So far I think Catwoman is terrible, so no wonder you're having so much trouble. Maybe my footsies are not yet there, but even so she is without doubt not top tier, hardly high tier and will probably take a lot of time to master.
Her best feats are her low hitbox, jumping atacks and evasion. She has decent wallgame.
However her punishment, pressure and crossup ability is really sub par.
1) Jump
The key to playing her is probably always staying at a range, where your J2 can threaten your opponent.
You have to jump a lot and learn to apply jumping 2 in a way that's intimidating. Most characters cannot AA jumping 2 if its done from correct range so they will need to either advance, retreat or armor through it.
If they advance you can use j1 instead where d1 is uniterruptible afterwards. If your opponent learned not to atack, you can mixup after j1 is blocked.
The j1 mixup goes as follows:
- d1~Claws : will work if opponent atacks of if j1 landed on hit. Remember you have to input d1 right after you input j1, otherwise it will come out late and be interruptible
- b12d3 : if you think opponent will block standing or if j1 is likely to hit
- f3~MB : if you think opponent will duck or try to interrupt. This option will probably be fuzzy guarded in time by skilled players.
2) Focus
Hitbox on her b3, f3 , catstance, d2 and some other moves is probably the best in the game. Her b3 will avoid most mid-hitting atacks in the game, thus you can throw it out whenever you feel pressured (for example after superman breath atack b3 evades most followups) or if you believe opponent is going to rush in atacking. As an added benefit b3 will escape jump ins. After b3 is blocked MB f3 will beat i6 atacks, however timing is very strict.
3) F1
Her f+1 poke and string are pretty decent as it advances cat forward. f+1~dd3 will allow you to combo into Cat Stance 1 on hit, however on block there are no uniterruptible followups. f112~CS 3 will trade with i6 on block (or jump over d1s or punish them, dont remember now) on hit you can easily confirm into Claws.
4) b1
b12d3 is her most damaging string, finish with Cat Claws - its safe on block and combos on hit
you can meterburn cancel the last hit with ff+MB , it will combo on hit and is a natural mixup.
5) OS
When you dash in in advantage and use f3 or b1 if opponent jumps over you, commands are reversed and b3 or f1 comes out, accordingly. Depending on your ring position you will probably punish crossups.
Cat Dash (bf+2) work as option select against backdashes/crossups. As you can input bf+2 (which hits backdash, naturally) and if you see a jump MB on reaction so it will quickly reverse direction and hit landing opponent . As MB part of Cat Dash has armor, it can also be used to approach from full screen if you can read your opponent zoning atempt.
6) Zoning
df+3 can be done from crouch and will punish most high projectiles on wiff, unless you're too far away
Cat evades usually leave you at a disadvantage after evading, so if your goal is to approach you're better of jumping forward. However it is valuable against MB projectiles, such as Ares fireballs, or to escape zoning traps which cannot be escaped otherwise.
Catwoman have unique backdash animation where she ducks durng backdash. may be used to avoid certain projectiles.
7) Mixups
her d+1 ~Claws is a good interrupt tool. b1 cannot be interrupted if d+1 hits. On block d+1 leave you neutral, so against some characters you can annoyingly poke them with d1
b+2 ~ CS is a decent overhead, that you can hitconfirm on hit or block. ST 3 cannot be ducked and cannot be interrupted afterwards. Near the wall its will crossup opponent, however, can be blocked ducking both ways.
8) Wakeup Atacks
Her trait has two uses, generally. It is a good wake up atack with full invincibility. Another use is when you have only two scratches it leaves you at a huge advantage on block. Trait may also serve as a temporary subsitute to Claws, if you find d1~bf+1 input too difficult.As Cat evade will evade most mids and overheads you can apply that as well. Cat Dash and Cat Claws have some invulnerability frames.
9) Vortex
There are three Vortex situations
- Cat Claw partial hit leaves your opponent right at your feet, where the can ukemi still. Dash forward allows for a mixup. Should opponent chose not to roll you can crossup with j3.
- f3 juggle ender if b3 or f3 has already been used in a juggle results in hard KD, opponent cannot roll. Dash forward will allow for a free pressure.
- 1f2 juggle ender. Dash = free mixup.
List of untechable KD: d3, Trait, f3/b3 juggle ender, 1f2, whip, throw, CS 3
10) Anti Air
As I described above, dash forward is your main friend. Outside of it you're limited to generic stuff : focus atacks or j1
11) Punishment
i6 1 , i7 d1 and i16 cDash pretty much sum it up. As your options lack range severily you cannot punish most annoying atacks in the game. However you can still abuse your hitbox to evade them in the first place.
12) Cat Stance
Cat Stance 3 is her fastest atack out of stance. Her 1 deals block damage of ~3% and leave you at a decent position for spacing. Overall CS sucks, but its good to know your options
CS 1 uniterruptible on block after: 3 , b2 , 2d2 , 112 (all hits only)
CS 1 will trade with i6, can prevent with CS 3 (as mentioned above it may punish d1's or jump over them from move to move): f112 , 33
CS 1 is interruptible after: b12d3, 12 , d2, d1. Can be escaped by holding back most of the time. after d1, CS 3 cannot be interrupted by enemy d1, but will wiff vs ducking opponent (which will be punished if read)
13) Leftovers
Her other moves are mostly useless or very situational
- 2d2 series : mainly useless as lacks both range and speed
- 3: useful for getting around armor
- d3: b1 is better most of the time, however it lowers your hitbox really low
- Whip atacks: Lack range, speed and are mainly uneffective outside of juggle
- 112 or 12: Roles superseeded by d1 most of the time. Hardly used outside of juggles. You can use an OS with 12~dd3b3 where you will do 12b3 on wiff, 12~CS on block, where you can still see what happened and react.
- d2 : Just bad
- f1123 : sadly frames on this are wrong (as a lot of Cat Woman FD) so it leaves you with no options.
f2 : didnt find any reasonable use for this outside of juggles
Super: Only usable as unclashable damage or to interupt strings that cannot be interrupted otherwise.
PS: looking back at this all i wanted is to give some quick tips. must be something wrong with me.
