SOULCALIBUR VI – Tips for Frame Neckbuster – STRATEGY

Why?

 
Let’s find out. 
 
Sometimes a just frame neck buster is the only move fast enough, and in my experience the popular slide input method wastes energy and is harder to time with pinpoint accuracy. In potentially stressful ranked matches you want to be holding your controller in a calm and relaxed state and making no unnecessary movements with your muscles, body, hands on the controller. You want keen observation and relaxed accuracy with your mind and muscles. 
 
As opposed to a 3 button slide input, timing a single button while feeling / observing animation frames is more likely to put you “in the zone”. 
 
What does this mean? 
 
The more relaxed and calm you remain while playing this game the better your observation and accuracy will be. You can perform a just frame agA / abA coming out of buffer frames, whether it’s block frames or the ending frames of any attack. 
 
To get to grips with how this works, you can go into training mode and perform a move with big wind up and guard pushback, such as 66 A+B. 
 
Now, perform 66A+B and hit A as the attack is ending. You can hit A almost in the middle of this slow attack, as it doesn’t have to be right at the final frames. Understanding this is key to performing the just frame consistently. The timing of the A button press not as important with big attacks like this, but becomes tighter with fast attacks such as 3K; rather the timing is all in recognising when the first frame of the A attack begins. Now, as you practice buffering the A attack after 66A+B NM will just throw a standing A after Crimson Vortex, but what you are watching for is the exact moment the A attack animation begins. Hit the shoulder button too soon as you’ll either perform a grab attack or guard break attack. Don’t worry too much if you fail the timing at first, as these mistake inputs are a good mixup after a GI. More on this later. 
 
Get a feel for the exact moment when the buffered A comes out. This is when you hit either LB or LT [Xbox controller]. When you first start doing this try to hit the shoulder button late. You should see a few frames of the A attack before it’s cancelled into a neck buster. It’ll look a janky, with visably cancelled animation frames. Once you can do it like this, try to hit the shoulder button on frame 1 of the buffered A. 
 
If you can’t do it at first, you can use an alternate method to get used to the timing. Instead of LB / LT, use your thumb to roll upwards onto G > A almost at the same time and hold the buttons down. This input method will simply result in a standing guard if you hit it too early. 
 
Also the best way to do it from neutral is to hit A then LB / LT. It’s relatively easy to get the just frame from neutral using this method as well. The trick is pressing the buttons almost at the same time with emphasis on releasing the first button as you press and hold the second. 
 
With enough practice you can link a just frame neck buster coming out of any move or even after being guard stunned yourself. 
 
It’s better to be late hitting the shoulder button than to hit it too soon. Once you get a feel for all of Nightmare’s moves you can just frame neckbuster after any move or after being guard broken. 
 
Hitting LB or LT even one frame too soon will cancel the buffered A and either perform a grab or guard break attack, which can even land a win by accident before you can just frame consistently. 
 
This is also how to land a lethal hit every time after a successful GI. Which is very important. 
 
GI > A > wait for it > LB or LT 
 
Once you practice this hundreds of times you will be able to chain just frame neckbuster consecutively, using the ending frames from the previous neck buster to buffer the next one, which is a good option to ringout from either side. 
 

This is all about SOULCALIBUR VI – Tips for Frame Neckbuster – STRATEGY; I hope you enjoy reading the Guide! If you feel like we should add more information or we forget/mistake, please let us know via commenting below, and thanks! See you soon!