Mobility
One of the most important things to get used to as Chaka is his mobility.
In stand on, Chaka's mobility is fairly unremarkable. He's more agile than much of the cast, but his options are fairly standard. In stand off, however, Chaka gains access to one of the most powerful movement tools in the game: his hyper hop. The hyper hop is performed by tapping either 1, 2, or 3, and then transitioning to 9 to do a jump. The only caveat with this is that you can only tap 9, not hold it. It is ridiculously fast, and will allow you to stay on top of your opponents very frequently.
The second notable mobility option he gains access to in stand off is his super jump. It is performed in the same way as his hyper hop, but instead of tapping 9, you need to hold it for a tad longer. This jump does not lead into immediate pressure in the same way his hyper hop does, but it covers a vast amount of distance. Against characters that want to keep you out, such as Hol Horse or Mariah, a stand off super jump can bridge the gap between you and them very effectively.
Stand On and Stand Off
Chaka's Stand on and Stand off mode vary greatly in their utility, so it's important to know at all times when you should be using each and how to switch from one mode to another.
As for going Stand Off, while it is true you can just press S, it can take an unnecessary amount of time to complete. To circumvent that, Chaka has 2 main options: the first one is to simply go Stand Off in the air. Not only is it safer that turning your stand off while staying on the ground, you can also space out your opponent afterwards with a j. c. In addition, Chaka's backwards mobility is greater in Stand On, so should the situation require it, you could super jump or hyper hop away from the opponent to create a large enough distance in between for you to go Stand Off safely; the other option is to hold down and press S so that the crouch animation overrides the sheathing, effectively giving you an instananeous Stand Off.
Like every other active/weapon stand character, Chaka can cancel his Stand On sheathing animation with pretty much anything, even just walking. That being said, for some links, such as the S+5A in the chain combo after the Custom Combo, you need to press both S and 5A at the same time so that the attack comes as fast as possible and you're able to link it. From Stand Off, Chaka can also go Stand On with 236+S, which also happens to be one of his best grounded pokes.
Anti-Air
While Chaka doesn't have the best anti-air options, it's still good to know what tools he has at his disposal, since he can still get the job done:
s.5B: hits high enough for it to connect reliably. Can also be cancelled into 623+A/B/C.
236S: one of Chaka's best anti airs due to how disjointed the hitbox is. The downside is that it's particularly bad against really vertical jumps or opponents right on top of you as it extends way further horizontally rather than vertically. On hit it can be cancelled into 623+A/B/C for extra damage.
2C: a bit situational since due to its short range (the animation is very deceptive in that regard) it only really works to block incoming hops, but it's a good tool for that situation. It can lead to a quick 236+S into 623+A/B/C for quick damage or to a fast J.C. which also does decent damage and can lead into a tech chase after.
5A: hits fast and has a surprisingly beefy hitbox, can be comboed into 236+S and 623+A/B/C from there.
s.6A: can be linked into s.5B on hit and then cancelled into 623+A/B/C.
236+AA: since this super is air unblockable, it can work well against jump happy people or generally players who approach too recklessly. Be extra careful while using this super though, since while it does a hefty ammount of damage if you connect, the recovery lag is so big that if you whiff it or the opponent blocks it, you're most likely going to eat a humongous punish.
Additionally, Chaka has a couple of moves that, while not air unblockable and thus not actual anti airs, can still function surprisingly well as such. These are:
J.C: while it's truest as an air-to-air, a quick rising J.C. can still work as an anti air in catching an opponent jumping too close to you, and beating his button out.
S.236+AA: similar in concept to J.C. in that it requires the opponent to press a button, but in this case the effective range is much larger, as well as it being a much faster option too, and the i-frames will also ensure you catch their unsafe jump-in if you react fast enough.
Spacing and approaching
While Chaka most definetely doesn't have the best damage output in the game, he has various tools which help him have a very strong neutral game, where he excels at. While Chaka might seem like a very rushdown character at first, he doesn't quite play like one. Instead, he focuses on punishing the opponent mistakes and creating openings with his strong options in neutral (which will be discused later) so that when he gets in he can be an overwhelming presence to the opponent. As far as spacing goes, his J.C is straight out one the best air-to-air moves in the game, it can be used as a great aerial spacing tool, although it needs to be done correctly, since the attack slightly extends his hurtbox as well so you might trade unfavourably against other high priority moves. While on the ground one of his best poking tool is his 236+S, it comes out decently fast and can be cancelled into from any of his stand off normals, allowing those to be safer as well. It has high priority as well due to how disjointed the hitbox is, so if timed appropriately it can beat out a lot of options. Almost all of his stand off normals can be used as good poking tools when cancelled into 236+S For approaches, as mentioned in the Mobility Section, his stand off hyper hop is great for applying pressure. Since your air momentum transfers over from stand off to stand on, you can hyper hop in stand off and go into s.J.C mid air, it's a reliable hitconfirm that leads into every of his main combo strings stated in the Combo Section. Additionally, hyper hop is when 8c is best used, as you'll be as close to the ground as possible and won't miss on grounded opponents. J.C can even act as a combo starter for some of his stand off strings, which can then lead into the Custom Combo. While his air game is definetely strong, Chaka also has good ground approaches. Dashing s.5C is a good combo starter for the rekka, s.236+AA or 214+S and it travels a good distance as well. You need to be careful when doing this move as it can be punished on block if you get pushblocked after the first hit, since you'll be left wide open while you're finishing the second one. Dashing s.2C can also be a good option due to how much distance it travels and how relatively fast it is. Against stand on opponents you can get a 623+A/B/C or 236+AA followup while on stand off opponents you'll get a hard knockdown. Finally for his stand on attacks, dashing s.2A comes out really fast and it can be a great pressure tool. While not the best setup for it, you can also use it for tick grabs. Not especially useful since you won't get much out of Chaka's grab and you can easily get punished if you misspace it, but the option is there. As for stand off, he has some great tools as well, and all of them can be cancelled into 236+S or, more importantly, the Custom Combo. 5B, and especially dashing 5B, can be used as a fast, long reaching poke, with the added utility of hitting low. Dashing 5C has a lot of range as well, so it can be a good tool to catch your opponent off guard and confirm into a Custom Combo from there. Lastly, even if the range is deceptively low, 2C could be decent too if timed correctly, since you can get an easy Custom Combo confirm out of it, as well as 5A into a linger string, although the timing for that is a lot more strict.
Rapid-fire 236S
236S is a great tool for spacing, but not conventionally the most spammable tool by itself. However, there is a way to basically stand still and abuse it. 2S is great, as we already know for allowing Chaka to turn stand off and not get hit by an attack during the sword sheathing animation. However, this animation can actually be cancelled by a special move. Press S to enter this animation, then either hold S to negative edge and do 236 and release or press the S button again. Rinse and repeat and you have rapid-fire 236S. Not the best spammy antiair in the game, but still abuses your best poke. Combine with DP on antiair to pop them straight up for a chase.
Anubis Counter (s.214+A/B/C)
As mentioned in the moves section, Chaka's counter, as well as with the other two anubis characters, lets him "learn" the move that he counters, meaning next time he blocks it (only in s.on), he can act out of the block with an attack and get a free punish from it, something that has been popularly coined as Anubis Guard Cancel, or AGC for short. Of course, this isn't really a tool you should be using mindlessly in neutral, as it can be easily baited once you start becoming predictable and it's incredibly easy to punish due to its long recovery animation. That being said, if used smartly it can be a very dangerous tool against your opponent, as well as being able to almost shut down some of the cast and tip the matchup heavily in your favour if you counter one of their essential moves, such as DIO's 2a or Rubber Soul's j.a. Finally, Chaka's counter can be used to make his rekka "safe" on block on very sparce situations. If you notice the opponent is acting out of blocking your 2nd rekka hit with an attack and punishing you, you could use the counter right after the second hit, so that you would counter their punish attempt. Keep in mind this can obviously backfire horribly and will only really work once you've learned your opponent (and probably will work only once), but could still work as a surprise option.
Okizeme
Despite probably not being the first character that comes to mind when you think about strong oki (those would likely be characters like Jotaro, Vanilla Ice, Hol Horse, etc.), Chaka actually has a surprisingly strong array of options available to him that, when performed in conjunction, can make it really frightening to get knocked down against him.
Chaka has various ways of getting a knockdown, but the most common knockdowns are from rekka C launcher, s.2C, your untechable launcher, and s.236AA. These will be referred as his starters during this section for simplicity’s sake. Out of these starters, s.2C is by far the most consistent that gives you the most time to act after landing the knockdown, though it's always your perogative to opt for damage vs oki.
Sidenote, when it comes to doing okizeme with s.2C, Rubber Soul and Mariah retain their collision boxes, making crossups more difficult. However, Rubber's wakeup is too fast to ever cross up anyway.
Additionally, Chaka’s okizeme functions in 2 distinct ways: the first one would be a combination of hard to react high/low mixups, and the other one involves ambiguous landings to cause (or not) sideswitching and make it harder for the opponent to know which way he needs to block towards.
Chaka’s oki options are basically fundamental ones available to pretty much every character (as opposed to specific ones like Jotaro’s Star Finger oki), but they especially apply to Chaka due to his mobility. Keep in mind that almost all of his oki options are escapable by properly fuzzy blocking (switching to blocking high/low) and/or reacting to which side he lands on. That being said, humans are not machines, and some of the mixups can still be really hard to react to.
As for what options you’d probably want to consider once you manage to score a knockdown:
- Meaty low: arguably the most basic form of okizeme, it consists of hitting the opponent the moment they’ve fully waken up to catch possible mashing attempts. Your best moves to do that will usually be 2A/5B due to how meaty they are. Both require a quick 2S to flick into stand off. 5B is more of a beginner option, for a confirm into 236/214S, but 2A can be crouch cancelled, allowing you to actually combo into 5B on meaty, as well as 5C for extra damage. You can also plink S+5A to either score a custom combo, or set up a 5 hit untechable knockdown, which is by far your best oki advantage (more on that later). s.2A is arguably less consistent, but easier since it's 4 button presses into another knockdown, another beginner option to get back into oki as it doesn't require a switch back into stand off, but can actually force a left/right mix on some characters with a hop beforehand off s.2C.
- s.j.C: Incredibly straightforward, and even the threat of this button will make people block high, so don't overuse it. To succeed in landing s.j.C, you'll have to get creative with how you approach your downed opponent. Hopping right at them will sometimes work, but you can also turn stand off with 2S, walk up, then hop (tap 8) S+j.C to fake walk up low. In fact, if you can intentionally whiff 2A before, then that's even better, but do note you will have to crouch cancel 2A, and you probably are not hitting meaty.
- S.off empty hop low: same as above except you don’t perform any action mid-air and instead wait until you’ve landed to perform a low. Thrives once you’ve managed to make the opponent respect your overhead, so they get tricked into blocking high. 2A and s.2A work best here.
- Ambiguous Landing: the principle behind this is that, after a knockdown (from s.2C, 5 hit untechable or s.236AA (only with enough advantage) since they make you end a bit far away from the opponent), you jump towards your opponent and try to make it as vague as possible whether you’ll be landing in front of or behind them, since they’ll need to react accordingly to properly block the right way. This is the one time where the floaty s.on jumps work in your favour, since they make it really awkward for your opponent to figure out where you’ll land. You can also use the quickness of your s.off hyperhop to give them as little time as possible to react. Use this one for characters whose wakeup speeds are a bit faster for a stand on hop, and oki with 2A. Besides the threat itself of the sideswitch, you can (and should whenever possible) pair it up with any high/low mixup to mess with your opponent even further.
- Rekka oki: Mostly a gimmick but a very simple high low mixup. You knockdown with s.2c and cancel into rekka, you then use either the third rekka variation of A for low or B for a overhead. The low is very minus on block tho and the overhead can be easily reacted to and punished so you need to make sure your opponent is respecting you. Combo into s.5a from low and pretty much whatever you want from the overhead. Just make sure you can get it back into a knockdown.
- Empty hop grab: Good way to mixup your opponent's defense if they're very good at blocking your mixups. The opponent can just mash or reversal on wakeup very easily though. You can mix with a 2A/s.2A whiff to bait a roll or continued block, or do a tick grab with this stuff. 2A is better than s.2A due to it being crouch cancellable.
5 hit untechable oki
By far your strongest oki setup, this stems from the 4 hits required to fire off your untechable launcher plus a starter, typically s.j.C or 2A. From here, on most characters, you're pretty much able to whatever you want. Left-right, high-low, even crossup overhead is possible on some characters. Do note that some characters with fast enough wakeup speeds, such as Avdol and Rubber Soul cannot be mixed left-right.
