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.

Normal Moves

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:

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!