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Why are Injustice players so bad at whiff punishing?

Vulcan Hades

Vulcan Hades

Champion
I don't even mean online I mean at high level offline. I've noticed a lot of our best players are just ass at it for whatever reason.

I just watched UltraChen's episode about whiff punishing in SF4 and it reminded me that I wanted to make this thread to talk about this some weeks ago.

Ok first of all I admit I kinda suck myself at whiff punishing in Street Fighter. Partly because my reaction time isn' t super godlike, and because the characters I use don't have very fast walkspeeds or long range pokes. But the thing is, all those things are pretty much irrelevant in Injustice.

I mean you have YEARS to react to a whiffed string, right? And yet I lost track of how many times I saw a Superman whiff F23 or a Black Adam whiff B23 or... basically any character whiff a huge string or huge move with infinite recovery and the other guy is just standing there, watching it whiff in slow motion, passing out on a free 40% combo for god knows what reason.

Why is this happening so often? Especially when whiff punishing seems infinitely easier in this game than in SF4 or Tekken for example.

I think it's simply because it's so different tbh. If you come from another game like SF4, MK9 or Tekken, you're used to a certain spacing, you know when you are in range and when you are too far away. You understand the spacings. But you also know that you have a small punish window so you need to react quickly about it. In other words, you recognize when you are "too late".

In Injustice, it's... weird. Because you don't even need to be in "range". And you don't even need quick reactions. This is a game where you can literally dash up whiff punish or do a full jump in whiff punish... or both... Because some strings take so much time to recover that you have enough time to dash up then jump in and they still can't block in time lol! You just need to be ready for the occasion. You have to be anticipating the big whiff in the first place. Just like you sometimes anticipate a big jump and you are ready to AA.

The other thing is that some players are just used to using that one true string/mixup for everything and don't pay attention to X string in their move list because it's terrible on hit/block. But they don't realize that despite being slower and having ass frame data, it's still their best whiff punish option because of the range of the string.

So I think those are the main reasons:

-Not used to the Injustice movement/spacings.
-Not expecting huge whiff opportunities.
-Harder to visualize a whiffed string's reach than to visualize a whiffed poke. Especially because some strings have different possible branches.
-Not immediately knowing what string or what special to use to whiff punish (e.g. probably thinking about which poke can reach but then you realize none of them reach so your brain farts).
-Not immediately thinking about the option to dash in or jump in whiff punish (because it's against player nature).

The other big problem I think is what you believe in. For example I hear a lot of players say Injustice has no footsies because of the slow walkspeeds, general clunky movement and short pokes. They have a very limited/confined definition of what footsies are. So the problem is that if you've come to convince yourself that Injustice has no serious mid-range game, then you will fail at recognizing and capitalizing on all those big trip guard and whiff punish opportunities.

tl;dr: I think too many Injustice players are still trying to play SF/MK footsies. Maybe Injustice has ass/inferior footsies, or maybe we need to stop for a sec and rethink our whole mid-range gameplan. I'm not excluding myself from this as I am a culprit too or at least was for a while. :)
 
TaffyMeat

TaffyMeat

Infinite Meter Kombos
Using only + strings is bad because it limits half your options. Use a - string in mixup. Sure it's risky but keeps your opponent guessing.
 
Circus

Circus

Part-Time Kano Hostage
In Street Fighter active hitboxes don't linger around for half an hour like in Injustice so once someone whiffs something like a sorta-ranged st.mp you just slap your whiff punish cr.mk that will beat them because the recovery will be actually suited for it if you are in range.

In Injusitce if you see Superman whiff 22(3) out in open space you can't just immediately slap him out of it on reaction because you run the risk of getting hit by it still unless your someone with a crazy move like Supes F23 (similar to Tekken). Instead, on reaction, you must walk into the range right outside where he will end up whiffing the last hit then whiff punish.

If you're someone with a ranged normal that is from 8-13ish frames your in the clear, but some characters just don't. If these same characters don't have amazing walkspeeds either all they'll end up getting from these whiffs is a free dash forward (which is more than good in this game).

Free dash into the opponent's face into pressure or free jumps forward on whiffs is the universal thing to do in this game, and I don't really see that as a bad thing. Some people don't end up taking their free dash into the opponent's face on a whiff and that is the thing that has to change.

But if you ARE a character that has a ranged'ish move and your not whiff punishing then you just need to level the fuck up. Superman, GL, Raven, Sinestro, Flash, Aquaman, and a few others have no excuse to not play footsies and whiff punish HARD in a ton of their matchups.
 
MashPotatoTower

MashPotatoTower

Champion
i do tons of whiff punishing with shazam. Most of everything have ruffly a 20 frame duration, 17 at the fastest. usually room for a b2 or command grab. But thats just me, thats my game plan most of the time
 
xWildx

xWildx

What a day. What a lovely day.
Because if you're off an inch you, yourself are at risk for being whiff punished. This leads to hesitation, and hesitation leads to players getting away with things they shouldn't be.

Edit: Unless you're Rico, then you just blow everyone up.
 
T4T|Nevan

T4T|Nevan

"Burn baby! Burn!"
In my honest opinion it's mostly due to lack of knowledge. Either about the game or some characters. You mentioned Superman's f23, that's a good example, knowledgeable players know that you can backdash and punish, however most people don't, then commit to block most of the times.

Ra Helios said:
What is a whiff punish? I don't speak fighting game slang
Click to expand...
A "wiff punish" is when some, using a character ofc, does a normal but it misses. For example take Green Lantern f2d1, after the "vortex" while you are on the ground, he can go for that string f2d1, the f2 is a mid he lunges a punch and the second is a overhead. So while you are on the ground the f2 will miss, hence wiff.

So basicaly, wiff pusnish is to punish a missed normal in its recovery frames.
 
Vagrant

Vagrant

Champion
I use DS standing 3 for whiff punishes but at 14 frames, they usually block in time if i'm not on point. So sometimes i'll just let them whiff and set up for something else.
 
Rickyraws

Rickyraws

This mean you don't like me?
I wonder why no one punishes blocked sweeps. Or Martian's low grab. Perhaps intimidation and game inconsistencies at times. Being very guess/ 50/50 heavy, sometimes all you need is one mistake to lose an entire life bar, and sometimes it isn't a mistake or hesitation, it's the opponent's move still being active, or your character turning around attacking the wall in the corner etc. causing adverse effects and making you think twice about punishing punishable moves.

However, I do not think twice. I YOLO everything. Because I'm a man's man, and those to think carefully and deliberate can
 
Vulcan Hades

Vulcan Hades

Champion
Fred Marvel said:
its easier to whiff punish in inj than mk or sf but ive also seen a ton of high level players miss easy punishes and wonder why
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I really think it's because the right whiff punish option is not always as obvious as it seems for some characters.

For example Superman, Aquaman and Black Adam just have super good strings with long range so it's very easy for them. They don't even need to think about it really. They just see something whiff, it doesn't matter what it is, they can catch it with their god limbs.

But with other characters the best option is to either throw a special, a string where the first hit whiffs but second or third hit connects, a dash in or a jump in on reaction. They are awkward decisions that you wouldn't normally make in other fighting games so it's not what you think about right away.

Since they don't have the initial reach or the walkspeed I think it's just confusing for a lot of players. They clearly see a big whiff and know they should probably do something about it but they seem confused about how to go about it.
 
NRF CharlieMurphy

NRF CharlieMurphy

Kindergarten Meta
I'm not kidding

I stopped trying to whiff punish. Mainly because I can't tell when a move is not active anymore, and I don't know when they can actually block after teh "whiff".

It is easy to tell when projectiles whiff..... but that really is it. The game has conditioned me to just not do it.
 
Vulcan Hades

Vulcan Hades

Champion
NRF CharlieMurphy said:
I'm not kidding

I stopped trying to whiff punish. Mainly because I can't tell when a move is not active anymore, and I don't know when they can actually block after teh "whiff".

It is easy to tell when projectiles whiff..... but that really is it. The game has conditioned me to just not do it.
Click to expand...
Yeah that's understandable. But it will no doubt change as players gain more matchup knowledge. It's hard to whiff punish Lobo or Bane strings if you don't even know the hit levels of it and how much hitbox priority it has. It's the kind of stuff that people will just have to figure out in practice mode. For each "main string" we should have a counter ready.

But even then as Circus pointed out a simple dash in or jump in on reaction, even if they manage to block in time, is still essentially a whiff punish. Because you're dealing chip damage and are right next to them. If you're a mixup character that's as good if not better than a 5-10% whiff punish. Worst case scenario you close the distance.

And when they are really too far away or when in doubt, people could just throw something. A projectile, dash/tackle special or an interactable during the active/recovery frames of their string.
 
OnlineRon91

OnlineRon91

Joker++
Yea it'll definitely come down to each characters ability to whiff punish and what options they have. Characters like El Fuerte only have quesadilla bomb, which is a charge move that is punishable on block and hit lmao so it might be similar for some characters in injustice
 
ryublaze

ryublaze

Noob
NRF CharlieMurphy said:
I'm not kidding

I stopped trying to whiff punish. Mainly because I can't tell when a move is not active anymore, and I don't know when they can actually block after teh "whiff".

It is easy to tell when projectiles whiff..... but that really is it. The game has conditioned me to just not do it.
Click to expand...
I came in to say this. To me a lot of moves in this game look like they can be punished but when I try to they can block it in time. Then you'll just be put into stupid 50/50 mix-ups that everyone in this game has or be punished yourself. Overall the game just feels so inconsistent for me like certain moves won't connect when they should or the game reads my inputs wrong. IMO it was easier to whiff punish in MK9 because you could cancel dashes into moves, covering more space. MK9 also had blocking animations for each character so you could see if the opponent could block in time or not.
 
ryublaze

ryublaze

Noob
I forgot to say that I also don't know the frame data in this game too well and idk which moves are punishable since I'm still learning. The same might go for other people too cuz this game is still relatively new.
 
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