We’re just a few days away from the release of Akuma and the Season 2 balance patch for Street Fighter 6. Leading up to this date, Maximilian Dood was apparently given early access to the new update with permission to stream by Capcom, so long as he didn’t do a deep dive into character changes.
While we’re still waiting on the official patch notes, members of the community have noticed some changes from the streams. Thanks to some keen observers, it’s been noticed that there’s a change that will impact every character universally.
As pointed out by HiFight, the frame data for the Drive Parry has apparently changed in the Season 2 update. Overall, it’s a little more risky to just simply tap the button in hopes of a Perfect Drive Parry.
In Season 1, the Drive Parry would be active for eight frames, starting at frame 1 if the player simply tapped the inputs. Following this, there would then be 29 frames of recovery, resulting in 37 total frames.
Assuming that this situation was replicated exactly on Maximilian’s stream, it can be observed that the Drive Parry itself is now active for 12 frames in Season 2, up from 8. However, we can also see that the recovery frames have been increased by 4 frames, for a total of 33 recovery frames.
So in total, this means that the Drive Parry action, when tapped, now has 45 frames instead of 37 frames. Indeed, a whiffed Drive Parry will be a little easier to punish starting in Season 2.
Check it all out below:
Season 2 tap parry is 8 frames longer…
Current patch
8 active + 29 recovery = 37 framesAkuma patch
12 active + 33 recovery = 45 frames pic.twitter.com/AfV3Y2PefH— HiFight(ハイファイト) (@HiFightTH) May 20, 2024