Hey, you answered a question a few months ago, and would just like to say I appreciated the response I got (albiet really late reply). I did get discouraged for awhile, but the game is really starting to feel better for me, and I'm starting to do solid block strings and combos, especially with King. I play (and lose) to my bro alot, and I can feel myself building a mechanical edge on him (he plays shotos and zoners because they just require the basic knowledge, but doesn't practice anything).
But I do have a few new questions. My bro plays a rather solid Andy. Regardless of my choice of characters, I'll burn through his other characters, then come to Andy and he'll just destroy. He plays rather systematically, however I'm having difficulty punishing what he is doing. I can figure out most of it one my own, but specifically two things I'd like advice on: first, when he approaches on the ground, he'll run up and do a few cr.B's, then will pause to try to punish my response with a sweep. I can foresee this is what he's planning, but I've tried jumping, backdashing, sweeping (he always stops when he's pushed me far enough to where he knows the characters I play can't respond with their own sweeps), but they always seem to get hit by the sweep. I feel because of my lack of knowledge, I resort to sitting there blocking, and wait for him to make a move, where he'll either reset to hadoken pressure, or try to elbow/hop which are both partially solid approaches. If I know that this is what he is trying, how would I punish it? The only character I play with a meterless dp is ex iori, so that is not always an option.
Second, also mostly geared towards my experience towards vs Andy (and to a lesser extent, other zoners), How do I go about doing a ground approach? Some of it's just rolling under projectiles, but after I disconnect from my opponents pressure, I'm having a hard time moving in on the ground. mostly with Andy, if i try running towards him, he'll do an EX projectile, or an EX elbow because he knows I can't block it immediately. I initially mostly tried running in and hitting with cr.Bs, but most, if not all of my attempts at this are met with preemptive sweeps or elbows. Other character's he plays have similar goals, with Leona I tend to get caught by her swing... thing, and vs Ash he'll usually set up the fireball. I understand alot of it involves not being predictable in my movements, but oftentimes in a match I'll get frustrated trying to close distance and (I'm aware of this) try to jump over it all, to which he'll always have the dp input with all of his characters on his mind, or seemingly superior air to airs.
note: for a frame of reference, I play King, Kim, Shen mostly, but I've been moving to other characters, because he knows how to punish my mindset with these characters so well... (ex Iori, who has a dp, Raiden, mindgames, used to play Maxima but he seems like a burden against characters with good keepaway, and Terry, who seems to just brute force through the pressure)