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 vast majority of characters do not have a move 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).
