There was no change in how counter breakers work with first frame breaks after opener. If you’re not getting it now, you wouldn’t have gotten it last season either.
The main problem is that as you play better people, they will both have combo tricks to make first frame breaks always fail, and they will tend to have much less defined combo patterns to begin with. If you first frame break reliably against me, I will kill you in 5 combos, guaranteed. 6, if I’m feeling fancy and want to hit you with something flashy.
Better players will also tend to not “get angry” over being broken, even on the first frame. The way you break is just data, no more and no less, and that data just gets stored to be used against you at a later time.
I really recommend trying to avoid getting into the first frame breaker habit. It’s a very hard habit to get out of, and it will be a hard cap on how successful you can be at the game.
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Better players will also apply these tricks latter on combos, no? As i said for me it’s very hard to break in the middle of a mix so it seems I’ll be screwed anyway.
But what you says makes me think a bit about Raam’s problems in being interrupted every time because his combos are very simple to read i usually get interrupted a lot on the beginning of the combos, i will try to use it in my favor now.
hahah what are the chances, I came to KI from Gears 
Gears is my “main” game since Gears of War 2 (from around 2009) and KI is now up there among my favorite games, I REALLY enjoy playing but I need to put much more time into it, I’m only starting to really understand what’s what and being here on the forums helped a lot.
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If you are looking for some advice, take a look at this site:
http://ki.infil.net/index.html
It saved me lot’s of times.
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Oh yeah, I got it bookmarked already 
I started messing with KI about 4 months ago, but as I said I haven’t put nearly enough time to be any good, but at the same time I have played the game, watching tournaments and YT videos, browse here on forums and been reading Infil’s guide so I learn something daily.
Infil’s guide is probably the most helpful thing though, really detailed and explained well so yeah, it helped a ton.
Not quite. There’s a lot more leeway at the beginning of a combo to catch bad habits - further within the combo things are generally too fluid to be able to do so reliably. So guessing middle of the combo is somewhat less dangerous than guessing as soon as you get touched. It’s still a bad habit, and it can be punished, but there are no 100% guaranteed punishes to it the way there are at the beginning of a combo.
Again, not quite as much as you might think. If I lock you out early (and I will lock you out early if you’re breaking as soon as I touch you) then you’re eating 40-50% damage, full stop. If you don’t break at all, or break later in the combo, then I’m probably only going to hit you for 25-30% damage. Depending on my character, it might be even less than that.
Basically, as long as there’s a possibility of being broken, then the offense is incentivized to keep combos somewhat shorter and less reactable, which means damage is going to be lower as well. You will see one and two break chance combos and light AD’s if you haven’t broken or locked out yet, and those things do less damage. Most players won’t just toss heavy AD’s and linkers your way unless there’s a lockout, and that also keeps damage down. If you’re always betting it all at the very beginning of a combo, then your only two options are glorious breaker and “holy crap that did a lot of damage”; there’s some merit to only having to eat small amounts of damage at a time. You don’t always want to bet half your life bar on a read.
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This is very useful data, tks a lot.
Still, its rare for me to see people stoping at 30% from a combo, usualy when i don’t break (on prupousal) people hit non stop with all they have in hands. Most times it happens the opposit, after i break one or two combos in a sequence they stop trying to go all out and start to do smaller combos. But ill try to folow your tips.
No problem. And please understand that I’m not saying “don’t break” - I’m saying don’t guess break immediately after getting hit. Try to react to obvious things later in the combo, and try to suss out patterns before mashing out a breaker. There’s always some guesswork in KI (or any fighter), but try not to guess in ways that can be very easily punished by experienced players.
Wow, then great to see you here Gear friend! =D I also brought some players from GoW to KI and one of the kids ended up being so good that he got a pro Star after training for a month =O he found his character:TJ Combo and he just loves playing with him =)
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Which is your main? You can also go for grab resets, you start a combo and stop then grab/normal throw to get a hard knock down and Star the pressure again. It helps to keep them guessing. I was never grabbed/thrown in another game as much as this one, so I had to learn tech throws kind of fast but even so they still get me, but at least not like 4 times in a row as before XD
My main is RAAM. but to fight zooners i usualy go rash.
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The problem is that I wasn’t breaking after the opener but rather before the first auto-double/linker. The difference is that I press the button for the auto-double or do the motion for the linker and then try to counter break before the startup animation for either of them ends.
As @Fwufikins suggested I should be doing opener then counter breaker and never pressing the auto-double but my muscle memory is already conditioned to “bait” the breaker and I’m having trouble adjusting.
Wow, this thread blew up a bit more than I expected. Yeah, we all guess break. I guess (hopefully intelligently) when playing against an unfamiliar character. But I don’t go for the first frame before I see any animation, sound, or rhythm to go off of.
Thanks for the advice, everyone. I’ll definitely try going into linkers after openers more often. Resets are tricky for me to do intentionally. Mostly it is the faulty shoulder button on my controller, which makes me look way more bad ■■■ than I actually am until I drop my combo or ender.
@Infilament, I’ve been glued to your site since I discovered it when I started playing the PC release. It’s an amazing site.
not even man. it’s closer to 50/50. if your talking about new players? sure 33.3 percent chance guess break. but let’s be real here. heavy ADs are an easy break so I’m not even counting those. I personally choose to break heavies early or the last possible frame. to avoId CB bait.
but serious man. it’s closer to 60/40 when you factor in an educated guess or reads. I’ve even noticed lots of people mash that medium more often than not cause lights are just so predictable. as such lets just say 70/30.
I’ll throw out a CB attempt at random just to let other players know I don’t give 2 f uks about your reads, I’ll pop that shizz. 
️
Is that before or after you lose the match?
That’s not an accurate statement. As long as he doesn’t throw it out willy nilly it’s a sound mind game strategy.
I understand what you are saying. When I guess break I think about the following things.
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The default controller setup. The default for heavies is the bumpers, and most people will use face buttons over bumpers and triggers, because of how they hold the controller.
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Most people want to end the match as fast as they can, or are looking for big combo numbers. That means lots of heavy openers, or medium if they use default settings.
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Alot of players only use lights when they are broken repeatedly, unless they are just a good player to start.
Now that I have typed all this. I don’t feel I ever guess break.
you wanna exhibition and find out?
Setting the president of how I’m going to play early in the match is half the mind game. weather or not I play that way is up to you to figure out.
you must be a boring player then buddy
He wont play you with his Aria, she isnt ready. But if you do end up playing Id like to watch please
I play Sadira also. I mean, the concept isn’t new. I just decided to poke some fun at it.