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Why are Injustice players so bad at whiff punishing?

Rabid Justice

Your Soul Is Mine
I have always wonder this as well. In mka and mk vs dcu if you whiffed a string you die. But this game people just throw it out there. I think its because the net code it trash in this game. And made people just not bother with punishing in general.


I think its also the complete lack of people finding there own styles. Everyone plays the same in this game. So there is now reason to to find counters when you don't need them.
 
they are bad :( but it depends on the character, some characters just dont really have the normals to whiff punish well. wonderwoman for example can whiff punish pretty good.
But you guys are thinking too much about SF footsies. You don't need to have long range pokes and you don't need good walkspeed.
If you see someone whiff something big in front of you, you can 1. do a full dash in or jump on reaction to start chip pressure or 2. throw a mid-range special. That's how you whiff punish in this game if you don't have Green Lantern's b3. Don't think about the poke game and walkspeed. It's a different game and you have to consider spacing and whiff punishing differently.

I was saying too many players never do anything about a huge whiff. They're just not ready for it or don't know what to do about it. Because they haven't spent the time in the lab to study the other character strings hitboxes and their recovery on whiff. Most of them probably only think about their poke range, and if they're out of poke range they just give up and lose the opportunity to start pressure or do a 6% projectile.

Theo's pretty good at capitalizing on whiffs. He's thinking about position advantage more as opposed to the poke game.
 
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Scoot Magee

But I didn't want to dash
Because most players get most of the players in the Injustice community get their practice online. The netcode isn't that great and whiff punishing requires instant responses. I think that has to be one of the main reasons.

I myself rely a lot on whiff punishing with Green Arrow, mostly in the corner.
 

Briggs8417

Salt Proprietor of TYM
Retarded amounts of active frames normals = retarded whiff punish difficulty, as well as terrible fundamental play. You have to play this game differently. Period.
 

HGTV Soapboxfan

"Always a Pleasure"
I am working really hard on my whiff punishing personally and I have had great results, but it is just something that comes in time. People werent whiff punishing for like a year in mk, I got away with so much shit lol. However, WoWo has some amazing whiff punish tools so maybe it is easier for me.
 

G4S Silent Jay

I enjoy hurting you.
I personally think it's still just a matter of getting used to Injustice.

I know for me, unless I'm extremely familiar with a string, I don't know the timing I have on the recovery, how long the string's hitbox is still active (some have some oddly long active frames).

Then there's getting used to your own character's movement and spacing to a point where you know what you can use for what situations.

Game hasn't even been out a year yet and the constant patching made it hard to fully adjust to the game. We finally have a finished version to work with, so I think progress is going to really pick up in pace.
 

The PantyChrist

Rest in Pantiez
One thing I discovered in this game that's different from MK is on a completely whiffed normal or string you CANNOT cancel into a special and some normals have this property too. Let's say you happen to backdash and completely aquamans b12 string, you should punish that shit because he has to fully recover before FTD, scoop or trident rush you. Also GLs b1 is the same way he actually can't even finish the string or do any specials if he whiffs and it doesn't have the greatest recovery
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Game hasn't even been out a year yet and the constant patching made it hard to fully adjust to the game. We finally have a finished version to work with, so I think progress is going to really pick up in pace.
Some things have changed -- but a lot of things haven't changed. I don't know why most people talk as if they modified every single bit of frame data and damage in the game each month. A lot of the patches only affected 1 or 2 characters or were glitch-fixes.. And even with the last patch, with a couple exceptions a lot of the balancing was done by making 1-2 small changes (or in some cases no changes) to characters. The game is largely the same as it was mechanically; just on a more level playing field.
 
if you dash in they have already recovered from their whiff, jumping in can just be anti aired by lets say aquaman unless they are whiffing something with 50 frames of recovery or so, starting a blockstring is not a whiff punish, with your ''whiff punishing'' method they can just whiff something small on purpose bait you to jump anti air you or meterburn b3 you. Whiff punishing= whiff punishing I don't see how else whiff punishing can be done...
 

HGTV Soapboxfan

"Always a Pleasure"
One thing I discovered in this game that's different from MK is on a completely whiffed normal or string you CANNOT cancel into a special and some normals have this property too. Let's say you happen to backdash and completely aquamans b12 string, you should punish that shit because he has to fully recover before FTD, scoop or trident rush you. Also GLs b1 is the same way he actually can't even finish the string or do any specials if he whiffs and it doesn't have the greatest recovery
You couldn't cancel into a special in mk either.
 

HGTV Soapboxfan

"Always a Pleasure"
if you dash in they have already recovered from their whiff, jumping in can just be anti aired by lets say aquaman unless they are whiffing something with 50 frames of recovery or so, starting a blockstring is not a whiff punish, with your ''whiff punishing'' method they can just whiff something small on purpose bait you to jump anti air you or meterburn b3 you. Whiff punishing= whiff punishing I don't see how else whiff punishing can be done...
So just use a mid range special. If you cant full combo, at least you get something. Obviously you cannot jump in on a move with small recovery. I think his point though is that sometimes instead of a punish a block string is better for you. For example in MK, if I could whiff punish with a shadow kick, I may still choose to come in a and start offense, losing damage but putting myself right next to them instead of knocking them away.
 

The PantyChrist

Rest in Pantiez
You couldn't cancel into a special in mk either.
Hhhmm I haven't played it in a while but I remember near the end of the games life for me I was using Johnny cage and would intentionally whiff f33 to bait a punish and cancel into shadow kick. Maybe it's some specials or string combos, or maybe that string has good recovery, or maybe I'm just wrong
 
So just use a mid range special. If you cant full combo, at least you get something. Obviously you cannot jump in on a move with small recovery. I think his point though is that sometimes instead of a punish a block string is better for you. For example in MK, if I could whiff punish with a shadow kick, I may still choose to come in a and start offense, losing damage but putting myself right next to them instead of knocking them away.
mid range special? can you give me an example, because I can only think of a few so its not a universal punishing method. normally you would need something safe, below 15 frames with a good hitbox to whiff punish properly
 

HGTV Soapboxfan

"Always a Pleasure"
Hhhmm I haven't played it in a while but I remember near the end of the games life for me I was using Johnny cage and would intentionally whiff f33 to bait a punish and cancel into shadow kick. Maybe it's some specials or string combos, or maybe that string has good recovery, or maybe I'm just wrong
i can double check later, can someone else give us an answer?
 

HGTV Soapboxfan

"Always a Pleasure"
mid range special? can you give me an example, because I can only think of a few so its not a universal punishing method. normally you would need something safe, below 15 frames with a good hitbox to whiff punish properly
Who do you play? For myself I have shield bash, or GL has lift, KF has slide, etc. it doesnt have to be safe, it should be hitting them. And honestly it doesnt have to be that fast either, most moves in this game have some pretty atrocious recoveries.
 
Who do you play? For myself I have shield bash, or GL has lift, KF has slide, etc. it doesnt have to be safe, it should be hitting them. And honestly it doesnt have to be that fast either, most moves in this game have some pretty atrocious recoveries.
I dont really play the game anymore, but I used to main wonderwoman and her b1 could punish very well, d3 does the job too. Which is why characters like wonderwoman, aquaman, flash, green lantern, superman etc. really are exceptions. But at the highest level of play people wont be whiffing moves like crazy.
 

G4S Silent Jay

I enjoy hurting you.
Some things have changed -- but a lot of things haven't changed. I don't know why most people talk as if they modified every single bit of frame data and damage in the game each month. A lot of the patches only affected 1 or 2 characters or were glitch-fixes.. And even with the last patch, with a couple exceptions a lot of the balancing was done by making 1-2 small changes (or in some cases no changes) to characters. The game is largely the same as it was mechanically; just on a more level playing field.
I mostly meant it making it hard to commit to learning certain things with the looming idea that it may be useless to know in another 2 weeks.

I'm fine with the patches, but I wasted a lot of time learning to deal with Supe's F23 because they nerfed it hard enough that it's significantly easier to deal with.

And there were quite a few significant changes that did make certain things not worth the effort. Was just easier to learn core ideas of your character and MUs as opposed to working on the more specific details when there was a chance it would get changed anyway.

I feel like I can actually take things much more seriously now myself with specific MUs and dealing with spacing and wiff punishing and the like now that I know this is is the same game I'll be playing a few months from now.
 

HGTV Soapboxfan

"Always a Pleasure"
I dont really play the game anymore, but I used to main wonderwoman and her b1 could punish very well, d3 does the job too. Which is why characters like wonderwoman, aquaman, flash, green lantern, superman etc. really are exceptions. But at the highest level of play people wont be whiffing moves like crazy.
Oh yeah Wonder Woman has some great stuff. But can you name a character that cant really whiff punish? I mean they may not be superman but I think everyone has something.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Oh yeah Wonder Woman has some great stuff. But can you name a character that cant really whiff punish? I mean they may not be superman but I think everyone has something.
There are a lot of things that are not able to be safely/reliaby whiff punished on reaction by a lot of the cast, just by virtue of the way the game is designed.