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

Drive Cancels

Drive Cancels (DC) serve as a way to cancel a Special Move into another Special Move to continue a combo. You can also cancel a special into its EX version, but not vice versa. To Drive Cancel, simply input the motion for the special you wish to cancel into while the currently active special is hitting (or in some cases, during the recovery time of a Special Move after it has hit). Each Drive Cancel consumes half of a player's Hyper Drive Meter, limiting most combos 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 > df+C xx Burn Knuckle (qcb+A).
• With one Drive Cancel, the player can extend the combo for more damage:
  • Crouching B > Crouching A > 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

• Timing a Drive Cancel can be made much more lenient if one continues to hold down the button used for the canceled-into attack (i.e. + [ ]).
• Specials cannot be Drive Canceled 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 frame traps more damaging or to make low-damaging approaches stronger.
  • For 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 of buffering the Drive Cancel.