Philosophy Fighter: The Word Warrior

I’ve started doing commentary at monthlies here in Montréal, and i don’t think I’m very good, so i’ve taken on recording myself over matches i haven’t seen for practice. All the uploads are raw first takes. Please share your thoughts and criticism!

Thank you

Before we start, style makes reference to personality and preference. Great players can play very well out of style. This is a tool to help us understand the mentality of players.

This archetype, which was inspired around the concept of the boxer archetype who prefers to be all the way out or all the way in, might be the most one of the most common player style. The reason for that is simple: this style is based on opportunism and a maximization of the risk reward based on the situation.These players will hang out of range, and pester with long range options until, they find a way in (be it a punish, a jump in, a read on their opponent’s state of mind, or whatever else), where they’ll seek to go for heavy damage. On knockdown, they’ll either go back to the safer long range neutral, or go for mixups. Usually these are complex, high percentage setups. The reason for that being that these players do not enjoy risk. They want control. These players tend to avoid the dangerous mid range, since that is a very high risk area for both players. The best examples of this style at the highest level of USF4 right now are Infiltration and Ryan Hart. Infil decapre messes about with teleport cancels from long range until he finds a way in. His akuma pesters with air fireballs and goes for damage and votex when the opponent either over extends or lets him in. Ryan hart plays his shotos and sagat in this manner as well.

Hope you enjoy, let me know your thoughts,

In boxing, as the craft evolved, fans and analysts needed to find terms to describe the actions of the sweet science. At first these terms were prescriptive (straight puncher, hooker etc.), partially due to the more simple strategies of the time, but also due to the young nature of the discourse. As it evolved, archetypes such as out-fighter, pressure fighter, counterpuncher and boxer-puncher emerged. These archetypes aren’t prescriptive; they don’t say that an out-fighter needs to jab from the outside, but rather these spawn from the observation that certain fighters that want to avoid risk tend to jab on the outside a lot. As such they are descriptive notions, and they are mostly used to help us understand the mechanics of the process a certain boxer might go through, not the exact moves they use to make that happen per se. This means that, as long as a fighter shows a general risk averse, movement centric approach they could be described as an out-fighter, regardless of what specific punches or steps they use. Getting hung up on techniques causes confusion, since both the out-fighter, the pressure fighter, and the counterpuncher could be ‘jabbing from the outside’, but all of them would have a different goal in mind with that same technique.

In the context of fighting games, i feel like we, myself included, place much more thought to the play style of a specific character than that of the player. For example, while Ryu is generally considered a balanced character, but in the hands of Alex Valle he’s a pressure monster. This is because, much like individual techniques in boxing, characters are only tools. Of course, the counterpuncher usually needs to have a good set of counter punches, just like a player looking to zone needs a solid set of space controlling options, but these tools could mean something entirely different to another person. This isn’t to say that certain tools (and by extension, characters) aren’t better suited to certain strategies, but it is undeniable that almost every tool has multiple applications, and can thus be thought of and used in different ways.

I believe that, as good as talk around the tools and optimal strategies of individual characters, i feel that we are lacking in language to describe individual play style preferences and tendencies. We all know these exist, and even allude to them, but hopefully in this series ill be able to propose some terms that can eloquently define broad player types.

OMG, Blanka.....

My jaw is screwed to the floor

Deejay is the comparatively quite bad in USF4. Its a fairly balanced game so he's still playable, but here are my suggestions/ramblings for the character.

So Deejay seems to be a poking character with some decent zoning options and decent offense from jump mixups. I feel that the mixup game is good as it is, and i like the extra hitstun from the down lk. I just don't think that the game needs another mixup/vortex character. I think that the character has developed into more of a poking/footsie and zoning with mixups on the side to help with some matchups, which is a good archetype for the game especially as a charge character. Like a Ken to Guile's Ryu.

So with that in mind here are my suggestions:

- far st mk: damage 40/70

More damage at max range on a good poke

- change far st HP to back HP /cl st HP now activates at all ranges

- decrease damage to 80

Give that counter hit juggle a chance to be used. Plus the player would have charge to capitalize on it actually working. It would also make for a more reliable anti-air. Also the character would gain some frame traps with it, but they wouldn't be that crazy since its only 8f on startup.

- cl st HP hit box, first hit box expanded forwards, second hit box expanded downwards

Increase the utility of a not so useful normal

- cr mp 3 active frame instead of 2

- decrease startup to 5f

better, faster poke

-increase air slasher damage to 70

- increase recovery by 3 frames

Since the character is really lacking in ways to deal damage, this move would help a great deal

- Add armor break to first hit of rolling sobat, restore lower body invincibility

If bison can have a -1 move that goes overlows and breaks focus, i think deejay should get this