The King of Fighters XIII/Glossary

Attack Properties

Cancel and Movement Properties

Term

Definition

{{#motion:rapidfire}}

Most characters have Light Attacks that can actually chain into themselves or other Light Attacks. Not every character has this, though.

{{#motion:airok}}

These are Special Moves or Desperation Moves that can be performed on the ground and in the air.

{{#motion:nocancel}}

This isn't really a property. This actually means it just lacks every single property imaginable. Most far normals are examples of moves that have No Cancel properties.

Hit Properties

Term

Definition

{{#motion:low}}

These are Normal Moves or Special Moves or even Desperation Moves that must be blocked while crouching.

{{#motion:high}}

These are Normal Moves or Special Moves or Desperation Moves that must be blocked while standing.

{{#motion:unblockable}}

These are moves that cannot be blocked at all. Shen Woo's Tatsu! Gekiken! is unblockable after being charged up all the way.

{{#motion:throw}}

Ground Throws cannot be blocked. Ground Throws only connect on grounded opponents who are not in Hit Stun or Block Stun. Command Throws however, can be comboed into on an opponent in Hit Stun.

{{#motion:airthrow}}

Air Throws only connect on opponents in the air and also cannot be blocked. Air Throws can only be comboed into when the opponent is placed into a juggle state.

Hit Effects

Term

Definition

{{#motion:reset}}

Reset: These are special moves that cause an airborne opponent to fall back a neutral standing position rather than getting knocked down, similarly to when they are hit out of the air by most normals.

{{#motion:hardknockdown}}

Attacks that cause a Hard Knock-Down will put the enemy into a knocked down state where they cannot Tech Roll. .

{{#motion:softknockdown}}

Attacks that cause a Soft Knock-Down will put the enemy into a knocked down state where they can tech roll freely.

{{#motion:wallbounce}}

Certain Command Normal Moves on Counter-Hit, Special Moves on Counter-Hit and EX-Special Moves will cause a Wall Bounce on the opponent when they hit. Wall Bounces can only occur once per combo, however, so a second move with Wall Bounce property connecting in a combo will just cause a Soft Knock-Down instead. The opponent won't even touch the wall at all.

{{#motion:crumple}}

Some moves, when they connect, cause the opponent to slowly crumple to the floor. When this occurs, they are freely comboable up until they hit the ground, but they are considered airborne. Thus the first hit that connects on them will pop them into the air. When they finish the crumple and hit the ground, they are considered in Floored State for about half a second before they can escape with a Roll. But even when it looks like they are fully Floored, you can actually hit them with any move that reaches them and it'll pop them off the ground. It's only for that very brief half of a second that you need to hit them with an OTG.

{{#motion:stagger}}

This is a property where the opponent staggers backwards and are vulnerable to attacks, but they don't stagger for very long, especially compared to Crumples which last very long. But any hit on the opponent keeps them grounded, unlike Crumples, so you can perform whichever ground combo on the opponent you want.

{{#motion:startupinv}}

These moves have some invulnerability frames at the start of the moves, making them ideal for overriding the attacks from your opponents.

{{#motion:armored}}

Some moves are Armored and can absorb one hit without stopping. Hulk's Standing Heavy and Sentinel's Launcher, for example, can pass through one hit from the opponent. However, if you can manage to hit those moves twice before they hit you, you can break through the armor.

{{#motion:counter}}

These are moves that will trigger attacks only when struck by the opponent. A lot of Counters counter only moves of a specific height, such as the Light and Medium versions of Amaterasu's Solar Flare (Light counters high and mid attacks, Medium counters mid and low attacks). Some Counters will counter any height, such as Taskmaster's Aegis Counter.

{{#motion:projectilereflect}}

There are some moves that are Projectile Reflectors. Whenever a Projectile strikes these moves, they are bounced back at the opponent. These moves, however, do not work on beams.

{{#motion:projectilenullifier}}

Though very rare, there are some moves that are tagged with a Projectile Nullifying property. Sentinel has a bunch of Normal Moves, for example, that can just nullify Projectiles if he punches them.

Controller Motion Terminology

Term

Definition

QCF

{{#motion: qcf}} Quarter circle forward

QCB

{{#motion: qcb}} Quarter circle back

HCF

{{#motion: hcf}} Half circle forward

HCB

{{#motion: hcb}} Half circle back

DP

{{#motion: dp}} Dragon-punch type motion. Forward, down, down/forward

RDP

{{#motion: rdp}} Reverse dragon-punch type motion. Back, down, down/back

Commonly Used Jargon

Hit Stun and Block Stun

Two terms will be used a lot in this guide: Hit Stun and Block Stun. If you notice, whenever you land an attack on the opponent, the opponent gets "stuck" in a state. When you hit them, they go into an animation of reeling from getting hit. When they block your attack, they get stuck in a blocking pose for a fixed amount of time.

These are what are referred to as Hit Stun and Block Stun. Hit Stun is the concept that, when hit, you are stuck in the reel animation for a while. Any hits that connect during your Hit Stun are considered a hit that combos on you. And Block Stun is the concept that, when you block an attack, you are stuck in the block pose for a while. Any attack that connects on you during Block Stun is considered a true Block String. These are very important concepts to know about, and they will be talked about a lot throughout this guide.

Frames

The word "Frame" is going to be used a lot in this guide. We're going to be talking about Active Frames, Frame Advantage, animation frames, etc. etc. So without understanding what a frame is, you're going to get very lost very quickly. The easiest way to understand frames is to think about everything that happens on the screen as a cartoon. In a cartoon, you have to draw one picture at a time so that, when played in rapid succession, each picture creates an animation. Each of these pictures can be called an animation frame.

That's what happens on the screen in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. Every movement a character makes, every attack they perform goes through a set of what you can call an animation frame. So some moves are made up of 20 animation frames. Some moves are made up of as many as 200 frames. This is all we are referring to when we talk about frames. And keep in mind that Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is a game that outputs 60 frames per second. So if we say something like "there is a 6 frame window you can perform this action," that means you have 1/10th of a second to perform the action.

Requests?

Got a request for the definition for particular jargon you don't understand? Use the talk page to let us know!