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Tiny Tech - Managing Pushback With Crouch Blocks

SkylerA

Noob
Hey folks, not sure if this has been shared before, but i noticed a small bit of tech when labbing against raiden. The TL;DW (for a 1 minute video) is that pushback on crouch blocks pushes you back a bit further than standblocks. The extra distance might help you avoid chip or allow an early punish if the string has a follow up move. Conversly, stand blocking a pushback keeps you a bit closer which might help your character stay in punish range. Specifically, this is a way to stay safe or possibly punish raiden's B31~DB2 and possibly other characters' strings that have a follow up attack after a pushback.

For our blind fighters, the following paragraph is a (hopefully) screen reader friendly breakdown of what the video covers.

There are certain moves that on block cause your character to stagger back a step. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any indication in the move list on which ones do it, so finding which strings pushback is primarily visual. Perhaps you can place the AI a step away from an interactible and listen for the string pushing them into interactible chime range? Anyway, two examples of this pushback for Raiden are his 3 2 1 string and his back 3 1 special cancel into down back 2 string. What the video demonstrates is that if you crouch block on a pushback move, your character is moved back a tiny bit further, potentially moving your character out of range of a follow up move. To demonstrate this, I showed a recording of Raiden doing Back 3 1 special cancel into down back 2 while nightwolf crouch blocked the whole string and then with nightwolf stand blocking the 2nd hit as if you were trying to fuzzy guard a string you don't know. If you stand block the 2nd hit and keep holding block, raiden's down back 2 will hit you with chip damage. If you try to reversal punish with nightwolf's back forward 4, you will get hit by the down back 2. If you crouch block the entire string, you will be pushed out of down back 2 range allowing you to avoid chip and execute a punish (note there are 3 bolts in raiden's down back 2 so not all punish moves work, but nightwolf's rhino charge perfectly sneaks between the gap if you crouch block the pushback). If you wanted to try this for yourself, i'd suggest setting radien's ai to record Back 3 1 special cancel into down back 2 and set the playback trigger to right stick. After that, try crouch blocking and listening for the blocks. The string is low mid into 3 quick mids. When crouch blocking, you will hear the low and mid get blocked and the follow up mids will whiff. If you stand block the 2nd hit and keep holding block, you'll hear the low mid hit and then 2 of the 3 bolts will make a block sound. If you stand block the 2nd hit, and try to punish, you'll get hit by all 3 bolts. The take away is that crouch blocking a pushback move gives you a bit more space and stand blocking it keeps you a bit closer which will have varrying utility depending on your character's moveset.
 

SkylerA

Noob
Nice spot bro lol i do not have that attention to detail !
Hehe it was definitely a lucky realization. I'm not even sure how I spotted it; just had the AI on very hard and was reacting to strings and I eventually noticed an inconsistency on when the punish worked.
 

DeftMonk

Noob
Im pretty sure it's not a hard rule about crouch blocking but rather the reactions move specific. For instance if erron black blocks cage's f344 in some combination of crouch then standing he will get pushed away from last hit(can't remember what it is exactly crouch stand stand or something). Also same for f13 orbital hat from lao. If you just hold crouch block however it won't. Hella hella wonky.
 

Mandolore1123

Man of Science Who Wields the Living Lightning
Too bad it literally doesn’t matter against Raiden because Storm cell is death on whiff and the last hit is a high, making it punishable regardless... (you do avoid one hit of chip though so there’s that)

P.S. B31 also has a huge FB gap
 
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SkylerA

Noob
Im pretty sure it's not a hard rule about crouch blocking but rather the reactions move specific.
Ah, good to know. I wondered if that might be the case, but just assumed it was uniform when the two pushbacks i found in raidens kit did the same thing ;p