Category: Fighting Games

In Pokkén Tournament, players jockey to win its 3D roaming Field Phase not for the damage-related purposes (unless you’re a zoning character!) but because the winner of Field Phase gets a massive synergy boost. Synergy is Pokkén’s super meter equivalent and, as Pokkén Pro Double demonstrates in his recent experiments below, some characters can wildly exploit this synergy boost in Field Phase to get full meter, or close to it, from one grab break.

These combos all take advantage of the Homing Cancel tech covered several months back. Whether or not this tech was a glitch originally, it’s clearly intended to stay, as it’s still in the latest build of the Japanese version. Maximizing your synergy gain post grab tech should, as the meta advances, become an integral part of tournament play.

Source: Double

Y. Xiao has put together a fun video showing off some of the new combos the younger Bogard brother can do in the latest patch for The King of Fighters XIV.

The primary combo-related buff Andy received is the expanded hitbox on his 2C, allowing him to connect it in places he otherwise couldn’t have. Y. Xiao also shows a few ways to re-stand after a wall splat from EX Zaneiken and EX Hishouken. Rounding it out is a 100% combo on the 950 health K’, and a impractical but flashy stun combo on King of Dinosaurs.

Source: Y. Xiao

It can just take a moment to shake off the salt and make better choices in the next fight.

Tavian “The Philocypher” Napier continues the FGC Philosophy series with a third talk with r/StreetFighter’s Joe Munday, this time discussing the changes and additions made to Munday’s excellent Street Fighter V study guide, Gief’s Gym. They also chat about Capcom’s questionable choices in nerfing/buffing SFV, playing as/against Balrog (and how character selection will alter your best options), and how it’s important to keep a level head–and not let too much salt get in your eyes–to maintain effective decision-making.

Gief’s Gym: A Guide to Street Fighter V (Second Edition) is available as a paperback or on Kindle from Amazon. Check out The Philocypher’s prior talks with Joe Munday here and here.

Source: The Philocypher

Sean English offers here an in-depth breakdown of Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2’s defensive options, as based on the current demo for PlayStation Plus users. Note that it’s aimed at players of at least an intermediate skill level. If you’re very new to the game or series, you’ll want to check out some of the Guilty Gear Crash Course series!

We start with neutral, which is posited here as largely being movement. Good movement keeps you unpredictable, out of threat range, and all the forward movement will be building your meter. From here we see a summary of tools to reduce risk and slow the match down: FD brake, YRC as a neutral tool, and defensive air throws to stop your opponent from getting away with murder.

Next is the inevitable situation: blocking. One of the more difficult parts of the game—especially when you’re new—is escaping pressure. The example used here is a long string into Carcass Raid, a move from Venom that has tons of frame advantage on block. You want to escape before it connects, and this well-edited video gives you a tree of options that set a framework for how you should be looking at escaping from pressure.

The rest of the video delves into the mechanics of instant block, faultless defense (FD), blitz shield, and burst. Most importantly it shows you how to use these effectively, including a little breakdown on good places to burst—another difficult thing to learn if you’re new to games with a burst mechanic.

Source: Sean English

Guile may be known primarily for his slow, long-distance projectile wars, but that doesn’t meant he can’t apply some sick pressure after the right knockdown.

NurseLee‘s “SFV Guile’s Flying Mare Setups -Season 2-” explores meaty setups off of Guile’s air throw. In it, NurseLee first introduces you to meaty options to beat a quick rise. What’s so clever about this is that without deliberately stating it, he shows how these same setups can be used to also beat delayed wake up. He also explores some V-Skill setups, demonstrating that it’s possible to turn this normally unsafe move into a frame trap after an air throw.

Source: NurseLee