State of Play: Offense
Let’s take a broad look at Offense, one of the three States of Play in Fighting Games. The mindset for offensive play, the types, tools, and tactics necessary to effectively initiate, execute, and extend Offense indefinitely. Solid Offense goes beyond high damage or flashy combos, for experienced Veterans, there is a method to the madness. Every Combo, Stagger, Ender or Special Move used is chosen based on careful consideration of several factors (Risk/Reward, Opportunity cost, etc). A well-crafted offensive maneuver is an exciting spectacle to behold.
Offense is the state where you are attempting to or actively attacking your opponent and or putting them at a disadvantage.
The offensive mindset is to take everything and give nothing! The basic goal of every offensive overture is to secure damage, a life lead, frame or positional advantage indefinitely.
Types of Offense
Players personalities reflect in the way they play, some are very aggressive others are very defensive while some fall somewhere in the middle even when they use the same characters. The Optimal Play Style for a Fighting Game character is determined by the toolset available to it. Consequently, a character Archetype is defined by the characters' optimal playstyle which is dictated by the most effective tools and tactics available in a characters toolset. Some common archetypes include Rush down, Zoning, Grappler, Counter Zoner, All-rounder, Stance, Summon/Puppet, Trap/Set-up, Mix-up, 50-50 characters, etc.
These character archetypes allude to how they are/should be played, their signature moves, or their strongest tools and tactics. A Grappler like Sheeva has multiple Command Grabs around which her entire game plan is built. Jacqui (Upgraded Var.), a Rush Down character has moves that complement that Play Style (Dash Punch & Leap) while she doesn’t even have a fireball which makes it practically impossible for her to Zone. An All-rounder like Liu Kang is privileged to have access to above average Zoning and Rush Down tools.
Tactics for Initiating, Executing, and Sustaining Offence
Initiating Offense
This is not particularly easy especially against competent opponents or characters with tools that negate your particular character’s basic game plan. Upturning this situation will require the application of fundamental fighting game strategies to pivot from Neutral or a point of disadvantage to one of advantage. Positional Awareness at your current range (Fullscreen, Far range, Mid screen, or Close range) as it pertains to being taking advantage while the Opponent is put at a disadvantage and Spacing your character’s attacks such that they are in their optimally effective range where they hit the Opponent but the opponent can’t hit you.
Clever movement with footsies at mid-range or shimmies at close range is equally used to make the Opponent to whiff or commit to unsafe actions which you can punish.
Also, from a position of absolute disadvantage, knockdown, Wake-ups serve as a means of initiating offense.
You successfully execute your offense when you hit or open up the Opponent with your attacks, this is most commonly done with whiff and block punishes. Some other advanced tactics include; Tick-Throws which may involve regular or command throws,
Mix-up tactics involve using strings, Specials, or Normals to put the opponent in a position where they have to react quickly to different hit levels (High, Mid, Overhead, or Low) which must be blocked or evaded differently to avoid being opened up.
“Empty Jumps” are a universal means of setting up mix-ups. Note: A Cross-up is a type of mix-up that exists in “back to block" games like Street Fighter.
50/50’s are like plugging a USB thumbdrive to a PC, sometimes you get it on first try sometimes you don’t. The opponent is forced to guess between two indistinguishable, often unreactable, and opposing options (E.g. Overhead/Low hit) where guessing wrong would result in the getting opened up and sustaining damage.
Zoning can be used to initiate and execute Offense by chipping away at the opponents' Life bar from a safe distance with long-range specials, pokes, and more commonly projectiles.
Conditioning helps to make your offensive options and tactics more potent as it causes your opponents to commit unforced errors; as you make your opponents anticipate or expect something at a particular time(ing) which you purposely change.
Staggering can be used in conditioning to both initiate and extend offense. It messes up your opponents rhythm forcing mistakes like releasing block or poking, to early/late.
Executing Offense
When executing offense you have to decide how much of your resources to use/commit, which combo route, which combo ender to use to get the desired state (restand/ reset, hard knockdown, or normal knockdown, frame advantage), positioning (corner carry, back to or away from corner), spacing and movement(with high-level opponents sometimes only good movement leading to whiffs will open them up).
Sustaining Offense
After you have successfully landed your attack or put your opponent at a disadvantage you never want to let them off easily, persist, and don’t let them have a moments respite. In this situation, you want to extend your offense with, Frame Traps, Jailing, Hit confirms, Vortexes, Cancels, Throw Loops, Okizemi, Meaty, Option Selects, Resets, and Combo Enders that allow your desired follow-ups. For instance, Frost can Frame trap an opponent with “3,4,4" which is (+16) on hit followed by “2,2" which has 13 frames startup speed and is (+5) on block. If the OP doesn’t block the “2,2," or final “B1,2,xx"(11 frames startup) follow-up attacks they will get hit (stuffed).
Frost can hit confirm her “1,3,DB4" so that if it is blocked, rather than end the Offense (and be at -16 disadvantage) you complete the string with an alternate ender “1,3,2" (+2) so you can continue your offensive pressure.
Cassie can extend her Offense by combining 3 tactics, hit confirming, choosing an appropriate combo Ender, Frame trapping. She can hit confirm her “F4,1, xx" so that if it connects, she ends the combo with “BF1" combo (+10 on hit & keeps OP standing), then she frame traps the OP with “F2,1+3" (10 frame startup) which will interrupt and punish anything the OP does with a krushing blow! High damage Characters tend to extend offense more with Okizemi while low damage ones rather opt for staggers, frame traps, resets, vortexes, etc to pile up reasonable damage.
Depending on the range and phase you are in your Offense (initiating, executing, or extending) these Offensive tactics have a major role to play in your success. If it turns out that you are not applying up to half of these tactics at the various phases of your offensive gameplay, you have a lot of room for improvement!
What makes a Tool Good or Bad?
A tool in the context of Fighting Games is something that is used to achieve an end or goal; it could be a Poke, a Throw, String, or Special move. Generally speaking, a particular tool may be considered to be “good” if it is fit for purpose. Every move has its purpose, ideal range, or situation for use. Some are best only used to poke, block punish, whiff punish, when your opponent is knocked down, far away, as combo extenders, enders, or as anti-airs.
The purpose of any tool in Offense is mainly to gain( or maintain) frame advantage, positional advantage, or deal damage.
Normals, Pokes, throws, and movement are the most basic tools used in Offense. The features a good normal would include Fast speed, good range, special properties (e.g. counterhit, low crush or evasive properties), good cancel advantage, good hit advantage, Safe recovery on block, or better still advantage on block. A Poke is considered “fast” relative to the average speed of all other characters. So for instance Kitana has a 9 frame(speed) “D1 poke” and 90% of the other characters in Mortal Kombat 11 have 7 frame “D1’s”, Kitana’s “D1” is considered “bad” with regards speed (though it may be “good” in other areas like range or hit adv.).
Important features of a character's movement include; forward/backward walk speed, forward/back dash speed & range, Jump range/arc, and jump Normals ( Kabal & Dvorah have amongst the best Jump punches).
For Throws, features Throw range, hit advantage, and spacing after throw hits (does it allow for throw loops or follow-ups?).
For strings you may consider the speed & hit level of the starter, if there are mixed/multiple hit levels,if they are advancing, spacing on block, safe on block, hit-confirmable, damage potential, can be staggered, hit advantage, counterhit (also If it has a Krushing blow. MK11 only), etc. For a String/Normal to be used effectively as a stagger, it should ideally be around -3 on block or less though with proper conditioning almost any safe string can be used.
An advancing string is always a bonus because even when you whiff it could still catch the opponent while it’s advancing forward. In addition to the desirable qualities mentioned above, some Specials may have unique properties like stunning the OP, drain meter, disable dashing, Damage over time, Parry, etc.
Crunching Numbers and Developing a Game Plan
Upon discovery of your chosen characters’ best tools, tactics, and ideal ranges, all that remains is the development of an effective game plan to complement the Character. This is done by finding synergy between, Normals & throws, strings & specials, movement, and all other tools put together. The Characters' optimal playstyle and archetype will become apparent. When looking for synergy between tools, you may be surprised to find tools that in isolation appeared bad are quite powerful when used in combination with other tools, at a particular range, on hit, after knockdown, or in a particular situation.
For better clarity on how to formulate a basic Offensive game plan let us look at Kotal Kahn of MK11 and how his best Normals, Throws, Strings, and Specials can be used in Synergy to form an offensive sequence/Flow Chart.
In this illustration, we will assume that every offensive maneuver works/hits for simplicity. After out spacing your Opponent with Kotal Kahn, you land a “D3” what next?
(1) You have multiple Offensive Options because “D3” is “+13” on hit, so you can
- Jail the OP into “1, 2, xxx” combo which starts in “8 frames”. You can combo into “BF4” to knock the OP towards the corner or use “DF2” as a combo ender to knock them down to Mid-range.
- Throw the OP which will knock them down to Mid-range.
(2) You Successfully Jailed Your Opponent into “1, 2, BF4” combo which knocks down the OP leaving you at far/Jump-in range and at “+24” advantage. You once again have multiple Offensive options on the table for OKI (any normal or special that can hit at far range).
Note: Get up/Wake up takes 20 frames
- “Meaty” the OP with DB4 Amp (41 frames) which is an unblockable that hits far range.
- You can activate “DB LT2” (Totem) DF4 or any slow special in this situation.
(3) The “DB4 Amp” Meaty hit the OP and knocked them down again, you are close and +8. By now the OP is uneasy and will take action.
- The OP jumps then you hit with “DF2 Amp”
- The OP Wake up Attacks and you block punish with “F1, 2, 2 Krushing Blow, 3, 4, BF4”
- The OP Wake up rolls or just gets up and blocks, you throw the OP
(4) The OP “Wake up Attacks" and is hit with the devastating “F1, 2, 2 Krushing Blow, 3, 4, BF4”, you are once again +24 with the OP knocked down at far range, by now the OP is conditioned to expect to be pressured or attacked on wake up. Since the OP can’t wake up attack or roll again;
- the OP blocks on wake up.
- OP jumps on wake up, you “DF2" Anti-air
- The OP wakes up pushing buttons, you whiff punish
(5) The OP blocked on wake up so you dash forward and stagger the OP with “F3, Throw”. At this point, all you have left to do is close out the round!
Note: Moves with terrible recovery like DB LT2 (Totem) and DF4 (Beam) best only be used when you are at high frame advantage which can accommodate their slow start-up or recovery (After hitting the OP with F34, 122, B22) and or at range where you can’t be punished (except it’s worth the risk or you have a breakaway to spare). Also, Normals like F2 and B2 are best used to whiff punish and or with good spacing so that they are not stuffed/interrupted by the OP before they startup. Outside these situations, these tools would be considered as “bad” because of their slow start-up and hit level respectively.
When developing an Offensive game plan, you should start by trying to find your characters fastest punish, best range Punish, Anti-airs, best mid-range Poke/Special, best Block String, best Stagger, best Mix-up, Normal/Special with the most active frames, good Hit-advantage, Block-advantage, etc.
Your recipe of Offensive Tactics, Tools, and Tricks when blended together in synergy give birth to your Offensive Strategy and Game Plan in this dynamic State of Play.
