[SFZ Home Page] How to block

The different ways of blocking


1- Standing and crouching blocked attacks
 2- The air blocking system
 3- The zero counters


1- Standing and crouching blocked attacks

In most fighting games, there are 3 different kinds of attack to block:
- Jumping attacks, that must be blocked while standing
- Standing ground based attacks, that can be blocked while standing and while crouching
- Crouching ground based attacks, that must be blocked while crouching

Since SSF2T, some characters have the ability to do ground based attacks that MUST be blocked high, meaning standing. Such attacks do of course have inconvinients; they take a bit of time to come out, so your opponent has a chance to see it come. Thus, you should not use them very often, but make them a part of your strategy, mixing them with crouching attacks. If it is well done, your opponent will soon go nuts... :-)

2- The air blocking system

As in Darkstalkers and X-men, SFZ alouds air-blocking.
It can be seen as a restriction to strategical playing, as you can block almost everything if you jump at the wrong time. On the other hand, you can see it as an attempt to add strategy to some kinds of playing: for example, simple fireball traps won't be as efficient as before, as the Dragon Punch-like move you should have jumped in can sometimes be blocked (yet this won't let you escape from the trap as your block will just push you back in the corner... You need to be smarter than that!).
So now a jumping opponent is not as toast as before, which is particularly true for non fireball characters. But anyway, almost everybody has a fireball now, more or less efficient...

Yet air blocking does not aloud you to block everything. Indeed, if you are really under your opponent, your strike (normal move or special move) will mostly not be blocked, and super combos will almost never be blocked.
So to make it short, we can say that air blocking is both good and bad for strategy. Each one will find it out for himself...

3- The zero counters

While I'm in the gauge stuff, let's talk about zero counters:

Usualy, if you start blocking what should have been a combo, you enter what is called a "block stun", meaning you are stunned in your block position for a split second. This alouds you to continue blocking for the following hit of the combo, then the following, and thus until it's end. It's useful because you don't have to worry about blocking or not, but still, the only thing you can do is sit and wait.
This was good until something more came in the game:
A zero counter is a special move that interupts your block stun, stops the opponent's attack (see picture), and performs a move to hit him.

Again, these move are not only good and some elements sometimes make it dangerous to use.
The first thing is that a zero counter will eat 1 level of your super combo gauge. So they are not always available.
Second, the last part may sometimes not connect if you are not properly positioned... (some characters counter with a sweep, not too effective against a jumping opponent, etc.) So you use a whole super combo level for almost nothing.

For these reasons, zero counters don't become the ultimate turtleing weapon. Besides, to counter, you have to block a hit, and if there is no hit to block...
I got this problem once: a good turtleing Ryu who was countering all my jumping strikes. After a few matchs, I just started mixing jumping attacks and simple jumps followed by different ground strickes, or trows. This implies guessing on the opponent's reaction and style of playing. It adds again more strategy to the way you play, as counters are one more element you have to deal with...

Go to Part 2: The different ways of comboing.
Go to Part 3: Miscalenous features.
Back to the technical description summary page.


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