@
Dope Dojo
•Getting accustomed to footsies in the game. This could be because I'm online, but I cant' seem to get any
decent block strings going without someone just D3'ing me after each move.
Smoke should be played as more of a hit and run type character. Most of his good normals and strings are 0 on block and most of the time the meta-game comes down to whether or not you cancel something into smoke away or take a risk by poking when your opponent is free to use armor if they have it or a fast poke themselves. However, Smoke has a big advantage here as d1 smoke bomb will trade with most pokes and give you a full combo. So make your opponent respect this and it will open up more free block strings just because your opponent does not want to push a button.
Smoke's biggest footsie tools are d3 and d4 to continue pressure, and b2 for range. Most opponents will not be blocking low against Smoke so use this to your advantage as well to get + frames off of his pokes into more shenanigans like block strings. Practice cancelling neutral strings into smoke away to force your opponent to make their way in again. You can also cancel these into smoke bomb if you think your opponent is going to press buttons after a block string.
•Anti airing with 2 or D1. I've tried this a few times. I know that Smoke's go to Anti Air seems to be 2, 2, D1 ~Smoke Bomb. I don't know if I'm not angled properly on the 2 but I always seem to get hit by each
jump punch or kick. The same goes with D1.
d1 timing on cross ups (especially online) can be tricky. JK's will normally beat out a d1 AA attempt, but since JPs have to be used late to hit/jail people, think of using d1 a split second before your opponent would throw out their JP to make it connect. That should help with the timing.
Standing 2 anti-air is really easy since the vertical hitbox is so godlike. You can hit people out of the air pretty damn high. So I would suggest just playing the CPU in training mode on normal difficulty because the AI will jump at you ALLLL the time. That way you can practice the timing, and since the AI's jumps are still random, you should get some good practice at doing it on reaction. Definitely get use to it offline first because any anti-air online can end up being inconsistent.
•Resets: The other BnB seems to be using the Enhanced Smoke Bomb as an ender for a 32 combo, or a F4 combo. I'm in training mode half the time when I go for this but it doesn't seem to catch the opponent and pop them up. It just hits for an additional 2-3% damage. It could be because I'm not waiting for them to be low enough to the ground.
Regardless of what your juggle is at mid-screen, you are going to want to hit your opponent with f4~EX bomb when they are roughly at Smoke's waist height. I normally like connecting the f4 when Smoke is about a half-dash away from the opponent. Since Smoke's reset is pretty timing and spacing dependant, most people have their own little quirks they use to get the reset down consistently so you kind of in a way just have to get used to it and come up with your own consistent method.
The corner is much more forgiving in terms of doing the reset and you should be able to pull that off by hitting your opponent at waist height or slightly above.
Obviously check out the Smoke combo thread for some reset combos. For starters, a few easy mode resets I like to do are:
bomb, njp~tele(whiff), dash, 32, 32, f4~EX bomb
21~bomb, njp~tele (whiff), dash, 32, 32, f4~EX bomb
3d12, 3d12, 3d12, dash, d4~bomb, f4~EX bomb (if you don't like the d4~bomb you can link it with other things like 2~bomb, 21~bomb, etc)
b23~bomb, dash, 32, 32, f4~EX bomb (you can change the 2nd 32 to 3d12, but I think the timing is easier with 2 32's...just comes down to your timing mechanism and what works)
I'm on PSN A_SECTS_DEFENDER. A mic would be helpful
