poking primer
Poking, in it's essence, is throwing out fast attacks that pin your opponent
down and keep them from attacking. Poking can be offensive or defensive.
Offensive poking is done when your opponent is not attacking, or before
their strikes connect
NOTE:I refer to attacking before the opponents strike
connects as "Defensive poking" in
nina's poking section. It is poking, instead of blocking, so
in a way it is defensive. However, in terms of this particular
section I will refer to it as offensive poking, since it is an
active attempt to remain in control. So, hopefully, if you have
a serious problem with it... i'll re edit some words and make
the whole damn site a little more clear :) untill then, just bear
with me.
Defensive poking is done immediately after your opponent attacks and is in a
recoil animation and cannot block.
Some things to keep in mind when poking:
Use attacks that are fast (both in execution and when returning to your
neutral state.) The jab (left or right punch) are both excellent pokes. They
come out very fast (between 8 and 10 frames) and stun a player long enough
for you to not have to worry about a counter attack.
Consider the range of your attack. Not all attacks have the same range.
Although the jab is fast, it doesn't have the best range. If the opponent
is out of range, try poking with the d/f+3 or d/f+4 side kick attacks. The
range on the side kick allows you to connect a hit just out of jab range.
Which brings up the point of whiffing attacks. Don't ever whiff a poke
unless you want them to retaliate (but that's psychology, and has it's
place, but not in the basics of poking.) So, knowing your characters range
is very important.
A quick lesson on frames in Tekken. Tekken runs at a silky smooth rate of 60
frames per second. This means that within one second, you have 60 separate
opportunities to do something with your character. Since character attacks
don't change, people have began referring to the length of time it takes for
the move to connect (from start to finish) in terms of frames. Forrest Laws
Right punch takes 10 frames to connect. That's 1/6th of a second from start
to connecting. There is also some more animation of "disadvantage" where Law
retracts his arm and can do another move. When his jab connects, whether or
not the opponent is blocking, they will experience some sort of stun
animation, this is to your benefit and is called "advantage." All of the
frame data for advantage on a hit, advantage, disadvantage, whiff...
whatever you want to know is on tekkenzaibatsu.com . Those guys are Tekken
lunatics and figure that stuff out for fun.
Consider the guard stun of your attacks. Guard stun is the amount of time
your opponent is in a recoil animation. Some attacks have HUGE guard stuns
(Roger's f,N,2 if blocked, will stun for about a full second ) while others
have very little stun at all (jab's generally give you about a frame or 2
advantage.)
All of the characters in Tekken have attack strings. Attack strings
are button combinations that put several hit's together in a linked
combination of quick attacks. Bryan Fury's 1, 4, 3, 3 is a classic example
of a string. When done correctly, he will seamlessly attack with a punch,
kick, roundhouse, kick. String attacks are usually very fast and
difficult to escape. You can effectively poke with strings but they can
become predictable.
Some attacks yield a large enough advantage to allow you to strike again
without worry of any counterstrike from your opponent. When you do this, you
are making a custom string. Custom strings are not seamless, but rely on the
guard stun they invoke (and not the quick connection of hits) to keep your
opponent from attacking.