Basic combo system of GGXrd?

[Lily]

So I'll start by introducing myself. My name's Lily, I'm fairly new to Guilty Gear (I've played through the story mode of GGXXAC with Bridget, that's about it) and have very little experience with Persona or Blazblue, so overall I'm pretty much a scrub when it comes to anime games. That said, I do have a bit more experience when it comes to other fighters, mainly UMvC3, Skullgirls, and King of Fighters.

 

I've been trying to learn how to play Millia in Xrd, and was browsing the combo thread for her. I get the combos, but I really don't understand how they work, which leads to me having trouble using them in an actual match. Marvel and Skullgirls have the Magic Series that all of their combos are based on, which makes them easy to remember. King of Fighters has it's Normal>Command Normal>Special series that makes combos in that easy to remember, but it feels like in Guilty Gear Xrd, moves just combo into other moves because the frame data and hitboxes work, and there's no real rhyme or reason to it. Is there something I'm missing or is that just how combos work in this game?

[bungiefan]

The basic gatling string is explained in the tutorial, P > K > S > HS. However, with all the cancels you have in the game, and that some moves with some characters string into others because of recovery frames being shorter than hitstun, combos are more freeform. You can also spend meter to extend a combo by canceling recovery time from a hit that won't normally let you link to something else. This leaves plenty of room for people to discover and build combos to optimize damage. The game also tells you if your combo can be teched out of, and on what hit, if you want to bait a recovery into an air grab or a new combo.

[freelander]

  I get the combos, but I really don't understand how they work, which leads to me having trouble using them in an actual match.

this sentence doesn't make much sense.  How do you get the combos if you don't know how they work? Anyways, if you can do a combo in training, you should be able to do that in a real match.

 

..it feels like in Guilty Gear Xrd, moves just combo into other moves because the frame data and hitboxes work, and there's no real rhyme or reason to it. ...

Actually that's how in every game combos work.. Why is that a not good enough reason for you?

Even in Skullgirls you can't combo everything just because it chains in the correct order, a lot of time the next move will whiff in air combos (HITBOXES) and same with KOF, things won't combo just because you do them in a chain, for example Shen's cr.A fwd+B won't combo (FRAMES), not to mention slower specials, which won't combo at the end of that series.

In Guilty Gear, the normal chains are character specific, but still have the loose order of lighter normals toward the heavier ones, where some lighter normals can cancel into themselves.

 

Typical combos are: 

ground chain into knockdown.

ground chain, some launcher, jump into aircombo

anti-air normal, jump into aircombo

special launcher, (ground chain), aircombo

 

Millia's air combos are quite atypical.

[Margatroid]

Millia is not an easy beginning character. But there is a great Millia community on here, and anyone can learn her if they try. You should visit the Millia forum below.

[Vashimus]

Also try to look at match videos when you can and see what other top players are doing. High level match footage is worth a thousand threads.