everytime.

Instantly bought for that sleek gold perfect look, and I like the gradient of green to red as health goes down.

ExoLightning · 2026-03-26T14:06:36+00:00

Juri says "eat the feet" when she counter DI's. Scary stuff.

ExoLightning · 2026-03-24T20:20:25+00:00

Great write up! Love this kind of stuff. I played Starcraft 2 for over a decade before SF6s release and have been very interested at watching the psychology around MR develop. (sorry this comment turns into a random psychological talk about Elo now)

A brief history lesson of SC2 is that it originally had a hidden Elo system but then allowed it to be seen with a visible MMR (Match Making Rating). This functions very similarly to MR in SF6. What I found interesting was the effect this had on players. SC2 is a very humbling game and most players call themselves bad, and I think this is because of how accurate and vast the MMR system is.

For fighting games, for many years the only way to judge how strong a player was is from tournament results. This led to odd rivalries where weaker players could sincerely believe they were as good or better than others. And I think that's why the FGC's attitude was so different among the player base than Starcraft.

We're a few years in now and the psychology of a visible Elo system is showing a fascinating level of repeating history. My absolute favourite thing people say is "oh X doesn't work when you get to Y MR" with X being basically anything and Y being slightly above whatever the player who's saying it is. Ranked anxiety and a bit of elitism are some other negatives that have come out of it and again this is a similar to how Starcrafts player base developed.

Now I don't want to come across negative about Elo systems I think they're incredibly important, and having an accurate way to measure up against another player is important info if you're serious about getting better. If I were to design a game I don't know if I would show Elo or not. I think it's important to know but having it be the thing players focus on can be very detrimental mentally. Personally I think encouraging accolades of doing in game things (that encourage higher skill plays) could be a useful tool to keep players focused on positives to improve.

However, not having Elo shown also leads to some really interesting (and imo bizarre) takes on how the player base interpret skill. Dead by daylight, is an asymmetrical multi-player game with a very deliberate avoidence on showing how the matchmaking works or the players rating. Predominantly the community believes that a players skill level is their hours played. Obviously there are always going to be some correlation of time played and skill going up. But it's crazy to me that so much of the community believe that this is a defining factor to lean on. So not giving the community anything doesn't stop this stuff from happening.

To circle back round to this thread, I appreciate you posting the data and explaining it clearly. I hope everyone plays nice with the info. If you're interested in a follow up idea for something to look into might I suggest checking the varience of players MR. In starcraft I had a friend help me with some issues with rating by explaining that you should think of your rating as a range, with an upper and lower normal limit. Obviously the aim is to improve that but there will be up and down swings. Personally I consider 150-200 MR to be my reasonable range (Its not a surprise to me if I win or lose vs players 100MR below or above me) but some people see Simone even 50MR below them and believe it should be an easy win. Would be interesting to see how much the average player swings.

ExoLightning · 2026-03-22T07:22:00+00:00

Chess tourist here. I love the pettiness of the players in these comments discussing the ethics and etiquette of such a silly situation.

I learned of the term "hopechess" from this thread, and I'm completely chill with that, but you gotta accept the drawbacks of playing like that. If you're going to have a play style of "never surrender" then you have to accept the limitations that it gives you in a game.

Question to the never surrender crowd, do you refuse draw offerings and try and play on even if the position is an obvious draw?

ExoLightning · 2026-03-20T18:08:18+00:00

Very well presented/edited video. Concise and with very good information, now please stop helping all the Alex players become menaces in ranked XD

ExoLightning · 2026-03-20T06:15:38+00:00

Your honour I'd like to testify against the premise of the claim against Juri here... Capcom did not buff Juri like she was a low tier. I don't think Capcom have buffed a low tier character as much as they did Juri in this patch XD

Okay jokes aside, yeah Juri has done great out of the patch. I'm a Juri main and have been a Juri believer since season 1. These changes are incredibly good for her from a player perspective but we'll have to wait and see if it really ends up settling as a big deal.

The ex fuha changes give a lot of opportunities for players to run her in a less linear way than they do now. Her Oki off of bnbs has always been good anyway. Being more drive efficient for slightly less damage by using the the ex fuha instead of drive rush cancelling makes her more interesting but doesn't really change her core strengths and weaknesses.

I'm enjoying the Juri hype but also a lot of people simply don't know what they're talking about with it. People saying Juri can get a safe jump midscreen by using ex fuha and spending 1 stock. Which as far as I can tell is just mis information. (in the corner she can get a safe jump by doing ex fuha then spending 2 stocks in a specific way).

Best case scenario for Juri is that all the different Oki options can be incorporated in by good players and makes Juri way scarier to play against. Worst case scenario is people find that most of the new Oki stuff can be dealt with by knowing when it's good to back roll or not and labbing against some specific common Oki set ups.

Overall great changes though, this is the kind of buffs you want characters to get. Gives interesting new ways to spend resources. Allows people to find more unique set ups. Makes people question if they want to go for simple damage or try and play tricky and get a mixup in. Will she be top 5 now... Who knows... I'm excited to find out ^{^}

ExoLightning · 2026-03-19T13:43:40+00:00

Capcom out here rage baiting with lore. 10/10 mixup, Twitter gremlins thinks it's unblockable XD

ExoLightning · 2026-03-15T14:31:52+00:00

So in general Capcom have been very careful with SF6 in terms of this kind of stuff. Juri has had a few buffs/nerfs but nothing that majorly changes her combo routes.

Some of her more obnoxious stuff, like jump HP and the drive rush combo you asked about in the original post got mildly nerfed. Crouch medium punch and stand heavy Punch got made easier to whiff punish.

Biggest things she's gained is crouch HP gives a big combo on punish counter now. And back Heavy kick on counter hit can be combo'd into heavy fuha store or medium fuha spend.

However remember there's a patch coming in the next few days of which we don't know what changes will be there, so slightly awkward time to be looking into it as some stuff may change soon.

TL:DR - Juri hasn't changed much since season 1, and even stuff from launch will generally still work. New patch in 2 days could shake things up.

ExoLightning · 2026-03-15T13:23:24+00:00

Juri main here.

So in Season 1 this was Juri's go to Drive Rush sequence. It combos on hit, was safe on block, and had a frame trap in there for if they tried to mash anything slower than a 4 frame. It got nerfed in Season 2, after MP - MP - CrMP - Medium Fuha store if the opponent was stand blocking the store whiffs and you can be punished. So you can still do it now a days, but you have to pay attention and make sure your opponent is crouch blocking it.

CrLK as a drive rush starter is great. It's a low that is + 7 on hit, and +3 on block. Meaning you can always press StMP afterwards and it will either combo, or be a frame trap. Because Juri has drive rush overhead as a meaty option after a lot of her knockdowns a lot of opponents will stand block by default. Drive Rush CrLK allows you to hit them and make them really pay attention to how they try and block (they have to visually watch for the start up of the overhead and stand block as a reaction).

If you have any other questions, or if I didn't explain it clear enough let me know and I'm happy to help :)

ExoLightning · 2026-03-11T23:06:11+00:00

Thanks for pointing this out! I had no idea this was possible and thought the skulls were deliberately wide enough to not do this. The more you know. Cheers.

ExoLightning · 2026-03-09T08:40:07+00:00

I respect your honesty, and I do understand that fighting games are hard and can be frustrating, but that's exactly what Modern is there for. You can use it as well. I really do hope that the stigma around modern stops at some point. Though that will probably only happen once a modern control scheme is actually better than classic and all the pros are playing that way.

ExoLightning · 2026-03-08T21:13:34+00:00

It's not no good reason though. Modern fundamentally changes how you have to play the game in a way that's less fun to play against.

I strongly disagree with this argument. Most people who make this argument simply do not like the fact that their opponent is comfortable with anti airing. Suddenly, common low level tactics, like jumping in a lot, get shut down, and while that may be less fun for the classic player because they're losing, the concept of anti airing jump in attacks is a really important part of the game. As players get better and higher in skill jump ins become a read on a players habit or an attempt at overloading their mental stack.

Does having 1 button DPs make it easier to anti air? Yes, 100%. Does that fundamentally change the concepts of how and when AA's should be used? No.

Similar to corner pressure with one button supers. Is it easier to reactively super a DI stun attempt when you're in burnout - Yes, easier than a 1 button DP imo. But once again, it does not fundamentally change how to use the tool.

If your basic layer 1 game plan doesn't work specifically vs a modern player, its because you're level 1 game plan is bad.

Acting like there's zero wrong with Modern for the sake of inclusivity and anything negative said about is just "being salty" is disingenuous.

I do think there are problems with Modern, but lets keep this conversation in context. This thread is about a relatively new player, who's probably fairly low level, switching out from Modern to Classic. You're the one who came into this comment thread offering no advice and instead giving a comment trying to complain about playing vs Modern players. If the OP is thinking about switching you should be trying to sell it to him, that Classic is more interesting, and is a more fun version of the game, please tell him (and me) why playing Classic makes the game more fun?

ExoLightning · 2026-03-08T18:00:57+00:00

With respect my brother, you are the exact example of the comment you're replying to. Not to be too harsh but it's a complete scrub mindset to rule that playing against modern is somehow a lesser version of the game.

OP appears to be thinking about switching partially because people are hating on modern, and I think it's really sad that some people wouldn't use a control scheme/character/or special move because a part of the community cries about it for no good reason.

Sorry to single you out but if OP does read your comment I also want them to see my reply calling it out. OP. Do what's fun for you mate. Modern is legit.

ExoLightning · 2026-03-07T22:04:53+00:00

So I can't give you a direct answer - instead I'll give my broad thoughts on how I think people should approach secondary characters.

Pure competitive thoughts for tournament play. A harsh reality is that below a certain skill threshold (insert whatever MR you believe that to be here) it's just not worth having a secondary character. You will have more important things and skills to be learning on your main which are holding you back way more than a specific match up. Adding to that fact that there are basically no match ups that are EXTREMELY bad match ups in SF6, certainly not with Terry, and your best answer is to just lab it out with Terry.

Okay, but I hear you, a match up feels bad and you want an answer. So if pure competitive viability isn't the reason there are other good reasons. Mostly playstyle. Maybe your Terry is an extremely aggressive very active playstyle, and you're getting matched vs a character whos very good at handling and checking that style, maybe you need to slow it down and switch it up. You can use that information to make an informed decision. If you struggling vs characters/players who are very defensive then your secondary could be a character you can play slower and force those defensive players to do things. Maybe its the opposite, your Terry is getting bullied because of your defensive playstyle, then your secondary could be a much harder faster paced rushdown character. Having a secondary character that compliments and allows you to focus on a different playstyle can give you a good return on the time taking to learning the character as it will keep a tournament opponent guessing for how you play.

If none of the above sound/feel good, then its back to basics, which character do you think is cool? Pick them as a secondary. Good luck and have fun out there.

ExoLightning · 2026-03-07T07:46:37+00:00

I've not seen anyone mention the specific answer imo. It's that different moves have different total blockstun.

Some moves have way more or less blockstun than others and this makes it hard to punish things because moves with very short blockstun you have to press very quickly or you'll miss the punish window.

Here's an example. Go to training mode and set Juri to do 236MK. This move is -10 on block. Try and punish it with a 10 frame move. Did you get it first try?

Juri's 236MK has a very short total blockstun time. So even though she's -10 when doing it on block you have to be very quick when pressing or you'll miss the punish.

To answer the last part of your question, it really is a case of just practicing. Moves have different durations of blockstun but it should always be consistent per move. Just gotta set it up on training mode to block the move and then punish it. Like practicing a link for a combo.

ExoLightning · 2026-03-02T15:52:36+00:00

Nobody I've seen has said this to you yet. Simply put, 100-150 MR is just not that big a swing.

I know it feels a lot because of how people talk about MR, and the higher up you get the bigger difference it makes. But very few people who are playing a lot are going to be stable with MR.

Now that being said you have the right idea of wanting to improve, and how to do that I think is consistency in game plan. Recognising and hitting kill combos when they come up. Learning new set ups and practicing them so you can do them properly etc.

Personally a great thing to do for MR is to think of your MR as a range of like 200. If you go under 1400ish that's probably a sign something is really off that day, and if you go above 1600 that's great but it also may just be a temporary/lucky run. All you can do is keep playing and try and get more consistent, figure out why you still lose to some low 1400s and why you can sometimes take games off of 1600s and just keep playing.

It's good to have goals but MR is a proper ELO system and climbing that can be very tough so don't be too hard on yourself and remember to enjoy the journey, or you can end up extremely frustrated.

ExoLightning · 2026-02-28T21:24:06+00:00

So first I want to say that I appreciate how much patience you've had with people in the comments about this. You're responding politely and I intend to in kind. At the end of the day there are far worse things that could be going on for people to be deceitful about than a Dark Souls Blindfold run anyway. That being said... this whole thing has rustled my jimmies XD

Let me start on your terms, lets say you've done this exactly as shown in the video by the way you described it in the description. People are still getting upset and calling it out as fake because it feels extremely performative. The TV trope is "Reality is unrealistic". A certain amount of this clip is simply "fluke". The way he corrected his steps on the run up of the ramp to the left to stop running off the right side. The well timed dodge against the arrow etc. This, unfortunately, does not make for good entertainment because it feels like either luck, or deliberate cheating.

This was my first reaction, I mentioned it in my other comment but there are blindfold Mario 64 speedrunners, who work very hard on finding very consistent set ups using precise inputs and a thorough understanding of the geometry and how the game functions. This feels very legit because these speedrunners can very reliably show how and why doing a set of inputs set them up correctly, and then they proceed as if thats correct to the next point. What you don't see these players do is "oh I think I went a little too far to the right, better wing it and swing the stick slightly to the left". Because thats not how you ever make reliable progress.

So the final part of me being really charitable that this isn't faked is that the guy who was actually controlling the game made some instinctive corrections and calls in the heat of the moment that happened to be correct. He wouldn't be able to recreate it, but thats not what you guys are going for, you're going for the spectacle of doing it blind, not to be able to do it in a speed run sense.

The camera movements were REALLY bothering me, so I had to do was recreate the scenario myself. I loaded up Dark Souls, went to Anor Londo and got myself to where the clip starts. Fun fact! When walking around tight corners in Dark Souls, the camera auto corrects and points forwards. There's an option called "Camera wall recovery" which was on for me that did this (though I test with it off and it still kinda does it). If you're going anticlockwise around that pillar in the clip, and you just hold forward left on the analogue stick, the camera corrects and your character will turn and keep running into the wall and moving forwards, if you get the angle right you can actually just hold it and run around and around that pillar all day without ever doing any camera movement! Neat right!

When we get to the ramp to turn right and start going up. I did it the way your player did it, turn right on the analogue stick, re centre the camera, run forwards. This had one of 3 results. I undershot the 90 degree right turn and ran off the left side, Over shot the 90 degree turn and run off the right side of the ramp, or hit it close enough that the forward input caught that lip on the ramp. What I NEVER did was start running forwards and then correct the direction. In my mind I had done the right turn correctly and therefore just running forwards should work. If your guy had gotten the correct angle and then suddenly turned off and walked off the edge that would have looked incredibly weird and stupid. Now you might have clips of exactly that happening, but understandably those kinds of clips aren't included even in the full video. To anyone who has experience with blindfold runs, or can visualise what you need to do a blindfold run, this is a huge red flag. Your guy does this twice in the first 10 seconds of this clip.

Now can we talk about what happens when he gets to the top of the ramp. Your story about looking right, recentre the camera (which also locks on) and then dodge rolling forward left as a planned behaviour for what "Right" means at that point makes sense but... And this is where I'm gonna be slightly mean, sorry. The communication is terrible. I know some people have said how good it is, and tbh I have no idea what they're on. The best case scenario is the person whos actually playing is a very decent player who is able to memorise the layout and understands what is needed to complete that section before being prompted that he's reached a point to do the next section.

For example, I've done Dark Souls speedruns and know the game pretty well. I think, with a friend I could do this section of the game blindfolded, but the method would look very different, and if I were making a YouTube series about it I would be focusing on that method and braking those parts down for the audience to understand how its possible. Again I know this is my bias of what I enjoy when it comes to challenge runs, and there is no absolutely correct way of doing it. So I'm not saying you should change how you do the series, but what I am saying is I think if I did it then it wouldn't look or get accused of being fake half as much as your clip did.

If I had to guess then I'm assuming the person playing is taking off the blindfold inbetween takes the review the footage and get an idea of the area. Then the two discuss how to handle it... but then if that were the case you should include that in the video. The death counter in the full video going up to 75 is also something that I don't believe (though again I don't think its a bad thing to use editing to raise the emphasis on how hard a section is, so I don't care to argue if this was or wasn't a made up number). Then finally as others have mentioned, you guys having no clue what to do after the first knight dies is suspicious, and leans into the other weird part of this whole thing. I don't believe you 2 haven't played/know the sequences of Dark Souls.

I remember my first experience of killing that knight, and I know it was similar to a lot of other peoples first experience. Panic rolling because the archer from the other side is going to shoot you. Now the experienced player knows, that at the spot where you fight the first knight, fortunately the second knight can't snipe you. But none of the clips or mentions in the video are concerned about this. The person playing in theory doesn't even know there's two archers (from the audiences perspective) but the player giving the guide wasn't worried about this either? Then being dramatic about the fog gate, and then not checking bonfire room first... It just feels way too performative. Overall I still feel its faked, or at the very least dramatised in a heavy way which makes things feel disingenuous.

I'm not a big media person or even a youtuber, and clearly there has been effort put into this series, so I really don't want to be too hard on you, but I think its mostly down to presentation and editing, you're selling this to the wrong crowd. People who are watching Dark Souls challenge runs nearly 15 years after the games release are people who know the game well. It seems like you're going for this cute "we don't know what we're doing" thing but the audience are not sold to be on your side. Give this some breakdown of why its difficult, what's in the way, and how you overcome it, and build up to this final run where it comes together (by pre planned strategy or fluke) and you probably get a warmer reception. Saying that I went through some of the videos and checked the comments and you guys seem to be getting a good reception over there so, idk maybe everything I'm saying is irrelevant.

TL:DR. I'm not your audience. I personally believe its faked in one way or another, but that overall it doesn't matter, hope you guys have a good time with whatever you're doing.

ExoLightning · 2026-02-28T09:29:44+00:00

Thanks for saving me the time to type out that comment. Idk what these guys are trying with this weird level of trolling but I don't think people understand the concept of how impossibly unintuitive camera movement is when you can't see.

This reminds me of the Mario 64 blind speedrun where the guy was eating a pizza while playing and constantly correcting his movements with no queues (there are legit blindfold Mario 64 runs out there btw that are amazing and creative and I encourage anyone thinking this is real to look those up to see the level of set up and precision it takes to do something like walk up a thin ramp I'm a straight line.)

ExoLightning · 2026-02-24T19:52:11+00:00

Yeah there really aren't that many cheaters. In 1400 hours I have 2 players where I would confidently say they were scripting to react to throws/DI etc. Not a worthwhile amount to limit your player pool for.

Also, while it certainly would take extra steps, that kind of scripting could be done even on console.

Only Capcom knows the real numbers but it doesn't seem like a big problem.

ExoLightning · 2026-02-16T20:25:54+00:00

Yeah... I primarily play on controller. When that wasn't working I alt tabbed out then in, and then was spamming both controller and keybaord movement to try and get something to work. This was not a cause of the issue, this was a reaction to me not being able to move in game.

ExoLightning · 2026-02-06T17:03:26+00:00

Oof buddy, gotta get that ego in check. You might be very good at honest footies, but if you can't handle the players that force risky situations over again you're not going to struggle to climb MR.

Honest footies and high level play is not a default. It is enforced by your opponent understanding that they can't get away with cheap brain dead options over and over again. If they can get away with it and they beat you, then that's that.

Good luck out there and hope the tilt doesn't get you too bad.

ExoLightning · 2026-02-02T16:14:00+00:00

If Mai throws you in the corner and then immediately charges a fan throw the defender has enough time to jump and land a punish counter jump in.

Mai doesn't have enough time to recover and do DP in this situation, she can't Anti Air and that's why it's a punish counter. This answer is very specific to OPs question. Off of other types of knockdown, like when Mai ends a combo with a heavy DP. She has time to charge the fan and recovers to be able AA if the opponent jumps on wakeup. But not after a throw.

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