Pokkén Basics Chapter 7 Part 2 Preemptive Attacks

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Table of Contents (use Ctrl+F to skip to the desired section)

7.5 What are preemptive attacks?
7.6 Key properties of good preemptive attacks

If you've watched any of my tournament sets or watched any of the sets I play online for my channel, you'll notice the majority of the damage I get is from winning neutral. That is not a coincidence. The nuances of spacing is something I've developed over almost a decade and I'm gonna teach everything I know to you in this chapter. I'm going to show you exactly how I choose which attacks I use in neutral and why. So definitely take notes. In the last section, I described what footsies are: space control mid screen. And I also went over the three goals of footsies which are pushing the opponent to the corner, avoiding mixups, and getting a hard knockdown or air reset. Before you ever throw out an attack, make sure it's either to accomplish one of these three goals or to get a whiff punish which I'll talk about next section. One of the easiest ways to achieve these three goals though not always the best, is through the use of preemptive attacks.

7.5 What are preemptive attacks?

Preemptive attacks are simply attacks done in advance of or before an opponent's action. You are not waiting for a dash or a whiffed attack; you are trying to prevent or stop that action before it happens by sticking out your own move to interrupt the opponent. If the opponent is walking up to you and they haven't yet committed to anything unsafe, or if you want to immediately take control of the space on screen, that's when you might throw out a preemptive attack.

7.6 Key properties of good preemptive attacks

Any move can be used as a preemptive attack, but here are five properties to consider when you're looking for a move you can just throw out there. You want to consider:

-Speed
-Range
-Height
-Safety
-Damage

Now to break down all 5. 

-Speed. If two attacks are pressed on the same frame, the one with the faster startup gets a hitbox first. So if they hit at the same height and neither move has armor, then the faster move will win. If you want to know more about frame data and height, check out Chapter 4 of Pokkén Basics. 

-Range is important because no matter how fast a move is, it can be beaten out by moves that outreach it. In general, moves that have more reach are slower, and moves that are really fast have less reach. This is not always the case, but it is a trend that goes across different fighting games. Lucario's 2Y is a super fast move you can just throw out, but even though it's fast at 11 frames, Shadow Mewtwo's 6X outreaches it. If they're pressed at the same time, the 2Y will whiff and the 6X will make contact and Shadow Mewtwo gets a full confirm from that.

-Height is important because it allows you to use a slower move or a move with less range to beat a faster move or one with more range than your own. For example, Shadow Mewtwo's 6X goes farther and comes out faster than Blaziken's 8X. But if they're used near the same time, Blaziken's 8X will win because it is invincible against mid-lows starting frame 9. 6X is a mid-low. Ideally, you'd want to only be poking with mids because they don't lose any height interactions, but there are very few true mids in the game. There are a lot of highs, lows, mid-lows, and mid-highs, but very few true mids and the ones that exist aren't generally far enough or fast enough to poke with. So just know that because of the height properties in Pokkén, every time you throw out an attack preemptively, there's a risk that the opponent might avoid it because of its height. So know the properties of your opponent's best pokes and try to use moves that can counter their height. So against Blaziken, for example you don't want to be throwing out too many mid lows or lows. But you can throw out highs, or even projectiles that are mids because Blaziken doesn't have any good lows or a ducking low stance to avoid them. The fourth property to consider is safety.

-Safety applies to frame data on block, its recovery, and how safe it is against armor which is trial and error but it's very important. Here are some examples of relatively safe preemptive attacks. Lucario 2Y, Aegislash 4Y, Pikachu 5X and Darkrai 6X. All of these moves are negative on block, but they are safe and cannot be punished. And all of them aside from Aegislash 4Y do good pushback. Meaning the opponent is not in range to throw you and often not in range to strike back with any of their fastest moves. All these moves either recover super fast or have disjointed hitboxes. Meaning the hitbox is at the tip of the move but the hurtbox is way back at your character's model. The means even if you strike into an attack that's already active you'll still win, and it makes it almost impossible to whiff punish you. Fast recovery means the attack retracts quickly, so you can often poke into a counter attack that's charging and still be safe. In Lucario's case that's true, but Pikachu and Darkrai, they mostly are safe because of their disjointed hitboxes. So to summarize safety, you want a move that is safe on block, recovers quickly, and is safe against armor. I'll go more into armor in the upcoming videos, but just keep that in mind. The final property to consider in footsies is damage.

-Damage. Now depending on your playstyle this might be the most important or the least important. I don't like taking big risks in neutral. It's not my style, I like consistency I don't like volatility. So I tend to use moves like I mentioned earlier that are safe, but don't necessarily lead to a lot of damage. But sometimes this gets me in trouble because - and you'll notice these because when I lose games this is usually how it happens - I hit the opponent more times, but they're doing more damage per hit. So for example against, Aegislash. Let's say I land 2YY into Zen Headbutt twice in neutral. That's good. And the move is safe. But what if the Aegislash doesn't care about safety and just does half screen 6X and they land both of the just frames. That move is -16 on block, it's not safe. But it does so much damage that it's literally twice as dangerous as landing Shadow Mewtwo's safer confirm in neutral. So you'll see characters like Machamp, Blastoise, Chandelure poking with moves that are not necessarily safe but they do so much damage that they don't even care. So this is a playstyle choice if you want to focus on damage. But really keep it in mind because if you're Lucario. 2Y is good but unless you are whiff punishing with it it only does 30 damage every time you land it. If you're using it preemptively, you're going to have to land it 9 times to match the amount of damage Sharp Aegislash gets from 6X even though it's unsafe.

Knowing all this, what moves should you be poking with? In my video guide, I show examples of good preemptive attacks with every single character in the game. So check that out if you want to see the moves in action! You want moves that are fast, have good range, have good height properties- so ideally mid but since those are rare just height properties that are good against your opponent's best options, you want moves that are safe both on block and on armor. If a move is special cancelable that helps a lot with safety against armor. And you want to consider how much damage the attack does. The more the better, but usually the more damage, the less safe it is in neutral. There are always exceptions.

So that's how I choose my attacks, and this method has been very effective for me. Always remember, when you are poking to be deliberate. Stick to the 3 goals: push to the wall, avoid mixups, or look to fish for that knockdown or air rest. Don't toss out moves unless you think they'll make contact - or unless they recover super fast. Doing this leaves you susceptible to reactive attacks, or whiff punishing which is what the next video is going to be all about. Making your opponent's preemptive moves miss the mark and attacking them in their recovery before they can block again. This is a tactic that every player needs to master, and it's especially helpful if your opponent has superior normals. Like I've said before, whiff punishing and footsies is my favorite part of fighting games. I hope you found this valuable and I hope you use some of these actionable strategies in your next matches.