Getting better at SF6

November 28, 2024


This post is an updated version of the “getting better at Street Fighter 5 post” I did a while back. I’ve banged my head against a wall trying to improve and I hope to save some else some bruises along the way in this process.

Before we begin though, imagine a pilot flying a plane from Los Angeles to New York City and someone adjusts the flight path by 3.5 degrees south just before takeoff. The change is barely noticeable at takeoff, but the plane ends up landing in Washington, D.C. instead of New York City. That’s 220 miles (or 350 kilometers to my imperial folk) from the destination. Now imagine this for improvement. If there is a slight misdirection when starting out doing something, you’ll eventually have to correct it down the road. The point is: try to start any journey you make in the best way possible to set yourself up for success.

Without further ado, here is how we get better at SF6:

Step 1. GO TO YOUR LOCAL FIGHTING GAME MEETUPS!
Step 2. Just play lol
Step 3. Character guides
Step 4. Search and study your replays
Step 5. FAT & Ultimate Frame Data
Step 6. Find a favorite to learn from
Step 7. Muscle memory drills
Step 8. Take notes/set goals
Step 9. Learn matchups in detail
Step 10. Accept responsibility

Step 1. GO TO YOUR LOCAL FIGHTING GAME MEETUPS!

If you have the privilege to attend an offline local fighting game meet up… GET OUT THERE AND ATTEND! This is where you’ll find yourself among friends who share your excitement for all things related to fighting games. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or just starting out, there is a place where fighting game enthusiasts meet up and is the perfect place to discuss strategies, share tips, and engage in digital battle. But where do I find a local close to me?? GLAD YOU ASKED! Ultradavid on twitter (or X, whatever you want to call it) has kept up a spreadsheet of over 500 offline locations that host offline locals. You can find that here.

Step 2. Just play lol

In order to get better you have to put in the time and effort. That means actually playing the game. A general consensus that I’m finding is people who get better put in ATLEAST 30 minutes of highly focused training or 2 hours of general training a day. I’d say 7-10 hours a week of hands on controller spread across an entire week would be great to start.

Then there’s the holy trinity where you should spend your time playing. 1. Battle Lounge. 2. Ranked. 3. Training Mode. Split your time evenly across these 3 modes because each one feeds on the other.

Lastly, understand the importance of not being too hard on yourself. Maybe you already got a little time under your belt. Now let’s take MenaRD. The GOAT of street fighter. He’s most definitely got 10,000+ hours in the game. Imagine the pie chart where there are 2 sections that represent yours and his next to each other. Your 1% sliver versus his 99% chonk. You can easily visualize why you shouldn’t be hard on yourself because he has put the time in to this than you have.

3. Character guides

SF6 CHARACTER GUIDES ARE GODLIKE! The developers have put so much love and care into the character guides. They explain each character’s special moves, general strategies the character should follow in order to win, and what makes them unique! For example, the first lesson in Akuma’s character guide is “How to play Akuma.” Akuma’s guide says, “Outmaneuvering your opponent is an essential element of battle.” Well dang. When they show the clip, you can visibley notice that boy is skating across the screen. His walk speed is so good. Then they further explain to pair his fast walk speed with his fast fireballs. It is a powerful combination and will help you return to a winning strategy to get better at SF6.

They added the advanced strategy guides after the basics are understood. For Akuma, they go into letting you know how to stop your opponents from retaliating! “Throw out an attack and wait for their reaction. Instead of getting jumped in on, or drive impacted, you’ll have the necessary time to act accordingly.” It’s great stuff.

4. Study and search for replays

Search replays!

The reality is there’s always someone out there better than you. When I started out with SF6 I would search for all the godlike players in the game and try to learn from them. What I ended up finding out myself is that I improved the most when I started viewing replays of someone who is a little bit or moderately more skilled relative to where I was. When I would watch replays of high level players (Grand masters and above when I was a rookie/bronze player), they would make decisions and movements that were completely out of context to me. I couldn’t follow their rationale. However, when I started watching replays from a player that was slightly/moderately more skilled than I was I would be able to recognize the flow of situtations. It started becoming a conversation of “Oh snap, I see what he did there. That’s smart.” Or “Oh they dun goofed. Let’s see what play they make to recover.” The key to this step is to be honest with yourself and recognize where your current skill level is and then work your way up to higher skill levels.

If I’m having trouble developing a strategy against a certain character or generally struggling with a match up, I get my ass on Youtube!! Open up youtube and use this search term: “Street fighter 6 insert your character name here vs insert other character name here. There are plenty of people who are eager to upload highlights of them bodying other characters that you can learn from. Also, CFN has this cool search feature in game where you can filter replays by character and league points. It’s super helpful and wish I had known about it sooner.

Study replays!

Capcom has done amazing with SF6’s replay cabilities. They implemented replay takeover which gives you the ability to watch a replay and takeover a character in any situation. I’ll constantly go to CFN (capcom fighter’s network) in the game and watch replays with both of the options “key display” and “frame data” turned on. Watching replays of your losses provided me a great basis for what I needed to work on. Unless you have 100% life at the end of the round, you always have something to work on.

“But Boomi, what am I supposed to be looking for in my a replays!?” I’m glad you asked! I’ll analyze my game by watching my replay in 2 phases. The first time I watch the replay, I’ll watch it full speed and without interruption/pauses to get a wholistic view of what’s going on in the match. Then I’ll watch it a 2nd time and target any specific details I could work on. The details I find most important and helpful in getting better is by using Frame Advantages’ approach. I’ll do what Tyrant and Packz recommend which is to answer these 3 questions when watching the replays:

  • How did I take damage?
  • How can I optimize my damage?
  • How did I get into the bad situation in the first place?

Step 5. FAT & Ultimate Frame Data

The holy bible of street fighter: FAT! (Frame Assistant Tool). This app is easy to use and has a lot of features beyond frame data including character combos, move lists, and statistics. Be sure to download the Frame Assistant Tool here.

Ultimate Frame Data is another tool that you should be familiar with when playing SF6. All moves in the game consist of hitboxes and hurtboxes. Get familiar with them and abuse the moves that have hitboxes that extend past the hurtboxes!

6. Find a favorite to learn from

Until we are winning premiere and major tournmanets there is always someone better than you and out-hussling you. Learn a lesson from them. I, myself, subscribe to a bunch of people and join their twitch streams/discord chats all the time. It’s good practice to view the ways of the world and get an outside perspective.

7. Muscle memory drills

Magnegro, One of the GOATS of Alabama FGC, is who I’m going to reference in this section. I chose to share an exerpt of his words because my sentiments are exactly the same when it comes to this but he’s done a way better job of articulating it. So here it goes:

One thing I’ve been trying to prioritize in my training as of late is more focused training and drills. I noticed there’s far too many times where I have suboptimal combos, miss punishes, execution errors, etc. So I’ve been trying to clean this up by setting up a training regimen that I try to do everyday. Of course, you won’t get to everything everyday, but you should at least try to do some things off your list each day you play.

Execution

This is a mixture of just doing your special moves on each side. 10 reps P1/P2 side. You can prioritize this as much as needed or hone in on more specific issues you run into. A general example would be:

  • Quarter circle forward 10x both sides
  • Quarter circle back 10x both sides
  • Dragon punch 10x both sides
  • Double QCF 10x both sides
  • Double QCF 10x both side

You can maybe do less of the drills from a neutral position if that’s not an issue for you (I just do them out of habit since it’s very easy and doesn’t take long) and focus on more specific drills if you run into quirks doing any of these motions at certain points while playing (doing QCF from walking forward, holding down back and doing QCF, crouching DPs on your weaker side, etc.).

You can also practice more niche execution things here like doing DP OS on drive rush cancels, reacting to DIs with super while in burnout while blocking, or instant drive rush. It’s really up to you, but just think of situations that come up where you feel like you have issues getting a specific input you need and trying to replicate that situation.

Hit Confirming

This can also be highly specific based on your character but at a minimum, you should be doing this:

  • Press your best drive rush cancel buttons
  • On hit, go into your optimal starter
  • On block, keep it a block string

Then there’s other layers beyond this for some characters. Maybe your button from drive rush cancel on block sets up another hit confirm string you can practice or when you drive rush cancel you button on hit you want to do a more optimal starter if your button counter hits or punish counters.

You can also use this to practice your single hit confirms. Some characters have heavy normals you can single hit confirm (usually 17f cancel window or higher).

Character Specific Training

This can include alot of things but I would focus on specific things against the character that give you issues.

  • Whiff punishing
  • Punishing reactable moves (Ken Dragon Lash, Honda Headbutt/Buttslam, Rashid HP Arabian Cyclone, etc.) This can be with DI or parry, whatever is more reliable for you.
  • Drills against knowledge checks. An example of this is Blanka alternating HP & LP Blanka ball. Stand at the range where LP blanka ball would whiff and punish and go for PP on HP Blanka ball. There’s more examples of this spread out through he game, so just keep these things in mind while playing.
  • Drive rush checking

Pair all these drills with time boxed Pomodoro technique and you’ll be optimal in no time.

8. Take notes/set goals

The way I take notes is on google docs. I’ll make notes of my performance at the end of the day so I can visually keep track of my progress/mistakes. It’s hard for me to reflect on specific details when they’re all in my head. I have to write it out or type it out whenever possible.

So taking notes and writing things down can help in setting goals. My goals in the beginning were things like consistenly land a punish combo. If I’m getting countered alot, stop pressing a button or doing the move and evaluate why I’m getting hit. Your goals will make you a stronger player when it’s time to perform against other folks. I enter into tournaments all the time to evaluate what I’ve been working on. Reddit hosts an online tournment every Monday. I do this as a measure of what I’ve been working on. Everyone is different though. Competition is not everything. It is just my ninja way.

9. Learn matchups in detail

With every level, there’s a different devil. This is step is where you figure out that the rabbit hole goes deep. I’d generally start with myself and my character. What attacks are plus on block? How does my hurtbox behave when throwing out a certain move? At what range does my character operate most effectively? Answering these questions will help you develop a sense of self-awareness on what you should and shouldn’t do.

I’ll go on down the list of opponenents I have faced and for each one try and figure out how my character can correctly respond with an opponents array of moves. The goal is to get to the point where you can automatically recognize what buttons you should rely on most and how you can use characters strengths to overcome the opponent. For instance, I recently learned more about the Ken Vs. JP matchup. Ken’s effective range is just outside of his stHK range because JP dominates with his stHP and OD ghost. So maintaining space and rotating all the options Ken has to bully an opponent at that range is best. It’d be different than someone like Akuma or even Jamie.

10. Accept responsibility

Accept responsibility and hold yourself accountable for your own decisions and actions. Don’t hesitate to ask questions all day. However, relying on the phrase “I haven’t learned that yet” or “No one told me about that” will only take a player so far. It’s best to approach the game with the philosphy of, “Play as if you are a master, but learn like you are a student.”