T-Z

Target Combo

A chaincombo specific to a particular character. Involves cancelingnormal moves into one another. Ken’s and Nash’s standing are just two examples. Target combos are listed under each character’s uniqueattacks section.

Taunt

Each character’s “personal action,” a harmless move intended to rile up their opponent. Accomplished by pressing all six normal buttons at once. (Obviously, it’s easiest to just have buttons assigned to and and simply hit those together.) Taunting has input priority over all other actions, including V-Trigger, so you can’t get any option-select juice out of trying to press everything at once.

Tech

A term that has spanned so many games that it gets used even where it doesn’t show up, a “tech” is a general defensive escape appropriate to the current situation. So, a “tech throw” is a throwescape, a “tech rise” or “tech get-up” is a quick-recovery, and so on. Can be used by itself, as in “Wow, he teched that?”

Tempo

Tempo is essentially the rhythm of the game. Having tempo advantage means you’re the one asking the questions, whether it’s having a projectile in play or putting your enemy in repeated blockstun sequences in your close-range offense. You’re challenging the opponent to come up with an answer. It doesn’t necessarily equate to frame advantage since it’s an abstract (but noticeably real) concept. For instance, if you knock down an opponent with enough advantage to apply pressure, you’re at a massive tempo advantage. You’re the first to act, and you set the pacing for the next scenario. Another example is if you’re applying constant blockstun with sequences that are difficult to deal with, such as performing Ryu’s standing up close and then following up with walk-up jab pressure. Your opponent has to deal with being in guardstun, and the onus is on them to be able to react and time their defensive maneuvers appropriately. On paper, it’s easy to think that you can just use frame data to counter these kinds of strategies and simply press the right buttons at the right time. However, this isn’t a turn-based game like chess; you have to take human error and habits into account and exploit them. Being aware of tempo is an excellent way to do just that.

One of the most important ways to use tempo is being unpredictable with it. The best tournament players have excellent tempo management in that they can put you in awkward spots at awkward times, causing you to mistime or misjudge attacks because of an earlier pattern they performed. For example, Ken’s standing Quick Step is -6 on block, but it can be made “safe” by using an unpredictable bullying tactic. If the Ken player has been mixing up his attacks with lights, mediums, and heavies (which all have varying blockstun timings), he can potentially get away with using standing Quick Step to get in safely and strike/throw you.

While you’re improving your fighting game skills, keep this concept in the back of your mind. You’ll be able to identify how certain players react to certain rhythms, and you can start taking advantage of their weaknesses by adjusting your own tempo patterns.

Throw

Throws are unblockable attacks that grab instead of strike. Execute normal throws with , or . Also, escape normal throws with immediately before or after your opponent initiates a throw. Normal throws are active on the fifth frame, slower than in previous Street Fighter titles. Only some Critical Art throws grab sooner than the fifth frame (Laura’s, Zangief’s, and R. Mika’s). Many characters have inescapable command throws in addition to normal throws.

Behind the scenes, throw hitboxes target opposing pushboxes instead of hurtboxes. You can tell where pushboxes end by just walking into opposing characters. That’s the same boundary targeted by throws, so keep that in mind when gauging throw ranges.

Throw Invulnerability

Some moves have periods of throw invulnerability during which grabs will whiff through them. Some moves aren’t explicitly throw-invulnerable, but they have an airborne period that will cause ground throws to miss. Backdashes are all inherently throw-invulnerable upon startup.

Tick

A tick is a quick poke (probably with advantage on block) intended to set up the expectation that more normalmoves are coming. This instinctively gets defenders to block, creating a perfect opening to throw them. Many ticks can also double as the initial hits during a hit-check combo or frame trap.

Top-down

An old early fighting game term for overhead attacks that must be blocked standing.

Trade

An attack exchange where both attacks succeed, sending both combatants into hitstun. This is a bit rarer in SFV compared with other Street Fighter games because of the trade priority system. A trade requires same-priority attacks to connect with their targets on the same frame. While all specials have the same trade priority, grounded normals and unique attacks won’t often trade for the sheer variety of buttons available to both players and the way that up-close combat generally shakes out. Players with tempo advantage will tend to use slower, heavier attacks, basically “spending” their frame advantage for a chance to more safely use a higher-strength attack. Defending players, on the other hand, will tend toward quicker, lighter-strength attacks, hoping that quick pokes will thwart their aggressors. These tendencies are only encouraged by the trade priority system. Players acting from disadvantage must beat their attackers to the punch and act as quickly as possible since they’ll lose any head-on trade anyway. Conversely, aggressors are incentivized to add a little extra oomph to their assaults, thanks to trade priority and counter-hit potential.

Trade Priority

When different-strength attacks each strike their targets on the same frame, the higher-strength attack wins cleanly, scoring a counter-hit. This priority applies to ground-based normals and unique attacks. If Ryu’s standing overlaps with Ken’s crouching , Ken wins cleanly. If Dhalsim’s crouching overlaps with Karin’s crouching , Karin wins cleanly (and scores a Crush Counter launcher, to boot). This priority system for trades was also in Street Fighter III, and it generally reduces the number of trades you’ll see in a given match. It helps strongly incentivize the use of heavy attacks, especially those that lead to Crush Counters.

Training Mode

Training Mode is an invaluable resource for competitive fighting game players and one you should spend much of your time in if you’re serious about improving. You can strengthen almost all aspects of your play in Training Mode, ranging from execution to reaction time and even matchups. Many of the world’s best fighting game players commit substantial amounts of time testing and practicing drills in Training Mode. It’s highly recommended that you learn the ins and outs of SFV’s extensive Training Mode to further your game.

The basic Training Mode settings let you adjust various parameters to fit whatever scenario you encounter in combat. Instead of just thrashing the training dummy when practicing your combos, you can set up the dummy to emulate a realistic and unpredictable opponent under Dummy Settings. The primary options you’ll want to adjust are Guard, Recovery, State, and Counter.

Training Hit-Confirm Reactions

Set Guard to Random to test your hit-confirm reactions and Counter to Random to practice counter-hit hit-confirms. Set both on Random for the most realistic simulation against a human being, where you might want to be ready to react differently to block, normal hit, and counter-hit. It’s also a good idea to set the dummy’s State to Crouch if you’re practicing a frame trap scenario, since most players naturally guard crouching while on the defensive. Some may find this type of practice tedious, but just like in real sports, you’ll find your drills paying off dividends in matches. The more you can store into your muscle memory and natural reactions, the more you can focus on other aspects of the game in the middle of a match.

Training Against Different Knockdown Recovery Timings

With knockdowns and knockdown follow-ups being a significant portion of how SFV is played, you can set the Recovery options to Quick Recover, Back Recover, or Random to help you create setups and follow-ups to your combos and knockdowns. Normal Recovery causes the training dummy to use quick-recovery ( or version), waking up quickly in place, while Back Recovery causes the dummy to use back quick-recovery ( or ). Note that if you knock down the dummy with a throw-type move while it’s set to Back Recovery, it will default to quick-recovery.

Training Against Different Wakeup Reversals

In conjunction with the Recovery settings, you can set the dummy to perform certain attacks or sequences upon wakeup (from any recovery). Under Record Wake-Up Actions, you can store up to five sequences. Select a Recording Slot, and hit the PS4 X button. You’ll see a timer indicating when to execute your recording; buffer your command as soon as the timer hits 0 to set that wakeup recording. Then, turn on the recording by going into the Set Wake-Up Actions menu and setting that slot to ON. If you record multiple sequences and turn more than one on, the dummy will randomly pick a sequence to wake up with on its recovery.

This is an incredibly handy tool to use in practicing your knockdown setups because it emulates a realistic situation so well. For instance, you can create three recordings of Ken performing a wakeup MP Shoryuken, a wakeup crouching , and a wakeup throw (tech attempt), each in its own recording slot. Then, regardless of the settings you have for Recovery, the dummy will randomly perform one of those sequences whenever it recovers from a knockdown. This lets you practice just about any kind of setup so you can test out various follow-ups to your knockdowns.

Training Recording and Playback

The other advanced recording features of Training Mode let you practice more than just your combos and knockdown setups. You can use the Record feature to practice punishing moves and teching throws, and even to set up your own offensive patterns against yourself to test the difficulty of deflecting them. You can configure these settings by changing the Dummy Settings Status to Playback Recording, where you’ll find two more sets of options under Action Recording Settings and Action Playback Settings.

These settings store up to five separate sequences that can be turned on or off individually. If multiple recordings are activated, they’ll be played back at random, allowing you to practice reacting against varying sequences.

To practice punishing attacks (with Start Recording Settings set to Button Input), highlight the Recording Slot you want to use and press the PS4 X button. Then, just perform the attack you want to punish, followed by (which simulates blocking afterward). To play it back, under Action Playback Settings, change your Recording Slot to ON. For instance, if you want to practice punishing Rashid’s Eagle Spike, select Rashid as the training dummy and start the recording for one of the slots as mentioned. Then, execute , followed by holding long enough to block after his recovery. Go back into the menu and turn the recording on. Now when you unpause, Rashid will repeatedly execute your recording exactly as you performed it, including the blocking portion. All you have to do now is block his attack with your primary character and practice punishing his recovery.

Making use of the random playback of multiple recordings lets you practice defending against a variety of situations. If, for example, you wanted to train your up-close defense against throws and frame traps, you could set multiple recordings that branch off to separate follow-ups. Let’s say you want to

practice defending against Laura’s ticks into command throws with a frame trap mixed in. Set the training dummy as Laura, and then for the first recording, record a sequence of (to dash in next to you), standing (her hard-to-escape standing short into LK Sunset Wheel). Then, make another recording where she does , standing standing . Now, go into the Action Playback Settings and turn both of these recordings on. Unpause the game, and she’ll constantly vary between the two sequences, letting you practice escaping these mix-ups.

The allowed recording time is extremely long (especially compared to SFIV’s 10-second limit), so you can record elaborate sequences to test almost anything you want. Creative use of these features can go a long way toward making you a better player, even if you don’t have access to other players to train with.

Tripguard

An unofficial term referring to the ability to act immediately when landing from a jump. Jumps have landing recovery: four frames, in the absence of further input. Whether you act or not during a jump, you can cancel the last two frames of landing recovery into other actions. The important frames are the first two, though.

If you don’t act in midair, you still can’t cancel into ground movement for two frames on landing, but you CAN attack or (much more importantly) block. If you DO act in midair, then you cannot do anything for the first two frames (with the exception of teching a throw, which is still possible).

In other words, you make yourself unavoidably vulnerable upon landing if you attack in midair. When you attack in midair, you are giving up tripguard—the ability to block immediately on landing. When you want to empty jump on purpose but retain tripguard (like when you want to empty jump into a low-hitting poke), avoid inputting your ground attack slightly early on the last frames of the jump before landing. There won’t even be time for the jumping move to animate to let you know you did that, but you will still lose tripguard.

Tripguard is most important for empty jump-in tactics like the one just mentioned, or for jump-ins from the inside edge of long range, where far-reaching jump-in attacks will just hit with their tips. If you have a low-profile, long-reaching poke from this range, like Chun-Li’s crouching , you can simply perform that as an unconventional anti-air at the last moment. Depending on the range and the matchup, the enemy’s jump-in may whiff, and then they’ll land on her low poke, unable to block. And if you’re the aggressor jumping in from long range, it’s often better to refrain from attacking during far jumps; your follow-ups from max range aren’t great anyway, and you’ll probably just get anti-aired or low-profiled as mentioned here. And, since you’re not sticking out an extra hurtbox of your own, you are more likely to bait a big whiffedanti-air.

Turtle

An overly defensive character or player. Some players are just turtles dispositionally, while some characters lend themselves to turtle play (obvious examples are Dhalsim and F.A.N.G). See metagame, and also the Matchups and Versus section at the end of the guide.

Two-in-One

SFII-era term for specialcancels that’s no longer used much (like “cheese” and “top-down” that way). Originated because you were getting two moves for one combined motion.

Unblockable

An attack that cannot be blocked. Throws cannot be blocked, and neither can F.A.N.G.’s Nishodoku V-Skill. Cross-up tactics are not strictly unblockable but are useful for their ambiguity; no one blocks truly ambiguous cross-ups every time. They can be sort of quasi-unblockable (or maybe just quasi-blockable) sometimes.

Unique Attack

The official term for what are usually called “command moves.” These are normals that are executed with a directional press in addition to the normal button. These attacks may be available grounded or in the air, and they usually have some property that distinguishes them from other normals. Several are dive kick-like attacks, like R. Mika’s Dive Bomb and Dhalsim’s Drill Kicks. Some are simply variant ground pokes, like Chun-Li’s / and Ryu’s . Many are command overheads, like Ryu’s , Karin and Ken’s , and Birdie’s , among others. They can also be pokes that move forward quickly or that go briefly airborne, avoiding lows and throws. Numerous unique attacks are also parts of target combos.

Unrecoverable Knockdown

Synonymous with hard knockdown. In SFV, this generally only happens after counter-hit sweeps, which cause an unrecoverable (sometimes also called “untechable”) knockdown as part of their Crush Counter bonus. This creates a huge advantage in both frames and position since the attacker can move freely while the victim is forced to lie floored for the full knockdown duration. Other moves that cause an unrecoverable knockdown don’t usually give the attacker an advantage and are typically hard knockdowns for cinematic reasons (e.g., Karin’s Critical Art, which prevents quick-recovery so that Karin can laugh). See quick-recovery, wakeup, and okizeme.

Unsafe

Refers to tactics that guarantee some punishment to the enemy if they fail. For example, Shoryuken, EX Ressenha, EX Spinning Mixer, etc. are unsafe reversals because if they’re whiffed or blocked, the defender gets a clean opening. (These moves are particularly unsafe in SFV because they’re susceptible to Crush Counter punishment during recovery.) Depending on whether the opposing character’s fastest moves are three or four frames, that’ll represent the beginning of your punishable disadvantage. Unless you’re against Zangief loaded with EX Gauge, situations of -2 or better are generally safe (though you may give up tempo advantage).

Verification

Confirming a desired result before performing a potentially risky follow-up. See the hit-confirm entry in combos.

Vortex

This is a concept that isn’t significantly applicable in SFV. It’s a strategy that involves putting the opponent into coin-flip situations repeatedly until they’re out of stamina. It was a prevalent win condition in the earlier versions of SFIV before delayed wakeup was introduced in USFIV. Characters with combos that led into hard knockdowns made the most out of this strategy (Akuma and Sakura were notorious for this). The idea is to knock down the opponent and then follow up with a hard-to-block attack that combos into another knockdown, putting the enemy back into the same coin-flip scenario. Characters and playstyles centered around a vortex can make matchups feel like they mean a little less. No matter the situation, it can seem like all that’s needed is that one opening, which is not a feeling most characters experience.

In SFV, this has been almost completely removed from the game thanks to the amount of recovery options the defender has access to. Not only do quick-recovery, back quick-recovery, and standard recovery have varying wakeup timings, but back quick-recovery also rises in a different spot, thwarting distance-dependent okizeme tactics. The only meaningful unrecoverable knockdown you can get is off of a Crush Counter sweep (counter-hit crouching for every character). It’s impossible to combo into it for a guaranteed hard knockdown state since you have to counter-hit with the actual sweep attack.

V-System

Completely new to Street Fighter V, the V-System is somewhat like the Ultra/Revenge Gauge mechanic in SFIV but differs in interesting ways. Instead of just one gauge building up to a kind of desperation Super/hit-confirm tool, you have a gauge building up to an “Alpha Counter” defensive move and an Ultra-like action that is a special striking move for some characters and a lengthy power-up state for others. Each character also has a V-Skill, which is like a special move oriented around building V-Gauge and helping cover their weaknesses.

V-Gauge

The V-Gauge’s stocks are 300 points wide, so two-stock characters require 600 points of V-Gauge for V-Trigger, while three-stock characters require 900 points. Single stocks of V-Gauge are burned when using V-Reversals; the full V-Gauge is required to use a V-Trigger. In between rounds, the V-Gauge resets to zero.

V-Gauge is built up most reliably by taking stamina damage. Damage received translates directly into V-Gauge at a rate proportional to your character’s max stamina. Cammy receives about 1.5 times stamina damage taken as V-Gauge, while Zangief receives about 1.25 times damage taken as V-Gauge. (So, a 100-damage attack gives Cammy 150 V-Gauge and gives Zangief 125 V-Gauge.)

Ultimately, this works out to receiving slightly more than a stock of V-Gauge for every 25 percent stamina damage you receive.

It’s important to note that V-Gauge gain from damage includes white damage. This means that it is possible to slowly gain V-Gauge just by blocking and armor-absorbing attacks, without giving up clean damage.

Crush Counters also build V-Gauge. Most of them build 150, but a handful actually build 300 (a full stock) all at once. Depending on how frequently you land your Crush Counter-capable heavy normals as counter-hits, this can be a huge boon to your V-Gauge gain. It can load you up with early V-Reversal potential when you haven’t taken much damage, letting you keep tempo with an extra defensive move to widen an early lead. You can help an early lead landslide without giving up your shot at V-Trigger later if your opponent staunches the bleeding and whittles you down. It can also lead to getting V-Triggers much earlier than normal, especially two-stock ones.

The nature of V-Gauge (gained mostly through damage attrition and gone in between rounds) basically means smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. There is no point to conserving V-Gauge. Don’t be shy about burning V-Reversals to release pressure, to take back tempo, and to avoid getting stunned. Likewise, don’t hesitate to use V-Triggers for their hit-check potential and game-changing bonuses.

V-Skill

V-Skills don’t cost V-Gauge to use, and all have the potential for building V-Gauge themselves. Depending on the current character matchup, your V-Skill may be great for building V-Gauge and helping control the pace, but in other matchups, it won’t be helpful at all. For example, Nash’s Bullet Clear can be great against Ryu but is not very relevant against Zangief.

V-Skills are activated with . Most characters also have variant V-Skills, activated either by holding the medium inputs or by holding a direction with them.

V-Skills are sort of like a character-unique special move, but they don’t have quite the same properties as specials. Most characters cannot cancelnormals into V-Skills, for example, and most V-Skills can’t cancel into anything else. This isn’t universal, though: Ken and Laura can cancel normals into their movement-oriented V-Skills. Rashid can fire HK/EX Whirlwind Shot and cancel into his movement-related V-Skills, too. Birdie can cancel normals into his food-related V-Skills. And Necalli and Vega have target combos that lead into their V-Skills. But for most characters, a V-Skill is a standalone activity.

V-Reversal

This hearkens back to “Alpha Counters” from the Street Fighter Alpha series. While blocking, tap / (character depending) to instantly cancel blockstun with a counterattack. This is the only possible way to leave guardstun early. V-Reversal attacks are fully strike- and projectile-invincible but are vulnerable to throws and are typically somewhat slow. Upon activation, 200 stun damage is immediately removed from the V-Reversal character’s stun gauge.

Opponents who expect a V-Reversal can use a quick, light tick and then do nothing, baiting out a V-Reversal they have time to block. Or, they can tick and simply go for a throw, which may grab the V-Reversal before it’s even active. Against blocked medium or heavy attacks, though, V-Reversals will usually strike before the attacker recovers. V-Reversals deal light damage, and in non-permanent white damage form, too, but their point is regaining momentum, not dealing damage.

Not every V-Reversal is a strike: Nash, F.A.N.G, and Vega have strictly evasive V-Reversals.

V-Trigger

V-Trigger, SFV’s new capstone system, usually gives each character one extra-special hit-check and a powered-up state per round. Even if a character doesn’t land any Crush Counters or V-Skills, they will usually have access to V-Trigger at around half of max stamina for two-stock characters and at around a quarter stamina left for three-stock fighters. (You’ll generally get a stock for every 25 percent stamina damage you take.) This means that two-stock characters can safely blow a V-Reversal early in rounds if it’ll help maintain tempo advantage, while almost certainly still getting V-Trigger before the end (unless the opponent does something stellar like finish them off at half stamina with a 500-damage combo or something).

Vega and R. Mika have V-Triggers that are like abnormal single attacks, useful in hit-confirms and as neutral game deterrents. Rashid’s V-Trigger doesn’t last much longer, nor does Dhalsim’s. But for most characters, V-Trigger is a power-up state that lasts quite a while, as long as over a minute (or, in Necalli’s case, for the rest of the current round). V-Trigger power-up state duration is usually a combination of a ticking timer, plus an extra drain on the timer when you use certain actions. These are radically different between characters. For example, Cammy’s V-Trigger timer lasts more than 30 seconds, but each V-special you use will eat up more than 16 seconds of duration. M. Bison’s V-Trigger lasts 25 seconds, and each V-special used burns up 2.5 seconds of duration.

Wakeup

When a character is knocked down, they enter a floored period, laid out on the ground. They’re normally invincible during this time until they rise, or “wake up.” Since a floored character can’t move or act, and since they’ll rise predictably with limited options, waking up is a weak position to be in. Mix-ups directed at a character on wakeup are called okizeme. Every character rises from a knockdown at the same speed and with the same options available.

From a recoverable knockdown (or techable/soft knockdown), /quick-recovery allows characters to spring immediately back to their feet. /back quick-recovery allows a rising position farther back, at the expense of five extra frames of rising time. After getting knocked down, it’s generally always best to quick-rise (whether in place or backward), unless you’re getting mixed up repeatedly and need a breather to think things over and slow down your foe’s progress toward dizzying you.

Unrecoverable knockdowns (or untechable/hard knockdowns) can’t be cut short with quick-recovery but only really occur after counter-hit sweeps. The only other restriction on quick-recovery in SFV is that after being thrown, you’ll only have the option to use quick-recovery in place, not back quick-recovery.

Walk

The most basic form of movement. See movement.

Whiff

An attack that misses, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Special moves may be whiffed at long range or when retreating to build EX Gauge. Normal moves might be whiffed at mid range to long range as fakes for more committed actions (like throwing a projectile). At mid range and close range, moves will often be whiffed at the edge of their ranges in footsie battles. Whiffed normal moves cannot be canceled into other actions like specials, Critical Arts, or V-Trigger activations (an exception being Ken’s standing target combo, possible on whiff).

Whiff-Punish

Punishing a whiffed attack by striking either late activeframes or the recovery period of the move. Often employed in footsies, as opponents may stick out pokes that just barely miss, leaving them vulnerable. Whiff-punishing can also occur after your opponent guesses that you’ll continue being aggressive and then goes for a big reversal move. If you read their desire and do nothing, they’ll leave themselves wide open for whatever punishment you want to dole out.

Effective whiff-punishing in footsies requires a combination of effective spacing, matchup knowledge, and educated guesses about what the opponent will do. This allows you to narrow down your focus to the most likely options your opponent will use, greatly raising the odds that you’ll react properly to beat them out. You don’t have to worry about the dozens and dozens of potential moves your opponent can access—just the things they’ll probably actually do.

White Damage

A new type of damage similar to SFIV’s “gray damage.” This provisional damage is built up by certain circumstances and then “unlocked” with “real” damage from a successful strike or throw. White damage builds up through blocking anything stronger than a normal or attack. In other words, blocking jabs and shorts won’t build up white damage, but medium and heavy normals will, as will blocked specials.

White damage build-up from blocked attacks is one-sixth of a clean hit. For example, a 90-damage normal move will accrue 15 white damage when blocked. White damage will recover quickly, but only if no contact is made with the opponent for 90 frames, or a second and a half. You can see how several blockstrings or heavy pokes blocked back-to-back can ultimately lead to a poke that deals lots of extra damage on hit.

White damage also builds up from absorptions during armored periods. The full damage is registered—an absorbed 90-damage poke is still a 90-damage poke—but the damage can be recovered over time.

Like taking normal damage on hit, taking white damage on block builds up the V-Gauge, though at one-sixth of the normal rate. (V-Gauge gain for armor-absorb hits is normal.)

Zoning

Zoning is using spaced, typically long-range tactics to hold your opponent at bay from afar. Zoning is usually based on effective projectile use, although Dhalsim can also use his extendable limbs and Birdie has long-reaching chain strikes.