Question When to DK When not to DK

[MashPotatoTower]

Deep dive kicks are safe from full combos in some mu. Like from jax, I'm not sure if he can dash punch punish. The advantage frames are likely the same but the lower you hit the far Sonya recover backwards.

 

[Death]

Death
MortySeinfeld
Evil_Riu48
GamerBlake90
@All sonyas

Guys what are your general rules about using DK to start combos?

Blocked pokes? Counter poke? Cross ups?

I know obvious places like blocked spins, or jumping over kenshi sc etc etc but what other absolutes are there?

You cant counter poke pokes with dive kick. Its too risky. Your best bet is to counter poke pokes with her 10f standing 4.

For blocked spins I would use Sonyas 45% B21F2 bnb. With the MSF1~cartwheel ender you can add about 6%.


I personally mainly use Dive kick as a whiff punisher. Play footsies and have good spacing then dive kick everything that whiffs. I try my hardest to practice this technique online but its impossible. When someone zones you and dashes quick with normals its tough to react to this online but offline this is your chance to whiff punish the normals with dive kick.

Dive kick is also good on cross ups because the opponent cant really AA you. But at the same time Sonya cant really read if their going to AA you or not so its a guess. If you guess right you get a combo if you dont guess right you get comboed.

Obviously vs some characters you can dive kick more so than other because their punishment is low like vs Noob, Sheeva, Kano. essentially characters with slow normals.

Characters you want to be careful to dive kick is like Cyrax (9f 1 that leads to 100% combos -__-), smoke, cage, KL, etc.

You can also punish special moves that are -15ish. Like reptile dash and other moves to maximize damage.

The dive kick alone just lets you jump a bit more but vs good players its tough cuz theyll make good reads on you

 

[Pig Of The Hut]

You cant counter poke pokes with dive kick. Its too risky. Your best bet is to counter poke pokes with her 10f standing 4.

For blocked spins I would use Sonyas 45% B21F2 bnb. With the MSF1~cartwheel ender you can add about 6%.


I personally mainly use Dive kick as a whiff punisher. Play footsies and have good spacing then dive kick everything that whiffs. I try my hardest to practice this technique online but its impossible. When someone zones you and dashes quick with normals its tough to react to this online but offline this is your chance to whiff punish the normals with dive kick.

Dive kick is also good on cross ups because the opponent cant really AA you. But at the same time Sonya cant really read if their going to AA you or not so its a guess. If you guess right you get a combo if you dont guess right you get comboed.

Obviously vs some characters you can dive kick more so than other because their punishment is low like vs Noob, Sheeva, Kano. essentially characters with slow normals.

Characters you want to be careful to dive kick is like Cyrax (9f 1 that leads to 100% combos -__-), smoke, cage, KL, etc.

You can also punish special moves that are -15ish. Like reptile dash and other moves to maximize damage.

The dive kick alone just lets you jump a bit more but vs good players its tough cuz theyll make good reads on you

How do you play the Cyrax mu?

 

[ForeverKing]

#1 goal by friday STOP DOING 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 after CW - this is an instinctive problem

Sometimes people do this because you think your opponent is going to block the cartwheel, and it catches you off guard that cartwheel actually hit so you're like oh shit and you dash up and 1 1 1 112~MS lol. But if you know the cartwheel is going to hit your best bet is b212 1 112~MS. You can also after the cartwheel do MS~B+2, b212, 112~MS to get like two more percent than the normal BnB, but people drop this combo alot and it's not worth it for two more percent lol

 

[Pig Of The Hut]

Sometimes people do this because you think your opponent is going to block the cartwheel, and it catches you off guard that cartwheel actually hit so you're like oh shit and you dash up and 1 1 1 112~MS lol. But if you know the cartwheel is going to hit your best bet is b212 1 112~MS. You can also after the cartwheel do MS~B+2, b212, 112~MS to get like two more percent than the normal BnB, but people drop this combo alot and it's not worth it for two more percent lol

yea thats my main issue

need to train the instincts a bit higher.

 

[Death]

How do you play the Cyrax mu?

The cyrax MU is tricky because he takes away two options you have vs other characters. EX Cartwheel and Dive kick. Sonya needs her meter to break his big combos so saving it for breaker always helps. And anytime Sonya makes a wrong read with dive kick shes dead.

Your best bet is to try and zone him out with ring toss. It helps when hes fishing for bombs and nets but this wont win the MU. Your best bet is to just try and rush him down and bait him into making mistakes. Cornering him is your best bet.

Its a pretty even MU. You just cant make mistakes at all in this one.


also, after cartwheels in any of your combos practice and do MS B2. dont just jump into B21f2 or 111111. Similar to what King said. Doing this consistently with the pressure up will level up your execution in general. Its a tough and awkward movement to get down.

 

[Pig Of The Hut]

The cyrax MU is tricky because he takes away two options you have vs other characters. EX Cartwheel and Dive kick. Sonya needs her meter to break his big combos so saving it for breaker always helps. And anytime Sonya makes a wrong read with dive kick shes dead.

Your best bet is to try and zone him out with ring toss. It helps when hes fishing for bombs and nets but this wont win the MU. Your best bet is to just try and rush him down and bait him into making mistakes. Cornering him is your best bet.

Its a pretty even MU. You just cant make mistakes at all in this one.

lol Sounds like Whole CAST vs Cyrax lol

 

[Death]

lol Sounds like Whole CAST vs Cyrax lol

Which is dumb and reasons why I would like to finally see a real cyrax chart lol

 

[Pig Of The Hut]

Which is dumb and reasons why I would like to finally see a real cyrax chart lol

^^^^^^ Now this we can definitely agree on

 

[Justice]

thats really good to know

<3

my weakness right now w her are:

Improper DK use
Maximize damage is needed
and....just overall MU exp but its a time process
#1 goal by friday STOP DOING 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 after CW - this is an instinctive problem

Ideally, DK should only be used as a full-combo poke punish or mid-combo after Kiss. Also, there is that thing where an Air-to-Air Kick an be cancelled into DK so that you land before your opponent.
I can't help much with the damage other than hunt down some nice kombo vids.
The only thing wrong with Kartwheel ~111111 is that you're not ending it with the 112 reset. It's a valuable tool to have in Sonya's arsenal. A good momentum reverser is Kartwheel, Dash xx1 (x4), 112 into MS shenanigans.

whats B4 do

MS B4 is a sweep that's safe on block with an insane 12f activate.

Ya, off naked cartwheel I always do B21F2 with a combo leading to MS...I totally hear you though because it is my first instinct too and I will do it sometimes and be like... F F F F F F as I am hammering out 1's into 112 MS

This I've started working out of my game a little. Yeah, it does more damage but in my experience the B21F2 whiffs for no apparent reason sometimes without a Dash cancel to start it up. The B21 will hit but the opponent will get pushed back horizontally enough that the F2 whiffs. Maybe there is a use for the stance change button after all...

Back to the original question, one use I have for DK is as a momentum shift. Like if somene is rushing you down or jumping a lot, I would jump out DK or netrual jump DK respectively to kind of play lame and lure my opponent in with a false sense for security. It's a very gimmicky tactic though and should be used very sparingly.

 

[killa_solid]

Using sonya's DK is mostly dependent on your opponent's play style and how they react when put in certain situations. If they are restless to poke thats when I DK a lot. Otherwise I leave DK for whiff punishes and regular punishes. You basically want to take a mental note of what your opponent likes to do after blocking certain moves like msf1, cartwheel. etc and react accordingly. As far as using it as counterpoke, its very risky. I like using her 4 in that situation, but the fact that 4cw is punishable on block means you must be on point.

Also strings that jail into a Guaranteed ms follow up of your choice are 21, 112, 312, f22, and b21.
Out of those b21 is the best to use after landing a jump in bc it can be hit confirmed into a 45% combo into reset.
With 312 you can take the last hit and avoid the ms mix up and only leads to about a 25% damage on hit. It does the most chi on block though.
F22 is much easier to hit confirm out of all of these into a full combo but it does less damage ~42% unless you can do f22ms cancel into dk in which case it does more damage( not recommended). It also does 1% less chip.
112 leads to no combo potential.
21 is kinda useless in this situation bc better options are available depending on what your goal is (chip or combo dmg)

 

[Death]

Also Sonyas should throw more in block strings instead of going for overheads, lows etc. Youll most likely get the throw everytime because the opponent will be too worried about your low/high options. She has good set ups off throws too.

312~MS and F22~MS is good vs characters with armor. Especially vs Kenshi

 

[Showtime]

Watch my casuals vs CD at Dallas and mm vs Jr. I feel my dive kicks were on point in those matches could show you were to use them

But the way I learned Sonya is her footsies first. Find the perfect d4 range. Ms cancels from all your blocked attacks, f4 setups basically her full ground game. Then you see when ppl like to poke out, jump, armor and you Isenberg divekick/kartwheel. Using divekick when your opponent is just starting a string js good too, Gunna have to have godlike reactions too do this but if you do divekick will basically beat all strings.

I can teach all the Sonya players out there a lot of new shit and blocked ms traps that are too godlike. But I don't get tagged in these threads bc my Sonya isn't good enough =p

I get bodied 3-0 at First but then win 4 straight, fair warning long set

Sent from my GT-P5113 using Tapatalk 2

 

[HGTV Soapboxfan]

Also Sonyas should throw more in block strings instead of going for overheads, lows etc. Youll most likely get the throw everytime because the opponent will be too worried about your low/high options. She has good set ups off throws too.

312~MS and F22~MS is good vs characters with armor. Especially vs Kenshi

This i agree with. Sonya's throw is really good in her game.

 

[Showtime]

Yea her throw is godlike

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[NariTuba]

Also thanks to Solid for putting me on blast for not knowing 1212 lol

I had no clue

I just tested this for a bit. It works with 121 and 212 indistinctively; and three inputs seems to be the minimum possible. The fact that you can use R1 for the first part is noteworthy too.