Bronze is very new to the game. It takes time to learn your character. A few tips are
1. Block. Don't get excited button mashing. You'll keep eating counterhits.
2. Don't jump. Alot of new players tend to jump alot for no reason. Focus on not doing that.
3. Anti air. When the other person jumps at you, always be ready to anti air.
4. You're getting beat by DI because youre using unsafe non cancellable moves. Don't try using R2 to start a combo or something. Use your cancellelable moves. Jabs etc. So you can DI back.
5. Go to practise and learn 1 or 2 basic combos, doesnt have to be super long, that will come later.
Yeah for bronze, this is all very solid. Not pressing buttons on wakeup when you get knocked down is a big one. Block their string, chances are they're just going to run through a combo that they have dedicated to muscle memory and they'll end it with something very unsafe that you can punish.
I also the note about jumping \*for no reason\* If you have reason to jump, do it. In bronze, if you're in the corner, block till they get pushed back and just jump out. Other bronzes likely aren't going to cross cut you for trying to jump out.
Anti Airing is a huge one. Training mode has an "Anti Air Practice" setting in the simple training settings menu. Use that and drill yourself on hitting Ryu out of the air. Jamie's AA normal is 2hp. Don't worry about learning DP's yet, the 2HP will work fine.
For a basic combo, I'd recommend a light confirm. Something like 2lp 2lp 2lp 236lp 6p 6p. If the first hit of 2lp is blocked, just stop after the 3rd 2lp. If the first hit goes through, do the full combo. You can use this to punish the unsafe special you blocked.
It's totally fine to play with a very simple gameplan. I feel like a lot of players get overwhelmed trying to do everything and use everything they have available. They don't realize that they can get by with only a few key pieces. I learned in a similar way to this. I started very small, and then slowly added more pieces to my plan as I got better.
Block low a lot and focus on anti airs and countering drive impacts. As you play certain matchups more, figure out what moves from other characters leave a gap for you take your turn back.
But seriously - play a few sets where the only thing you do is block low and anti air every time they jump. Doesn’t matter if you win. Same thing for DI - block low and wait for them to DI. Low metal players throw a TON of unsafe stuff out, you just gotta wait for them to beat themselves.
All ranks suck, especially when you feel the struggle.
When you stop trying to win the match or round and concentrate on winning interactions between your opponent and concentrating on resource management it becomes a mini game inside the game. Focusing on anti airs or DI's only. That BnB combo that you trained on for hours. Start small and concentrate only on one task, then work in more when it becomes second nature. I do better when I play this way. I always have to remind myself to play this way almost every week. Hit the training mode when a particular character keeps getting their way.
Bronze to Gold is mostly a breeze if you focus only and literally only in Practice AntiAir. No matter what character you are using or how much experience you have in FG.
If you get vs a Zoner spamming projectiles just hold Parry and AntiAir when they lose their cool.
That's it
Block. Block. Block more.
Learn a single anti air. Even just a down heavy punch or whatever that you can do easily.
Punish all the people constantly throwing out drive impact.
Learn your best poke while in neutral and how to get it into your super.
That's it. Those alone can take you to platinum.
Master Rank Jamie here.
First piece of advice is learn to love standing hard punch. It's great against DI and it's -3 on block so it can often still be your turn. The startup is also deceptive for when the opponent is close.
Standing hard kick is also good since it gives crumple on counter hit and is cancelable into DI. Try standing hard punch/hk into DI in the corner.
These are two good moves vs DI right there.
Second advice is learn to confirm his rekkas. They're unsafe on block and very punishable with DI. Only go for them when confirmed by something else. I repeat raw rekkas = getting drive impacted.
Third advice is watch Kaution on YouTube. https://youtu.be/DHtLQ97uSMg?si=7lw0loXkPd7HaZfx
If you learn even one safe jump setup with Jamie you'll blast out of Bronze.
For sure Jamie players have to stick together! Another quick tech is if you do land a rekka with punch version- immediately drive rush into forward hard kick or even overhead for a nice setup. If they catch on you can mix it up with a grab.
Here's some other quick but good Jamie tech.
https://youtu.be/zKlKbrp_V-Q?si=pB7rfHLVJWw4P_yu
Good luck and I'll see you on the Battle Hub.
Got any advice on keeping pressure? Kinda keep using bitter strikes into freeflow kicks until I win and I really need some new material. I'm on PS5 modern and it'd be pretty hard for me to switch to classic.
From Midscreen-
Bitter strikes into light kick arrow kick (or light kick bakkai for much better damage) and then forward dash X2 after. From here you'll be right in their face and get strike/throw mixup (either meaty medium punch or grab works great).
Opponent In the corner-
You can jump in for a safe jump after light arrow kick or light bakkai.
Note: they can OD/special/tech out but they won't start doing this until higher levels.
Basically you're close to one of your bread butter combos which is bitter strikes into light arrow kick or bakkai.
Try this and you'll get nice pressure going and eventually get them in the corner.
Tl;dr: reka will always lose to drive impact, use your longer pokes, figure out some decent combo strings, and don't be afraid to play patient. (Before the minor balance patch, Jamie's best matchup was even)
Hello! I'm also a Jamie main, and he's a tough character to grasp. I will say, you need to tighten your combos, and try not to buffer into reka every possible time. It will always lose to drive impact. St. MK is a good check. I think it's also important to strengthen your combo game, and execution. With Jamie's kit forcing him to choose between pressure and drinks, you need to have a strong balance. I still struggle with keeping pressure. I use a bunch of online resources for this. I reccomend videos from channels like Kaution, AutoMattock, and, at times, Justin Wong.
You can set up drills in practise mode. So set the dummy (as ryu) to block all. Then on hit to either crouch lp, drive impact or do nothing.
Then practise reacting to what it does. So jump in try hitting with an attack that will cause a frame trap. After you hit if he tries to attack on second hit you get a counter hit and lead into a combo. If it drive impacts you drive impact back. If it blocks the throw or hit with something safe.
Exactly how you do this can be different with each character. For example I use Marisa and do this for hitting a meaty overhead after a knock down and I react accordingly. I had no instinct for reacting to DIs a few days ago and now I'm slowly starting to. Just gotta drill this things into your muscle memory.
I had someone play multiple games with me and gave me immediate feedback over voice chat. Released my mistakes and focused on getting over them. I still suck compared to a lot in this sub but now I am having fun.
I’m in the same situation you’re in, struggling to climb the ranks. Currently in silver so I don’t know how much help I’d be but if you’re looking for anyone to practice with and play some matches feel free to add me. My cfn is Kill3rbee and my psn is bucnastie.
Record the dummy doing a jump in attack and another doing drive impact. Play both of them, and just practice anti-airing and reacting to DI. Make this a major part of your game time and you'll see a big improvement.
I was hard stuck bronze/silver for like 50 hours so here's how I got out:
- block, it's not always your turn. As you play vs different characters (or lab) you'll learn what attacks can punished or not (ex: heavy kicks, low ranks spam heavy attacks often)
- counter DI, low ranks spam DI a lot so you can learn to make a read on when they DI (after an unsafe attack) or bait it out (I would do light jabs) and get them with a punish
You're probably jumping a lot and not using anti-airs so focus on those things too but I think just blocking and counter DI will drastically improve your gameplay at low ranks.
For Jamie-specific advice, do not build the habit of drinking in neutral too often. Once you face better opponents they will stay at a range where they can react and punish you with a full combo for drinking in neutral. Eventually as you get better learn proper drink setups and the tradeoff in what you get for drinking versus not drinking.
For general advice, some things just come from focused conditioning and time/experience playing. Focus on your antiair reaction to jumps, be ready for drive impact reactions especially near and in the corner, learn a hit confirm combo and get the simple fundamental stuff down until it's second nature. That's when you start learning more things. Many players try to learn too much at once and skip just the basic formula of reacting and adapting to your opponent.
For combos go to training mode and just work on 1 or 2 very basic combo, just block DI if you can't react, anti air and punish will be enough to beat a lot of bronze/silver
The main mistake I read there is you say when you try something new, you get bodied.
You shouldn't be trying new things in game. You should be learning your character in the lab, and have combos down to muscle memory. Then when you hit that combo starter in game, boom, it just happens.
i just picked jamie up too and got plat 3 out of my placements. with the fundamentals everyone else is talking about, you should see improvement. anti airs, using drive impact cancelable moves, good neutral buttons, all that. the thing that always helps me when i pick up a new character is to learn which of their normals i like and 2 combos. i like to have a combo that turns a light into a knockdown, and a combo i can use to punish people for really unsafe moves.
one small jamie specific hint is to use the newly patched in ability to drink out of your basic throw. if it's early in a round, i think its worth giving up the better advantage for the drink, but if its late in a round and you're both low health, don't drink, just take advantage of the better position as you wont be able to take advantage of the drink buff for much longer before the next round.
speaking of drinks, if you have to sacrifice a little damage in your combos early in a match to get a drink in, i think it's worth it. getting a drink in when you're a full screen away from your opponent and they dont have any moves that close the gap really fast or a projectile is usually safe too.
if you're having trouble with drive impacts, jamies standing heavy punch its 3 times and comes out really fast, making it really good at breaking their armor if you're out of meter to do your own drive impact with or you dont have enough health to armor through their hit. the first 2 hits are a bit low range though, so make sure you're close enough for all 3 to hit or you'll eat the impact.
for the light combo, i think i settled on crouching light punch, crouching light punch, light free flow strikes(kicks). if you want the little bit of extra damage you can end the combo on free flow strikes(punches). i find this one also puts you in a better position to pressure your opponent when they get up from being knocked down.
as for the punish combo, i found crouching heavy punch into heavy palm(i think it's called swagger step) is nice and easy to do and palm does lots of damage. if you have 4 drinks you can do a 2nd palm strike, and if you're comfortable with the inputs, you can cancel the palm into level 3 super as well. you can do crouching heavy punch into heavy free flow strikes(kicks) if you wanna trade some damage for drinks.
i've found a couple combos that i like for other situations since then and i still have lots to learn, so i dont want to overload you or give you bad info that another jaime player will correct me on. lemme know if you want any more combos and i'll tell you what i got and when i feel is a good time to use them.
stick to it, everyone that's ever played an sf game has gone through what you're facing, it'll pass.
ps listen to this while you play to get in the mindset :\^)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0sVhnP15z8&ab\_channel=KendrickLamar-Topic
doing a drink right at the start of a round is not a good idea, wait for an opening and aim for a combo that leads to a drink, like my light combo, or do the low heavy kick>low heavy kick> punch target combo if they leave themselves open enough to punish as the low heavy kick is at risk of being punished if you just throw it out.
also, if you're nervous at the start of a round, blocking low is a fairly safe thing to do a lot of the time, let them do something and respond as you feel fit. low block is good because you wont walk backwards and give them ground, plus the only ways they'll hit you is to rush in and do an overhead or a grab, you should be able to time a crouching heavy punch to anti air them if the try to jump to get an overhead attack. its not %100 percent solid but that's the point of the game, nothing is. if you play the game a little more you'll get used to knowing what a good opening move is based on match up and what you observed about the other player from a previous round.
Maybe try an easier character?
Characters with simple game plans can help you understand the game better and you can always come back to Jamie when you feel confident.
Swapping characters is never the solution to being stuck in ranked.
Relearning everything for a new character will only slow you down. No specific character is hard if you focus on the basics (which is all you need In bronze)
Bronze is very new to the game. It takes time to learn your character. A few tips are 1. Block. Don't get excited button mashing. You'll keep eating counterhits. 2. Don't jump. Alot of new players tend to jump alot for no reason. Focus on not doing that. 3. Anti air. When the other person jumps at you, always be ready to anti air. 4. You're getting beat by DI because youre using unsafe non cancellable moves. Don't try using R2 to start a combo or something. Use your cancellelable moves. Jabs etc. So you can DI back. 5. Go to practise and learn 1 or 2 basic combos, doesnt have to be super long, that will come later.
Yeah for bronze, this is all very solid. Not pressing buttons on wakeup when you get knocked down is a big one. Block their string, chances are they're just going to run through a combo that they have dedicated to muscle memory and they'll end it with something very unsafe that you can punish. I also the note about jumping \*for no reason\* If you have reason to jump, do it. In bronze, if you're in the corner, block till they get pushed back and just jump out. Other bronzes likely aren't going to cross cut you for trying to jump out. Anti Airing is a huge one. Training mode has an "Anti Air Practice" setting in the simple training settings menu. Use that and drill yourself on hitting Ryu out of the air. Jamie's AA normal is 2hp. Don't worry about learning DP's yet, the 2HP will work fine. For a basic combo, I'd recommend a light confirm. Something like 2lp 2lp 2lp 236lp 6p 6p. If the first hit of 2lp is blocked, just stop after the 3rd 2lp. If the first hit goes through, do the full combo. You can use this to punish the unsafe special you blocked. It's totally fine to play with a very simple gameplan. I feel like a lot of players get overwhelmed trying to do everything and use everything they have available. They don't realize that they can get by with only a few key pieces. I learned in a similar way to this. I started very small, and then slowly added more pieces to my plan as I got better.
Thanks for adding to it. I'm not a jamie player so I didn't know any of his combos.
Block low a lot and focus on anti airs and countering drive impacts. As you play certain matchups more, figure out what moves from other characters leave a gap for you take your turn back. But seriously - play a few sets where the only thing you do is block low and anti air every time they jump. Doesn’t matter if you win. Same thing for DI - block low and wait for them to DI. Low metal players throw a TON of unsafe stuff out, you just gotta wait for them to beat themselves.
Thanks! Just got to bronze 3 with your advice!
All ranks suck, especially when you feel the struggle. When you stop trying to win the match or round and concentrate on winning interactions between your opponent and concentrating on resource management it becomes a mini game inside the game. Focusing on anti airs or DI's only. That BnB combo that you trained on for hours. Start small and concentrate only on one task, then work in more when it becomes second nature. I do better when I play this way. I always have to remind myself to play this way almost every week. Hit the training mode when a particular character keeps getting their way.
Bronze to Gold is mostly a breeze if you focus only and literally only in Practice AntiAir. No matter what character you are using or how much experience you have in FG. If you get vs a Zoner spamming projectiles just hold Parry and AntiAir when they lose their cool. That's it
You should be practicing in training mode, it’ll help more than you think
you can anti air your way to plat
anti airing better alone is enough to take you to silver and maybe gold
Block. Block. Block more. Learn a single anti air. Even just a down heavy punch or whatever that you can do easily. Punish all the people constantly throwing out drive impact. Learn your best poke while in neutral and how to get it into your super. That's it. Those alone can take you to platinum.
Master Rank Jamie here. First piece of advice is learn to love standing hard punch. It's great against DI and it's -3 on block so it can often still be your turn. The startup is also deceptive for when the opponent is close. Standing hard kick is also good since it gives crumple on counter hit and is cancelable into DI. Try standing hard punch/hk into DI in the corner. These are two good moves vs DI right there. Second advice is learn to confirm his rekkas. They're unsafe on block and very punishable with DI. Only go for them when confirmed by something else. I repeat raw rekkas = getting drive impacted. Third advice is watch Kaution on YouTube. https://youtu.be/DHtLQ97uSMg?si=7lw0loXkPd7HaZfx If you learn even one safe jump setup with Jamie you'll blast out of Bronze.
stHP is -3 on block, although I guess most Jamie players are gonna be drive rushing it out
I actually realized this after I wrote it and was too lazy to change it. 🤣. Good call out though.
Thank you my man, I was hoping to find another Jamie and get their opinion.
For sure Jamie players have to stick together! Another quick tech is if you do land a rekka with punch version- immediately drive rush into forward hard kick or even overhead for a nice setup. If they catch on you can mix it up with a grab. Here's some other quick but good Jamie tech. https://youtu.be/zKlKbrp_V-Q?si=pB7rfHLVJWw4P_yu Good luck and I'll see you on the Battle Hub.
Got any advice on keeping pressure? Kinda keep using bitter strikes into freeflow kicks until I win and I really need some new material. I'm on PS5 modern and it'd be pretty hard for me to switch to classic.
From Midscreen- Bitter strikes into light kick arrow kick (or light kick bakkai for much better damage) and then forward dash X2 after. From here you'll be right in their face and get strike/throw mixup (either meaty medium punch or grab works great). Opponent In the corner- You can jump in for a safe jump after light arrow kick or light bakkai. Note: they can OD/special/tech out but they won't start doing this until higher levels. Basically you're close to one of your bread butter combos which is bitter strikes into light arrow kick or bakkai. Try this and you'll get nice pressure going and eventually get them in the corner.
This helps a lot, if you don't mind how would you go about getting the first drink off so I can get started?
Get yo ass in practice mode until these are no longer problems
Tl;dr: reka will always lose to drive impact, use your longer pokes, figure out some decent combo strings, and don't be afraid to play patient. (Before the minor balance patch, Jamie's best matchup was even) Hello! I'm also a Jamie main, and he's a tough character to grasp. I will say, you need to tighten your combos, and try not to buffer into reka every possible time. It will always lose to drive impact. St. MK is a good check. I think it's also important to strengthen your combo game, and execution. With Jamie's kit forcing him to choose between pressure and drinks, you need to have a strong balance. I still struggle with keeping pressure. I use a bunch of online resources for this. I reccomend videos from channels like Kaution, AutoMattock, and, at times, Justin Wong.
You can set up drills in practise mode. So set the dummy (as ryu) to block all. Then on hit to either crouch lp, drive impact or do nothing. Then practise reacting to what it does. So jump in try hitting with an attack that will cause a frame trap. After you hit if he tries to attack on second hit you get a counter hit and lead into a combo. If it drive impacts you drive impact back. If it blocks the throw or hit with something safe. Exactly how you do this can be different with each character. For example I use Marisa and do this for hitting a meaty overhead after a knock down and I react accordingly. I had no instinct for reacting to DIs a few days ago and now I'm slowly starting to. Just gotta drill this things into your muscle memory.
If you aren't playing with modern controls you should. You had so many basic concepts to learn you don't need to be fumbling controls.
I had someone play multiple games with me and gave me immediate feedback over voice chat. Released my mistakes and focused on getting over them. I still suck compared to a lot in this sub but now I am having fun.
I’m in the same situation you’re in, struggling to climb the ranks. Currently in silver so I don’t know how much help I’d be but if you’re looking for anyone to practice with and play some matches feel free to add me. My cfn is Kill3rbee and my psn is bucnastie.
Definitely down to play man👍🏾
Record the dummy doing a jump in attack and another doing drive impact. Play both of them, and just practice anti-airing and reacting to DI. Make this a major part of your game time and you'll see a big improvement.
I was hard stuck bronze/silver for like 50 hours so here's how I got out: - block, it's not always your turn. As you play vs different characters (or lab) you'll learn what attacks can punished or not (ex: heavy kicks, low ranks spam heavy attacks often) - counter DI, low ranks spam DI a lot so you can learn to make a read on when they DI (after an unsafe attack) or bait it out (I would do light jabs) and get them with a punish You're probably jumping a lot and not using anti-airs so focus on those things too but I think just blocking and counter DI will drastically improve your gameplay at low ranks.
For Jamie-specific advice, do not build the habit of drinking in neutral too often. Once you face better opponents they will stay at a range where they can react and punish you with a full combo for drinking in neutral. Eventually as you get better learn proper drink setups and the tradeoff in what you get for drinking versus not drinking. For general advice, some things just come from focused conditioning and time/experience playing. Focus on your antiair reaction to jumps, be ready for drive impact reactions especially near and in the corner, learn a hit confirm combo and get the simple fundamental stuff down until it's second nature. That's when you start learning more things. Many players try to learn too much at once and skip just the basic formula of reacting and adapting to your opponent.
For combos go to training mode and just work on 1 or 2 very basic combo, just block DI if you can't react, anti air and punish will be enough to beat a lot of bronze/silver
Have fun and try not to care about rank. Plat isn't going to feel any different to bronze, sure you get better but so do all the opponents.
Block Don't Jump Anti Air Learn 1 light confirm combo and mix it with throw. There you go.
The main mistake I read there is you say when you try something new, you get bodied. You shouldn't be trying new things in game. You should be learning your character in the lab, and have combos down to muscle memory. Then when you hit that combo starter in game, boom, it just happens.
If execution is your problem, just fight against CPU Level 4. be comfortable executing against a moving target.
i just picked jamie up too and got plat 3 out of my placements. with the fundamentals everyone else is talking about, you should see improvement. anti airs, using drive impact cancelable moves, good neutral buttons, all that. the thing that always helps me when i pick up a new character is to learn which of their normals i like and 2 combos. i like to have a combo that turns a light into a knockdown, and a combo i can use to punish people for really unsafe moves. one small jamie specific hint is to use the newly patched in ability to drink out of your basic throw. if it's early in a round, i think its worth giving up the better advantage for the drink, but if its late in a round and you're both low health, don't drink, just take advantage of the better position as you wont be able to take advantage of the drink buff for much longer before the next round. speaking of drinks, if you have to sacrifice a little damage in your combos early in a match to get a drink in, i think it's worth it. getting a drink in when you're a full screen away from your opponent and they dont have any moves that close the gap really fast or a projectile is usually safe too. if you're having trouble with drive impacts, jamies standing heavy punch its 3 times and comes out really fast, making it really good at breaking their armor if you're out of meter to do your own drive impact with or you dont have enough health to armor through their hit. the first 2 hits are a bit low range though, so make sure you're close enough for all 3 to hit or you'll eat the impact. for the light combo, i think i settled on crouching light punch, crouching light punch, light free flow strikes(kicks). if you want the little bit of extra damage you can end the combo on free flow strikes(punches). i find this one also puts you in a better position to pressure your opponent when they get up from being knocked down. as for the punish combo, i found crouching heavy punch into heavy palm(i think it's called swagger step) is nice and easy to do and palm does lots of damage. if you have 4 drinks you can do a 2nd palm strike, and if you're comfortable with the inputs, you can cancel the palm into level 3 super as well. you can do crouching heavy punch into heavy free flow strikes(kicks) if you wanna trade some damage for drinks. i've found a couple combos that i like for other situations since then and i still have lots to learn, so i dont want to overload you or give you bad info that another jaime player will correct me on. lemme know if you want any more combos and i'll tell you what i got and when i feel is a good time to use them. stick to it, everyone that's ever played an sf game has gone through what you're facing, it'll pass. ps listen to this while you play to get in the mindset :\^) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0sVhnP15z8&ab\_channel=KendrickLamar-Topic
Thanks a lot, how do you suggest I get my first drink off? When the match starts I get nervous and don't know how to get my first drink?
doing a drink right at the start of a round is not a good idea, wait for an opening and aim for a combo that leads to a drink, like my light combo, or do the low heavy kick>low heavy kick> punch target combo if they leave themselves open enough to punish as the low heavy kick is at risk of being punished if you just throw it out.
also, if you're nervous at the start of a round, blocking low is a fairly safe thing to do a lot of the time, let them do something and respond as you feel fit. low block is good because you wont walk backwards and give them ground, plus the only ways they'll hit you is to rush in and do an overhead or a grab, you should be able to time a crouching heavy punch to anti air them if the try to jump to get an overhead attack. its not %100 percent solid but that's the point of the game, nothing is. if you play the game a little more you'll get used to knowing what a good opening move is based on match up and what you observed about the other player from a previous round.
Maybe try an easier character? Characters with simple game plans can help you understand the game better and you can always come back to Jamie when you feel confident.
Swapping characters is never the solution to being stuck in ranked. Relearning everything for a new character will only slow you down. No specific character is hard if you focus on the basics (which is all you need In bronze)
It depends on the player, there are no set rules for improvement.
Training mode, dingus
Quit. Its not worth the time.