Grooves & Groove specific strategy
C-Groove Level 2 Cancel Combos
Iori uses level 2 cancels pretty well. After his maiden masher is complete, Iori can cancel into any of his specials. The foremost being his Dragon Punch. Since maiden masher at level 3 only does 5000 damage, The cancels give Iori a much better damage/meter ratio, and allows him to use a meter for defensive purposes or be ready for another level 2 in a very short time.
Since Maiden masher is so easy to combo into, you'll get a lot of opportunities to land this.
Level 2 Maiden Masher
Cancel into
-Level 1 Maiden Masher (most damage, no tech roll)
-Fierce DP (1000 less damage, saves a level and 20 more stun) -Jab/Strong DP (even less damage, more time to setup or punish tech roll) -Level 1 wine cups, then Jump HP, HP, HP DP (Full combo can instant stun characters, cancel maiden masher early if combo will stun for more damage on post dizzy combo)
Anti C-Groove
N-Iori Vs C-Groove
The popularity of C-Groove has really shot up as of late. Fortunately for Iori, most of C-Groove's bonuses and tendencies aren't really much of a bother for him.
- Air Blocking:
While slightly annoying, still not a really big deal for Iori, since the only move you're likely to have air-blocked is your jumping/low jump roundhouse. Each air-blocked jumping roundhouse does a fat chunk of guard bar and pushes your opponent towards the corner, so everything's peachy in the end.
Adjustments Needed: None
- Frequent Alpha Counters:
This is the real annoyance. Spend the whole round jockeying for position, finally get in, then BAM. You're back out again at the press of two buttons AND took 600 damage. 10 seconds later, your opponent has another level 1 ready.
Adjustments Needed:
1) Bait the alpha counter - Not in a Alpha 2 sense where you draw out the alpha counter and uppercut it (though that's certainly a viable solution if you can do it), but getting them to input the Alpha Counter command without blocking anything. Why is that good? Well, for a lot of characters, it isn't. But against certain characters like Sagat, Rolento, Chun Li and Ryu, it is.
When your opponent hits f+strong and forward without blocking anything, the game automatically recognizes the command as simply f+forward. When Sagat does that he gets standing forward, a REALLY laggy move. Rolento gets his ground pogo move, which is very vulnerable but is also an air-based move. Do an uppercut or Running Grab to punish that. Chun Li gets her f+forward step kick, which Iori can crouch under and punish. Likewise for Ryu, who gets his hop kick.
2) Alpha Counter the Alpha Counter - There's a large number of slow Alpha Counters that are often blocked, but still safe like Rolento's, Bison's, Blanka's etc. Even though you didn't get hit by the Alpha Counter, you're still pushed out of that point blank range you worked so hard to get into. By Alpha Countering their Alpha Counter, you not only regain the momentum and get a free mix up, your opponent is almost always near guard crush also having just lost a large chunk of their own guard bar by Alpha Countering.
- Level 2's/Holding on to the super:
This is pretty annoying also, since once your opponent gets to level 2 you usually have to fight a lot less agressively. Fortunately, since Iori is best used as a leadoff character you usually have about half the round to get buck wild on your opponent before you have to slow it down.
Adjustments Needed:
1) Slow down - Don't take any unnecessary risks to get in, as a level 2 will often hurt just as much, if not more than a level 3. Lean on standing roundhouse and RC rekkas more and focus on pushing your opponent to the corner. When the opportunity arises (usually opponent wake up) try baiting the super with an RC rekka. Also, crossing up a downed opponent with a roll and attacking afterwards is still basically safe except charge supers (which CvS2 will always steer in the right direction for no apparent reason) since you mess up your opponent's inputs by switching sides.
- Faster Jumps:
All low jump grooves take longer to leave the ground as the game gives them extra leeway (sp?) for inputting the low jump command. C and A grooves leave the ground in two frames, with Honda, Zangief and Raiden being the exceptions. Their jumps have a five frame start up to facilitate their 360 motions. All low jump grooves take 6 frames to jump.
Adjustments Needed:
1) Speed up your jab/short mix-ups: You suspect your opponent thinks you're going for a jab into Scum Gale tick, so you do jab, wait, jab jab. If you don't do it fast enough, your opponent sometimes will be able to jump in between. However, you can easily hit them out of the air with a close fierce/roundhouse on reaction but that's not nearly as much damage as the successful mix up would have got you, not to mention the knockdown.
2) Go for cross up b+shorts less: If you knock your a C-Groove opponent down and do a normal super jump b+short cross up your opponent will be able to jump and air-block it. From there he gets to land safely and the match is resetted. Go for roll cross ups instead.
- Roll Cancels:
The one thing that 99% of America doesn't know how to fight against. Counters to different Roll Cancels sometimes differ per character, but most the most common counters are listed below.
Adjustments Needed:
1) Roll on reaction: Self explanatory, and works against the vast majority of Roll Cancel moves in the game. Again, Iori's excellent roll suits this purpose real well. The most common RC moves that get countered by rolls are Sakura's hurricane kick, Sakura's fireball, Iori's own rekkas, any fireball, Chun Li's Spinning Bird Kick (which Iori can crouch anyway), E.Honda's slaps, Yamazaki's arm whips, and Vega's rolling claw.
2) Jump up/back: Counters almost any Roll Cancel that rolling won't. Also, randomly jumping up and down is pretty safe against most characters. Problem is, it's really hard to jump over a RC move on reaction; it HAS to be done either in anticipation or randomly. Jumping up/back counters prominent moves such as Chun Li's lightning legs, Blanka's electricity (as long as he doesn't keep mashing), Rolento's patriot circles, Rock's elbow, and Yun's rush punch thingie.
3) Throw it: This mainly applies to opponents who wake up with Roll Cancel moves way more often then they should. It's also the best counter to Blanka's dreaded RC electricity. When an opponent knocks you down and you anticipate an RC grab as you're getting up, the best solution by far is to pre-emptively throw your opponent.
4) Counter Roll: this only applies to a handful of moves, but when it does work it's a major advantage for Iori. A few RC moves that can be punished with a counter roll: Most fireballs (if blocked somewhat close), Vega's rolling claw, etc
Ground Customs
Anti-Air Customs
Blocked Customs
Other Customs
Anti A-Groove
N-Iori vs A-Groove
A-Groove is a pain to fight, but that's more because every A-Groove team has Bison on it than anything else. The groove-specific things aren't too much to worry about.
- Random Customs:
Even the best A-Groove players do it from time to time. Here are the most common scenarios:
-Roll into custom: You really shouldn't get hit by this unless your opponent rolled through one of your RC rekkas. Practice punishing those rolls!
-"Anti-air" custom: By "anti-air" I mean customs that start with low forward and hope that their opponent disabled their trip guard in the air by sticking out a move. People who do this are easily baited by empty jumps, or even better, empty LOW jumps.
-Dash into custom: This one can be pretty scary since your opponent can easily mix it up with dash into throw. My advice would be either to take the throws and wait for him to eventually mix it up with dash into custom, or jump straight up if you have fast enough reflexes. Be careful though, if you jump too late your opponent can still activate and low forward you during your "takeoff" animation.
-Jump behind you, custom: This one gets me more than I care to admit. I'm always mashing on those low shorts when somebody misses their cross up distance on me. Bleh. If you predict your opponent doing this, immediately jump over him as he's about to land. You can often get a free b+short cross up into a fat combo if he activates. If he doesn't, you probably still got him to block the cross up and established the point blank range.
-Jump at you, custom: Designed to bait people into trying to uppercut their jump, this is another one I fall for a lot more than i should. I love my uppercuts! Anyway, if your opponent has a custom ready, NEVER anti-air them from the ground. Either go for air-to-airs or stay out of the jump in's range and make them block something when they land.
-Walk up, custom: The simplest one, yet most effective. For some reason, this set-up never really caught on in America. It's a huge footsie tool for A-Groove players, as they can mix it up with walk-up throws or walk up and do guard crush patterns.
-Wake up, custom: Simple enough, just do your RC rekka as they get up later than usual and you'l counter the CC activation clean.
Adjustments Needed: All listed above.
- Roll Cancels:
See C-Groove.
- Faster Jumps:
See C-Groove.
If you're a P-groove player before anything else, Iori is a great fit on a P-Groove team. He's:
- all around solid, doesn't *NEED* parry offensively or defensively
- great B&B damage without meter to capitalize off successful parries
- decent low jump game
- good option select parry/throw tech button (stand fierce)
- really great parry bait. Blocked rekka is -5, but you can parry to make it -4. Also spaced properly, no high only parry should be able to hit you there.
The only downside is that Iori doesn't utilize a full meter well, it doesn't do a whole lot of damage, and he can't land it off big pokes like Cammy or Sagat.
However, If you're an Iori player first and foremost, P-Groove does not have roll, and subsequently, Roll Cancel. You're going to want to look elsewhere.
- CvS2 EO Update* In CvS2 EO (or EX Grooves on console versions), Iori can do all three rekkas and cancel into Maiden Masher. This is obviously stupid, but also incredible.
Anti P-Groove
N-Iori vs P-Groove
I have VERY little experience against P Groove as there isn't a single P-Groove specialist in my area. Most of the following is pure theory-fighter but it makes pretty good sense in my head. -_-
- Wake-up Parries:
Self explantory.
Adjustments Needed:
1) This is a guessing game that's totally in your favor. Just mix up standing jab (which has to be parried high) with low shorts and Scum Gales. Grabbing a P-Groove opponent as he's getting up works especially well, since most P-Players that I've seen can't resist going for a parry of some sort. Also, I'd recommend doing standing jab more often then low short since players tend to try to parry down a lot more often than parrying forward.
- Jump-in Parries:
We've all seen this a million times...empty jump in, try to parry something, mash on throw when you land. Fortunately for Iori, throws aren't instant in this game like they are in Third Strike so you can actually make them block something when they land without getting thrown.
Adjustments Needed:
1) Run under them: One of the things that makes me happy that I still play this antiquated groove, running under your opponent and hitting them out of the air from behind is by far the best option. It's parryable, but your opponent has to parry the other way and I have yet to see somebody do that yet. Also, even if the move is parried your opponent is still facing the wrong direction and usually cannot punish you.
2) Wait until the last second, mix-up when they land: If you don't have time to run under your opponent this is the next best option. Block high until your opponent is so close to the ground they can't possibly stick out a move before reaching the ground, then commit to standing jab/low short/Scum Gale mix up. If you want to Scum Gale your opponent immediately when he lands without getting grabbed yourself you'll have to do the grab when the opponent is a little in the air. Standing jab is the most consistent option, since by jumping in and blocking your jab your opponent is pretty much voluntarily giving you a free mix up.
The weakness to this strategy is if your opponent actually did a jumping attack you'll have to block it and deal with whatever guard crush string or mix up he does next.
3) Test your opponent's parrying skills: I would almost never recommend doing this, but most of us just can't resist. Including me. :P Rather the usual jab into uppercut or air-to-air attacks that I'm sure any good P-Player is used to, I'd recommend low fierce at the tip (which is a good anti-air anyway) into jab uppercut. The parry timing for the uppercut is a lot slower than it looks so it should catch your opponent at least the first two or three times you try it.
4) Roll!: Yes, it's a pretty easy solution, but it's pretty much 100% safe. After rolling you can immediately jump and go for a b+short cross up (watch out for parries!) or just play normally until your opponent jumps again. Hopefully you'll be able to run under it and counter it.
- Ground Parries:
Besides jumping up and down, ground parries are P-Groove's only defense against Iori's RC rekkas. Since it's really hard to parry RC rekkas on reaction, P-players will probably be looking for the only real "set-up" for an RC rekka: ... a blocked RC rekka. Besides that, the other main instance a P-Groove player goes for a ground parry is after he whiffs a move.
Adjustments Needed:
1) Mix it up: while this should go without saying, mixing up your moves and timing is the best way to throw off ground parries. For example, your opponent blocks an RC rekka and is expecting another one. You can do a whole bunch of things that would never work against any other groove (other than K) like run up and grab afterwards, sweep, roll, etc. Take advantage of the fact that both Iori's run and roll look similar to his rekkas.
2) After a whiffed move: Ideally you should be able to punish the whiff every time with a low roundhouse or something, but not all of us are fast enough to able to do that every single time. Just mixing up standing/low roundhouse after a whiffed move works well enough, and it's also a good opportunity to low jump roundhouse in since they usually aren't looking for it.
- Low Jumps:
Definitely something to get used to... but for the most part easily dealt with after some practice.
Adjustments Needed:
1) Actively look for low jumps: While some people have fast enough reflexes to be able to easily uppercut low jumps on reaction, most of the time I'm not one of them. However, once you've trained yourself to fight on the ground without having to think about it much, you can actively look for low jumps to uppercut without hurting your overall gameplay too much. The good part is, Iori's uppercut has a lot of horizontal range so the low jump attack/empty low jump mix ups are a little less effective on him.
Some days your reflexes are exceptionally slow... you can be looking for nothing but low jumps and STILL not be able to uppercut them on time. In this case I would recommend hitting standing roundhouse a lot more than normal if your opponent can't crouch it. If they do happen to randomly low jump it'll probably get stopped by your boot. This also applies to low jumps that are usually just too fast to hit on reaction like Blanka's, Vega's and Mai's.
If you're having a bad reflex day AND your opponent can crouch your standing roundhouse, I would recommend going all out and trying to attack them instead. Rather than unsuccessfully trying to anti-air low jumps and taking hits, put your life bar to better use by sacrificing it trying to get in and score a knockdown. You're much more likely to win that way.
Anti S-Groove
Anti N-Groove
Anti K-Groove
