A Killer Instinct Guide for SFIV Players by Infil

When Fulgore attacks with any normal attack and certain special attacks (Blade Dash, Plasma Slice, any linker), on block or on hit, the entire reactor gauge will flash yellow, indicating that Fulgore has increased his reactor speed. The spinner will spin faster, causing the blue bar to increase its speed, which earns Fulgore meter faster. When Fulgore is knocked down, or performs any special move deemed to be an "Energy System" (Energy Bolt, Eye Laser, Plasmaport), the reactor gauge will flash red, which will decrease his reactor speed and slow Fulgore's meter gain. The end result is that using Fulgore's strong zoning and runaway tools will cause him to earn meter slower, while pressuring your opponent will make him earn it faster. At its slowest, Fulgore gains one pip about every 13 seconds (ouch). At its fastest, Fulgore will earn a pip about every 2.5 seconds.

Why is his meter divided into these little pips? Because Fulgore can spend one pip to cancel a special move into another special move (with some caveats; he can't cancel out of a blocked special move, and he can't cancel out of his Plasma Slice uppercut). The applications for this are incredibly diverse. Throw a fireball and your opponent jumped? Doesn't matter, spend a pip to cancel it into uppercut for foolproof anti-air. Want to mix your opponent up? Cancel a Plasmaport into another Plasmaport, or an Energy Bolt fireball into another fireball into a Plasmaport into a safe on block special move, and then throw them. You can continually cancel special moves until you run out of pips, which means Fulgore can either be an impossible to crack zoner, or impossible to block rushdown character, as long as he spends his pips wisely. Because he gains them at a set rate, if you can weather the storm or pressure him at the start of a match, there will be moments in the match where he can't go crazy.

Fulgore also gains benefits if his meter hits certain levels. When the first 4 green pips are full, he earns a substantial buff to his forward walk speed, making him scary in footsies. At 8 pips full, he earns a buff to his backwards walk speed, and when the whole meter is full, he gains faster and farther forward and backwards dashes and access to the Devastation Beam shadow move. Devastation Beam spends all 10 pips, but fires a giant red laser across the screen in 1 frame (after 5 frames of vulnerable pre-freeze startup; this is not a reversal) which does 31% damage. It's a very costly move, but the threat (and satisfaction) of sniping someone jumping a full screen away on reaction is pretty strong, and it might be just what you need to close out a close match.

Fulgore has two primary openers. He charges at his opponent with his blade during Blade Dash, a safe on block forward-traveling move which can be held in place if you hold the kick button. Holding it typically only has uses for certain post-knockdown setups, so it's more common to just use it as a normal block string finisher. Eye Laser can be fired at three different angles. Only the LP and MP version hit grounded opponent, as the HP version is used for anti-air, but LP hits low, which is particularly noteworthy if you cancel it off an overhead for a quick high-then-low block string which can surprise opponents. Shadow Plasmaport is a 5-hit shadow move which always teleports behind the opponent before attacking, but its tracking properties are poor, making it hard to hit moving opponents.

Eye Laser shoots one, two, or three lasers into the torso; it's the more damaging of the two linkers, and you can't beat the cool factor of a robot shooting lasers from its eyes while it's comboing you. Meanwhile, the sadly laser-less Blade Dash will push the opponent closer to the corner and execute faster. Shadow Plasmaport is not worth the meter as a linker; if you're going to choose to spend bar on shadow linkers instead of in Fulgore's neutral game, use shadow Blade Dash, as it's a fast attack that can really tack on damage during a lockout.

Fulgore is surprisingly limited with his enders. His main ender is his Plasma Slice damage ender, and it hurts a lot, especially if you use 4 pips on the shadow ender at level 4. He actually has two launcher enders, both of which launch the opponent directly in front of Fulgore. He can attack the opponent as they're falling with an attack such as standing HK, which boots the opponent across the screen and gives a hard knockdown. Fulgore can then cancel the standing HK into a nasty fireball/teleport mixup using some pips if he wants, or retreat and reestablish his strong zoning game.

Normals to watch: Fulgore is very competent in footsies. Crouching MK is the great low poke you would expect a fireball zoner to have, while standing MK is a fantastic move that causes Fulgore to lift his front foot and drastically reduce his ability to be hit low. +HP is a 2-hit spinning command normal that moves Fulgore drastically forward and is cancelable into openers, which is great for both whiff punishes and pressure. It can be shadow counter bait, but it causes the reactor to increase spin speed for both of its two hits. Fulgore's +HP overhead earns him a lot of mileage; it serves a very similar purpose to Jago's overhead, but doesn't have quite the range. When Fulgore is spending pips galore on his rushdown, though, it doesn't matter, opponents will get hit by it. Standing HK punts the opponent across the screen and is always a hard knockdown; use it after Launcher enders or in footsies to reset spacing or apply mixups. And lastly, Fulgore's close standing LK is an exceptional tool for tick throws and other mixups. It has great range and a large hitbox, is fast at 5 frames, and can be canceled into Plasmaports and Eye Lasers for surprising mixups.

Specials to watch: For a zoning Fulgore, his Energy Bolt projectile can be fired at three speeds, and pip-canceled up to three times into itself, creating a series of three fireballs traveling at different (or the same) speeds across the screen. If you try jumping, you'll probably get hit, either by the staggered fireballs or by Fulgore spending a pip to cancel into HP Eye Laser or Plasma Slice anti-air, depending on the range. You'll probably also fall into the fireballs for a combo, so you're better off blocking them and earning the shadow meter. For a rushdown Fulgore, everything is about Plasmaport. Watch out for multiple Plasmaports following ranged fireballs, close normals, or any number of mid-combo resets. His Plasma Slice uppercut can be canceled on hit or block into the air version of shadow Eye Laser in an attempt to catch an opponent's punish. It costs 4 pips like all shadows, a high price to pay for meter-starved Fulgore, and it's unsafe if your opponent doesn't take the bait, but it's an option that works from time to time.

General strategy: You may have noticed that my description of Fulgore sounds an awful lot like Spinal. He has a unique resource which he has to earn before he can use, and then he spends it by canceling fireballs into multiple teleports for scary left-right mixups, and once he's on top of you, he can keep the momentum going. And you'd be right! The main difference is that Fulgore is much stronger than Spinal in footsies and on knockdown, since at the very least Fulgore has a fast invincible reversal, while Spinal's combos do a lot of damage and steal all his opponent's resources, which makes Spinal's rushdown harder to escape. Fulgore is probably best played as a hybrid hit-and-run style character, and then catching your opponent in a moment of frustration and rushing them down, although you can have success playing Fulgore purely as zoning or purely as rushdown if you end up loving one of these aspects more than the other. Fulgore lives and dies by his meter perhaps even more extremely than Spinal needs his skulls, and there's only a set number of pips you can get per second, even with perfect play, so playing Fulgore requires a lot of fighting game intelligence and understanding of meter management. Or, you might just be attracted to his ponytail and full screen laser beam.