A move consists of 3 stages:
- Start Up (how many frames it takes to become a threat)
- Active (how many frames the move remains a threat after Stat Up)
- Recovery (how many frames a move takes to finish it's animation AFTER the active frames are over)
So lets pretend a move is 5-3-10: It would work like this: 5 frames up start up, it deals no damage. At frame 6 Active frames start and it lasts for 3 frames (frame 9). At frame 10 the active frames of the attack are over and you begin recovering for 10 frames. All together the move took 18 frames to complete. Advantage is determined by comparing the amount of hit/block stun frames your enemy is stuck in versus remaining Active frames and Recovery frames. So if that move causes 14 frames of hit stun and you hit at the first active frame possible it would be:
14 (enemy stun) - 2 (remaining active frames) - 10 (recovery frames) = +2
So you would end up with +2 advantage if you just did that move...if you did a meaty hit and got them with the very final Active Frame (usually done by starting the move early on a rising opponent or tip range with some moves) it would be:
14 (enemy stun) - 0 (remaining active frames) - 10 (recovery frames) = +4
Keep in mind you can cancel after you connect with a hit and bypass frames disadvantage.
Hypers are slightly different, they have 2 sets start up. The point up to the "flash" and then whatever frames AFTER the flash.
As for projectiles, active frames apply to how long you are producing an active threat, not how long it's on screen. So Ryu's fireball can be active awhile, but it only tells you the moment the fireball would hit at point blank. Advantage is also based on point blank hits. If you throw a fire ball, finish the recovery, and THEN it hits...you are at a much larger frame advantage because you do not add the recovery frames.
Does anyone know when invincibility starts? Is it in the active or start up frames and with hypers is it after the "flash"?
OFF TOPIC
I would also like to take this moment and make up my complaint about my Soul Calibur 5 request giving us this knowledge as our end of testing can only provide loose frame start up and advantage/disadvantage. Knowledge of the entire animations frames (for on whiff) and available active frames (for meaty hitting) are unknown to us and our wiki. We need this...even though people say it will ruin the fun of the game by not finding it out and there'd be nothing to test...here's MvC3...we're still testing shit out and we got way more than i was wanting! surprise! All my bitching...proven right to a ridiculous extent! This info lets us test MORE, so people here please ask for it in the SC5 thread.
