Stun
Like with Health, every character in The King of Fighters XIII has the same amount of stun of the same length. Unlike Life and Guard, Stun is a hidden meter, and you have to keep track of it well to capitalise on it. Every character has exactly 120 stun points, if these stun points deplete, the character will go into stun state. If a character is stunned the character becomes instantly unhittable and drops to the floor out of any combo. To not waste precious meter in a combo as your opponent goes into stun, it is quite important to keep track of the stun.
- While harder to induce a stun than in previous game such as The King of Fighters '98, stuns are still important in The King of Fighters XIII. Certain characters (Kula, Takuma, Joe) can even land 100% stun combos under the right conditions.
- Similar to stuns in Street Fighter IV, both the combo counter will continue to go up, and the damage scaling will not be reset if a character is in stun.
- Someone who is stunned cannot be stunned again for quite some time, as the character does not take any stun damage for the next 10 seconds or so. This is different from older KOF games and also different from Street Fighter IV, where you would not take stun damage from the combo after stun, but as soon as that combo is over you would take stun again. In The King of Fighters XIII, even if the combo has ended you will not be taking stun damage for some time.