Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike/Chun-Li/Strategy

Strategies

Overview

Chun-Li is a top-tier character, sharing the top slots with Yun, Ken and (arguably) Makoto. Her greatest assets are her extremely damaging Super Art (Houyoku-Sen), extreme range of her kara-throw, her fast dash, and fast/high-priority normal moves. She has the capabilities to rush other characters down using her quick dash and faster moves such as s.LP, c.LP and close HK, as well as adding her throw to the mix and fear of Houyoku-Sen super which can be cancelled off of plethora of moves. However, she is often played as a reactive character; one that reacts to an enemy rather than trying to pressure them with a rushdown. As such, she makes an excellent turtle. She also has an extremely short hitbox while crouching, allowing her to duck an enormous number of moves that would normally hit.

Her main weaknesses are that she has no damaging combos that she can perform when she has no meter, and in some cases lacks a definitive anti-air such as a typical DP maneuver. Her assortment of high-priority normals and quick dash, however, can be used as anti-air devices with a great deal of success. Also, she lacks a fast overhead; both the universal overhead and flip kick are fairly slow and easy to block on reaction. She does, however, have an extremely long kara-universal overhead which can compensate for the lack of speed. Finally, she has a large falling/juggling hitbox, which means she's more prone to eating high-damage combos than a lot of characters (for example, Ken can do strong, fierce, jab uppercut x2 in the corner on her fairly easily, without a kara or strict timing at all.)

Basics

Chun-Li can dominate a match with simply her normals and throws alone, but much of her strategy stems from having at least one stock of the Houyoku-Sen super ready and available. It can easily be hitconfirmed off of a c.MK and b + HP, which are two of her most commonly used moves for poking, punishing, and during mixup.

Having a Houyoku-Sen stock can drastically change the flow of the match. Its damage is very high, and the last kick can be cancelled into a superjump, offering an array of different resets or simple extra-damage knockdowns that can set Chun-Li up for more mixups. Landing the Houyoku-Sen is not always necessary to take control of the match; the fear incited from being hit by the Houyoku-Sen is usually enough to turn the tide in your favor.

back + FP is good for building meter when you're a safe distance away
st.MP is good for building meter from closer or if you feel back + FP might be risky

cr.MK is a good poke
cr.MP is good every once in a while if your opponent thinks he's safely out of cr.MK range
FP is good, don't do it from stupidly close
far FK goes over low pokes and links into SAII on crouching opponents (buffer the super, piano the kicks when you land)
cr. FK beats a lot of stuff and it's a high parry that knocks down
back + FP beats a lot of stuff and cancels into super. Throw it out to beat pokes, buffer the super and if it connects with something, hit kick
up close, FK super jump cancels into super as well

back + MP, back + FP + FK (mash on FK for lightning legs if parried) and MK are decent anti-airs. neutral jump FK is a very good anti-air if you can pre-empt jumps well

up close, Chun-Li's main mix-up is ticking with cr.LP (which comes out lightning fast) or cr.LK (slightly slower but has to be parried low) then kara-throwing or throwing out cr.MK for hit confirm

And yeah, Chun players do that tapping down thing after a knockdown to throw other player off what they're going to do. I don't do that myself but like to walk backwards and forwards slightly, tap down, then kara-throw. Just learn how to disguise your patterns and mix-up your play.

Tick with cr.LP, walk up slightly so it looks like you're going for plain old vanilla throw, then cr.MK. Tap down, then go for cr.MK. Just do whatever. You'll develop your own tricks and techniques over time. Everyone reacts differently. Some Ken players like to SRK right after you do cr.LP or cr.LK for example, so cr.LK, then blocking is another idea, just to see how they react. Of course, you can also use the delay while blocking to try and fish for another cr.MK.

EX SBK is her best wake-up option if you're going to be aggressive

EX fireball xx SAII is good for chip damage KO

SA2

Moves that can be cancelled or linked into SA2:

• c.MK
  
• c.LP
  
• s.MP
• b + MP (first or second hit)
  
• b.HP
  
• c.HP
  
• close HK (must be super-jump cancelled)
  
• F + HK (only on crouching opponents)
  
• DF + HK
  
• Kikouken
  
• EX Kikouken
  

Common Houyoku-Sen enders (Super Jump Cancel the final hit) include:

• sj.HP, HP (Target Combo, Resets)
• sj.HP (First hit only, Resets)
• sj.HP, HP (First hit whiffs, second connects, Resets)
• sj.MP (Resets)
• sj.d+MK, d+MK (Character-Specific, Knockdown)
• sj.d+MK, MP/HP/MK/LK (Character-Specific, Resets)
• sj.HK (Knockdown)
  

Kara-Techniques

Chun-Li has two useful kara-throws available to her:

• MK
• close HK

A kara-throw is executed by inputting the correct attack (in this case, either MK or close HK) and cancelling the first frame into a throw. For example:

Execute the MK kara-throw by pressing the MK button and immediately pressing LP + LK. You will see Chun-Li move forward as she executes the throw, which will drastically improve the range of your throw and strengthen your game.

Her best kara-throw is her standing MK. It is tied with Q for the farthest reaching kara-throw. Her close HK kara-throw has a few uses against certain characters such as Dudley, whose hitbox can be deceiving, making the s.MK karathrow fail, and having the close MK technique execute instead.

Mixups

Chun is not much of a mixup character (outside of post-SA2 situations) and relies more on her incredible kara-throw range for strike/throw offense, as well as just shutting down her opponents with her strong neutral options. See above for various tick throw examples

Additional Notes

• Personal Action: Recovers stun meter (when she yawns) and either Attack up (when she cracks her neck), Defense up (when she pats her shoulders), or both (when she arches forward). Note: Her taunt actions are completely random.

Buffering/Partitioning Hyakuretsu Kyaku (Lightning Legs)

Cancelling normals into Hyakuretsu Kyaku (from now on, referred to as simply 'Lightning Legs') is a great way to make an opponent think twice about punishing certain moves, and is also used to make b + HP a much more powerful anti-air, as the opponent will not only need to parry the b + HP, but also several kicks as they descend.

There are few ways to improve buffering Lightning Legs other than improving your own manual dexterity, but here are a few helpful hints:

• Double-tap each of your buttons (drum two or three fingers each time you go to press the appropriate button -- easier on Japanese-style buttons which are more sensitive in activation).
• Press the appropriate kick button in addition to the normal move you are trying to cancel. For example, if you wanted to cancel a s.MP into HK lightning legs, press MP~HK, then continually double-tap the HK key as fast as you can.

Lightning Legs can also be partitioned. That is, the button inputs for the technique can be stored through dashing. The most simple way to see and perform this is to dash continuously, pressing a single kick button as many times as possible while the dash animation occurs, then to stop dashing and press the kick button again. If done correctly, the lightning legs move will be performed.

This is useful in matches when you need to 'hide' the button inputs. If a player sees one or two standing shorts or repeated presses of the same kick button, they may interpret this as preparation for the move and adjust their gameplay accordingly. By masking the inputs in the dashes, you can spring the technique on your opponent more covertly. This is especially useful during air resets, since the lightning legs technique is a very good way of obtaining chip damage.