P-Groove is one of the six grooves in Capcom vs. SNK 2. It is a groove that is heavily reliant on its mainstay feature, parrying. It is inspired by the Street Fighter III series, most notably Third Strike.
P-Groove is a low-tier groove in CvS2. Having only a single super meter, many disadvantages compared to other grooves, and no other features of speak of, it is completely dependent on the parrying skill of the user to be effective.
Groove Data
| Main Feature | Parrying | |
|---|---|---|
| Groove System | Parrying & Super Combo System | |
| Groove Subsystems |
| |
| Meter Length | 192 Units | |
| Guard Bar Length | 38 Units | 80% of Normal |
| Meter Bonuses | None | |
See Groove Subsystems for complete technical data on specific subsystems.
Meter System
The meter in P-Groove is the most straightforward one in CvS2. It is a single, long super meter that grants a Level 3 super opportunity when full, denoted by the bar saying "SUPER."
There are no meter bonuses, nor any way to use partial amounts of meter. (There are no EX special moves in P-Groove or in CvS2, unlike in Third Strike.)
Meter is shared by the team and persists between characters and rounds. Any meter remaining after a round, win or lose, will carry over to the next round.
Unique Groove Abilities
Parrying
Parrying (Blocking in Japanese versions) is a special technique that allows the player to deflect an opponent's physical attack, bypassing hitstun, preventing pushback, and avoiding any health loss or guard crush damage.
To perform a parry, use the directional controls to input towards (for mid/high/air attacks) or down (for low attacks) at the moment an opponent's attack connects. (Down-forward simultaneously is not a valid input for a parry and will never result in one.) If successful, there will be a parry flash, sound effect, and a brief time freeze to accentuate the parry.
The player must be in the neutral state (ground or air) to perform a parry, or in some reversal situations. The reversal parry allows the player to parry exactly one frame before they would have normally recovered from performing a move or fully getting up off the ground after being knocked down. (A parry may not be performed in the air if an attack was previously performed in the same jump.) Reversal parries cannot be performed when recovering from hitstun or blockstun. Therefore, it is not possible to parry out of a 1 frame link from the opponent.
A player on the way down from a jump that parries in the air will experience a slight "bounce" effect that moves them slightly forward at the same level as where they parried. Depending on the air attack being parried, this effect may require a change in parry timing for subsequent attacks.
Players cannot parry during a Small Jump.
Parries on the ground (high and low) have a 10 frame detection period if the parry direction is tapped and immediately returned to neutral. If the game detects a parry direction is held, the detection window is reduced to 5 frames. This difference is designed to give a higher margin of success for deliberate parries and reduce the likelihood of accidental parries from regular character movement.
A successful parry has a "lag time" of 23 frames, after which the game will not accept another parry input in the same direction. Again, this was designed to make sure multiple parries happen as a result of deliberate actions, not through mashing. However, this lag can be circumvented by returning to neutral and inputting a direction that is different from the parry direction, then parrying in the same direction again. For example, it is much more effective to parry extremely rapid high attacks by quickly alternating between the forward and back directions.
Once the P-Groove player is put into blockstun, they will be unable to perform a parry until they recover from and completely exit blockstun. It is not possible to cancel out of the blockstun state to parry. This is in contrast to SFIII: Third Strike where the player is able to stop blocking while being attacked and immediately parry out of blockstun—also known as a "red parry." CvS2 does not have this technique due to the universal mechanics of blockstun and the need to have the appropriate Groove Subsystem to cancel out of it to act.
Parrying the first hit of an opponent's conditional attack counts as it landing successfully for the purposes of the rest of the opponent's attack. That is, for certain special and super attacks that would normally stop and end if the first hit is blocked, if it is parried instead, the rest of the move will be performed as if it was hit. Examples of this include Morrigan's Darkness Illusion, Kim's Phoenix Flattener, and Ryo's Ryuko Ranbu supers. In these situations, it is left to the player to decide if blocking the first hits of these supers would be the better option, versus parrying it and having to deal with the continued attacks.
Because a successful parry bypasses any "stun" effects, the player is still vulnerable to opponent throws after a parry. For this to be an issue, this would require the opponent to have buffered a command throw or super throw after a normal attack that they anticipated to be parried; because the player is not in hitstun or blockstun after parrying the initial attack, the follow-up throw will hit unless the parrying player had already jumped out of it.
Groove Strategy
P-Groove is a low-tier groove in CvS2.
Strengths
Weaknesses
Character Considerations
Groove Comparisons and Matchups
The info in this section is for direct comparisons between grooves and generic groove vs groove matchups, which may apply differently to specific characters. For more detail on how a character plays in and plays against the different grooves, refer to their character info page.
