Hi everyone!
If you’ve followed me on Twitter, you know that I’ve been posting long reads about fighting games. They’ve ranged from how-to guides to strategy and philosophy. This column is a continuation of that.
I want to share my experiences with both new and intermediate players who might be stuck. If you read one of these and think, “Well, that was obvious,” then good! If you take something away from these articles, then that’s good too.
If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, feel free to ask me on Twitter. Previous articles in this series can be found here.
Fuzzy jumps are a defensive technique that has been making the rounds for the past couple of years. If you want a quick primer, I highly suggest watching BananaKen’s video on the topic. Not only does it describe how to perform fuzzy jumps in Street Fighter V, but it is a good visual reference for the timing, the inputs, and how to set up a training dummy to practice.
To be honest, the actual idea is quite old. However, after last weekend, it was once again brought to the forefront for players who aren’t that familiar with the concept. Let’s take a look at common questions regarding Fuzzy Jumps and see if we can’t answer them.
So what’s the idea here?
To review, the idea is to defend against attacks and throws, while minimizing the risk you take defending against both options. As explained by BananaKen, when you input db, ub LP+LK, db:
- If they attack, you block.
- If they throw, you tech.
- If they shimmy, you jump.
- If they command grab, you jump.
All around, it’s a powerful defensive technique. In the first place, if an opponent isn’t aware that you’re using this or doesn’t know how to counter it, you should be able to defend against the vast majority of their offensive options outright.
That being said, fuzzy jumps aren’t infallible. While it’s on the opponent to call you out, as explained in the aforementioned video, the opponent can delay an attack to catch you during jump startup. You’ll be considered airborne (thus, unable to block) while still on the ground, which means you can get punished. This changes the dynamic between the attacker and the defender:
- The opponent runs through the above options > You defend them all.
- The opponent delays their attack > You get hit.
- The opponent delays their attack > You read it and mash > You hit them.
- The opponent thinks you’re going to mash and uses their basic options again > You get hit.
Now, while delaying an attack is the universal way to catch this technique, it isn’t the only way, and it’s definitely worth exploring if there is a better way for your character to punish.
When do you do use this? I feel like if you do this repeatedly, you’ll get hit for free! It’s too strict/hard to do!
Of course you wouldn’t use this repeatedly. Like any other defensive technique (think crouch tech), you would want to time this when you feel like your opponent might try to throw you. There isn’t a certain amount of times you should be attempting this – instead, you should use it like a throw tech.
And, like anything else, it takes practice.
It’s getting patched out, so I don’t need to learn how to do it.
It’s not necessarily getting patched out–rather, it’s being slightly weakened.
Increasing jump startup by one frame makes it easier for the attacker to catch someone performing this technique on the ground. Not only that, it lets the attacker potentially catch a fuzzy jump attack with an attack that has a higher reward.
That said, it’s still a good idea to learn how fuzzy jumps works. Not only will you be able to recognize them when an opponent uses the technique against you, but you can identify when people use it in other games (if it exists). For example, fuzzy jumps are used by players in every current Arc System Works game, and even though the specifics differ slightly, the basic idea is the same.
If you have any further questions, leave them in the comments!
(Featured image c/o FGC: Rise of the Fighting Game Community)