Biggest thing about online is how it skews frame data. Liek
Zoidberg747 said, if you know what to take from it, it can be a good tool. But don't think you're getting a full understanding of how the game works at a competitive level by playing online. If you play people who knwo what to respect as far as frame traps and what not, it can be OKAY. But offline is still a whole different animal.
If you have enough experience in both arenas to be able to go back and forth, and can learn to not take losses seriously when it's due to lag....go for it. But if you're gonna play online for match up experience, I highly suggest playing those matches offline as well with someone to get a feel for how shit really goes. just my $.02
OH!
RedRaptor10 brings up a good point, and this is the primary reason why I practice certain things online...TIMING/ REACTIONS.
Online, you need to input things considerably faster in relation to eachother(if that makes sense) due the input delay/lag. Its like playing with weights on. Then when you get offline, you will notice that you have what seems like an ETERNITY to input AA's, convert air-to-airs etc. The down side to the difference in timing is that it can really fuck up your poking/counterpoking timing. But like anything, being able to go back and forth between the two just takes practice.
So in essence, competitively....YES it is THAT bad. But it still has it's uses if you know how to use it. Think of online play like a tool and not something that reflects your skill or feeds your competitive identity/ego.
