Thinking about picking up Sonya... Any tips outside of what's in the guide?

[FrothyOmen]

I was inspired to make this thread by one in the Sub-Zero forum (here.)

I main Smoke and Sub-Zero, and I want to pick up Sonya. Guess I just like characters that start with the letter S . So, what are the main ideas and concepts I need to understand and employ as Sonya? Is military stance canceling into 21 pressure as important as the guide makes it out to be? What other things have you learned from experience that works extremely well/poorly with her? Any and all suggestions would be much appreciated

 

[sailerjerry]

I believe the guide that youre talking about is outdated. Basically her 2,1~Military stance used to cause a block infinite when you did 2,1 MS dash 2,1 MS dash, etc. fast enough. Thats been fixed. So now its more about the mixups that her military stance offers. Everytime you do a stirng like 2,1 or 1,1,4 and cancel into military stances, your military stance attack cannot be interupted (as long as you dont wait to input the attack). So whenever one of your combo strings is blocked, you canel into military stance and you can throw out the F1 for a safe low or 1+3~1+2 for an overhead. Not sure if that overhead is safe, but if it isnt, you can quickly dash cancel out of military stance and do a F4 which is a safe overhead that gives a safe jump on hit. Basically just try to find a string that you like to use to poke with (I use 2,1 because the first hit hits mid so they cant crouch it) and cancel it into military stance every time. If it hits, do B2 out of your military stance for a launcher into a combo. It its blocked, mix up with F1, 1+3~1+2, and dash F4. Once they start respecting the military stance uninteruptable attacks, you can just dash cancel out of the military stance and do the 2,1 string again and continue this loop until they try to poke out, at which point you can use the military stance B2 for a launcher into a combo.

 

[Justice]

Well, as far as Sonya psychology goes, she's an in-your-face pressure player. Noone seems to mind

The big difference that you will notice right away is that she doesn't move around the screen quite as quickly as Subs or Smoke. She is NOT a zoner. She can compete in a zonewar, but odds are she'll lose.

She has hands-down the fastest Uppercut in the game.

The infinite is nerfed, but Military Stance is still a large percentage of your game. Other than 314, Sonya is a one-note wonder without it.

Check out my thread "Kombo Advice PRZ". It's become a kind of journal of my journey from scrub to Sonya main. In it are a lot of wonderful suggestions of bnb kombos to practice.

OH! And the rest of your game after MS is Dive Kick. Know it. Live it. Love it