Armour Cancelling | USF4

Everything about the trick called "Armour Cancelling"

Introduction

Hello!

My name is Saki and I'm playing Street Fighter IV since 2012 December. My mains are C.Viper, Ibuki and Evil Ryu, but I am familiar with over 20 characters. I'm playing on a Razer Atrox Arcade Stick.

What is armour and armour cancelling?

The term armour is short for hyper armour. A hit-absorbing property of Focus Attacks and some special moves. A move like Zangief’s EX Flying Power Bomb or any character’s Focus Attack can absorb one incoming hit without being interrupted. Red Focus Attacks can absorb several incoming hits without being interrupted. Damage taken from absorbed hits will recover slowly over time, though it will become permanent if the opponent scores a non-absorbed hit before the grey damage fully regenerates. Each character has a few armour-breaking moves that cannot be absorbed.

Armour Cancelling is an exacting technique or trick that refers to kara cancelling the initial frames of an armoured move into something else. When certain hyper-armoured attacks absorb a hit, you can cancel the absorption into a different move. Armour cancels are only possible if a move has hyper armour on its first frame, and it must be this first armoured frame that absorbs the incoming hit; the cancel window is 5-frames wide after that. Attacks like Hugo’s standing Heavy Punch or Juri’s Kasatushi that do not have hyper armour on the first frame cannot be armour cancelled.

Characters utilising armour cancelling

Unfortunately not all characters are capable of armour cancelling, only those who have a(n) (EX) special move with hyper armour on the first frame. You may think of Focus Attacks now. Focus Attacks have armour on their first frame, but only a few characters can kara cancel a focus attack into something else that isn't a taunt.
The characters meeting any of these criteria are: Abel, Balrog, Elena, El Fuerte, Gen, Gouken, Guy, Hugo, Juri, Makoto, Rufus and Zangief.
The moves that grant them this ability are the following:

Abel

• EX Change of Direction

Balrog (Boxer)

• All versions of EX Dash

Elena

• Focus Attack

El Fuerte

• All versions of EX Habanero Dash

Gen

• Focus Attack

Gouken

• (EX) Kongoshin

Guy

• EX Run

Hugo

• Focus Attack
  
• EX Monster Lariat
  
• EX Meat Squasher

Juri

• EX Kasatushi

Makoto

• EX Karakusa

Rufus

• Focus Attack

Zangief

• EX Atomic Suplex

EX special moves can be cancelled into other EX specials, Super Combos and Ultra Combos.
Exceptions:

• El Fuerte can cancel into non-EX specials too.
  
• Gouken can only cancel into his Super and Ultra Combos regardless of which Kongoshin is used.

Theoretically all these EX moves can be cancelled into any other EX move, Super Combo or Ultra Combo but since you have to buffer both moves' inputs before executing them one after another (what you cancel from and cancel into), not all options become possible.

EX special moves can be kara cancelled into Super Combos because they only use up the 1/4th of the Super Combo Gauge on their second frame but since kara cancelling cancels them on their first frame, you get the hyper armour property without losing any meter, which makes this technique very efficient and rewarding.

Armour cancelling using Focus Attack

As I previously mentioned, EX special moves can be armour cancelled into other EX moves, Super Combos and Ultra Combos but not everything we have here is an EX special move.

• Elena and Hugo can kara cancel their Focus Attacks into their Ultra Combos.
  
• Gen can cancel his Focus Attack into his style change, which makes it a Street Fighter 3-like parry in practice.
  
• Rufus can cancel his Focus Attack into his normal back throw.

Some videos demonstrating these above:

Outro

I hope you liked this guide and I hope I could help. If you did, please give this guide a thumbs up and check out my other guides. If you didn't like something, I made a mistake somewhere, you have any suggestions or if you have anything to share, please leave a comment. Thank you!

[SheldonTwitching]

I wish I could've EX kara-canceled this comment section.

[-Ramen-]

"Not much benefit from them."

I'm going to necro post this just to say that is not entirely true. Fuerte's OS run/U2 was a low risk wakeup option. Opponent meatied you, they ate ultra. If they did nothing or delayed their attack, ex run came out and absorbed damage.

It lost to meaty armor breaking moves/if they opponent attempted to throw you, but U2(without kara) beat both of those options clean in most cases.

I've seen gimmicks with Balrog's kara, and used Gen's stance parry in casual play, but Yeb actually did use Gen's stance parry in tournaments. It did have practical application, but the risk/reward isn't wasn't convincing unless you were someone like Yeb.

[THE MARS BARS]

Im sorry I didn't read all the way through.

[kim possible]

Yes, and it's mentioned in the guide. They aren't mentioned to a higher degree because there's no much benefit from them.

[THE MARS BARS]

Did you know that Dan can armor cancel into taunt?

[TAMA | min]

This is so awesome!

[KaiiBoi]

awesome thank for this gid beacuse i realy needed this gid

[lpedraja2002]

I've seen amazing combo videos and tool assisted craziness but that Gen parrying video takes the cake. I wonder why high level players such as Xian never use that in a match? I know it must be incredibly difficult to perform but PR Balrog use to do it when he went crazy in matches.

[pahnda]

i do believe you can armour cancel abel's EX COD into a regular TT and not lose any meter.

[Zeph]

It's called EX Kara Cancelling.