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Overview
This is an essential guide about how to use Abel in SSFIV AE and USF IV – when released -. From beginner level to expert. Abel is one of the easiest characters to learn to play – besides Ryu – and when mastered, he becomes a real nightmare. If you enjoy playing chess, he is the one, provided that his moveset is designed to make you think about the best option for the next move.Although I am not a top tier with him, I’ll provide you a detailed guide in order to enjoy the game and mainly, to build an strategy with him against several characters.I’m starting this guide, so it will be very long – as long as you may need – and it will take some time. The purpose is to explore this awesome character that can make you think to prepare a setup instead mashing buttons expecting a result.UPDATES:* June 21, 2004: introduction to punches ended.* July 6th, 2014: added kicks and some of the move set.
Basics
WARNING!
I’ll give you a sample of a fight using Abel
Question here! What did you see? Was it a complex fight? If affirmative or negative think why it was so difficult at the beginning and it resulted in a complete win.
As I said before, Abel is a character that forces you to think – like playing chess – and to prepare an strategy according to the match you’re facing to. In order to know what you can do, let’s start about what you have.
Section 1: Normal attacks with punches and properties
INTRODUCTION TO PUNCHES
This section is dedicated to learn the advantages of normal attacks, or for people that start playing this game, using merely punches and kicks pressing just the button.
Abel has several normals that can allow you to prepare an strategy, either to do a combo, to stuck an opponent or to stop him/her to continue attacking and forcing the opponent to block. It may sound odd, but do not expect to win at once – I know several people that wants an instant win, specially the ones that are new in the game and have steam -. You need to learn to use a tool in order it can work better for your purposes – to win, isn’t it? – so it’s better to learn what Abel can DO and what he CAN’T DO
Abel loves punching overall, and you must be prepared to hit where it hurts the most. Let’s start with low punch on the floor, either crouching or standing:
a. Crouch punches
Weak punches has shorter range, useful to stop your opponent in a series of hits, medium punch is used to keep a range but it is not comboable, hard punch works as an anti-air attack and to put the opponent in the air. It has improved a lot in USF IV giving more range at Abel’s front in order to put the opponent in middle air. Using crouching punches does not making any difference, except standing punches.
b. Stand punches
Pay attention to the blue row in order to understand ranges! Very important to prepare traps!
Although it is not so long, weak punch must be used just to stop your opponent to go forward. It may be not so helpful, but use it as a ruler. Medium punch is a little bit longer and can help you to get away opponents that are a little bit far. Hard punch is nice to get your opponents far from you – because it hits far than the others… no science here – and it’s an excellent helper to stun when succesfully hit.
c. Vertical jump punches
Due that Abel loves punches, air punches are a nice helper when someone jumps BEFORE you. Pay attention to their functions:
Vertical weak punch is useful exclusively when your opponent is below you. When blocked it may open to delicious options to counter attack, but be careful, never use vertical weak punch to attack in middle air due that he has better options. Middle punch in vertical is longer and can be used to attack an opponent that is higher than you. It has a fast startup and can be useful in risky situations where you need to hit the opponent before he attacks in the air. Hard punch is a little bit longer and has the same purpose than middle punch, just that hits harder.
In the last two cases, restrict yourself to use medium and high punches to connect an opponent that is in the floor UNLESS you have mastered them in order to do more damage WHEN LANDING FROM THE AIR rather to defend in the air.
d. Forward/Backward punches
Now pay attention to backwards and frontal jumps using punches:
Weak punch is nice in three sitations: The first to get closer to your opponent when in floor and prepare a setup, the second one is to prevent jumping towards you IF he/she is starting to jump and the third one – the most important for me at least – is to do an evasive attack jumping backwards when someone is at the same heigh in the jump.
About middle and hard punches, think it in terms that you must anticipate an attack when the opponent comes jumping. Middle punch is faster to stop a possible attack coming from the air, provided that his arms are in a very comfortable position and the risk to being hit is really, REALLY lower. As you have seen in the video, it is not advisable to use it to land a hit unless your opponent is completely open. Hard punch is really nice in this circumstances where you know that an unsafe jump is punishable AND to prevent an air attack.
Check now the uses when the opponent is in the air. Everything I said is explained in the next video:
I programmed the CPU to attack me in several common attacks from the air: Hard kick and medium punch. Abel’s hard punch is nice to prevent an attack – when mastered, it becomes annoying to the opponent because he/she can’t land a hit -, low punch stop any attempt to possible attacks from the air and works as an evading tool when – if mastered – a challenger attempts to attack you from the air and you are on land, answer: jump backwards with low punch in the precise moment before it hits to crush a possible and painful combo.
e. Close punches
Now let’s check out what punches do closer to the opponent:
Weak punch when crouch is the best way to do a slow down to your opponent, it hits 4 times and is very safe to hit, but not so much with stand weak punch. It needs to connect that you tap the button faster than the prior punch, otherwise it will land only two hits. When pressing ONLY ONCE, it hits twice. With practice, you can land 4 hits when stand – press quickly 3 times and the 4 hit is automatic.
Medium punch in stand is not so useful, but later we can see that this punch PUNISHES a lot. From the noob’s viewpoint, is a useless punch that hit twice and don’t offer a proper space to cover. In expert hands, is a pain in the a** because the first hit IS CANCELABLE with another normals – check the last sections of the guide to provide a combo with this one -. When crouch, provides a nice normal to continue with another moves, but can’t follow with another medium punch when crouch.
Hard punch, like medium punch has two hits, it’s safer to arm a defense after the second hit, but it’s value relays on the first hit that is cancelable with anorther special moves.
Abel’s crouch strong punch is his treasure, not only because he’s one of the few characters that can send to the air an opponent, but because opens delicious options to do more damage. The video explains some noob combos that are damaging. It works aslso as an anti-air attack, but also stand hard punch is used – when mastered – to do an anti-air:
There are several issues about the distance to use HP and the timing to hit before your opponent hits you. If the opponent passes to your back, it won’t work. if it is too high, it won’t connect and you’ll be defenseless against ANY attack. This punch must be precise to work.
Final thoughts about punches
When correctly used, punches will be your main attacks most of the time. Some noobs argue that online is very hard… try first to play offline against the cpu. LEARN TO PREDICT. Abel is about prediction and not about immediate reaction. Use wisely the punches!
Section 1: Normal attacks with kicks and properties
INTRODUCTION TO KICKS
One of the weaknesses of Abel is the use of his kicks, due that they have several properties that most of players ignore or don’t know how to apply it in a fight.
As before, I’ll do an introduction while stand, crouch and jumping, properties and possible effects in a fight.
Crouch
Weak kick will help you to START a combo juggle IF your opponent doesn’t have a low guard. Most of novice players tend to use Weak punch to do damage, but find themselves with a guard. Pay attention to this:
Although it has a low range, it may help you to ride away the challenger if his/her guard is open downwards. Try to not to mash the LK button so fast or you may lose the combo. Useful to setup a space and burn some time. The damage – obviously – is low.
Medium kick is not so suitable to use when crouch. It hits in middle body and has no hit in the floor. But it has a buff: Works as anti-air. The following video may help you to get a better idea:
It is a nice way to defend against air attacks, but you need to meisure the space, due that it works in far distances. NEVER USE IT WHEN THE JUMP IS SO CLOSE OR IN A CROSS-UP ATTACK.
Abel has one of the slowest knock-down attacks: his crouch hard kick. It will work in a mindgame and you may be sure that it connects – provided that it is slow – and it has two nice properties:
- it advances a little
- it can be cancelable with other special moves without using super bars 🙂
As you see in the video, it can be very slow, but it has a variety of options cancelling the hard kick with all attacks. It will help you to have a faster recover or to use a mindgame with wheel kick. Be sure not to use his special grab – tornado throw – after using hard kick because he won’t grab it! Instead use low punch or kick and then, tornado throw.
STAND
Abel has nice tools to make space and to counterattack with his kicks. Here is a resume of their functions:
Low kick can be used to poke an opponent and make yourself an space to breath.This kick is really annoying because it has an excellen range, SPEED, and can be used to finish a juggle of weak punches or kicks:
It is only comboable as a final hit. So be sure to get it as a resource to make space between you and your challenger!
Medium kick works as an antiair when pressing back – or neutral – but never press forward + MK because he uses another command – step kick -. Medium kick works really better than his crouch version.
As you see here, in the commands, it has autoforward advance. Note that I never make the character to go forward unless I use this kick. It may give you protection but never use it if your opponent does a cross-up attack – when the opponent hits your back -. Other options were explained before to prevent a cross attack using normals.
The step kick is used as a pressure tool. At the end of the video you may see how annoying it is! It has a difficulty: The next hit after step kick must be precise, so practice before. There are some options to use here, but explained in the combo section.
Hard kick CANNOT BE CANCELABLE USING EX CANCEL, has autoadvance – not too much -, it is really faster and has two options to use. It is almost useless because it has an antiair that hardly connects – when the opponent is doing cross attack – and This option activates when the opponent is really close: that kick is really faster – in speed is similar like weak crouch punch – and it is comboable with few options.
It is a failure if you use use stand HK as antiair and it may be useless in some cases, but the damage given is nice and showy 🙂 Here are two examples:
Starting with jumping hard punch is easier to connect!
Hard kick to start is a nightmare, but not impossible!
JUMPING
In vertical jumps, weak kick is nice and has a lot of range. Use it as an vertical anti-air, stopping your opponent and preventing a jumping attack against you.
Jumping Frontal and backwards with low kick, due that it starts AT ONCE the button is pressed, has two objectives:
a. To prevent someone jumping against you and escaping in a safe position: JUMP BACKWARDS.
b. To be really close at cost of little damage to your opponent: JUMP FORWARDS
It will help you with characters that like to do a cross attack: Zangief’s dwn + HP in jump is a nice example of how nasty is it and an opportunity to escape using jumping lk backwards. Believe me, several Zangief players like to do that. You will have a chance to escape an prepare an strategy.
Medium kick in vertical do likes his lk version, just that he raises his leg upwards. It helps you to have upper attack in jump, with low range in his front.
On the other hand, his forward-backward mk is AWESOME! It works as a cross-attack (it means that you can hit the back of your opponent when landing) and opens you several options. I show here only one but later there are lots of combos starting with jumping mk.
Also it works as your standard jumping kick. Be sure to use it regularily and to connect it when closer. Do not anticipate that mk unless you know it will hit!
Hard kick in vertical can stop attacks in front or below of you, but not when the opponent is over you – use hard punch instead . Also it is excellent to land and start a combo – an example is provided.
Another characteristic when jumping backward of forward is that his leg attacks over your body position, helping you where the opponent is higher than you and you require to attack him. It is safe to hit and can help you to get rid away of opponents that wants to attack you from the air. Backwards works as a defensive and evasive movement to stop a possible attack, forwards will prevent an attack and puts you closer to the opponent to prepare a setup.
If you try to land a jumping HK, be sure to do it. His kick is too much over his body and you need to practice how to land it. Not too safe to use it when landing. If you’re jumping backwards, better use LP instead HK to land it.
This last part finishes the normal attacks that Abel has. To resume, it is better for you to practice this at home and begin to feel comfortable with the options he has to offer to you.
Section 1: Command move set and properties
Firstly, to understand how to use the commands, let’s start with walking, backward evasion and forward avance.
WALKING
His walking speed is not so fast, but is slower compared with other characters. This will give you a range to prepare your setup.
As shown in the video, his backward evasion – double tap back – is a disaster. Try to use it when it is exclusively necessary to do it, or else you will be punished.
On the other hand, he has one of the fastest forward advance – double tap forward – in the game. It is really nice to advace longer distances in a short time, and also provides other options used with his step kick – later it will be explained.
MOVE SET
This is the order I will follow to explain his move set:
- Forward Kick
- Marseilles Roll
- Tornado Throw
- Wheel Kick
- Falling Sky
And this notation will help you to understand:
- Movements will be showed as arrows (↓↘→↗↑↖←↙) and asuming that you are in P1 Position. To use as P2, just change the inputs as “forward” to your character:
- LP: Low Punch
- MP: Medium Punch
- HP: Hard Puch
- LK: Low Kick
- MK: Medium Kick
- HK: Hard Kick
- FA: Focus attack (MP+MK)
- FADC: Focus Attack (MP+MK), while pressed DASH bck x2 or fw x2 to CANCEL
- When pressed three buttons of the same set: 3-P or 3-K
1. FORWARD KICK: → + MK
Forward kick is used MAINLY as a pressure tool, as well to do some combos after that. Badly used will get you open to your opponent. Abel can rush forward after doing this move:
Be sure to use it when you feel that your opponent defends too much and you can press him/her to continue defending until you can do something with that excesive defense.
2. MARSEILLES ROLL: ↓↘→ + Kick
It is an evasive move that has only one difficulty: either at the end or starting, you may be grabbed. Use it wisely to escape. During the roll, no attack or grab can work on you, except the two situations I described before.
Command: ↓↘→ + Kick
Each version, according to the button is longer. LK moves 1 body distance. MK 2 bodies and HK 3 bodies.
In some circumstances, you cannot evade ALL the movements with Marseilles roil because you’ll get hit – check the end of the video -. The EX version – any 2 kicks buttons – grants you invencibility when starting the move, but still you can be defenseless against throws.
3. CHANGE OF DIRECTION: ↓↘→ + P + BUTTON SETUP
Before to start, let’s check the meaning of “Rekka attacks”
Some characters have a physical attack that hit several times when entered the same command two ot three times, like SF’s Fei-Long, Yang, Abel; KOF’s Iori, Mature, Duo-Long, Andy KOF95, Real Bout Fatal Fury Special’s Mai… The list is long. Just do the same move three times and done.
Change of direction is the main attack of Abel. It is a semi-rekka attack. Why semi-rekka? Because it only provides one-time move, but the rest of the attacks can be changed just pressing punch or kick.
Here we need to learn the properties of weak, medium and strong COD – I’ll do a reference of the video and time to watch in case you want to check – All rellies in two hits and a final grab. Be ready to READ, if you don’t like it, you may skip it, but lesser knowledge of Abel you’ll gain.
0:00-0:06 Weak COD: ↓↘→ + LP, P, P (The order of the last two hits will be the same with any punch button. Therefore, I won’t say that again.)
Damage: 150
With a quick startup, this COD must be your best friend. It takes advantage of the speed at cost of damage. It doesn’t go so far, so only use it when the hit is confirmed.
0:07-0:09 Medium COD: ↓↘→ + MP, P, P
Damage: 155
It is a little, little bit slower to hit than its weak version, but it’s awarded with +5 in damage. Also a nice pal to use when the hit is confirmed and you may want to do more damage.
0:11-0:15 Strong COD: ↓↘→ + HP, P, P
Damage: 160
The best attack you have to apply. Really slower than the other versions – you may say “it is fast indeed” but when doing a long combo, be careful! – it grants a high damage. It has it’s “but”: Only use it when you confirm a hit with HP or HK, otherwise will be blocked.
0:24-0:27 EX COD: ↓↘→ + Two punches (only EX in the first hit) + Other P-K setup.
Damage: 160
This EX COD grants you 1-hit normal armor in order to absorb ‘n’ attack as a counter. It is faster like the weak version, but does damage as the strong version. Use it to counter-attack when you know that you’re going to be hit.
As you see in the video, no matter if you use weak COD, you’ll be punished unless you use the EX. Be careful to NOT TO ABUSE too much of this move.
Like other characters that have rekka attacks, you may stop the attack just by doing nothing.
COD: ↓↘→ + P, K, K
Another tool that it is quite valuable in Abel with COD are rekkas with kick attack:
After the first hit, Abel can do a low and large kick, but it has a very dangerous stop when doing this second kick – In USF4 it seems that it can be hit immediately – and finally he stops – another DANGEROUS stop – in order to grab the opponent from below.
It may be seen that it doesn’t worth due to the gaps Abel opens to do the kick rekka, but when connected, it will be VERY PAINFUL:
Low rekka version: Damage 230
Medium rekka version: Damage 235
Strong rekka version: Damage 240
Playing mindgames with COD
COD: ↓↘→ + P, K, P
or
COD: ↓↘→ + P, P, K
Now you see when I said “Playing with Abel is like playing chess”? When connecting the second hit – either punch or kick -, you can play mindgames: use punch when his guard is low, or kick when his guard is high. It depends how confused is the opponent.
WARNING! NEVER use COD without confirming hits! After the first block, it is USELESS to do the second attack, because it can be punishable – giving to your opponent a valuable opportinity to punish your second or third hit in COD with an ultra combo –
Cancelling COD:
When doing the COD, you can cancel. The cost are two bars of your super bar stock. It can be done in two times:
Only in first hit and in the second hit with kick can be cancellable. You can continue the rekka when the hit is confirmed
Also you can escape backwards in COD cancel. When mastered this cancel in attack, you can do TWO cancels – it means all your super bar stock – and open options to painful damage.
Here’s everything you may learn about Abel’s moveset. When USF4 get released to PC, I’ll update this section.
Section 1: Super Combo, Ultra Combo 1 and Ultra Combo 2 properties and advantages
Super Combo: Heartless
↓↘→ ↓↘→ + any punch
This super grabs your opponent, runs with your opponent to the corner, hits the opponent several times and finishes with a throw to the floor.
This super can be linked with:
- Stand LP
- Stand MP
- Stand HP
- Jumping HP
- Jumping HK
- Jumping cross MP VERY, very low
- Stand MK
- Crouch HP – first hit or second hit without allowing the opponent to fly. IF FLIES, do a weak roll and use the super.
- COD First hit
This super only works when the opponent is in the middle of a combo or if the opponent is not able to do a defense. So forget any attempt to connect if the other player is covering.
Ultra movements
Abel has two ultras that work under certain conditions. These ultras must be applied in specific situations and can be really helpful.
Souless
↓↘→ ↓↘→ + PPP
This ultra hits the opponent. Has a incredible fast startup and it is completely vulnerable to low attacks. On the other hand, It has total invencibility in middle and upper side of his body.
Abel has a really fast start, but stops in a mid-range. It doesn’t cover all the screen so please measure the distance before doing this ultra.
It has a nice use against people who likes to do fireballs, modded fireballs, ex-fireballs, super fireballs, ultra fireballs – even Dhalsim’s Yoga Catastrophe are useless against Souless – and need to be punished. As I said before, be careful of the range of the ultra to be applied sucessfully.
But not all is joy with this ultra: Be careful with low attacks that can destroy your comeback. (2:42) As I said before, Abel’s Souless can be wiped with a cr.HK connected at a correct time.
Even, if you rush and miscalculate the ultra, you may go backguards to your opponent. (3:25) Check the part of crazy shoryuken attack. It may be a pain if you don’t calculate the time and the place to hit.
This ultra can be connected in combo after cr.HP. Wait until the opponent starts to go down to apply.
Breathless
↓↘→ ↓↘→ + KKK
This is a WARNING! Don’t overabuse of Breathless or you will die!!
Breathless is one – IF NOT, THE BEST – of Abel’s moveset. Like the ring, it offers invulnerability by 1-hit guard against any attack – except FOCUS BREAK ATTACKS – , cannot be hit with any upper attack – except fireballs – and it is EXTREMELY FAST. It has 3/4 of the screen coverage, so it is deadly against cornered victims WHEN THEY’RE FAR. Also, you can delay the run for 4 seconds – not 4 seconds of the game – to wait and grap at the minimal error.
Think of this ultra as Akuma’s raging demon, but incredibly faster and efective after receiving a close hit – due to the armor –
Even if your opponent tries to confirm a final hit with an ultra, if you’re really close (6:45) It is dreadfully efective against any ultra
It becomes useless if your opponent is close to you and jump to your back. If it isn’t connected, the recovery is very slow, so be sure to grab or die. Also this ultra can be avoided jumping backwards when it is not correctly calculated.
If you see that you’re not able to connect the ultra by any means, while charging the ultra, press any punch button to cancel it. It will put you open to any attack, so be sure to do it safely when this ultra cannot be connected.
This ultra is quite useful, due that most of opponents tend to fall in horror, terror, despair or anything that scares someone that is afraid of being grabbed in one eye-blink: They jump backwards or try to hit you with a fireball or physical attack… or even THEY CROUCH unaware of the danger.
Even they try to make you fall into a mistake with a divekick – yun, yang, rufus, seth – to “delay” the fall and make you to activate the ultra. Even shoto characters try to use when jumping and EX-Hurricane kick to delay the fall… you can grab him when read properly.
In USF4, this ultra can be hit in a combo when cornered and applying cr.HP.