DBFZ/Attack Attributes

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Attack Attributes

Each attack in the game has an attribute. Attributes are broken up in a few broad categories: strike, projectile, throw. These attributes interact with each other to trigger certain effects like invincibility and guard point.

Strike Attribute
Strike attributes are broken up into two groups: airborne and ground. As a rule of thumb, attacks performed while standing/crouching are ground, and jumping strikes are airborne, but there are exceptions.
Strike attacks are the most common in the game and can clash with each other.
Projectile Attribute
There are various types of projectiles in the game, but they can be broken up into 3 general levels of durability.
Level 1 (Small Ki Blasts)
Most S Normal attacks fall into this category, but some specials do as well, such as Piccolo's Homing Energy Blast.
These can be Super Dashed through
Level 2 (Beams)
Most special attack projectiles fall into this category, like Goku's Kamehameha, Gohan's Masenko, and Tien's Dodon Ray
These will go through projectiles of lower level without losing any hits
Level 2 projectiles can not be Super Dashed through
Level 3 (Super Beams)
Most super attack projectiles fall into this category, like Goku's Super Kamehameha, Vegeta's Big Bang Attack, and Trunks' Burning Attack
These will go through projectiles of lower level without losing any hits
Level 3 projectiles can not be Super Dashed through
Throw Attribute
Throws cannot be blocked or Z Reflected, but they will not work against opponents who are in blockstun.

Attribute Invincibility

Some moves are invulnerable or automatically guard against certain attributes during certain times. For example, most 2H attacks have invincibility against airborne strikes starting from frame 4 through all the active frames.

Other moves automatically guard against attacks with certain attributes, such as Super Dash and Trunks' Change the Future guarding against Level 1 Projectiles and Nappa's Too Bad guarding against strikes, or armor through against attacks with certain attributes, such as Android 16's 5H absorbing attacks that can be blocked high.

These properties will be listed in the frame data as they are discovered.

Counter Hit

A Counter Hit occurs when you hit an opponent out of the startup of their attack. On hit, both the attacker and defender suffer additional hitstop so generally, there is no additional benefit to counter hits compared to normal hits. However when counter hit by a projectile, this additional hitstop does not apply to the attacker - only the defender and the projectile suffer additional hitstop, giving the attacker a little bit of extra time to land a hit and start a combo.

Hitting Two Opponents With the Same Attack

Yamcha and Krillin getting hit by Cell's 5M

One attack can hit multiple targets assuming they are within range. For example one attack can hit BOTH the opponent and an assist.

Normally, when an attack touches the opponent, the remaining active frames are converted into recovery frames. However, if there is a second hittable character, then the remaining active frames can still hit him!

This leads to visually strange situations like Cell's 2M (the slide) hitting Nappa's Saibaman, then a moment later, Nappa gets hit by the remaining active frames of the slide.

This also applies to projectiles like Goku's Kamehameha and Piccolo's Homing Energy Blast, but the later case is more difficult to take advantage of since the projectile will shatter the instant it touches an opponent.

Hit Effects

Smash!

A lot of moves in Dragon Ball FighterZ have a "Smash!" version, usually with stronger properties and higher damage. Not all of them will trigger the "Smash!" prompt, but the way to tell if a Smash move has been used is the short cinematic that plays out on hit.

The condition to trigger the Smash version is different with every move. Some require an "upward Smash" to be used prior in the combo, some require no Smash moves to be used before, and some will always use its Smash, unless it has used up its own Smash in the combo. To an extend, cinematic Super moves might also be considered Smash moves as they can hit assists for different amount of damage than they would do otherwise, and most of them do "consume" the Smash of a combo.

More information on this is described in the Combo System section, and on individual character pages.

Dynamic!

A worse version of Smash. Every character has a j.H that has this property. This version can be triggered by successfully landing a 5LLL, in a combo that hasn't used Smash!, then mash L to perform a Super Dash, followed by j.L, j.LL and j.H. Manually inputting Super Dash (H+S) won't work, manual j.M and j.H won't work, too much delay or attempting to do any other move and it won't work. Though calling Z-Assists is fine as long as L is still being mashed.

A "Dynamic!" j.H will consume Smash and grant a Dragon Ball. Most Dynamic j.H will hit the opponent to the ground into a soft knockdown and also have the ability to wall bounce. This can be put to use outside of the corner by tagging another character in right after j.H, which pulls the "wall" back, causing a wall bounce instead of a soft knockdown. The tagged in character can then continue the combo, this means the player can guarantee a Dragon Ball without sacrificing too much damage.

Smash! j.H

This is way more complicated than it should while also being a universal mechanic, so it deserves its own section.

The conditions to get Smash! property for j.H (and some similar moves like some downward j.2H or SSVegeta j.214M), excluding 16's and j.H that doesn't have a Smash version like Piccolo's, are as follows:

  • In a combo that hasn't used Smash prior, during the hitstun of a 5LLL, 2H, upward j.2H or raw Dragon Rush, the opponent must be hit by any move that's not a ground normal. Though technically, these moves only have to be inputted during the hitstun, meaning the combo can turn invalid.
  • If you're grounded, you must leave the ground with anything BUT a normal jump (super jump). Meaning Super Dash, Trunks' Cyclone Jump, any form of teleportation, etc.
  • If you're airborne, you mustn't land. Though certain Special moves that teleport you around ending on the ground is still OK...
  • And finally, you must be at a certain height up. j.H will not Smash! if you're close to the ground, with the exception of Broly, who will dunk you no matter the height.

If a combo meets all of these conditions, even if it becomes invalid at any point, it's guaranteed to get a sliding knockdown.

What all of this means is that you can do things like Sparking! Cell 5LLL > the entirety of 214M > call Gotenks assist + empty Vanish > j.L > j.LL > Gotenks assist now hits > tag in Frieza > j.L > j.LL > j.2H into a sliding knockdown.

Anti-Air!

Moves with "Anti-Air!" property will have invulnerability against attacks with head property. If a head property attack passes through the character's body while they're doing an Anti-Air move, a blue bubble can be seen flashing out from them and the prompt "Anti-Air!" will show up.

Not to be confused with the term anti-air, as some attacks without any invulnerability can also be used for anti-airing.

All characters have 2H as their universal Anti-Air. As opposed to that, they also have universal head property attacks as j.L, j.M, j.H, Super Dash, and Vanish.

It's not always obvious which attacks have head property. Most attacks performed in the air or moves that put the character in an airborne state have head property. However, the universal overhead, 6M, does not have head property, despite the characters physically jumping up. This quirk also applies to Supers, as Vegito's Omega Finishing Blow (a mid strike) has head property while Frieza's Nova Strike (an overhead) doesn't.

The easiest way to test if a move has head property is simply try to 2H them. And the easiest way to test if a move has Anti-Air property is to try punishing a j.H.

Wall Bounce

Certain moves will cause the opponent to bounce off the edge of the screen when the opponent makes contact with it. This is known as a wall bounce, and it's generally used to extend combos. Every character's 5H, with the exception of Cooler's, causes a small wall bounce, so it's seen very often in play. Most of the time, normals and specials that can cause a wall bounce will only do so if the Smash! version is used. For example, as stated, almost all 5H moves will cause a wall bounce if they are the Smash! version, but will not cause a bounce if a Smash! is not triggered. However, there is no limit to how many times a wall bounce can be used in a combo. It's difficult to utilize the lack of a hard limit due to wall bounces generally being limited to the Smash! property, but it's certainly something to keep in mind.

How the wall bounce behaves depends on what move is used. For example, Ginyu's medium Jersey Rush causes a wall bounce where the opponent hits the wall and simply falls down in place, while the heavy version causes them to hit the opposite wall and bounce aggressively back to midscreen. In this case, the medium version allows a wide variety of followups in the corner, but almost nothing without the help of assists when used midscreen, and vise versa for the heavy version.

Hitstun and untechable time are not affected by wall bounces. That is to say, the total amount of time you have to continue a combo after a wall bounce does not change even if when the wall bounce happened does. Because of this, it's preferable to trigger most wall bounces as close to the corner as possible, as this allows the largest window to continue the combo after the bounce happens. At the same time, however, certain moves that cause a wall bounce do so at a low height, such as 5H, and thus your opponent will hit the ground after the bounce before they would be allowed to tech in the air. In cases like these, creating more space allows them to travel a bit before the wall bounce happens. This allows more of the move's untechable time to be utilized, which may allow for certain combos that previously were not possible.

Ground Bounce

While rare in DBFZ, certain moves have the ability to bounce your opponent off the ground, allowing for potential followups.

Ground bounces function very similarly to wall bounces with a few key differences:

  • Most moves that have the ability to ground bounce do not have this feature tied to the Smash! property, with a handful of exceptions such as Cooler's 5H and Bardock's j236M.
  • Certain moves may only trigger a ground bounce under certain conditions, such as requiring the opponent to not be in a launched state, or only the first hit of a move causing the bounce.
  • Whenever a ground bounce is triggered, the current remaining untechable time of the move is reset to a standard value. This means that regardless of how high they fell before the bounce happened, they will always remain vulnerable after the bounce for the same amount of time, subject to hitstun decay.

Ground bounces can allow for very powerful combos when used properly, mostly due to the final property in that list. Since the bounce has its own standardized untechable time, the total window to continue the combo becomes "duration of the bounce" + "how long they were falling," i.e. the higher they were when they were hit by the move that bounces, the more total untechable time they will experience. For example, Hit can launch his opponent high into the air with his 2H, then cancel into 236M stance and continue with LLL. The downwards strike of this stance move can ground bounce, and since the opponent was so high in the air, Hit has enough time to link a 5L before they can tech, which he normally cannot do if this move hits an opponent that's closer to the ground.

Due to how rare ground bounces are, they have many interesting applications for the characters that can use them that are available to nobody else on the cast. If your character has one, finding a way to make use of it is generally a very good way to expand your routing options.

Launcher

Certain moves will launch your opponent into the air and allow for high altitude followup combos. Most notably, everyone's 2H anti air will allow for a followup combo in this way when the Smash! version is used. Other notable examples include Dragon Rush when not preformed during a combo, and the final hit of the light autocombo for certain characters.

In the vast majority of cases, making use of a launcher will require the use of your Smash! property. However, moves may still launch even without a Smash!, though continuing the combo may not be possible without it. Every 2H functions this way, where it will still launch without a Smash!, but in most situations requires it to continue the combo with a Super Dash.

Launchers are extremely common combo extenders, especially for characters that are able to do the standard magic series with a j2H launcher. In addition, launchers that consume the Smash! property may allow the character's jH to cause a sliding knockdown with a higher base damage, rather than the standard soft knockdown it usually causes. This is only the case for characters with a jH that causes a knockdown, however.

Ground Slide

A ground slide is a special state where your opponent enters knockdown but continues to slide along the ground for a short time, before they stop sliding and are able to tech. This state is usually caused by moves that can Smash! and also knock down, however in some rare cases a slide can occur without a Smash!, such as Frieza's disks when they return.

During this slide, your opponent generally cannot be hit by any normal or special moves. They can, however, be hit by supers. Certain moves may also have the ability to continue the combo after a ground slide, such as Base Vegeta's 214S command grab, but these moves are exceptions to the rule.

Ground slides are usually used to both set up okizeme after a combo, as well as enable easy confirms into supers when attempting to kill the opponent's current character. Ground slides do not allow your opponent to combine the delay wakeup tech with any other tech options like they can do on a soft knockdown, so this type of knockdown is preferable when it is able to be achieved.

Attack Level

Each attack in the game does standardized amounts of hitstun, blockstun, etc. depending on their Attack Level. Note that some moves override these default values, which will be noted in the frame data. In addition to these exceptions, some attacks knock the enemy into the air, wallbounce, etc. As a general rule attacks with the same Attack Level share the same sound effects and graphical effects.

Lvl 0 Lvl 1 Lvl 2 Lvl 3 Lvl 4
Hitstun (Ground Hit) 14 16 18 20 22
Untechable (Air Hit) 14 16 18 20 22
Blockstun (Ground) 11 11 15 15 15
Blockstun (Air) 17 17 21 21 21
Hitstop 6 8 11 14 16

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