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Unblockable Protection vs Absolute Guarding

Malphius

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Can someone please explain the point of doing an absolute guard? I'm probably basing this off of inadequate or imprecise knowledge but unblockable protection makes it so that if you block the initial hit, all subsequent hits in that chain (or is it less than a single chain?) will be blocked regardless of if you press block. If that is the case why go through the trouble of using push block and alternating between down+back->back an vice versa to acquire the same result? It seems needlessly complex. Is there an advantage of Absolute Guard that unblockable protection doesn't have?
 
Unblockable protection only protects you during the frame that would be unblockable. It doesn't protect you from people mixing up between high and lows afterwards. That's what absolute guard is for: it allows you to defend against all mixups at the cost of not being able to PBGC and possibly getting pushblock baited.
 
AH! Thank you. How long does absolute guard last? One single chain? And what kind of strategies employ push block baiting? Push block doesn't seem to have any cons, to my noobish knowledge.
 
Absolute guard lasts as long as your pushblock does. Pushblock has a few cons, some of which include not-optimal positioning for punishing certain moves (though it can also make certain punishes possible), extending your blockstun if it doesn't meet the minimum blockstun (I think it's something like 25f or something) and the aforementioned pushblock baiting. If the opponent doesn't actually connect an attack with you when you expect to pushblock, you'll backdash instead, leaving you wide open for punishes.
 
Absolute guard works for the duration of the pushblock animation. Let's say you are crouch blocking a low attack. If you pushblock at that moment, you count as blocking low for the duration of the pushblock animation even if you stop holding down back. If you hold back right after that pushblock, you are now able to block both high (because you are now holding back) and low attacks (because of how pushblocking works).

That's what absolute guard is (that's the way I understand it, but I'm sure somebody will correct me if I'm wrong).