E3 DB Fighterz Notes

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Okay, I've gotten back from E3 and I've had some time to compile my notes on the game. I'm going to initially go over information that we already know and then get deeper into the game mechanics of the game. Please keep in mind that my accounts are from the E3 build and the game is subject to change. In fact, I suspect the game will go through major changes as it was reported that the E3 build of the game was only 20% complete.

The game is currently a 3v3 fighting game ala the Marvel VS series. A match is won when all 3 characters on a team are defeated. When a character is defeated the game transitions into the next character coming in and doing a clash with the opponent. After the cinematic intro the match resumes. This completely removes incoming mix ups, which may be good or bad for some people. The characters that were available in the E3 build were Goku, Vegeta, Teen Gohan, Perfect Cell, Freiza, and Majin Buu (Fat Buu). From a timeline perspective, I would say that Goku is from the Majin Buu arc, Vegeta & Gohan from the Cell Games Arc, and Freiza is from Dragon Ball Z Resurrection F movie.

The button layout of the game on an XBox One Controller is as follows:
-X Button - Light Attack
-Y Button - Medium Attack
-B Button - Heavy Attack
-A Button - Special Attack (Fireball)
-LB - Assist 1
-LT - Assist 2
-RB - Macro for Dragon Rush
-RT - Macro for Super Dash

You can jump cancel out of Light and Medium attacks but pretty sure you couldn't jump cancel out of Heavy attacks. You can even jump cancel in the middle of auto combos but usually after the 2nd hit of an auto combo. Each strength of an attack has its own associated auto combo. The 3rd hit of a Light auto combo goes into a capture animation. For example, Cell will do a Bear Hug on the 3rd hit while Vegeta will do a gut punch. Medium auto combos will end in a special cancel. Heavy auto combos will do side launch into a super dash and then an aerial combo.

There's a universal overhead in the game with 6+Medium, and the animation has everyone doing a hoping attack kind of like 3rd Strike. I couldn't find a way to combo off of it solo. I couldn't special cancel, super cancel, sparkling blast, or link/chain out of it. You can use an assist prior to the overhead to combo off of it.

5+Heavy is similar to GGXrd's 5D~6 where it launches the opponent sideways. You need to do a super dash to continue the combo or just transition into the heavy auto combo. 2+Heavy will launch the opponent into the air and you have to super dash to continue the combo.

Special moves involving normal attacks have varying effects depending on the strength of button you use. For example, if you do the Light version of Vegeta's Crusher Knee Kick it will just knock the opponent into the air but if you do the Medium version he will do a downwards kick to spike the opponent into the ground and cause a knockdown. Using the Heavy button with some specials will turn the special into an EX move and consume 1 bar of meter. The character will flash Red during the start-up of the special to indicate this. There was a note above each character's move list indicating this but it wasn't listed under Cell; however, I know his Perfect Attack special has an EX variation.

You can chain attacks in ascending order only, ie. Light, Medium, Heavy. You can even chain auto combos together but it has to be before that capture animation attack so, for example, you can do 5L x2, 5M x2, 5H auto combo. You can also hit confirm into an auto combo so you can do something like 2L x2, 5M auto combo.

The Special button is basically a fireball button and has standing, crouching, and jumping variations. If you press the button once you'll shoot a single fireball but if you press the button multiple times you'll shoot multiple fireballs. This seemed like it was specific to just standing and jumping Special only.

4S will have your character do a deflecting animation, which will deflect other Special attacks into the background. If they shoot multiple fireballs you can continue pressing S while holding 4 to deflect the subsequent fireballs. The fireballs deflected will actually cause collateral damage to the backgrounds. You can also deflect normal attacks but you can only deflect while standing not while you're crouching or jumping. When you deflect a normal attack it will push the opponent away ala Push Block. However, you cannot deflect while in block stun but if you're mashing deflect while in block stun if there's a big enough gap in the opponent's block string you'll deflect that normal. Keep in mind that if the opponent does a low attack during their block string it will hit you.

Dragon Rush is a hybrid of a throw, 5D from GG, and All Out Attack from P4U. When you perform a Dragon Rush the start-up has a red flash like GGXrd's 5D, but the attack is unblockable like a throw. When it connects it goes into a preset animation where you hit the opponent multiple times like P4U's All Out Attack and then it launches the opponent into the air where you get a dynamic camera angle when you pursue them with a super dash similar to GG's 5D~9. You can do a Dragon Rush in the air as well. There's footage where comboing to an aerial Dragon Rush in the corner will snap out the point character but not sure if that's the specific conditions for that to happen. You can actually reset into Dragon Rush in an aerial combo and do this perpetually until the opponent 'techs', for the lack of a better word, out of a Dragon Rush.

You can 'tech' out of a Dragon Rush attack by pushing a normal attack within a certain frame window. What will happen is that the characters will go into a preset clash animation and then reset back to neutral. I'm not sure if one player has frame advantage in that situation. Speaking of clashes there are Guilty Gear clashes in this game and they behave the same way as Guilty Gear.

If a combo were to drop but the opponent doesn't air tech or doesn't 'tech' a Dragon Rush the combo counter will change from Red/Orange to Blue but it doesn't let you know which hit you could have escaped like Guilty Gear or BlazBlue. You can air tech by holding a button but it looks like you can only tech backwards. If you don't push a button it seems like you automatically tech out but it's delayed vs a button hold.

Super Dash is similar to Arcana Hearts homing dash where it tracks the opponent and you can direct the dash with directional inputs before reaching the opponent. The major thing is that it has a hitbox on it and on hit it will put the opponent in a juggle state and you can combo afterward. It goes through regular fireballs done with the special button but as far as I can tell it does not go through special move fireballs, assist fireballs, and super fireballs. On block, Super Dash is punishable so you either need to read a fireball or time an assist to cover your approach. It seems like an okay ground-to-air approach but this is day -138238298329 stuff.

Vanish is an instant teleport attack that takes 1 bar of super meter to perform. It will track the opponent and automatically teleport behind them before doing an attack. The attack will knock the opponent sideways. When done near the corner or canceled into it will cause a wall bounce that will allow you to continue the combo. It's pretty hard to convert from a raw vanish but if you cancel into vanish it's a lot easier to combo from it. There's footage of people doing a cancel into vanish, land, then dragon rush. Vanish is also good at punishing special or super fireballs from full screen.

There's a total of 7 meters of super in this game and meter gain is pretty liberal and similar to meter gain in Guilty Gear. If you're walking forward you will gain meter until your character collides with the opponent's character. KI charge will progressively build meter faster the longer you hold it down. However, you're in a counter hit state during the duration of KI Charge. I'm actually not sure how useful this mechanic will be since there are multiple ways to punish KI charge.

You start off a match with a Sparkling Blast and the common misconception is that this is a Burst Mechanic. However, you cannot activate Sparkling Blast while in block stun, hit stun, or when you're knocked down. You can activate Sparkling Blast when in neutral or when you're attacking. You can combo into it and on hit, it knocks the opponent away but not sure if there's a way to combo after it. You can only activate Sparkling Blast once during the whole match. When activated it will regenerate Blue recoverable health and power up the damage of your attacks. When you lose characters the Sparkling Blast Icon will change into a dark colour, and it's most noticeable when you're down to your last character because the icon flashes. Not sure if this is just a visual indicator or if the effects increase as you lose characters similar to X-Factor. The damage buff you get from it is significant enough but it doesn't buff frame data like X-Factor so it's not as silly and not as dominant of a comeback mechanic.

There's only one type of assist per character but that might change in future builds. You can call an assist in neutral, on the ground, in the air, and while attacking. You cannot call an assist while in block stun, hit stun, or knocked down. You can call both assists on screen at once. Assist cooldown times are pretty long and appear to be character specific. There are situations when you call an assist when block stun is over that a message comes up saying Counter Assist. In most cases, the assist will show up behind the opponent and perform their attack but had one situation where it appeared in front.

You cannot create unblockable situations by locking the opponent down with an assist and doing a Dragon Rush. The Dragon Rush loses its red flash and the dash will just whiff.

You can DHC and THC in this game just by tapping the assist button during the point characters super animation. So far there's no way to choose which super to DHC into it which makes DHC synergies awkward for some characters like Gohan who shoots a fireball at a 45-degree angle. I've also seen people tag a character in while doing a normal/special and the tagged character will come in with a super. Not sure how that's performed, unfortunately.

You can hard tag in a character by holding an assist button. When you hard tag into a character they come in doing a super dash and if it hits the same juggle state happens and you get a combo. You can also guard cancel into a hard tag at the cost of 1 super meter but not sure how that was performed. I'm going to assume it was down by holding down the assist button while guarding. When you guard cancel into an assist tag they will also come in doing a super dash.

Not going into character specifics in this post since it took a long time to organize all of this information.

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