Question - Hellfire Hellfire Scorpion's game plan?

[Meep8345]

How exactly is scorpion supposed to play now that his fbc's don't jail? How does he play in the neutral? I feel so lost with this character and don't know what I should be doing. Can any hellfires breakdown his strategy and what he should be doing?

 

[Matix218]

Just because you cant jail 3x 214 fbrc blockstrings after a hit teleport anymore does not mean the fbrc pressure is useless. There are still mindgames that come into play with the fbrcs that you can apply to create some decent pressure. Realistically his strategy is not all that different than it was before the nerf, you just don't get 3 free blockstrings that jail after hitting a combo (which, LBSH was pretty broken). You still have things you can mix up with fbrc pressure or throws such as b1, b12, 21, f3, b3 etc. Although the fbrcs dont always jail that does not mean they are not good. For example, if you go for 21, fbrc after a combo/vortex setup yes, your opponent can poke you out of it, but if you think they will poke you can just finish the whole string instead and 214 them into a full combo. Just because pressure does not jail and can be poked out of on a guess/read does not mean it is automatically useless.

You still have your overhead/low mixups (F2, B3, F4). You still have EX teleport which is one of the best anti zoning tools in the game. You still have jump 3 which beats almost anything in the air and on hit it gives you a full combo into standing reset. You still have flame aura which is a great anti air and also great since it allows you to get additional chip in your post combo pressure. You get the actual move hellfire as well which although it is risky it can make people want to jump which is usually a good situation when you are playing scorpion since you have a great d2, flame aura, and can also win most air to airs with j3.

IMO Hellfire plays the most similar to MK9 scorpion in that he is the most "high risk/high reward" version of the character. He gets big damage off of his riskier things or he can play safer and nickel and dime you with throws/tick throws. He is highly momentum based as well because every combo ends in a standing reset with scorpion at +18 right in your face.

If you are really concerned about controlling space in the neutral more effectively you might want to switch to Ninjutsu instead since that is more that variation's forte with his F2 range.

I still think the fbrc pressure is good, I am sure this is actually how NRS intended it to work (you don't get to just mindlessly loop jailed blockstrings, you have to make reads/guesses/mix it up for it to be effective.

 

[Meep8345]

Thanks for helping me out but can you give me more examples of using fbc pressure strings and what they're good for? I saw 214 fbc was +8 in a thread and was wondering if f3/b12/ would beat out any poke attempt. I've also noticed that b12 fbc throw works on hit or block is there anything else I can do with this string? Should I keep my distance or be close as scorpion? When I poke someone with a d1/3/4 what would be the best way to take advantage of those plus frames?

 

[Matix218]

Lets take the b121 string in hellfire as an example of how his pressure works.

You have the following options when pressuring with b121

You can do the full string which is safe on block and has the reward of a knockdown on hit

You can do b1 and then throw

You can do b12 and then throw

If they start to read the throw after either b1 or b12 you can do a special in place of the throw to blow them up for trying to blow up your throw.

If you want to try to sustain pressure you can do a b1 or b12 fbrc into more pressure (different string, OH/Low mixup, throw, etc). Yes they can poke out of this with a fast low poke but that is the guessing game, if they go for the poke out and you read that you can not do the fbrc and block their poke and get either your turn back or in many cases a full combo punish. Also they will have to be on point with the timing on their guess to poke out as well so that adds another layer to the advantage of the fbrc, basically even if they guess right that you are going to go for a fbrc after b12 they still have to time the poke correctly or they still get hit. You can apply this same thing to 214, 114, b3, f3, etc

I understand that none of this is guaranteed jailing pressure but other than being kinda broken and lame what good would having these things be guaranteed to jail be? Isnt it much more interesting to have to make a guess/read (and your opponent having to do the same)? Isnt that what fighting games are all about? If you go for fbrc pressure and they don't make the right read you get more sustained pressure into throw or even 50/50 (f2, b3). If they guess right and execute their poke out correctly they get their turn and you lose yours. I fail to see how people think that makes scorpions fbrc pressure "not good anymore". The bottom line is that it was broken when he could jail 3 214 frbcs after a full combo. The character is much more interesting now.

Do I wish they would fix other issues with him such as gap in b32f2, unsafe b32f2 against some characters, empty teleport should take half stamina bar so he can pressure after it, f2 should be universally safe on block and not whiff on small hit box crouch blockers, takedown should be plus on hit, etc but the fbrc portion of hellfire scorpions game is a good aspect of his game IMO. Not jailing does not make it bad. If you want a character that can maintain pressure better maybe you should be using a list cage or tempest lao or possibly dvorah but scorpion is not about sustained block pressure. He can go for sustained block pressure and actually pull it off if you mix it up well and get your opponent to respect his other options enough.

That's my thoughts on hellfire at least.

 

[Kingshootahz]

Put your controller down then..

Edit: Lol wrong thread but IMA leave this here anyway