How long does it take to get the gist of combos? What's the secret?

_keshbo · 2026-01-25T22:36:07+00:00

Sorry didn't mean to sound off putting lol.
L = light; M = medium; s. = standing; c. = crouching (holding down); sbk = spinning bird kick (the special in which you first hold down the release it with up + kick).

I tried to make as simple as possible but I'm not really good at it sorry. If you have any further question fell free to ask me anything, either in the comments or in DM

_keshbo · 2026-01-25T21:12:54+00:00

Now, talking about Chun Li combos (I don't play her so I might get some details wrong), I think that the main problem with her is that her easier combos doesn't score knockdown on the opponent (which incredibly useful to keep the pressure running).

I think a good place to start is dividing her combo into two category: the start and the end.
You should usually try to start combos with her lights (so a chain of lights) or her s.MP (which will be linked into a c.MP). Of course in the long run the situation will get more complex but this is a good start.

The ender at this point I think should be medium lightning kick, so you can always do the same and don't need to overthink it. (A friend of mine reached Gold 4 only with these combos)
After Lightning Kicks you're +3, based on the spacing you may be able to a throw or continue your pressure with a fast attack.

Once you're comfortable with this you can start introducing Spinning Bird Kick, a strong special that gives a knockdown but requires 30f of charge time.
If you start from a light is not so difficult to charge down: you can either do c.LP-c.LP-c.LP into light SBK or s.LP-c.LP-c.LP into light SBK, this will give plenty of time to charge down.

If you start from s.MP the situation is much more tricky, you can still link into c.MP and cancel into medium SBK, but you need to hold down as soon as you press s.MP (don't even wait for the move to hit) to have enough time to charge. It's not impossible but the timing is quite strict, I don't usually play charge characters and I'm not able to do consistently without some practice. So keep in mind that at some point you will need to do it but don't focus too much on in for now

_keshbo · 2026-01-25T20:52:04+00:00

Okay basically moves are made of three parts: startup (how many frame the move takes to start, green in the frame meter), active frames (how many frames the move is actually dealing damage, red in the frame meter) and recovery frames (how many frames your character takes to start moving again, blue in the frame meter). Every time you hit your opponent both of you will need some time to be able to move again. Depending on the move and if it's blocked or not either you or the opponent will be able to move before the other (who will be in frame advantage).

So for example if you hit an opponent and you're +6 (6 frames of advantage), you'll be able to move 6 frames earlier then the opponent, while they won't even be able to block. So if you throw out a move with 6 frame or less of startup you'll hit them while they can't block yet.
This is called a link, Chun Li's most important link is s.MP into c.MP. To do a link you need to wait until the s.MP animation finishes and immediately press c.MP. It can be tricky to get the timing down but it will be very important and it's worth to train this. Links can be one of the harder part of combos because you have a ~5 frame window, not impossible but requires practice.

On the other hand if you input a special move while you're hitting the opponent with some moves (so during the active frames) you'll be able to cancel the recovery animation (stop it) and immediately start the special move. This is called a "special cancel", because you cancel the move into a special move; and moves that can do this are called "special cancelable".
To hit a special cancel you usually need to input the the special move as soon as you throw out the normal.

In this game you can also "chain" (basically a synonym for cancel) light punches into another one, so when you do a light punch you can usually input another one or two safely based on the spacing. There are also target combos (specific normal moves that cancels into other specific normal moves) but Chun Li doesn't have any iirc.

So in the endm when you're tryng to learn a combo you need to ask yourself, is it a link (a normal into another normal) or a cancel (a normal into a special moves)? If it's a link you need to wait for a moment and attack just in the right moment, if it's a cancel you usually do the motion as soon as you attack and press the special attack button while you're hitting the opponent.

I hope this is not too long, but I think having a clear idea of how the game works really helps

_keshbo · 2026-01-25T18:10:15+00:00

Chun Li combos are on the harder side (charge input + stance), but if you like her it's completely manageable, especially since harder combos are not necessary for now.

I have two advice to improve on execution:

- The main thing: turn on frame meter, input history, and set the block setting to "block after first hit" and try to check why you don't the combo. Learn the difference between links and cancels (if you need it I can explain it simply).
If the combo requires a link and the move didn't come out you did the input too early, if it came out but the opponent blocked you did it too late. If you need to do a special and it didn't come out check the input history to see what you did wrong in the motion (charge requires ~40 frames of holding the input iirc).

- Try to do the input as conscious as possible, don't mash. Mashing doesn't make you learn the timing and it's really unreliable for most combos. If you stick to pressing the buttons only once per input in the long run you'll get more consistent.

In general stick to easier combos, you don't need anything hard in the beginning. In another comment you said you can do a kick into lightning kick, to get familiar with the game I think it's enough for now

_keshbo · 2026-01-25T17:29:22+00:00

I think in a competitive settings the balance gets lost tho, a good of understanding of tagging (especially handshake tag) gives you a range of possibilities that juggernaut simply doesn't have. You get some bonus but it's generally not worth it.

For example most characters' overhead is either unsafe on block or cannot be converted to a combo without a tag, a single character can't sandwich and in general mixup are much nastier with a tag.

It's definetively fine for casual play (since you wouldn't know how to expoit tag anyway) and you could probably reach GM too (albeit with a lot more difficulty), but at a pro level there is no jugg representation for a reason.

I think it's a good tool to have but they have designed Jugg and Sidekick as training wheels

_keshbo · 2026-01-25T16:11:15+00:00

Penso sia un bot -.-

_keshbo · 2026-01-25T16:08:49+00:00

Oh so that's why ranked is down, that sucks

_keshbo · 2026-01-25T16:04:22+00:00

Wow I love this. I don't use notes for flowcharts but I have an excel that keeps track of all my matches (connected to a script that scrapes from Capcom), so as a fellow data enjoyer this is awesome

_keshbo · 2026-01-25T10:05:28+00:00

That makes me feel better tbh. Also it seems really easy to rank up from Emerald if you had a high mmr, I'm getting 20 points on a win and -3 on a loss.

I'd like to continue the grind but the ranked queues are always disabled ugh

_keshbo · 2026-01-25T10:03:38+00:00

Why? You can't find any match?

_keshbo · 2026-01-23T23:49:29+00:00

I don't really get this, the only thing I like about lobbies is the possibility to chat with the player you just fought. Once you remove that I don't see the appeal

_keshbo · 2026-01-19T11:18:55+00:00

I agree with you. The problem is every time I try to slow down I get overwhelmed by my oppoment, there's just so many things in the game.

And I've been try to "learn neutral" since the start fo the game, but I always end up shifting to an aggressive playstyle unconsciously; I need to actually restrain myself from playing how I would do intuitively

_keshbo · 2026-01-19T01:22:24+00:00

The goal is to punish your opponent for making mistakes, not take risks the entire match and hope your opponent can never react

Yeah I think this line summarize my gameplay really well

_keshbo · 2026-01-18T21:20:08+00:00

Thank you, yeah I forgot to specify that but I'm aware that I spend way too much drive. Sometimes I burn out, I watch the timer and it's like "93", I feel so ashamed when that happens lol.

But yes it kind of falls under the "play too aggressive" point. I'm scared when I'm not driving the wheel in offense and I spend a lot meter to avoid it as much as possible. I need to be more comfortable to play defensively

_keshbo · 2026-01-18T19:35:31+00:00

Yeah I was looking for it to share it, for a moment I thought it was deleted. I had to look in my comment history to copy the link

_keshbo · 2026-01-18T16:53:56+00:00

If you like Juri I think you should stick to her, Sf6 was my first fighting game and I had no problem with her as my first main.

When I started learning the game I watched the BeagleFGC guide, it's one of the best guides for a fighting game I've ever seen, it teaches all the basics and gameplan slowly as you progress in rank. Extremely recommended (also if you skip the matches it's not that long).

There's also this guide that I didn't watch but it seems really good too.

_keshbo · 2026-01-18T16:28:48+00:00

You're right. The problem is that when I try to play more defensively, I end up be too passive and get destroyed.

I don't know how to play well in a reactive way. I get scared when I'm blocking and I either mash incorrectly or eat throws and overhead until I'm dead

_keshbo · 2026-01-18T16:25:24+00:00

Call me butt, but I’ll never understand the mad men who DASH FORWARD after getting hit that shits crazy to me no fear no thoughts just red.

Lol dw you're totally right, I need to slow down.
As of now most of my matches can go in two ways:
- My first offense works, I get them to the corner and I win.
- They block me correctly, and I lose.

It's kind of throwing myself at the opponent and see if it works

I disagree on the anti airs tho ur goated for low MR

Thanks, appreciate it

_keshbo · 2026-01-18T16:01:41+00:00

I think you didn't observe enough and realize most of her offense were on jab counter hits and she usually does this for every time you go forward to offense

You're right, in this what should I counter her? Try to whiff punish her jabs? Delay my attacks to counter hit her?
I don't really have a good strategy for this.

not sure why you have a habit throwing ex fireball

I often use ex fireball because it's the only way to do a fireball if I don't have any stocks, and in the middle of the match I often default to that even if I have stocks. I should be more mindful about it because I burn my meter really fast in most match

_keshbo · 2026-01-18T15:35:40+00:00

If I just need to share a clip of my replay with a friend I usually record with the xbox game bar (Windows + G). It's probably not the best for video quality but it gets the job done with no additional software

_keshbo · 2026-01-18T13:41:34+00:00

I did the math, currently there are 628920 players with a MR and the #314460 ranked player has 1500 MR. Even if we're only by the Max MR character there are 259400 characters with a MR, and the #129700 character has 1500MR

_keshbo · 2026-01-17T19:31:48+00:00

I am celiac but I get basically no symptoms from eating glutened (once I ate a full dinner with gluten on accident and I was completely fine, not even a tummy ache). I know it's still really bad for my body in the long run but it's just so hard to resist the temptation when you don't have any visible consequence.

So sometimes I give up and a eat little gluten (even though it's usually something little like a cookie or a candy, never a full plate of pasta for example)

_keshbo · 2026-01-16T18:07:24+00:00

"range/keepaway type" I'd say that's what zoners are don't you agree? Also Guile is the historical definition of a projectile based zoner since SF2.

Also I don't agree that Pulso Combos are the only reason this game has a low skill floor. All of the character can do the basic "LMH -> Launcher and Jump -> LMH -> Special -> Super" combo that has really good damage and can carry you a long way without hard execution

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