VISUALLY CONFIRMING REFLECTION GUARD

This guide is about DFCI’s Reflection Guard mechanic aka pushblock.

However, it only activates when you press a combination of two buttons between A, B, and C. If you try to pushblock when you didn’t block anything, the move associated with the button you pressed will come out instead (we call this “pushblock leakage”). In other words, pushblock carries the risk of having other moves come out instead. There’s not much risk in this if you have an install trump, but otherwise, you’ll have to get an AB move or C normal instead, which as a general rule leaves a big opening. If you close the distance and throw a normal then feint with a vertical jump or a delayed normal, you can bait pushblocks.

What the above information means is that you need to be aware that it is a mechanic that comes with a risk of being baited. However, keeping certain things in mind, you can pushblock in a way that controls the risk of being baited. That way is: Pushblock once you’ve visually confirmed that your opponent’s strike (B normal and up) is coming out. To put it in more detail, press the pushblock button once you’ve seen that the opponent is throwing an attack (B normal and up).

The important part here is that you do it once you’ve seen it. That means that you don’t have a read that your opponent will throw a strike when you hit the button, but, exactly as it sounds, you have seen it. Confirmed it with your sense of vision. If you do that, you will pushblock without the risk of being baited by a jump or delay when your opponent throws out their attack. Let me explain why exactly that works and what I mean by “B normal and up.”

First of all, I know this is obvious, but pushblock only activates if you press the button within a certain window of frames after blocking something. If you press the button after that window of frames, whatever move is tied to the button you pressed will come out instead. The window is as follows:

Taking the above information into consideration, let's think about how to pushblock Shana’s 2C. Firstly, Shana’s 2C startup is 10f. We add this to the pushblock window.

10F (2C startup) + 12F (2C hitstop) + 5F = 27F

This 27F value means that between 11F and 27F from the time when the opponent hits 2C, pushblock will come out if you hit the button. I think that 27 frames is plenty of time to visually confirm the incoming attack and pushblock.

Think of 2B the same way.

9F (2B startup) + 10F (2B hitstop) + 5F = 24F

The window is 3 frames shorter than 2C, but it should still be a pretty easy number of frames to work with.

Now, let’s think about pushblocking 2A.

5F (2A startup) + 8F (2A hitstop) + 5F = 18F

Pushblock comes out if you hit the button between 6F and 18F from the time the opponent hits 2A....We live in a world where it’s a tall order to stand block 22F startup 4ABs, so it’s pretty hard to pushblock after confirming with an 18F window. If you try to pushblock after visually confirming a 2A, you’re most likely going to input it after the 2A blockstun has already run its course, and you’ll get a 2C or something instead.

Therefore, I believe it is for the best to only pushblock against B moves or higher. You could pushblock even a 2A if you watch your opponent’s character closely and push the button the moment you see some movement, but it isn’t really “pushblocking after seeing” anymore then. If you aren’t actually seeing it, you can be baited by the opponent jumping.

In other words, visually confirming a B normal or higher before pushblocking is pretty easy, but doing it with an A normal is harder and risky.

Therefore, I recommend only pushblocking after visually confirming a B normal or higher as much as possible. By the way, recognizing what normal is coming out on startup can be done based on what distance the opponent is at, instead of just recognizing the startup. Generally speaking only B moves and up will be coming if they aren’t close enough for a 2A, so it should be easy to visually confirm a move before pushblocking at those ranges. Concluding the above, this was my explanation of “pushblocking after visually confirming a B move or higher.”

If you can do this, you can pushblock in a way that doesn’t carry the risk of being baited by a jump, which can end up being quite a problem for your opponent. My examples used ground normals, but it is the same for air moves. You can mitigate the risk of your pushblock being baited if you visually confirm a j.B or j.C before pushblocking.

You can practice visually confirming moves before pushblocking in training mode by using the following recordings for the opponent:

1. Approach into 2A

2. Approach into 2C

3. Approach into vertical jump

Trying to only pushblock the second recording via visual confirmation is good practice. When you get used to visually confirming moves before pushblocking, you can proactively pushblock things like projectiles and assist as well. If you can get good at pushblocking in various situations, it will also get easier to avoid grabs and overheads, which cuts down on how much unnecessary damage you take. Your defense improves a fair bit just from this. It should feel pretty satisfying if you can do it! ! ('ω')

End.