If I hit you with Bane's j.2 at the beginning of his jump, you're in stagger for 36 frames.
If I hit you with Bane's j.2 at the end of his jump, you're in stagger for 36 frames.
If you block Bane's j.2 at the beginning of his jump, I'm -7 on block.
If you block Bane's j.2 at the end of his jump, I'm -7 on block.
The only difference is I use up 25 of my 36 frames landing at the beginning, and only 4 of them at the end. I still get the +36 on hit regardless of where, or when, I hit you with j.2. So, advantage doesn't change, advantage usage does.
I think the only thing I think that's right there is that the block stun is fixed. From what I worked out from many months of playing everything else you said seems to be wrong (happy to be proved wrong!). Just did this in the lab with Bane: vs Zod, block all, reversal set to Zod Charge.
Test 1: Showing variable advantage
- NJ2 and hit Zod on the way up. Move will be blocked, Zod will pusish you with Zod Charge while you're still falling. This is because Zod's block-stun ran out while you were in the air so the reversal triggered.
- NJ2 and hit Zod on the way down. You will have a crap-tonne of advantage and can block, back-dash and punish Zod's reversal by spamming 1s or other normals. The amount you can do varies based on how far down you hit him.
Test 2: Landing recovery cancel (applies to all J1 and J2 attacks)
- JI2 on the way down. During the landing recovery (i.e. when you're on the ground, not before!) start mashing 11. Once the landing recovery is over you will do 11 and either beat or trade with Zod Charge. The beat or trade depends on how high you are when you hit with the JI2.
- JI2 on the way down. While you're still in the air but AFTER the ji2 has been blocked, start mashing 11. Upon landing you go straight into the 11 without any recovery frames. Zod's reversal shouldn't even trigger as he will be in block stun for the whole duration (it will trigger at the end of the string). This is because ji1 and ji2 can be cancelled into normals/strings/specials. Much like cancelling a normal/string into a special negates the recovery of the last hit, you can cancel ji1 and ji2 to negate their ground recovery.
Test 3: JI3 variable advantage
- JI3 early then spam 11. Chances are you'll either get punished by the charge before the 11 comes out or will trade with it.
- JI3 late (with bane this has to be super late) then mash 11. You'll land, do full landing recovery frames (which are a fixed number) and then start doing 11. Timed right Zod will be in blockstun and won't trigger the reversal. Timed wrong and you'll punch him out of the reversal.
JI3s are universally "special". Because they launch the opponent off the ground NRS turned off the ability to cancel their recovery into normals. The game won't start registering inputs until the landing recovery has finished either. JI1 and JI2 work the same way if you don't input the string while you're still falling - any inputs during their landing recovery frames are dropped.
The frame data displayed in-game for "hit advantage" and "block advantage" seems to be a guess based on on how high NRS think you'll be when you hit the opponent. The only 2 constants of aerial move hit/block data that I know of are:
- Hit/Block stun. Always a fixed number of frames.
- Landing recovery. Always a fixed number of frames. Can be called on J1 and J2 attacks into normals/strings/specials.
The thing that messes up the advantage calculation is how many frames you are in the air for after the attack hits before you land. Lets say NRS assume 15 frames of air time after the attack hits and the move has 7 landing frames. The move in the frame data is listed as -5 on block. The assumed total recovery time is 22 frames (15+7), and if you are at -5 then the actual blockstun is 17 frames (22-5). Now, lets say you get your air frames down to 7. Your actual recovery time is now 14 frames (7 air + 7 landing). As the fixed blockstun is 17, you are now +3. Finally, factor in the ability to cancel the landing frames. We're going to cancel it with an 8 frame move. You now have 7 air frames followed by 8 start-up frames of the move meaning you'll hit them again on frame 15. As the opponent was in 17 frames of blockstun you now have a gapless block sting.
Thing to remember about all advantage calculations is that they are based on comparing the recovery time of the attacker the stun time of the opponent. Find a way of changing the recovery time and the advantage will change.
Again, all of this worked out from messing about in training mode. Probably some big flaw in there somewhere that I've missed!
P.S. The one I was never able to work out is whether moves that are active for more than 1 frame alter the hit/block stun based on which frame they hit. If you have a move that is active for 5 frames then recovers for 10 and causes 20 frames of hit stun. In a perfect world, 10 frames of recovery vs 20 frames of stun puts you at +10. However, if you hit on frame one then there are 4 more active frames to go through before the recovery kicks in. Does the game add 4 more frames of hit-stun or not? Because if not, hitting on active frame 1 will actually give you less advantage (6: +10 minus the 4 remaining active frames) then hitting on active frame 5 (just +10 as there are no additional frames). I know MK9 has reports of variable hit/block stun and not just on aerial moves - if the game doesn't compensate for moves with multiple active frames then that might be the cause...
P.P.S. Fuck me this turned into a rambling wall of text quick...
