Hi. I’m a couple months into the game (and just gaming in general). I’ve been playing Ryu. I was wondering if anybody could give me any tips on beating Kimberly. She’s so fast and just in your face n relentless with these crazy multi hit combos. I just get completely lost and have no idea how to counter except for jabbing out from time to time. Even if I get on offense I feel like she is so fast she can get a punish counter n go into some 10 hit combo. Does anybody have any tips or guidance? Ty in advance.
#How Do You Beat Kimberly?
abstract atlas
earnest rover
Kimberly is known as a mixup character, she's got low damage but extremely high speed and likes to make you guess with 50/50 setups. Her main weakness is that low damage and a lack of defensive options.
Most of the time, lower level Kimberly players will jumpscare you with run > slide or teleport. They'll also mix in the run into kick off move that leaves them a safe distance if you block it, but also lets them go into a command grab from the jump-back. You can see she's layering a lot of offensive options.
Your main weapon will be patience and a strong offensive structure. Kimberly has two versions of her teleport, blue smoke is grounded, green smoke is airborne.
Your option against both is a correctly timed counter-attack, you'll have to practice this in training mode.
A jab can interrupt both options, and net you a small combo into potentially turning momentum on her
That's the offensive structure I mentioned
Kimberly's defense is subpar and you should make use of that by enforcing your offense when you get the chance to.
The second big hurdle in this matchup is the run, which will most often go into a low slide or a seemingly safe backjump as I said
The slide is extremely unsafe on block and you should be sure to punish her heavily for it if and when you block it.
You'll see Kim likes to move away from you, to then use one of her teleport or run options to reaction check you. In essence, you want to make use of that habit to force her to corner herself by patiently walking forward and crouch blocking. Maybe Ryu's fireballs can help here but I've never played a character with traditional fireballs so my knowledge is lacking there
At some point they'll go on the offensive, and that's where the matchup becomes a little more complex. But seeing as you're pretty new I'd assume you're Platinum or below right now, so most Kim players won't have that figured out properly yet and you will have plenty to learn before that really comes into play.