Unique Attacks

Knee Bazooka or

Knee Bazooka: Guile juts forward about 30 percent of the screen’s distance with a knee attack. Since you can accomplish this with forward or backward plus light kick, you can continue holding a back charge (or start building one) while gaining ground.

In practice, you can think of this like a dash with an attack midway through. Or, it can be thought of as an alternative to jumping, since it takes up less time than a forward jump into a jump-in attack. It can be used in mid-range footsies to pre-empt pokes while moving in. It’s bad going head-on in footsies. Guile’s knee hurtbox extends ahead one frame earlier than his active hitbox appears, leading to him eating counter-hits if you misjudge jousting against pokes with this move.

Aside from advancing by beating pokes to the punch or Knee Bazookaing forward in between opponent pokes, you can use Knee Bazookas to follow LP Sonic Booms. You can do this while holding , thus storing charge so you can Sonic Boom again instantly whenever the current one evaporates.

When blocked on the first active frame, Knee Bazooka leaves Guile vulnerable to standard bread-and-butter MP/MK combo starters. On a first-active-frame counter-hit, Guile’s left at neutral, while a normal hit leaves him at -2 up close. But you should basically never aim to hit with the first active frame of Knee Bazooka. Instead, try to hit with one of the last active frames, either by spacing it from max range, or by using Knee Bazooka meaty (like against someone waking up or landing from air recovery). If only the last active frame is blocked, Guile is left at a mere -1 up close. With the last active frame on normal hit, +3 advantage doesn’t create a combo chance but it does mean you can go for an immediate airtight throw mix-up. And on counter-hit, the last frame grants +5, enough to link any light normal attack, or standing MP (which can link into four-frame light attacks, or be chained into against standing victims). Since you can build charge during Knee Bazooka, there’s plenty of time to store a Somersault Kick or Sonic Boom to finish the counter-hit combo after you verify the hits.

Beyond the frame situation, there’s extra incentive to hit meaty/late with Knee Bazooka. The hitbox on Knee Bazooka actually grows bigger with each active frame. On the first active frame, the move doesn’t have great priority, with Guile’s knee hurtbox extending forward and his hitbox only striking just inside where his knee appears. The final active frame’s hitbox has actually grown enough so that it extends just a bit forward beyond Guile’s vulnerable hurtbox.

Rolling Sobat or

Rolling Sobat: Guile spins forward or backward before issuing a brief kick. Like Knee Bazooka, this can be activated with either direction, forward or back, but here the input influences where Guile travels. You can hold the direction to travel further, or release it early to stay close to the move’s start. It’s possible to activate Rolling Sobat with or before an immediate release, leaving Guile in place.

Rolling Sobat’s main purpose is in footsie wars. It allows Guile to advance (holding after ) with a relatively safe poke (only -2 blocked and +2 on normal hit) that dodges most low attacks from frames 11 to 19 (which includes both active frames). On counter-hit, Rolling Sobat grants enough advantage to potentially allow for link combos, like (against a standing foe) counter-hit crouching LK MP .

Contrary to its appearance, Rolling Sobat doesn’t actually leave the ground. Guile is considered standing, and remains susceptible to clean ground hits and throws. If you want to dodge throws with a poke that potentially leads to combos, then Reverse Spin Kick is what you’re looking for.

Reverse Spin Kick

Reverse Spin Kick: Guile defies gravity Chun-Li-style by smacking the enemy with an upside-down spin kick. This move is throw-invulnerable for most of its duration, though (like Knee Bazooka and Rolling Sobat) it’s always considered standing and will leave Guile in standing hitstun if beaten out. At 37 total frames, it takes about the same time as a jump-in and accomplishes some of the same goals, dodging throws and avoiding low attacks. In addition to dodging throws starting on the eighth frame after activation, Reverse Spin Kick also dodges most low attacks starting on frame 10. Guile doesn’t “land” again (for the purposes of lows or throws) till frame 33 from activation.

Naturally this heavy unique attack is slower to hit than Knee Bazooka (a light attack) or Rolling Sobat (a medium). However, its heavy priority helps it win trades, it still strikes much faster than a jump-in and it opens up potential combos on counter-hit, leaving Guile at +5 where (for example) you can link Standing MP to .

On block, Reverse Spin Kick leaves Guile at only -1, not in immediate danger. (Although against characters with three-frame jabs or reversal specials, remember that the tempo gulf starts to widen quickly when Guile is a character with four-frame jabs and reversals, at best. Still, -1 is quite tolerable for a guarded opener.)

Burn Straight

Burn Straight: This straight heavy punch is one of Guile’s counter-hit fishing tools. It’s a tiny bit slower than standing HP, hitting on frame eight instead of frame seven, but it reaches further and it doesn’t whiff over the heads of crouching characters like Spinning Back Knuckle and Guile High Kick do. On block, Guile is left at a manageable disadvantage of -1. Standing HP, on the other hand, leaves him at a dangerous -6 when guarded. And a command of for Burn Straight means you can hold a back charge for Sonic Boom while swinging away. On counter-hit, you’ll build a little V-Gauge while blowing the enemy away in a knockdown.

Spinning Back Knuckle

Spinning Back Knuckle: The classic backfist returns! Guile swipes forward with a fierce punch attack that hits about 35 percent of the screen ahead of where Guile starts out. The reach is great, the trade priority is second to none, Guile’s at only -1 if guarded, and Spinning Back Knuckle causes a spinning Crush Counter state on counter-hit, potentially allowing you to link combo hits (at the very least, another Spinning Back Knuckle). So what’s the catch? Guile’s hurtboxes also extend far forward during the attack and his backfist hitbox is inside the hurtbox. This makes it easy for him to get counter-hit out of startup by invulnerable attacks. Low-profile attacks can also go underneath the backfist and hit his feet where he steps forward. Finally, Spinning Back Knuckle will whiff over the heads of crouching characters.

A knockdown version of Spinning Back Knuckle is also the closing attack of the versatile Bullet Revolver target combo.

Straight Chop

Straight Chop: A standard overhead attack in which Guile punches downward at the enemy. This must be guarded standing or it will hit cleanly. Even as a counter-hit, it doesn’t afford link opportunities, so its sole purpose is as a check against an opponent’s high guard. This is great if they’re overly defensive, constantly sitting in crouch guard out of concern about your low-hitting crouching kicks. Straight Chop gains lots of value toward the ends of rounds against turtling, low-stamina foes where it can lead to “free” round closeouts. Straight Chop strikes in 21 frames, which is slow for a strike in general but fast for one that must be guarded standing. And, in a vacuum, while someone may be able to reaction-block overhead attacks like this one, in the middle of a match while they’re worried about lows and Sonic Booms and jump-ins and so forth, it’s a different story.

You can chain crouching MK into Straight Chop for a canned, low-high mix-up.

Guile High Kick

Guile High Kick: A high-hitting spin kick that whiffs over the heads of crouching characters. On hit, it launches the victim into a jugglable knockdown. (When it’s guarded by a standing opponent, Guile is left at -3.) For an easy juggle after Guile High Kick, you can just Somersault Kick and the command naturally builds in your head-start on down charging. You can also immediately begin a back charge after Guile High Kick, then juggle with Sonic Hurricane--meter permitting.

Guile High Kick can also be used to continue juggles from other attacks, like counter-hit standing HP. When using it as a poke, it’s best applied when you expect your opponent to be walking or dashing, or used in advance when they may go for a throw (which puts them in a standing state). This requires premeditation, since Guile High Kick hits in 12 frames and most throws grab in five frames. You may still have enough advantage to go for this in a situation where they might be encouraged to throw (or tech throw) no matter what, like during okizeme or after they’ve blocked standing MP or Sonic Cross. In these situations, if they just crouch underneath your whiffed Guile High Kick, hopefully it’s because they expected to block a poke like Rolling Sobat or a meaty Sonic Boom, so they sit there and you go unpunished, ready to attack up close.

Thanks to its high-profile hitbox and slightly delayed impact, Guile High Kick can also be a good counter to the wakeup option select sequence of: block low for a split second, then jump backward and input a throw tech command just off the ground. While waking up on defense, using this sequence will block incoming meaties, perform a late tech out of walk-up normal throws, and otherwise simply jump back with a whiffed jumping attack. Guile High Kick can naturally knock an opponent out of the backward-jumping part, with the side bonus that it will also launch them if they attempt to backdash instead.

With a hitbox that extends vertically a bit above Guile’s foot up to past his knee, Guile High Kick is also great as an early anti-air when you have a real bead on the enemy’s intent, along with time to get the kick out. When you have this much advance notice of the enemy’s intent to jump in, you can also begin countering by jumping forward and air-throwing them on entry. Otherwise, when they leave you less time to react, not enough for Guile High Kick or preemptive air throw, you should rely on standing MK, crouching HP, and good old Somersault Kick for your anti-air needs.

Drake Fang Crouching

Drake Fang: A built-in way to give the enemy a low-to-high mix-up to deal with. Crouching MK is a seven-frame low poke that can be chained into Guile’s Straight Chop overhead. If the sequence is guarded correctly, Guile’s left in the same situation as after a standalone Straight Chop, at -4. On hit, he’s earned some damage and a neutral up-close situation.

Straight Chop and crouching MK into Straight Chop are great for scoring occasional low-risk damage and making the enemy less confident in simply guarding low after your jump-ins, cross-ups, and LP Sonic Booms. Guile has a great jump-in, bread-and-butter confirm of cross-up LK or jump-in LP/HP to crouching LK chained to crouching LP into whatever. This forces the enemy to successfully guard standing, then immediately switch to crouching guard for the low hit. An immediate Straight Chop on landing can be “free” damage against someone who locks themselves on down-back after jump-ins, while an immediate crouching MK to Straight Chop chain throws them a high-low-high block series. If opponents start countering this mixup by initially blocking low, then always blocking high (which will block both the Straight Chop follow-up from crouching MK, the crouching LP chain from crouching LK, and will cause them to simply walk backward out of your range if you do your low tick without an immediate follow-up), mix in sequences where you get into striking range, then just pepper them with chained crouching LK until they’re pushed away, which encourages them to stay in crouching guard more often.

Bullet Revolver Crouching

Bullet Revolver: Guile’s three-part target combo consists of crouching LK chained to standing MP chained to a version of Spinning Back Knuckle that knocks down. As with standalone Spinning Back Knuckle, this requires a standing opponent for the third swing to connect. Bullet Revolver means you have a knockdown finisher option without charge or meter anytime you’re at +4 or better up close. (You can also perform standing MP chained to Spinning Back Knuckle without the lead-in crouching LK. This can be used for damage and a knockdown anytime you’re at +5 against a standing target.) You can get more damage from combos into charge moves, but that’s the point of keeping Bullet Revolver in mind--you won’t always have charge ready. Attacks that afford a Bullet Revolver link opportunity after a close-range hit include standing MP, standing HP (which forces standing, guaranteeing the Spinning Back Knuckle portion hits and knocks down), standalone Spinning Back Knuckle, any non-EX Sonic Boom, and the target combo Taurus Combination. On counter-hit, Rolling Sobat and Reverse Spin Kick work as lead-ins, too.

Bullet Revolver is a versatile tool but needs some qualifiers. For starters, crouching LK has great reach but standing MP doesn’t, so it’s possible to chain crouching LK from outside of close range, making standing MP whiff. Further, the version of standing MP and Spinning Back Knuckle that exists within this target combo is punishable by full combos on block. By itself, standing MP leaves Guile at +3 when guarded, making it one of Guile’s best close-range pokes in terms of frame advantage (along with standing LP). Chained from crouching LK, though, standing MP leaves Guile at -6 on block, a difference that’s just night and day. And Regular Spinning Back Knuckle is only -1 on block, but it’s a whopping -8 at the end of Bullet Revolver.

Whether this is important or not depends more on your opponent than you, but it helps if you can estimate their awareness and make an educated guess. A high-information, fast-reacting player will know that normal moves chained within target combos are worse off on block than their standalone poke versions and may try to punish or regain initiative accordingly. (Did you hear that, anyone tired of blocking R. Mika’s standing LK standing MP chain?) You may actually trick this kind of player into overcommitting on a punish with a slight delay, so that, for example, you just perform fully-recovered, crouching LK into unchained standing MP. This turns what they think is a -6 punish situation into a potential +3 frame trap for you. On the other hand, a low-to-medium info player (or a slow-reacting one) won’t realize any of this is even a mix-up, so you’ll actually be wasting your own mental effort attempting to apply it.

Bullet Revolver 2 Crouching

Bullet Revolver 3 Standing

Taurus Combination Standing

Taurus Combination: A two-hit target combo with kicks that leaves Guile at advantage on hit. Standing LK hits in five frames; the data in the table is for the chained MK follow-up kick. Immediately after the LK MK input, you can start building charge, so after the second kick recovers you can link crouching LP canceled into Somersault Kick. There’s enough time to build the charge, just like how there’s also time to hit with standing HP and immediately start charging , then link crouching MP canceled to Somersault Kick. If guarded, Taurus Combination leaves Guile at -2, which is surprisingly safe for a blocked target combo.