In fighting games, scaling usually refers to how much damage is lowered during a combo.
For instance, in Street Fighter 5, each consecutive hit in a combo deals 10% less. So the first hit would cause full damage, the second would only deal 90%, the third 80%, and so on.
However, things work differently in each game of the series. Here’s how scaling works in Street Fighter 6.
Damage Scaling in Street Fighter 6
There are many different things that influence how scaling works in this game. Unlike the previous game of the series, SF6 devs decided to take a more complex approach.
Medium and Heavy Starters
This scaling is a bit odd, and it somewhat resembles the way scaling used to work in SF4.
- 100% > 80%> 80%> 60% > 60%
Special Attack Starters
This is where things start to get a bit complicated. It will heavily depend on the special attack used.
More often than not, a special attack that is the first hit of a combo will not necessarily diminish the scaling of the next button.
For instance, let’s take the example of a light hadouken followed by a Drive Rush with a heavy punch in the end. The scaling will not happen there, but the third hit will go down to 80% as if the first two hits were heavy or medium attacks.
- 100% > 100% > 80%
However, if you start with a special attack and then use a light attack, the damage is lowered by 15% and then to 17%.
- 100% > 85% > 68%
That said, some attacks make combos much easier, such as Juri’s fireball. Those actually count as two hits instead of one for scaling purposes.
Light Starters
If you start a combo from a light attack, the scaling works much like it did in the previous game.
- 100% > 90% > 80%> 70% > …
It seems that this decision was made to reduce the power of hit-confirm combos from light attacks since they are significantly safer and easier than most starters.
Scaling After Drive Impact
Scaling after Drive Impact depends on if you hit or made the adversary hit the wall.
If you hit the Drive Impact, you get a 20% hit penalty and an extra 10% per hit.
- 100% > 80% > 70% > 60% > …
However, in the case of a wall splat, the scaling works a bit differently:
- 80% > 80% > 64% > 48%
Scaling After Drive Rush
Drive Rush will add a 15% damage penalty to the attacks linked by it.
In other words, if you hit a heavy punch, Drive Rush, and hit another heavy punch, the second one will deal 15% less damage.
Perfect Parry
The scaling after a perfect parry starts at 50%. So, if you add a light hit-confirm combo after that to be safe, chances are you will barely do any damage.
Super Arts
Super Arts have a unique scaling mechanic that limits how much damage is removed from them after a combo.
- Level 1: Won’t ever deal less than 30% of its total damage
- Level 2: Won’t ever deal less than 40% of its total damage
- Level 3: Won’t ever deal less than 50% of its total damage
Special Cases
Some specials and supers seem to scale differently depending on the combos. This doesn’t seem to follow a universal rule.
For instance, Ken can cancel his standing heavy punch into his Level 3 Super (shinryureppa) and deal 100% damage with both attacks.
However, canceling his heavy shoryuken into his level 3 super will decrease the damage of the super attack by 30%.
