chosting around at the speed of sound


After seeing the TXT homie Drifter Dane posting about his training sessions in Xrd, I've decided to do the same thing. I feel like it might be helpful, both in terms of keeping up with my training schedule as Frosty's gets closer and closer, and being more thoughtful about what I practice instead of just doing some random combos for a bit then moving on to playing games when I get bored. I've decided to use the "Don't Break the Chain" technique Pat talked about in his article here to spur me on with this, as well as teaching myself to floss every night just as Pat did

Since I signed up for Xrd, +R, and Vsav, I'll just be playing those this month. The only other game I might play is ST, which I may or may not end up signing up for, but that's not something I can really practice too much, I think just playing is better once I get basic execution of stuff down, especially since the only character I really play is Honda, and I can do Oicho loops. (I have been working on getting a passable Boxer recently, might write about that too if I decide to go in on playing ST at Frosty Faustings). Anyway, time for my notes:

Vsav:

I spent most of my time today playing Vsav, just grinding out Zero Demon execution. It's tough. You have to cancel Demitri's teleport dash into his DP. In numpad notation, its ideally 62356 and a punch button, but 623656 works too, and is what I often get. dashing first makes it way easier but it isn't a proper Zero Demon that way, though I think it's still useful to mixup with dash Midnight Pleasure, his unblockable super. I can barely do it on P1 side, and I hardly ever get it on P2. That being said, I can definitely see the improvement. I think if I keep this up, I'll have it good enough to try in matches by the time FF rolls around.

The other thing I practiced was Midnight Pleasure setups. This is a huge part of his strike/throw mixup game and leads to a lot of damage, so they're important to have. I'm pretty decent at them, but learning to tick into Pleasure off of crLK will make them way stronger, and I can't do those very often, though it's a little easier than Zero Demons. You have to move fast, and my fingers get too tired to do it after a while. I might just leave this one alone and focus on the more basic setups since they can still catch people.

After all that practice, I played some games on fightcade with a stranger and then with a local guy and got wrecked. I cannot defend in this game, probably because I try to GC or DP out of everything. I need to get better at using GC and pushblock properly, and just holding pressure sometimes. It can get rough though, because Vsav moves so fast. But I did get some games off the local guy, and even got one off of a C ranked player on FC, which felt pretty good even if I lost the match.

Xrd:

Training in Xrd has always been a pain in the butt. The tools are a little janky, and you need to restart them when switching characters. I mostly just tried to grind out DP safe disc setups on Sol with the reversal tool. If you backdash after setting disc to pick up the pin, flash FD briefly while jumping towards the oppononent, then mixup with a low airdash or 2K, you can block reversals while doing a mixup. It's really hard though, harder than Zero Demons. Getting comfortable with the input is going to be essential for playing in tournament, so its something I need to learn. I think I might practice this every day if I can.

The other thing I have to do is learn a few SG setups. I still havent gotten any down yet, despite playing Millia for the better part of a year at this point. I've always felt like I hadn't "earned" the right to do them yet because my disc oki wasnt good enough yet but If i'm going to a tournament I should have a few, at the very least vs Leo, since he's the easiest to setup SG on and a huge threat to a newer player like me in bracket.

It's also past time I start studying more vods, my own and tournament footage. It's always been hard for me because recording stuff takes a while, and close watching a set can take a lot of pausing for taking notes. It's a time commitment I dont always have, and I'd almost always rather be playing.

+R

I havent played much of this recently. It's been even harder finding a character I like than in Xrd but for now I've settled on Sol. Previously I was on Eddie but while he's really cool in this game, he's a lot of work for not a huge amount of return. I want to revisit him so I can play him casually just because he's so much fun but I don't have time for that now. Justice is another char I tried before switching to Sol and didn't really give a lot of time to. I also want to go back and try her out more. I don't know if she'd be main material, but she's another one I want to keep in the pocket because she's so unique. But nothing satisfies like a clean hit Sidewinder. I love seeing big sidewinder combos in matches and seeing a lifebar melt away. For FF, I think I'll focus on doing CL SW loops on the top tiers and maybe some of the easier characters like Axl or ones I expect to see a lot like Sol. I also need to get dustloops to a passable level eventually but the SW loops and his basic combos and CH confirms are more important.

The other big thing I need to learn is MU knowledge. Among my main playgroup, I still struggle with Anji and HOS. I don't play online enough to see a decent spread ofcharacters. There are a lot of Sols and not too many people playing online at once. I really need to go through my replays and use the takeover feature to figure stuff out so I don't get caught by fake setups or easy knowledge checks. It's something I wish every fighting game had, and something I need to actually make use of more.

That's about it for now. It's very late and I've already typed a lot. My fingers are tired so I'm just gonna end it here

Peace


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