Street Fighter V/FAQ

This is a compilation of commonly asked questions about Street Fighter V at a general level or common points about gameplay that might not fit elsewhere because they encompass several components.

Who is Eleven?

In gameplay, selecting Eleven is effectively a random select. Picking Eleven at character select will choose a random character with random V-Skill and V-Trigger. The character will have a unique color palette and distorted voice to emphasize that Eleven is "copying" the character that was chosen. This has no effect on the actual playable character's balance.

What is a 3-frame? 4-frame?

These terms generally refer to the fastest normal attack a character has in terms of startup. Whether or not your character's fastest normal has 3 or 4 frames of startup makes a difference in situations where the frame advantage difference between players is low (see next section).

What does it mean when I'm minus X?

In general you will hear that a player is 'minus X' to express that they are at a certain frame advantage (or in this case disadvantage). The Glossary page provides definitions of how advantage is expressed on the wiki under Hit/Block.

The range of minus 0 (even) to minus 5 has a universal set of implications in Street Fighter V:

Zero (0)

Both characters recover at the same time, which means characters with 3F normals can mash and beat characters with 4F normals.

Minus 1 (-1)

Attacker is safe from all reversal normals. If the attacker has a 3F, they can force a trade against a mashing 4F character.

Minus 2 (-2)

An attacker mashing a 3F normal will lose to any 3/4F reversal normal from the defender. Commonly used as shorthand to mean "the attacker's turn is over after this move unless he uses a resource or takes a risk." A good example of this is Ryu's EX Shoryuken having 3F startup but a higher priority than a 3F normal attack, beating it outright at a cost.

Minus 3 (-3)

Unsafe against characters with 3F normals if they're in range afterwards.

Minus 4 (-4)

Unsafe against characters with 4F normals if they're in range afterwards. Can usually be punished reliably.

Minus 5 (-5)

Unsafe against some characters' medium normals. Can almost always be punished reliably.

A general disclaimer is that spacing, hurtbox extension, and other factors will almost always come into play and create caveats to the above. See Brian_F's video on spacing for details.