How to read frame data in Street Fighter 6 (SF6)

Discovering the best ways to read attacks is a long-standing debate among players since the beginning of combo fighters. There are thousands of techniques to do so, and the wise sages of video games have their theories. The latest one in Street Fighter 6 is reading frame data. In this article, we’ll explain what it means and how you can read the frame data in Street Fighter 6.

What Is Frame Data In Street Fighter 6?

Street Fighter 6 includes three sections in every move: the startup, the active, and the recovery phase. Every phase corresponds to a segment of the executed move that takes specific frames to happen.

Screenshot via CapCop

Understanding frame data means knowing the length of each phase and how linked combos work. To link combos, it’s essential to understand the time duration of each phase and the frames of the next move in Street Fighter 6.

In other words, frame data reveals the duration, in frames, of the three stages of a character’s move. Knowing the duration of each movement’s starting phase is crucial for its fit within the active or on-strike frames. To keep a combo going, the startup duration must fit inside the on-strike frames.

For example, if a move has ten on-strike frames, only a move with ten or fewer startup frames will successfully combo with it. If the startup duration is higher, the combo will fail. With these details, you can plan your attacks better and score more wins.

How to Read Frame Data in Street Fighter 6

If you’re a fan of the Street Fighter series and want to improve your game, frame data is one of the vital tools you’ll need. You can figure out the time needed for a move to reach, strike, and recover. Moreover, you must put your next startup time inside the strike portion of an attack to keep the combo running.

In the past, before the internet, players had to learn by playing and keep improving their skills until it became second nature. Now, there are data mining, super nerds, and frame-by-frame analysis, enabling us to study and evaluate each character’s fight style intricately.

Several websites can help with your frame data analysis, like:

These tools allow you to see the moves and the favorite character’s frame data. If you filter by Overhead (OH) and Startup, you can determine which moves fit within the Street Fighter 6 frame data better. Using these tools will help you maximize your learning and skill set, and if someone calls you a cheater, it’s probably because they’re envious of your perfect combos.