Kata #25 v1.0

Difficulty Advanced Kata

Focus Spacing-Timing Combination Responses

The intention of this kata is to bring the things learned in all previous katas, into action at the same time, and teach how to combine spacing and timing responses to get the best results. It is intended to make players think about when they can or should attack immediately, and when they can or should reposition before attacking, or even reposition without attacking at all, depending on their own character or style. This sort of training will also help with one of the final vital skills of fighting games, the ability to know when taking an action is neutral or low risk enough for it to be used to prevent an unwanted situation. Obviously, such an advanced kata will vary a bit by character and this page is the most likely of our Kata pages to be updated using information sent by users.

Since KarinBot is designed to teach a different set of things, you will use the CPU at Level 8 for this kata. There is no need for any special inputs, and you do not need to alter your KarinBot.

Despite being an advanced kata, it should not be necessary to know much about frame data to use this beyond what you have already learned from Kata #23. If you have not yet tried Kata #23, we strongly suggest you do that first. Some knowledge of frame data will help, but most of what you need to know will be mentioned in this page, and only the basic understanding of frame data overall is required. However, if you wish to use this, there are many frame data apps and resources that you can use to aid you while training. We recommend finding the frame data source that you are most comfortable with to assist you with the more technical aspects of the kata.

Gauge Settings

Settings for 1P for Kata #25 are Health - "Auto-Recover" (when not in 'Full Focus Test' mode), V-Gauge - "Auto-Recover", CA Gauge - "Normal".

Settings for 2P for Kata #25 are Health - "Auto-Recover" (when not in 'Full Focus Test' mode), V-Gauge - "Normal", CA Gauge - "Normal".

Goals

Katas do not specifically have a point system, as they are intended to be a test of focus and endurance. Instead, this section will explain the why and how of the kata. Aims are still given below in a similar way to Bots and will be referred to as Aim A, Aim B, and so on when explaining.

Situation One -- Neutral Jump As A Defense

Aim A works on characters whose standing attacks don't tend to have good hitboxes or timings for high hits, or whose rapid approach attacks aren't active for too long in the higher spaces (toward where your character's head normally is). Against these characters, for example, Karin, a neutral jump attack with good range can be an effective way to avoid needing to 'play footsies' with them at ranges that are advantageous to them. Try to neutral jump when Karin is at a space where she could soon be close enough to use her crouching MK, or try for a light Ressenha. If you time it right and use the right aerial counterattack, Karin won't be able to consistently damage you for doing this, and may need to block in a way that puts her at the disadvantage. Though she does have options, those options can be hard to execute on reaction consistently from the space you are aiming to do it from, or even if she does get you and do some damage, it would be less damage than if she managed to land the crouching MK and confirm into a combo from there.

Pay attention to the fact that for many characters, the combo you want to do after the neutral jump attack may be a little more difficult to execute or confirm due to the lack of forward momentum of the character. Also pay attention to the fact that when you do get hit, against this type of character, the neutral jump may have changed the 'air reset' situation to give you more time to react, and you probably were more ready for this than when you are aiming for a forward jump strike. It is important to learn which buttons to use which ranges, and what other things you can do or cannot do based on the hit and momentum.

Kata 25 Situation 1 Use neutral jumps to get out of the range of characters who have to get close to use grounded attacks which have high hitboxes, or whose attacks of this type are slow to hit 'high'.

Situation Two -- Interrupting Open Mixups

For this situation, one can ignore Aim A if you prefer, but the two do not generally interfere with each other enough that you need to, for most characters. Situation Two is mostly about Aim B. In Situation One, neutral jumps might have caused you to completely evade Ressenha, but for Aim B your goal is to block it, and since the CPU normally attempts a follow up, to defend against that follow-up and punish it, or to quickly punish Karin before she can even go into it. Part of the effectiveness of Ressenha is the 'temptation' to use strong punishes against it. Without a followup, it is -6/-5/-4 depending on strength, but can be spaced well. If the player tries to get 'better damage' by using an attack other than a Light Attack or a 4-frame startup special move (generally Shoryuken, etc), Karin's strength is that she can evade some of these by using the extension. Low attacks and throws can be evaded by going up, high can be evaded by going low, and Karin can simply block against players who hesitate and lose their tiny window of opportunity. This sort of thing is true for quite a few characters, but Karin is particularly consistent in the amount of time you have to take an action or defend yourself correctly.

Try to react in time with a 5LP (works for nearly all characters) or crouching LP or LK, until you get a feel for when you should not do this, with your own character. Some can use 5MP as well. Then work on using the fact that all of Karin's mixups can be blocked or avoided if you crouch directly after blocking the Ressenha, instead. You can use Medium buttons to punish this usually, but as it can be difficult to time, this is the part of the Kata intended to help you get used to situations with very short durations, which you must time well to convert into damage. If your character needs to use their standing MP or a command normal to get the most out of this, this becomes even more difficult. Some other characters need to use even more specific things in order to really make a dent in Karin's health bar, and some of those things are not safe if you mistime them and she blocks. Focus on trying to do this while relaxed, because being on edge and 'mashing' won't work on other characters who do this sort of thing as well as it works on Karin.

Kata 25 Situation 2 Some built-in mixups or frame-trap strings with longer gaps, can be defended against in ways that lead to good damage or positional advantage, but only if you're quick enough!

Situation Three -- Back To Minus Two Again

Once you've covered the two situations above, the third thing that Karin uses to really push on players is similar to Dhalsim from Kata #23. She will often cancel a blocked crouching MK into Orochi, if you have mastered the art of repositioning against her in neutral using the other two things. Basically, Karin will do this if you walk backward against her while still managing to time your movement so that your legs don't get clipped by her low attack (2MK). At this point she is at -2 in terms of frame data, which usually means that you get to do many things, but you cannot throw her with most characters, she will be out of range or be able to jump to avoid it if it is a longer ranged command grab. Just like Dhalsim, you can use a quickish Medium attack or sometimes a very fast Heavy normal or command normal that is safe, to proceed from there. If you do it with the right timing, she must block or be counter hit. If you delay even a frame or two, too long, especially on characters whose Medium attacks are all 6f of startup or more, she can use her crouching MP to trade or win, depending on your own delay, and if she knows you have not even tried anything, just keep going with more crouching MK so you cannot back off either.

Your goal here, therefore, is to block this move and correctly time your counterattack button, and since she is likely to be closer, and you are using a medium one rather than a heavy one, there's more chance to use those strong counter-hit confirms against her than against Dhalsim, who had a much more variable range in Kata #23. This however is mostly part of Aim D, and therefore lines up with Situation Four below. In Situation Three, your focus should be on recognizing that the hit has or has not happened, rather than considering follow-ups or cancels. Attention to spacing and other moves with similar situations, such as a poorly spaced charged Meioken, or EX Mujinkyaku, is your goal here, since unlike Dhalsim, Karin wants to continue to apply pressure. Getting her to stop doing this with proper timing is fairly essential, and there are many other characters like this, where the issue is not the variability of their spacing on their less safe moves, or their own reach with their attacks, but simply the very short duration of the attacks you block. Variation and stress are key factors for this type of character to gain advantage, and keeping your cool and pushing them away or threatening to do good damage by counter hitting them with safe attacks at this point is a good way to stop that.

Kata 25 Situation 3 After Orochi, Karin usually can't be thrown easily, but she is still close enough for many attacks to make contact and get advantage without her being able to stop them.

Situation Four -- That's What We Like To Call "Big Damage"

Aim C dominates Situation Three, and Aim D dominates Situation Four. There's a subtle difference in the two beyond a simple 'progression' though, and that is why they are considered separate enough to do this way. Counter-hit confirms are not only a complex topic, especially when not relying on V-Cancels, but in this case, the character you are facing has some very strong defense of her own, such that you are likely to suffer much more from getting it wrong. So in Aim C, your entire focus should be just on understanding the timing, but Aim D means that your focus should be on whether or not you confirm it when you do happen to do it. For many players, focusing on both at once can be difficult enough to be frustrating, so at this point, even though Aim C is obviously required for Aim D to even happen, you should not really consider it to be 'Situation Three'. Instead, worry less about the timing of the attack that follows Orochi, and focus more on 'recognizing the situation where you hit her' and confirming into another attack that takes advantage of this in a useful way.

Unlike Situation Three, you should also not limit yourself to 'things that are optimal against Karin'. Experiment with many things, since different opposing characters require different approaches and ranges to this type of counter-hit, and many strategies can be enhanced by knowing the correct approach. Karin herself will offer some different ranges occasionally, against certain characters, by using EX Mujinkyaku. You should be trying to gain the confidence to even buffer or use unsafe moves on this counter-hit, to maximize your advantage.

Kata 25 Situation 4 Look for all the ways you can get this counter-hit to be more advantageous to you, whether it is a V-Cancel, a linked attack that normally would not link, or a special move that would not have been fast enough to punish, by itself.

Full Focus Test Mode

When you feel as if you have a good handle on each situation and all the ways you could deal with the opponent, change 1P V-Gauge to "Normal". Both Health Gauges would then also be set to "Normal", but make sure that you go to the regular 'dummy' version of the Training Mode options and set Stun to 'Off' (this setting carries over to bots and CPU). The goal is now to defeat Karin using the Kata as normal, but use your V-Gauge only for V-Reversals and only meterless versions of your neutral jump combo (meter can be used freely for all other punishes). If you manage this before she defeats you, consisently, then your focus is probably enough to handle this sort of situation in real matches. Repeat with familiar characters until you are satisfied with your performance.

Bot Information

This Kata uses the CPU, not a bot, and therefore you do not need to use the KarinBot 1.0 page. You should use that if you want to deal with Karin's throw pressure and less safe moves, instead. We have tested this Kata with most of the game's characters and Karin's behaviour changes more than the CPU behaviour for most other characters, but the core actions all seem to be the same across all characters we have tested. However, we urge you to contact us if you observe Karin to behave strangely for your character, so that we can help out, or update this page with a disclaimer that the CPU does not allow this Kata to work for that character. If this behaviour changes due to any updates to Street Fighter V in future, this space will be used for notes on how and why.



In-Depth

In Progress.