HurlingDervish
Noob
Military stance has lots of stuff. So naturally people will gravitate towards the obviously awesome stuff like f1 and throw. But what about the "useless" moves in the stance..
db2~2 = Shoulder Slam
At first glance it may seem counter productive since you're knocking people away for 8%...wow big woop. BUT there are a few reasons it can be useful:
1. It goes FAR. A little bit over half screen. Further than most people expect.
2. It goes FAST catches lazy blockers off guard before they try their approach.
3. It lowers Sonya's hitbox, allowing her to duck under some standing projectiles and slam them (typically ones by rushdown characters) also can consistently catch a mistake in people's instant air fireballs.
Combine these three attributes and realize that people will most likely be jumping backwards doing IAF, so hitting them once will knock them into the corner more often than not, leaving you closer, allowing you do try and trap them with mixups/kiss/arc kick.
there's a final reason that db2~2 can be great but it involves conditioning people to expect it and then:
db2~1 = Mini shoulder slam
What? That thing looks so useless. Well its good for pretty much one reason
1. It cancels into Kiss on whiff or hit.
you advance fast...into a kiss. This not only provides a fake-out scenario but space control because it extends the "danger zone" of what people have come to expect from Sonya. You show them that they can't just expect a ring or arc kick when you're at range. As long as you've conditioned people to a db~2 occasionally, you should have ample time to get a free db2~1xxkiss. Also since people will try to punish both moves, its good to do a single db2~1 just to get them mixed up and expect a kiss, or risk punishing.
Since the start-up on kiss sucks this is a good way to get into the move without an overly easy punishment opportunity given to them
Of course this all works best when mixed in with her block string pressure and mixup, but it is just ONE more way to mix them up.
.
db2~2 = Shoulder Slam
At first glance it may seem counter productive since you're knocking people away for 8%...wow big woop. BUT there are a few reasons it can be useful:
1. It goes FAR. A little bit over half screen. Further than most people expect.
2. It goes FAST catches lazy blockers off guard before they try their approach.
3. It lowers Sonya's hitbox, allowing her to duck under some standing projectiles and slam them (typically ones by rushdown characters) also can consistently catch a mistake in people's instant air fireballs.
Combine these three attributes and realize that people will most likely be jumping backwards doing IAF, so hitting them once will knock them into the corner more often than not, leaving you closer, allowing you do try and trap them with mixups/kiss/arc kick.
there's a final reason that db2~2 can be great but it involves conditioning people to expect it and then:
db2~1 = Mini shoulder slam
What? That thing looks so useless. Well its good for pretty much one reason
1. It cancels into Kiss on whiff or hit.
you advance fast...into a kiss. This not only provides a fake-out scenario but space control because it extends the "danger zone" of what people have come to expect from Sonya. You show them that they can't just expect a ring or arc kick when you're at range. As long as you've conditioned people to a db~2 occasionally, you should have ample time to get a free db2~1xxkiss. Also since people will try to punish both moves, its good to do a single db2~1 just to get them mixed up and expect a kiss, or risk punishing.
Since the start-up on kiss sucks this is a good way to get into the move without an overly easy punishment opportunity given to them
Of course this all works best when mixed in with her block string pressure and mixup, but it is just ONE more way to mix them up.
.