Street Fighter 6/Game Data - SuperCombo Wiki (2024)

The word "frame" is used to represent the smallest unit of time in the game. In SF6 and most fighting games, one frame is 1/60 of a second, since the game runs at 60 frames per second. Every action a character takes, like walking, jumping, attacking, or blocking, can be measured in terms of frames. Frames are often abbreviated with the letter "f", as in 60f = 60 frames.

As an example, if Chun-Li has a backdash with a duration of 25 frames, this is equal to 25/60 or 5/12 of a second in real time. If you have a 5 frame window to input a combo link, this is a timing window of 5/60 or 1/12 of a second to properly time the combo.

Move Stages

Keeping in mind that all actions are measured in frames, moves can be further divided into phases called Startup, Active, and Recovery. Knowing the definition of each will make it much easier to interpret Frame Data.

• Startup: The beginning portion of an attack before it can hit the opponent; think "winding up for a punch"
• Active: The portion of an attack that can hit or grab the opponent
• Recovery: The ending portion of an attack that can no longer connect with the opponent, and the attacker is unable to perform any other action such as blocking.

It's important to note that in modern Street Fighter games, Startup is measured to also include the first Active frame (known as FAF or First Active Frame startup). This is done to make it easier to understand which moves can be used in combos and in punishes (e.g. a move with +5 Advantage combos into a move with 5 frame startup; a move with 7 frame startup can punish a move with -7 Disadvantage). This means that if you want to know the total frame count of an attack, you should add Startup + Active + Recovery frames and then subtract 1 to account for that overlap.

When you land an attack, the opponent gets "stuck" for a fixed amount of time from the impact.

• Hitstun - the opponent is stuck in a reeling animation from the hit. Any followup attack that connects while the opponent is stuck in hitstun results in a combo.
• Blockstun - the opponent is stuck in a blocking pose. Causing the opponent to block a series of attacks is a blockstring; if the opponent never exits blockstun, it is a true blockstring.
• Hitstop - also known as "Hit Freeze"; time essentially stops for both characters, making a move feel more impactful. Heavier attacks have longer hitstop, and some Punish Counters with special effects can have extra long hitstop. In addition to making the hits look more natural, hitstop helps to give players time to input a special move cancel and hitconfirm followup attacks.

SF6 gives players some leniency to time their inputs on offense and defense. For most applications, any move can be buffered up to 4 frames early, meaning that there is a 5 frame window to get the follow-up input at the earliest possible timing. As an example, consider a common link for Chun-Li: 5MP (+6 on Hit) into 2MP (6f startup). While this appears to be a 1 frame link, the 4 buffer frames turn it into a 5 frame link, which is much more consistent. This also applies when timing your defensive inputs; if you want to interrupt your opponent's staggered block pressure with a quick jab, you have 5 frames to time the jab as early as possible. The same holds true when attempting an invincible reversal out of hitstun or blockstun.

Dashes and Wakeup Reversals have an increased buffer window of 7 frames (so, an 8 frame total window). Mashing a backdash to escape the opponent's tick throw pressure is much easier as a result of this increased window, and timing an invincible DP or Super on wakeup is easier than doing it out of hitstun or blockstun.

There are some exceptions to the universal input buffer rules, which may be unintended bugs. For example, after blocking Ryu's 5MP, the buffer for a dash is only 4f instead of the intended 7f. There are also some situations where the input buffer does not help execution. Some combos like Ken's Jinrai Loops must have their cancel delayed as late as possible to juggle properly; this late timing cannot be buffered early.

Screen Freeze Buffers

When the screen freezes during your Perfect Parry or during the opponent's Super activation, you can automatically buffer any attack by holding the button after performing the move input. For example, holding a medium button with 6f startup will guarantee a punish starter after any Perfect Parry, even against the fastest light normals or multi-hit attacks. If the opponent tries to chip you out with a Super that can't be jumped out of, you can buffer your own Super motion and hold the Punch/Kick button to make it come out at the earliest possible timing.

The game will choose your most recent input if you attempt multiple moves during a screen freeze. Letting go of the attack button will stop the buffer from occurring, so you can change your mind if you realize that you initially made the wrong decision.

Hit Priority

Projectile Priority

In most Street Fighter games, projectiles have a specific number of hits, with EX moves or Supers usually having more hits than meterless ones. When they would collide, the projectiles would clash hits, and the fireball with more hits would continue onward after subtracting the number of clashed hits.

In Street Fighter 6, clashing projectiles are now subject to a priority system. The general rule is Super Art > OD Projectile > Meterless Projectile. Projectiles of the same priority will clash in the same way as previous games. When a higher priority projectile clashes with a lower priority projectile, it will still be slowed down by the clash, but will not lose any hits in the process.

As an example, Guile can create a meterless 2-hit projectile with Sonic Blade into Sonic Cross. If he uses this against Ryu's 2-hit OD Hadoken, the fireballs will clash twice before the Hadoken continues, retaining both of its hits. If Guile throws out five Sonic Break projectiles during his Lv.2 Super, Ryu's OD Hadoken would clash with each one individually with the same end result.

Move Input Priority

When multiple inputs are entered on the same frame, the game will use this priority list to determine what move comes out. Moves that are higher on this list take precedence over moves below:

In some previous Street Fighter games, it took a few frames for a character's hurtbox to shift when transitioning from standing to crouching. It was possible to land meaty attacks on crouch blocking opponents that normally whiff on crouchers (e.g. Sagat's High Tiger Shot) due to the forced standing frames on wakeup, and the only way to circumvent this was to wake up with an immediate crouching attack to force a crouching state. Making an opponent stand block a jump-in attack could also make them vulnerable to an instant "fuzzy overhead" attack if they attempt to crouch block immediately, leading to crucial 50/50 guesses at the end of a round.

In Street Fighter 6, there is still technically a transition period between standing and crouching, with the hurtbox fully shifting on the 5th frame. However, entering proximity guard from an attack's startup allows the defender to skip these transition frames. As a result, it is no longer possible to meaty a crouch blocking opponent with attacks that whiff on crouchers, like Ryu 5HK or Cammy 4HK.

Note: SF6 Training Mode does not accurately reflect this scenario if you attempt instant overheads or meaty high attacks on a crouching dummy. This is because when the dummy is set to Crouch + Block All, it is not actually holding Down + Back; instead, it is holding straight Down, then automatically blocking on the final possible frame. Thus, it never enters proximity guard to shift its hurtbox.

Instant Overheads still exist, but they require the opponent to be stuck in blockstun long enough for the jump attack to connect. This is especially notable for Juri, as many people have labbed setups involving instant j.MP > j.214KK that do not actually work in practice. The only way to set up a fuzzy overhead into j.MP is to connect a deep heavy jump-in against a burned out opponent.

Some moves have hitboxes that only interact with an opponent that is already in hitstun. This is often used to make combos/juggles more consistent without making the hitbox too large in other contexts. For example, Luke and Cammy both have a large combo-only hitbox on their SA3, making the attack look like a taller anti-air than it actually is. At mid-range, Guile's SA1 is a combo-only hitbox; this makes it slower as a ranged punish while still allowing it to combo even from ranged whiff punish normals.

As more hits are used in a combo, the damage of each successive attack is reduced. This system, known as "damage scaling", allows longer combos to exist without being overwhelmingly powerful. Most extended combo sequences require the use of Drive or Super meter. Because the marginal damage output of each additional hit is reduced, the decision to spend or save these resources adds complexity to your offensive decision making. Note that this scaling does not affect the amount of Drive/Super meter gained from each hit (outside of Perfect Parry and some SA2 follow-up combos), so long combos can still be useful even if the damage is low.

The main types of damage scaling in SF6 are:

• Starter Scaling: When starting a combo with this move, the followup is scaled by x%
  • In frame data, written as "applies a x% damage scaling to next hit when beginning a combo"
• Combo Scaling: When a move is comboed into, the followup is scaled by x%
  • In frame data, may be written as "counts as X hits for damage scaling when comboed into" or "applies an extra X% damage scaling to next attack when comboed into"
• Immediate Scaling: When comboed into, the damage of this move is immediately scaled by x%
  • e.g. after a crumple, Throws (including most Command Throws) immediately have their damage reduced by an additional 20% when comboed into
  • Similar to Combo Scaling except that any follow-up moves continue scaling as usual

The general progression of damage scaling depends on how the combo is started:

For scaling purposes, an "attack" corresponds to each move that is input by the player, not the number of hits performed by the character. This means that a move like Chun-Li's Lightning Kicks only counts as one attack, while Jamie's 236P~6K~6K (Freeflow Kicks) sequence counts as 3 separate attacks unless otherwise stated. Target Combos like Kimberly's 5LP~MP~HP~HK sequence also count each hit separately for the purpose of damage scaling.

There are many exceptions to these general guidelines, which are documented below.

System-Wide Scaling

Super Arts
Will always do a set minimum amount of damage, even if the combo would normally be scaled to a lower percent.

• The minimum is 30% (SA1), 40% (SA2), and 50% (SA3/CA)

Level 3 Super Arts:

• Additional 10% damage scaling penalty when canceled from a special move
  • This means that a raw Special > SA3 will be scaled as 100% -> 90%
  • Outside of this scenario, it acts as if there is 1 additional hit of scaling (100% -> 100% -> 70%)
  • There are some exceptions to this noted in the character-specific sections

Perfect Parry
Any punish after Perfect Parry multiplies the damage scaling by 50% (so a standard combo would look like 50 -> 50 -> 40 -> 35 -> 30...). There is no way to mitigate this by delaying the punish - if the followup is not scaled, then the opponent's move has recovered and it wasn't a true punish.

Perfect Parry also applies Drive/Super gauge scaling for all hits of a punish combo:

• Super Gain (attacker/defender) reduced to 80%
• Drive Gain (attacker) reduced to 50%
• Drive Damage (defender) reduced to 50%
  • This includes the Drive Damage from a combo into a Super; for example, Critical Art would only deplete 1 Drive bar instead of the usual 2

Drive Rush
When used raw to start a combo:

• No additional scaling penalty; (any other applicable scaling penalties, such as 2MK starters, still apply)

When used mid-combo (regardless of whether it was canceled into; also applies after Drive Impact Stun):

• All remaining hits in the combo have an additional 15% scaling penalty (plus any other scaling that applies)
• This scaling is rounded down to the nearest whole number (59.5 -> 59)
• Using Drive Rush multiple times per combo does not stack an additional penalty
• Example combo using Drive Rush cancel and standard scaling progression:
  • 100% -> 85% -> 68% -> 59% -> 51% -> 42% -> 34% -> 25% -> 17% -> 8%...

Drive Impact
If blocked for a corner wallsplat juggle (indicated by a "CRUSH" icon):

• A 20% scaling multiplier is applied to the usual damage scaling formula (80% -> 80% -> 64% -> 56% -> 48% ...)
  • Because the DI was blocked, it does not count as the first hit of a combo
  • This means that the first attack after a wallsplat can inflict additional starter scaling

If DI hits the opponent for a crumple/wallsplat or causes a stun against an opponent in Burnout:

• Incurs 20% starter scaling (follow-up: 80% -> 70% -> 60% ...)

Character-Specific Scaling