Foreword -- don't do this until you can hit the link with some consistency. Plinking helps quite a bit, but a feel for the timing is more fundamental and more important.

Basically, "plinking" (priority linking) gives you an extra frame to hit the link. So a 1-frame link becomes 2 frames, 2 becomes 3, etc.

Feel free to look it up on youtube, but I'll try to briefly give the what, why, and how.

The basic purpose of plinking is to get the same attack to register on consecutive frames. If you hit the same attack button twice really fast, the closest you can get them together is with one frame of no action in between (so frame 1 is attack X, frame 2 is nothing, frame 3 is attack X). Plinking allows the same attack to be registered on consecutive frames (frame 1 is attack X, frame 2 is attack X), which effectively increases the link windows by 1 frame (which is doubling it in the case of 1-frame links).

The mechanical principle behind plinking is that when you hit two attack buttons at the same time, the more powerful attack will come out. So for example if you hit LP and MP at the same time, MP comes out.

And due to the game's forgiving execution, the same thing will happen if you hit them almost at the same time. So if you hit the two attacks a few frames apart and not exactly on the same frame, you still get the stronger attack of the two.

Plinking is the use (or abuse) of this mechanic. The idea is to hit two attack buttons on consecutive frames, the stronger of which being attack you want to come out. To plink MP, you would hit MP immediately followed by LP so that LP is hit on the very next frame after MP. So frame 1 you hit MP, frame 2 you hit LP. And it's done pretty fast (1/60th of a second apart), so you should still be holding down MP when LP is hit.

The game translates your input into the following output: frame 1 is MP, frame 2 is LP+MP. And because of the "stronger attack wins" mechanic, MP is the effect for both frames. So you could be hitting MP either right on time or 1 frame early, and in either case, you will hit the link. 1 frame late and it won't hit.

You can see a successful plink in the input sidebar in training mode. For an MP plink, it will show MP followed by LP+MP. An unsuccessful plink would show MP followed only by LP.

Technical note: You don't have to plink an attack with the next-lowest attack. It can be any lower attack including the back/select button ("blinking"). So you could plink MP with LK, HK with LP, LP with the select button, etc.



>When it comes to linking, you can't mash the buttons you have
>to hit them with a rhythm. And it ain't really no other tip
>than to practice. Here's how I learn links:
>
>1. Look for visual cues to hit the button on your character.
>Usually the best cue is the hit the next button when the first
>move recovers. So wait until his foot goes back to neutral
>before hitting it again. Once you can do the link from visual
>cues...
>
>2. Listen to the rhythm of the button presses. From there you
>don't have to rely on the visual. You can do it based off of
>the sound of your button presses.
>
>3. Do it with your eyes closed. Once you get that down it's
>muscle memory at this point.
>
>The good thing about links is that once you learn them with
>one character you can do them with any character.
>
>If you're on PSN we can run online training.


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