Guilty Gear Intermediate Guide: Welcome to competitive play

[Kasou]

It seems that a few ppl have watched my guilty gear tutorial vid, and have said there's a lot to take in, hence I decided to quickly just cut and paste my written version of it here.

Here's the vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63AE0s76qhU

and hope this will be helpful

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The core game plan

The core game plan. In order to play at a higher level or to up your game, you must understand it.

• It consists of five parts

• Making contact

• After contact

• Okizeme

• Defense

• Wake up

Now the five parts are all inter-related and together they cover nearly all aspects of the game (not teching. I think i'll cover that in another vid or something).

• Making contact is when you actually connect with the opponent. This could be from a dash in poke or a jump in. It could even be an anti air, or an anti poke. In essence it means connecting with the opponent, be it blocked or not.

• Once you've done that, it's the after contact stage. One of two things could have happened when you made contact. They either blocked it, or it hit. Now if they blocked it there are 3 possible scenarios depending on what the opponent blocked. You could pressure the opponent with frame traps, gatling strings or what not, You could do a high, low and throw mixup, or both you and the opponent returns back to a neutreul state (where the making contact phase begins again)

• Now if the opponent got hit you have an additonal sceanrio where you can combo for more damage, which could possibly lead to a knockdown.

• Now once you've scored a knockdown you're in the okizeme part of your game plan. This is where you're going to deal your most damage, and give your opponent the hardest time. You will be giving him your strongest offense and your best mixups to ensure you make the most out of it.

• If you are unlucky in the game, you will be hurt or forced to block. You're now in the defence part of your game. Here is where you try to either retaliate or force the game back to a neutreul situation. So use your FD, IB, invincibility, slash back and back dashes to restore the game balance.

• If you so happened to be knocked down you are in the wake up part of your game plan. If you manage to escape in one go you will be in the neutreul state.

(neutral->try to make contact->pressure/combo->knockdown->OKizeme game->back to start)

(neutral->opponent made contact->defense [got hit]->knockdown->wakeup->back to start)

Now that you understand the five different parts of the core game plan, we can have a look at each section in more detail, and see how you can improve for each section.

After Contact:

• Before I begin I want to make it clear that this is a general tutorial so I won't be going into character specifics.

Now the phase I want to talk about now is the after contact phase.

• It has three parts that it tells us to work on

• Pressure

• Combos for damage/knockdown

• Mix ups

• Let's talk about combos first (which is pretty much a no brainer)

• Firstly learn your character's bread n butter tension and tensionless combos. For both tension and tensionless, you should at least learn a combo that will do the most damage, and one that will knockdown.

• Additionally you should also look into combos starting from different pokes and situations (e.g: counter hits). The more situations you can combo off, the stronger damage output your character has.

• For more info and to give yourself a headstart please check out dustloop for your character's combos.

• Pressure

• Now if you've learnt your combos you should already know how to pressure a little bit.

• One of the first things you should learn are what normals are jump cancellable for your character. This is so you can apply more pressure by jump cancelling into an IAD string, or crossing them over with your iad attack (Jam)

• Another thing you should learn, is which of your character's normals and moves give you frame advantage. This then tells you what you should always gattle or cancel into, and if the opponent tries to do anything after that particular move, you should be able to punish it.

• So basically you must also learn what pokes is best after the opponent blocks your move with frame advantage (e.g: sol's 2s gives frame advantage, then do Force Break to catch jumpers).

• You should check out if your character has any specific pressure tactics (so check it out on dustloop). (e.g: johnny mist cancel)

• The last thing about pressure is that you should also learn how people could possibly get out of your pressure, and then you anticipate their escape and punish them for it.

• Mix ups

• In order to have a decent mixup, you must have at least learnt

• a good tick throw set up

• your character's dust combo.

• low attack into a combo

• Examples...

• A basic setup for both is after a blocked jump in, or after a blocked projectile (ky, venom, sol, anji, baiken e.t.c)

• For dust combos, it is best to consult dustloop. Otherwise an easy way to do a dust combo is to do a DUST, hold UP at all times, then do 2 air slashes(or 2 heavy slashes), then a string of air attacks that can cancel into each other. Remember to hold up.

Let's talk about Okizeme

• Every character is extremely unique in their okizeme style.

• So for millia it is the disc, anji the butterfly, sol gunflame, chipp his fdc jump, may her dash in kick, eddie his small minion, johnny his coin..... and the list goes on.

• Basically it's usually putting something out that forces the opponent to block, while you mix them up with throw, low, crossover or overheads.

• In essence, for the best mixups you must experiment or read about it. (huge example video)

Defense tactics

• Defending against pressure. The most important thing you should learn is being patient. Don't fiddle and flinch. You should just concentrate on blocking and looking for possible mixups. Do not be scared of blocking.

• Learn how to instant block. Start from instant blocking projectiles into blocking jump ins, and then slowly move up to predictable strings. For extra training try playing EFZ. Just keep doing it and you'll master it.

• Once you can instant block well, you can always try using an invincible move after instant blocking (example). Or a throw after a jump in. If your character doesn't have anything, you could always backdash, or FD JUMP.

• To FD jump do hold diagonal back up, and once you see your character jump, immediately do FD. If you did it correctly your character should do a vertical jump instead of a diagonal jump (example)

• Using faultless defense. Obviously use it to negate chip damage when you're low on health. Or use it to push your opponent further away. Never use it constantly or for light attacks. Use it on slash and heavy slashes and watch your opponent wiff. (examples)

• Slash back. It's pretty much the same as instant block but more powerful. I haven't been able to master it yet, but good luck to you out there.

• Special note: when the opponent anti airs you, remember to FD. If you expect an air throw, dun be scared, you can break their throw ^^

• Special note: Learn your opponents attack strings and find places where you can escape. Your character may be able to punish particular pressure strings (example)

Wake up tactics

• Wake up tactics is all about training mode.

• Get used to doing reversals (example)

• Super reversals

• Get used to doing reversal back dashes (example)

• If they're very close try to do a reversal throw. (but be careful of being baited) (example)

• Sometimes it is best to block. Do not be afraid to block. You give the opponent a lot of pressure if you can block well. Look for the TRUE oppurtunity to escape, nothing less.

Making contact:

Making contact is one of the most challenging parts of the game and that is why I left it to last. Pretty much it is the part that seperates your best players from your good players. So pay attention, because this might change how you play the game.

Firstly before anything you must know what are your character's good pokes

• So learn which is your best poke. This may change depending on which character you are fighting. So for chipp standing hs is your friend against testament. And 2s is your friend against may and ino.

• You must also learn which jump attack is the best for air to air battles (ky)

• Which jump attack you should use to jump in with (millia js)

• Which jump attack to use for crossovers.

• Next learn how to anti air properly. There are a variety of anti airs. But at the very least you should master your character's forward punch (if it's an anti air) and the air throw.

• 6p anti air is pretty easy. Usually you should wait till the last moment before you use it. If you hit it too early you might run out of invincible frames, or you may completely whiff. So be patient and learn the best timing for your character's anti air (example). Additionally be careful of air dashes. They might cross you over and make you whiff so use an air throw against close air dashes.

• Air throw. Everyone's universal anti air. In order to air throw properly your opponent has to be above you and you are beneath them. Just try and practice. I'll show you a few examples (examples).

Let's talk about more advanced tactics

• In general, one way to make the opponent wide open is for them to dash at you or chase you. The best way to do this, is to jump around. Air dash forwards and backwards. And when they expect you to jump again, THEY JUMP. But you being so smart you don't, and instead you netted yourself a perfect air throw or an anti air.

• Alternatively they dash at you mindlessly. That's when you stick an early poke out and smack them in the face. Or you can air dash back into their faces or just a normal jump in with a big hit box might catch them off guard.

• Another way to make contact with your opponent is to close off space. SO you actually throw out a normal or a move that restricts your opponents movement (usually makes them unable to dash forward or jump). If they're stupid they would run into it. If they're a little bit smarter but still stupid, they would get around it, but because you would have expected it, you would be ready to punish them.

• And then you can combine these along with your regular dash in and jump ins, you will be able to control the match and win.

I think that's all i wanted to say. I hope that the info was helpful and if not at least inspired you somewhat. Hopefully in the very near future you would be seeing character specific tutorials on each of the different phases. But yes, um, I hope you guys enjoyed it and yea see you guys at dustloop.

[Extollere]

Thanks for this!! If you could ever make a video with direct feed it would be most helpful. Pulling off air attacks from the floor is easy and fun! I didn't know you could do that!

[Xeno]

Ty

[FleetingPenguin]

This is amazingly helpful. Bookmarked. If you have any additional advice I would love to hear it.

[ajinkris]

"Do not be scared of blocking." LOL. You should tattoo this to everyone's eyeballs in America so they don't forget.

[YanisDLooper]

This was awesome! Also very helpful. Thanks.

[FlashMetroid]

OMG thank you so much thnx to this video I can finally reach high level play ^_^

[Hellmonkey]

I finally feel that I can surpass doren. orz Really though, each character is different enough that it's much easier to learn these basics specifically for the character one is learning.

[FlashMetroid]

I just like how this is "intermediate" with things like..."blocking", "making contact" I can see volume 2 coming out soon featuring super advance techniques like FD Break, Air block, Charging lol

[Mr. Mamation]

what is FD brock?

[BigNastyStyle]

This video is no longer available?

[Koozebanian Fazoob]

Working for me. Youtube can just be retarded some times.

[Blade]

Heh for a while all my urls were youtube.uk for some reason... ;P

[JMof]

video no longer available to me.

[Wendy]

video no longer available to me.

T_T seconded

[Expunge]

wtb working link! :o

[Kasou]

Um, just recently checked the vid again. THe vid is finally working again (and consistently too) ^^"