Street Fighter x Tekken

[Pikachu]

Starting a Street Fighter x Tekken thread.

Some basics on how the systems work in this game.

"Cross Rush", or chaining - You can chain from weak to heavy attacks with any character in this game. Any mixture of punches to kicks are fine. After a heavy attack, one more push of a heavy attack button will cause the character to go into a launcher, which pops the enemy up and brings your teammate in.

You have to press the buttons fairly quickly in succession to get this to come out. Besides going into a launch combo, this is also useful for going into a knockdown. (e.g. LPxxMPxxSweep)

Chaining attacks (with exceptions for certain Tekken chains) do a few debilitating things:

1. Your damage is scaled to 70%.
2. If blocked, your character needs additional time to recover. For example, your hard punch attack might normally be safe on block, but if you chain LPxxMPxxHP, you get an additional -16 of disadvantage. (i.e. Very easy to punish)
3. If you chain into an attack that can normally cancel into a special move, then it can only cancel into an EX version of the move and/or a Super/Team Super.
4. When you launch someone, juggle count of moves are reset for the incoming character. Damage scaling is still inherited.

Launcher - Done by pressing HP+HK. The startup is slow, and the attack is easy to punish. It will "crush" low attacks.

Crush - This is not quite the same as invincibility as far as I know in this game. Crush is a concept from Tekken where certain attacks types are outright stuffed. For instance, a move like Heihachi's back+LP has high Crush properties. This means that if a high move is thrown out, and I use back+LP, my move will stuff the high move.

Throws - There is extremely little throw range, and throws take 5 frames to come out. This makes command grabs very, very powerful in this game because they usually take 2-5 frames of startup, and have at least double the range. There is also a small number of frames where a person cannot be thrown post block-stun.

The incentive for hitting a throw is to remove "red health", or life than can be healed when a character is tagged out.

Tagging - Done by pressing MP+MK. It takes 5 frames to tag a person in from neutral. You must be in neutral stance to tag. You can't do it off a crouch.

You can also, at the cost of one meter, tag a person in during the middle of a move. The move can be any move as far as I know, but it must make contact (block or hit) on the opponent. The command is MP+MK, just like the normal tag. In 2v2, the manual neutral tag must be done by the active player. However, the meter-consuming tag done as a cancel off a move must be done by the INACTIVE player.

Charging - Each character has a move it can charge (I am NOT referring to the normal "charge" as in holding a direction for 2 seconds). For instance, Ryu can charge his Fireball by holding down the punch button. He can release it as an EX Fireball if he charges for at least 51 frames, and release it as a Shinkuu Hadouken if he charges for around 100 frames. Using the Fireball in this manner does NOT consume meter.

When in the charge stance, a character can dash cancel forward or backward. Yes, this means Ryu can sweep into Fireball, hold down the punch button, and dash forward for more pressure. This is quite scary for certain characters.

Additionally, when the dash cancel is done after a "spark" appears on the character, that character's next attack will be a counter hit if successful. If it's blocked, nothing else happens (i.e. attacks thereafter don't get this bonus).

This is scary for certain characters where counter hits will result in wall/ground bounces, or even crumple states, meaning a poke can start a nasty combo. For example, Balrog's far fierce crumples on counter hit, which allows him to follow up.

Air Reel - Normally, air-to-air moves cause air reel, meaning that a character can't be juggled after they are hit in the air. A counter hit in the air removes this, regardless of what move was used. Sometimes, this might also cause other things to happen to the opponent, such as a ground bounce.

Being aware of this is critical in SFxT. In most other SF games, we subconsciously know not to bother juggling after an air-to-air move because of air reel. Here, you have to train your eye to recognize an air reel animation or a pending knockdown animation. This is where you can tell whether you can juggle or not. (If you use hindsight, if you hit your opponent air-to-air and they land on their feet, they were in air reel and you weren't able to juggle. If they land on their face or back, you missed a juggle opportunity)

Let me put the payoff into perspective. If you land a counter hit air-to-air with a hard kick, land, and then just hit a simple hard punch afterwards, you'll probably net around 200 damage with most characters. This is 20% of your opponent's life, for a "combo" that requires no practice.

If you land, and hit low MK and then a Team Super, that's probably 50%. It's not an opening to ignore.

Knockdown states - Understanding knockdown states is very important, and does make this game feel more Tekken-like. There are three main options for affecting how a character gets up (not counting reversal options).

1. Character gets up as normal.
2. Character does a quick get-up, similar to how it was done in SF4 (hit two attack buttons upon landing on the ground, or hit down on the joystick/dpad).
3. Character rolls forward, done by holding forward on the joystick/dpad. There is no other direction to roll. There are some throw-vulnerable frames near the end of the roll. However, if you position yourself correctly, you can also make the wakeup very ambiguous in terms of which side the character ends up on.

Reversals - Like SF4, reversals are easy to mash. You have a 6 frame window prior to a 1 frame opening to get a reversal to come out.

Block states - Just thought I'd mention that unblockables outside of throws are not possible. The game will help you block so long as you are holding down-back or back in situations where you're hit from both sides at once, or high+low at once, which can occur in Cross Assaults. However, if the hits are staggered very closely, you can get fisted.

Cross Assault - Takes 3 bars, both characters are in. Crap in single player because one character is CPU controlled. Could be extremely good in 2 player with coordination.

At first, this seemed really underwhelming since there are a lot of bad ways to use this. One is to not have both characters rush forward. Stages in this game are HUGE, and so a person can hold up-back until your Cross Assault is done. The other is to not splooge a super randomly. This ends the Cross Assault, no matter how much time would have been remaining.

One of the best Cross Assaults I've seen coordinated is where one fireball character stands still while the other character rushes in. This limits the area where the opponent can jump back, and the fireballs ensure safety of the character rushing in. Imagine a Ryu throwing fireballs while a Tekken character like Kazuya goes in for stupid mixups that suddenly become safe.

Supers - Supers are done with just one motion, and three punches or kicks. Usually, you need two quarter-circle forward motions and a punch for Ryu's super. Here, it's just one QCF motion + PPP. You can apply this concept to other characters.

Team Super - Done with QCF+MP+MK. They're officially called Cross Arts, but I figure that when I say Team Super, you know what I mean.

All of them have invincibility until after the first frame that the attack comes out.

Team Supers consume your entire meter.

Bound - Bound, sometimes expressed as B! in combo notation, is a "ground bounce" state which allows for an extension of a combo. Only specific moves cause Bound, and some moves only conditionally cause bound (i.e. counter-hit).

Pandora - Pandora can only be done when your primary character is at 15% health or less. I forget whether other conditions apply because I frankly don't use it too much. (and I am not Clark).

It consumes one character, and brings in the other one as the active character.

Pandora gives that character unlimited meter and a 15% damage boost. It also gives that character 10 seconds to live. At the end of that 10 seconds, you lose by time out.

You only use this when you can finish someone off in a combo, but the difficulty is that you cannot cancel into a Pandora animation off of a move (with just a few exceptions). One of the best times, however, are off of a bound. To give you an idea of the structure of a potential Pandora combo:

Kazuya + Ryu

Kazuya start: cr. MP, cr. MK, Slaughter Hook (bound), Pandora
Ryu enters: cr. MP, EX Donkey Kick, jump HP, land, Shinkuu Hadoken

It's not important to learn Pandora, but I leave this here for reference.

[buhwhyen]

Street Fighter x Tekken Primer
Wrote it pretty quickly, didn't really read through it. Might reorder/rewrite stuff later.


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Buttons, stick, and general notation/nomenclature (2D)
Street fighter generally uses the following abbreviations for buttons (looking at the standard 6 button layout).
lp mp hp
lk mk hk

*** Button abbreviations
lp = light punch/jab
mp = medium punch/strong
hp/fp = hard punch/fierce punch
lk= light kick/short
mk = medium kick/forward
hk/rh = heavy kick/roundhouse
st = standing
cr = crouching
j = jumping
cl = close (not too commonly used because most moves don't have close and far versions)
f = far (also not too commonly used)

*** Stick movements
qcf = quarter circle forward motion starting from down, ending in foward (down, down forward, forward)
qcb = quarter circle back (down, down back, back)
dp or srk = dragon punch or shoryuken (forward, down, down forward)
hcf = half circle motion (back, down back, down, down forward, forward)
hcb = half circle motion (forward, down forward, down, down back, back)
rdp = reverse dragon punch (back, down, down back)

*** Abbreviations put between moves to describe how you transition between them
+ = two buttons are pressed at the same time
x or xx = cancel (do the second move during the active frames of the first move)
, = linking two moves (doing the second move after the first move finishes/completes)
~ = chain combo/target combo, also used for plinking on occasion.
-> or > = in situations where its not really a link or a cancel (target combo or pre-set chains, mostly seen in marvel notation). However, it is also very vaguely used. It may also just be used to separate moves in a combo without indicating how to progress between moves.

A combination of this notation is used to describe moves. For example, standing fierce punch, would be written as:
st.hp

Standing fierce canceled into a fierce punch hadouken (Ryu fireball) would be:
st.hp x qcf hp

A throw in Street Fighter 4, or Street Fighter x Tekken is done with light punch and light kick pressed at the same time. This would read as:
lp + lk

A linked set of moves, say crouching medium punch, into crouching medium kick would read as:
cr.mp, cr.mk

You may also see people use move names instead of the inputs required to do the move itself. An example would be Ryu's fireball is always qcf + any punch. So reading “fireball” or “hadouken” in a combo is the same as qcf + punch. It is also very often more convenient to refer to multi button moves by their move names so the text is more easily readable (EX and ultra moves in Street Fighter 4 for example use 2 and 3 of the same button to activate their moves). For example instead of qcf + any 2 punches would give you an EX fireball, but its much easier to read and recognize EX fireball than what qcf + any 2 punches does.

However, for other games (anime fighters – Guilty Gear, Persona Arena, Blazblue) you may run into a different set of notation, usually referred to as the numpad notation. Basically for the numpad notation, look at any computer keyboard 10-key pad (on the right side of the keyboard). Each number will correspond to a direction of the joystick, and also assuming you start from the first player side (first player is on the left facing right, the second player is on the right facing left).
7 8 9
4 5 6
1 2 3

5 would refer to neutral, not moving the stick at all
2 would refer to down
8 would refer to up
4 back
6 foward

So instead of saying qcf, numpad notation would use 236 or down, down forward, forward.

Buttons are also potentially called something different depending on the game, Street fighter games have punches and kicks, Guilty Gear has punch, kick, slash, heavy slash, dust. Marvel has A, B, C, S, A1, A2 or sometime referred to as L, M, H, S, A1, A2.

There is also a mix of notation used to describe far standing normals in Numpad notation. This would read as 5f.s, meaning neutral/standing far slash.


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V2013 patch change list (links to part 1, 2, and 3 on the site)
www.capcom-unity.com/dubindoh/blog/2012/10/24/sfxt-ver-2013-change-log---system-and-remaining-cast


Frame Data
Event Hubs has a full list of v2013 frame data and command list for the full cast. Click on a character, and under the “table of contents” bubble, click frame data. Alternatively, google “sfxt <character> frame data,” and the appropriate link to event hubs will pop up. www.eventhubs.com/guides/2011/jun/19/street-fighter-x-tekken-moves-characters-combos-and-strategy-guides/


Notes:
I will try to be consistent with terms I use, but there will occasionally be words that will get interchanged (I'll add to this list if/when I see them):
-meter, bar of meter. Usually refers to an individual segment of the super meter, not the entire meter.


Street Fighter x Tekken specific universal moves
Throw – lp + lk
Tag in partner (raw tag) – mp + mk
Launcher (to tag partner in on hit) – hp + hk
Cross cancels (alpha counter or dead angle attack) – forward + hp + hk (during block stun). Costs 1 bar of meter
Switch cancels – mp + mk (during one of your moves hit/block stun. If playing with another person on your team, only the person not on the screen may activate switch cancels. Costs 1 bar of meter.
Cross assault – qcb mp + mk. Your partner joins you on the screen and you both fight at the same time for a short duration. Unlimited meter usage until the super meter is completely depleted. Supers may be used at any point during the cross assualt. Health of both characters is also added together and split evenly between the two characters when the cross assault ends. Costs 3 bars of meter.
Cross art – qcf mp + mk. Version of your super move that tags in your partner to automatically us a version of their super after your super hits. Your reserve character will be in at the end of this move if it hits, and if it is blocked or misses, no character swap will occur. Costs 3 bars of meter.
Pandora – down, down, mp + mk. Sacrifice your point character to power up (do more damage) and tag in your reserve character for up to 10 seconds. If you do not kill your opponent within 10 seconds, you lose the round.

Forward roll recovery – 7 frames of recovery (according the the v2013 changelist, does seem like less than 7 frames). Throw invincible only during startup of roll, majority of the roll is throwable.


Health
Ranges from 850 (Akuma) to 1150 (Hugo). The majority of the cast has between 900 and 1000 health, check out the shoryuken cross tekken wiki for a full list of characters + health. There is no guts/damage scaling based on current hp.
wiki.shoryuken.com/Street_Fighter_X_Tekken/Character_Health


Juggle system
TLDR;
Generally you can safely assume you can get 2-3 hits into special move during a juggle state. Switch canceling will reset the juggle count, and allow you to get another 2-3 hits into a special move. Moves that launch your opponent into the air or give hard knockdowns generally ignore this convention and allow you to combo further than this (character specific, and no listing that I know of where you can see what does and does not do this).

****

Certain moves will put the opponent into a juggle state (anti air counter hits puts them into a more limited juggle state, as far as I am aware, you are not able to get full combos from these). From this state, they can be hit with any attack multiple times to do more damage. The shoryuken wiki refers to the (an attack's) juggle potential and juggle count to describe how this works. I personally think the way they defined juggle potential has too many exceptions and is generally more confusing than not, but I'll explain their terminology anyways.

Juggle count is simply the number of times the opponent has been hit during the juggle. Each hit will -generally- increase the juggle count based on the number of hits done. There are exceptions to this rule. You can also reset the juggle count by tagging mid combo. Each character has their own juggle count. And if you were to switch characters mid combo the juggle count would reset to 0.

Juggle potential is an attribute of each individual move which describes how far into a juggle combo you can use the move. Each move will have a different juggle potential, and add a different amount of the juggle count. As a general rule of thumb (not always true)
light attacks (lp, lk) have juggle potential of 2
medium attacks (mp, mk) have juggle potential of 3
hard attacks have juggle potential of 4
special attacks have juggle potential of 4

If a move has an greater juggle potential value than the current juggle count, the move should connect. However, if you have an equal or lower juggle potential than the current juggle count, the move will miss.

Juggle count starts after you launch an opponent with an attack. Attacks that cause knockdown do not add to the juggle count. Take Nina for example. Her bnb is:
cr.mk x qcb hk (launcher), rdp hp, cr.hp x rdp hp, cr.hp x qcf hp

If you count the number of hits after the launcher, it exceeds what the shoryuken wiki juggle potential definition would say is possible by 3 hits. However, the qcb hk launches (knocksdown if you let them fall completely) and doesn't add to the juggle count. Similarly for the rdp hp and qcf hp which causes knockdown. And there are 2 rdp hp, 1 qcb hk, and 1 qcf hp, which brings down the juggle count to fit the srk wiki definition.

As far as I know, there is no definitive list of the juggle potential of a character's moves. It's more an idea that no one bothered to really investigate and put out a full list.

You can figure it out by trying moves out in combos. Specifically something where you know one move will definitely connect, and then you can test whether or not a different move has the same, greater, or less juggle potential.

Take for example, Ryu. One of his corner combos is: cr.mk x EX donkey kick (qcf + 2 kick buttons), cr,hp x qcf hk, cr.hp x qcf any punch (fireball) x back dash cancel (hold the punch button for the fireball and double tap back. I will refer to this as just back dash canceling in the future). This combo does 349 damage.

This is a 1 meter corner only combo. If you try to cancel the last cr.hp into a shoryuken (dp + punch), you would see that the shoryuken will whiff after the cr.hp. However, you can also test whether or not that is because the shoryuken has the same or a lesser juggle potential than the cr.hp. If you do the same combo, except replacing the final cr.hp x fireball back dash cancel. This combo would then read as: cr.mk x EX donkey kick, cr.hp x qcf.hk, dp any punch. You will see that the final shoryuken will always miss. If you look at the frame data, you'll see that cr.hp has a 4 frame start up, and all shoruykens for Ryu have 3 frames start up (this means the shoryuken should be easier to link). Since the shoryuken misses, and the cr.hp does not at the end of the combo (where the juggle count is high), you can conclude the shoryuken has a lower juggle potential than cr.hp.

Building off this same example. You can learn how to extend your combos beyond this point by taking a look at what “knockdown” moves you have at your disposal (ie, do not add to the juggle count). In Ryu's case, this move would be EX fireball.

You can further extend the combo listed just above by changing the back dash canceled fireball with an EX fireball. This does not increase the juggle count, and allows you to add in another cr.hp. This new combo would read as: cr.mk x EX donkey kick, cr.hp x qcf hk, cr.hp x EX fireball (qcf + 2 punches), cr.hp x back dash cancel fireball (465 damage).

On a similar note, you should explore if any other move has high enough juggle potential to continue comboing. If you were to go through the rest of his special moves (which usually have high juggle potential) you would find that his hadouken/fireball will hit (but won't allow you to follow up further), but his tatsu/tatsumaki <rest of name I don't want to type>/hurricane kick (qcb + any kick) will hit. This combo would read as: cr.mk x EX donkey kick, cr.hp x qcf hk, cr.hp x qcb hk. 424 damage. However, if you tried to add on the tatsu after the extended version of the combo, the tatsu will miss because the juggle count is too high after the extra cr.hp.


Combos
You need to know a few combos in this game. Unlike other Street Fighter games, it is difficult to get by with only 1 “bnb” combo. You do need specific corner combos and mid screen combos. To further complicate things, you need to also know how to do switch cancel combos in both mid screen and in the corner. Both of these you need meterless, 1, 2, and potentially 3 meter combos to maximize damage/meter usage/recoverable health loss. This is somewhat simplified, but also complicated if you are playing tag mode with a partner. Since your partner is the only one that can initiate switch cancels (off non launchers) you also may need/want to learn other people's switch cancel combos to tag in safely. Looking at shoryuken.com forums or searching youtube for sfxt 2013 combos is more useful than trying to list combos at random here.

When looking for switch cancel combos, you have to adjust your combos based on your partner. Generally, it doesn't matter who your partner is, you can always have more or less 2 combos that will work for just about all the cast. There are 2 things you generally look at when considering switch cancel combos.
1) how high does the opponent get launched. Some moves bounce the opponent on the ground, some launch them into the air, and some are multi hitting launchers (best). For multi hitting moves, you can generally get a jump heavy attack to start your juggle. However, for most generic launchers and single hit ground bounces, you will not have enough time to jump, and will need to remain grounded to combo consistently. This is not always true with corner combos.
2) I actually referred to this in the first point, but the number of hits in the move you cancel from is also very important. Large multi hitting moves lock the opponent in place, allowing for bigger damage follow ups that aren't otherwise possible. Examples include: Dudley's machine gun blow, Jin's multi punches, Law's triple kicks, etc.

Common follow ups might look something like:
-cr.mp, cr.mp x special move
-cr.mp, cr/st.hp x special move
-j.hp/hk, cr.hp x special move

Or something somewhat along those lines. A good place to start is an abbreviated version of your character's solo combo. Something like figuring out which move launches the opponent, and look at the combo that follows from that point. Try starting your switch cancel combo at this point (first and/or second moves after the launcher).


Optimizing Combos
The damage scaling in SfxT seems to be based on the number of hits in a combo (doesn't matter what the move are). First 2? hits or so of the combo are unscaled, after that it decreases incrementally based on how many hits in the combo. Switching does not reset the damage scaling.

In short, fewer hits at the beginning of the combo will actually increase the overall damage of your combo significantly. Longer combos are not always more damage, especially if most of the damaging hits (usually heavy punch/kick and special moves) are only at the end.

When you're figuring out how to optimize damage, you should generally look at what you're starting your combo with. Something like cr.lp, cr.lp, cr.mp > st.hp/hk x launcher, <tag combo>. Will probably do 100 – 150 less damage than a combo that was just st.hp/hk x launcher, <tag combo>. This is quite significant when you consider this puts your damage from high 200s, low 300s, to mid to high 400s. Also if you are going to chain into launcher, strongly consider skipping medium hits in favor of getting to the launcher sooner. Ex. cr.lp, cr.lp ~st.hp ~ launcher, etc.



Gems
Tournament standard gems have been set. See the following link for details about how they activate and what effects they have while active (also how to set them up – this is also done automatically if you get the additional character pack DLC). Note: the gems bonuses are only active for the character on point. If you activate damage gems for your point character, but end up switch canceling mid combo, your second character will not have the benefit of the previously activated damage gem from your first character.
1) damage (red)
2) defense (yellow)
3) meter (blue)
4) pandora (gems activate off pandora)
5) balance (1 red, 1 yellow, 1 blue)
thesaltminedotcom.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/sfxt-tournament-standard-gem-set-ups/


Character Choice
Choose who interests you and/or fits your play style. Tiers are not hugely important in this game. The one thing you may want to consider is whether or not your character has good solo damage potential. Since we tend to play a lot of 4 player Sfxt, you have a lot less potential to do switch cancel combos for reliable damage. Characters like Chun Li who really need to be constantly switching to do damage, is probably not an optimal choice, despite her being widely considered as a top 3 character in the current balance of the game.


Meter
Is really important in this game. Much more than it is in Street Fighter 4. Correctly using your meter is important to maximize your damage potential, and also to avoid dying. The three main uses of meter are:
extending combos for additional damage
switch canceling (or generally getting your partner in safely)
alpha countering for momentum or to switch characters

I alluded to this during the optimizing combos section, but you really need to choose your combos correctly in this game to maximize your damage output, especially when you consider meter usage in combos.

A simple example is whether or not you want to spend a bar of meter to switch cancel mid combo. If you were to start a combo with a simple cr.lp, cr.lp, cr.mk, special move, juggle whatever, switch cancel and continue combo. This will likely have difficulty breaking the 350 damage mark despite how good your post switch combo is (because you destroyed the damage output early in the combo). If you are going to spend a bar of meter, you need to consider how much you will really get out of that meter. In the vague example above, you probably only got 100 damage max out of the switch cancel (ignoring other benefits such as getting your point character out because he/she might have low health or a bad match up). Good switch cancel combos will hit for at least 450 damage. If you're not doing around half their health with a switch cancel combo, you may want to reconsider how you use your meter (some characters ignore this rule – Chun Li, Rufus, etc).

Now consider how you might better spend that bar of meter (using Ryu as an example). What about a random cr.mk x EX fireball? That nets you 160 damage, and no potential followup combo or damage outside of the corner. That is more than what you got off a badly scaled switch cancel, but also probably a lot less than what you would get off a good switch cancel combo.

Maybe cr.mk into EX tatsu? This is pretty much the same as EX fireball, but puts you in even worse positioning.

What about cr.mk x EX donkey kick? This nets you abut 352 damage for an easy combo midscreen (cr.mk x EX donkey kick, j.hp/hk, dp hp). Pretty decent damage off a simple to execute 1 meter combo.

What if we switch cancel off the cr.mk x EX donkey kick combo (on the last shoryuken)? The damage is character specifc (partner specific), but if you had Cammy as a partner, then your simplest option to follow up is just cl.st.hp x dp hk. This nets you 472 damage, which is a mediocre increase of 120 damage. Doing just cl.st.hp x dp hk does 225 damage, so the scaling despite being in a short combo is pretty harsh. If you were to have Nina as your partner, an easy switch cancel extension would be: st.mp, cr.hp x qcb hk, lp + mk (command normal). This nets you 512 damage, which is obviously quite a bit better.

And just to continue on a single example, if you were to further extend this combo by switching back from Nina to Ryu (That means in this combo, you start with Ryu, switch cancel to Nina, and switch cancel back into Ryu). Ryu really doesn't have a lot of options mid screen to follow up, so the best thing you could do would probably be cr.hp x dp hp or cr.hp x qcb hk (same damage actually). This would net you with 532 damage. That means the last switch cancel back into Ryu did a whole 20 damage. Be aware of how much damage you are actually adding on by extending combos. It really might not be worth the meter.

Alpha counters. These cost 1 meter and throw out a completely invincible move. They also do about 100 damage (character dependent, some do more than 100). Good for getting your partner in safely or even mediocre damage and better positioning on screen.

Switch canceling. You should choose moves with a lot of hit stun/active frames, not necessarily frame advantage to switch cancel with. This means that obviously multi htting moves are the best to switch off of because the move will run to its completion before the character runs out, and your second character will come in the same regardless of what move you use to tag in.