Accent Core : Zappa

[Ukyo Tachibana]

Never found it that impressive. The Chun Li perry is really darn easy

Easy to do... in training mode with a training dummy?

or...

Easy to do... in a pressure situation with a hair of life left, about 20 seconds on the clock, against a pretty darn good turtle who won't let you catch him, on a big stage with hundreds of raucous, non-Japanese people cheering against you?

In a disappointing development, it seems we have a new wave of scrubs announcing they’re not only too stupid to play well, but too stupid even to watch a video. As any player whose SF history predates this site can tell you, what you get here every damn week used to be considered solid gold. Not too long ago, people killed to see how the champs played, and spent hours hunting down terrible quality VHS dubs, then begging someone to send them a copy. Now, we’re spoon-feeding top quality SF to you every week, and it turns out you’re too stupid even to swallow. Here’s you:

"Buh! He ain’t done no nuthin’ I cain’t do! I’m the next durn Alex Valley! Yee-ha! (a hoe-down ensues)"

What cousin Merle means, of course, is that he didn’t see any *moves* he couldn’t do, and perhaps (like in CVS) not even any combos he couldn’t do. Does that mean he could play like that? Any non-idiot (or even a bonafide idiot, who has at least read this column) will know that special moves + combos do not equal SF. There’s more to the equation- a lot more.

Since I’m talking to morons, I’ll try and speak clearly: You scrubs watch these videos wrong. In particular, you watch them *passively*. A lifetime of butt-widening, beer-bellifying NFL fandom (and the like) has led to these sorry habits. You see a match, and you just sit back and watch it like a sitcom. You’re not living it alongside the players, trying to think like they do, in real time- you’re just soaking it up like the spineless sponge you are. To really appreciate what’s going on, you need to feel the tension, and try and react as they do.

The typical scrub match-evaluation goes like this: You watch the video all the way through, then think back to all the places where someone seemed to blow an advantage, miss something, etc. Now, the first identifying mark of the forum scrub (the modern, louder (though thankfully non-scented) descendant of the mall scrub) is that he always watches videos with respect to what they say about HIM and his precious l33t skeelz. He’s not watching to understand (if he did, he would hardly be the scrub he proves himself to be), he’s watching to try and feel cool about himself, and maybe to find some simple trick or combo he can steal. He feels cool by trying to imagine *himself* playing the match, and thinking how well *he’d* do against the best. Now mind, this isn’t done by getting off their butts to actually *do* it- oh heavens no! (insert excuses about money/parents/gf/having a life/just being too cool/etc, here), but instead, by trying to insert themselves into some random match they saw (a related variant of the same scrub trick: the shockingly dumb transitive fest of "well, I can beat so and so, who once played a guy who once placed 19th in a Cali tournament, so technically, according to logimacality, that means I’m pretty good." And he didn’t even have to leave the mall to figure it out!).

Because your scrubby motive is to always think the best of yourself, rather than understand the truth, a favorite evaluation trick is to pull some sequence entirely out of context. This works by ingeniously ignoring all the expectations, patterns, psychological advantages, and momentum that the other player had established, and just focusing on an isolated incident. What this does is to let the scrub get away with thinking "Sheeeucks! I coulda DP’d that!", or whatever. Bzz. Not only do you fail to notice how much easier it is to think "I coulda DP’d it!" when you ALREADY KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN (this is the special, scrubs-only variant of the psychic DP: the hindsight DP!), but the obvious fact is that you COULDN’T have. If you could have, you’d be winning tournaments too, instead of pouting at home and taking out your frustrations on training mode (scrubs at home will be reaching for that bag of excuses right about now, again).

Oh, right, Zappa! He rules! Homing P Ghost, pew pew...

[Senix]

Here the video with the bite loop Zerite is talking about:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CG33EB1W

[Pezzuti]

I wasn't able to get that file from megaup, but I've hosted it in zshare also.

http://www.zshare.net/video/zappa-vs-johnny-wmv-hym.html

And Zerite, I think the timing of that unblockable was perfect, there was nothing Johnny could do. His Burst wasn't full, and he didn't have tension to do a DAA or a Overdrive. A good PERFECT I wold say! FLOWERS VICTORY! LOL

[Zoogstin]

Man that trap was sexy!!! :blink: :ZA:

[Zerite]

Allow me to rephrase. This was what appeared to be a midscreen infinite unblockable loop. You know. To go along with the corner unblockable loop to create the possibility of unblockable loop -> Death at any part of the screen. Edit: i though that this post was going to start this page. Doh.

with any luck that is a loop that is a) real b) not character specific. Well. You can probably slashback if you're blocking initially.

[Zoogstin]

Well yeah I figured that. After all the dogs bite loop in Slash wasn't exactly air tight either.

[Dangief]

None the less, the fact that you can space the Dog right on top of a downed opponent like that is sweet. Bite trap or not... no one wants the Dog sitting on them when they wake up.

[Cyringohn]

Unless they're into that kind of stuff.

[RoBoBOBR]

Wont reversal BD help against mid-screen bite loop?

[Zoogstin]

If the opponent knows which side to do it. Its a cross-up after all. Most people don't know to backdash anyways when the dog is doing an okizeme 2D. But in this case when you have jHS, 5P and an unblockable 2D all coming at you better hope your character has a back dash that goes far back so none of that will hit you.

[Dangief]

Realistically, BD shouldn't be an option becuase you are crossing them up with the jHS so that you'll hit them out of it anyways. If nothing else, that is a darn sexy set-up for more pressure off of a landed Bite.

[Pezzuti]

That loop was really fabulous. Unless the enemy has a counter/burst/Dragon Punch, or maybe a right timing overdrive, I think there's no way to escape from it.

[Zerite]

the way the JHS is timed you'd just get hit if you attempted to backdash. I think that's why the johnny player was eating all those hits. Ky's shoryuken move would hit zappa, but I think sol's would go past him because of the crossup.

[RoBoBOBR]

jHS is meaty hit?

[Cyringohn]

Sol could almost definitely Volcanic Viper out, and Ky may be able to do the same with a well-timed Vapor Thrust; perhaps even Chipp, with the new properties on his Beta Blade. Ky and Chipp are more iffy, though

[Zoogstin]

K and Chipp will only hit the dog. Sol may miss Zappa with his second hit if Zappa manages to get behind him soon enough. But as for Ky and Chipp, Zappa can retaliate while they are recovering from their wakeup dragon punches.

[Zeero]

yesss, AC finally at an arcade thats within my reach

[Pezzuti]

I'm jealous. AC for me is only in ps2, and the ps2 won't be mine LOL Playing Guilty in arcade must be really cool. BTW Zappa's j.K has good priority right? I use it a lot as a poke, specially with Ghosts, for example: you jump, do a 236+K then if the enemy avoid the ghost you fall with j.K, it seems really safe.

[Cyringohn]

It's about as good as any air poke of that range, probably. It's his longest reaching air poke, aside from perhaps his a.HS, though that it situational and wouldn't apply to your scenario.

[Pezzuti]

Yeah, only if you maybe toss a ghost and then do an air dash and fall behind enemy lines with cross-up j.HS.

[Zeero]

They changed the initial angle at which the K ghost falls =( really changes up my gameplay of running away because ppl can just run under the K ghosts and punish me directly from below now =( 2 hit dog is sooo cool if u use it correctly, especially since the 4BB rebound is much less now

[Zoogstin]

They changed the initial angle at which the K ghost falls =(

really changes up my gameplay of running away because ppl can just run under the K ghosts and punish me directly from below now =(

2 hit dog is sooo cool if u use it correctly, especially since the 4BB rebound is much less now

Wow that K ghost thing sucks. But then again the P ghost can hit below you instead. You can try to go for that although its not as quick.

As for the new 4DD, I'm really looking forward to that. It will make Zappa's unblockable setup more abusable. :bad:

[Dangief]

How much did they change the angle on K ghost? I didn't notice it in any vids.... though it isn't a change that suprises me. That projectile covered a LOT of valuable real estate.

[Zeero]

angle...hmm maybe 20 degree? its not much so it might not be apparent, but if its a move that u used to abuse a lot u'll see the difference =P 4DD is nice in the corner too =) do ur pressure, 6D 4DD, do some poking since dog has increased recovery, u get to pressure with normal 5D again =D

[Pezzuti]

Yeah but that poking has to be a little long so the dog can recover, I guess. Any suggestions? I'm not good at poking in the corner -_-