Frame data is something that advanced players use to help improve their skills. Novice players general confuse frame data with frame rate. Frame data gives you all the information you need to know about any given attack, while frame rate is the speed at which the game runs (generally 60 frames per second or 30 frames per second). Novice players don’t need to worry much about frame data, but once you decide to take your game to the next level, frame data can be a very important and helpful tool.
You can find the complete frame data for Street Fighter 5 in the official strategy guide linked at the bottom of this article. The purpose of this article is to teach you how to best use frame data so that novice players can make the most of this newfound information. We’ll try to keep it simple so that it’s easy to understand.
Attack Speed
The first thing you should do with frame data is fine your character’s fastest attack. Attack speed is generally noted as the startup frames. Most of the cast in Street Fighter 5 will have a 3 or 4-frame standing or crouching Light normal as their fastest attack. Know which attack is the fastest for your character because that’s what you want to start most block strings with, and that’s the attack that should be able to punish almost anything that’s unsafe.
Once you’ve found your fastest attacks, you should also look at the attacks you frequently use to determine their speed. Sometimes our favorite attacks are very slow and not viable in competitive play. Once you know the speed of your preferred attacks, you may want to change how often you use them.
Safe vs. Unsafe
You’ve probably heard a move called “safe” or “unsafe” if you’ve been around the competitive fighting game scene long enough. A safe attack is essentially any attack that does not allow your opponent to score a free attack of their own if you block immediately after. For example, if you are playing as Ryu and use a crouching Light Punch that’s blocked, the attack is safe so you can block right after the Light Punch and the opponent can’t hit you with an attack of their own.
An unsafe attack means that the opponent can hit you before you’re able to block again. Using Ryu as an example again, if you perform a Shoryuken that the opponent blocks, you can get hit by a wide variety of attacks before you’re able to block again. As far as Street Fighter 5 is concerned, most attacks that are -2 when blocked are considered safe. An attack that’s -3 when blocked is safe against some characters, but not all. Keep this in mind when you’re looking at attacks you commonly use, and try to avoid attacks that are unsafe unless you can guarantee they will hit.
Cancels
You probably already know about the ability to cancel a normal into a special move to create a combo. This is called a special cancel, and is just another piece of valuable information you can get from frame data. In Street Fighter 5 some attacks are special cancelable, while other are V-Trigger cancelable, and a few attacks can only be canceled on counter-hit. Under most circumstances you want to make sure your frequently used attacks can be canceled into a special move, if not V-Trigger cancelable.
Invincibility Frames
There are a number of special moves in Street Fighter 5 that have invincibility frames. This means that the attack is invincible for a short period of time. For example, Ryu’s EX Shoryuken has a large amount of invincibility frames, which means it will go through almost anything as soon as you use it. If you’re in a jam and need an escape option against a relentless opponent, an EX Shoryuken is a good answer. Keep in mind, if the attack misses Ryu is in trouble, but with proper timing it will go right through any of your opponent’s attacks.
Some attacks are only partially invincible. A special move may be invincible to throws, meaning that all throws will go right through the attack. Other special moves may be upper body invincible, meaning they would well as anti-air attacks. Make sure to look at any notes related to invincibility so you know how best to use these attacks.
There’s a lot more detail we can get into about frame data, but hopefully this gives you a quick look at how you can use frame data to improve your gameplay. You can find more information in the official guide, or if you’re still looking for beginner strategies you can check out our look at mistakes new players make!
