Someone please help me understand oki in SF4

[u/fishwitharms1]

I'm coming from SF6 and fairly new to fighting games in general and I'm really struggling to correctly time meanies and continue pressure on my opponents wake up. I can't get the timing right and they often just beat me by mashing on wake up.

I've mostly been playing ken and I've tried searching online for 'sf4 ken oki/oki setups' and I haven't been able to find any useful information on it.

I feel like I'm missing something, so if anyone could at least point me in the right direction that would be greatly appreciated.

[u/joffocakes]

Opponents can choose to quick rise (which I think is the default Training dummy behaviour), get up at the normal speed or, for some knockdowns, delay their wakeup timing further.

This makes it tricker to have an oki sequence which covers all options.

A few other things make it tougher than the SF6 equivalent. There's no input buffer for links so trying to autotime a meaty attack by using dashes and whiffed normals to frame kill is more likely to leave gaps of a frame or two. There are normals with more active frames which make this more forgiving.

Another element which makes it trickier is thst some characters have frame-1, invulnerable reversals which do not cost meter to use. Plus, when blocked, some can FADC to make them relatively safe.

Crouch teching, similar to Delay Teching in SF6, does not cause a whiffed throw animation in USFIV. Instead the defending player will block meaties, tech throws and, if neither are offered, perform a less-risky crLK (they can even use a higher-priority normal if needed). They can often then chain/link into their own little combo and turn the tables. It's useful to frametrap opponents abusing it.

Oh, and backdashes in SFIV are invulnerable to throws AND strikes. Some characters abuse this more than others (Rose/Chun). Option selects using chained light attacks with slower, longer reaching normals can catch these antics.

There's probably more things and I might be misremembering some.

[u/Potato_fortress → u/joffocakes]

Oh, and backdashes in SFIV are invulnerable to throws AND strikes. Some characters abuse this more than others (Rose/Chun). Option selects using chained light attacks with slower, longer reaching normals can catch these antics.

Seth also has a kind of strange one for this. Honorary mention to oiled Hakan.

To expand upon the latter half of the statement a basic option select is 2lp, 2lp, 2lp+2hk. If your opponent blocks you'll begin to chain crouching light punches. If they backdash the 2lp+2hk (input at the same time) will OS to a sweep and catch most characters.

[u/d7h7n → u/Potato_fortress]

You don't need that middle cr.jab, just cr.jab then cr.jab+cr.sweep.

For characters with fast and/or long backdashes you can OS step kick with Ken with cr.jab, st.short/jab + f.medium.

[u/CeruSkies]

Usually we're all "it's much harder on old games" but actually I don't think this is any different than in SF6.

I walk forward and manually time things all the time. Maybe you're trying to meaty after knockdowns that get you no oki.

'sf4 ken oki/oki setups' and I haven't been able to find any useful information on it.

Find a good ken and copy what they are doing. There should be quite a bit of momochi videos on youtube. With that said, USF4 oki/meaty tech had a loooot of "whiff something, do a small step forward, jump and hit a button at the exact same time"

Example: Momochi post-throw did this https://youtu.be/3UaXhe_XPsU?t=650

There's also a setup post back throw in the corner at 12:43. I'm sure there are many more instances/videos like this one around youtube

[u/LoudButtons]

Things are a lot less streamlined in SF4 (and a lot of older games tbh). The training mode features are also less robust so it's harder to find frame kill setups and sequences that guarantee oki. I would suggest looking up the frame data for your character and finding their moves with the most active frames and block advantage. For instance Ken's 2MP has 5 active frames and is plus 1 on block, making it a very good meaty tool.

If you really want to get into the weeds you should see how much knockdown advantage you get from common combo enders like HP shoryu or from throws, and then you can make up your own frame kills from dashes and button presses.

Best advice I have really is looking up the best players for a the character you want to play and see what they do after they get a knockdown, and try to understand why. For Ken Momochi is #1

A lot of it just comes down to practice. I wish I had more technical knowledge to give you but I never really played Ken

[u/galaxyboy1]

There are no meaties that beat mashing DP on wake-up in SF4. On top of that, your opponent can mix up their wake-up timing unless you land a sweep/hard knockdown.

[u/counters14 → u/galaxyboy1]

They can still delay wakeup after hard knockdown. And playing around dp is a part of the oki as well, you're right that there are invulnerable dps but choosing to apply meaty pressure or bait is part of the wakeup game that you play against characters with wakeup reversals.

[u/jazzmercenary]

A lot of people have already given very good advice, so I’ll just throw in something simple that I tell all new players:
The oki game revolves around crouch throw tech, which is just cr. lp + lk. This will option select to either a cr. lk or counter their throw attempt.

Practice the throw tech with a training mode dummy set to either throw or tick throw, and practice crouch teaching on defense.

From there, you can practice using the crouch tech on offense