User:Cob/GGST/Anji/Pressure

Ultimately, the goal of block pressure is to instill fear of certain options and influence your opponent's defensive habits in ways that you can capitalize on later. By making things difficult to predict with aggressive resets and mixups, you force an opponent on defense to make repeated guesses that you can exploit.

It can be helpful to think of pressure and frame advantage in terms of “turns”.

• When it's your turn, it means you have access to more options and/or more time than your opponent, so you generally get to decide what happens next. You extend your turn using plus frames (largely from gatlings or other cancels) to maintain the upper hand while restricting the opponent's ability to do something about it.
• Your turn ends when you use a move without cancellable recovery (such as a special move) that forces you to remain minus on block. In this case, you generally want to create as much space from the opponent as possible to return to neutral; otherwise, the opponent may be able to punish and begin their turn immediately.

Conditioning with frame traps and resets

A frame trap is a small window between two blocked moves that grants enough time for the opponent to begin an attack, but not enough for their attack to actually come out, getting you a counterhit. They punish the opponent for trying to interrupt your pressure and conditions them to sit and hold block out of fear.

Slightly delayed gatlings are one way to implement frame traps in an otherwise true blockstring. However, if you just do tight blockstrings and frame traps every time, the opponent has no incentive to do anything except block until your turn ends naturally. For pressure to actually be scary, you need to capitalize on their passiveness and goad them into challenging apparent gaps in your pressure.

The main way to do this is with a pressure reset: ending your turn (often prematurely) by using something that is technically interruptible in hopes that the opponent is not ready to respond. If the opponent hesitates and misses their chance to interrupt, you get to restart your turn.

A common way to reset is to fully recover from a blocked attack and dash back in with another attack at closer range; this is called a stagger. Staggers are best used with close-range attacks that threaten strong frame traps while also being relatively safe on block, such as Anji's c.S and 2K. If the opponent respects your frame traps, they are less likely to use abare options that would interrupt your staggers, allowing you to frequently reset your pressure.

Staggering with a throw instead of another attack is called a tick throw. This is an important option to call out opponents who are content to stay blocking your frame traps and staggers, and to force them to interrupt your pressure on suspected tick throw attempts.

Starting pressure from mid-range

The opponent blocking a longer poke is not necessarily a rewarding outcome for Anji, and requires some additional effort to convert into stable pressure.

• 5K on block opens up the most options for Anji when in range. 2D and 6H gatlings threaten big counterhits that can let you get away with transitioning to close-range pressure once the opponent respects them.
• Further ranges offer more limited options and may be worth just ending your turn and noting how the opponent responds. Once you've established intent to return to neutral, or if the opponent tries to punish or force their own turn afterwards, you can start cancelling your longer pokes like f.S, 2S, and 2D into Fuujin or Spin.

• 

  5K, frame 8 (onBlock: -2)

• 

  f.S, frame 11 (onBlock: -9)

• 

  2S, frame 10 (onBlock: -6)

• 

  2D, frame 10 (onBlock: -11)

Starting pressure from close range

Once you've closed the gap between you and the opponent, Anji is finally able to apply his strongest block pressure.

The key for effective pressure, as mentioned above, is leaving intentional openings to bait your opponent into trying to interrupt your pressure. Without the threat of staggers and tick throws, there is no incentive to mash out of gaps and the opponent can comfortably hold your blockstrings and frame traps until your turn ends naturally.

• c.S is Anji's premier block pressure tool. The threat of rewarding counterhits such as 2S, 5H, and 2H makes preemptive mashing a risky endeavour for the opponent, allowing you to go to for tight tick throws and staggers.
• 2K and 2P are also effective for tick throws and staggers, due to the threat of gatlings like 2D and 6H or another 2P. Solid options when you're not quite in c.S proximity.

• 

  c.S, frame 7 (onBlock: +1)

• 

  2K, frame 7 (onBlock: -2)

• 

  2P, frame 5 (onBlock: -2)

• 

  Throw, frame 2

6H with Spin and Fuujin

6H acts as a frame trap out of 2P, 2K, and 5K that advances towards the opponent with each hit. It's an important option to represent, as its existence makes staggers with those P and K normals scarier for the opponent to challenge.

A useful property of 6H is its ability to be cancelled into a special move after any of the hits connect or are blocked.

• The gaps between the three hits of 6H are 3 and 4 frames respectively, frame trapping many abare options. Fuujin also acts as a frame trap immediately after any of the hits.
• Varying the hold duration makes Fuujin and Spin tricky to reliably hedge against. The threat of being counterhit by 6H or Fuujin allows for some greedier options like throwing after a short Spin or holding Spin to catch delayed attacks.

• 

  6H, frame 12 (onBlock: -8)

• 

  Fuujin, frame 16 [32]

• 

  Spin, Total 34~50 frames

Fuujin on block, aka Chance Time

Blocking Fuujin puts both players into a pseudo-RPS situation where every one of Anji's options is technically punishable or interruptible on a correct response from the opponent, but in order to do so the opponent must leave themselves susceptible to the other options. This interaction carries some risk but is necessary to represent Fuujin as a consistent threat and give Anji the leeway to reset and mix up elsewhere.

• 

  Fuujin, -8 [-6]

• 

  Nagiha, -7

• 

  Rin, -9

• 

  Shin, +7

• 

  Hop

By effectively applying the threat of Fuujin and its associated options, you can force your opponent to have to make more guesses than you do, skewing the risk-reward in your favour.

Will you use Fuujin at all?

• Cancelling laggier moves like f.S, 5H, 6H, 2D, and 6P into Fuujin can stuff out opponents who show aggression or intent to punish after blocking.
• Once the opponent respects the threat of Fuujin and remains passive after blocking an unsafe normal, that's a sign that you can start resetting pressure or safely return to neutral.

Will you use a followup?

• Fuujin with no followup is reversal-safe and demands respect once Nagiha is an established threat, letting you end your turn safely or go for staggers/resets. This should be your primary option to gather info about the opponent's defensive habits.
• Nagiha is your most reliable followup, being the safest option and a true blockstring if done immediately. Vary your timing to catch attempts to interrupt the other followups, punish empty Fuujin, jump, or block Rin.
• Rin is an advancing overhead that calls out opponents focusing on empty Fuujin and Nagiha. Less safe than frame advantage indicates due to low pushback.
• Shin is interruptible on reaction but lets you restart your turn if the opponent is preoccupied with blocking the other options.
• Hop is typically not worth the risk in pressure; simply dashing in after empty Fuujin opens up more options for less commitment.

Will the followup come early or after Fuujin?

• Kara cancelled Fuujin followups create a large gap that the opponent can interrupt, though they will have to do so basically on prediction. The main reason to use them in pressure is to trip up opponents whose reactions rely on the big green “I am about to use a followup” indicator.
• Namely, kara cancelling makes Rin, Shin, and Hop more usable against opponents that are good at dealing with post-Fuujin followups. Kara Nagiha becomes a riskier option because the extra momentum counteracts the pushback that would otherwise make it pretty safe.

Resetting with Shitsu

Once heavy conditioning and respect have been established, you can start to include Shitsu as a greedy pressure reset in situations where the opponent is expecting Fuujin. Shitsu is punishable on reaction, so first consider your spacing and whether the opponent has a low-profile or burst option that can reach you.

If you do manage to get the butterfly out, the two hits can enable some huge staggers that let you back into close range to restart pressure.