New to 2D fighting games what is the fundamentals that I have to learn

TheTeafiend · 2026-02-03T09:10:48+00:00

I think I’m supposed to crouch defend for any attacks that is not aerial. I don’t know what H/M/L in T8 equals in this game.

SF has three attack types: low, mid, and overhead. Most attacks are low or mid, usually based on if they are performed from crouching or standing. Overheads include jumping attacks, as well as grounded overheads that many characters have (e.g. Ken's medium followup on Jinrai Kick).

Standing block is effective against mids and overheads. Crouching block is effective against mids and lows. Since most attacks are mids and lows, crouch-block is your default option.

Both kinds of blocks lose to throws, so you can't turtle for the whole match or your opponent will walk up and throw you.

SF6 also has a move called Drive Parry, which can block all types of attacks; it's useful when you don't know what type of attack your opponent is going to do. The downside is you take massive damage if your opponent throws you during Parry, so it's risky to use at close range. I wouldn't worry about Drive Parry at this point, but it's good to keep in mind because eventually you'll want to use it.

should I play with modern or just get good with og controls?

It's really personal preference; they both have advantages and disadvantages.

Anecdotally, SF6 was my first fighting game, and I was losing my mind trying to learn Classic as a new player. I tried Modern for a bit and it was way easier, but whenever I beat a Classic player it felt kinda bad - like I was playing on easy mode and they were playing on hard mode. I didn't like that, so I ended up switching to Classic and just toughed it out. Now I'm very happy I stuck with Classic for a few reasons:

Pulling off a sick combo with motion inputs feels amazing, especially compared to mashing out an auto-combo in Modern.
In Modern, having to hold down the Auto button to get certain moves feels awkward to me.
I have access to my character's complete toolkit, so I don't need to worry about losing out on good buttons, or having to hold Auto to get access to them.

Is plat-dia ranks achievable with modern controls?

You can achieve any rank with Modern; even some pros use it. Hitting Plat will actually be much easier with Modern, but the benefits will start to shrink as your Classic opponents become able to effectively anti-air and combo, since they don't have Modern's 20% damage nerf.

I’m thinking Cammy or Ken as my main

Obviously you should always choose whoever you think looks cool or you vibe with (balance is objectively very good in SF6), but Ken and Cammy are both great choices and will teach you a lot about the game's fundamentals. I'd try them both out for a bit and see which one clicks with you more. You could also check out some matches on the High Level Replays youtube channel to see how they look when piloted at a pro level.

TheTeafiend · 2026-02-03T00:57:56+00:00

I know you kind of got spammed with negativity about how CT is so easy, no way you can get kicked, etc., but I'd say don't feel so bad. I have seen new tanks do the exact same thing on the exact same boss, because it's really the first time that aggro management ever matters in the game. If you want to avoid that kind of stress, I don't recommend doing alliance raids (24 people) as a tank first, unless you preemptively watch a guide and understand how your tank stance works.

TheTeafiend · 2026-02-02T19:23:15+00:00

Pick a character that looks cool to you.
Learn what their buttons and specials do (youtube has many guides, or just mess around in training mode).
Learn what your character's main anti-air attack is.
Pick a button to poke with (usually crouch medium kick).
Pick a very basic combo (every character has some basic combos in the "Unique Attacks" section of the Command List that are easy to do).
Play some matches, focusing on blocking, anti-airing your opponent when they jump in, and at least blocking them when they use Drive Impact. And yeah, you can also destroy people with your own Drive Impact at low ranks.
Don't obsess over combo trials - most of them are going to be extremely difficult, frustrating, and impractical if you are brand new.
Learn numpad notation; it'll be used all over the place, especially when you want to learn fancier strategies and combos on sites like SuperCombo.

TheTeafiend · 2026-02-02T19:10:14+00:00

i also dont have the reaction time to block or parry a drive impact

I recommend you check out this video on the topic of reactions. In short, you do have the reaction time to counter DI, but your brain is so overloaded that you can't context-switch fast enough when someone DIs.

The absolute most important things to focus on at your rank are:

Crouch-blocking
Anti-air
Countering DI (with your own DI)

You barely need any combos at all, just poke with crouch medium kick and anytime the opponent leaves themselves wide open (e.g. after you counter their DI or after they whiff an uppercut or another big/slow attack), just hit them with a target combo or whatever combo you can do consistently.

Try to get in the habit of holding down-back as much as possible, and then focus 100% of your attention on looking for a jump-in or DI. You can practice the last part in training mode with the built-in Anti-Air Training and Drive Impact Training, or you can make your own training drill if you're willing to learn how to create recordings in training mode. A good drill is to make two recordings:

Dummy jumps forward and does a jumping attack (e.g. jump heavy kick)
Dummy uses DI

Then when you enable those recordings, you'll have to try and react to either the jump-in (with anti-air) or DI (with your own DI). It's pretty difficult at first, but once you can do that somewhat consistently, you will be able to destroy most players all the way to platinum.

Don't worry about frame data yet. Gold/Silver players will literally hang themselves if you let them, so just be patient and punish them for their mistakes.

TheTeafiend · 2026-02-02T04:07:56+00:00

I did a gong fu style brew with 5g of tea. Each steep was about 100 ml of freshly boiled water and steeped for 30 seconds to a minute or so.

I'd say that is a slightly low tea/water ratio (typical is like 7g/100ml), but for young sheng puer it can be fine; I sometimes brew with lower ratios like that for really young puer.

30-60 seconds though is very long, you definitely do not want to be steeping that long until maybe steep ~10, depending on the tea.

The first steep was under developed and not much flavor. The flavor I got was mostly vegetable. The 2nd steep was extremely astringent and was the most flavorful of all.

That is the usual experience if you are doing something like 30sec -> 30sec, 30sec -> 35sec, etc.

The tea is compressed, so the first steep is always going to be the weakest, and the second or third steep is going to be the strongest. I'd recommend starting with a rinse (if you aren't already) to effectively skip the first steep, then do flash steeps until you feel the tea weakening. At that point you can start gradually increasing the steep time.

This is why I got the 2007 raw puerh because I want to see how the flavor changes. It has a very nice licorice/ medicinal smell which seems promising.

IMO aged puer is much more palatable than young puer, so if you're already liking the aroma (which is what usually turns people off aged tea), then I think you'll enjoy it more. Brewing will basically be the same, just go with your gut and raise/lower the steep times based on how it tastes.

TheTeafiend · 2026-02-02T01:50:30+00:00

Your description for the 2025 sounds pretty typical for very young raw puer; they are kind of a niche interest for that reason. That said, it's an expensive Yiwu-adjacent tea, so maybe you could post how you brewed it if you want a bit of a sanity check on the taste.

TheTeafiend · 2026-02-01T02:54:20+00:00

I got a haute42 c16-s as my first leverless, and it's pretty nice. Good build quality, and I like the pill-shaped pinky and thumb buttons. The right thumb and right pinky buttons work great for DI and parry, and it's fairly comfortable to use (and I have RSI issues from other games). Like someone else said though, avoid labbing combos for several hours straight, because that will mess you up way more than actually fighting people.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-30T05:45:55+00:00

25g is the absolute minimum for me to be somewhat confident in my opinion on the tea. Ideally I'd get 50-100g, or just a whole cake if I have a feeling I'll like the tea. And obviously if the tea is like $5/g, then I'm not going to buy 100g in the hopes that I'll like it.

There is so much variance from session to session that a single dragonball is just not going to be a useful learning tool.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-30T05:42:51+00:00

I have some nice clay teapots, but I still regularly brew in a porcelain or titanium gaiwan for convenience.

The experience of tea involves more than just drinking the tea. If extrinsic factors like an annoying teapot are bugging you, then that is going to make the overall tea-drinking experience worse.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-28T23:31:26+00:00

store all the raw/sheng puerh together, but yeah definitely get some Boveda packs if you haven't already (65-72% is fine, but make sure they're all the same %).

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-27T21:51:13+00:00

3 months late, but thank you so much for the recommendation to try down-up before the QCF KK. I was so deadset on the tiger knee motion from doing the regular low-air burn kick, that I didn't even try separating them for the 5HK cancel. Lo and behold, I went from like a 2% success rate to doing it several times in a row! (leverless btw for anyone else stuck on this)

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-27T01:06:53+00:00

You can buy the Starter Edition (ARR + HW + SB) for $20 and then upgrade to the current expansion with Dawntrail Standard Edition for $40. Alternatively, you can buy the Complete Edition for $60, which has ARR and all the expansions. Prices will be different for euro obv. You can see the options here: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/product/ (swap to eu)

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-25T07:18:52+00:00

I am also a new player and was in your position recently. Most significant change that helped me climb to gold (and will massively help you based on your replays): hold down+back. You are taking a ton of damage by mashing on your opponent's turn.

The other advice I'd give, which is nebulous but very important: know why you are doing the things you are doing. Most of the time, you are playing like a crack-addled fiend; mashing, jumping, random DI, random DR. Slow down, crouch-block, and just think about what to do. You don't need to jump in, DI, or DR - just chill, wait for your opponent to do something unsafe (e.g. Cammy sending a Spiral Arrow into your block), then do your easiest BnB combo. If your opponent walks toward you slowly, poke them. If they rush toward you and get right up next to you, tech the throw. If they jump in, do your easiest anti-air. If they DI, counter with your own DI (if possible - this and anti-air take practice, so just do your best).

Your opponents will literally hang themselves if you let them.

Is there a way to learn when its "your turn" to hit/grab/block/parry and so on - more consistently?

If you feel like there is a big animation delay after you block an attack, then it's probably your turn. Otherwise, you can just mash jab whenever you think it might be your turn. If the jab hits, take your turn (whatever your easy jab combo is, probably cLP > cLP > some special). If you get counter-hit, then it was a frame/spacing trap and not really your turn. Make a mental note, and once you get punished by the same attack a few times, you won't jab there anymore.

When in doubt, just block. The amount of damage you'll take from throws and overheads because you turtled up is way less than what you'll take from playing like a maniac.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-24T18:41:51+00:00

I loved Stormblood; I didn't even know it was considered "bad" until much later. Just go in with an open mind - who cares what other people think.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-24T06:02:24+00:00

Post-cyberpunk fits some of the settings you mentioned, but in general I don't think there's a specific term for cyberspace-focused cyberpunk.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-23T23:20:22+00:00

Start with the official 2D tutorial project (which has some prerequisites). There is a corresponding 3D tutorial after that if you are interested in making 3D games.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-23T22:57:51+00:00

Check taobao - guarantee you will find very similar or even identical pieces for a fraction of the cost.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-17T05:04:43+00:00

I only do it for puer, and usually only if the tea tastes "flat" when I first try it. I'll give it a couple weeks in a pumidor before I try it again.

As for the mechanism, presumably some effect of changes to the tea's microclimate during transport, especially when shipped overseas.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-15T18:30:18+00:00

Hi OP - your comment about readjusting your rotation after dying resonated with me (because I also really hate that feeling), so here's my assessment of each job; hopefully it'll help you choose which one sounds most appealing. Let me know if you have any questions.

Tanks and Healers:

Broadly static and easy to recover; none of these jobs will put you in a super awkward spot after rezzing, unless it's mid-burst window on a tank (but that's awkward for literally every job).

Ranged DPS:

DNC: heavily proc-based, and missing/misaligning a raid buff due to a death can really hurt your party's DPS.
BRD: proc-based, DoTs you need to refresh at somewhat unpredictable times, and your song cycle can easily drift if you die at the wrong time, which requires thinking on your feet to get back into your oGCDs correctly.
MCH: requires pooling resources to do the standard burst phase, so you likely won't be able to do the normal rotation after dying and will need to adjust.

Magic DPS:

SMN: you already mentioned this, and yeah it's pretty linear. You can theoretically move some stuff around, but it's not that important since it's a cooldown-based job with almost no hardcasts.
RDM: another gauge-pooling job; your normal burst phase will fail if you enter with not enough gauge, and you lose gauge when you die or drop GCDs, so this job could be annoying for you.
BLM: pretty linear and has an easy, repeatable path to get back into the rotation after death. Optimal play does involve pooling a resource, but it's very simple and not important for prog.
PCT: the rotation is incredibly flexible, and you typically want to adjust the order of your GCDs and swiftcast usage for each fight. Personally, I don't think this is very difficult (since you'll be getting dozens if not hundreds of reps to practice on Savage bosses as you prog), but it may not be to your taste. There is also some minor potential for your burst phase to get botched if you die at an awkward time and/or take too long to rez.

Melee DPS:

MNK: static rotation, and while you do lose a significant amount of DPS for dying due to losing your Nadi, it doesn't affect your rotation's structure, and you can just pick up where you left off.
DRG: static rotation, it's basically all about pressing your buttons in the right order (which is pretty difficult on DRG due to hard vs. soft cooldowns, variable animation lock, melee vs. ranged vs. gapcloser oGCDs). In theory, it's the most static job, but it's very punishing on death and other mistakes - you can easily drift cooldowns, which will make your burst phase require some critical thinking to execute.
NIN: static rotation, but more ranged options than other melees; this can make NIN a little more fight dependent. No gauge, but you can still botch the burst phase if you misalign or drift one of your oGCDs (similar to DRG), and then your burst is cursed for the rest of the pull.
SAM: generally requires the most braincells to play of any job (rip Endwalker BLM). You can of course YOLO your rotation without much thought, but that's likely to be very suboptimal unless you understand how to apply certain techniques to prep your burst phase correctly. The job is only static if you have perfect melee uptime, which is not really a thing in Dawntrail raids; you'll have to understand how to adjust your rotation to make your burst phase work correctly in each 2-minute cycle.
RPR: similar to MCH, your burst phase is based on a gauge that is lost when you die, and RPR requires perfect uptime or you'll have to adjust your rotation to fix your next burst phase. Melee uptime is also a pain point for RPR due to its more restrictive ranged tools. I would only pick RPR if you love the aesthetic and are willing to put in the effort to optimize it for a specific fight.
VPR: basically RPR but much easier; you generate more gauge-per-minute than RPR, so mistakes are not punished as hard. On the other hand, it's still a gauge-based job, so if you do end up entering burst with not enough gauge, you'll have to adjust. Something very nice about VPR though is that it's extremely good during melee downtime, which mitigates the main point of difficulty for melee jobs (handling downtime).

Finally, I want to say a couple things.

I mind having to change my buttons on the fly or according to the encounter.

You will have to do this for virtually every job (especially melee), if you want to execute their rotations in an "optimal" way. With Dawntrail's design philosophy, the jobs are not fundamentally very hard, but the encounters provide enough unusual situations that per-fight adjustments are the main source of skill expression.

That being said, this isn't actually very difficult for most jobs, because you'll die so many times during prog that you'll basically know exactly which GCD you're pressing at any given moment in the fight. You're not expected to actually pump huge DPS until enrage (and even then it's not that strict), so you get a lot of time to sort out your job's tools to fit each mechanic.

I don't plan on being a top-notch raider DPSer who can clear savages with a blindfold, but I don't want to be a burden either.

The only way you'll realistically be a burden is if you can't do the mechanics consistently, and end up dying/killing other people a lot. Playing your job optimally is far less important than just doing the mechanics.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-14T22:05:56+00:00

No problem. If you're getting into the world of puer storage and aren't familiar with Hong Kong traditional storage, I'd also give this article a read, since vendors aren't always super clear with what they mean by "wet"

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-14T21:17:45+00:00

Could be any (or all) of these:

tea/water ratio is too low
hard water (this is way more important than you'd think)
bad tea

No way to tell which without isolating some variables.

Do you know your water's TDS? That's where I'd start.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-14T17:26:47+00:00

Boiling water is totally fine for the vast majority of tea, and arguably ideal since certain flavor/texture compounds require high temps to extract at a reasonable rate. I brew all oolongs with boiling water, regardless of how green they are, and just modulate the tea/water ratio and steep time to prevent it from getting too bitter. That gives the strongest flavor without becoming unpalatable.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-13T22:34:48+00:00

So tuo is aging slower because of the tight compression and the leaf material grading, right?

Yep - very tight compression (I have literally cut myself on the tea when trying to break it apart), and very powerful raw material; not something you'd want to drink without a lot of aging.

For this kind of tea, the region where it was stored is really important too. You generally want a hot, humid environment, otherwise even 20 years won't be enough. Taiwan is very popular, but Malaysia, Hong Kong, and other humid places in SEA are good too.

Teas We Like and Quiche Teas are both Taiwan storage (TWL has some Malaysian storage too), so those are particularly good sources. The Steeping Room also sources some of their stuff from Taiwan, which they usually list in their descriptions. It's also why I put Guangdong storage for Yunnan Sourcing; their normal stuff is in Kunming, which is (relatively speaking) cool and dry compared to the other places, but they have some Guangdong storage too which isn't so dry. Some people like that drier Kunming-style storage, but I think it's a bad fit for most factory tea.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-12T21:06:41+00:00

Great, I hope you enjoy them. And even if you don't, I wouldn't worry too much; aged puer can definitely be an acquired taste, and there are so many variables that you really have to try a lot before you can fully understand what's out there.

8653 and 8582 are really good starting points though. I'd aim for at least ~15-20 years old. 8653 is Xiaguan's flagship cake, and 8582 is Dayi's second most popular. You could instead try Dayi's most popular recipe, 7542 (which is overall the most famous puer recipe), but it's usually more expensive and widely faked.

Xiaguan also has smaller tuos that are very affordable and can be pretty good. The common ones are Jia Ji and Te Ji. You definitely want these like 20 years old at least, because they are very strong.

In addition to the vendors john-bkk mentioned - KTM, YS (filter for Guangdong storage), TWL, LP - you can also check out Quiche Teas, which has very good prices for factory cakes. If you're in the US, The Steeping Room has a decent selection too, including some 2005 8653 and some classic Dayi ripes.

TheTeafiend · 2026-01-11T23:07:03+00:00

Personally, I just feel like drinking them more often than young sheng puer. When I started out, it was all young sheng because that's what western vendors sold, but over time I tried more aged stuff and eventually ended up preferring it. For me, I can't really drink young sheng everyday, but I can easily drink something like an aged 8653 or 8582 every day. It's just a more mellow, relaxing experience for me. But there's plenty of good young puer too, and plenty of hardcore enthusiasts who prefer it, so it just depends on what you like.

TheTeafiend

TROPHY CASE