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This is still a WiP! Table of Contents 1 Notation/Terminology 2 Introduction 2.1 Beginner's FAQ 2.2 Common Problems 3 Strategy 3.1 Solo Zato 3 2 Controlling Zato & Eddie 3 3 What Eddie does for You 3 4 RIP Eddie 3 5 Okizeme 3 6 Eddie in neutral 4 Combos 4 1 Basic Zato 4 2 Basic Eddie 4 3 Advanced 5 Miscellaneous 5 1 Interactions 1.) Notation/Terminology HOW DO I READ STUFF?[ ]: hold button from this point onwards- -: release button 7 8 94 5 6 - directionals1 2 3 j.p: jumping punchc.5S: close standing slashf.5S: far standing slashj7H: jump backwards hardslash Abare: random, unexpected hits and the conversion off themOkizeme: attacks as a downed opponent wakes up into themNeutral: both characters in a mid- to long-range scenario, usually fighting for space to get an opening on the otherStagger: attacks that cause a reeling animation which has to be mashed out of DS: Drunkard Shade, 214SDF: Damned Fang, 623SSG: Shadow Gallery, j.41236Stk.SG: tiger-knee Shadow Gallery, 412369(j.)SBTL: Break the Law, 214KDrill: 22S/H, Invite HellRemote Summon: 214H after Invite Hell pool set Shou: -P-, small attackMawaru: -K-, Idou/moving attack, Eddie yells "mawaru" coining the termNobiru: -S-, Taikuu/anti-air attack, Eddie yells "nobiru" coining the termeddie BTL: -H-, Shadow Hole. Puddle in tribute to his old -H- in AC, used to refer to the buttoneddie drill: -D-, Drill Special. Hanelu in tribute to his old -D- in AC, used to refer to the button IB: Instant BlockFD: Faultless DefenseDA: Dead Angle AttackBS: Blitz ShieldY/R/P RC: Yellow/Red/Purple Roman CancelIK: Instant KillD6: Dust DashD9: Dust Jump ==============================================================2.) Introduction This wall of text is meant to be a guideline for aspiring Zato players. The character can be easily overwhelming to people new to him, the Guilty Gear franchise and especially fighting games in general. I will try and keep stuff like combo notations to a minimum and instead explain the idea behind the character and why Zato actually does the stuff he's doing. Hopefully this will inspire ideas as to how he can be learned efficiently and how to approach matchups. Should this beginner's guide not cover any questions please feel free to request them to be added, ask for direct answers in this thread or PM me directly! 2.1) Beginner's FAQ -*) Should I play Zato?Play Zato if:- You want to play an extremely unique character design- You enjoy a high learning curve and execution requirements- Enjoy alternating your playstyle, switching from all-out rushdown to zoning and back according to situations- You are looking for a strong character worth the effort of learning properly Don't play Zato if:- You have a problem with learning by losing- You don't want to receive round-ending punishes for simple mistakes- Hate putting time into practice mode- Hate the idea of running away from the opponent- Get frustrated blocking for extended periods of time- Get sick of hearing people complain about your character- Dislike playing strong characters -*) Can I play Zato on pad? If you have to ask this question you probably never tried for yourself. However, there have been successful Pad Eddie players in past versions of Guilty Gear where the character was arguably even more execution-heavy. -*) Zato is so difficult to learn! Where do I start? Zato is a lab character, even more so than other characters in Guilty Gear. The most common mistake for beginners is to lock themselves up in practice mode and grind out unblockables which they then can't apply in matches.Keep it simple at the start, learn very basic confirms and leave out advanced setups and unblockables until you are actually familiar with Eddie and how other characters behave.Play matches and aim to have as much active Eddie time as possible. -*) Zato sucks! Why does everyone else have so much better buttons? Zato by himself is arguably the worst character in Guilty Gear. That is a very conscious design choice by the developers and meant to counteract his ridiculous offensive capabilities.Guilty Gear has been, and most likely always will be, a very momentum based series. Zato, being the main offender himself, has to feel the resonance more than other characters.If you don't want to get rekt either play a character more fitting to your defensive needs or learn to deal with it. Even the best Zato players get put in the corner and slaughtered. -*) How do I press these combos? Why can't I hold all these buttons? There is no specific way to negative edge Eddie.While it is possible to copy other players, every decent Zato player will eventually have to become extremely fluent with negative edging and button switching in order to run fluent and freestyled pressure.If given notation is proving difficult, it is highly recommended you figure out your own way to control Eddie during these parts to increase overall fluency. -*) I can't do anything, why is this matchup so bad? The general idea is that Zato struggles against characters with easy ways to kill or prevent Eddie (Faust), have overwhelming movement options to maneuver around Eddie (Chipp), or a combination of both (Millia).In Xrd, due to Zato's inherent ability to completely steamroll others in combination with his ludicrous damage output, it becomes quite difficult to label any matchup as truly bad.Zato's complete helplessness when on the receiving end also opens him up to easily drop matches against characters that don't sport the tools to deal with Eddie properly (Potemkin). -*) What is this "flight mixup" I keep hearing? Flight mixup refers to a specific sequence utilizing Zato's ability to flightcancel his aerials and hovering directly above his opponent. This is usually initiated by Zato scoring a knockdown and consists of mixing up 0-3 overheads with lows and commandgrab while the opponent gets locked down by Eddie. -*) "Stalling"? This ain't Melee! Stalling with Zato refers to wasting time / avoiding engagements while Eddie is dead. Without Eddie, Zato's neutral game and offensive capabilities become extremely high risk so the goal of many Zato players in these situations is to survive until Eddie is back, often reserving tension to use in this case. 2.1.) Common Problems -*) Why do I get counterhit all this time? Did that jab just hit me from fullscreen!? Zato combines slow moves with bad hurtboxes. The character isn't meant to be threatening by himself, and getting your 6H stuffed by a j.P on the other side of the screen isn't all that unusual.Here's a comparison from AC:Zato and Jam have virtually the same 5K standing low, except Zato's has almost twice the startup, 4F less advantage on block and 20% worse proration combined with a hurtbox on the kicking leg that Jam doesn't have. Showcasing how a majority of his normals are made worse on purpose, you will have to rely on Eddie to deal with situations or lose by default. -*) I keep getting thrown out of my pressure! See the above! Your stuff is slow, if you are getting thrown a lot you're either too close for Zato to be comfortable or mistiming Eddie to not cover you correctly. -*) I especially keep getting thrown trying to use Damned Fang! Using Damned Fang properly is actually difficult. Commandthrows in Guilty Gear have only one active frame; it's a combination of dash momentum, spacing and timing required to make Damned Fang the broken tool it is.With 6 frames of startup, the proper use would be to use DF while the opponent is still in an unthrowable state (block/hitstun, airborne, out of range) and have the active frame hit exactly when these conditions end, preventing the opponent to use these startup frames to poke Zato out of it.At the same time using it's superior range to normal throws to prevent the otherwise guaranteed reversal throw that would happen if Zato was too close; contrary to Potbuster, Damned Fang does not have throw invincible startup. -*) Why can my opponent kill Eddie for free all the time? Killing Eddie is the prime objective for pretty much the entire cast against Zato. Various matchups have ways to force Eddie's death in some situations; learning how to deal with it is the key to succesful Zato gameplay.In order to improve your game, it's important to realize why Eddie gets killed in a particular situations and what Zato can do about it: .) the summon was straight up unsafe.) by not protecting Eddie you threw him away for free.) Eddie dying was correct, but you failed to capitalize on the opponents commitment to it.) the opponent got a correct read on your otherwise good summon Many summoning points during blockstrings are theoretically unsafe. By mixing them up with frametraps (commonly involving drills) the implied threat of eating a counterhit is what allows the summon.The most basic variation of that would be 2S 23[6]H~-S- or 2S 22S at mid-range. Refer to the strategy section for more advice on summoning and Eddie's death in general. ============================================================== 3.) Strategy Zato's general strategy can be simplified: Without Eddie he's the worst character, with Eddie he's the best. Spend as much time with active Eddie as possible and be as defensive and safe as possible whenever he's not around. Getting beaten in a situation without Eddie, taking a knockdown and then getting run over is the situation the entire cast is looking for when fighting Zato. If someone with a strong jumpin was to jump at solo Zato he might not even take the risk and just try to avoid the situation completely by running away, with Eddie out the same situation would be reliably anti-aired without a second thought. 3.1.) Solo Zato The main goal is very obvious: get Eddie out. Use Eddie to get in on the opponent. Wreck stuff. Some ways to go at it: -.) Use blockstrings for summoning -.) Summon off safe frameadvantage/range -.) Spend tension to force a summon -.) Punish unsafe stuff to get a summon For starters, work down the gatling chains and aim to be unpredictable if you're going to continue or get Eddie out. E.g. using the different hits of 5H to either go into drill or summon into -P- or -S-. Some characters don't have any reason to take Eddie from a blockstring. Millia will always be able to backdash out of midscreen blockstrings safely; even if it gets caught by a drill, she can airtech and get away. This is where just getting a safe summon and playing the neutral game to catch the opponent comes into play, and is arguably the hardest thing to learn when starting out Zato. Spending tension to force a summon with momentum is dangerous, as Zato is incredibly reliant on tension to get his scarce defensive options going. However, if Zato RRCs a drill and puddle summons Eddie into a Nobiru that's pretty much it, and the opponent is forced to deal with it. Zato's punishing game is very limited, and often very specific. Taking Millia as an example again, a point-blank blocked 214P can be punished by an IB 2D. The moment there's distance involved, or midscreen, IB Amorphous is the only thing that will actually punish a 214P. It's rather important to know what to do against specific moves in specific situations, as to not get made a fool out of Zato's common inability to beat things outright. 3.2.) Controlling Zato & Eddie Playing Zato while Eddie is up is where things start to get complicated. Beginning Zato players will notice Zato and Eddie interfering with each other rather than working together. Zato gets highly limied in his gameplay as he's not allowed to release unwanted buttons while Eddie can't perform any moves without Zato performing a specific action beforehand. This is where a lot of engine tricks and timings have to be worked into muscle memory. Some things every Zato player has to work into his gameplay: -.) Pressing seemingly unnecessary buttons, like 2D -S- to combo 2D into Nobiru without performing an S attack with Zato first. -.) Using the active times of moves where Zato becomes "immobile" to adjust Eddie's spacing. E.g. walking Eddie back during 5S 2S before releasing Mawaru to get more advantage out of it, essentially turning it into a 4S 1S input instead. -.) Learning the recovery of Eddie's moves to clear buttons. e.g. chaining 5K 5S 2S during Mawaru and releasing them while Eddie is still in his animation and can't accept any new releases anyway. -.) Maximizing all the variable frame advantage that comes with Eddie being independent. The 2hit combo of 2K -P- can range from +0 to something like +20 depending on the time of release. -.) Developing a feeling for pushback, and reacting to increased pushback from FD. Drills are static but needed to protect himself, Eddie and cover escape options. Drills in blockstrings are utilized by placing them behind the opponent pushing him into them. While they're amazing on block it becomes extremely punishable to whiff them and it's important to know when people will be pushed into proper ranges, when an FD block can push them too far and how the width of the opponent character might interfere. -.) Abusing general mechanics such as crouch, jump startup and FD block to move Eddie and press buttons without actually doing anything with Zato. E.g. pressing S during jump startup to not get 5S or j.S but have a Nobiru ready. 3.3.) What Eddie does for You People often refer to this aspect as "protecting Eddie". A better description would be to call it alternating space control; think about summoning Eddie, have him run up to the enemy and performing an attack. He's simply going to get killed by a long-range low poke. Instead, you summon Eddie, place a drill at the other end of the screen and have Eddie walk up while that Drill is between him and the opponent. Due to it's long active frames Zato occupied the space and allowed Eddie to move forward, now it's Eddie's turn to attack and Zato will use that time to close the distance to the opponent unhindered. Another common scenario would be to have the opponent jump out of a Damned Fang. This puts Zato at a massive disadvantage and most likely will get punished directly due to DF's recovery animation. The situation changes when Eddie is active: right after the Damned Fang whiffs, you release Nobiru and place a hitbox to prevent any retaliation against Zato; you get to continue pressure despite whiffing a commandgrab. At best, you get a counterhit combo starter off that Nobiru. 3.4.) RIP Eddie Eddie's death is inevitable. He will get hit, he will have to sacrifice himself to shield Zato, he will "run out" in the process of combos. Zato lost quite the tools that allowed him to stall the game by keeping the opponent in blockstun for insane amounts of time, namely 22H FRC and 22D; Eddie did get a shorter regeneration time to compensate for the lack of solo blockstring potential, so it's all good. The most common solution to Eddie's death is to run away and play the keep-away game, which is easier on some characters than others. Eddie's downtime can also be bridged by stalling; resetting into Damned Fang or ending a combo with Executor would be examples of animations that take a long time and allow Eddie to recover. Due to the safe nature of Zato's 22x Drills it is also common to play the lock down game if Eddie dies while Zato is still on momentum. A typical drill blockstring would look something like [meaty 22S, dash up 5S 5H(2) 22S, 2K 2S 22H], which involves no actual mixup but prevents the opponent from moving for a long time, after which the 22H might also be RRC'd to force a fresh summon upon the opponent. 3.5.) Okizeme Zato doesn't quite run the traditional okizeme of knockdown into mixup; he rather runs knockdown into lockdown. Knockdowns will mostly serve one of two purposes: -.) Get them to block Eddie. - A fresh Eddie summon after knockdown is where the singleplayer experience starts. A very common scenario is for mawaru to hit the opponent meaty while Zato is mid-air, preferably on his way down already. Things Zato wants to run off this: * A variety of high/low mixup in succession, repeated if blocked correctly for the first mawaru run This is most commonly done by running the flight mixup; jumping in during mawaru blockstun and mixing up with either jumping in empty and going low, going high with a j.K then land and going low, or jumpcancelling the j.K and going high again with normals of various timings like straight up j.K dj.H or gatling j.K dj.S j.H for example. To give a general idea of what it's supposed to look like, here and here are two examples to showcase the timing and spacing. * Ticking into commandgrab at any time Blocking the flight mixup is difficult, on a similar level to blocking Millia. The fact that the opponent has to watch out to escape a Damned Fang at any point during the entire thing doesn't make it any better. * Frametrapping, i.e. leaving gaps on purpose to punish throws and attempts to mash out and trade with Eddie. While the flight mixup can be made completely airtight, gaps can still be left on will and trying to optionselect out a defensive throw during all high blocks to cover against DF can be punished just as hard by delaying the air gatlings or doing a straight up empty jump into Drunkard Shade. * A safejump at the same time, blowing up strong defensive options The way Zato jumps in on okizeme isn't the only thing covering him; Eddie will also absorb hits and the resulting hitstop will allow Zato to gain safejumps on moves (Volcanic Viper, Beta Blade, ...) that aren't actually safejumps unless the opponent does something invulnerable that kills Eddie. Eddie is also well known to really love facetanking Deadangles. * Mawaru shutting down the option to backdash, even midscreen Trying to backdash out of a meaty mawaru will get blown up without much discussion, even for someone with ridiculous backwards movement like Millia as long as Eddie is spaced correctly. -.) Get them to block drills. When Eddie's not around to make the first move (He died during the combo, he got unsummoned to not die, etc) Zato is putting himself at quite the risk trying to mount any offense with his normals alone. He doesn't sport any great-to-meaty normals like Ky 6H, except for 2K all of his stuff is negative on block and even if it wasn't his normals are generally too slow to make actual use of frame advantage. Time for meaty projectiles! Drills have 48 frames of active time. If they hit on the first active frame they're +2, if they hit half a second into their active time they're already at +32. It's a ridiculous amount of frame advantage, Zato can take his time to see if the opponent actually blocked the drill before attacking, avoiding any risk of eating a reversal. A simple combo sequence like 2K 2S -K-, dash up 2P 2D 236H for unsummon can lead into a meaty drill during which Eddie will regenerate a majority, if not all, of his bar, after which the massive blockstun of the drill can be followed up by a re-summon into a new barrage of mixup. This essentially causes never-ending Eddie uptime. Note that there are some sequences that don't utilize the use of a meaty drill, such as a 5D6 unsummon combo, that just regenerates Eddie during the wallstick crumple animation instead. The idea behind it is still the same. 3.6.) Eddie in neutral [placeholder] ============================================================== 4.) Combos Many beginners fixate on Zato's combos and view them as the hardest aspect to learn. Turns out they're actually quite straightforward once the player has grasped the general idea of how Zato and Eddie interact. Your own muscle memory will be the hardest to master. 4.1.) Basic Zato Solo Zato combos are very limited by their starters due to his extremely weak mixup options and boils down to very short gatlings into knockdown, a throw reset, a frame advantageous reset or a summoning reset. Short gatlings into knockdowns consist of stuff into 5H 22x or 2D. These combos are rare as they have no real starter; no-one is going to get hit by a point blank solo Zato 5K, and 2K does not lead into anything involving 5H or 2D. More commonly you will apply these as a punishment to unsafe attacks as, opposite to Damned Fang, they end in a very close knockdown and allow sandwich okizeme. Often times you will have to convert off counterhits as a solo Zato; be it either scoring counterhits during stalling blockstrings, anti-airing or trading for Eddie's death. Anti-Air starters, or generally starters that lead into an airborne opponent include 2H(CH), 6H(CH), 6P, drills, air-to-air j.K Solo Zato is limited even more by being midscreen. Spending meter is almost never worth it to extend these and often results in nothing but a single aerial gatling that blows the opponent away and grants Zato center stage control. While some of them (2H, 6H) allow to summon Eddie mid-combo, I don't count them as solo Zato combos so I will not explain them here. 6H is the most rewarding counterhit solo Zato has available. It's abysmal startup and hurtbox are limiting it's uses to catch people pressing buttons after bad airtechs and or sacrificing Eddie as a shield for it. It will float until the opponent hits the ground and allows Zato to close the distance, pick it up with 6P or 5S and go into an aerial gatling. Aerial gatlings consist of stuff into j.D. j.K j.H j.D is the most basic variation. Some characters allow extension with j.S. Due to j.K being the only aerial Zato can jumpcancel he doesn't profit from jumpinstalling to get more out of these short gatlings. 5S 6P(1), sj.K j.S j.H j.D. If the opponent is too far away after a 6H counterhit, or in the case of a 2H counterhit that doesn't launch straight up but diagonally away, you would leave out the ground normals and go directly into dash up j.K. It's always beneficial to delay the j.D as much as possible. This gives time for Zato to float lower to the ground and results in more frame advantage off the j.D. In the corner this is important to utilize the untech time of j.D to go into another repetition. Depending on the remaining untechable time and the height of the opponent, Zato can tag on another j.K j.H j.D gatling. If conditions are bad, only a second j.D can be linked. 2H(CH), j.K j.H, long delay, j.D, land, sj.K j.H j.D would result in 172 damage on Sol, which is very respectable for solo Zato. An advanced solo combo for Zato in the corner would include a Shadow Gallery RC and start from something like a very close 2H or 22S counterhit. 22S(CH), tk.SG, RC, land, delay SG, land, 5D6, j.S j.H 2P 2D. 142 Damage on Sol and takes long enough to have Eddie available even if he died for the starter. Other starters for solo aerial combos include Damned Fang in the corner and 2D on some characters. 2D j.P links on: Faust, Millia, May, Chipp, Potemkin. Damned Fang links into 5P, which links into j.P. 623S, 5P j.P j.H j.D, land, j.D does 129 damage on Sol. However, going from DF into an aerial combo wastes the knockdown possibilities; unless it kills or you are playing against someone who you can reliably punish for bad airteching habits this is never recommended. The same can be said for any of the other starters leading into aerial combos; if Eddie is ready, or about the be ready, leaving something like a 2H counterhit for the knockdown and just summon or doing a meaty drill into summon might yield a better result. 4.2.) Basic Eddie Once Eddie gets involved things end up interesting. Things start to link, juggle and before you know you did a double unblockable for the win. However, let's not look into unblockables quite yet and learn some basic Eddie links. * -P- is great because it's fast and quick to recover * -K- is great because it has massive hitstun * -S- is great because it does the highest damage per proration Let's work all of these into a single midscreen combo: 2S -K-, dash up, f.5S 2S -P- 22H -S-, iad j.H j.D Let's not question the actual use of this combo but instead look at it for practicing reasons; Zato initially scores a 2S, which by itself leads into absolutely nothing, and releases a mawaru to hit-confirm off of it. Following up the mawaru, Zato does f.5S 2S to push the opponent into proper range for a 22H; 2S 22H doesn't combo though, so he releases a -P- to link the two moves together. The 22H drill launches and Eddie keeps juggling with a nobiru to launch the opponent higher. Now Zato air-dashes in during nobiru's big untechable time and scores a short aerial chain for a finisher. Thanks to our newfound synergy we scored 151 damage on Sol, quite the upgrade from the 41 damage solo Zato does with 5K 5S 2D! For air juggles, nobiru is commonly used to extend juggles or make them output more raw damage, e.g. midscreen chaining j.H j.D and then hitting a nobiru right after the j.D to prevent the opponent from flying away, then re-jump and linking more aerials. 2D -S- j,H j.D -S- j.D. This already does 163 damage compared to solo Zato doing 22S j.K j.H j.D for 90 damage. Now let's have a look at the reason why you picked up Zato: the SG loop. The idea behind it is to use nobiru to "freeze" the opponent between two hits of SG to prevent him to gain height. Since the second hit of SG causes wallstick this will also lead to a crumple if the opponent is low enough. Various things lead into and out of it; for practice purposes it is easily done off a regular throw in the corner.Throw RC 236H, [sG(2) -S-]x4 2D 66 22S. This isn't something you would actually run in a match, but a decent muscle memory grind to get the SG loop timing down which also involves doing the SG high to utilize the movement from a forward jump to stay in range. To become a proper combo this would much rather end after 2-3 reps and turn into an unblockable or unsummon. 4.3.) Advanced Now let's have a look at some of the more advanced stuff including unblockables, resets, tech-traps and unsummoning. Eddie's unblockables have always been a rather controversial topic. It is important to know that unblockables are not guaranteed and are extremely match-up specific up to a point where some characters are straight up immune to it. The general idea is that it's a "reset point" during a combo that returns a higher total damage than a single combo (Really? ) in trade for giving the opponent the opportunity to act. It is entirely possible to have a playstyle that doesn't involve the usage of unblockables without downgrading Zato's strength as a character, as mentioned you don't even get to choose in some matchups. Unblockables are generated by Eddie's -D- Drill Special. The first hit of the 3-hit drill is a low, and why this can create unblockable situations should be self-explanatory. Now all we need are some setups that allow us to prepare the drill special beforehand, it takes over two seconds after placement to actually go off. These setups include: * 22x drill knockdowns * Damned Fang * Executor The most common unblockable will be off 22x drills; either off a midscreen 5H(3) 22H or a corner 5D6 follow-up combo. The corner variation can technically also be done off a 2D knockdown but 2D causes a face-down knockdown which leads to different knock-down durations than drills, so it is highly recommended to stick to one route per character. -K- 5[D]6 6P(2) -D- 2H 22S. Considering this takes place in the corner it can be followed up by pretty much anything, including crazy 1-hit SG setups and all that. There's a way to loop this into more unblockables with the use of tension; -K- 5[D]6 6P(2) -D- 2H 22S j.H(UB) SG(2) RC, SG(1), 5D6 6P(2) 2H 236H[4] -K- j8, j66, jS j.H -P- SG(2) -S-, 5H(1) -D- 22H. However, this builds so much burst for the opponent that it's highly unrealistic to run it in an actual match; unless you just baited a burst and went straight into a punish combo leading into an unblockable while having full tension. Good luck. The midscreen variation is heavily depenant on Eddie's spacing, and requires a sandwich scenario with Eddie being behind the opponent. 2K -P- 2K -P- 6P(1) 5H(3) -D- 22H. The opponent will get knocked down behind the drill but Zato has enough time to run up, jump over the opponent and airdash backwards to push him into the drill and hit high with a crossup j.S. This combo utilizes Zato's limited gatling routes; 6P is only there so you have a window to input Dust without chaining into it. The timing of -D- is at about the third hit of 5H. Damned Fang leads into an unblockable anywhere on the screen as long as you haven't forgotten Eddie somewhere in Africa. Similar to old FRCs getting increasingly difficult due to lack of muscle memory, unblockable off the DF animation are hard to time but there's a visual cue to help you out. The time to release dust is at the moment where Eddie stabs his arms into the bubble, right before the red cross shows up. In the corner, this goes into everything including fancy meterless 1-hit SG setups, in the corner you mostly wanna jump in with a j.S, crossup if possible to mess the opponent up some more while at it. Follow up with anything that works midscreen or take them to the corner with something like j.K j.H Executor. Executor unblockables become relevant in abare situations; turning that random launcher or midscreen string into an unblockable. In the corner this is used to down enemies that are too high to convert otherwise; for demonstration purposes, launch the opponent very high with something like 2H -S-, then superjump up and do j.H into Executor, placing the -D- drill during it's animation, then just jump in with j.S for an unblockable. Midscreen this is used for situations where Eddie actually reaches the corner while Zato is still somewhere midscreen. It can be done by doing any grounded Eddie combo into 22H, then IAD and link -S- or -P- into j.H Executor; if Eddie's in the corner he can place a -D- drill in time. ============================================================== 5.) Miscellaneous Random stuff. 5.1) Interactions *Zato has an unique YRC mechanic exception to prevent him from ruining the game; 22x drills, due to their low-hitting nature, are the only projectiles that will immediately lose their hitbox when a YRC is performed. *Eddie has no actual startup for his (un)summoning. The moment Zato went far enough through his animation to trigger the on/off "flag" Eddie will accept inputs (summon) or be invulnerable (unsummon). *Eddie will not trigger trap-style attacks like Faust's spring platform. *Eddie is frozen during cutscenes and superflashes, but can move freely during danger time to position himself and meaty an attack; the opponent is invulnerable so he can't hit them during it. *Eddie is frozen during any RC freezes; YRC while the -D- drill is winding up will delay it accordingly. *Blitzshielding Eddie will do him no harm; the opponent will enter the successful "rejected" animation and become invulnerable for it's duration, but will have to continue blocking afterwards if it's something like a -K- or -D- that got blitzshielded. *Eddie has his own seperate hitstop; hitting him will not put Zato into a hitstop freeze. This allows otherwise impossible safejumps. *Contrary to XX, Xrd treats hitting Eddie like whiffing; attacks can be YRC'd afterwards (due to Zato himself being in neutral state) but moves that can never use YRC (Shoryuken type attacks such as Volcanic Viper) will be unable to use RC after killing Eddie. *Drunkard Shade will reflect certain projectiles but not change their properties. E.g. Venom's balls will fly at their original impact speed, Leo's S Würde will expire at it's original time etc. *Drunkard Shade is very limited in what it can actually reflect. Sol Gunflames, I-No's notes and Chemical Love, Venom Balls, Leo's Würde and Ky's Stunedges are about the only things it will actually reflect. It will not reflect a Ciel Stunedge and If a reflected Stunedge hits a Ciel sign, the sign will disappear but the Stunedge will not be empowered. It will not reflect projectile overdrives such as Dark Angel or Bishop Runout.

Nobiru is not AS effective since Millia can actually work her way around it. Doesn't mean it's bad, but Millia has extremely high horizontal mobility and a combination of jump height, arc and falling speed that makes it difficult to actually tag her. Nobiru is very important in the matchup (Due to how much time she spends airborne probably even more than you'd think) but it still takes a lot more than just that. Millias biggest fear in that matchup is how she basically suffers a complete touch of death the moment there's a starter leading into an unblockable. It's alright to go a little bit more yolo on her than usual and approach the matchup on a complete high risk/high reward mindset. If you look at how Millia plays matchups like Sol you realize how it doesn't make all that much difference for Zato to not have solid defense options against her; she wouldn't care either way. Her oki is strong but her pressure game is lacking, you don't have to just block forever and actually get out after guessing/reacting correctly if she doesn't throw the meter around to keep it running. That's actually a lot more space you get than in other matchups; however, never challenge her in the air. If you're forced to fly without Eddie around your main concern is to get back to the ground without dying for it. As for neutral, I'm still in the old habit of needle camping. Her needle isn't the end of the world anymore so I'm aware this isn't the absolutely right thing to do at all times but it's a rather comfortable ground to get things started from. If you don't know what else to do, fluster her by removing that precious tool.

I was aiming to start some threads and get a decent overview of information for new players coming in here. Other people said they were going to do it (several times) so I thought it's not needed, but now we're close to getting patchnews for a new version and we still don't have any actual threads other than a general. I started writing on a megathread tonight including bginner's faq, strategy and combos to hopefully get something started. I welcome everyone with knowledge to participate and provide me with stuff they want added. be it combos, strategies, misc info or you simply disagree with what's already written in there! I'll be writing on this for a while, I could make a complete tutorial out of this eventually. I will post it while it's still a WIP, it's better than having nothing.

I was mostly getting at j.S letting you choose your own timing without having to worry about someone like Chipp just crouching under it for free.

You're doing the second j.K too slow, the idea is to hit it during the standing blockstun while opponent just switches his input to a crouchblock without actually crouching. It's pretty bad since Zato can't go low this fast so there's no real reason to ever hit a j.k x2 flight mixup; it was more common back in AC where you just alternated timings anyway so you don't get all your stuff slashbacked. For xrd instead you should be doing j.k flight j.s or going straight from j.k to flight j.h to simulate timings where a low would actually be a threat.

Is that some online-only matchup notes I see there? Haha what the hell. "feels like guilty gear's take on dudley. this char is a scrub's dream." That's the information I've always been looking for! Especially when I'm still actively playing Third Strike and have respect for Dudley in high level play. At least it's a change from the infinite amounts of "can I play Zato on pad?" posts. I've gotten some of the Leo players around this area to whine as much as you do. How they can't even touch Zato, how delay makes it even harder for them to stay on Zato because they can't react to deadangles/bursts etc online shit like that is extremely subjective and absolutely everyone is biased against their own character anyway. I've also felt the online hate specifically against May after coming out of an online lobby. I'm definitely not going to run around and try to convince everyone how brainless May and how bad Zato is just because I lost to someone mashing behind a choppy connection. Being the Anji main that I am I also took note of you comparing Leo to Anji, stating Anjis weakness as being that particular one thing that's completely unrelated to it. Made reading your stuff a little bit more awkward. Quiz time! I personally think Millia is an extremely underwhelming character compared to her offline version, can you figure out why?

Did you ever hit the combo? Then it's probably right and you can do it your way. If I told you I do this combo by holding P since the character selection screen, would you copy it?

When you're learning the characters comboroutes and unblockable setups and try to apply them in matches you'll realize what a bitch Zato is to bursts. Bursts build super quickly in this game and you'll never ever land a full UB if you don't learn how to deal with them, so might as well pick that up at the same time. I'd recommend you take a look at all his guaranteed burst parts & find some way to hard bait bursts. Hard baiting massively sucks when everything is so setup oriented and we're not even allowed to block a burst if we want to convert into something good, especially compared to other characters that get automated burst baits all over the place (can jumpcancel absolutely everything on reaction during the combo etc) but it's all we got. Example: comboroute into 5D6; 6P 2H 22S unblockable setup gets bursted somewhere -> find a way to -H- BTL YRC that and go into corner SG instead for maximum punish. You will get results a lot more quickly if you know what to do against people just saving up burst to get out of unblockables.

Record Zato doing the unblockable then try to block it yourself

If you RC Damned Fang on the very first possible frame it leaves Zato grounded. I've been using this myself to go into SG loop + unblockable, it's pretty good. Edit: Here's a shakycam recording of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r16Ut2CA8o

I agree that pin should be used mostly against Eddie. Zato has a couple decent answers to pins aimed dirctly at him, from IB into 6p/2h/airthrow against follow-up airdash approaches (This didn't work in AC, but pin is so much slower in Xrd) to BTL it and throwing nobirus from under Millia. You're also not gonna get the pin back if he decides to sit on it with Eddie available.

Now that's awkward. I got it working on a lowblocking Faust earlier today but now I can't reproduce it at all. It's definitely possible on him but something's fishy here. I also tested on Leo, it's super free.

It's actually not so much about timing, but spacing. If Chipp falls "on top" of Millia, it's straight up unbeatable by 6P, 2H and 5P. The best case scenario for 6P is the first hit clashes then Chipp lands to block the second. 6P stuffs j.H at max range, I know that much, but that's a range any at least decent Chipp players wouldn't be giving to me. Going air2air against Chipp is great advice, that should definitely give Chipp a reason to calm down a bit. When I think about it I play Millia way too ground based still, it's probably the Anji player in me causing this. I'm mostly refering to the Beta Blade hitbox here, I couldn't find any way to make it reliably whiff other than just backdashing it early. I was a bit shocked to get hit by Chipp out of crossups where even the allmighty VV would whiff. It boiled down to me using YRC on absolutely every disk to be allowed to actually force mixup on him. I've lost a lot of rounds for blocking Beta Blade, having him RC it and turning that into momentum, so I'd start trying to hard read them with backdashes and more often than not he would abuse that to get out of jail for free. I really think that's not how Millia is supposed to perform in any matchup so I should work a better SG corner oki into my game and see how it goes.

I need some hints on how to play against the President. * j.H is unbeatable * 5k/cl.5S are unbeatable *Teleport YRC hard punishing any bold moves during this already difficult neutralgame *His reversals during disk okizeme force too much respect, making the ONE CHANCE approach for this matchup quite difficult I feel Chipp can out-scumbag Millia in this matchup which is... really weird and I honestly don't really know how to approach it.

Rushing her down while she's not setting swords is difficult due to sword normals being really good against Zato overall. Matchup is hard.

Dealing with stuff is pretty nice. I didn't pick up Guilty Gear to mindlessly hold upback and get five seconds to tech airthrows. Millia's gonna Millia, I don't see why this is a big deal now when she's been doing this for years.

You'd be even saltier if you played someone like Sol and realize how Millia doesnt have to give too much thought about your VVs anyway.

There's a blind spot at point blank. 2K is supposed to be used at medium ranges, alternatively you can use it to mess with your opponents reactions like whiffing a point blank 2K and going into the 623S commandgrab.

Let Eddie handle it. If you unsummon nobiru on block you end up at slight frame advantage. If you really want to force it you can try something like 2H, pause, nobiru release, unsummon. Should be airtight if everything is timed properly. This part of playing Zato is mostly freestyled, I sometimes run into projectiles to block on purpose (Faust matchup...) so I can actually get Eddie offline before he dies. Also here's a comboroute for all the aspiring Zatos to practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbVWpSbZft8

Flipping drills is pretty annoying. Other than that I think the matchup is ridiculous and Zato can mostly do whatever he wants unless the Potemkin player is some kind of super hard reading god.

You prefer Eddies old dolphin moves over the shark design?

BAP04 inspired me to go to the lab and see just how much reason there is not to get hit by ch nobiru https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFH0ikkgybU | Takes roughly 70% Eddie bar, Zato can be about half screen away if he jumps forward into SG. Getting a CH like that with a remote puddle summon is rather likely. Now this really feels like AC Eddie. I'll test this on the entire cast, I suspect most will need an RC extender to get stunned.

High pressure situations: you're Zato, don't get into that situation. Try to blitz shield / mash out / try to clip bad longrange pokes with amorphous etc, do dumb stuff. If you die for it it doesn't make that much of a difference, if you get a lucky throw you can steal the round. As for people going in on you: It sounds like you are not using BTL at all. It's overall an important move and, in combination with nobiru, easily Zatos best anti-air. If you get stressed by people going in on you make it so there's nothing to go in on. If there's no projectile threat (Millia pin, quick shuriken, ...) and you don't wanna play the reaction game you can also just time your stuff so that the active frames never stop. Flail around that 6H and fill the gaps with Nobiru, no jumpins allowed and especially no airdashes; however you empty your Eddie bar without advancing the screen or getting momentum off it and what usually comes after that isn't so pretty. Having people airdash over drills is not "wrong" on Zatos part. It helps when you're thinking about situations where you protect Eddie (you place the drill between him and your opponent) and where Eddie protects you (enemy airdashes over the drill, he greets them with an anti-air). Eating a CH nobiru on IAD height is usually very painful and nets you rounds for the raw damage alone. Back in AC getting hit by that was quite literally the worst thing you could do.

Look what we got in the mail. December 2014 and we got ourselves some HnK cabs. This game will never die.

Stuff -> 5D6, j.S j.H -D-, 2P 2D, flight j.H. Doesn't get easier than that. Release D the moment j.H connects, go from 2D into flight, works on everyone. You can't have any auto timings on the mine placement due to character specific wakeup speeds, you just need everything to connect which doesn't work with j.H j.D as well.