Sf3 3rd cancel timing question

Newbie Saikyo Dojo
1

hi i’m a newbie to sf.
i did play sf for for quite a while but never took it seriously. but after watching daigo’s parry (sf3 3rd strike) it just mesmerized me!!!
i want to take myself to next level and started to read bunch of newbie related articles here and whoa~~ what a depth… so complicated!!!
anyway so here is my question…

sf3 daigo’s combo after the parry was…

  1. Jumping Roundhouse / 2. Crouching Forward / 3. Strong Shoruken / 4. Shippu Jinraikyaku

and active frame for each move in order is 4,5,14,2.

does this mean that i have to input command within the active frames to cancel into next move?
thx~

2

I’m not sure of exactly how tight the timing is, but no, absolutely not. The cancel timing is far, FAR more lenient than that.

Also, the combo Daigo used is kind of situational, mainly used if you’ve done a jump-in you know is going to hit. If you’re going to play Ken, the combos you’re probably going to be using the most are:

c.MK xx EX fireball
c.MK xx SA3
c.MP xx SA3
Target combo xx LP shoryu
Target combo xx fireball xx SA3
c.LK > c.LK xx SA3

The bolded combos here are his main hit-confirms*. c.MK xx EX fireball is a fairly safe string that does decent damage and gives you a knockdown, so it’s useful in neutral if you’re unsure if you’re going to hit, and c.MK xx super is a basic yet decent punish if you parry something, your opponent whiffs something in your c.MK range, or if you block something unsafe like a DP or a super.

  • in case you’re unsure of what a hit-confirm is: it’s basically a string of attacks where the first part of the string allows you to react to whether or not the attack hits. If it hits, you finish the string and get big damage, if not, you stop the string and leave yourself safe, and gives you the option to do something else (like, say, throwing out another poke, or walking up to throw your opponent, etc).
3

no, for two reasons:

  1. the frame data that we read refers to moves on whiff. most fighting games have “hit stop” which is when the attacking character freezes during the active frame (whichever one hits) when the move makes contact with the opponent. this effect usually extends the cancel window by a lot
  2. sometimes, the game designers intentionally make cancel windows longer than the active frame window

heres a shoddy timeline to help you visualize the second idea for a 20 frame move (on HIT). on whiff, lets say it has 1 active frame and is therefore 15 in total. frames in bold can be cancelled

common:
[sssssssaaaaaarrrrrrr]

sometimes extended:
[sssssssaaaaaarrrrrrr]

rare:
[sssssssaaaaaarrrrrrr]

in the last example, you can see that the developers chose to make the last three active frames and first three recovery frames cancellable for some reason.

if you already know how frame data works, then you can see windows for everything in 3rd strike here: http://ensabahnur.free.fr/BastonNew/. click on “H” and then “cancel” to see cancel windows for that move.