Absorbing hits with Focus Attacks at low life

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter IV
1

I noticed a few instances while playing where someone would focus an attack which would normally kill them if it had hit them, but instead they’d live. I decided to test things out to figure out how absorbing attacks at low life works.

What I found out is that if you focus attack a hit that would kill you, the extra damage (plus a small percentage extra) is taken off of the life you are allowed to regain. If that would put you below 0, then you die instead.

For example, if Ryu is at 71 life, he can focus Ryu’s close fierce punch, even though it does 75 damage. However, the amount of life he can regain back is less than what he started with (since it did 4 damage more than the amount of life points he had).

The same thing applies to absorbing a LP Shoryuken. Ryu starts at 71 life and absorbs a LP Shoryuken from Ryu which does 98 damage. He will live, but have less life to regain than in the above example (since it did 27 more damage than the amount of life he had).

So basically, you can absorb something that would reduce you to about -80% of the life you currently have. I’m not sure of the exact number, but here are some of the cases that straddle the boundary:

Ryu at 35 life, takes 68 damage, which would put him at -33. Result = dies
Ryu at 71 life, takes 120 damage, which would put him at -49. Result = lives
Ryu at 53 life, takes 98 damage, which would put him at -45. Result = dies
Ryu at 43 life, takes 75 damage, which would put him at -32. Result = lives

I presume this would work the same way with Super Armor attacks as well.

Edit: The damage that is done to you after you reach 0 (which reduces the life you can regain) is done without any damage scaling (i.e. at 100% damage instead of 75%).

2

Nice work!

This would explain why my Gouken counter attack works at low life sometimes when I thought it shouldn’t have. Thanks. :stuck_out_tongue:

3

Good work bro. That actually explains a lot. I always wondered why sometimes I could FA and not die from it at low health, but other times I would. Keep experimenting. If you find out exact numbers for each character I’m sure they would sticky this.

4

Good stuff man. I still rarely use focus attacks when I’m near death but good to know.

5

Thanks! good to know how focus works at low life.

6

Awesome. Too mathy for my blood though.

7

How does damage scaling fit in all this?

8

It doesn’t, as you can only focus single hits.

9

This kinda sheds some light on the matter, i always wondered how it worked. Good job man :wink:

10

lots of times i won matches with ex dash punch trough a fireball when I only had a sliver or life left and I was like WTF!

Nice!

11

This is good shit, man. Thanks for the work.

12

I believe BeyBase talking about the natural damage scaling you get once your health drops below 50%.

see below … Shogun has figured in natural damage scaling in his work… Good Job!!!

13

All of the hits being absorbed by the focus are scaled the same as if you had gotten hit with them. When the music is quick (under 150 life points for Ryu), everything does 75% damage whether you get hit or focus.

That was the first thing I had to figure out is exactly how many life points were left and how the damage scaling works. That’s why I have Ryu doing 68 damage (d.RH = 90 * 75% = 68) and 75 damage (close fierce = 100 * 75% = 75) in my examples.

14

Nice. Was wondering about this myself.

15

good to know although its pretty risky absorbing them at low life maybe i might try it out more often when in a pinch

16

Yessssss, i knew something like this was up, i’m glad they put it in tbh, bit of that parry spirit.

17

It’s possible that the way it works is the absorbed “gray” life is scaled at 75% and then the gray bit is reduced/erased with no damage scaling (100%). So you can take about 175% (using dmg after scaling or about 233% of unscaled dmg) of your remaining life - it works with your examples if you don’t round up for the last example.

Nice find btw.

18

That would make some sense. I can maybe try some more testing on that this evening.

19

Makes sense until the set of boundary examples… why is he living on some and dying on others? The highest and lowest difference has him live?

20

It’s because the amount of life you’re allowed to go below 0 is based on how much life you had before being hit.

If you have 35 life and take 68 damage, it would put you at -33. 35 of the 68 is taken off of your lifebar, and the other 33 (plus a percentage extra) is taken off the amount of life you can regain. In this case, the percentage extra makes it so that more than 35 life is taken off the life you would regain, so you die instead.

At 71 life, if you take 120 damage, then 71 of that comes off your life and 49 (plus a percentage extra) is taken off the amount of life you can regain. In this case, you are left with a small amount of regainable life left and don’t die since 49 + ??% is still less than 71.