Hit-confirmed combos?

[Blade]

I'm not sure if that's the correct term for this but I see Nineball and other high level players do this all the time. The slightest stray clean hit leads to a combo, even if it's not a counter-hit....and in particular stuff that lands into light 2k air combos.

Ragna (as an example since I play other characters too):

But I see stuff like airdash j.C>j.D, land ground combo or stuff that starts off j.A or 5A random jabbiness. They use it and turn it into a 3k combo like it's nobody's business.

Maybe I just have trouble physically understanding the concept of spacing, but I get hit by these alot, and I can't seem to block any of that mess since they jab like crazy till it hits and once it hits even once I'm screwed. I try to keep people at a distance and manage them with standard normals, but once they get up close they win with jabs or if I start using jabs they win with their other normals. It's part mind-game part priority knowledge, I'm aware of that.

I guess, I want to know how best to handle this mess, what to do if I manage to IB something, and in my own way, learn how to do stuff like this myself to up my game. Especially the latter since my offense seems to get nulled a lot by barrier blocking.

[Dacidbro]

It's based on reads. If you see your opponent doing the same thing over and over again and it's working, you have to do something to beat it before you see it.

Let's say you're playing Hakumen. Your opponent is spamming jabs. This is like.. ideal. Absolutely any one of those jabs can be IB > countered for the next one thrown. You have to see the future before it happens, chances are if you're losing to jabs you're unable to do that.

[natearistata]

If you want to work on hit confirming, do what I just started doing - turn training mode CPU to random block.

When they block, do a blockstring. When it hits, do a combo. Continue doing that until you can reliably go into combos.

[DoctaMario]

Basically hit confirming is being ready to do the combo/attack in he event that your leading attack hits, but also being ready to stop it (and this part is ESPECIALLY important if you're hit confirming into a super!) if it gets blocked. Personally, I like to use jabs a lot because if it gets blocked, you can throw another one out and get a hit if your opponent isn't on their toes, but you should mix it up so they don't see what's coming.

A lot of it is practice and muscle memory though. Like natearistata said, Training mode+Random Block is your friend.

[ProudDisciple]

Wow I wasn't even aware that u could set the cpu to block RANDOMLY! I've been in training mode a lot but haven't even tapped into all of its potential.