Here you go. Better worded than mine but it’s on the nose.
Thank you, all. Very helpful!
I’m not sure I agree with that. Most meaties I’ve learned/run into have 5-8 frame startup since they’re medium/heavy and have a more active frames. Five obviously lines up with throw start ups so set ups are interchangeable and throws beat 3 frame jabs which would tie at 8 while totally beating 4 frame jabs.
Regardless, against a lot of players, wake up jab is a strong option. I would default block and watch if it seems like they’re performing setups. If they aren’t, start jabbing. Online, I think most players don’t have setups on most knockdown situations (though they might try to keep it within the situations where they do. I know I use Cammy’s spiral arrow all the fucking time).
Math. I get my information from math. Moves have much less active frames than you think, and the moves that have good amounts of active frames are also very Negitive on block.
" Meaty attacks have always been the traditional solution to people getting frisky on wakeup, but they aren’t quite as good in this game as in some of the more classic Street Fighter titles. Take another look at the frame data chart for your character, this time looking at the active frames data. On the document linked above that would be the second column from the left. The numbers here are probably smaller than you think with some characters having shockingly low numbers. Cammy has no grounded normals with over 4 active frames. The normal that SEEMS to be active the longest, the knee bullet (towards+HK) still only has 4 active frames total, 2 on the first knee, a gap, then 2 on the second knee. That’s pretty bad, but it could be worse. She could be Rashid with almost his entire grounded set being 2s and 3s, the only 4 being the crouching HP—2 hits of 2 active frames to be exact—and the down+v-skill (which is stretching the definition of “normal” but whatever, let’s be generous).
So if meaties seem intentionally weak or intentionally hard to do, there’s a reason for that. They were designed to be difficult to use. This is another deliberate design decision on Capcom’s part. There are a couple reasons for that. Moves with large amounts of active frames that aren’t hugely negative on block can be exploitable; if you time that type of move to hit on the last active frame, it might grant a strong setup afterwards. You look at moves that seem to be active for an abnormally long period of time like Nash’s bazooka knee (6 frames active) or Chun-Li’s crouching MP (9 frames active). Capcom designed these moves to be so negative in a normal situation that even timed to hit perfectly on the last frame, they’d still only get to +1 on block. Or Dhalsim crouching MK (medium slide). 11 frames active, another abnormally large number for Street Fighter 5. But it’s -8 normally so you’re only getting to +3, a good number to be sure, but not ridiculous. Deliberate design decision. Someone put a lot of thought into this.
The other reason is because they want as little overlap as possible between moves that work on quick rise and back roll. Almost all the moves that are active long enough to hit both either have some kind of a huge visual clue on them giving the player waking up a heads up to block or reverse, or the move is greatly disadvantaged on one wakeup option or the other. Take the Dhalsim medium slide we just talked about. If you hit that dead perfectly on the final frame you get to +3. So let’s say you made a setup where that move hits on the last frame on back roll. But if they quick rose, generally that same timed slide will be at best -2 (almost always it’ll be worse than that because distance changes the setup), meaning that by doing this “setup” you just frame trapped yourself. Same with a move like Chun-Li’s towards+HK, the yokusenkyaku. This is the button used in the standard setup that Chun players do after spinning bird kick or EX lightning legs (dash into towards+HK). It’s +3 or +4 on back roll (character hitbox specific) giving her a combo opportunity followup on hit and keeps her pressure going on block. But it’s -2 on block on quick rise. Plus the move has a huge visual clue meaning that on either option, it’s easy to reversal against on reaction. Once again, deliberate design decision."