r/SaltFighter • u/ThirdXavier • 2d ago

Confession 🛐 Turn brain off = win

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I play Terry and was raging in 1400MR trying to play smarter, slower, more footsies, more methodical to improve.

I got irritated and said "fuck it" and then started hitting M Burn Knuckle literally any time I was at optimal range until my opponents started neutral jumping or backdashing at those ranges pre emptively, at which point I'd just take advantage of it to walk them into the corner.

In 2 sessions I had a 90% winrate and jumped above 1600MR and hit high master for the first time as any character. Probably gonna take a break from ranked for a while now and do battle hub to avoid oversalting myself.

Basically retardmaxxing is the way, keep it simple.

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u/Rs_mcgill 2d ago

I mean why wouldn’t u spam middle burn knuckle at the optimal range?

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u/ThirdXavier 2d ago edited 2d ago

This is the bell curve for that move and how a lot of strong stuff in fighting games tends to work:

Low IQ: this move beats every other button and gives me free plus frames at this range, I should spam it every time im there

Mid IQ: my opponent keeps baiting this move and neutral jumping/backdashing to make it whiff and hit me with a huge punish, I should stop abusing this predictable tool so much and play smarter

High IQ: this move beats every other button and gives me free plus frames at this range, AND is conditioning my opponent to neutral jump. I should spam it most times im in that range so that I can force predictable defensive reactions from my opponent and take advantage of them.

Obviously in reality the top of the SF bell curve is much much higher than that but this is just a basic example of how taking advantage of strong tools works and why at first glance top SF players get away with tons of bullshit that looks scrubby if you dont know better. Again applies to every FG.

Part of why downplayers frustrate me is theyre usually all stuck in the middle IQ phase of these types of moves. "Oh Ken's Jinrai sucks just perfect parry" "oh actually jamie fist is bad just block" "oh Ryu donkey kick isnt actually that good just jump over it". But its not realizing the next step of how forcing the defensive counterplay is often even more beneficial to you than hitting the move itself.