What Is Considered Safe On Block?
-7 is considered the magic number when looking at Block Advantage. Attacks with this amount of block advantage and above are considered safe while attacks at -8 and lower are punishable if the opponent is close enough. The majority of characters do not have a move with a startup fast enough to punish anything at -7 on block, with a few notable exceptions:
- Liu Kang’s jab (S1) starts up in 6 frames which can easily cancel into his 12/121 string, allowing him to connect an easy full-kombo punish against moves that are -7 (NOTE: remember to consider the additional frame needed to leave the blocking state)
- Kung Lao has a command normal (B1) that also starts up in 6 frames, and normally only has a Low string ender that ends in a knockdown but can be cancelled by itself into specials/assists to convert a -7 punish into a kombo
- The Enhanced versions of Li Mei's Shi Zi Lion and T-1000’s Sacral Spike (EX DB3) start up in 7 frames, meaning that they can punish -7 moves when used as a Reversal to occur immediately out of blockstun
A move is considered truly safe against these characters at -6. With this in mind, spacing "unsafe" moves properly can still keep players safe in certain situations (as well as covering the unsafe move with Kameo assists).
Why Can’t I Punish This Unsafe Move?
Players must also account for the pushback of an attack they block when determining if their punish attempt will connect successfully; some attacks may theoretically be fast enough to punish an “unsafe” attack but will not reach the opponent due to the blocked attack pushing them out of the desired range. This may require players to utilize Reversals with longer reach and/or forward-advancing movement to connect against the opponent before they recover in time to block.
For example, a player may block an attack from the opponent that is -15 but pushes them back nearly fullscreen distance; if the player’s character does not have a normal attack with a 15f startup and nearly-fullscreen range, they will not be able to punish the opponent. However, their character may have a 13-14f special move that quickly advances towards the opponent fullscreen, which can be inputted as a Reversal immediately out of blockstun to connect with frame-perfect timing against the punishable opponent.
