Controls
Defence
Blocking
Holding back (away from the opponent) will block incoming attacks, making you take no damage or a small amount of chip damage if it's a special. Blocked moves also always have worse advantage as opposed to having hit.
Low attacks must be blocked crouching (Down + Back).
Jumping attacks and standing overheads must be blocked standing (Back).
It's a good habit to default to blocking low as all jumping attacks and overheads are much slower than lows.
The universal crossup (Jumping Down+Heavy) must be blocked in the opposite direction.
Throws & Command grabs cannot be blocked.
Projectiles must be blocked based on the direction the character last touched the ground. For example: Vlad is on the right, puts a delayed projectile on top of you and jumps over. If it lands before he touches the ground, you have to block it as if he was still on the right. However if he lands from the jump you must switch which direction you block. This rule is can be abused by Vlad & Crow who can adjust their landing timing creating unreactable 50/50s.
Breaking Throws
Throws cannot be blocked, the main way to escape throws is to tech them. By throwing within a small window of being thrown you both escape and return to neutral with no advantage to either side. The window is too small for it to work as a reaction so it's always as guess.
Another important note is that you cannot tech throws while holding down+back. Nothing will come out. This makes it so you must be weak to lows in order to break throws.
Invincibility
All backdashes, supers and some reversals have a period of invincibility (commonly referred to as i-frames). This is denoted with your character receiving a golden aura for it's duration.
During the invincibility period you cannot be hit or thrown, it's used to i-frame through attacks and punish them.
Armour
Some moves have a period of armor. This is denoted with your character receiving a blue aura for it's duration.
Armor accomplishes the same things as invincibility, with a few differences.
- Armored moves can still be thrown.
- Armoring through an attack still causes hitstop. This means that cancels still come out since the move doesn't whiff.
- Armoring through a move still makes you take the damage as recoverable white life.
- There is only 1 hit of armor, so multi-hit moves or a sequence that hits twice before the armored move lands will still stuff the move.
Kinetic Deflect
Selecting Kinetic Deflect in your loadout shows up as a green meter that fills up above your overdrive meter.
When you have at least 1 full bar, pressing any 2 special buttons while in blockstun or hitstun will make a shield bubble appear on your character at the cost of half a bar. This bubble stays up until you exit blockstun or hitstun. If you are hit when this shield is up, deflect will activate, consume another half of a bar and push the enemy full screen while also deleting any projectiles on the screen. This effectively works as Killer Instinct's Shadow Counter combined with Bursts of Arcsys games.
You are still considered as in hitstun or blockstun with the shield bubble up, so if you have the extra meter, mashing 2 specials will put up multiple shields. This accomplishes nothing other than wasting meter.
The shield bubble is reactable, so if it's done too early, the attacker can choose not to hit the defender. They still have to end the combo early, so it accomplishes the goal of ending damage, just doesn't give you the reward of being put fullscreen.
A weird limitation with deflect is that you can only carry over 1 bar into the next round. If the round ends with you having more that 1 bar, you're simply set to 1 for the next round. Most people forget about this rule and end up wasting a free burst/combobreaker.
Quick getup
After being knocked down, hitting any normal button will cause you to get up earlier. It's recommended to drum the normal buttons in order to basically guarantee you land the timing.
Emergency tech
Moves that cause twist, backslide, wallbounce or groundbounce can be emergency teched by pressing any special as you hit the ground. It is recommended to drum the special buttons to basically guarantee you land the timing.
This causes a brief period of invincibility and then extended recovery.
If read or close enough this can be severely punished, so it's not recommended.
Some moves are a guaranteed safe tech, like Talos' super, Dauntless' far Target Combo and Crow's Soul Cleaver.
White health
Any move that is armored through will inflict it's damage as white health instead of real damage.
White health is recoverable and begins recovering immediately, even in blockstun.
Getting hit will remove all white health that has been accrued.
You cannot be chip killed by white health.