Getting "gud" at Defense

When you are getting hit or in a defensive situation where it's no longer safe to call assist, hold your fingers over LP LK MP.
That gives you access to throw tech, pushblock, and jab punish for when they are -
Those are the things you should be thinking about and positioning your fingers will help eliminate the need to call assist.

Play against a player who kills you for bad defensive habits to learn to stop doing things that are bad.

Ravioli said:

Hello friends, Ravioli the Ravioli here first time posting in Skullheart (I think). After repicking up the game and struggling for a while in it, I've been getting the same advice here in Europe. Your combos are fine, resets are fine, now stop pressing buttons and get good at defense. I understand no one but myself can help me in this battle against pressing unnecessary buttons, or unnecessary assist calls or simply not pressing push blocks but I wanted to know if anyone has struggled with bad defense and gotten over it. What are some aspects that or often overlooked or tips that you have?

Thanks again and consider this my introduction to the forums as well, hope to see you around.

Ravioli Ravioli.

You're wrong at the part when you said, "I understand no one but myself can help me in this battle against pressing unnecessary buttons, or unnecessary assist calls or simple not pressing push blocks" because others can help you too. Having a partner/rival/whatever you want to call it can help you. Yeah, it will still depend on you if your skills will hone, but that doesn't mean only you can help yourself, right? :)
Anyway, I'm not just bad with defense, but I'm bad with everything. Not THAT bad, but I'm pretty bad. I started playing yesterday, so I guess that makes sense? Just keep practicing. Replay tutorials if you have to. Get a partner. If you want to get better, then you keep training. There are times that you feel that you want to quit. But if you love what you are doing, why quit?

ThePetitDwarf said:

What about defense against cross-ups? A friend told me you should defend in the opposite direction if you're facing an opponent that masters cross-ups. However, I can only know that AFTER they kick my ass because of a cross-up. Is there a way to predict them and defend against them?

Every character has a limited number of ways to go into a crossup. Because they're limited in how they can set up a crossup, there are usually tells that they are about to do one. For example a common Filia crossup is s.HP, then j.HP, air dash cancel, j.LK, wait, j.HK. If you see a Filia do s.HP, j.HP, air dash cancel, j.LK, you can make a reasonable guess that they're about to cross you up with j.HK. A setup like this is probably going to hit you the first time you see it, but after seeing it make a mental note "oh, that character can cross me up there" and try to react to it the next time.

Most crossup setups also have a way to hit you on the same side, so you still have to guess left or right. However most players are usually going to go for the crossup first, and only go for same side mixups once you prove to them you can block the crossup. My rule of thumb when I'm doing a left/right mixup is if I think someone sucks, I'll go crossup. If I think they're good, I'll go same side. If I think they're REALLY good, I'll go crossup.

ThePetitDwarf said:

"...you're a faggatoli."
-IHE, 2015

I'm not sure about the context of this but generally I don't think it's okay to say things like "faggatoli".

ThePetitDwarf said:

"Raviolli, raviolli, you're a faggatoli" is a comment a youtuber called I Hate Everything received in one of his comment comebacks. Not trying to insult you, Ravioli. In fact, I love raviolis <3

It doesn't really matter where it comes from, it's more that it's not a thing that the majority of the people on this site want to read.
It's a pretty offensive term that's been filtered out of posts here usually by Lab Zero team members themselves so I try and support that.

It's not a rule or even an offence as far as site behavior, but most people end up mentioning it anyway.
Carry on! :D

Here's what I did on every FG to improve my defense.
Maintain a safe range - This pretty much comes in experience with a bit of learning ability, you'll grasp which range is safe against a particular character.

Know your defense - I assume most characters in the game has a move or two that adds plenty to their defensive strength, go to the command list and figure out which it is, it could be a:

• zoning move (projectiles)
• dragon punch/shoryuken/updo or any REVERSALS/ANTI AIR
• invincible moves (dp is also one) blockbuster or super moves are the most common, learning how to implement in your game helps a lot.
• armors - Learn how to use them not to break them.

Study match-ups and characters or play other characters - pretty much in every FG ever, you can't get to the pro stage without learning the match ups, maybe its hard but its literally what you need. Especially if you want to be a badass, KURODA from SF3:3S is the biggest example.

Learn how to deal with mixups or resets - this video is the only thing you need.

Note:
I AM NOT A PRO SG PLAYER, I'm a beginner in-fact but I am willing to give you an information (even if you know it already) that you may still find useful, I'm guessing you know most of these but maybe you didn't take it in your heart, or didn't take IT that seriously, like for example people would take DP for granted, they're like (oh cool anti-air, reversal move.. next) but then in the end they would miss the real depth of DP, if DP was that simple then there would be no Daigo.

I forgot to add in what i found about SG's defense concept is that.

Block on the first or few blockstrings and then pushblock.
Because If your opponent tries to go crazy and do some REEAALLY punishable move and you pushblock it you won't be able to punish, so basically you want to watch your opponent before pushblocking.

Example:
Filia (You) vs Parasoul (Someone)
Parasoul goes for c.lk - You blocked it, Parasoul goes for c.mk - You blocked it, Parasoul goes for c.hk - Block and then you have to punish it!
So her blockstring goes like this c.lk c.mk c.hk
But what if she goes for c.lk c.mk s.hp

Both of them looks good for you but bad for the other but that's not really the case since Parasoul or some characters could cancel the blockstring and kill you off with a mix up.
If this ever happened to you that's because you don't know when to pushblock.

Watch out for moves that allow them to cancel in to something dangerous and also watch out for some incredibly stupid risks and once you get it down try pushblocking properly in real matches.

Also... delayed pushblock helps a lot, when your opponent performs a move and you see him goes to a cancel, you might have enough time to pushblock even though the hitguard had already ended.

Example 2:
Parasoul goes for j.hp - Ofc you know that j.hp will give her plus frames to keep you on the guards but knowing it, you will be asked a question whether to pushblock or not to pushblock.

Either way, you can pushblock early here to eliminate any risk or you could wait for her to do a risky move and if it didn't come up then pushblock or just let her do a mix up that she would regret for the rest of her life.