If you land every hit correctly, they cannot interrupt with DP. If it’s all combo’d they cannot break that combo with their own, the only way you are getting hit is if you screw up your combo.
Can you show us his post regarding the matter? Maybe you misunderstood what he meant?
I searched high and low for that post i read in the sagat forums with no luck… It had been quite a while back. But i think my misunderstanding was that certain combos would not work as a true blockstring because thy could me mash dp’ed. So thats where my confusion came in. But it makes more sense to me now. All combos wont work as block strings right?
Ah, that makes more sense. Not every combo forms a true blockstring, that’s 100% correct.
The best way to look at it is this, Ryu can do low forward into fireball as a combo. However, the fireball doesn’t form a true blockstring, and can be beaten by a move with invincibility. It’s actually quite easy for Boxer to heatbutt, or Guile to flashkick.
Good news is, you can use EX-ST to beat out SOME low forward -> fireball type scenarios. Vega and invincible moves are sadly not related to one another in this game.
Cool. That makes more sense now. My execution is mediocre at best right now, but understanding these basic concepts makes things alot clearer. Thanks!
actually the whole concept abocve is perfectly correct, if you do cr.lp thrice with the correct timing they combo, do the exact same motion into a block and you can be dragon punched in between each.
in vanilla ( the PC version of SF IV) medium rolling crystal flash is another example if the first one lands it is what we call a “natural combo” , but under certain conditions including a the first or second hit being blocked the third one will hit enemy’s block in the worst possible way ( on its first active frame) and that means that the opponnet can dp you while your fourth hit whiffs through his invulnerability.
Though, I recall a long while ago working on the punishes I could perform upon blocking boxer’s ultra I. so I had that ultra recorded in training stage and i was playing against the “replay”. And something weid happened, i use st.HK , first did hit balrog, then i got stuffed by ultra while the second hit whiffed through invincibility.
I never understood what happened, maybee it was related to the “Ultra freeze glitch”, maybee it was a training stage only glitch related to the replay engine. maybee it was related to second hit whiffing due to the specific range and balrog’s weird hitbox… you tell me.
there are much more annoying glitches with vega though,
I don’t know if they lived through SSFIV or SSFIVAE but in vanilla
the close version of standing light kick can whiff on a standing motionless oppoent where technically the game should choose the far version automatically.
very often also wall jump just go … away… far away.
Yeah that explains why alot of players will block the first hit of an offensive barrage and immediately start mashing either a dp type move or an spd type move… I get caught with that mumbo jumbo all the time because i dont know any solid blockstrings to practice. Any advice?
well actually if you understand the difference between a true block string and a pseudo block string yeah we can follow on
just to make things short
typically a move has
**startup frames / active frames / recovery frames
a move causes
impact freeze and either blockstun or hitstun (and even counter hit stun) if it connects.
moves generally cause a bit more hit stun than block stun**.
we call a block string a “true block string” when the subsequent move’s active frame happen before the end of the enemy’s block stun
we call a block string a “pseudo block string” when the subsequent move’s active frames happen before any possible active frames the opponent could trigger.
lets see examples
vega cr.LP is
1 input trigger (usually included as startup in fram data but isn’t actually part of the animation)
3 startup (animation frames where your character has no active punch box)
2 actives (animation frames where your character has an active punch box)
8 recovery (animation frames where your character has no active punch box)
**it causes **
8 frames of impact freeze on block and on hit (the game “pauses” for 8 frames interrupting the animation on both sides while the special effects are flashing)
10 frames of block stun (frames during which your opponnent can only change block stance and buffer inputs)
13 of hitstun (frames during which your opponent can do nothing but buffer inputs)
so lets say you do a cr.lp – cr.lp link combo
frame 1 game register’s cr.lp input
frame 2 cr.lp animation start
frame 5 your cr.lp punchbox overlaps the enemy’s hit box, game register your hit
frame 6 game freeze
frame 13 impact freeze is over
frame 14 should have been your second active frame as you already hit your enemy with that hit it lost its punch box properties
------14 enemy’s hit stun starts
frame 15 first recovery frame
frame 22 last recovery frame you cannot start an animation but the game can register your trigger for the second cr.lp
frame 23 first startup frame of animation for your second cr.lp
frame 26 first active frame of animation of you second cr.lp enemy’s still in hitstun( last frame though) so he cannot block game register’s a hit
frame 27 impact freeze starts for the second hit
…
now lets say you do the same thing but the enemy blocks
frame 1 game register’s cr.lp input
frame 2 cr.lp animation start
frame 5 your cr.lp punchbox overlaps the enemy’s hit box but he is in bloc stance, game register your blow was blocked
frame 6 game freeze
frame 13 impact freeze is over
frame 14 should have been your second active frame as you already hit your enemy with that hit it lost its punch box properties
------14 enemy’s block stun starts
frame 15 first recovery frame
frame 22 last recovery frame you cannot start an animation but the game can register your trigger for the second cr.lp
frame 23 first startup frame of animation for your second cr.lp, it is the last frame of you enemy’s blockstun.
frame 24 enemy’s block stun is over anything he could have inputed would have its first frame of animation happening here lets say it is a back dash
frame 26 first active frame of animation of you second cr.lp, enemy is in its third frame of backdash animation it is an invincible frame so game doesn’t register the hit or block.
frame 27 second active frame of animation of you second cr.lp, enemy is in its fourth frame of backdash animation it is also an invincible frame so game doesn’t register the hit or block.
frame 28 you start recovery of your second cr.lp animation, 5th frame of its back dash
…
in this case as you can see even performing the tightest possible input, your second cr.lp fails at maintaining the enemy into block, in that case he dodged the second move instead of blocking it.
Then why do we still call that a blockstring it obviously isn’t ?
Well had he chosen a regular move even performing it with 1 frame accuracy like you (which is nearly impossible), he would be in his third frame when your first active frame occur so technically he could be grabbing you, or trading hits.
In the real world it really doesn’t happen because one frame links are difficult on a move you planned, and performing one on reaction to a move you have barely any time to identify is stark luck
If he is one frame late he get stuffed if one frame early he maintains block.
Since people would rather maintain block through thoses strings we call them (pseudo) block strings.
In the case described above (cr.lp – cr.lp) some moves with invincibility like back dashes, backflips, zangief lariat… or **extremely fast moves like chun’s or balrog’s jab ** have a more realistic leeway to be performed like 2 or even 3 frames which in the case of a patterned string can be attempted. and we start to see why “pseudo”.
Things get even worse when we speak about invincible moves or extremely fast command special moves/ ultras, they have what we call **“reversal timing” **properties.
it means that they have enhanced leeway for when the input motion is completed and they will be performed as soon as possible. That is right at the very first frame after hitstun/blockstun.
So to speak a dragon punch has 2 frames of startup before the first active frame occurs,** so it would have to be a 1 frame link to merely trade with our second cr.lp.**
BUT all these 3 first frames are invincible. So that gives 3 frames link to stuff/punish the second cr.lp.
**BUT on top of that it gets even more leeway from leniency granted by "the reversal timing " mechanism. **
Which offers the enemy an easy shot at a punish attempt to your pseudo blockstring with a reversal dragon punch, to top it off this buys him some time to revert to holding down back before your second cr.lp arrives should they miss their input.
In truth this doesn’t happen very often because it still is pretty dangerous on the enemy side, should you stop your string they are throwing their Shoryu into a block. plus even with all the leeway,** it is difficult to react in time and get the rythm to perform it right before at least 2 or 3 jabs/shorts.**
Pseudo block strings have that advantage that they are “natural frame traps” since the enemy has time to attempt something, well he has time to attempt something stupid.
While a true block string will maintain your opponent stuck into blockstance for as long as you can make it last, he has absolutely no control over the game flow, but he also has no chance to do something stupid.
Strategically speaking, a true block string has very few interest beside safely building “super meter” , pushing back the enemy and the ability to insert a frame trap anywhere in the sequence.
okay now speaking specifically about vega
On the receiving end, everything with holes up to 3-4 frames is an effective blockstring on vega and he cannot do much besides waiting and getting ready to tech. That is pretty tough on him there are lots of strings and mixup you can do when allowed 3 frames holes before hits.
On the giving end vega as almost no “true block string” what it means is that basically whatever you do, if any of your move is blocked then their is always a chance the next one will be stuffed with a dragon punch focus cancel into ultra. The good news are you will sometimes catch people doing something stupid, and you’ll also have to **work hard on not being predictable **hence levelling up your game.
Most of vega’s true blockstrings involve a special cancel, or a jump in, also when designing one, you can use the fact pseudo blockstrings are difficult to punish before the third move ( with fast moves ) but that is not true with jump ins, try an early ji.HP followed by a cr.mk on anybody decent and you’ll get a serious spanking as a reward.
For example ji.HK – cr.lp xx hk.ST is a true blockstring, (albeit a very poor thing to do if you ask me).
Now literally speaking there are lots of blockstrings you can do with vega. The important thing is not how pure the string is but rather how realisticly it can be punished and how much mixup you can squeeze out of it to score damage in the safest possible way.
for example
**meaty ji.lk – cr.lp – cr.lp – lp.RCF **
is a very lame combo
damage is laughable compared to much easier combos,
the jump in is not the safest and very unlikely to catch people of guard
but it is something you can abuse for mixup and once the jump in hit block it is extremely safe.
Thrown as is, the only weakness is the cr.lp – cr.lp link 3 frames hole but it is not the typical time when people will mash their dp. They’ll try it just after the jump in, and if they mash they will have the second one registered too late, besides, mashing dp is exactly what you wan’t them to do because it means you can then lay waste on them after blocking it.
The rest of the string is kosher and will net you a decend amount of meter.
it is also one of the most difficult jump in to beat with a focus absorb.
It starts to get intresting when you factor in you can replace any move with a throw including the jump in which gives you 4 very good occasions.
you can** replace any of the four move with a block** creating 4 bait traps, or you can turn any of the 2 perfect links into non perfect links also known as “frame traps”.
You can replace the first cr.lp by cr.lk weakening your blockstring in the midle but performing a very fast high low mixup which is pretty demanding to block on the other side.
you can replace the second cr.lp or RCF by a fst.Lk string to either set up a tick trhow, or put yourself at a desired range for a CH, PoM or pull yourself out.
you can replace the second cr.lp with cr.lk to teach remind him he has to hug down back so you can pin him better and open the way for the above described overheads.
you can replace the second cr.lp or the lp.RCF with a cross up EX SHC for a difficult to expect crossup.
Basically the whole stuff is pretty overwhelming forcing the opponent into pure guessing game about whether he should block, what height to block, which direction, should he crouch tech when, should he attempt to commit into grab attempts and if you are lucky enough you may even start to make him dragon punch happy.
Finally it can be extended to a decent damage combo and a knock down if you confirm any of the first 4 hits with the resort to a hk.St or EX.FBA as a finisher or a Focus forward dash cancel during the RCF.
So there are not any “block strings to learn” just remember, blockstrings have to keep you close on frame advance and be safe on their beginning long enough to actually build up the confusion and/or hit confirm into a better combo.
Damn. Great answer! So I’m guessing that on that meaty ji.lk – cr.lp – cr.lp – lp.RCF combo, you could remove one of the 2 cr. light punches and make it a real block string. But I see what you mean that continuing an entire blockstring doesn’t really net you any damage, only keeps them pinned.
I’ll work on the meaty ji.lk – cr.lp – cr.lp – lp.RCF combo (and it’s various mixups). I need to learn to bait those shoryukens and block them! And is it me or is fighting against T. Hawk or anyone w/ good command throws scary when you can’t deal out enough safe hit’s to push them out of grab range (gief’s lp spd for example)? I find myself mindlessly holding neutral jump whenever I’m close to T. Hawk, which alows him to eat away my lifebar by hitting me with all kinds of other stuff, because the second I stay grounded against him i’m being spun around like a rag doll. But I know that’s more of a question that goes in the matchup thread. But anyway, again…great answer. Lot’s of stuff for me (and other new players) to take in! Thanks!
In the beginner’s Vega thread I read that Vega is at a +3 advantage on blocked CH assuming it’s max range. My question is where do you get the info on Vega being +3 on a blocked Cosmic Heel at max range?
When I look at the frame data all it says is that he is -1 on a blocked Cosmic Heel and “D” (what does that mean?) on a connected Cosmic Heel.
I forgot to say but using ji.hk or ji.hp or ji.mp meaty or early actually counts as mixup too. Ssince it is a frame trap compared to ji.lk and fucks up their grab tech timing, but you shouldn’t include that in your game plan as long as you haven’t shut down their mash dp habit.
Strategically speaking you have to prove things to your opponent and usually it goes in this order unless you fight someone you know or someone who expects you to be good in which case you have to prove nothing to him he will start the fight very carefully and assuming you mastered all that.
1 . That you can punish them hard if they do something stupid.
2. That you are a carefull opponent difficult to dragon punch because you don’t always attack when you are out of blockstun.
3 . That you can bait so they have to think twice before taking back the momentum of the game when you give them an occasion and spend some of their ressources on reading you.
4. That you can grab them while they hesitate to take a bait forcing them to act faster before they can really think.
5 . That you can frame trap and punish them for thinking they can read your rythm and use a single flow chart to react to the whole rest of your gameplan.
As long as you fall to DP mashing or that all they risk for whiffing a dragon punch is nothing better than a grab they wont stop because it balances in their favor, they can net an ultra at the expense of an untechable knockdown you can’t exploit and merely a tenth of their lifebar.
If you bait their Dragon punches and then punish it accordingly with around 250 damage suddenly mashing dp isn’t such a great game plan anymore and they’ll have to stop or lose 90% of their rounds, if they keep on doing it just kick them of your lobby they are wasting your time.
If you don’t grab then they can wait forever holding down back sitting on their life lead until you offer them an undisputable golden opportunity to lay waste on you.
I find that properly palyed “grapplers” are very difficult fights, if they are in you are going to lose a lot of health before you sucessfully get out.
Zangief you need to really avoid getting pinned in any way, and you need to do your best at anti air to keep him at bay. jump out + HP beats a lot of his staple close up game, but don’t abuse it against good player, this moves opens the way to more intresting wake up game though, and it is intresting to prove them you know about it.
I have no idea about the T hawk matchup.
Honda will eat you alive , he has a better air game, difficult to punish staple specials that chip as much health than you net with a medium normal, tons of health excellent range and excellent middle range grounds game. he is vulnerable to fireball zoning but you don’t have that tool.
Abel is a lame grappler but he has excellent mixup game and you never know when you need to stop blocking to avoid the command grab. Especially against people who lack ressources against jumps in and pseudo blockstrings like vega.
frame advance is calculated considering the first active frame is what hits, but if you hit with the second active frame instead of the first you get an extra +1 of advance and so on. if you hit with first active frame of CH you are at -1 , with the second 0, with the third you have +1 with the forurth +2 and with the fifth and last +3.
hitting with the last frame is called landing the move “meaty” that implies getting the most frame advance you can get from it, the only way to do even more is to land it meaty and that it “counterhits”.
Most of the moves are difficult to land “meaty” because almost all the active frames are very similar which means you actually have to have you opponent being a tidbitout of reach then walking inside your later active frames. that is not the case with moves like
cosmic heel
st.HK
slide
and all the specials
and maybee some others i am not thinking of right now
the character moves so fast forward and carries on even during active frames so landing a meaty is only a matter of range. If you do the move close you will hit early, if you do the move at max range you will hit meaty.
jumping moves are also very easy to land meaty, you can use range just like before, but you can also use the fact that when your character touches the ground the move ends outright, so doing the move so that the first active frame of the move is your last airborne frame ensures you land a meaty no matter the range.
the third way to land a move meaty is to use enemies invincibility to neglect the first frame but making it so that enemy will lose its invincibility for the last active frame(s) of the move, typically when he stands up from a knock down, or recovers from a “reset”, or looses his invincibility from backdash.
D mean you knock the enemy down, so frame advance is like +80 or something and not exactly relevant.
cool thanks for the reply got it now.
also can anyone explain what it means when the active frame has 3 numbers (the middle one in parentheses).
for example Vega’s close HP is 3(7)3.
Close HP is 3 active frames per strike (Since it slashes twice), between the two strikes there is a 7 frame gap.
aight thanks for explanation. a few more beginner level q?s
can someone explain how is cl. HP, cr. MP a 2 frame link? If cl. HP is +5 on hit and cr. MP is a 4 frame startup how do you get 2 frame link instead of 1 frame? (I know my answer is wrong but just don?t get why)
same with cr. MK, cr. MP. (which I believe has the exact same numbers as the last one)
and also with cr. LP, cr. LP or cr. LP, cr. MP?? you get +4 on hit and the startup is 4 for each, so why is it a 1 frame link instead of 0?
Does this have to do with hitting on a later active frame?
To calculate the frames, you take the frame advantage on hit, in this case +5. Then the startup of the next move, which for the cr.MP is 4. Take the startup from the advantage on hit (You’d have 1 frame) then you add a frame to it.
So it comes up to two.
Well, 4 - 4 =0, + the frame you add for figuring out links. It’s 1 frame.
when you link 2 moves together the last frame of the previous move’s recovery cancels into the next one, hence the extra frame.
lol…
lets consider this scenario
What if miss my link on cr.mk – cr.mp, then according to your theory I don’t get the cancelled frame adding an extra frame of delay to my arleady 1 frame late cr.mp giving me 2 frames lates compared to link timing meaning I miss the link ?
No it doesn’t happen like that, there is no such thing as 1 cancelled recovery frame.
Chain/target combo cancel the remaining recovery frame.
2 in 1 combo cancell the totality of recovery frames of the first move.
Link combos are what they are : link combos, they are not hard coded, they happen or they don’t depending solely on your input timing.
See end of message for further details
In fact it comes from the fact that the game is synchronous running at the steady but discrete pace of 60 frame per second, the important thing is not the pace really but the fact it is discrete.
We humans on the contrary are asynchronous, so when you register the cr.lp input there is no way in hell to know wether the first frame of cr.lp animation is going to start right away or after a 16.67 delay, in fact speaking in frames and removing the “pace” it all depends wether you input comes at the beginning or the end of the frame preceeding the start of the animation.
because of this in the frame chart you can see on the wiki or eventhub, all the startup of all moves have an extra frame added to cover the fact that the first frame of animation is going to happen from 0.001 frame up to 1 frame after they have been registered.
for example cr.lp is
ST 4 : ACT 2 : REC 8 : BS 10 : HS 13 : BADV+1 : HADV +4.
In fact the total animation only contains 13 frames and the first active frame is frame 4 not frame 5 as the numbers above suggest.
So when you start a move out of the blue you have between 3.0001 and 4 frames separating the time when the input is registered and the time when the first active frame of animation is splashed on you screen ( or maybee even more due to you controller delay, your tv display delay, lag etc.)
The game engine doesn’t allow you to start the animation of a second vega cr.lp before the animation of the first vega cr.lp is complete.
But the game engine doesn’t prevent you from inputing things so that the first frame of animation of the second cr.lp happens right after the last frame of animation of the first.
So nothing prevents you from inputting the second cr.lp so that the game registers it sometime during the last frame of animation of the first cr.lp and having your second cr.lp starting right after that on the next frame.
so lets say you do a cr.lp – cr.lp link combo
frame 1 game register’s cr.lp input
frame 2 cr.lp animation start
frame 5 your cr.lp punchbox overlaps the enemy’s hit box, game register your hit
frame 6 game freeze
frame 13 impact freeze is over
frame 14 should have been your second active frame as you already hit your enemy with that hit it lost its punch box properties
------14 enemy’s hit stun starts
frame 15 first recovery frame
frame 22 last recovery frame you cannot start an animation but the game can register your trigger for the second cr.lp
frame 23 first startup frame of animation for your second cr.lp
frame 26 first active frame of animation of you second cr.lp enemy’s still in hitstun( last frame though) so he cannot block game register’s a hit
frame 27 impact freeze starts for the second hit
…
(it is an exact copy of the above example )
So basically when you want to determine if a move links after another.
you have to remember that the first startup frame does not really exist in terme of game it is an “up to 1 syhcronisation frame”.
**Why is that a 1 frame link ? **, because basically you have the duration of one frame to input the next move so it links.
In the above example if the game does not register your move precisely during frame 22 then the animation doesn’t start at frame 23 and subsequently frame 26 is not going to be an active frame, so you have no guarany that you will hit, so it is not a combo.
If the game register your input during frame 21 or before it would have to start animation at frame 22 and that is forbidden.
If the game register your input during frame 23 or after then the first animation frame will be 24 and the first active frame will be frame 27 and the hitstun of the frist cr.lp ended at frame 26, so you are too late and the other guy may be blocking( or doing something else)
As you have between end of frame 21 to beginning of frame 23 to register, you have the whole duration of 1 frame to register the input of the second cr.lp, which in turn translates into the whole duration of 1 frame to input the second cr.lp, so we call it a one frame link.
-If the move has one less frame of recovery , or one extra frame of hitstun ( it would be +5 on hit) then you would have the duration of 2 frames to input the next it would be a 2 frame link.
-If the first cr.lp in the above example was hitting “meaty” that is on its second active frame then enemy blockstun would last until frame 27 instead of 26, you would also be +5 and you would also get a 2 frame link.
I hope it is clear enough, I can always make a “filmstrip” with all the animation’s pictures. Now that you understand the principle you can use Francys pai calculation to make things faster.
Mind if I pilfer bits and pieces of your explanations for things for my guides Ajunta?
You seem to explain it better than I do XD
Gonna take some time out of my lurking schedule to say this.
Each time I read Ajunta’s posts, I become more and more convinced he’s actually some kind of digital entity ripped straight out of a SSF4 Vewlix hard drive.