Main Question

[EmptySkyForm]

Not a pick a main for me thread per se, just wanted input from people who probably know this game better than I do. I'm looking to find the rushdown character in this game, though one who is different. I play Relius in CSX, and Yukiko in P4A, so I was wondering who had a similar style to them in this game. In short, I guess it's someone who starts their pressure from far away and can lock the opponent down. Please advise.

[Blade]

In Guilty Gear, there aren't that many "multi-phase" rushdown characters like Relius...except maybe Eddie, Dizzy maybe, Venom sorta...Anji kinda works in some ways due to his auto-guard system and the range of his attacks.

If you want distance pressure, Axl and Kliff are probably your best bets.

I'd also suggest Jam, Slayer, and Sol for rushdown, but Jam has trouble in some matchups I think.

You can always try Millia too, since she can slip in safely enough in a lot of mixups.

[Digital Watches]

The character that best fits what you're talking about is definitely ABA. However, ABA has a few quirks that make her a bit steep to learn, so if you want an easier time, pick up Jam. She's not exactly the kind of rushdown character you're talking about, but she can switch up her game a lot more easily than most characters, and you get access to good damage and good options with her earlier in the learning curve than a lot of characters (I don't like calling characters easy, but Jam gets to intermediate level fast. Of course, if your execution isn't tight, you'll have a tough time with her high level stuff)Edit: Er said that wrong.

Edited May 5, 2013 by Digital Watches

[Wild Candy]

I'm a flunkie to, but based on experience.

Dizzy can offer a strong zoning game with great Okizeme once you score a knockdown, and can go into an effective rushdown game once the conditions are right! But you're going to need to block effectively since her only reversal is a super that only works on grounded opponents.

Jam works really well in rushdown, being really fast and having some decently strong normals and some useful specials (She kinda plays like Makoto Nanaya in BlazBlue) However, her weaknesses are her short range normals and slightly below average defense. Jam has a hard time against Zoners like Testament because of her short range, but it's somewhat offset by the fact that with effective use of her flawless defense and rushing, she can do a lot of damage. Jam also has quite a few defensive options including a reversal, and the only Parry in the game, so she's a strong character to use.

Then theirs ABA. Aba is small girl who many people have trouble comboing because of her tiny hitbox and awkward weight. She also has the second highest health in GG. Starting out, she's slow and passive, mostly weighting for the foe to come to her and attack. ABA has accesses to a command throw and bloodpack special that transforms her. In her second mode, she gains the ability to do a run-style dash, her normals become longer reaching and do more damage, and her specials change up. There are draw backs to this second mode's great rushdown potential though. First, she has a bar by her health that gives her a certain amount of time to play in this mode, it goes down by a third every time she's knocked down, and if this bar runs out, she'll stop all pressure and become completely open. (This can be avoided by transforming back to Normal Mode). Second, Every hit, Blocked or not, will damage ABA slightly, but if use a bloodpack or her command grab before time runs out, you'll get some of that life back! Third, If ABA get's knocked down three times, she can be instant killed!) If not for the healthloss and lack luster performance in normal mode though, ABA would probably be overpowered! But hey, every rose has it's thorns!

[Solid Gold Wall]

probably venom?

[InWithTheAshes]

Venom or Dizzy, pretty much.

[YukiBlue]

Venom or Dizzy, pretty much.

This

[Digital Watches]

I've gotta apologize here, because I forgot for a second that this was a "help me pick a character" thread.

As such I retract my previous comment, and replace it with the following advice:

Pick any character and play them. There might be a character that's better for you, but you're going to suck at every character at first, and it might be frustrating, and you might switch at some point, but the only way to really get to know how a character plays is to play them, and play against them, and get experienced at the game. Even the really knowledgeable people aren't going to really be able to accurately predict what you'll be good at and have fun with.

Edited May 5, 2013 by Digital Watches

[InWithTheAshes]

Actually, he did specify that he wasn't exactly looking for a character to play (Although I'm not sure why exactly the thread would be titled as its seen now). He was just requesting to know who, exactly, plays in the ways he was specifying.

Although what you just said is very fine advice and I'd recommend he consider it.

[EmptySkyForm]

Digital: please offer Real advice. I would not be here if I had not done that already. To me every character here feels the same. So I will have to agree with the rest of the posters. Venom does seen like my style except for the charge aspect, and ABA also looks good too. I'll have to try Dizzy a bit more but since she plays like Mu-12 I might enjoy her.

[Solid Gold Wall]

Digital: please offer Real advice.

oh god

[InWithTheAshes]

Digital: please offer Real advice. I would not be here if I had not done that already. To me every character here feels the same. So I will have to agree with the rest of the posters. Venom does seen like my style except for the charge aspect, and ABA also looks good too. I'll have to try Dizzy a bit more but since she plays like Mu-12 I might enjoy her.

Oh, so you were asking for a main.

In which case, yes, that is very real advice and I suggest you read it rather well. The best way to pick a main is to both try to have experience with them and look up match videos, information on the forums, ect., to have a fine idea of all the characters within the game and which one you'd prefer. At the very least, I'd do it just to have some prediction of the opponents capacities/faults/anything else that you may find useful.

Edited May 6, 2013 by InWithTheAshes

[EmptySkyForm]

I'm asking about a specific play style that is closer to that of characters that I already play. So far only a few people have given me actual advice. This narrowed it down to Venom or Dizzy, possibly Eddie as well. This advice of "try every character" is useless.

[YukiBlue]

Venom. Honestly.

[Digital Watches]

As requested:

Real Advice™on understanding characters, playstyles, and the lingo used to describe them:

Based on the number of threads about this topic, the character select screen seems to represent the bulk of the challenge and angst people face when playing Guilty Gear, and given the amount of variation and different suggestions the exact same description can cause people to give in such threads, I think it's worthwhile to talk about what the fuck anyone means when they talk about character playstyles. I'm aware everyone seems to have a vague sense of what a "rushdown" character is, but it's really clear that some of these terms are kind of fuzzy, and even the ones that we have kind of a consensus for are themselves defined in pretty loose, non-operational ways. So I'm going to make an effort right now to nail down some actual metrics we can use to talk about this because it's more productive than finding these threads vaguely annoying every time they pop up. So here goes.

Advantage and Disadvantage:

You occasionally hear fighting games discussed in terms like "frame advantage" or "+/- x on block". There's a section in the frame data that's called static difference (or SD). This concept is more obvious in 3D fighters and old-school-style 2D fighters (IE not airdashers) than it is in Guilty Gear and the like, and so you hear intermediate players talking about it there, even though I'd argue it's no less important. But this is the most quantifiable and arguably the most important part of what makes a character's playstyle in Guilty Gear, and I think all our playstyle terms can be defined from aspects of this metric.

Being "at frame advantage" means, at its simplest, being able to act in fewer frames than the opponent. In frame data this is applied to how much stun a move puts the other player in. Everyone knows this. But the broader concept of being "at advantage" has a few more variables. In Guilty Gear, you have 0-frame throws. If you're in throw range, the opponent being at even -1 after you block a move means you get to punish them.

Having a faster attack than the opponent has puts you at advantage, all else being equal. Having a faster attack at the range at which you're currently fighting puts you at advantage, all else being equal.

It's hard to quantify everything, but with frame advantage, we can actually do math and figure out who is at an advantage at any given point in a match, if we wanted to. If we paused the match and looked at all the frame data and checked some hitboxes and did some calculations, we could figure out that point who is at advantage at any given time. After a hit. At neutral. At any range. Obviously you're not going to do this for every match, but it's an interesting way to watch one if you have some time on your hands.

But advantage isn't static, nor is it monotonically deterministic. Games between good players don't always end with one player getting advantage and then keeping it and winning. A lot of the interplay of fighting games comes from people playing from disadvantage. Or moving around each other trying to gain advantage. If you're playing fighting games and don't know this concept, you're doing it wrong. If you do know it, you probably don't think about it enough when you're playing. I know I probably don't. It's very important.

Static Difference as Situations:

Once you've got a solid idea of what advantage and disadvantage are, then we can talk about situations that arise in fighting games. I'd argue there are only two kinds of situations, and the rest are just subsets of them. There are neutral situations, and there are non-neutral situations. This sounds like an oversimplification but it's a very useful simplification. There's a lot of variety in how these situations work and how they can play out. I'll rattle off some examples so you believe me, and to establish context for some other terms people use.

A pressure game is a non-neutral situation where one character is at advantage and the other character is in blockstun. For the player at advantage, pressure games consist of keeping that advantage, using ambiguity to keep the opponent from recognizing or at least capitalizing on the situation when the player loses advantage ("a pressure reset"), and trying to break the opponent's defense and get their damage ("mixup"). In addition to mixups like highs versus lows, throws, crossups, and the like, people talk about false gap mixups refer to situations where the player at advantage uses a moment that looks like a pressure reset to bait the opponent into acting predictably, or even bait them into fighting from disadvantage. People who don't think about the game in terms of static difference eat false gap mixups all day, often without knowing why they're losing.

A zoning game is a neutral game where players use the threat of the attacks they can do at a given range to keep the opponent from attacking. Within zoning games, there are a lot of what people call footsies, which are games in which one player attempts to attack the other, and the other attempts to beat the swing. The players, if they're thinking about it, are betting that acting where and when they did puts them at advantage, or are trying to predict the other player and fight them from disadvantage, usually things like invulnerability or guard points help with this. Zoning can also involve characters moving around trying to get into a position where they're at advantage, or trying to bait the opponent into attacking at a bad time or predictably. In a game with chains and good movement options, zoning games are fast and dynamic, and the winner tends to get to move into pressure, a combo, or okizeme quickly. This does not mean they aren't an important part of how those game work. People often say there aren't footsies in Guilty Gear. Those people are often bad.

Being safe is a neutral game where one player has done something to be at frame neutral or frame disadvantage, but out of range or not at enough disadvantage that the opponent can really capitalize on it. This can happen during a pressure reset, or from another neutral game, or from a semi-unsuccessful reversal (Not unsuccessful enough that they get punished or thrown in pressure, obviously).

Okizeme is a non-neutral game where one player is at disadvantage because they're knocked down, giving the other player somewhere around 30-40 frames to set up an attack.

Clashes are a neutral game where both players have equal opportunity to act from the clash.

Combos are a non-neutral game where one player has landed a hit and is doing "guaranteed" damage to an opponent (You know, unless they have a burst). Getting around or baiting bursts, baiting out techs, attempting resets, and choosing between knockdown, pressure, and damage are important considerations in combos, and involve interplay between opponents.

You get the idea. I think this is a useful way to think about fighting games. It's especially useful for defining play styles in ways that are meaningful instead of stupid.

Character Playstyles are About Situations:

"God Watches, all this shit is obvious. What does this have to do with whether I should pick up Venom or ABA?"

Okay imaginary voice of OP, I'm getting to it, calm your tits.

There are a ton of terms people use to describe characters, like "rushdown" or "zoning" or whatever, but these are usually kind of poor, reductive descriptions of how a character plays. A lot of them are either stupid terms or used stupidly a lot. I'm not sure which. Basically, I'm proposing a way to talk about this that's clear and has an operational definition that everyone can agree on and, if there are disagreements, can be used to argue with math or at least some kind of pseudo-objective measure, rather than just saying vague terms that mean other vague terms at each other.

There are only two fundamental kinds of situation in fighting games, but there are three kinds of situations a character can be in. At advantage, at disadvantage, and at neutral.Almost any fighting game that's any good has characters dealing with these situations all the time. Guilty Gear in particular has a lot of situational fluidity, with tools like the different blocks, bursts, fast throws, and DAAs to change up the situation at unexpected times. So in reality everyone rushes down, everyone blocks, everyone plays okizeme, everyone plays wakeup, everyone zones. Being bad at any of these things will hurt you no matter what character you're playing. To get an idea of how a character plays, the main thing to talk about is when they are in these situations, which they are good at being in, and which they are in most of the time.

A character with a good reversal is better at fighting from disadvantage than a character without one. They have a tool that can more easily be used to exploit a small gap at an unpredictable time. It doesn't mean they should always try to reversal, but it does mean that they have that option, and it can be used unpredictably.

A character with fast, chainable, jump-cancellable normals and gap closers tends to be good at keeping an advantage. They can keep an advantage for a long time, and if the player is good at pressure game, they will probably land some damage. Guilty Gear specifically rewards keeping up a long pressure game into a good hit confirm with extra damage, because of the guard bar. If you don't pay attention to the guard bar, you're doing it wrong.

A character with fast, visually-ambiguous mixup tends to be good at fighting from an advantage. Millia isn't great at keeping up pressure for a long time compared to a lot of characters, but when she has advantage, she is very hard to read.

A character with good hitboxes from different ranges, or with fast moves, or with pseudo-invulnerable moves like a good 6P are good at winning neutral games. Faust has a lot of big, disjoint hitboxes, weird invulnerability, and basically ways to beat things he's predicted or has time to react to.

But Guilty Gear is a complex game with a lot of weird characters. What a given character does is hard to put in one category. For example:

Jam is considered by many to be a "rushdown" character. While her mixup isn't super-ambiguous compared to E.G. Millia, she has a lot of ways to keep her pressure up and false gap people to death, and high-damage doesn't hurt either. She's also a zoning character. Her neutral game is very advantageous compared to similarly low-range characters, and you can keep people scared of her ranges on their approach with tools like 2S, FB puffball, and her 6P. Jam can fight pretty effectively from neutral and advantage. She's not terrible at fighting from disadvantage either, with tools like a parry, a decent (not great) DP, and sometimes FB puffball again. She's not as dangerous in any of these situations as some characters, but she has ways to do each of them more effectively than a lot of characters.

Venom is what Melty Blood players call a "morphing" character. Good Venoms will often play defensively and fish for neutral hits until they can get set up or land something, and then they stick to the opponent and keep up pressure. Venom needs some set up to get to the point where he's good at fighting from advantage, but once he gets going it's really hard to stop him.

Baiken doesn't so much fight from disadvantage as change what it means for her to be at disadvantage. Many of her moves are available instantly from blockstun, and their startup happens in hitpause, meaning she is actually fighting at advantage on block a lot of the time. Her zoning game is above-average too, because she has tools with large, disjointed hitboxes, to make it scary to approach her, but not as scary as for example Ky or Faust.

When it comes right down to it, if I had to say it in one word, the majority of Guilty Gear characters fall in the aforementioned "Morphing" character bucket, with a few "pressure-specialized" characters and like one or two "zoning-specialized" or "reversal-specialized" characters mixed in. My point is that these terms are not very useful descriptions of what a character actually does. Most characters don't neatly fit into these buckets. Understanding advantage, reading frame data, watching matches, and best of all, actually trying a few characters out against good players, will tell you actual information. Fuzzy words like "rushdown character" will not.

TL;DR Our terminology for playstyles sucks, we should use something more definable. I've attempted to lay out a way to do so. If you're having trouble at the character select screen, you can go think really hard about it and watch matches, or you can hit random and learn a character by playing them. You should actually do both.

If anyone disagrees with something I'm saying or would like to weigh in for some other reason, please do.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Digital Watches

[zeth07]

If you are looking for a Guilty Gear character similar to Relius then I would definitely say Eddie. They are fundamentally the same character. Then if you just want to go by "someone who starts their pressure from far away and can lock the opponent down." then Venom would fit too.

So keeping the answer simple just based on what you're asking for, I'd say Eddie.

[Amadeus46Art]

I love you Watches.

[EmptySkyForm]

Digital: I liked your first post better, it was actually useful. This wall of text tells me nothing that I did not already know. It's just dancing around my question.

[Celerity]

Digital: I liked your first post better, it was actually useful. This wall of text tells me nothing that I did not already know. It's just dancing around my question.

You're kind of a dick.

[White Man]

tl;dr just tell me which character is easiest to win with i need that gd ten ranked wins achievement

Great post, though, Watches. The ambiguity of certain terminology used to describe playstyles seems to be an ongoing issue within the FG community, so it's great to see somebody address that.

I think one problem with the "Who should I play?" question when it concerns character comparisons is the fact that you're essentially asking people to equate apples to oranges. What Guilty Gear character plays like Relius? None of them, honestly, since ASW doesn't design their characters based off of prefab templates. Every character requires a unique approach to use effectively. And even if you point to some GG characters who use similar gameplay mechanics as Relius, you're not going to get a really familiar experience since A) each character is defined by the whole of the tools they have available and B) GG itself has a different gameplay engine than BB. Even if they had a character from BB make a cameo appearance in GG, they wouldn't play exactly the same because the game's speed, gravity, meter system, and combo timing are all different, among other things.

Now, if someone is simply asking who's the grappler or who has the best keep-away game, that's a little easier (though the answer will still be open to debate in a game like this). As soon as you begin drawing comparisons to other characters in other fighters, however, you're asking a question that can't be easily answered most of the time.

[Pichy]

I love you Dustloop.

[Adelheid]

Digital: I liked your first post better, it was actually useful. This wall of text tells me nothing that I did not already know. It's just dancing around my question.

Since you want answers force-fed to you, you should definitely play a.b.a because she is the sort of easy character you can just play. Eddie is the closest character to Relius style-wise but don't play him because he takes effort and that doesn't seem like your cup of tea, given that you haven't even put effort into figuring out what you even really want other than "UH KINDA LIKE THIS." So just play A.B.A.

OR ALTERNATIVELY go play marvel and pick magneto/vergil/doom

[EmptySkyForm]

I've tried Eddie, but it's tough to get down the negative edge with him. I'm used to it with Carl, but Eddie is just insanely hard. ABA so far has been my favorite out of the three (the other two mentioned being Dizzy and Venom).

[Adelheid]

Dizzy has a simple gameplan of "knock them down and run a train on them while not caring about their reversals because fish" but you need to be slightly clever to use her well and it's tricky to learn. Venom requires a lot of matchup knowledge and careful maneuvering, you can never turn your brain off when playing him. So, pick ABA. Sol would be even better but sidewinder stuff is highly character specific and I can't imagine you want to deal with that.

EDIT: Or again mags/vergil/doom

Edited May 6, 2013 by Adelheid

[TheRealBobMan]

Give I-No a shot.

Step 1: Get your pulse racing.

Step 2: Stroke the Big Tree a lot.

Step 3: Crank your tension to the max.

Step 4: Burst in their face.