What’s the hardest in diamond rank imo is that almost every second or third match i just get annihilated so bad that i don’t even want to believe it. Then i check the profile of that player, and they are already in master with either one or multiple characters. So, to get out of diamond, people have to overcome possibly high master rank players very often, which is not exactly easy.
It's so strange beating a Diamond 3 Jaime player then getting fucking DESTROYED by a Diamond 2 Cammy the next match. I feel better when I look them up and see they have three Master chars but you NEVER know how it's gonna go.
It's baffling but I think it's a test for the player to lock in and test their metal against master players as they'd enter into a world of powerful foes without being properly challenged otherwise
This is probably the case for all ranks. I am a Platinum player and I can definitely tell if I am playing a Diamond or higher on an alt character. This is the cost of each character having its own rank.
Bro yes. Diamond 3 is just 1300 MR master. The rank system just ends. And everyone on discord says “when you hit master is when the game REALLY begins 🤓” and then they just smurf and quit characters when they hit 25000LP XD
@@roncrudup2110it’s a little bit different because at mid dia3, it’s actually just master players on alts. The skill desparity ranges from plat players they play enough to get into diamond and 1800MR masters getting their 14th character to master. Idk it’s kinda ass
For diamond players, I have a tip (I'm diamond 3). At a certain point, when you start hitting mostly Master players on alts and you feel absolutely burnt out on ranked, I highly recommend getting into a Discord, like Diaphone's or New Challenger and just start creating custom room matches with Masters (preferably) and other diamonds. The feedback loop with ranked can get negative, Winning = Good; Losing = Bad. And the judgement you feel after you see your little points go up or down is not conducive to experimentation. Because experimentation = potential to lose and Losing = Bad. If you want to avoid getting hardstuck, this is the way. Custom rooms are an insane tool to improve. I play M Bison and I had an 1800 MR Bison explain glaring holes or patterns in my gameplan. It helped immensely. Just a suggestion hehe
This!!! Also, joining tourneys can help with building up patience and self-control which are needed to rank up faster (just got to D4 by getting sets with D5 in ranked yesterday)
@@jacobg2394crouching heavy punch. Press down and then press your strongest punch button. There are other ways to anti air with him but that is the most important one and the only one you need to know when starting out
I do this pretty often but instead i just hop on battle hub and infinite rematch getting my ass beat Makes you more used to fighting real hard opponents
As a hard stuck platinum player, this was really informative. But I think you may be taking for granted the instinctual timing you’ve developed. I’d love to see a deeper dive into WHEN to go for things like cr MK-drive rush, jump ins, DI’s, etc.
I think plat creates a weird little ecosystem, because players need to learn *something* effective to get through gold, but almost nobody is at all well rounded. One match you'll go up against a player who's learned to do gimmicky reaction check offense well. The next you'll go up against someone who's learned purely reactionary play. The next you'll go up against someone who's got relatively optimized combos with Chun or whoever, and will just risk/reward you to death. The next you've got someone playing Lily or Rashiid and nobody knows how to play against their character. Most players there will be fine against one of these playstyles, but bad at dealing with others. The best advice to get through plat in my experience is to figure out what *type* of player you're losing to and learn to deal with that.
that first bit applies heavily to my Manon - I basically got through Gold by anti-airing every jump along with using two very specific jump-in mixups to get a command grab but it's made my gameplay extremely lopsided. that method worked well enough to net me more wins than losses but now as it loses its effectiveness I'm basically trying to go back and fill in a lot of the blanks I currently have.
This is mostly my experience trying to get every character to at least Platinum, unintentionally only knowing like one combo and I can kinda anti-air. The worst part is that my main, Juri, is at like Plat 3 because I haven't really played the game that much consistently, but I know I could eventually reach Master if I played enough.
This, but the platinum weridness is great for teaching adaptability. You and your opponent have a perfered strategy, but if it doesn't work or they catch on to you,do you know how and when to mix things up? Be flexible and learn versatility.
> who's got relatively optimized combos with Chun or whoever, and will just risk/reward you to death what does that even mean, isnt that what everyone does with everything in fighting games lol
@@NamelessThun It means someone that optimized their damage at a level of play where most of their competitors haven't, and get by on higher reward from basic options despite being worse at many other areas of play. As opposed to a player who's better at neutral or is good at reactioning to the opponent's offense or knows how to open their opponent up better, but knows no better damage routes than button button special. Pretty sure running into this type of player is a near universal experience in the mid-ranks of any fighting game, idk what to tell you.
What got me from diamond to master was 3 main things. Shimmy, meaty button/throw on my opponents wake up, and one big combo that leads to level 3 super.
Hey I'm a platinum 1⭐️ Ken player looking to get better at the game can I add you. Looking to make friends new to fighting games and i want to become master rank
Diaphone I just want to say, after being hardstuck Diamond 2 for a year I got to Master rank with Ken thanks to this video. There were key tools I was missing, such as C.MP and S.HK. It shot me right to Master in about a week. It's insane how much I learned and how much my gameplan improved thanks to this simple advice. All the best man.
Reading the comments from ''PACKINGBLOW' in chat was so annoying, bro is so full of himself in a video where we are learning how to improve. These are the kind of people who give the FGC a bad name.
I think he's pretty typical when it comes to a twitch chat. Once that Lily won a round, "oh they play above plat. When that Lily lost, "you could probably just throw them to death."
Don't worry about him bro. People like him have everything to prove and nothing to show. The embarrassment they face being them is far greater than how we feel observing them. They're losers, you're not. Chad!
Master rank player on multiple characters, long time FGCer but struggle with the SF6 fundamentals a lot (DI, Drive Rush) so me looking at the training for Gold/Silver is actually very important. Thank you for this!
I think starting out in the game jumping all the time will build bad habits and cause you to rely on cheesing your opponent until you hit a wall and it won’t work anymore and now you have to learn the game all over again. Ceelows has incredible beginner guides that teaches you how to play. Beginning with a poke button in neutral, and anti air button, and a punish button. And when you are comfortable slowly optimizing those 3 categories.??
and take your losses in stride, even if it's a losing streak. Watch those replays, work on fixes, and don't feel bad if/when those fixes don't pan out right away. You've still added tools to the box
I just visited my buddy stationed in Japan, we went to an arcade and played SF6 with some of the locals (Got obliterated lol) which made him go home and buy the game. This video couldn't have come out at a better time!
I think plat is where you get a more general game feel. I was "hard stuck" plat for awhile (As in I almost never played ranked) but around then I was getting a general gameplay understanding the general mechanics etc. I just hit Diamond with Ed and went through plat 1 with Terry, a lot of plat players are playing to a gimmick. Its about reading and understanding the gimmick, something useful is casual matches. While I was unranked with Terry and plat 5 with Ed I was matching mid diamond->master players. Causal matches cause less stress and you can fight better players and will notice how they arent doing X thing or Y thing (Such as master players almost never DI which helped me go "hey I should stop DIing" or they knew my pressure so I started learning mix) casual matches is a genuine tip I could give
I think one massive thing about switching to casuals or battlehub or even going the extra step and finding someone to train with on discord or something is getting the ability to rematch over and over, really try out and experiment against people who are better than you, try out different responses to different strats, moves, etc. you are having trouble with, just get a lot more time with an opponent rather than the like, 1-3 matches on ranked with any individual.
I got so frustrated when i dropped to 1200-1300mr when i got masters. Like 100-200 hrs later (i switched systems midway through so idk exactly) im at 1600mr. Finally i am allowed to have an opinion in sf6
I feel like I have done things so backwards. Around mid silver rank I decided to learn essentially all combos for my Char. (Luke) So, i labbed forever. Finally ranked to gold last night. Im really working on effective footsies and pressure. I am complete shit at reacting to DI. I never really used it. So, im fixing things that should have been fixed long ago. When I play casuals, I tend to do very well against plat and some diamond players. Thanks for the guide. Good info for new players. Im old and hadnt been competitive in a FG since SF2 CE in the arcades in the 90s. It has taken me a long time to catch up to the speed and the level of dexterity required for execution.
I got to masters for the first time ever like a month and a half ago with zangief with like 90 total hours on sf6 but 99% of those games were with zangief only lol. Now, switching to learn akuma recently, it feels so damn difficult being semi stuck in plat 4. The playstyles are so vastly different so carryover from zangief is a very hard thing to do but I will say though, I feel like I am learning how to deal with pressure way more with a different character than what I am used to since all those heartbreaking losses as zangief. My tip for all ranks is this with the information I laid out: stick to one character you actually love, exhaust every option for punishes and learn their neutrals. You will learn combos as you go and will be glad for mirror matches against someone better because you know what they did to you and learn to see what was optimal when beating you.
The problem with videos like this from the pros, is that they just skate through a rank on a win streak. Which leads to a not very big selection of opponents. As someone who's recently hit Gold at close to 100 hours of play, i csn say that Silver is full of people who will make your life hell. From Modern Kens and Lukes who spam autocombo into Super, when 1 your mistake leads to half your health being gone, when you play on classic and cant do stuff like that consistenly. I spent probably 200 matches in Silver or more, and i can confidently say, that opponents skill is vastly higher than this. You csn get several weak opponents and go on a winstreak, but then you get a flowchart Ken or someone who probably shouldn't be in this rank. The sdvice generally is good, but no, you can't go through Silver with just anti airing or jumping or spamming unless youn have Platinum/Diamond/Master level of play. You can go through some opponents, but then you'll get stuck. And because pros go through these ranks with 400 points a win, thsy csn't experience the whole spectrum of opponents
Yeah, the majority of videos like this are just inherently flawed when the creator already knows all about the game and will just be doing a ton of things like executing every one his specials/moves in general with little to no errors as well as so many things deeply ingrained that can't suddenly be unlearned for a video. That on top of the fact that if you had a gameplan like this the very first time as a newcomer you would just develop a ton of bad habits and not being winning anyway because your Jinrai loops won't be clean, you won't be able to react to DI that well because it's much harder when you're new and trying to learn everything else going on in the match on top of DIs, plus you're probably having to match up against of smurfs with double digit win streaks as well, etc... but I guess if some people find this helpful, then cool I guess. But this type of video is isn't exactly rare for SF6 content and I've seen other content creators actually break down skills to attempt to incorporate as you go through the ranks with much more detail than this, most of them still weren't that helpful except for one where the person was teaching a complete noob. Unfortunately those videos didn't have many views and just ended upruptly with the previous videos being taken down :/ I don't have anything against Diaphone, I get that it's just content at the end of the day. I'm just saying as someone else who also started playing SF6 seriously(and it being the first traditional fighting game I've tried to play less than casual) about 3 months ago and being in a similiar situation rank wise I don't find this video even remotely helpful. Most importantly why would anyone who wanted to play the game for the long haul want to play like this instead of actually learning the game?
Its not just having good anti airs and counter di's it what having those enables. Which is your game plan. It forces the opponent to play netrul and alows you to take space.
@@Kade503 you and OP both have pretty good points, but i started out in like rookie or iron (minimal fighting game experience before; never got out of bronze in sfv and peaked floor 8 in strive) and i'm plat on a few characters now, so i'll tell you what my approach to getting out of the low ranks was like. you're right that the method of learning the game presented in this video is really boring and most likely will not be enough to get you started with playing the real game, or even to beat the trash that you'll get matched up against. you're especially correct in assuming that diaphone's extremely high skill level in comparison to the people he was playing against completely invalidates any point he's trying to illustrate. the difference in muscle memory, intuition, mental fortitude, etc. is simply too vast for any disadvantage that diaphone gives himself to matter in these matches, which results in a very unrealistic portrayal of the game. to these points, i would say that the most important things to learn at low ranks are just how to block, how to anti-air, and how to react to DI. if you know how to do those things consistently, you'll at least stop losing to the modern auto combo spammers because they won't be able to get free hits on you. once you have a decent defensive foundation, you should learn the basic combo structure of your character. learn what your good "starter" moves are, then try to come up with some basic concepts for extending combos, and finally, know what move to end your combo with. watch videos on auto-timed knockdown setups so that you can keep the pressure on your opponents as they're waking up. doing your character's combo trials will also help you to understand these things more intuitively without having to memorize a million different esoteric combos and situations. i wrote all of this stuff down in a journal document on my computer and referred to and edited it at the start and end of each play session, which helped solidify things in my memory. i had quite an easy time getting to plat, and i didn't really start struggling until then, and this was the method i used to learn multiple characters to an intermediate level. also, i would advise you to stick with one character until you're master or at least diamond, because i think that if i had spent my time learning one character instead of splitting my time between jamie, AKI, rashid, deejay, and akuma, i could've learned enough about the game and the characters to be master rank on one or two of them by now. but terry just came out, so i've been trying him, and i also want to play ed, so i'm trying to pick one character to grind for the time being until i get master.
You shouldn't take from this video that this is the literal strategy that should be used to rank up. These are the things you should prioritize learning at each rank (like the title says). I put around ~150-200 hrs into SFV and only once briefly dipped into Silver, but in SF6, once I finally listened to my friend (who works as a coach in his local FGC) nagging me to do essentially what this video says, I shot from Silver (where I had initially placed in SF6) all the way up to Diamond in like a month, and now I have Master with 3 characters. Stuff like combos and situatuonal tech are fun, but like basically every skill, the most efficient way to learn is to learn the fundamentals, then build off of them. The most important "trick" to getting better is actually something that SF6 (and basically every other mainstream competetive game) actually works against you in- you shouldn't care about rank. You should care about improvement and becoming better. Before you hit Master and the game actually gives you an ELO score (MR), your rank isn't ever an actual descriptor of your ability; smurfs and people relying on gimmicks make sure of that. With ELO, you WILL float to the score that accurately represents your skill; we use ELO (or its derivaties, like Glicko) for basically all serious zero-sum games (like chess and pool) for a reason. Stop caring about your rank. Join a discord server (ideally a smaller one based on your local FGC, so you can actually talk to good players on a personal level and potentially play people in-person) and start caring about your skill.
If u think silver is hell it sounds like a serious skill issue although i do agree content creators give the worst advice being hardstuck in low ranks will forever be a skill issue in fighting games...
Very useful video for us newbies. Been wanting to get into fighting games forever but never knew where or how to start as the "mental stack" of these things does get pretty high eventually. Ty.
I'm not new to Street Fighter, but it has been a good long while since I played any fighting game with the intent of getting good, so I've got a lot of ranked anxiety. Finding this video did help take the edge of performing off my shoulders a bit, as I stopped focusing on all the failed, dropped or whiffed training room combos I couldn't do on command in my placements, and just kept things simple. I recently started my ranked journey on Chun Li in bronze. I'm not following your playbook to the letter since I'm using simpler versions of those big, flashy combos from training, but just having an idea of what to generally expect in each rank gives me confidence, and that's let me start to notice when more opportunities to do things arise. I'll start following these tips more once I start to struggle, but for now, I just wanted to let ya know your video is helping someone, even if it's in an unorthodox way 😂
This was helpful, thanks. I've hit a wall between D2 and D3 at 160 hours, and especially with all those Terry players with 9 winstreak it gets somewhat tilting.
Excellent video, thanks. As a Plat player who only recently worked out how to get off the 13000 LP floor, I appreciated that you tried to win “like” a player at your rank. That said, I think the skill of spacing and anticipation (ie always being at the perfect position to bait and punish a jump-in) is not generally recognised as something that newer players simply don’t have. These “invisible” skills are what makes pro players winning with fewer tools look very, very easy.
This was really helpful, thanks man! I‘m currently at Gold 2 with Luke, and the thing I struggle the most with by far are my DI-reactions, definitely gonna work on those 👍
You've inspired me to return to the game and get back on the grind. Having a concise list like this is really helpful for a first time fighting game player like me.
Probably the single best video showcasing how a beginner FG player can improve and climb the ranks. Not SF6, but in Strive I rapidly climbed from full beginner just by following this exact sort of gradual improvement. 1. Opened the game and hopped into training mode. 2. Spend a few minutes just warming up and reviewing what I knew. Throwing specials, doing a little jump-in, etc. 3. Another few minutes adding one improvement to my play based off what I'd been losing to. Blocking? Anti-airs? Messing up specials? Not enough damage? 4. As soon as I had that semi-consistent, I jumped into ranked trying to intentionally work in that improvement. 5. Lose probably. But this is actually a blessing as weaker opponents just make it easier to improve those basics. 6. Rank back up and then some. Almost every night I'd see marked improvement and I never spent much time in training.
I purchased the game about 6 months ago because i found A.K.I really cool but sf6 being my first fighting game i sucked really hard played some sets and never played again but tree days ago i got really into it bc of the Terry update and even placed Silver ** !! It may not be huge but i was really proud of myself. I hope will reach gold soon😁😁
MC Mura recently did one of these. 🙂Nice job giving a lot of time to the lower ranks. Been playing since the genre started (I'm 50), but went 4-10 in placement & ended up in Iron (now Bronze). 🙃I got to gold in SF5. I don't get to play nearly often as I like, & couldn't get online for a long time (Capcom ID link error). Watched tons of tech vids, top players w/my main, lots of training, use all Drive mechanics, Mura Discord chat, watch replays, etc, but can lose (0 wins vs Manon so far). Good vid. 😎
I also think that you can get trapped by focusing on winning rather than focusing on building good habits. If you spend 5 games thinking "I don't care if I win, I'm just going to only anti air" or "when I'm cornered I'm going to be ready for a counter DI". Building habits can make winning harder but is better in the long term I think
And I learned early with this game, from a true beginner place, play arcade mode using only normals a few times when learning a character, to focus on what works where, and then do a couple longer cpu sets to get comfortable with raw rush, parry, throws, di, etc. Even if you aren't using footsies to dodge throws, you can get a lot of basics down solid in rookie, then start learning all the basic strats for a characters 1, 2, 3 type combos in iron and bronze. Basically, the streamlined explanation of what he's saying but without the fact that he WALKS like a high level player
thank you for this video. this was what i was looking for when i first started playing. sf6 is my first fighting game so the flow of progression is not the clearest. helps a ton!!
Love the video, for the most part this is exactly how I learned SFIV. I would have loved to see more of a focus on throw in the early ranks - especially as a very basic punish option.
That was one of the best fighting game guides I’ve ever seen, even if I’m past a lot of that. Fantastic video. That said, as someone who has 2 characters in low master and multiple in diamond, I still lose to jump spam and jinrai kick
Thanks for this guide, it actually made me to play instead of worrying xD Got into gold without knowing how to trigger super move xD After 3 weeks got into gold 3 and one of my strongest combos is dash + throw xD
Trying to get into this game has been a humbling experience so far. I got placed at literally 0 LP and am now in Iron trying to get to grips with the game. I still have a lot of problems with the basic controls and actually doing what I want to do so its gonna be a long road. What messes me up the most is that I cant really tell during which animations inputs get buffered and when not.
I believe in you! Keep at it! I wanted to write an answer for you but it turned out to be longer than I thought it was going to be. It's about the buffering that you asked about if you wanna read it. If you go into Training Mode with your character and go into the Screen Display Settings, you can turn on Action Timing Display and Cancel Timing Display. Action Timing Display will show a bar wherever you put it(I put mine in the head). When you hit a button, the bar will have a red sideways line that will go from right to left. When the red line goes away, you can move again. However, there's an up and down yellow line on the left side of this bar. Once the red line passes this yellow line, it will turn green. In this small time, you can hit your Attack button and it will come out on the 1st frame you can move as a buffered input. It's not all too important right now. The Cancel Timing Display setting will make your character glow red or blue if you hit the opponent on Hit or Block. If your character glows red, you can Cancel that button into a Special Move, Super, or Drive Impact, even on Block(although don't Cancel into Super on Block). If your character glows blue, you can only Cancel into a Super. Typically most Light Attacks, some Medium Attacks, and some Heavy Attacks will turn you red, meaning a Special Move, Super, or Drive Impact. Say Luke's Crouching Light Punch can go into a Sandblast, or you can go into any of his Supers, or if your opponentused their Drive Impact you can use yours right back. Moves that only turn you Blue are usually odd Normals like Luke's Standing Medium Punch or Special Moves like his Rising Uppercut. These moves will only allow you to go into a Super. Supers have certain restrictions on when you can use them. If it's a Level 1 Super, it can only be cancelled from a Normal button, like Luke's Medium Punch. If it's a Level 2, it can only be cancelled from an EX Move(called OD in SF6 but you'll only hear EX) where you use 2 buttons for a Special Move, like Luke's EX Flash Knuckle where you use any 2 Punches, or any Normal Attack button. If it's a Level 3 Super/Critical Art, it can be cancelled by anything that has a Red or Blue Cancel glow, including your Normals, EX Moves, and now Regular Special Moves like Luke's Regular Rising Uppercut.
Try turning on action timing display in the screen display settings of training mode. It basically shows you where the buffer window is for your moves. Training mode in general has a lot of things that can make understanding combo timing and execution easier. Hope that helps!
I think one of the most productive lessons I learned when it came to this game is that every move has a purpose. Coming from smash bros where it feels like plenty of characters were given useless moves on purpose (Samus jab, Ganon up tilt, etc) it was very easy to get into a rut of “this is what my character can do and these are the moves we never touch,” which for me was a mindset that carried over to street fighter. Then I realized that the intention of this game was for it to be played competitively, which meant to me that unless you’re Dan Hibiki, all of your moves have a purpose. It’s really nice to have the rest of your moveset to turn to when you’re hard stuck, which is something that I didn’t feel confident relying on in smash bros.
Watching diaphone teach people makes me happy, a lot of pro players show stuff but this is really in depth compared to who ive seen do this same thing.
I think one thing is what Diaphone did near Plat/Diamon is actually harder than just learning more damaging combos. The exact timing, how he shimmies and jump at the right time, all require strong fundamentals that take time to build. At that point I think it's better to just learn some combos to optimize your risk/reward better while improving your fundamentals at the same time. But there's a balance of course. Just learning the dream combo for example won't get an Ed to master if you can't figure out how to hit and block.
Why I'm only seeing this now goddamn. I'm plat 4 with like less than 50 hours in ranked i guess and my advice for those with 4x my time but struggling is: GO TO TRAINING MODE I probably have 2x more play time in training mode than in ranked and I'm proud of it. Knowledge from past games carried over here (GG Strive, Granblue, DNF Duel, A very small bit of SF V and many more). I was kinda new to SF because i only played SF 2 as a kid and some matches of SF V with a friend but before going into ranked, i trained almost everything with Chun Li (my main and only character i play), like the best routes, finishers, safe enders on block, punishes, anti airs, footsies, fire ball spam, drive rush starters and the list goes on. I say this carried over games because i know what, how and when to go training and also how to use the training mode in general. Right after getting my ass beating and not understanding what to do, i would go to the training mode right after the set and re-create the situation that i didn't understand, to see how i could have handled it better. All these things improve your overall understanding of the game and i think there's nothing better than watching some high level match and going into the training mode to try doing the same or even better I think i would be in masters in SF 6 and Granblue if i wasn't lazy and got so many vacations from these games, i tried a little in GG Strive and got Celestial in the first season so i think I'm gonna try harder in SF6 from now on
I started watching sajam slam because I'm a fan of a one content creator who was participating and got to love this game, so this video would be really helpful for me as a new player
I appreciate all the advice that is shown here. If I ever need to look at what I should be working on, this video is one that I will look back to again and again. Keep it up, Diaphone, you rock. Cheers!
really eye opener i'm new to fighting game manage to pass bronze with terry. sometimes I feel overwhelmed with all those jargon and stuff, this video manage to keep focused to learn based on your rank bracket🤣
Jumping in general is really strong in sf6 compared to most other sf games. Neutral jump especially, now that DP has a pretty nasty arc on the heavy versions
I struggle with this so much and it’s frustrating. Even more so knowing I can fireball to bait….and I do….but miss the antiair input. I know Akuma can punish but my hands seem to not realize yet
@@Vanity0666 knowing which anti air to use in the right situating is a huge skill that can take a very long time. people instinctively always wanna use heavy dp but the other versions exist for a reason and simple anti air normal still have their own value
The jump in then neutral jump "shimmy" still gets me often at master. If you keep that in your locker and bring it out at a crucial moment in a set against me it hits like 90+% of the time, lol.
I have been hardstuck on plat 2 for about 2 months now. I know my weakness is antiair and I cant handle pressure too well. Will definitely implement what you have been saying here.
I’ve been enjoying the game lately but I’m still stuck in silver. As player new to SF it’s sometimes frustrating but there is when things vid comes clutch. Thanks!
I've found that climbing out of the sub-1500 trenches is mostly about dropping the idea that you have to be doing EVERYTHNG well, or cycling between ALL of your character's options. You should know HOW to use all your tools, of course, because you're in Master now-but in real matches, it's about figuring which tools to omit from your plan, or "triaging" as Diaphone puts it. There are a ton of players in low Master who have an anti-airing problem, or they can't react to DI, so don't be afraid to jump in on people, or going for wall splats, just to test the waters-it's better than having to play neutral against people who probably have a VERY strong ground game to sort of make up for the fact that they can't DP your jump-ins. Also, because 1500 is the starting point, it's kind of a melting pot of players of all skill levels. You could queue up with a player who's 1500 now, but maybe they were in Legend last phase with that character, and are just now logging in. Or maybe they were in 1700, so they're not amazing, but they're super solid and hard to beat. It's possible. In those situations, you just have to take the inevitable L, recognize that they're simply better than you, and try your best not to get tilted about it, because nobody's ever played better when they're pissed off. You might get players who are simply better than you 20 times in a row. Learning to mentally cope with going on these giant loss streaks is also going to be important and unfortunately I don't have any wisdom to impart about this besides... breathe, drink water, take breaks if you have to. Join a Discord with like-minded individuals that you can vent to, and who aren't going to roast you for venting. And then, at least for me, getting 1600 was about utilizing more "advanced" knowledge checks or gimmicks that my character has access to that aren't gonna be surface level obvious to anyone who doesn't actively study their MUs, and also studying your MUs yourself so you can be ahead of the curve. Now I just gotta figure out what it'll take to hit 1700... I'm thinking for me, it might come down to the hardcore studying of frame data, leaving no damage opportunities on the table, structuring my offense better, managing meter more intelligently, and watching what other ~1700 level Chun players are doing (NOT just pros).
Chun gang what up!!!! 😂😂 Yeah definitely meter management , hitting up replays and here's one of my tactics. If someone beat me and I had a hard time with them , I go and look through there replays and see if I can find a replay of someone else beating them with my character. It's been good for me...
Hey I'm a platinum 1⭐️ Ken player looking to get better at the game can I add you. Looking to make friends new to fighting games and i want to become master rank
Also a Chun main, I feel like framing the match's goals and priorities helps me stay on track in low Masters. The priority is to get them in the corner, so I'm going to crouch+MK drive rush into air stance combo for max corner carry any chance I get, then go crazy with Chuns corner game which is extremely strong even without a throw loop. Her back heavy punch meaty into stance is so good, or just anything stance in the corner. Chun's neutral jump heavy kick is so good too. I find I play best when I'm playing reactive. Let the opponent make moves first, let them show me what they're going for. I just fireball and wait to anti-air. If they're turtling, I try to walk them down while blocking or hazanshu over their projectile. Counter play is so strong fighting games, even moreso in SF6. Punish counters, DI counters, invincible reversals, they are super strong counter play tools. Chun's standing light punch is like a wall, stops most drive rush attempts, and countering with her reversal tensho kicks on quick moves like Psycho Crusher is so good. Its easier when you are ready to react if that makes sense. When I see a Bison, in my head I prepare myself to be ready for those psycho crushers. You can tell by distance and posturing when its coming and can buffer tencho kicks.
I've been between 1500 and 1650 Mr for like a year+ with both Ryu and jp. I definitely believe I improved, I see changes in my gameplay. Me defense is better, and improving even more now with replay takeover. I pickup more stray hits into damage. But I look forward to taking notes from this video to keep trying to move forward.
There it is. It's the people in the middle of the bell that make fighting games unfun for the rest of the players. When I first started, I also got frustrated about not progressing after mastering combos. Then someone told me about playing mid and hitting light attacks to hit people and counter people who try to use heavier attacks. It actually worked. I found myself winning more games against people and didn't have to rely on elaborate combos.
This was a very helpful video. It tells me I've been overcomplicating my play a lot and that's resulting in me not advancing. Additionally, I noticed how intentional you were playing. I also dont do that well when playing online. In person, yes, but online I turn gorilla.
Thank you! This is the way to teach an encompassing skill like fighting games. It’s similar to learning guitar and telling people, “just learn fundamentals”…. Ok which specific things then?. Gotta build from a core and layer it on.
A guy that started playing his first Street Fighter ever here and here's a tip from me - you have to realize that lower ranks can be really random and in my experience nothing from this video applies in bronze or silver. Most of the players I faced know a non basic combo, antiair and are insanely good (or lucky, not sure hah) with DI. On top of that people throw A LOT, and I really mean a lot like every other press is a throw no matter the character. Rarely there was a guy that just pressed light attacks and that's all they did, but you don't really need any tip against such player. I also noticed that people barely use jumping attacks and they also don't know how to avoid pokes, so my tip would be to just chill and respect your opponent a bit and expect like 400% increased throw frequency at any given moment, if you spam DI they will just cancel it with a throw randomly often. Coming from Tekken I was surprised how defensive lower ranks are and I LOVE IT! I'm not saying Diaphone doesn't know his thing cause I'm a freaking newbie, he's obviously way more experienced than I am (I have like 15h in this game), but that's the thing - I have the first hand experience being a newbie myself and at least in EU tips from this video didn't apply too well. I think focusing more on poke, counter DI and throws is more important on lower ranks. If you spam DI they will counter DI you way too often, and if you jump a lot you will get hit by their anti-airs because apparently people like to spam them a lot in neutral.
Clearly in my country is different from the USA. In platinum everyone is already abusing raw DR and low kick into DR, plus throw or big combo. Many still don't anti air at all, but they are quite DR happy anyway.
I have this in my region, regions also affect so much of how your matches go mine is full of weekly tournaments that place high in nationals as well, but as a result it kind of gets a lot of us stuck in plat or diamond off of not getting win streaks because we match consistently in tournaments and online so the 300 of us knock or un knock each other meaning we keep going up and up but it's slow. We tested it once about 100 of us used a VPN and switched to someone semi similar but not that same character that we were worse with but got us to master or high diamond in about a week
i'm totally new to fighting games and picked up sf6 because of A.K.I. Not playing as consistent as i want with work and life, etc. so i'm barely still stuck in iron lol its a mix of me still trying to get used to movement/controls and still trying not to panic mash everything. i get frustrated when i whiff and don't remember how to deal with certain situations in the heat of the battle, so to speak. like i said, totally new to all this but i'm trying to learn. thanks for this and all your vids! the game is fun and here's to hoping i can crawl out of iron (small goal i've set myself) soon with more practice and time.
when i was getting every character to bronze, my plan (after simply being generally capable of special moves) was to look for good times to DI and punish with something big, which is different with every character. i used to always go for an OD move, but sometimes i like to conserve the meter. DI into OD SPD is big for Zangief. now getting everyone to silver is feeling like a LOT more of a struggle. i was trying to learn how to use special cancelable moves for DI but gave up mostly because SPD always misses if canceled into. now i'm making sure i learn the anti air normals on characters i'm working on. i'm close to half way through the cast now. i still don't understand drive rush and don't feel like i should really need it yet. i have other uses for the meter
here’s a new player without any other fighting game experience speaking how to get to plat fast. always follow the 2 times rule, throw in this game is absolutely overpowered so always go for a throw after as a follow up, and after 2 times of throw follow up you opponent will probably try to go for a tech or od uppercut, so you shimmy and punish. this also fits for the “lame” strat you’re using so as an example, luke’s standing light punch cancel into fully charged lightning punch can lead to plus frame even on block, so i land it on my opponent 2 times and see if they found that you can punish it by di right after the target combo. i manage to get to plat with 10 hours in training mode and 15 hours of ranked without any other traditional fighting game experience.
@Diaphone as someone who wants to make Mortal Kombat 1 my main game but also wants to branch out into street fighter 6 as well, if you could do a video like this on that game as well then I feel like it would be super helpful
I notice that the 1300 to 1500MR range is lower play time than the sub 1300 MR players. This is lending credibility to my claim that high diamond players are often better than 1300 - 1500 MR players because they have the least time in. I'm approaching Master tier myself now (having started S1 at silver 2) and I imagine a lot of the 4-5 star diamonds I'm fighting are playing on substitute characters and their mains are in master probably 1500+. Fighting them is tough for me. When I rarely draw a 1300 master my reaction is like: "Nice 500 LP incoming." and it rarely disappoints.
100% right, I’m in diamond 5 trying to get Master rank and I find many of the lower master ranks or worse than the diamond 5s. Especially ones who are playing DLC characters
Good vid, the game makes me question my sanity 😂I've been as low as 1200 MR, I think I've finally flattened out and averaged 1400 MR for a while now. At this point it feels like improvement comes in small increments and takes a long time and a lot of repetition. I think as you get better the strides forward become smaller and somehow even w/ the improvement my self talk just gets worse. It's probably better if I can just learn to be happy w/ the small gains and have patience.
I had a wake up from the dead moment last week. The moment I reached Plat 1, I immediately got my ass whooped I think like +15 games in a row down to Gold 4! I had to crawl all the way back and finally today got 10 win streak back to plat including 1 game won back! Now im tryin to discilpline myself to good neutral and right defense.
Bro this video just gave me the biggest epiphany…. Been hard stuck in Plat for a while (with Ken of all characters 🤦🏽♂️) and this video just made me realize I’ve just been psyching myself out. I know all of Ken’s combos, oki setups, drive rush pressure etc but my defense is trash. To compensate I just try to use high pressure rush down offense as defense and that’s just not a strategy that works every time (works sometimes though). Here I am thinking I need to memorize every character’s frame data to get to diamond when really I just need to clean up my defense and get better at anti-airs 💀
What’s the hardest in diamond rank imo is that almost every second or third match i just get annihilated so bad that i don’t even want to believe it. Then i check the profile of that player, and they are already in master with either one or multiple characters. So, to get out of diamond, people have to overcome possibly high master rank players very often, which is not exactly easy.
It's so strange beating a Diamond 3 Jaime player then getting fucking DESTROYED by a Diamond 2 Cammy the next match. I feel better when I look them up and see they have three Master chars but you NEVER know how it's gonna go.
It's baffling but I think it's a test for the player to lock in and test their metal against master players as they'd enter into a world of powerful foes without being properly challenged otherwise
This is probably the case for all ranks. I am a Platinum player and I can definitely tell if I am playing a Diamond or higher on an alt character. This is the cost of each character having its own rank.
Bro yes. Diamond 3 is just 1300 MR master. The rank system just ends. And everyone on discord says “when you hit master is when the game REALLY begins 🤓” and then they just smurf and quit characters when they hit 25000LP XD
@@roncrudup2110it’s a little bit different because at mid dia3, it’s actually just master players on alts. The skill desparity ranges from plat players they play enough to get into diamond and 1800MR masters getting their 14th character to master. Idk it’s kinda ass
For diamond players, I have a tip (I'm diamond 3). At a certain point, when you start hitting mostly Master players on alts and you feel absolutely burnt out on ranked, I highly recommend getting into a Discord, like Diaphone's or New Challenger and just start creating custom room matches with Masters (preferably) and other diamonds. The feedback loop with ranked can get negative, Winning = Good; Losing = Bad. And the judgement you feel after you see your little points go up or down is not conducive to experimentation. Because experimentation = potential to lose and Losing = Bad. If you want to avoid getting hardstuck, this is the way. Custom rooms are an insane tool to improve. I play M Bison and I had an 1800 MR Bison explain glaring holes or patterns in my gameplan. It helped immensely. Just a suggestion hehe
This!!! Also, joining tourneys can help with building up patience and self-control which are needed to rank up faster (just got to D4 by getting sets with D5 in ranked yesterday)
Whats bisons anti airs
@@jacobg2394crouching heavy punch. Press down and then press your strongest punch button. There are other ways to anti air with him but that is the most important one and the only one you need to know when starting out
THOU ART A GOD AMONGS MORTALS LIKE US
WE DO NOT DESERVE YOUT WISDOM
I do this pretty often but instead i just hop on battle hub and infinite rematch getting my ass beat
Makes you more used to fighting real hard opponents
As a hard stuck platinum player, this was really informative. But I think you may be taking for granted the instinctual timing you’ve developed. I’d love to see a deeper dive into WHEN to go for things like cr MK-drive rush, jump ins, DI’s, etc.
I think plat creates a weird little ecosystem, because players need to learn *something* effective to get through gold, but almost nobody is at all well rounded.
One match you'll go up against a player who's learned to do gimmicky reaction check offense well. The next you'll go up against someone who's learned purely reactionary play. The next you'll go up against someone who's got relatively optimized combos with Chun or whoever, and will just risk/reward you to death. The next you've got someone playing Lily or Rashiid and nobody knows how to play against their character.
Most players there will be fine against one of these playstyles, but bad at dealing with others. The best advice to get through plat in my experience is to figure out what *type* of player you're losing to and learn to deal with that.
that first bit applies heavily to my Manon - I basically got through Gold by anti-airing every jump along with using two very specific jump-in mixups to get a command grab but it's made my gameplay extremely lopsided. that method worked well enough to net me more wins than losses but now as it loses its effectiveness I'm basically trying to go back and fill in a lot of the blanks I currently have.
This is mostly my experience trying to get every character to at least Platinum, unintentionally only knowing like one combo and I can kinda anti-air. The worst part is that my main, Juri, is at like Plat 3 because I haven't really played the game that much consistently, but I know I could eventually reach Master if I played enough.
This, but the platinum weridness is great for teaching adaptability. You and your opponent have a perfered strategy, but if it doesn't work or they catch on to you,do you know how and when to mix things up? Be flexible and learn versatility.
> who's got relatively optimized combos with Chun or whoever, and will just risk/reward you to death
what does that even mean, isnt that what everyone does with everything in fighting games lol
@@NamelessThun It means someone that optimized their damage at a level of play where most of their competitors haven't, and get by on higher reward from basic options despite being worse at many other areas of play.
As opposed to a player who's better at neutral or is good at reactioning to the opponent's offense or knows how to open their opponent up better, but knows no better damage routes than button button special.
Pretty sure running into this type of player is a near universal experience in the mid-ranks of any fighting game, idk what to tell you.
What got me from diamond to master was 3 main things. Shimmy, meaty button/throw on my opponents wake up, and one big combo that leads to level 3 super.
Hey I'm a platinum 1⭐️ Ken player looking to get better at the game can I add you. Looking to make friends new to fighting games and i want to become master rank
I think a lot of diamond players autopilot delay tech. A little shimmy goes a long way in those ranks.
Diaphone I just want to say, after being hardstuck Diamond 2 for a year I got to Master rank with Ken thanks to this video. There were key tools I was missing, such as C.MP and S.HK. It shot me right to Master in about a week. It's insane how much I learned and how much my gameplan improved thanks to this simple advice. All the best man.
Love to see it 🫡
Reading the comments from ''PACKINGBLOW' in chat was so annoying, bro is so full of himself in a video where we are learning how to improve. These are the kind of people who give the FGC a bad name.
he's also really into "gimmicks"
I think he's pretty typical when it comes to a twitch chat. Once that Lily won a round, "oh they play above plat. When that Lily lost, "you could probably just throw them to death."
They probably a scrub themselves ❤
bUt HoW dO I bEAt uNPRedICtaBlE giMmIcks!
Don't worry about him bro. People like him have everything to prove and nothing to show.
The embarrassment they face being them is far greater than how we feel observing them. They're losers, you're not. Chad!
Master rank player on multiple characters, long time FGCer but struggle with the SF6 fundamentals a lot (DI, Drive Rush) so me looking at the training for Gold/Silver is actually very important. Thank you for this!
I think starting out in the game jumping all the time will build bad habits and cause you to rely on cheesing your opponent until you hit a wall and it won’t work anymore and now you have to learn the game all over again. Ceelows has incredible beginner guides that teaches you how to play. Beginning with a poke button in neutral, and anti air button, and a punish button. And when you are comfortable slowly optimizing those 3 categories.??
and take your losses in stride, even if it's a losing streak. Watch those replays, work on fixes, and don't feel bad if/when those fixes don't pan out right away. You've still added tools to the box
I just visited my buddy stationed in Japan, we went to an arcade and played SF6 with some of the locals (Got obliterated lol) which made him go home and buy the game. This video couldn't have come out at a better time!
I think plat is where you get a more general game feel. I was "hard stuck" plat for awhile (As in I almost never played ranked) but around then I was getting a general gameplay understanding the general mechanics etc. I just hit Diamond with Ed and went through plat 1 with Terry, a lot of plat players are playing to a gimmick. Its about reading and understanding the gimmick, something useful is casual matches. While I was unranked with Terry and plat 5 with Ed I was matching mid diamond->master players. Causal matches cause less stress and you can fight better players and will notice how they arent doing X thing or Y thing (Such as master players almost never DI which helped me go "hey I should stop DIing" or they knew my pressure so I started learning mix) casual matches is a genuine tip I could give
I think one massive thing about switching to casuals or battlehub or even going the extra step and finding someone to train with on discord or something is getting the ability to rematch over and over, really try out and experiment against people who are better than you, try out different responses to different strats, moves, etc. you are having trouble with, just get a lot more time with an opponent rather than the like, 1-3 matches on ranked with any individual.
I got so frustrated when i dropped to 1200-1300mr when i got masters. Like 100-200 hrs later (i switched systems midway through so idk exactly) im at 1600mr. Finally i am allowed to have an opinion in sf6
Whachu mean with "switched systems"? Like you started messing around with the settings or something?
@@JOHNATANMCSPACIMM from ps5 to pc
@@JOHNATANMCSPACIMM pc to xbox or something else.
Like switched consoles
@@JOHNATANMCSPACIMM a system is a console or pc. I switched from ps5 to pc
I feel like I have done things so backwards.
Around mid silver rank I decided to learn essentially all combos for my Char. (Luke)
So, i labbed forever.
Finally ranked to gold last night.
Im really working on effective footsies and pressure.
I am complete shit at reacting to DI. I never really used it. So, im fixing things that should have been fixed long ago.
When I play casuals, I tend to do very well against plat and some diamond players.
Thanks for the guide. Good info for new players.
Im old and hadnt been competitive in a FG since SF2 CE in the arcades in the 90s.
It has taken me a long time to catch up to the speed and the level of dexterity required for execution.
I got to masters for the first time ever like a month and a half ago with zangief with like 90 total hours on sf6 but 99% of those games were with zangief only lol. Now, switching to learn akuma recently, it feels so damn difficult being semi stuck in plat 4. The playstyles are so vastly different so carryover from zangief is a very hard thing to do but I will say though, I feel like I am learning how to deal with pressure way more with a different character than what I am used to since all those heartbreaking losses as zangief. My tip for all ranks is this with the information I laid out: stick to one character you actually love, exhaust every option for punishes and learn their neutrals. You will learn combos as you go and will be glad for mirror matches against someone better because you know what they did to you and learn to see what was optimal when beating you.
I wish more fgc creators did educational content like this. This is why we love Diaphone❤
pausing the video at 33:16, can't get spoilers about what to do in Diamond. see you in 3 years when I get there!
What rank are you at? If you lose 3 streak take a break, some people dial in too hard when their on a losing streak
@@TehStylishoneI advise people to take a break when on a losing streak. I don't adhere to my own advice.
The problem with videos like this from the pros, is that they just skate through a rank on a win streak. Which leads to a not very big selection of opponents. As someone who's recently hit Gold at close to 100 hours of play, i csn say that Silver is full of people who will make your life hell. From Modern Kens and Lukes who spam autocombo into Super, when 1 your mistake leads to half your health being gone, when you play on classic and cant do stuff like that consistenly. I spent probably 200 matches in Silver or more, and i can confidently say, that opponents skill is vastly higher than this. You csn get several weak opponents and go on a winstreak, but then you get a flowchart Ken or someone who probably shouldn't be in this rank. The sdvice generally is good, but no, you can't go through Silver with just anti airing or jumping or spamming unless youn
have Platinum/Diamond/Master level of play. You can go through some opponents, but then you'll get stuck. And because pros go through these ranks with 400 points a win, thsy csn't experience the whole spectrum of opponents
Yeah, the majority of videos like this are just inherently flawed when the creator already knows all about the game and will just be doing a ton of things like executing every one his specials/moves in general with little to no errors as well as so many things deeply ingrained that can't suddenly be unlearned for a video. That on top of the fact that if you had a gameplan like this the very first time as a newcomer you would just develop a ton of bad habits and not being winning anyway because your Jinrai loops won't be clean, you won't be able to react to DI that well because it's much harder when you're new and trying to learn everything else going on in the match on top of DIs, plus you're probably having to match up against of smurfs with double digit win streaks as well, etc... but I guess if some people find this helpful, then cool I guess. But this type of video is isn't exactly rare for SF6 content and I've seen other content creators actually break down skills to attempt to incorporate as you go through the ranks with much more detail than this, most of them still weren't that helpful except for one where the person was teaching a complete noob. Unfortunately those videos didn't have many views and just ended upruptly with the previous videos being taken down :/
I don't have anything against Diaphone, I get that it's just content at the end of the day. I'm just saying as someone else who also started playing SF6 seriously(and it being the first traditional fighting game I've tried to play less than casual) about 3 months ago and being in a similiar situation rank wise I don't find this video even remotely helpful. Most importantly why would anyone who wanted to play the game for the long haul want to play like this instead of actually learning the game?
Its not just having good anti airs and counter di's it what having those enables. Which is your game plan. It forces the opponent to play netrul and alows you to take space.
@@Kade503 you and OP both have pretty good points, but i started out in like rookie or iron (minimal fighting game experience before; never got out of bronze in sfv and peaked floor 8 in strive) and i'm plat on a few characters now, so i'll tell you what my approach to getting out of the low ranks was like. you're right that the method of learning the game presented in this video is really boring and most likely will not be enough to get you started with playing the real game, or even to beat the trash that you'll get matched up against. you're especially correct in assuming that diaphone's extremely high skill level in comparison to the people he was playing against completely invalidates any point he's trying to illustrate. the difference in muscle memory, intuition, mental fortitude, etc. is simply too vast for any disadvantage that diaphone gives himself to matter in these matches, which results in a very unrealistic portrayal of the game.
to these points, i would say that the most important things to learn at low ranks are just how to block, how to anti-air, and how to react to DI. if you know how to do those things consistently, you'll at least stop losing to the modern auto combo spammers because they won't be able to get free hits on you. once you have a decent defensive foundation, you should learn the basic combo structure of your character. learn what your good "starter" moves are, then try to come up with some basic concepts for extending combos, and finally, know what move to end your combo with. watch videos on auto-timed knockdown setups so that you can keep the pressure on your opponents as they're waking up. doing your character's combo trials will also help you to understand these things more intuitively without having to memorize a million different esoteric combos and situations. i wrote all of this stuff down in a journal document on my computer and referred to and edited it at the start and end of each play session, which helped solidify things in my memory.
i had quite an easy time getting to plat, and i didn't really start struggling until then, and this was the method i used to learn multiple characters to an intermediate level. also, i would advise you to stick with one character until you're master or at least diamond, because i think that if i had spent my time learning one character instead of splitting my time between jamie, AKI, rashid, deejay, and akuma, i could've learned enough about the game and the characters to be master rank on one or two of them by now. but terry just came out, so i've been trying him, and i also want to play ed, so i'm trying to pick one character to grind for the time being until i get master.
You shouldn't take from this video that this is the literal strategy that should be used to rank up. These are the things you should prioritize learning at each rank (like the title says). I put around ~150-200 hrs into SFV and only once briefly dipped into Silver, but in SF6, once I finally listened to my friend (who works as a coach in his local FGC) nagging me to do essentially what this video says, I shot from Silver (where I had initially placed in SF6) all the way up to Diamond in like a month, and now I have Master with 3 characters. Stuff like combos and situatuonal tech are fun, but like basically every skill, the most efficient way to learn is to learn the fundamentals, then build off of them.
The most important "trick" to getting better is actually something that SF6 (and basically every other mainstream competetive game) actually works against you in- you shouldn't care about rank. You should care about improvement and becoming better. Before you hit Master and the game actually gives you an ELO score (MR), your rank isn't ever an actual descriptor of your ability; smurfs and people relying on gimmicks make sure of that. With ELO, you WILL float to the score that accurately represents your skill; we use ELO (or its derivaties, like Glicko) for basically all serious zero-sum games (like chess and pool) for a reason.
Stop caring about your rank. Join a discord server (ideally a smaller one based on your local FGC, so you can actually talk to good players on a personal level and potentially play people in-person) and start caring about your skill.
If u think silver is hell it sounds like a serious skill issue although i do agree content creators give the worst advice being hardstuck in low ranks will forever be a skill issue in fighting games...
Very useful video for us newbies. Been wanting to get into fighting games forever but never knew where or how to start as the "mental stack" of these things does get pretty high eventually. Ty.
I'd kill for a video like this for GBVSR
yes please! getting over the A5 wall and the S+ wall are both really hard
🤔
66L in D rank, 66L in master rank
I'm not new to Street Fighter, but it has been a good long while since I played any fighting game with the intent of getting good, so I've got a lot of ranked anxiety. Finding this video did help take the edge of performing off my shoulders a bit, as I stopped focusing on all the failed, dropped or whiffed training room combos I couldn't do on command in my placements, and just kept things simple. I recently started my ranked journey on Chun Li in bronze. I'm not following your playbook to the letter since I'm using simpler versions of those big, flashy combos from training, but just having an idea of what to generally expect in each rank gives me confidence, and that's let me start to notice when more opportunities to do things arise. I'll start following these tips more once I start to struggle, but for now, I just wanted to let ya know your video is helping someone, even if it's in an unorthodox way 😂
This was helpful, thanks. I've hit a wall between D2 and D3 at 160 hours, and especially with all those Terry players with 9 winstreak it gets somewhat tilting.
This video has helped me get from bronze up to plat within a couple of weeks. Currently climbing plat trying to get to diamond. Thank you so much dude
Loved this video. Plat 3 with Ken rn so I’m going to implement your tips. This is my first SF game and I’m loving it
Excellent video, thanks. As a Plat player who only recently worked out how to get off the 13000 LP floor, I appreciated that you tried to win “like” a player at your rank.
That said, I think the skill of spacing and anticipation (ie always being at the perfect position to bait and punish a jump-in) is not generally recognised as something that newer players simply don’t have.
These “invisible” skills are what makes pro players winning with fewer tools look very, very easy.
This was really helpful, thanks man!
I‘m currently at Gold 2 with Luke, and the thing I struggle the most with by far are my DI-reactions, definitely gonna work on those 👍
You've inspired me to return to the game and get back on the grind. Having a concise list like this is really helpful for a first time fighting game player like me.
Probably the single best video showcasing how a beginner FG player can improve and climb the ranks.
Not SF6, but in Strive I rapidly climbed from full beginner just by following this exact sort of gradual improvement.
1. Opened the game and hopped into training mode.
2. Spend a few minutes just warming up and reviewing what I knew. Throwing specials, doing a little jump-in, etc.
3. Another few minutes adding one improvement to my play based off what I'd been losing to. Blocking? Anti-airs? Messing up specials? Not enough damage?
4. As soon as I had that semi-consistent, I jumped into ranked trying to intentionally work in that improvement.
5. Lose probably. But this is actually a blessing as weaker opponents just make it easier to improve those basics.
6. Rank back up and then some.
Almost every night I'd see marked improvement and I never spent much time in training.
I purchased the game about 6 months ago because i found A.K.I really cool but sf6 being my first fighting game i sucked really hard played some sets and never played again but tree days ago i got really into it bc of the Terry update and even placed Silver ** !!
It may not be huge but i was really proud of myself. I hope will reach gold soon😁😁
I believe in you, bro
Good luck man!
@@victorhugodantaslavouras5401 thank you!
@@ggteddf1 yes thank you 😄😄
Hope you keep it up and find the fun playing AKI! Good luck out there~
Thanks for this video. I'm new to SF. This curriculum makes sense and will help me progress for a while.
MC Mura recently did one of these. 🙂Nice job giving a lot of time to the lower ranks.
Been playing since the genre started (I'm 50), but went 4-10 in placement & ended up in Iron (now Bronze). 🙃I got to gold in SF5.
I don't get to play nearly often as I like, & couldn't get online for a long time (Capcom ID link error).
Watched tons of tech vids, top players w/my main, lots of training, use all Drive mechanics, Mura Discord chat, watch replays, etc, but can lose (0 wins vs Manon so far). Good vid. 😎
Honestly, this is definitely one of the most useful streetfighter videos I’ve seen in a long time. We getting out of diamond with this one boiz!!
I also think that you can get trapped by focusing on winning rather than focusing on building good habits. If you spend 5 games thinking "I don't care if I win, I'm just going to only anti air" or "when I'm cornered I'm going to be ready for a counter DI". Building habits can make winning harder but is better in the long term I think
Same philosophy when playing an instrument. First practice slow, the when you can consistently play at that speed, speed it up, and so on
100%
And I learned early with this game, from a true beginner place, play arcade mode using only normals a few times when learning a character, to focus on what works where, and then do a couple longer cpu sets to get comfortable with raw rush, parry, throws, di, etc. Even if you aren't using footsies to dodge throws, you can get a lot of basics down solid in rookie, then start learning all the basic strats for a characters 1, 2, 3 type combos in iron and bronze. Basically, the streamlined explanation of what he's saying but without the fact that he WALKS like a high level player
This is just as bullshit and boilerplate of an advice as "don't look for love and you'll find it"
thank you for this video. this was what i was looking for when i first started playing. sf6 is my first fighting game so the flow of progression is not the clearest. helps a ton!!
Love the video, for the most part this is exactly how I learned SFIV. I would have loved to see more of a focus on throw in the early ranks - especially as a very basic punish option.
That was one of the best fighting game guides I’ve ever seen, even if I’m past a lot of that. Fantastic video.
That said, as someone who has 2 characters in low master and multiple in diamond, I still lose to jump spam and jinrai kick
Imagine being a random bronze trying his best... & Diaphone comes & randomly makes an example out of you. 🤺🤺 #ThanksForPlaying
Thanks for this guide, it actually made me to play instead of worrying xD Got into gold without knowing how to trigger super move xD After 3 weeks got into gold 3 and one of my strongest combos is dash + throw xD
Trying to get into this game has been a humbling experience so far. I got placed at literally 0 LP and am now in Iron trying to get to grips with the game. I still have a lot of problems with the basic controls and actually doing what I want to do so its gonna be a long road. What messes me up the most is that I cant really tell during which animations inputs get buffered and when not.
I believe in you! Keep at it!
I wanted to write an answer for you but it turned out to be longer than I thought it was going to be. It's about the buffering that you asked about if you wanna read it.
If you go into Training Mode with your character and go into the Screen Display Settings, you can turn on Action Timing Display and Cancel Timing Display.
Action Timing Display will show a bar wherever you put it(I put mine in the head). When you hit a button, the bar will have a red sideways line that will go from right to left. When the red line goes away, you can move again. However, there's an up and down yellow line on the left side of this bar. Once the red line passes this yellow line, it will turn green. In this small time, you can hit your Attack button and it will come out on the 1st frame you can move as a buffered input. It's not all too important right now.
The Cancel Timing Display setting will make your character glow red or blue if you hit the opponent on Hit or Block. If your character glows red, you can Cancel that button into a Special Move, Super, or Drive Impact, even on Block(although don't Cancel into Super on Block). If your character glows blue, you can only Cancel into a Super.
Typically most Light Attacks, some Medium Attacks, and some Heavy Attacks will turn you red, meaning a Special Move, Super, or Drive Impact. Say Luke's Crouching Light Punch can go into a Sandblast, or you can go into any of his Supers, or if your opponentused their Drive Impact you can use yours right back.
Moves that only turn you Blue are usually odd Normals like Luke's Standing Medium Punch or Special Moves like his Rising Uppercut. These moves will only allow you to go into a Super. Supers have certain restrictions on when you can use them.
If it's a Level 1 Super, it can only be cancelled from a Normal button, like Luke's Medium Punch.
If it's a Level 2, it can only be cancelled from an EX Move(called OD in SF6 but you'll only hear EX) where you use 2 buttons for a Special Move, like Luke's EX Flash Knuckle where you use any 2 Punches, or any Normal Attack button.
If it's a Level 3 Super/Critical Art, it can be cancelled by anything that has a Red or Blue Cancel glow, including your Normals, EX Moves, and now Regular Special Moves like Luke's Regular Rising Uppercut.
Same. I picked it up during the steam sale and am currently getting wrecked in rookie.
Try turning on action timing display in the screen display settings of training mode. It basically shows you where the buffer window is for your moves. Training mode in general has a lot of things that can make understanding combo timing and execution easier. Hope that helps!
I think one of the most productive lessons I learned when it came to this game is that every move has a purpose. Coming from smash bros where it feels like plenty of characters were given useless moves on purpose (Samus jab, Ganon up tilt, etc) it was very easy to get into a rut of “this is what my character can do and these are the moves we never touch,” which for me was a mindset that carried over to street fighter. Then I realized that the intention of this game was for it to be played competitively, which meant to me that unless you’re Dan Hibiki, all of your moves have a purpose. It’s really nice to have the rest of your moveset to turn to when you’re hard stuck, which is something that I didn’t feel confident relying on in smash bros.
Watching diaphone teach people makes me happy, a lot of pro players show stuff but this is really in depth compared to who ive seen do this same thing.
Incredible video!!! It would be great to have this kind of video for every competitive game lol
I think one thing is what Diaphone did near Plat/Diamon is actually harder than just learning more damaging combos. The exact timing, how he shimmies and jump at the right time, all require strong fundamentals that take time to build. At that point I think it's better to just learn some combos to optimize your risk/reward better while improving your fundamentals at the same time. But there's a balance of course. Just learning the dream combo for example won't get an Ed to master if you can't figure out how to hit and block.
Why I'm only seeing this now goddamn. I'm plat 4 with like less than 50 hours in ranked i guess and my advice for those with 4x my time but struggling is: GO TO TRAINING MODE
I probably have 2x more play time in training mode than in ranked and I'm proud of it. Knowledge from past games carried over here (GG Strive, Granblue, DNF Duel, A very small bit of SF V and many more).
I was kinda new to SF because i only played SF 2 as a kid and some matches of SF V with a friend but before going into ranked, i trained almost everything with Chun Li (my main and only character i play), like the best routes, finishers, safe enders on block, punishes, anti airs, footsies, fire ball spam, drive rush starters and the list goes on. I say this carried over games because i know what, how and when to go training and also how to use the training mode in general. Right after getting my ass beating and not understanding what to do, i would go to the training mode right after the set and re-create the situation that i didn't understand, to see how i could have handled it better.
All these things improve your overall understanding of the game and i think there's nothing better than watching some high level match and going into the training mode to try doing the same or even better
I think i would be in masters in SF 6 and Granblue if i wasn't lazy and got so many vacations from these games, i tried a little in GG Strive and got Celestial in the first season so i think I'm gonna try harder in SF6 from now on
Stuck back and forth between diamond 2 and 3. Appreciate the video
I started watching sajam slam because I'm a fan of a one content creator who was participating and got to love this game, so this video would be really helpful for me as a new player
This is the kind of comment I was hoping to see after Sajam Slam. Welcome!
Welcome! Street Fighter is a lot of fun!
We believe in you!
@@Ant_FGC thanks!
@@duxnihilo thank you ^^
I’m jumping back in the game as Terry after a lengthy break so this vid is especially appreciated.
I appreciate all the advice that is shown here. If I ever need to look at what I should be working on, this video is one that I will look back to again and again. Keep it up, Diaphone, you rock. Cheers!
The disable frame info is huge, it's easy to "look" by the length of the frames to see in my peripheral view what recording is playing!
this video came out at the perfect time for me. its prob a great strategy to make these intro topic videos once or twice a year
7:41 "get used to how these used are moves" LOL
I needed this vid! I was hardstuck Diamond 2 (with AKI) but we movin through the ranks now. Even with dropped combos 😅
Love this video. Very good goalposts to set for each rank to hit is a great way to learn.
really eye opener
i'm new to fighting game manage to pass bronze with terry.
sometimes I feel overwhelmed with all those jargon and stuff, this video manage to keep focused to learn based on your rank bracket🤣
My big breakthrough when hitting diamond that really helped me was getting good at perfect parrying. That and the Zangief season 2 buffs😛
Mindless jumping still works on plat and I'm ashamed to say I still fall for it sometimes.
Jumping in general is really strong in sf6 compared to most other sf games. Neutral jump especially, now that DP has a pretty nasty arc on the heavy versions
I struggle with this so much and it’s frustrating. Even more so knowing I can fireball to bait….and I do….but miss the antiair input. I know Akuma can punish but my hands seem to not realize yet
@@Vanity0666 knowing which anti air to use in the right situating is a huge skill that can take a very long time. people instinctively always wanna use heavy dp but the other versions exist for a reason and simple anti air normal still have their own value
The jump in then neutral jump "shimmy" still gets me often at master. If you keep that in your locker and bring it out at a crucial moment in a set against me it hits like 90+% of the time, lol.
Perfect timing. Came back from a long break and I’m climbing with Terry!
I have been hardstuck on plat 2 for about 2 months now. I know my weakness is antiair and I cant handle pressure too well. Will definitely implement what you have been saying here.
Diaphone just casually dropped the GOATiest video ever, great job!
I’ve been enjoying the game lately but I’m still stuck in silver. As player new to SF it’s sometimes frustrating but there is when things vid comes clutch. Thanks!
Thanks for the MR grind pep talk! I watched this video for fun but my 1300 ass really needed that
This was a great video for a gold scrub like myself. Fundamentals are key!
I watched this video in full… you got a new follower bro … good content… nice work
Hey bro. Thanks for all the knowledge. Not just in sf6 but guilty gear as well. Big love to you
I've found that climbing out of the sub-1500 trenches is mostly about dropping the idea that you have to be doing EVERYTHNG well, or cycling between ALL of your character's options. You should know HOW to use all your tools, of course, because you're in Master now-but in real matches, it's about figuring which tools to omit from your plan, or "triaging" as Diaphone puts it. There are a ton of players in low Master who have an anti-airing problem, or they can't react to DI, so don't be afraid to jump in on people, or going for wall splats, just to test the waters-it's better than having to play neutral against people who probably have a VERY strong ground game to sort of make up for the fact that they can't DP your jump-ins.
Also, because 1500 is the starting point, it's kind of a melting pot of players of all skill levels. You could queue up with a player who's 1500 now, but maybe they were in Legend last phase with that character, and are just now logging in. Or maybe they were in 1700, so they're not amazing, but they're super solid and hard to beat. It's possible. In those situations, you just have to take the inevitable L, recognize that they're simply better than you, and try your best not to get tilted about it, because nobody's ever played better when they're pissed off.
You might get players who are simply better than you 20 times in a row. Learning to mentally cope with going on these giant loss streaks is also going to be important and unfortunately I don't have any wisdom to impart about this besides... breathe, drink water, take breaks if you have to. Join a Discord with like-minded individuals that you can vent to, and who aren't going to roast you for venting.
And then, at least for me, getting 1600 was about utilizing more "advanced" knowledge checks or gimmicks that my character has access to that aren't gonna be surface level obvious to anyone who doesn't actively study their MUs, and also studying your MUs yourself so you can be ahead of the curve.
Now I just gotta figure out what it'll take to hit 1700... I'm thinking for me, it might come down to the hardcore studying of frame data, leaving no damage opportunities on the table, structuring my offense better, managing meter more intelligently, and watching what other ~1700 level Chun players are doing (NOT just pros).
Chun gang what up!!!! 😂😂 Yeah definitely meter management , hitting up replays and here's one of my tactics. If someone beat me and I had a hard time with them , I go and look through there replays and see if I can find a replay of someone else beating them with my character. It's been good for me...
Hey I'm a platinum 1⭐️ Ken player looking to get better at the game can I add you. Looking to make friends new to fighting games and i want to become master rank
@@jamesbutler5630 what's your cfn.. op probably will add you too. Are you on PS5?
Also a Chun main, I feel like framing the match's goals and priorities helps me stay on track in low Masters. The priority is to get them in the corner, so I'm going to crouch+MK drive rush into air stance combo for max corner carry any chance I get, then go crazy with Chuns corner game which is extremely strong even without a throw loop. Her back heavy punch meaty into stance is so good, or just anything stance in the corner. Chun's neutral jump heavy kick is so good too.
I find I play best when I'm playing reactive. Let the opponent make moves first, let them show me what they're going for. I just fireball and wait to anti-air. If they're turtling, I try to walk them down while blocking or hazanshu over their projectile. Counter play is so strong fighting games, even moreso in SF6. Punish counters, DI counters, invincible reversals, they are super strong counter play tools. Chun's standing light punch is like a wall, stops most drive rush attempts, and countering with her reversal tensho kicks on quick moves like Psycho Crusher is so good. Its easier when you are ready to react if that makes sense. When I see a Bison, in my head I prepare myself to be ready for those psycho crushers. You can tell by distance and posturing when its coming and can buffer tencho kicks.
That casual perfect ko on the diamond lily was epic. You make this shit look easy 😂
trying to grind to masters..
then all the masters youtubers get on "masters with terry" and just turn me into content...
nice video, id love to see the same format for GBVSR. keep it up
This makes me feel way better about learning SF6. It's nice to see that I dont need to think like a pro to climb higher.
Rock solid video brother ❤🔥💯
I've been between 1500 and 1650 Mr for like a year+ with both Ryu and jp. I definitely believe I improved, I see changes in my gameplay. Me defense is better, and improving even more now with replay takeover. I pickup more stray hits into damage. But I look forward to taking notes from this video to keep trying to move forward.
Wow this video was incredible! It put in the mood to purchase sf6
This was a big help. Thanks for the content.
Great video Diaphone!
Very good video and useful tips! :D
really kind of you to hide their names, appreciate it
thank you I needed something like this, I am stuck in silver 3/ gold
New diaphone, straight to my veins 🙏
There it is. It's the people in the middle of the bell that make fighting games unfun for the rest of the players. When I first started, I also got frustrated about not progressing after mastering combos. Then someone told me about playing mid and hitting light attacks to hit people and counter people who try to use heavier attacks. It actually worked. I found myself winning more games against people and didn't have to rely on elaborate combos.
This was a very helpful video. It tells me I've been overcomplicating my play a lot and that's resulting in me not advancing. Additionally, I noticed how intentional you were playing. I also dont do that well when playing online. In person, yes, but online I turn gorilla.
Thank you! This is the way to teach an encompassing skill like fighting games. It’s similar to learning guitar and telling people, “just learn fundamentals”…. Ok which specific things then?. Gotta build from a core and layer it on.
Many thanks - big help and great input
A guy that started playing his first Street Fighter ever here and here's a tip from me - you have to realize that lower ranks can be really random and in my experience nothing from this video applies in bronze or silver.
Most of the players I faced know a non basic combo, antiair and are insanely good (or lucky, not sure hah) with DI. On top of that people throw A LOT, and I really mean a lot like every other press is a throw no matter the character. Rarely there was a guy that just pressed light attacks and that's all they did, but you don't really need any tip against such player.
I also noticed that people barely use jumping attacks and they also don't know how to avoid pokes, so my tip would be to just chill and respect your opponent a bit and expect like 400% increased throw frequency at any given moment, if you spam DI they will just cancel it with a throw randomly often. Coming from Tekken I was surprised how defensive lower ranks are and I LOVE IT!
I'm not saying Diaphone doesn't know his thing cause I'm a freaking newbie, he's obviously way more experienced than I am (I have like 15h in this game), but that's the thing - I have the first hand experience being a newbie myself and at least in EU tips from this video didn't apply too well. I think focusing more on poke, counter DI and throws is more important on lower ranks. If you spam DI they will counter DI you way too often, and if you jump a lot you will get hit by their anti-airs because apparently people like to spam them a lot in neutral.
Clearly in my country is different from the USA. In platinum everyone is already abusing raw DR and low kick into DR, plus throw or big combo. Many still don't anti air at all, but they are quite DR happy anyway.
Yeah I got the same experience. In EU at least gold player already react to DIs and DR in raw neutral with a 50/50 throw or low
Same experience
I have this in my region, regions also affect so much of how your matches go mine is full of weekly tournaments that place high in nationals as well, but as a result it kind of gets a lot of us stuck in plat or diamond off of not getting win streaks because we match consistently in tournaments and online so the 300 of us knock or un knock each other meaning we keep going up and up but it's slow. We tested it once about 100 of us used a VPN and switched to someone semi similar but not that same character that we were worse with but got us to master or high diamond in about a week
Banger vid. I'm still stuck in iron tho lol
Yoooo that 9th placement match with against Jamie at like 2:30 had me crying 😂 lmaooo he looked so lost. Like "what do I do ??" 😂
i'm totally new to fighting games and picked up sf6 because of A.K.I.
Not playing as consistent as i want with work and life, etc. so i'm barely still stuck in iron lol
its a mix of me still trying to get used to movement/controls and still trying not to panic mash everything. i get frustrated when i whiff and don't remember how to deal with certain situations in the heat of the battle, so to speak.
like i said, totally new to all this but i'm trying to learn. thanks for this and all your vids!
the game is fun and here's to hoping i can crawl out of iron (small goal i've set myself) soon with more practice and time.
when i was getting every character to bronze, my plan (after simply being generally capable of special moves) was to look for good times to DI and punish with something big, which is different with every character. i used to always go for an OD move, but sometimes i like to conserve the meter. DI into OD SPD is big for Zangief. now getting everyone to silver is feeling like a LOT more of a struggle. i was trying to learn how to use special cancelable moves for DI but gave up mostly because SPD always misses if canceled into. now i'm making sure i learn the anti air normals on characters i'm working on. i'm close to half way through the cast now. i still don't understand drive rush and don't feel like i should really need it yet. i have other uses for the meter
Good health message at the end, haha
SF6 is my first fighting game ever, and after about 50 hours I am in Gold 5 after starting bottom of rookie. I am absolutely hooked lol
here’s a new player without any other fighting game experience speaking how to get to plat fast. always follow the 2 times rule, throw in this game is absolutely overpowered so always go for a throw after as a follow up, and after 2 times of throw follow up you opponent will probably try to go for a tech or od uppercut, so you shimmy and punish. this also fits for the “lame” strat you’re using so as an example, luke’s standing light punch cancel into fully charged lightning punch can lead to plus frame even on block, so i land it on my opponent 2 times and see if they found that you can punish it by di right after the target combo. i manage to get to plat with 10 hours in training mode and 15 hours of ranked without any other traditional fighting game experience.
The Wazzler of SF6
@Diaphone as someone who wants to make Mortal Kombat 1 my main game but also wants to branch out into street fighter 6 as well, if you could do a video like this on that game as well then I feel like it would be super helpful
I notice that the 1300 to 1500MR range is lower play time than the sub 1300 MR players.
This is lending credibility to my claim that high diamond players are often better than 1300 - 1500 MR players because they have the least time in. I'm approaching Master tier myself now (having started S1 at silver 2) and I imagine a lot of the 4-5 star diamonds I'm fighting are playing on substitute characters and their mains are in master probably 1500+. Fighting them is tough for me. When I rarely draw a 1300 master my reaction is like: "Nice 500 LP incoming." and it rarely disappoints.
100% right, I’m in diamond 5 trying to get Master rank and I find many of the lower master ranks or worse than the diamond 5s. Especially ones who are playing DLC characters
Diamond 5’s are always a threat
Good vid, the game makes me question my sanity 😂I've been as low as 1200 MR, I think I've finally flattened out and averaged 1400 MR for a while now. At this point it feels like improvement comes in small increments and takes a long time and a lot of repetition. I think as you get better the strides forward become smaller and somehow even w/ the improvement my self talk just gets worse. It's probably better if I can just learn to be happy w/ the small gains and have patience.
Make sure you always warm up before jumping into rank as well
I had a wake up from the dead moment last week. The moment I reached Plat 1, I immediately got my ass whooped I think like +15 games in a row down to Gold 4! I had to crawl all the way back and finally today got 10 win streak back to plat including 1 game won back! Now im tryin to discilpline myself to good neutral and right defense.
Bro this video just gave me the biggest epiphany…. Been hard stuck in Plat for a while (with Ken of all characters 🤦🏽♂️) and this video just made me realize I’ve just been psyching myself out. I know all of Ken’s combos, oki setups, drive rush pressure etc but my defense is trash. To compensate I just try to use high pressure rush down offense as defense and that’s just not a strategy that works every time (works sometimes though). Here I am thinking I need to memorize every character’s frame data to get to diamond when really I just need to clean up my defense and get better at anti-airs 💀
The last 20 seconds were hilarious. Truth is, I'd be just like that Camille 😢
thank you very much for this, very helpful.
man. imagine being on the receiving end of someone’s instructional video.