The King of Fighters XIII/Systems/Meter Attacks: Drive Cancels

Drive Cancels

Drive Cancels (DC) serve as ways to cancel (EX) Special Moves into another Special Move or into a Desperation Move to continue a combo. You can also cancel a special into it's EX version, but not vice versa. To Drive Cancel, simply input the motion for the special you wish to cancel while the Special Move you are currently performing is hitting. Each Drive Cancel consumes half of a player's Hyper Drive Meter, limiting a combo to two Drive Cancels outside of Hyper Drive Mode.

• Let's use Terry for a basic example. Let's say a Terry player lands the following combo:
  • Crouching B, Crouching A xx df.C xx Burn Knuckle (qcb+A).
• With one Drive Cancel, the player can extend the combo for more damage:
  • Crouching B, Crouching A xx df.C xx Burn Knuckle (qcb+A) [Drive Cancel] Crack Shoot (qcb+B), Rising Tackle (charge d,u+C).

• Not all Special Moves can be DC'd, and the timing of when to cancel can be limited to certain hits on a Special. This varies by character, so check the Character Strategy section for specifics.
  
  

Strategy Corner

Specials cannot be Drive Cancelled on block. As such, unsafe or reversal moves cannot be made unpunishable by Drive Canceling into a safe special.

• Offensively, this property can be turned into a useful Option Select by buffering a (EX) Special Move behind other Specials. If the first special is blocked or whiffed then it will not be Drive Canceled. If the opponent is hit, then the buffered Drive Cancel will automatically activate and hit the opponent. This technique can be applied to make frametraps more damaging or to make low-damaging approaches stronger.
  • For an example, if a Mai player uses Musasabi no Mai (air + ) against an opponent and then inputs Musasabi no Mai (air + + ) two outcomes could occur: the initial dive could be blocked by the opponent or whiff due to spacing in which Mai would recover from the dive as normal, or on hit Mai would Drive Cancel her first dive into her dive which allows for a juggle followup. Assuming the Mai player has the resources for this Option Select and is willing to spend it, then there is no negative effect for buffering the Drive Cancel.
  • Some special moves, including all projectiles, can only be Super Canceled. The Super Cancel will activate regardless of on hit or block, negating any usefulness of the above Option Select. In order to be safer, know which specials can be Drive Canceled on hit into another, preferably launching, special move.