Capcom vs SNK 2/K-Groove

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K-Groove is one of the six grooves in Capcom vs. SNK 2. It features a "Rage gauge" system that fills as you take damage and grants massive offensive and defense bonuses when filled; and Just Defends, which greatly reduce guard recovery times and grants a small amount of health restoration. The major components of K-Groove, Rage, and Just Defend, are inspired by the game systems of Samurai Shodown and Garou: Mark of the Wolves, respectively.

K-Groove is a consensus A+ grade groove in CvS2, sharing the top tier with A-Groove and its high-damage, round controlling Custom Combo system.

Groove Data

K-Groove Data

Main Features	Just Defending, and Significant Damage and Defensive Bonuses in Rage State
Groove System	Just Defending & Rage Gauge System
Groove Subsystems	Run Small Jump Safe Fall
Meter Length	72 Units
Rage State Duration	180 Time Units	(18 seconds)
Guard Bar Length	43 Units	90% of Normal
Meter Bonuses	In Rage State: Normal Attacks and Throws: +35% Damage Special Attacks: +30% Damage Super Combos: +10% Damage Defensive Bonus: -12.5% Damage from Opponent Attacks During a Just Defend: +6 units (+8.3%) of meter, if not in Rage State +100 units of health (as Ratio 2)

See Groove Subsystems for complete technical data on specific subsystems.

Meter System

The meter in K-Groove is a single bar. Unlike in most other grooves, there is no way to gain meter through offensive actions. Even successfully blocking attacks grants no meter. Instead, there are only two ways to get meter in K-Groove:

• Take damage from the opponent; the bigger the damage, the more meter received from it
• Just Defend opponent attacks; one Just Defend grants a flat 6 units (8.3%) of meter

When the meter is filled, the player automatically enters the Rage state: The "RAGE" symbol lights up and pulses, the player character turns red, and the meter bar turns into a timer that lasts 18 seconds. In the Rage state, the player is granted massive offensive and defensive bonuses, as detailed in the Groove Data chart above.

While in Rage, there is no way to add meter or extend the length of Rage once it has activated. Getting hit by an opponent or Just Defending will not gain meter (but health will still be added for a Just Defend).

In the Rage state, the player has access to a Level 3 super. When using the super, any remaining meter will empty and Rage state will come to an end, enabling the player to fill it up again.

Meter is gained and used by one character at a time. If a character wins a round, any gained meter carries over to the next round. If the character loses a round, all meter is lost and the new character will start the next round with zero meter. If a round ends while a character is raged, win or lose, the rage state ends and the meter resets to zero to start the next round.

An important note, when Just Defending you do not lose stored charge. If you JD 7 hits in a row, you will still have charge retained assuming you had the charged stored prior to the first JD.

Unique Groove Abilities

The Rage Gauge

K-Groove's meter is very different from the other grooves. You cannot build meter by whiffing attacks or landing attacks. It can only be built in two ways: Getting hit or Just Defending. When you get hit, the meter you build is proportional to the damage of the attack. If you get hit by a heavy attack, you gain more meter compared to if you get hit by a light attack. Attacks like supers will build you a ton of meter, and level 3 supers will give you full meter.

When you reach full meter, your character flashes red and the meter slowly drains. This is called Rage, and it is the main mechanic of K-Groove. Rage gives you three things, an attack bonus, a defense bonus, and a level 3 super that you can use at any time, however using it will deplete the meter completely. The attack bonus is very large. A staggering 35% on normals and throws, a very large 30% on specials, and a modest but still noticeable 10% on supers. Overall, this is what makes K-Groove so deadly. The attack bonuses allow for heavy hitting attacks to really hurt, and throws will do crazy high damage (Just do two raged K-Geese kick throws and you'll see what I mean). Individual combos will also deal very high damage. Overall this mechanic is just a slight step down from custom combos but has only a fraction of the execution.

Just Defend

A mechanic taken from 'Garou: Mark of the Wolves', if you time your block to happen right before the opponent's attack lands, you perform a Just Defend, and a light blue spark appears over your character.

Just Defend is basically a backwards parry, since you can JD standing, grounded, or in the air, but it's also way better than a parry. For one, the risk vs reward factor is heavily skewed towards reward. If you mistime the JD, chances are you're just gonna block normally, compared to parrying where you just get hit. JDs also grant a lot of meter, and while parrying does that as well, the risk vs reward means it's easier for K to get that meter. More importantly, there's no pseudo 50/50 with JDs. Attacks in the game have a high vs low parry property, but since JDs are just timed blocks, you can crouch JD a standing attack. You can't crouch parry a standing attack most times. There's no guessing game with JDs, you just do them.

Just Defends turn K-Groove into a nightmare matchup. It makes a good K-Groover a great K-Groover. Doing a single Just Defend gives you 100 units of life and 8.3% of your meter. 100 units of life in CvS2 is the equivalent of around a few pixels of health, but it does mean you avoid a potential chip kill setup so it is still useful. In terms of the 8.3% meter, this is a fixed number, unlike getting hit, JDing a light and JDing a heavy give you the same amount of meter. This seems small, but think of it like this, you have to JD 12 times to get full rage, and that's not even accounting for getting hit, as getting hit on average gives you more meter than a standard JD. Not only that, but JDs negate guard damage as well.

Getting good at JDing is the key to being good at K-Groove. It gives you multiple rages, and having a chance at using two level 3s per round is a luxury that every other groove doesn't get on average. For a high health character, they might even have three rages, and though that's unlikely, it's very hype when it happens. JDing a multi hit attack or a blockstring will give you a ton of meter and force the opponent to play more defensively or attack less. The threat of rage is simply too much to let happen so easily.

JD really compliments Rage, it's by far the easiest way to get meter in K-Groove if you don't feel like getting punched in the face (who does) and makes you a threat in any context.

Just Defend Frame Advantage Formula

JD is not only an easy way of getting rage, but like a parry, you can make the attack unsafe. The blockstun that JD gives you is actually universal and not proportional to the attack's stun. There is a guard stun frame value for lights, mediums, heavies and specials. Here are the frames of guard stun for each JD'd attack:

• vs Light Normals: 10 frames guard stun
• vs. Medium Normals: 14-16 frames guard stun
• vs. Heavy Normals: 18-20 frames guard stun
• vs. Special Moves: 19-21 frames guard stun

These varying numbers for modified JD guard stun tell me that one of two things is possible: the first one being that some of the frame numbers in the official CvS2 guide book might me off by a frame or two. While that's very possible, I'll give the book the benefit of the doubt and assume the other possible reason for varying numbers is true.

Much like different fierces have different amounts of guard stun, the same applies for JDs; there is no set amount of JD stun for a set of moves. This makes it a huge pain to tell what the resulting frame advantage/disadvantage is with a JDed move, since there is no basic formula to follow. However, here's a simple formula for getting a rough estimate on the the resulting frame advantage/disadvantage.

Frame Advantage/Disadvantage = JD stun - (active frames + recovery frames)

Let's take Sagat's cr.HP as an example:

Sagat's cr.HP is 7/8/14 +2F. Plug the relevant numbers into the formula and:

Frame Advantage =

• =18~20F - (8F + 14F)
• = 18~20F - 22F
• = -4F ~ -2F

So, Sagat's cr.HP (normally a +2F move) gets a disadvantage somewhere between -4F and -2F when JDed. With some testing, you'll find that it's actually exactly -3F, but since JD stun is slightly different for every move we can use the formula for a good estimate.

Here's a more extreme example of JD effects:

Benimaru's QCF+HK is 12/4/29 +5. Plug the relevant numbers into the formula and you'll end up with:

Frame Advantage =

• -19~21F - (4F + 29F)
• = -19~21F - 33F
• = -14~12F

Ouch. From +5 all the way down to -14ish. JDing really hurts the moves that are safe or give advantage due to putting a ton of block / hitstun on the opponent.

Other examples of moves that are very minus if JD'd:

- Eagle st.HP / cr.HK
- Hibiki Distance Slash
- Claw cr.MP
- Geese cr.HK
- Haohmaru st.HP
- Rugal cr.HP / cr.HK

When JDing heavy attacks that are close, attempt a punish. The opponent should be minus enough to where they are unable to block anything.

Groove Strategy

K-Groove is a top-tier groove in CvS2. It has both offensive and defensive mechanics that make it the perfect groove for almost every character in the game. Though there are defensive mechanics present in K-Groove, you almost always are playing offense on the opponent, and it's easy to force the opponent's hand due to the threat of a level 3 super.

Strengths

Just Defend - As mentioned above, Just Defend is the best way of getting meter in K-Groove. If you manage to JD multiple attacks at once, you can easily get rage. What makes a great K-Groove player is the ability to JD almost anything. It forces the opponent to attack sparingly, knowing that they are basically giving the K-Groover free meter. Not only that, but since JD makes attacks more unsafe, you can pick up punishes from them just like parries.

Damage - K-Groove's Rage mechanic grants an unreal 35% attack bonus. This means that individual pokes and throws will do noticeably much more damage than before. This forces the opponent to lame and turtle. This can be annoying but you can easily corner them. Once you have the opponent cornered and have rage, it's over for them. The damage potency of K is simply too strong. It has the highest threat in the game outside of A-Groove customs.

Team Flexibility - Because meter isn't shared between characters in K-Groove, your team can be a lot more freeform. You don't need to do a point > mid > anchor format, really all you need is the anchor. A team of, say, K-Kim/Honda/Sagat can work, you can have 2 characters of your choosing, and a good anchor. That leads into the next point.

Everyone is Good in K - I'm exaggerating, there are a few characters who are better in other grooves than they are in K, but almost everyone in the entire game is worth picking in K. They all have access to the really good mechanics of JD and Rage. Outside of the bottom tier dumpster fires, you can construct a team of misfits and they could do some real work in K with the right player.

Weaknesses

No Defensive Subsystems Without JD - Outside of JD, K-Groove has no defensive subsystems to escape pressure. No GC, no roll, no GCR, and irregular access to meter means that you're heavily relying on JD and character-specific options to get out of some bad situations. Even then, this is a pretty minor weakness if you can actually JD well.

No Roll - Another "weakness" of K is that is has no roll. Obviously having no roll sucks, but unlike P, K actually has the firepower to back up not having a roll. Still, not having a roll, and more importantly, not having RCs is still a blow.

Overall K-Groove has very small weaknesses compared to other grooves, it really doesn't have any if I'm being honest outside of the defense. The pros FAR outweigh the cons here.

Character Considerations

As stated above, a large majority of the cast is either close to their best or at their best in K. I would list the entire roster here if I wanted to, but instead I'll list characters that are very good picks for any K-Groove tean.

• Sagat
  
• Blanka
  
• Cammy
  
• Geese
  
• Hibiki
  
• Rock
  
• Mai
  
• Kyo
  
• Morrigan
  
• Nakoruru
  
• Sakura
  
• Shotos
  
• Chun-Li
  
• Raiden
  
• Dictator
  
• Iori
  

Even for characters I didn't list, they can still be thrown on a team no problem. These characters are just the upper echelon of good K-Groove characters if you wanna make a stacked squad.

Groove Comparisons and Matchups

The info in this section is for direct comparisons between grooves and generic groove vs groove matchups, which may apply differently to specific characters. For more detail on how a character plays in and plays against the different grooves, refer to their character info page.