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Question of the Week #3: How do you deal with Pushblocking?

Zidiane

Zidiane

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Wow, it's hard to keep coming up with questions. We may run out of general questions and move onto character specific ones at some point, if I want to keep these up.

SO, how do you deal with Pushblocking? Or, Reaction Shots? You should be doing all of them I think, but you can talk about when, why, and how you do each one.

1) Assist pressure: meaning, of course, calling an assist like Cerecopter or Hairball to keep them still while you get back in their face

2) Grab: because we haven't learned to tech grabs during pushblock yet, this works too often. Do you do this? Ground or air?

3) Push Nullification: sounds fancy, but it's just when you use two consecutive attacks, or one attack thaat hits many times, to negate the pushback

4) Pushblock bait: when you do that thing where you delay your hit, and they end up trying to pushblock an attack you didn't do, and they backdash instead.

So, which one do you do? Which is your favorite? Do you have any other things you do? Let's talk about it!
 
First you find out what kind of pushblocker they are, reaction or read/mashing.

PB baiting works well on reaction types. Assist pressure and followup high/low works because no one knows how to absolute guard or PBGC. Grab works wonders as well for the reasons you said. PB Nullification is good versus mashing types and they usually open themselves up by not blocking properly after the pushblock, but it would be less useful if your opponent knows how to PBGC (but no one does so w/e).
 
I personally think one of the most interesting things to mess around with is pushblocking during your opponents lockdown+mix up sequence. A lot of people rely on catching you with the assist from neutral because most players can't properly defend against it with pushblock. I find it enjoyable because different pb timings have different uses during lockdown pressure. You can sacrifice the pushblock distancing by pbing the assist and timing an absolute guard to block their first mix up, or you can pbgc against their first mix up to force it back into neutral. There is a lot to think about with how each player will use their options in a situation like this. Absolute guard is a very strong choice but if you are to focused on the mix up you might get grabbed.
 
One thing that I started doing is dash jumping and air grabbing when the pushblock my Val in the air. The pushblock makes them suspended in the air for an extensive amount of time, and keeps them open for a perfect opportunity for a cross under (bypass under + assist) or a scoop. Depending on character, they may not have good air options. Players may also be under the false pretense that they finally got some breathing room and not mash anything.

On the ground, sometimes I call H LnL assist and do EKG. If blocked, EKG acts as a crossup. They will try and punish, only to get fisted from behind.
 
I don't do any of the 4 things listed as my primary Pushblock beaters.

My primary Pushblock beater is to use a multihit move and cancel
It early into a move that whiffs and throw the opponent/go for a mixup because the opponent needs to Pushblock the last hit in a multihit in order for pushblock to actually push the opponent away. My most common multihit baits are:

double.
Early canceling j.hp on the first hit into j.hk which whiffs and fast falls double to the ground and gives double an easy ground throw opportunity.

Painwheel.
Flight cancel her j.hk early into another j.hk. Cancel her j.mp into j.mk whiff on the first hit.
Use cr.mp and cancel it into flight overhead on the first attack.
 
If I'm goofing around, I'll do the exact same jumpin that just got pushblocked, most likely Filia's j.HP, and do couple reps with me jumping in and them pushblocking me. It's rather funny to see when they're in the air, and they fall down like 3 pixels each time.

Otherwise I'll eat the pushblock, but then change up my attack pattern on the next go-in. j.MP, grab whiff, j.HK crossup, dash into low, etc, just to keep them guessing as to when they need to pushblock, and hope to catch them either backdashing or not blocking high/low.
 
I think one thing that often gets overlooked about pushblocking is that its much harder to reaction pushblock moves with short blockstun and short hitstop like light attacks.

Also certain special moves, I noticed that for Squigly even though on paper MK divekick seems straight up better than LK on most accounts, the shorter blockstun and hitstop on LK divekick makes it much harder to pushblock on reaction.

Similarly, I noticed that if I tried to jump in with j.MP with bella I'd almost always get pushblocked, conversely jumping in with j.LK made it much easier to tic-throw people with my jump ins.

Of course, people just mashing out pushblocks are going to manage to do it anyway, but for those people things like Pushblock baits and multi-hit attacks are more useful.
 
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@Jason

Yeah that's very very true. I've used lights for that purpose as well, but not really on purpose on offense. I have seen it done to me though... ESPECIALLY Bellas j.lk tick... Man so annoying to try and pushblock it on reaction online only for the hit pause to run out and get thrown as Bella lands.

So yeah, good mention, using lights instead of heavies or mediums can really mess with pushblock.
 
Generally: Tic throw.

Painwheel: Fly cancel and go fishing for a low-to-ground airthrow, or use the airthrow + flight momentum to get back in and/or crossup without getting pushblocked.

Double: My double is a callow hooker that generally doesn't stick something out unless the hit was free to begin with.

I dunno man, my offense is terrible and I just make shit up.
 
If they push me on the air, i just dash towards them and grab
 
I don't. How do I even play this game?
 
I try to bait a lot with Painwheel and Squigly. I also get baited a lot. Dime especially likes this...

I use assists to extend pressure, as I'm sure everyone does.

Sometime's I will just end strings early and go for an unsafe mixup, not necessarily baiting but similar idea I guess.
 
fraaaaaaame traps.
 
I'm trying to work on some anti pushblocking blockstrings with Bella. I just need to experiment with it a bit to see if it actually works in real matches.
 
Zidiane said:
I'm trying to work on some anti pushblocking blockstrings with Bella. I just need to experiment with it a bit to see if it actually works in real matches.

Tick grabs. Or strings ending in Titan Knuckle after the push block.
 
Lol pushblock.
Para+Bomber laughs at your pushblock.


...Unless you know how to PBGC... then I'm sad.
 
View619 said:
Tick grabs. Or strings ending in Titan Knuckle after the push block.
Tick Grabs, that's the kind of setups I'm trying.
 
Zidiane said:
Tick Grabs, that's the kind of setups I'm trying.

c.lk - > grab.

Mix it up with chains into s.mp.
 
Overhead.
People mashing PB don't stand up.
Promise you that shit will catch them.

Or Titan Knuckle into run back in dere.
 
View619 said:
c.lk - > grab.

Mix it up with chains into s.mp.
Oh, I wasn't asking for setups. But what's the s.mp for? After c.lk, and if they reaction pushblock, they miss the timing and get hit for MCH stagger (if they didn't just block)? Either way, both of those options loose if they mash pushblock.
 
Zidiane said:
Oh, I wasn't asking for setups. But what's the s.mp for? After c.lk, and if they reaction pushblock, they miss the timing and get hit for MCH stagger (if they didn't just block)? Either way, both of those options loose if they mash pushblock.

The s.mp is for when people hold up against your tick setup. But if you're really going to say c.lk loses to reaction push block, then there's no way you can stop your opponent from push blocking anything you do....

Anyway, push blocking light attacks is anticipation, not reaction. In these cases, you delay the attack and catch them back dashing or just grab. If you don't have a lock-down assist then you do some character-specific tactic (Kara command grab with Bella, multi-hit normal with PW). Things will become interesting if people ever bother to train their PBGC skills like they train their combos, though.
 
Dunno if it's been mentioned but:

  • Fastfall a multi-hit air button > 50/50
  • IAD air-throw (whiff) > 50/50
  • Delay a hit via unorthodox string (or in painwheel's case, armor charge)
Also requesting new question of the week thread.
 
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