I'm a fellow Tekken and SC player and had the same trouble.Trials can be useful yes but that's better as a combo tutorial.For this game learning the range of your normal attacks will be help get you in to comboing moves.The other thing is to find a character you like and keep using them to figure their normal moves range as well as potential anti air normals.Also patience.Much patience is needed and if you jump a lot...Don't! Just wait.The chance will arise.Also spacing is highly important as well.If you watch youtube videos of players like Free1up Pikachuakuma you'll get an idea of how to play certain characters.I'm not great at this game like I am Tekken or SC but I recently started learning a bit more.I hate having to constantly go in to rank to find a match though.I honestly see I need to play more styles more often and the game will sometimes put me against a superior player.The more I play the the more I see and can begin to react.What I need now is a proper cross up game.And as for controls.I fear I can't help you there.I suffer the same problem.But my best controllers I used for the SF series was the genesis 6 button controller as well as the gamecube controller but I have small hands...you can choose to learn an Arcade stick but that's personal preference.Try to practice inputting specials and supers without cancelling in to combos until you get the feel then move to the cancelling.Also lag can cause moves to drop that could be a problem if you're good at moves offline