Any one have training trips/ideas/drills for newbies to learn to block combos? I’m playing Nash and I seem to do okay in casual games as I have the footsies pretty good. But I have no idea how to handle matchups again characters that rush down on me. Is it a matter of also learning the other characters combos in order to know how they will be attacking? Thanks.
Learning to block against a character that is quick/right up in your face comes with time and knowledge. It’s quite difficult when you start out, so don’t worry.
You don’t need to learn the characters yourself, but first of all, you need to figure out how you have to block certain moves and special attacks.
Let’s take Karin as an example for blocking:
From what I remember, when she is outside of sweep range, none of her moves to approach you can hit low, so you’re best off to just block backwards in case of an attack.
When she is close to you though, it gets a bit more tricky. Usually the best thing to do is to block low.
If she uses her kick combo (quarter circle back and kick?), the first 2 hits will always be blockable in any direction, high and low.
In case she used the medium kick version of this move, the following 2 kicks have to be blocked high (so you just hold backwards, not down backwards anymore).
Now let’s take this exact example for getting out of this situation:
If you are sure, that the Karin player will use the medium kick version of the move, you can just EX Uppercut (I believe that is quarter circle back and kick with Nash) after blocking the initial 2 hits.
Your move will come out before Karin can finish the rest of her attack, therefore successfully getting you out of trouble.
Judging from the phrasing of your question, I assume you are rather new. For now, you can simply concentrate on blocking.
Go into training mode, put the CPU to attack you and just focus on blocking. You’ll get a feel for it.
I’m sorry if this all sounded a bit too complicated 
My best advice is to go back to practice mode, after you lost a match because you didn’t know how to block a -specific- thing.
Go and figure out how to respond to said move.
That’s the beauty of fighting games, go and discover, and learn from your mistakes.
If you want, we can play some matches where I help you learn to block. I’ll go easy on you, and try to be as knowledgeable as possible.
Just hit me up on Steam at FAI_CW for easier communication.
(PC and PS4 can use crossplay, so don’t worry about that. It works well, even across the globe.)
Wow great write up very informative and insightful. Thanks for taking the time. I’ll add you on Steam when I get a chance to play later this week!