Latest videos if anyone cares:
Things I'm aware of:
-I have no ability to hit confirm... I'll keep going with my combos when initial hits are blocked, putting me in unsafe situations. This is probably something that won't improve any time soon since I just seem totally incapable of telling if something was blocked or not until it's too late to react. I do fully understand what I'm supposed to do when the initial hits are blocked versus when they connect... but the move I actually perform is often incorrect due to me just guessing since I can't tell the difference fast enough
-I'm using sweeps incorrectly. Most notably Athena's... I do a lot of deep c.D which I don't believe I should ever be doing. I imagine it's highly punishable off block. I need to re-train myself to sweep as more of an anti-air tactic than something to punish a whiff
-I present no threat in the air due to a total lack of jump-in starters. Timing jump-in hits to combo ranks among the hardest things for me to do in KoF... no matter how much I try to practice it, I can't seem to apply it to real matches. With Yuri, I need to be able to do stuff like j.C, D, DM but just can't seem to and thus never really give myself an opportunity to use her meter
Have I missed anything?
Please don't tell me not to empty Slider Shoot though. I never once did that on purpose. Also don't tell me not to empty Chou Upper. There's no way I actually wanted to randomly Chou Upper from all the way on the other side of the screen. I was going for Haou Shokouken
Hey Li,
These matches seem to go about the way our matches have gone. You poke, zone, and occasionally run in to attack just to change things up, but it's usually to poke a couple times to bait the opponent to come after you where you start to poke/zone again.
I'm not sure about the opponents you were fighting, but it seems like there was a good deal of input lag as punishes either didn't happen, or were too delayed to actually punish. One of the earlier matches against Andy it looked like the opponent spent the entire match trying to figure out the timing to punish you (they were always late), but weren't able to in the end.
Personally I think the reason you're not improving on hit confirms is your character choice. I say this because your description of all your problems matches all my problems to a T, and your character choice is similar if not the same as mine used to be. Right now you're using their zoning abilities as a crux.
After switching characters I've come to the conclusion King, and zoners in general aren't very useful in completely learning to play the game. What I feel like they teach is how to play keep away. Useful, especially when a characters game play revolves around this, but if you're new the game, then you will always fall back on it, and not spend any time learning to hit confirm or attack using the various jumps, etc... (this was me) because all of that is so much harder than just zoning.
Since switching to characters that either can't zone or only half a*s zone such as Flame Iori, Terry, or Kula (which you play, and you're better at hit confirming with her than your other characters IMO) I've been forced to learn how to hit confirm into a combo both from the air, and the ground. You've probably noticed in a lot of the matches we've played you've generally life lead me right up till I get the one crucial hit I need. I recommend you switch to a few half a*s zoners, and a few non-zoners such as EX Kyo, Ralf, Vice, etc... You'll also feel the input lag more with non-zoners because they rely on being able to punish unsafe moves which is really hard to do when there is input lag.
If you do end up switching characters which I hope you do for your sake, then you need to spend time in practice learning the simplest combos you can use to punish mistakes with. When I mean simple, I'm talking ultra simple such as EX Kyo's st.C, qcf.D~D, hcb.D for 262 damage, and a hard knockdown for a further mixup attempt. These can be used against the CPU in VS because the CPU makes a lot of mistakes. After getting some simple punish combos down move to working on low combo starters. Learn really easy simple ones which don't require a great deal of input, then move to jump in combos (I'd work on these last because adding the jump in is difficult for beginners - 4 jumps, spacing, etc...). Managing to execute any of these simple combos against someone online or local will really boost your moral to say .... Hey I CAN do this! It will further motivate you to improve more.
Lastly, drop Yuri (for now). I realize she can fit into the half a*s zonning category, so she's the type of character I'm telling you to play, but she's a special case. It might just be me, but IMO her BnB starters are far harder than other members of the cast, and understanding how to play her is more difficult, so I wouldn't recommend her to learn from. I was stubborn, and tried to stick with her, and the end result was I never got any better. I think she's a character you come back to after you've gained enough experience.
