Buffering

From Dustloop Wiki

Buffering is the technique of preemptively doing a move during the animation of the preceding move. This gives you more time to completely input the motion of the next attack.

The Input Buffer refers to the game engine's memory that stores recently entered inputs.

Applications

Combos

When doing combos that involve quickly canceling attack into other attacks, players can buffer the next attack before the current attack finishes.

Example
Katalina 2M > Frozen Blade 236L
After inputting 2M, you don't need to wait for it to hit before you begin inputting the next move. You can even use 2 from the first attack as the first part of 236. After the first attack hits and you finish 236, press L.
Example
Ragna 5B.png > 5C.png > Carnage Scissors 632146GGD.png
After inputting 5C.png, begin inputting 632146 even before 5C.png hits the opponent. Once the move hits the opponent, then press GGD.png
While you may not finish inputting the Carnage Scissors motion before 5C.png hits the opponent, you are getting a head start on inputting the motion. There is no reason to wait for 5C.png to finish before starting the motion for Carnage Scissors.
While most players end up doing this for most attacks, most players are only really cognizant of this for complicated inputs like supers and for cancels that need to be done very quickly.

Hit Confirming

When hit confirming a normal attack into a second attack with a complex motion (like a super), players can buffer the motion for the super before they confirm the hit. Once they confirm the hit, then they just press the button for the super.

Example
Ky hit confirming 2GGD.png > Sacred Edge (236236GGP.png)
Ky does 2GGD.png, then immediately does 236236. Then watch the opponent:
If 2GGD.png hits the opponent, then press GGP.png to finish the command for Sacred Edge
If 2GGD.png misses or is blocked, then don't press GGP.png and do other actions instead

This allows Ky to more easily hit confirm, since you are hitconfirming into a button instead of a motion+button.

Input Shortcuts

When doing more complicated things like doing a dashing special/super, you can rely on the input buffer to help make the input easier.

Example
Jin wants to do a short run 66 > Super (632146GGD.png)
Jin can input 6321466, this will cause Jin to start running. After pressing GGD.png, Jin will perform the Super.
The amount of time to press the button is not very long, but allows Jin to run a short distance

Limitations

  • Most games only allow you to buffer the next attack and not a series of attacks.
    • Ex: Quickly pressing 5A > 5B > 5C before 5A hits the opponent means only 5B will come out afterwards
  • Motions will persist between moves
    • Ex: If you want to combo 236GGP.png into 236236GGP.png, it's not necessary to do 236 three times. You can do 236GGP.png followed by another 236GGP.png; when you execute the second 236GGP.png, the game will see the 236 from the first 236GGP.png as part of the same input, thereby ultimately outputting 236236GGP.png for the second move. This therefore means that you can't do 236GGP.png236GGP.png if your character has a 236236GGP.png move.

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