dehumanizer

As a counter example to your argument, FAB makes Pot look higher than he actually is, but that isn't the case. There may be more to tier lists than just character potential.

That's what makes guilty gear so awesome imo, even the bottom characters are represented in high level play. In tourneys you won't only see one character being played or winning all the time. This game is not like Street Fighter where being a low tier means you can't be competitive in tourneys. As others have said, your focus should be on finding a character that suits your playstyle.

Most decent players won't approach you on the ground if you have a drill out. The drill is just that good at keeping opponents at bay. However, the recovery of the drill is what you should worry about. This is when most opponents decide to air dash towards you. You need to know the recovery time of drills to know what to do next. If you know you will recover before they air dash and do a move, interrupt them with a 6p or 2h depending on the angle and height of their jump. Alternatively, if their air move constantly beats 6p or 2h, just jump back or dash back and prepare to put them in a blockstring when they land. If you know you will not recover before they air dash, you could rc out and do the above.The worst option is to just block the incoming attack and prepared to get rushed down. There will be times when this happens and you just have to know the timing of when you can counter attack or block. Adapt to them reading your blockstrings and keep them on their toes, especially your drills. If i know an opponent is constantly air dashing after a drill, I'll hover in the air close to the ground more often so they will be scared of approaching in the air due to the threat of a j.K

If you are completely new to this game or Zato, your first priority of concern should be his neutral game. I feel as though there are three neutral gameplays with Zato. 1st. Zato alone with eddie meter 2nd. Zato with eddie summoned 3rd. Zato with no eddie meter Doing combos is important, but learning his neutral game is even more so because it's how you open up the opponent into those combo opportunities. The reason Zato is considered hard is not only because of the negative edging required for some combos, but the amount of different ways you need to play him in order to be effective.

Totally forgot there were challenges in this game. So used to just watching match videos and hitting up training mode. Are the challenges useful for real matches? I usually just try to cut out fluff when training, which is why combo videos aren't the most useful for learning how to play.

I'm still learning Xrd, but I feel as though there isn't as much negative edging for Zato as his AC counterpart, maybe also cause I'm so used to it by now. Still probably a lot to learn if you are new. Here is a combo for Xrd I was trying yesterday. any command with -X- means release and [X] means hold Combo (1) corner only -K- >5p>5k>[K]>2S> -K- >66>5cS>5H>[P]>5D>[D]>[6]> -P- >6P> -D- >2H>22S This combo should set you up for a unblockable drill. Afterwards, you can do Combo (2) j.H>41236S>RRC (after second hit)>land and wait for a split second>412369S>land>66>5D>66>6P>5H>22S Alternately, if you want to go for more damage, you can do a 236K summon instead of the 22S and do a grounded combo. An interesting combo I was also practicing yesterday with no little eddie was as follows. Combo (3) close 5D>[6]>jC>jH>jD>41236S>RRC (after second hit)>land and wait for a split second>412369S>land>66>5D>66>6P>5H>22S pretty much the exactly same as Combo (2), but starting without little eddie. Last thing I tried yesterday was to combo out of j.K>j.K from a mawaru using a similar to Combo(1) and also combo out of a fake jump in using 5K>5cS.

Not sure about other Zato player's experience, but it didn't just 'click' for me. Adjusting to negative edging combos takes a while and you also have to learn how to maneuver little eddie around certain situations. For example, how would you approach with little eddie out already against a sol that's gun flaming from the otherside. You gotta learn how to use the drills to protect little eddie before moving in that scenario, or just use little eddie as harassment to keep sol out for a while. You need to have the experience to know when you can move in and when you can harass or unsummon. On top of all that, you need to have a good Zato base to keep Sol feeling unsafe to approach.

Guys, not sure if this has been emphasized already, but you can hold 6 for an auto dash after a grounded 5d. You don't need to time a 66 for dash. This makes it much easier to perform his ender combos with eddie big drill.

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but be careful about YRCing drills too early. It's possible to YRC on your startup drill animation and not have a drill puddle form. This is especially important if you planned on summoning from the puddle. Otherwise, you'd get an eddie summon in front of you instead. Also, break the law YRC is very useful at getting out of the corner against slow characters or when you see an opening in their blockstring and feel the air might be too dangerous. Finally, I found out last night that you cant reflect Sin's red Stun edge super. At least not when I tried. Xrd Zato is not too difficult if you have a solid base. Work on your fundamental Zato gameplay first, like proper zato blockstrings and knowing when to summon and unsummon. Focus on good positioning of drills and when to summon from the puddles. People will punish you or if you keep going for far drill>puddle summon if you get predictable and don't use YRCs. One other thing is that the most optimal blockstring in eddie p pressure is to use 2p>2k. The reason is that 2k is +3 on block. Of course you want to space it out to frame trap them, but having the extra frame advantage helps. Of course you may go for 5k>5s, or other shennaigans, but 2p>2k is your safest option.

Eddie didn't have 3 low hits on his FB drill in AC. He had 2 lows and 1 all block. In ACR his FB drill changed to 1 low and 2 all block. His summon drill was 2 low and 1 all block. I don't think he ever had a version with 3 lows in his drill special. Make the dummy block it in training mode and you'll get these results. They always stand on the last hit for blocking and the second hit depending on which drill and version.

You are indeed correct. http://www.norematch.com/2011/10/20/tier-lists-for-older-guilty-gear-games/ also http://www.dustloop.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-10037.html They can never seem to get the balance right for eddie/zato, he's either really good like in XX,Reload, and AC, or really bad like in Slash and ACR.

Woah, i just noticed the translations of Zato's commands. So he has Shadow Hole (aka eddie's trap puddle) and Drill Special (aka Big drill) with his one summon now, which used to be from two completely different summons (normal and Weiss summon). Might mean no more fast overhead on summon now, which was what the -D- followup did, unless that's what Dead Man's Hand is.

Zato... Zato sama, is that really you?.... I want to believe. Looks like the beast has awoken :bad:

Slayer vs Izuna - battle of the manly old men. Lets go!!

Zato 1, the human character is dead, but Eddie has been living on ever since GGXX. In AC+, Eddie is supposed to be on the verge of death since forbidden beasts die soon after their hosts die, but in his story he was able to escape death by either shear will or some other way that's not clearly explained. This is clearly seen after his fight with venom in his story line. Going by this trailer, it seems that Eddie's story from AC+ is cannon.

- He lost puddle unblockable, which now combos instead for less damage. - 6p got its dizzy mod nerfed so it's not worth it to do while the opponent is in the puddle. This makes puddle combos less about damage(see above) and dizzying, and more about meter gain. - He got a increase to the time it takes for mini-ed to spawn back after mini-ed dies. - If you unsummon mini-ed, it takes more time for mini-ed meter to fill. - no more nobiru corner combos with SG since nobiru doesn't hit sliding opponents (not sure if this one is true, since this was from the loketest. i don't think i've seen anyone do this though) - higher recovery on FB drill and can't combo afterwards - only 1st hit of FB drill is low. Whereas before it was the first 2 hits that were low, making it easier to block. I think there might be more, but can't remember off the top of my head. Overall, the point was to nerf him so he wouldn't be as dominate as before. They gave him back some stuff, like FB exhaustion giving a full ed meter and his reload style summon. However, it doesn't really compensate much for the nerfs, which were necessary.

I've also seen Eddie -K- cause a graphical error in training mode. There are pink boxes where -K- hits.

Yup, it's a bit inconsistent in terms of the online quality. However, whenever i host a match, i never seem to have any laggy matches. The same can't be said when I join other ppl's matches. This may be due to the opponent only joining good connection lines or possibly that the online quality is hugely affected by the host. When I'm playing a "good" connection, most of the time I only experience some slowdowns or the "waiting for connection" sign. This happens fairly inconsistently. Sometimes I'll have opponents where these issues might arise once a match or more, or sometimes every round.

From personal experience, I feel like there is too much of a difference between the ppl I can play and the ppl I can't play. If i try to play with someone with a 0 bar connection I'll be lagging 20 frames or more behind. If i play with someone 1 or more bars, I'll be playing seamlessly most of the time. I feel it really isn't that bad, but it could be better. I've heard other ppl have much worse problems than me, like not having a decent connection the whole day even when picking the most optimal connections.

So i just had the opportunity of playing a awesome millia player (Sym) on XBL. I usually play on NullDC with him and get an awesome connection. I noticed that while the connection on XBL was still good, it wasn't as good as NullDC. He usually frcs more on NullDC than on XBL and gets is combos down more consistently. I hope Arksys patches it up a little. It's a bit sad that a illegitimate online version of the game is better than the official one. Again, the difference wasn't too much, but i thought it would be better.

I've been playing for the whole day and got bout 190 matches in or so and here is my opinion of the online so far. I feel like there is too big of a difference between ppl i can play with and ppl i cant. For example, if i play with someone that has a 0 on their line connection ill probably be lagging 20 frames. If i play with someone that has a 1, it'll feel like no delay, but i'll occasionally have the 'waiting for connection' sign pop up. The higher the line connection the higher the online quality. Basically, play with ppl that have at least a decent connection with u. It seems like the line connection numbers are pretty accurate.

I've been looking at videos with Eddie and it definitely seems like he's still very viable. I think Eddie players are just frustrated with him losing a lot of his more crazy stuff (his unblockable puddle, 6p stun modifier, less little ed meter gain, etc...) without much to compensate back for it. The nerfs were definitely necessary though and they make him a little more fun to play imo. I can't wait when +R gets released on consoles so I can flex my GG muscles

Yup, they nerfed little ed in Slash to not build guard, along with other things, which is why he wasn't as good then. In reload it was little ed pressure -> jack up guard gauge -> 60% health along with other shenanigans. Seems like the 'weiss' summon will be for more offensive purposes/ rushdown, whereas normal summon will be for more defensive and meter gaining. Reasons i say this is because in 'weiss' summon buzzsaw brings you to corner, builds guard, harder to see mixups, does a good amount of damage using his reload style combos, and can probably end with a unblockable lil ed drill. Normal summon from what i've seen and heard got shadow gallery combos nerfed, unblockable puddle nerfed to combo instead. Additionally, since 6p got nerfed, the combos using normal summon won't be useful for dizzy anymore. On the brightside, comboing into the puddle will gain lil ed meter while it's in puddle and the preferred combo in puddle is to use drunkard shade now. If 'weiss' summon is like reload, which is what i've been seeing, we should be seeing a lot more damage from eddie in the future. Sorry for my little spiel on eddie. Please correct me for any misleading information.

Not sure if anyone else noticed, but eddie's Weiss summon (I think it's called or reload/slash summon) builds guard meter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qsL_utcBgM @ 1:14 you can see the shadow buzzsaw move builds guard. This is how it was in reload. They nerfed it in slash to not build any guard to prevent (pressure -> jacked up guard guage -> 60% damage ).

Do you gain any tension on a successful SB?