[CS1] Hakumen vs. Valkenhayn

[Sophisticat]

Might as well post it up.

This thread is for discussing matchup strategies against Valkenhayn.

[BladeOfJustice7]

Nothing wrong with the thread but requesting temporary lock, in case of shit storm due to "dat wolf hype".

At least until he is released on N.A psn.

[mAc Chaos]

Any thoughts on this matchup?

Not that it matters for certain 360 users.

[Greven]

Hello, i am new to the game (2 months) and my main opponent is valk.

I dont really know if my friend is way better than me at the game or if the matchup is hard to begin with.

first, i got a lot of trouble to space him due to wolf mode = instant close distance and free mixups. If i repel him with some 4C and jC it does light dmg but when it fail i can say good bye to 1/2 life if in the corner or 1/3 in mid screen and now i am cornered.

What is the general strategy vs valk? Seems i cant out-space him even at mid distance due to 5B_5C

I cant find a reliable way to pressure him because of his backdash, if for example he blocks 6A and i know he will backdash, what can i do to punish him?

He uses a lot of blockstings followed by the mixup 236A_B_C. I tried to find some options select to cover that but so far i only found that yukikaze before the 236A_B_C win vs B and C and wont trigger if he use A (because of the blockstun).

Is there anything else more practical?

If anyone got some knowledge or tips (except waiting for the next patch) you're welcome

Edited October 29, 2010 by Greven

[psycofang2]

eh ill asnswer this question for you through my own experience so take it how you will:

valk, hes slow (in human form) good damage (in human form) and a few little mind games here and there.

in human form: watch out for his 6C, imo it feels fast. it cancels from 5C, and 2C. usuaully you just block low, so REACT to this overhead, do not expect it.

his strum wolf DD has more loose holes than a 5 cent hooker. you can easily 5D the the DD on start up or very late use 2D or 6D. if you are in the air late chain jD>jD to counter the second blow. 2D and 6D work if you block the first hit. afterwards just if you didnt counter this yet, IB the rest of the DD until just before the last kick, then 2D,6D into whatever, if you IBed you should have at least 2 stars. vs his Air DD jD,5D<and 6D kills it.

he has very long pokes, so only use 4C at near max distance, or they can IB it and respond with a 5B CH (bad for you) into a deadly combo. imo his pokes feel fast as well so dont 3C at close range. also beware of his 2C, it is a legit anti air and i myself have no problems AAing an IAD happy haku. 6A can also be "counted" as an AA due to its auto-guard. his pokes are slow enough to IB easily, but it puts you in so much block stun that its hard to counter between say : 5B>2B>5B>5C. its legit and cannot be countered so wait for a good opportunity.

his strum wolf DD can easily be used as a reversal, kinda like daifunka just not with the insane invincibilty, it has good invincibilty, and if you are not careful or being careless with 2A,5A,4C poking you will eat it if they choose to use it. his air DD is terrible outside of combos and quite easy to block. butt his damage isnt something to be laughed at, one wrong move and you lose 5-7k hp.

his jC is also something to watch out for, it feels faster than our jC. also beware FC 6C.

in wolf form: the damage is minor. tsubaki level. but his wolf form isnt ment for damage, its ment for the insane amount of heat he gets per hit/block from wolf cannon. the command grab is strong but a quick 2A,jA depending on your current position knocks him out of wolf form. in wolf form his A is a solid low, his B is a mid/high also air unblockable so barrier. his wolf C can be dangerous because he can immediately dash at you the revert into human form and do w/e so be a bit on guard.

all in all this match up imo goes around you being careful with your moves: his shoulder rush specail is +2 on block so dont try to mash out, just relax and be patient.

hmmm. i thought this might help. i wrote it up some weeks ago. (im psychic get at me sons)

[psycofang2]

his low special: the kick + follow up kick unless IB you Ibed the first kick this is unpunishable. his 236C is an overhead strangely. so if you are constantly blocking low they might try to hit you with this, hense its not really a good idea to stay too close. that pretty much sums up my experiences and uses with valk.

take it how you will and do be careful.

paaaaaaaaart twwwwooooooooooooooooooooooo. O_O...

thank me later.

[Greven]

sank joo sir, i ll see what i can do with these informations

any videos to show the matchup?

[TSHKN]

One thing i learned about Valk is during his block strings he can make u whiff your D counter with his wolf dash then it sad life time

[EtZ OvR]

Alright from my experience the matchup isnt too bad if you could ib consistently. il say this right now, your chances are way better playing on the offense this matchup. This may come as a suprise to many but if you play too defensively he will pretty literally rip you to shreds because his pressure is decent and his mixup is stupid. Also by playing offensively i dont mean airdashing in and trying to force your hits onto him this will also fuq you up Because he has good pokes(5b,5c,2b,maybe 2a) and an amazing AA(2c).

His two biggest weaknesses imo are his options on the defense and him approaching you safely. So it may be better to say you'll have to play offensively defensive.

Time to get a lil in depth.

At the start the match its generally smart to 4c as haku because 1. it should beat out most of his options and 2. it would give you a little heads up on how your opponent should play.

When the game is at neutral DO NOT try to force your way in that said, you should have the advantage in this situation because at this point you have better pokes (4c,Jc)

and his approach is not too solid against hakumen because since he has no ground dash like haku so he is pretty much religated to getting in from the air and/or closing space with his pokes and believe it or not his pokes are about just as slow as yours and not as good in this situation do not forget this. his approaches should consist of wolfing to get in, air dashing, barrier dashing, hopping in and plain ol closing the distance with decent pokes.

Air dashing and barrier dashing are the most straight forward of his approaches because of their set trajectory and therefore the easiest to counter,

So to stop an air dash simply Jc em.

-if it hits IAD to get to them you should get there shortly after they get up,

here you have they advantage because valks defensive options arent the best so he really only has a few decent moves,

save blocking, to make in this situation(2c,backdash,DD this isnt the smartest but its still an option)

-well if he's planning on 2c'ing he will have to do it right away and because its fairly slow you should be able to react to it with Jd a

if you catch them with this 2 or 3 times they will most definitely block in this situation most of the time

-to stuff a backdash if you expect it delay ur J2c/Jb or land 3c into a combo, if you didnt expect it and you attacked low to the ground 2a,2b,3c immedietly after you land if your confident D em.

if you attacked to high in the air to punish block or D if your confident.

-to stuff a DD Block em ib'ing the whole DD should net you about 3 stars added to the stars you have you should be able to punish him to hell. if he whiffs full charge 6c fatal combo da bitch

-If they block the Jc start a lil haku pressure with 2a's 2b'sand 6a's and mix up with 3c's 6b's 663214c's and grabs(side note:623a without the follow up is a good tick throw tool as most attack gat into

it).Also guard breaking isnt a bad tactic to go with against him.This is generally what you do when they block an air attack from you,unless they are close then hotaru em

when they stop barriering or if they IB it because they will definitely attack.

To stop a barrier dash just follow the same routine as above if the block your Jc when they dash in.

To stop wolfing in: it really depends on how they go about it..

-if they dash directly at you you get a free attack have fun with it.

-if they try and come in from above 5a or Jd or just plain Jc them if possible.

-if they come in from behind, which is practically the same as coming above but with less time to react, do what you would do if they approach from above

To stop hopping in just zone and react accordingly

-5a to stuff some jump ins jd to stuff others and jc whenever its possible because it is usually the best option 4c at 80%+ max range otherwise its not safe.

I pretty much covered what you should do on neutral and a lil on the offense

I will post more on the def and more on the offense later feeling a little lazy right now

Edited November 9, 2010 by EtZ OvR

[Spark]

Punishes:

632146C

- If he does this and you jump over and he puts himself in the corner you can punish with 6C level 3.

- Otherwise just IB most of the hits and punish with anything except level 3 6C.

[W] 236D

- tk j.214B/C or 44 j.214B/C if you try to jump to avoid the grab and punish with falling j.2C he can recover in time to 5B you as you fall.

Anti-airing & Zoning:

Zoning Valk is not difficult if he chooses to stay in human form for some reason. He doesn't have a run, so he can't get in on the ground if you use 4C. Same with trying to get in through the air you can tk j.214B to beat everything, 5A to beat jump ins that are done late, or jump back j.C his AD. If he uses the wolf transform to get in and move around (which he should) it becomes a lot more tricky to zone him because of all the different options he has when he's in wolf form.

When he is in wolf from on the ground he can't run under 4C, but this is really risky because he can just wolf dash over it and CH hit you easily. If he choose to go into the air it can be dangerous to jump after him with j.C because he can dash back down to the ground and anti-air you with [W] 5B or do the straight wolf dash attack which clashes with j.C a lot for some reason.

Strategy:

Approaching Valk:

I had a lot of trouble attacking Valk when he's in wolf form, so I only approached him when he was in human form. His 2C can be beaten if you jump in with j.2C such that the tip of j.2C (the part of the attack where it goes up) is only touching Valk because he has no head attribute invincibility on his 2C when it goes active so you'll beat it out clean otherwise you'll trade with it and that gives him a free combo. Also this is easier to do on Valk and not other people with anti-airs because he has a set dash, so he can't just run forward and 2C to hit you.

On the ground Hakumen's 3C will beat out Valk's 5C if they come out at the same time because Valk's 5C extends Valk's hitbox out before it goes active. Although it's not really a good idea to poke with 3C because at the range where he'll be poking with 5C you can't combo off a 3C anyway and if you get hit with 5C you'll be crouching and he'll get a free 236C launch.

Also his 5C goes low enough to hit 623A and goes high enough to tag you out of your IAD.

Pressuring Valk:

His three options of escaping pressure are CA(which is one of the better ones because he can get decent damage off of it), 632146D(Does 3K, but at least he can't combo off of it), and back dash. With these in mind if he has less than 50 meter you can almost do whatever you want. You just have to be ready to punish his back dash as soon as you see it. I usually use 214A because it's the least expensive move that will actually punish his back dash. If it hits him standing go into the regular Bnb and if it hits him in the air he'll bounce into your 5C into BnB.

Once you get him to stop back dashing you can start your mix up.

Dealing with Valk mix up:

6C: An overhead that he can wolf cancel the start of. You have to hit him out of this because he is at a huge frame advantage after this.

236A: Isn't really a mix up, but an annoying move because it puts him next to you and is +2. Although if you IB it his pressure ends right there.

236B>236B: It's a low that's kind of annoying because there are 3 points where he can wolf cancel for mix up. He can cancel the start up, cancel after the first hit, or cancel after the second hit. If he doesn't cancel at all the move is punishable. If you spot the wolf cancel you should be able to interrupt with 5A if you IBed the move before the cancel.

236C: It's an over head that leads into pretty big damage. You can tell this move apart from the others because on start up there is a white ring that appears where his hand is. If you IB this you can 100% punish with 5A. If he didn't transform go into your BnB, if he did you would have 5Aed him in the air, so go for your air BnB.

[W] 236D: You have to tk a special to really punish it, because if you jump he can recover in time to 5B you as you fall.

Char specific details:

Best 1 star throw combo for Valk that I know of:

BC > 214A > 66 > 5B > j.A > j.B > jc > j.2A > j.C

Final Note:

I don't play this match up super often, so I'm sure I'm missing a lot of stuff.