Street Fighter 6 – How to Learn Combos

You can use most of this tips for any fighting game.

Tips to Learn Combos

Basics

Combo trials in fighting games are notoriously poorly curated for applicable situations. It seems to be getting better with the new generations of FGs where developers appear to be addressing it, but I’d still just suggest watching a few high level matches on Youtube featuring the character(s) you’re interested in and taking note of the combos. Learn combo notation and write down or type out the combos onto a sheet for reference. I’d focus on getting a universal BnB (bread and butter) and a corner BnB first. Fish for the starter that leads into that combo in-match and try to execute it consistently when the hit has been confirmed. It doesn’t really matter if you go into a player match or against the CPU, you’re just trying to commit it to muscle memory against a moving and punching target. Once you’ve got those down and can execute them (from both sides of the screen) in a match, repeat the process for different starters.

Just in case terminology here is too advanced, I’m going to also break down a combo into its sections.

In Detail

Starter

The move that starts the combo. This matters a lot because every move gives a frame “advantage” on hit. This determines whether it will link, or combo, into another move. Some moves are special cancellable (the move animation is able to be shortened by inputting a special move like Shoryuken) and some are not.

Filler

This is the series of moves that follows a particular starter. The structure will most likely follow as normals into specials into optional supers.

Ender

This is the move that you end your combo with. Learn a couple different enders for the combos you’re practicing that lead to different situations. You want to practice enders that: provide a hard knockdown, carry the opponent to the corner, special cancel into supers for damage. Sometimes a character has an ender that accomplish all three of those attributes, but it’s more common that you’ll have to practice a different ender for each situation listed.

Here’s an example of two practical Ryu combos in standard fighting game notation with the elements described:

  • s.MP > c.MP > 623HP (stand medium starter, crouching medium punch as a filler link, Shoryuken for damage and hard knockdown).
  • s.MP > c.MP > 236KK > 623HP > 236236K (stand medium again for the starter, crouching medium punch into OD Donkey Kick into Shoryuken for a damaging filler, CA ender for damage).

And here’s how those notes might look after I watch a video and experiment in training mode to make a combo:

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