Optimizing Practice

[Akujiki]

I'm trying to expand my horizons and post outside the regional board, so if this is in the wrong place, or has already been asked, my apologies.

As a primer, MBAA is the first fighting game I've ever attempted to learn to play competitively.  The folks in AZ have been nice enough to continue to have me over to try and beat some skill into me, and it's slowly working (I think), but I think that there's more that I could and should be doing on my own to speed up the process.

I generally try to get in at least an hour in practice mode grinding combos every week so that I can get to the stage where I don't drop them as often as I do, but when I go to play against other people, I notice that there are a lot of areas that I'm lacking in and I'm not quite sure how to develop them.  Specifically, I have a hard time trying to learn how to react to hit confirms like I should, or how to apply sustained pressure, or things like mixups and oki.

So how do you practice?  Is there a better way to optimize my time on the console aside from grinding combos?  Or is that something that you just pick up as you gain experience against other players?  Any advice would be very much appreciated.  I'd love to be able to provide an actual challenge for everyone instead of being a slightly tougher practice mode.

[Kusanagi]

>BossRush

[Zaelar]

Grind combos until you don't drop them.  You can practice oki, mixups, reversals, counter-hit setups, whatever.  If there's a move that you're losing to set the dummy to do it and see what you have that can beat it.

[LivingShadow]

>BossRush

This, the boss rush characters have AI significantly better than the standard AI (no joke, E-wara actually uses mixups), their moves are tweaked to give them more advantage than normal, and they can combo reliably.

[Light]

Good tips from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhKsXAxoQNI  

Serious answer though...your method sounds good but you need to practice way more than what you're putting in right now. One hour a day would be good for a starting point. I think four hours a day would be good.

If you want to practice hit confirms, single player mode is a nice alternative to random blocking in training mode.

[ehrik]

When practicing combos, alternate left to right, and right to left so you get used to doing it both ways

when practicing blockstrings, practice staggers at first. set the cpu to all guard, crouch, recover A. The cpu will try to mash on the first frame possible with recover A on, which will help you learn how to stagger. Realistically in a match, people will learn how to respect your strings after you catch them trying to disrespect them, thats when you can start learning scarier blockstrings that require a minimum amount of respect.  Learn how to vary them (This is barebones advice, Tempered is currently editing an article on how to create blockstrings for mb so look it up once it gets finished @ www.mizuumi.net)



WATCH VIDEOS OF YOUR CHARACTER, go to www.youtube.com/meltybread, look up your character. See what JP players do, its one thing to do stuff in practice mode, but its another to learn what your character can do and how to space properly in neutral, etc.

If you're having problems fighting against a certain character, find videos of that character as well. Like what LordKnight said in the podcast, its helpful to learn what other people do to get out of situations against a certain character's mixup/blockstring/etc. its a nice way to figure things out as well, and then you can use dummy mode to practice against it (What zaelar said).


Also don't get trolled by Kusanagi

[Nandeyanen]

In practice mode, grind combos, block strings and reacting/hit confirming to aerial CHs and guard breaks and guard crushes. You can also practice comboing from moves from different distances (2b from 1 character length away, 5b from 1.5 character lengths away, etc) and work that into your muscle memory. Once you feel you have a solid enough grasp on the basics of your character, you can start working on damage optimization, fancy mix up, etc.

If you want to feel more competitive in matches, you can use simple combos (things you know you can hit 99% of the time) and instead, focus your spacing, movement, mix up, oki, hit confirming, blocking, and yomi.

If able, record your matches and watch them. It lets you pick up on your bad habits, and you'll be able to more easily see patterns and holes in your game play.

Also, ask for advice from better players after playing long sets against them. They should be able to offer you some advice, either about the match up or issues they've noticed with your game play.