Pokkén Basics Chapter 7 Part 4 Armor in Neutral

Pokkén Basics is sponsored by streamtechreviews.com

This topic pains me to talk about… But we have to cover it. Armor in neutral. Armored moves, both blue and red, add a very unique dynamic to neutral. 

When you're throwing out attacks, not only do you have to worry about spacing, startup, and height interactions, but every character in this game has access to frame 1 armor with their standard counter attack. And there are a lot of command counter and red armor moves as well. If you strike into them during the armored frames, you'll lose the exchange and you might get critical hit as well for even more damage. Sounds cheap. It is cheap. This video is going to be all about how to abuse the armor system to nullify an opponent with strong preemptive attacks. If you want a video about how to deal with armor, check this out https://youtu.be/BCNsRMQGvm8. Some of the best times to use armor are:

-When you predict an opponent's poke
-As a reversal or when you have frame disadvantage, but you want to attack anyway.
-If you're really wild, as a preemptive poke

Predicting pokes

If your opponent has been pushing you back or outright damaging you with good buttons, you can armor through them as long as you time your read properly. Start charging counter attack just before you think your opponent will strike at you. If they do, let it go and get a critical hit, and possibly even a crumple depending on the character. If they don't strike, you can just CADC backwards, or even forward if you want to be obnoxious and force a mixup. This is a pretty safe tactic in general, and beating it requires a character that can lunge far enough and has enough active frames to punish your CADC, or a support that travels far and fast like emolga or Rayquaza. CADCs have vulnerable frames right before you dash, but how easy it is to actually strike into those frames depends on the CA. Suicune can abuse counter attacks the most as it can cancel into it's command counter instantly. 

Reversal

A second use for armor is as a reversal. A reversal has slightly different meanings depending on what game you're talking about, but in Pokkén I mean attacking from frame disadvantage or when your character is just getting up or recovering from an air reset. Pokkén's design makes it so you rarely have to block a sequence of normal attacks for very long, even when you're negative on block. All poke-combo strings have gaps in them, and it requires very precise timing to attack an opponent that is getting up or they can use a command counter right through the attack. Pay attention to what attacks your opponent is using on you when you're at frame disadvantage. Attacks that startup slowly or have long recovery animations are easy fodder for armored attacks like Leaf Blade, Detect, Fire Punch, etc unless they're done really meaty. And even then, fast armored moves like Psystrike and Extremespeed can still beat them out. If your opponent is pressuring you with a lot of normals, but they're not using a proper setup, you can call them on this with a command counter or even a fast counter attack. This is risky, but it will make opponents second guess their pressure and let you avoid close quarters combat when opponents are scared.

Preemptive Poke

The final use for armor in neutral that I'll cover is as your own preemptive poke. Many command counters or other armored moves like Leaf Blade are unsafe on block and can be punished unless at a perfect distance. But that trade off is because it will beat out most other normal attacks. Even if you press your button after the opponent or the opponent's move has faster startup, you can armor right through other great preemptive attacks and land a critical hit. If you don't mind gambling some life for a chance at a huge reward, poking with a far reaching command counter, or a standard CA with a really good hitbox like Suicune can get you lots of mileage. This isn't my preferred style of play, but it's been proven to be effective by top players like ThankSwalot, even in the Grand Finals of the Pokkén World Championships.

So those are three ways to abuse armor in neutral: predicting pokes, reversaling, and using armored pokes yourself. Use these to nullify players who are giving you trouble in footsies. Next chapter we'll go over two different aspects of space control: projectiles, and anti airs.