Duels of Fortune/Defense

Blocking

Ground Blocking

Holding back ([4]) will block all high and mid attacks while holding down back ([1]) will block mid and low attacks. There's no preblock in Duels of Fortune, which can effect how some pressure and neutral sequences work compared to a traditional fighting game, albeit not to a significant degree.

Air Blocking

Air blocking is done by holding back in any direction while in the air. Air blocking will block all attacks with a few specific exceptions. Air blocking takes slightly more blockstun as a result of being in the air slowing down blockstun decay slightly.

Throw Teching

You can throw tech by hitting the H button within 20 frames of being grabbed. Upon a successful throw tech, a fair amount of distance is created between the characters and the character that initiated the throw is slightly minus.

Wakeup Options

These are the options a character has when they recover from hitstun on the ground. Importantly, there's no way to delay rise, a character always wakes up when hitstun runs out.

Neutral Getup

The default wakeup option you get when you hold no directions. The character will get up in place. This is usually the worst option, as it's the easiest to be close to and meaty and even if the opponent does try to chase a roll, you'll still end up relatively close to them. Still, it has its place.

Wakeup Roll

When knocked down, you can hold left or right to have your character roll that direction when they wake up. Wakeup rolls go quite far, but most of the cast is fast enough to cover them with a meaty if they have the right read. Wakeup rolls are not punishable like in some games and have the same wakeup time as neutral getup, although they are easy to left/right if you correctly read it since you can corpse walk through them. These can't be used after a hard knockdown.

Wakeup Reversal

There'll be more details on reversals in the spending meter section, but wakeup reversals are a 25 meter wakeup option done by holding R. This usually results in a larger and faster than normal reversal, albeit one that's just as punishable. However, due to their limited way to be used, they're susceptible to safejumps.

Air Teching

Air teching is done automatically when hitstun runs out in the air, and like wakeup, there's no way to delay when you tech allowing opponents to chase it if they have the right read.

Neutral/Up Tech

Tech direction when no direction or up is held. The character techs in place before falling down. Usually the easiest to catch for opponents but since techs are harder to chase to begin with it has more use as a mixup.

Down Tech

Tech direction when down is held. Down tech sends the opponent towards the ground with a high amount of recovery. Usually characters will reach the ground and finish recovering there, allowing the opponent to do a grounded meaty on them if close enough. Down tech can catch opponents off guard and most importantly guarantees avoiding air unblockable moves, but can also leave them more open to pressure after the tech if the read was off.

Back Tech

Tech direction while holding away from the opponent. This launches the character away from the opponent with a small amount of invincible recovery. Generally good for making space which slow characters like Baron may have trouble chasing. Good when combined with mixing in other tech directions. When in the corner, this is basically the same as neutral teching so there's no point in doing it there.

Forward Tech

Tech done by holding towards the opponent. Basically the same as back tech except the other direction. Notably, you're locked out of this tech when hit by a Reversal or Break Burst, making it harder to escape towards the center of the screen usually.

Special Gauge

Gaining Meter Defensively

In DoF, characters gain quite a bit of meter both from blocking and being hit. Blockinng gives notably less meter but still a good amount, meaning its possible to build the meter for a reversal during more extended blockstrings. The meter gained from being hit is quite high, being only marginally less than what you get for doing hits. Combos that build 25 meter for the opponent often build almost 25 meter for the character being comboed, so you'll often quickly have the meter for a reversal after a combo.

Spending Meter Defensively (Reversals)

While many supers do have full invuln, it's never frame 1 and often kicks in right before the super flash. Many supers are also just not as reliable as a defensive tool as their alternative; Reversals. Reversals are DoF's metered defensive option, and provide a universal frame 1 full invincibility move. Reversals cost 25 meter to use and inflict a 75% meter penalty for 4 seconds after being used. Reversals generally startup in around 20 frames (although this varies), are quite active, very unsafe on block, and launch the opponent away on hit. They universally do 2K damage. It's impossible to cancel into reversals or even use them when an opponent is in hit or block stun. Reversals can be used at any point besides during combos, including out of blockstun. The actual hitboxes of reversals vary heavily between characters. Some like Rattlebone's are huge and hit behind them, while others like Shoto's are small and only hit in front. Reversals are an essential tool for getting out of DoF's powerful offense and are quite good at what they do, but there's a couple ways to deal with them. The first and most obvious is to use a normal that recovers quickly or simply don't attack at all and block the reversal, leaving the opponent open to a huge punish. The other is to blast burst a reversal. The invuln on reversals explicitly loses to burst, and since most are 20 or more frames, it's possible to react to the startup of a guard cancel reversal and cancel into blast burst, netting you a full combo. This is an expensive way to beat it but getting a high damage combo in exchange for burst is worth it fairly often. Overall, properly using and playing around reversals is one of the most important parts of DoF.
In addition to regular reversals, there are also wakeup reversals. They're reversals that can only be used on a grounded wakeup. This is done by holding R while knocked down. These are much faster, ranging from 12-6F of startup. They also tend to have larger hitboxes although these are still variable. However, as they can only be used on wakeup, the time they come out is easily predicted and can even be safejumped depending on the combo route. They are just as punishable on block too.

Break Burst

Break burst is the defensive version of burst. Break burst can be done at any point except when canceling out of an attack, as that will result in a blast burst. Break burst is similar to bursts in anime fighters where it can be used as a combo breaker or pressure escape. Break burst is fast and launches the opponent away in an air reset state similar to reversal, although not quite as far. When break burst hits, it recovers quite quick and is guaranteed to be safe. When blocked or whiffed, the character goes into air recovery until they reach the ground, after which there's a few frames of landing recovery.
Break burst might seem hard to bait initially since it's fast and can be done at any point, but the hitbox on it is decievingly small. As long as you don't stick a non-disjointed normal into a burst, you can often space combos so you're out of burst range. Using air drift to bait them is also an option, as is the usual jump cancel into block technique although there's a lot less opportunities to do that in DoF than other games.