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Ancestors HELP ME!!! The Nightwolf match-up thread

DaiHuu

Nightwolf Mourner
I saw a bunch of other character threads with threads like this, and I felt jelly :(. Also, I had for the first time a hard blow up yesterday, and I figured young wolfs will appreciate this thread.

In alphabetical order:


Baraka:









Cyber Sub Zero:









Cyrax:
Match up 5-5
This match-up isn't hard, but it isn't easy either, this game largely depends on who's more aggressive/plays a smarter guessing game. Both characters are EXTREMELY deadly up close, with Cyrax's command grab bomb trap and Nw's F+3 okizeme. From full screen, NW can't do much, if you both shoot a projectile at the same time, Cyrax's net usually wins, and he can teleport next to you to start the bomb trap. Stay in his face at all times, making sure you do strings that push you far away enough so he can't get the bomb trap off (Unless your doing the F+3 okizeme.) Don't let him push you to the corner, just like Nw's game, his is even more deadly with the use of his throw, either you push him to the corner, or your mid-screen, no exceptions. On his wake-up, the only thing invincible is his ex version of his slide, there have been some cases where I hit it out with F+3 completely, so don't be afraid of his wake up, even if he asks you to respect it.








Ermac:
Match up opinion:Can't say at the moment
This match-up can be tough if Ermac plays it correctly, first off, be weary of anti-airing him if he jumps at you from B+4 range, as he can teleport and capitalize on whatever you attempted to do. If you block any non ex teleport, punish hard with B+22 hatchet, B+2 hatchet, 1~dash 1~dash 122 shoulder. From point blank, if he does ANY special move, it is punishable by a 122. (Or B+22 for his lift.) The risk reward going against him is pretty good, he'll be fearless, because of his high damage combos, but be even more fearless and don't give him the chance to guess correctly and eat some shoulders. :3
 

DaiHuu

Nightwolf Mourner
Jade:









Jax:









Johnny Cage:
Match up opinion:5-5
Johnny's rush down provides tremendous trouble at point blank against NW, the only way to get him off is a universal low. From full screen to mid, you dominate easily with arrows and lightning, when it starts getting closer and closer, he wins. He can do random shoulders like you, but they are highly unsafe on any type of block, so be sure to punish with 122 hatchet, or B+22 hatchet. He has an okizeme during his rushdown and wake up. On both, he can do flash kick, shoulder, and nut tap (During his rush down, he can do his 33 or 44, I don't know which one it is, and then do a nut tap when he knows your gonna retaliate. You can punish the nut tap with a F+3 1 hatchet). You can beat the nut tap with a F+3, everything else has to be guessed. You also cannot punish the flash kick if you bait it, the best you can do is throw him after, or universal low and do F+3 mix up. The counter he has during full meter will change your play style completely, you want to be cautious, but at the same time not give a fuck if he has it or not. He has a bunch of safe overheads and some really good launchers, along with a good sweep, so be sure to t-bag the floor when he gets in. Don't let him breathe if your able too maintain momentum, and guess correctly :3








Kabal:
 

DaiHuu

Nightwolf Mourner
Raiden:









Reptile:
Hydro:
I think Nightwolf does well against Reptile, though how well I'm not really sure of yet. Reflect beats all of his projectile zoning attempts, even if he tries to sneak one in during the Reflect cooldown - the reflected projectile will stop most attempts to combo you. One thing I did to a friend who plays NW a bit(which was pretty sneaky) was bait a reflect with a force ball and then EX elbow dash through the reflected projectile and got the 23% EX elbow --> slide combo. Watch out for stuff like this, both of you will probably be baiting projectiles and reflects back and forth from range.

I do generally advocate not going for EX reflects in this matchup unless you can really safely bait one, and then only if you're lowish on life - you'll probably lose on the exchange if the Reptile is on point and punishes your absorb (only really viable on force balls, the spit is too fast for him to punish you absorbing it).

Up close, Reptile's mixups are really tough to pick out - his 3,2,1 --> acid ball/slide is completely hit confirmable to a 45% midscreen meterless, and if they see you block, you're in a 50/50 on the acid ball/slide. F+3,1,followup is fast enough to beat this out though, so I advocate keeping pressure on HARD up close. If you do block the start of a 3,2,1 they'll almost always continue it into the acid ball instead of slide, it's safe on block and does major chip damage, plus builds a lot of meter. Just be aware if it's an extra smart player that the slide is also available for the mixup.

Be aware of his EX elbow dash on wakeup, that move will kill your oki game. It's pretty safe if blocked (EX version only), so don't be overzealous trying to punish it. Any hit with it is 23%, so if your opponent is fond of burning meter on wakeup EX elbow dashes, just block, reset, and punish his foolishness ASAP with a big combo that he doesnt' have breaker for. Regular elbow dash is very punishable on block (nobody seems to be doing this yet though), but it comes out REALLY fast, so be very aware of the possibility of it.

So far I make it sound like Nightwolf has the better side of this matchup, but the thing that draws it closer to even imo is that NW can't very safely put a lot of corner pressure on Reptile. If he gets a good dash off, you are now in the corner, and in the corner is a HORRIBLE place to be against Reptile. Be prepared to eat 60%+ meterless if he gets a combo started on you there, and breaker them ASAP - they hurt. NW really likes carrying people into the corner for nasty corner pressure, but Reptile is pretty good at negating it.

Overall right now I'd go 5.5-4.5 NW probably, but it could very easily be 5.5-4.5 or more Reptile's advantage. It's just a bit early to figure this type of thing out, but at least it's a start.

Edit: One last thing: the usual "get the crouching with shoulders, nail them with lightning when they can't jump" doesn't work especially well on Reptile - his elbow dash is plenty fast to get away from the lightning, even from crouch (similar to Raiden's superman negating this). This is kind of analogous to the matchup overall - both characters are good at negating the other's advantages and primary goals.








Scorpion:
Match up opinion:5.5-4.5 Night wolf's favor
This match-up is a complete guessing game. Scorpion's okizeme proves to be a trouble, especially since he can do it anywhere on the screen. (As oppose to Nw's f+3, where he can do it anywhere, but his much preferred spot to do the okizeme is when his opponent is in the corner.) Be weary of Scorpion's hellfire, it's weird tracking features will get you if you decide to shoulder in. On a blocked teleport, your able to ground punish with B+22 hatchet, b+2 hatchet, 1 dash 1 dash, 122 shoulder for the maximum damage on a punish. If he decides to teleport out on wake up, make sure you make him hold a shoulder, it'll hit him out of it completely. If he decides to spear you from full screen or so, duck under it and dash shoulder him, he's super - on whiff if you do not block the spear at all. As long as you keep your pressure going, and guess correctly when he manages to get in, you'll be fine.








Sektor:
 

DaiHuu

Nightwolf Mourner
Sonya Blade:









Sub Zero:
Match up opinion:5.5-4.5 Night Wolf's favor
Sub Zero has two moves that will utterly piss a NW like myself off, which are Ice slide and Ice clone. Sub Zero's clone prevents NW from doing random shoulder tackles (unless you purposely dash block into the ice clone, or keep a timer on the clone and do a shoulder as it's going out) unless on wake up at a specific distance(Or just with ex shoulder, which goes full screen and is safe if they don't see it coming, great invincibility frames.) You want to be able to read on when he performs the ice clone, as lightning will hit them regardless of how far they are from the initial start up if they do a ice clone. Until you get them to the corner, you can't rush them down with Nw's F+3 okizeme or any other string, because if he's a smart Sub player, he will do them after a F+3 or 1221 string. Instead, slowly push him to the corner if you can, ensure that if he wants to zone from full screen, to give him a reason to come to you with arrows and lightning, and if he starts coming to you, start poking him at proper distances with B+2, F+2, dash F+3, and universal lows.








Quan Chi:
 

Hydro

Lin Kuei
Nice thread. One nitpick: they're not in chronological order, they're in alphabetical order. :p

I think Nightwolf does well against Reptile, though how well I'm not really sure of yet. Reflect beats all of his projectile zoning attempts, even if he tries to sneak one in during the Reflect cooldown - the reflected projectile will stop most attempts to combo you. One thing I did to a friend who plays NW a bit(which was pretty sneaky) was bait a reflect with a force ball and then EX elbow dash through the reflected projectile and got the 23% EX elbow --> slide combo. Watch out for stuff like this, both of you will probably be baiting projectiles and reflects back and forth from range.

I do generally advocate not going for EX reflects in this matchup unless you can really safely bait one, and then only if you're lowish on life - you'll probably lose on the exchange if the Reptile is on point and punishes your absorb (only really viable on force balls, the spit is too fast for him to punish you absorbing it).

Up close, Reptile's mixups are really tough to pick out - his 3,2,1 --> acid ball/slide is completely hit confirmable to a 45% midscreen meterless, and if they see you block, you're in a 50/50 on the acid ball/slide. F+3,1,followup is fast enough to beat this out though, so I advocate keeping pressure on HARD up close. If you do block the start of a 3,2,1 they'll almost always continue it into the acid ball instead of slide, it's safe on block and does major chip damage, plus builds a lot of meter. Just be aware if it's an extra smart player that the slide is also available for the mixup.

Be aware of his EX elbow dash on wakeup, that move will kill your oki game. It's pretty safe if blocked (EX version only), so don't be overzealous trying to punish it. Any hit with it is 23%, so if your opponent is fond of burning meter on wakeup EX elbow dashes, just block, reset, and punish his foolishness ASAP with a big combo that he doesnt' have breaker for. Regular elbow dash is very punishable on block (nobody seems to be doing this yet though), but it comes out REALLY fast, so be very aware of the possibility of it.

So far I make it sound like Nightwolf has the better side of this matchup, but the thing that draws it closer to even imo is that NW can't very safely put a lot of corner pressure on Reptile. If he gets a good dash off, you are now in the corner, and in the corner is a HORRIBLE place to be against Reptile. Be prepared to eat 60%+ meterless if he gets a combo started on you there, and breaker them ASAP - they hurt. NW really likes carrying people into the corner for nasty corner pressure, but Reptile is pretty good at negating it.

Overall right now I'd go 5.5-4.5 NW probably, but it could very easily be 5.5-4.5 or more Reptile's advantage. It's just a bit early to figure this type of thing out, but at least it's a start.

Edit: One last thing: the usual "get the crouching with shoulders, nail them with lightning when they can't jump" doesn't work especially well on Reptile - his elbow dash is plenty fast to get away from the lightning, even from crouch (similar to Raiden's superman negating this). This is kind of analogous to the matchup overall - both characters are good at negating the other's advantages and primary goals.
 

BATFIM

Noob
I've been playing against my brother whose main is Noob. The matches are pretty even but I noticed Noob can easily keep distance from NW by using his d,b3. I'm able to punish the move on whiff with f,f4 but still I'm not able to get up close and do any string attacks. Also NW's d,b2 doesn't reflect Noob's shadow projectiles back at him. My game against Noob relies heavily on whiff and projectile block punishing with f,f4 and mixing it up with lightining (which Noob can punish relatively easily on reaction with d,u if standing). I use my meter for d,b2 absorb most of the time - which in turn forces Noob to get closer since d,u is launch punishable. Any advice on this matchup?
 

DaiHuu

Nightwolf Mourner
I've been playing against my brother whose main is Noob. The matches are pretty even but I noticed Noob can easily keep distance from NW by using his d,b3. I'm able to punish the move on whiff with f,f4 but still I'm not able to get up close and do any string attacks. Also NW's d,b2 doesn't reflect Noob's shadow projectiles back at him. My game against Noob relies heavily on whiff and projectile block punishing with f,f4 and mixing it up with lightining (which Noob can punish relatively easily on reaction with d,u if standing). I use my meter for d,b2 absorb most of the time - which in turn forces Noob to get closer since d,u is launch punishable. Any advice on this matchup?
Well for one, start reflecting Noob's clones, they don't reflect them back, but they build meter for you and force him to come to you. Your playing the match up well, it shouldn't be trouble getting in after you get past his clones, b+2 and F+2 are your friends in this match, as well as his sweep and D+3.
 

Hydro

Lin Kuei
Building on what Daihuu said, reflecting to build meter is a great idea - more meter for you means more EX shoulder charges which go right through a clone toss, which will further discourage the player from trying to spam them at you. Also, stay away from the corner - even though you get big damage in the corner, you have a bigger advantage midfield on combo damage and ability to pressure.
 
Building on what Daihuu said, reflecting to build meter is a great idea - more meter for you means more EX shoulder charges which go right through a clone toss, which will further discourage the player from trying to spam them at you. Also, stay away from the corner - even though you get big damage in the corner, you have a bigger advantage midfield on combo damage and ability to pressure.
Does the Enhanced shoulder go through Ice Clones indefinitely or does it just beat it out on start up frames?
 

DaiHuu

Nightwolf Mourner
Does the Enhanced shoulder go through Ice Clones indefinitely or does it just beat it out on start up frames?
That was for the Noob Saibot match up. On your own wake up. Nightwolf (depending on distance) can shoulder through the ice clone. If you use ex shoulder, it goes through it completely ONLY ON WAKE UP. You can also hatchet point blank and you won't get hit by the clone. :)