Why do Abel players backdash after Falling Sky?
I've seen plenty of matches where strong Abel players (KSK, RicoSuave), after a hard knockdown (from falling sky), they will back dash, then roll forward.
Why do all the players back dash? Is this to set up an unblockable or something?
From GameFaqs:
Posted by user Kalm20:
High level Abel's actually favour the mixup that comes after a Falling Sky, because it's much more ambiguous, and arguably puts them in better position.
After a Falling Sky, you'll see them backdash immediately and do a roll, right? That's an ambiguous roll setup, where your opponent can't tell which side you'll land on because the unique spacing/ untechable knockdown ends up putting Abel right where his roll will end inside the opposing character's body while they get get up, and as such they have to guess which side to block. Not only that, but you get a tiny bit of frame advantage where you can I think (THINK) meaty a cr. LP or LK and combo from there. It's really effective once you're playing someone who knows he can't reversal every time he gets knocked down.
Crouching HP mixups are less tricky. There's basically 2 things to take note of in this mixup. The hit animation of the opposing character and the strength of the rolls you use. Usually you'd want to use LK roll as the last one in the series. You know:
Cr. HP xx Roll, normal xx LK Roll to whatever
Because LK roll is the safest/leaves you with the most time to buffer/do that whatever. Now that's one layer of the mixup gone. That only leaves you with the normal you used to reset the opponent, and the first roll (which actually has no effect on what side you will eventually end up unless you used the HK roll to move you to the other side the first time) you used to cancel the cr. HP. This is where the hit animations come into play, because depending on which strength normal you use, a different animation is triggered and that is what determines which side you land on. A cr. LK or LP will net you an animation with a tiny amount of knock back, enabling Abel to roll to the other side.
Any other roll cancellable normal will net you an animation with a bigger knockback, resulting in Abel staying on the same side. It's not like Sakura's resets where her timing can vary everything and have them still be ambiguous, these positions/results are set in stone. As such, once you've played enough Abels/seen the reset enough times, you will actually KNOW which way to block. Then the Abel has to start tossing in MK rolls at the end to offset what you know, but those are much less safe and you need to have conditioned your opponent to block. Otherwise, they'll just react. That's why they're not suited to high level play, unless you know your opponent doesn't know the tricks. They don't have to guess anymore. And without that...it's nothing more than a fancy positioning maneuver.