P4U2R/Naoto Shirogane/Strategy

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 Naoto Shirogane




General Gameplan

Naoto by design is a trapping and zoning style character who excels at defending space. Your intentions with Naoto should mainly be to force the opponent to take risks in preventing you from setting up control of the screen and the pace of the match. With Naoto, it is necessary to read your opponent's intentions with how they want to approach you and react/anticipate their advances and hit them for their attempt. If they prefer to be very cautious, you can use their hesitant approach against them by rushing in yourself and safely starting your offense before they get a chance to react to what you do. If your opponent is reckless with their approach, capitalize off their impatience by taking advantage of your screen position involving traps and force them to get hit or block for being overly aggressive and shift the match's momentum in your favor instead.

Needless to say, for Naoto to truly shine, you need a deep understanding of the opponent's options which in turn requires you to be very familiar with match ups across the board. It is necessary to understand that match ups differ greatly, which means that certain things that work vs one character are not guaranteed to work vs another. With that said, actively playing against a great variety of characters with the intention of learning to adapt quickly to situations and play styles is the way to maximize one's potential with Naoto.

Tips for Neutral

  • Set traps carefully. C Megido has less recovery and covers air space well. D Megido has more recovery but covers a large amount of ground space as well as being invulnerable to most air attacks.
  • Shoot sparingly. You are very vulnerable to attacks in Aim stance so use it when your opponent does not have access to full screen supers or attacks that can contest you easily. Preferably shoot when you have added protection from traps as well.
  • Protect your traps. It is very easy for your opponent to just run up and disarm your traps, then proceed to close in on you. It is your job to also establish that there is a risk to moving forward to destroy traps. While traps are there to protect your blind spots, it's equally important to establish the threat behind attempts at destroying them. Creating hesitation by threatening your opponent in such a way will create openings for your offense!
  • Know your anti air options. 2B is the universal AA option in this game, but Naoto happens to have a large variety of tools to stop the opponent in the air alongside 2B. Don't be scared to use C Blight, j.A/j.B, Air throw, B/C shots, or Sweep (low profiles certain air attacks) to successfully anti air the opponent.

Tips for Defense

  • Vary your wake up tech timings. Sometimes delay teching or no teching after being knocked down will throw your opponent off and create a situation where you can escape or minimize the threat of the opponent's offense.
  • Vary your DP follow ups. Use the B+D~X follow up mainly to stop relentless pressure or unsafe mix up attempts. Use B+D~6X vs opponents attacking at a distance or against opponents throwing many projectiles at you. Use B+D~4X to back off to create space or to throw off an opponent trying to bait out the attack follows by doing safe jumps or jump cancels after triggering your DP.
  • Mix up your other defensive options such as 5A/2A mash, upbacking, Evasive Action, reversal supers, guard cancel attack, guard cancel roll and of course BLOCKING. Your opponent generally cannot cover all these options and it is your job to anticipate/react to how your opponent is applying their offense and respond accordingly.

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 Naoto Shirogane