Street Fighter V/Universal Abilities

Blocking

Blocking is performed by holding the back direction. With the character facing right this means left, and with the character facing right this means left. To block jumping or overhead attacks such as Ryu's f+MP Collarbone Breaker, hold back to block high. To block low attacks such as Ryu's crMK, hold down+back. High attacks can be blocked either high or low.

After blocking an attack you will go into blockstun. Blockstun is a special state where you are unable to do anything for several frames until you recover. This means even if you mash LP afterwards, it will not come out until your character exists blockstun.

Proximity Blocking

When a move is performed, even if it does not hit the opponent it will cause the opponent to go into a block state if they are within a certain distance. This is called "proximity guard". Since the opponent goes into a block state this means holding back makes them block, and they cannot walk backwards. Proximity guard is the reason you cannot simply walk away when Abigail is charing his HP in V-Trigger 1 or Sagat his V-Trigger 2; you are still able to jump and backdash and do anything else besides walk backwards however.

Normal Moves

Normal Moves refer to any single button hit, and are common across every character, The number of normals each character has is drastically reduced from previous Street Fighter games, removing close and neutral jumping attacks. Most have 18 total: standing LP, MP, HP, LK, MK, HK; jumping LP, MP, HP, LK, MK, HK; and crouching LP, MP, HP, LK, MK, HK. Certain characters such as Nash and Fang also have a different attack if done during a neutral jump instead of a forward jump.

Unique / Command Normals

Command normals are unique attacks for each character, performed by pressing a direction + a button. Examples of these are Ryu's Collarbone Breaker, Guile's Sobat Kick, and Chun-Li's Senenshu. These moves often have different properties than normals such as being overheads, moving the character far forward, and more. These moves can still combo into others, cause crush counters, or just be a good poke as with regular normal moves.

Target Combos

Target combos are pre-defined button sequences that execute unique attack strings. Examples of these are Ryu's Jodan Sanrengeki, Cammy's Life Combination, and Cody's Final Combination. The largest difference is the timing on them is much less strict than a normal combo, they can be pressed one after another in a loose timing to get the moves to come out.

Special Moves

A special move is another class of moves in Street Fighter V. These moves usually have special properties compared to normal attacks; examples of them include Ryu's Hadoken, M. Bison Scissor Kicks, Birdie's Bullhorn, and Ed's Psycho Rising.

Special Moves are often a large part of what makes a character unique. When people think of Ryu they often don't think of what his sMP or f+HP look like, they think of the Shoryuken or Hadoken or Tatsumaki. When people think of Blanka they think of his electricity and rolling attacks, when they think of Chun-Li they think of her lightning kicks. In this way they have a variety of uses; some are used as combo enders, some are used for zoning, some are used as "Get off me!" moves, some for breaking the opponent's pressure, and more. Learning a character's specials is a good first step to learn what kind of character they are supposed to be.

Special Moves in addition to their utility alone are useful because many normals are special cancelable, meaning you can cancel moves that normally would not allow further combo into a special attack. The classic example is Ryu's crMK xx Hadoken where "xx" means cancel; on its own crMK is not advantageous enough to continue a combo but because it can be special canceled it allows further followups.

Special Moves also causes actual chip damage instead of only grey life.

There are several types of inputs for performing specials:

Back Dash

Back dashes are performed by pressing back twice. During the entire backdash characters are throw invincible making then great for escaping them backdashes recover faster than most jumps, or quickly moving away from an opponent to create distance. 3 frames into a backdash a character is considered to be airborne, meaning many regular attacks hit during them will cause a flip out state preventing a combo opportunity. A common example is against Alex; after his Lariat which is +3 on block it is sometimes worth it to perform a backdash to escape the command throw or MP xx Flash Chop setup; if the MP hits it will cause the opponent to flip out making the Flash Chop completely whiff and giving you the advantage for just spending a bit of HP.

One special thing to note about backdashes however is while airborne a character is in a counter hit state; meaning crush counter moves are especially deadly in these scenarios.

Throws

Taunts

Taunts are performed by pressing all 6 buttons at the same time. Besides Akuma's taunt which causes a small attack that can be comboed out of they have no effect other than annoying your opponent. Use them wisely or risk showing up in a Twitter / YouTube video of your premature taunt!