How to combo? Sticking points!

[dreiak]

So I am experiencing a bit of a sticking point doing sol combos...

One of my issues might be that I am using a controller and not an arcade stick, but that is not something I can change anytime soon, and my execution is pretty good.

So when I either watch vids or look up combos one of the problems I am having is that they all have a lot of micro nuance involved that cannot be simply gained from watching or looking at the moves on this site. So I was hoping to have a thread for people who are struggling to learn how to chain moves together or attempt to make learning combo-ing approachable to people like me who are new to the game.

What would be nice I suppose is instead of large combo strings if there are any good combo set ups that can be learned FIRST. In stickied combo thread there is a startup with 2D BR which took me a while to figure out how to even get the BR to hit (which doesn't seem to work on all characters) and on top of it I cannot figure out how to not get trapped by the BR recovery time to do anything else such as dash... I also have not found any threads that really EXPLAIN how to do them just what the moves are.... I understand there isn't going to be any elaborate timing data on everything because that requires practice to get down.

Window of Opportunity to combo on VV is really small, I don't know if this ALWAYS requires a RC or FRC, I cannot figure out for the life of me how people combo off of a VV. This also applies to the Wild Throw! (although I have managed to land 1 j.S off wild throw I think).

I hope these are specific enough that people who have learned sol-badguy can empathize with sticking points and help new people such as myself traverse the gap from merely proficient with a character to able/efficient/ or just a higher level of mastery.

Adding some newbie friendly basic combos that I have been using to break bad habbits / learn to use moves commonly used in more complex sol freestyle combos.

Saw Daigo using this in xx, its a Gatling off of an air dash so that he has momentum (enemy on ground).

Air Dash > j.P*n > j.S,2H <~80 dmg>

My combos so far:

SHORT COMBOS:

2D, BR <80 dmg>

dash 2D,VV <76 dmg>

LONG(er) COMBOS:

5k, 2H, 2D, GF <85 dmg> (If I can FRC the GF I should have options on this one)

2H, GVRC, SW <98 dmg+ depending on GV hits> (LOTS of options after SW, I am working on more)

GVRC, SW, 2H, BR <~105 dmg+> ( alot like above combo, less options at the end though)

These are all a work in progress, as I get better at doing them I should be able to make them more complex or more optimized. As is some of these I can get in more hits then what I listed, but it does less damage due to prorate and whatnot, so in any combo I am looking for most dmg with least amount of moves given the startup. Also anything newbie friendly is nice, FRC is going to be out of my league for a while.

FRESNO AREA, Looking for matches!

[dreiak]

I just figured out that j.P, j.S, j.K, j.D and j.HS recovery is easily cancel-able into an air BR and nets 4 hits (3 hits on bad timing, 5 hits on j.HS if its canceled after the 2nd hit) in a combo.

j.HS also seems to produce the least dependable result. It is hard to land 2 hits and have the BR send the opponent consistently in the direction of your own travel, sometimes your character will hit them in the opposite direction. This also seems possible with the other moves but I have observed it's occurrence a lot less.

Off of a regular jump I just BARELY managed to land a VV after the BR. I get the impression there might be a better move.

Anyways I have what could be a dependable 6 hit air combo.

CURRENTLY: j.S (best result so far) > BR (must be done fast enough to cancel recovery on j.S) > VV (not possible to input VV EARLY!!!, so I am looking for something else here that will let me VV as a 4th link in the chain instead of 3rd).

CORRECTION: Hitting 8 will let you gattling a move again, but it will cost a double jump.

[Nakkiel]

You're not going to find completely inoptimal combos in the new players thread. Try learning what's there rather than making up an air combo that isn't going to do much damage. After your execution truly becomes good enough and you know how to play Sol, then you should try making up your own stuff.

[dreiak]

Im not trying to make up my own stuff. I am just trying to figure out how to approach learning combos. I didn't feel the necessity to copypasta sol combos and make a redundant thread. The purpose of this thread is to discuss the process of learning to do them, not the combos themselves. There is a lot of information regarding learning this game that is vary vague. I already read through all the newb info, and I already practice stuff every day. Purpose of this thread is to discuss how to get combos to work, not just the order of moves. That is why I specifically mentioned (and even quoted) some startups and specific problems I have with them, or the mid section of other combos that are practicable, but you cant tell what they are doing from videos that are really hard to see what moves sol is doing.

Please keep the "read the newb info" out of this because I have read and re-read, and will continue to re-read it to try and make sense of it myself, as I expect anyone else to.

That said, I am still having trouble understanding jump installs, If anyone knows a good resource for this I would like to know. At least everything else in the basics section I can do.

[faultydefense]

the stuff you need jump installed, sol's specials auto install for you

i'd recommend working on knowing when/how to clean hit each character. Until your completely comfortable just go for maxing the number of clean hit sidewinders in any combo.

-When you're comfortable doing that, you'll learn to hitconfirm into them, and when to stop them and take knockdown because you won't get any more.

-Next its hitconfirming, while saving bar. For example, instead of the basic 2D > BR (RC) > CLSW, in the corner you can do XX > 6P > GF FRC > CLSW to save bar

-After that then its learning to max damage off of each hit. Doing stuff like 2H > CLSW, as opposed to 5S, 2H, j.S > CLSW and the like will increase your damage if you're finishing combos.

(NOTE: this can take a LOOOOONG time. Its the reason there really aren't set sol combos, cuz most stuff is done on the fly and it will really come down to how comfortable you are with adapting to everythings location)

kind of a timeline of learning combos...i'm stressing using sidewinder in combos, because there was a point a looooong time ago where i was playing sol without them...and its just not as good. If it hurts your game now to try it, it'll pay off later to learn it now.

on some of what you mentioned:

to combo off VV you're either going to have to RC it or you have to land it as an anti-air counter hit. This makes the hit untechable and you can combo them as they're falling to the ground as long as you're close enough and they're high enough.

RS is bad, there's like one real situation that you'll use it as its high priority and an overhead, if you're back is to the corner and they're nearby it can be useful. But even then, people with a lot of sol experience i noticed tend to expect it. If they can't stop Riot stomp, then they're just not good players.

jump canceling air normals (j.s then pushing 8, 7, or 9...etc) is crucial to pretty much every character in guilty gear. This is something you should just become comfortable doing if you play guilty gear, not necessarily a sol thing. Note: j.S and j.D are jump cancellable. Though you can jump after a j.p or j.h and still combo if you're tight on your links.

For BR, you can only combo from it if it was done from the air version of BR (And then again only if they were high enough and you were low enough) or if you RC'ed it.

i'm not really sure how far you've come by this point, so i'll let you reply before assuming anything.

[Nakkiel]

Not calling you a newb or anything dude, just saying to read it because from the OP it sounded like you hadn't.

JI is really easy to understand once you do it. The easiest way to learn is to do it with two moves and then super jump and see if you can jump again. Try doing 5K 8 2HS super jump and then double jump. If you want to know when to do BR in combos, generally it's after j.D. A simple air combo could be j.KS dj.SD BR.

When you land, instead of doing VV you can get a better knockdown by doing 5K 5S/2HS ground BR.

[dreiak]

thanks actually there is some good info in here and I will be updating my info that I have posted to make sure I can correct any mistakes I have made. I AM a noob, its just I am not a stupid noob, I do my research and practice FIRST before asking people what I am doing wrong. I managed to make some decent progress today that I didn't have time to write about so I will update my previous post to correct an error.

I have been trying out sidewinders, but its a lot harder to practice them in training.. Its a lot easier to do then VV though, and I am pretty good at doing VV's on a D-Pad.

With regards to how "good" I am I can usually beat any random CPU on normal, I have beat sols story mode and arcade as well. Though I have spent probably 90% of my playtime in training mode. My execution is pretty good, I can do all of sols specials, and only really have difficulty doing moves that require more then one quarter circle at a time. I am also quick enough to land a VV after GV without cancelling the GV (took me some practice to get it). Since I just have a controller though my best GV is 4-5 hit. There is no way to do a good "mash" on forwards and backwards on d-pad, I experimented a bit with other buttons, but it seems 4-5 hit is my limit....

With regards to RS, I use it a lot against CPU's since the CPU's are better then any of my roomies, and I don't know anyone in my area that plays GG yet (i am hoping to meet some people). I use it mostly as a wake up move (especially if i am kinda far away from them) as it lets me close the gap quickly, and generally gives me a wall bounce to either 2k2D, RS (on wakeup), GF, GV or something like that. I think the main reason why I use RS as a wakeup move is because you can do a lot of sols specials after it without having to cancel it.

My style is to generally use whatever works, and if something isn't working I will try something else, CPU's are good for practice and learning to do moves with pressure, but I am aware that there are tactics that work on CPU and don't on real formidable opponents, hence the reason why I am trying to learn stuff to expand my repertoire.

So I was working on getting in SW's if I RC them sol will drop (homing jump) I guess that makes it possible to do follow up from the ground, is that usually how SW are used in sol combos? I haven't figured out a way to cancel SW into something else (that will hit anyways). Might be possible to get a VV in and then a HS? Or a BR...

[dreiak]

oh something else I have been struggling with is anti-range tactics. Sol isn't really the type of character to have a strong "press the advantage" type ranged attacks, and against ky if he is spamming bolts and whatnot, I am curious what people do to counter characters that like to press ranged advantages. A lot of the time if I go for an aerial dash I will get smacked back, and GF range is too short unless you use EX sol which isn't tourney legal (which makes me sad because I really like some of EX sol's moves).

When I watch videos of the "pros" usually what I see when a character is pressing the advantage against sol is that they loose the match or manage to get in a lucky reversal and then punish hard with a big damage combo. I watched a vid of isa or 012 getting pwned by testament. So perhaps it really boils down to being able to exploit the situation if they make a mistake?

I really need to use 2HS more. I see that used a lot in corner loops, as well as just a decent normal/ poke.

I also need to maximize some of my standard repertoire, 2k,2d,BR does less damage then just a 2d,br... Funny how that works.

[Nakkiel]

For Ky spamming Stun Edge, you can 2D under them or Grand Viper under and punish. Pressing your advantage with Sol can be difficult since his pressure options aren't the greatest, usually Sol blockstrings are kept to a few hits/ticks into Wild Throw or GF FRC into mixup.

[dreiak]

Is it just me or is VV doable with some button combination that are not listed? I was trying missedFRC suggestion to 2d under stun edge, and while doing a 2d if I hit 3H I will 2d into a HVV!!! To check I turned on input just to make sure those were the buttons hit. Does this mean that certain specials will carry over the movement input over normal button hits? Breakdown is this VV is 623H/S I am Hitting 662D3H, the VV input is clearly interrupted by the 2d, but I can still VV without doing the full input. I wonder how many other moves share similar properties.

[Nakkiel]

What's happened in that situation is that you've buffered in the DP motion.

VV is 623S/HS. If you dash buffer a 2D and then press 3HS you've done 662D3HS. In all fighting games the inputs are stored for a certain amount of frames, it's not a shortened or simplified motion, you just previously input it while doing something else.

[dreiak]

Yeah I figured that, i just thought it was weird that the 2d didn't interrupt the VV inputs. I didn't know that was possible until I discovered it by mistake.

[Nakkiel]

Yeah, you'll probably find out lots of crazy things by accident, that's how I learned a lot of stuff when I was starting out.

[dreiak]

So I can do 151 dmg in 6 hits without using bar... its not bad, and its not techable, but I suck at the startup against a non dummy cpu :P Need to work on my pokes I guess since this combo starts with a 2H. Currently my best combo is 2h, GVRC (could get more damage out of gv but not really on a controller...), SW, VV. EDIT: I think i just improved this, lemme see if I can land it and get numbers.

My own personal comment is that I am too slow to do anything besides a VV at the end right now. If I get lucky I could get hits after the VV, but I have a lot more trouble getting moves down in the air then I do on the ground. I was TRYING to land a j.D, then another SW, and RC'ing a VV to do something will take me time..... meh.

I Should add that I am taking peoples advice and trying to look for opportunities to do SW as much as possible for combos, I can do em just fine as long as people aren't fighting back LOL...

[dreiak]

LOL 166 dmg by doing a j.D before the SW 8 hit combo Its progress considering I have had the game for like a week.

I am going to spend like 10 minutes practicing execution then I am calling it a night. My fingers hurt real bad from playing this game every day :P

[Nakkiel]

CH 5HS into Grand Viper gives big damage.

Instead of doing a SW loop off of just 2HS, throw in a 2K or 5S beforehand since it's more realistic numbers.

[anthony001]

is there like a site that shows us visually how and when the hitbox appear and disappear like in a feature in mugen