Parrying is a technique introduced in the Street Fighter III series that refers to a way to avoid an opponent's attack without taking damage or blocking. It is performed by pressing forward or down (in the case of a low attack) at the very moment an opponent's attack is about to hit. A successful parry usually leaves the opponent vulnerable to a counter-attack. It is also possible to parry in the air by pressing down. Parrying works against normal, special and super hits. To parry a special move or a super, you have to parry each frame individually (so press forward/down again). In Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle the parrying technique takes the form of an elegant dodge, requiring the defender to hold (back button) as soon as an attack is launched to instantly slide to the vulnerable side of the attacker. The most famous parry is Daigo Umehara's against Justin Wong in the Loser final of EVO 2004, which you can watch here.

Guard completely cancelling chip damage, usually with a very strict execution time (a few frames before the opponent's hit).

A character whose special moves must be charged in order to be launched, Guile from Street Fighter is an example of a charged character.

A fundamental technique where two or more buttons are pressed in quick succession, allowing commands to be recorded more easily, and ensuring a better execution of the sequence. This technique was popularised in Super Street Fighter IV, when players used it to perform the most difficult combos.

Making a random movement.

Combines with Frame Advantages. "Plus" means that the attacker's recovery frames are fewer than the defender's.

A term used in Tag Battles such as DBFZ to refer to the first character on a team. A point is usually a character who will quickly raise energy bars, without needing to spend any to shine. He is often the character on a team most dependent on assists, either to accentuate his strengths or compensate for some of his weaknesses.

The aim is to hit the enemy without engaging in a long hit phase, just to harass him while remaining safe, this tactic is also called "hit'n run".

A move aimed at jumping on the opponent when the latter is on the ground.

Gauge that fills up with catch and/or damage infliction. Part of this gauge is required to perform ex, super and ultimate.

Using a sequence of attacks to force the opponent onto the defensive, usually involving Okizeme and/or Mix-Up. The purpose of pressing the opponent is to prevent them from attacking until they make a mistake, allowing the use of a Command Move, or to launch a combo.

The Pretzel Motion is a move introduced in Fatal Fury Special, used by series antagonist Geese Howard as his Raging Storm Desperation Move. This move is said to be hard to perform as it requires the use of the back-low command plus a half circle back, then low-front. The name comes from these three moves performed in one sequence. Hazama from the BlazBlue series also uses this move in his Astral Heat.

The tendency of an attack to hit the opponent when the opponent is also attacking. In general, high priority attacks always interrupt low priority attacks. It is important to note that the term Priority is a convention, as few games currently have internal mechanics governing the resolution of attacks through priority. Rather, priority is a consequence of a character's hit box properties during a move. These properties can generally direct priority in two ways. First, during a hit, the attacker's hit box may extend much further than the target's hit box, so that he can hit the opponent without being hit. Priority can also manifest itself in a second way, when a move allows a character to become invincible for all or part of the move's frames (this invincibility usually resulting in no Hit Box at all). One of the most famous high-priority moves is Ken's Shoryuken in the Street Fighter II series, a move that has many frames of invincibility during its starting frames. The number of these invincibility frames was reduced in later versions of the game, but even without this, his attack Hit Box (a Hit Box that symbolises the character's attack but is not vulnerable to hits) remained much larger than the opponent's for much of the move.

Phase during which your opponent has screwed up and left a big opening. The punishment is to place maximum damage during this phase.

A Puppet Fighter is a type of character with the ability to control two different people or entities simultaneously. One is the main character, while the other acts as an additional tool (the Puppet). These types of characters are considered to be among the most difficult to play. If played well, a player can control most of the screen. This archetype is usually one of the most powerful characters in the game it is integrated into. The first Puppet Fighter was introduced in the Capcom game Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, with the character Devo and his Ebony Devil. This style of gameplay was later adopted by other licences. The most famous Puppet Fighters are : Ice Climbers (Smash Bros. Melee), Zato-1/Eddie (Guilty Gear), Carl and Relius (BlazBlue), Rosalina (Super Smash Bros. 4) Ms Fortune (Skullgirls), Viola (Soul Calibur V).

While this could be done by some characters in Street Fighter II, this mechanic was only really implemented in Night Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge. It is an attack that hits an opponent on the ground. A combo that includes but does not end with a Pursuit Attack is called Off-the-Ground or simply OTG.

A technique added to the classic block, which repels an attacker using an attack sequence on the defender. It appears in games such as Marvel vs Capcom, Skullgirls, Injustice: Gods Among Us and Dragon Ball Fighters Z.