Guilty Gear -Strive-

[Maf]

Mmm. I do a bad version of this a little bit with Millia against zoners (Axel/Askua) or characters with awkward/good pokes (Faust/Ky) because she’s so fast I send her head first into attacks and it’s hard to react to her own speed. So some characters I just dash block against anyway for safety, regardless of what they’re doing 

 

Although I don’t do it like in the video. I do dash macro > FD, but don’t hold the dash button. 

[one-armed dwarf]

It's tough out there, Ky players out there with 'A.B.A. players lose by choice' in their bio full screen taunting me while I give myself another 6 hernias dragging my slow ass key across the screen to get stun dippered.

 

I will say though, playing a terrible character is great at making you sit down and think about defense and less about gimmicks. How to fuzzy guard and punish the big titted fan guy's rekka when it's an overhead, how to really think hard about spacing when your normals in normal stance are like an inch in front of you.

 

I also got this mod working again, so I can look at blockstrings and figure out frame data and spacing and make it so when I'm in jealousy mode it feels less like the crippled dog who chased the car and didn't know what to do with it cause a key was stuck in his head

 

But yeah, easily the most dog shit feeling character I've played in a fighting game. Imagine paying money for this, I got it in a season pass so I can at least pretend the fun I had playing Elphelt for a week was worth the price

[one-armed dwarf]

I spent a week on this character, I think even speaking without the deep meta knowledge that others have she is a really shit feeling character all around. 

 

Playing her feels like micro-dosing depression. Her install with the jealous rage thing makes her very powerful, with crazy air links, but it's a very difficult thing to establish a gameplan around cause it's over so fast. She has this amazing armoured move which invulns against DPs and has huge conversion potential, but it's such a long animation that you lose so much meter if its blocked and it puts you at a shit spacing to push your offense. So there's a huge learning curve in terms of how you are going to leverage those opportunities into conversions. If you're good, those conversions will demolish your opponents health bar. But you have to spend your meter on getting a hard knockdown at the wall, which loses you your rage stance and makes that HDK pointless, or do that new 236D thing they added. On that note, you really don't want to be bursting much cause well it just leaves you in a really bad position. 

 

So it's possible with a lot of experience and learning and patience you turn her into something amazing, but I ain't seen the evidence of how that can happen yet. I think taking execution out of the equation, which is a limiting way to look at difficulty, she's the most difficult character I've tried to learn. Even when you win the gamefeel is just kinda terrible, given that this is a game where the cast have pretty straightforward and ignorant offensive strategies, just limping around the place begging for a crumb of neutral is great at producing the bad brain chemicals. It's the first character where I've actually seen the time out screen, more than once as well. 

 

The thing with it is I think you're actually supposed to be aggressive in both character stances, the install and the I'm-literally-dying stance, cause of the way her normals cancel into forward moving specials that can be pretty safe on block. But like, it's not a very interesting approach. So it's this thing where the character feels difficult to play, but there's not much sign of interesting depth to explore. 

 

That said I'll probably stick with her for another week, cause I do like the experience of trying the game from a different perspective and it teaches you a lot of things. There's a lot of ways a character like that can develop I think and it's clear the skill expression here is in the very numerous decisions you can make with regard to going in and out of jealous rage, when and how. But impressions are she's dogshit, the experience of this keyblade struggle is toxic af. When I go back to Bridget or even Testament it will be like breathing for the first time, this game is too ignorant for a character like this to be more than mid imo. I suspect there'll be an adjustment to how quickly the meter is depleted, but not gained, if they patch her

[Maf]

Leffen was streaming Millia gameplay because he says he’s dropping Happy Chaos and trying to find a new main lol

 

When I tuned in he was winning and was going “this the thing about Millia, every one who plays her is just bad, she’s got so much cool stuff”

 

He then got walloped by a Sol spamming special moves and stuff and was “well, maybe she’ll be a secondary character”

 

Which then devolved further into “the problem with Millia is you just can’t attack head on or you randomly die”

 

Leffen is an amazing player but I find it hard to take him seriously when he talks because he’s opinion changes according to how well the last 5 seconds went.

 

Millia is such a fun character, but she’s not a winner. You want to have fun you play Millia, you want to be really competitive in the big leagues you play Sol, or stick with Happy Chaos. My understanding is the last patch did finally tone that character down, but he was toned down from top 1. It’s not like he’s bad, and I bet still better than Millia

 

Millia’s fundamental problem is she just forces straight guessing games and they’re not like the split second 50/50 guessing games that Leo, I-No, Sol, Nago etc force. She sets up a disc and hovers there and it;’s like well what’s it going to be. Her problem in terms of tournament level play or competitive is you can’t win by making a high level player guess wrong 8 times in a row when they only have to clip Millia twice

[one-armed dwarf]

Tournament level of this game is a snooze

 

Same characters every time with the same linear gameplan, except that one really good Faust player

 

They should make a tournament where only the most mid of characters can be chosen

[Maf]

I agree that it’s the same 5 characters over and over. But I enjoy the decision making, understanding of the game and the way things like RC is used at top level.

 

Except for NYTempest who plays Leo. I do not have it in me to respect Leo players 

[Maf]

I said this before but I mean it this time this is the last time I ever play Strive and this weekend I’m moving on to Street Fighter. Screw the season 2 patch I’ll just deal with throw loops, Drive Rush and Honda now and hope it gets better later. I might even play Luke because fuck it, I deserve it. 
 

I just can’t play Strive anymore. I’ve been at it for years and I just can’t compete. These people are just too good and I do not know what to do.

 

The final 2 rounds of this set was impossible. He just blocks everything what am I to do. Looking at it, yes I could have Bad Moon’d more. But my hands just weren’t up to it tonight. 6H kept coming out instead of TK and this match was so hard I couldn’t throw chances away on 6H’s

 

 

Fuck you and your level 1000 Zato. I quit!

[one-armed dwarf]

Zato looking kinda thicc tho

 

I have a janky JP and Kim in SF, lmk when you want to mash buttons. I'm hanging up my key

[Maf]

Yes, cool, will do. I just try learn the buttons and some basic stuff first

 

I stick by what I think about Aba about her being a monster on ranked. But I think I’ll change that the player can’t just be good at neutral but amazing at defense as well. She really can’t move in her normal form and you have to go to her. 
 

But the retaliation is painful because all of her moves are super good. So when it’s her turn she’s straight dangerous.

 

Then she goes in to jealousy mode.

 

But ABA has to be able to bait and block as well. It seems like she kind of has to sit there and watch her opponent over extend or fail

[one-armed dwarf]

Ok so here's the deal with the character, based on playing her and seeing her being played

 

She's supposed to be aggressive in both her stances (sort of repeating what I said but bear with me), in normal mode her f.s and 2h advance her forward. Some people seem to think that normal mode is about parrying and biding your time but it's not quite the whole picture. Yes you need to be patient, but not passive. Her 5H has huge range and is incredibly oppressive, it's like a Ramlethal button. She has a 236s which can rekka, but if you don't rekka it's safe on block and also advances forward. Similarly with her 236k, an advancing overhead that high profiles moves (I used it to jump over some Testament goo the other day)

 

Rage mode is aggression++. You play her like May. Same facts as above, but faster movement, incredible air links and oppression. You get the idea. But you got to make the right reads. When her meter depletes, she has 10 frames of recovery and is in a standing position where she can be fuzzy overheaded if you downback, free mixups for your opponent. That is going to be the biggest 'key' to this matchup at a mid level I feel like, people exploiting this and keeping an eye on the jelly gauge. 

 

Her keygrab move is not a grab, it's a strike. It's plus on block, but has miserable reach. However you can kara cancel it with a dash cancelled 5k or c.s, which again fits into the whole thing where you're moving forward constantly, even if it's by tiny bits at a time. Her pressure gameplan builds from this. 

 

The issue comes in the form of things like the system mechanics for defense, burst and 214D, what that means when interacting with zoners or anyone with zoning tools, and the reach of her less slow buttons. Her parry is not supposed to be used against blockstrings as it has tons of recovery, you can hit her with a blockstring, get parried, and PRC her and hit her with a CH. It's to be used when your opponent has more limited oppression options, like fireballs or far reaching normals, when you have a smaller mental stack to read and can use the parry safely to generate meter. But her parry isn't like Baiken parry, it's a pretty bad button. Incredibly situational and a bit of an odd end in her kit.

 

Her rage gauge decreases during actions, so her invulnerable move on 236h can be very wasteful, especially with how it spaces you out. Grabs as well, though there are things you can setup with that but you need a huge reserve of meter to do so. The fact that her non-5h normals have miserable range makes her very susceptible to spacing traps, where often the best she can seem to hope for is a neutral reset. 5H is 15 frames, 2H is 14 frames. She has a great anti air though in 2S, but it only reaches above her. Again, spacing is difficult. You need to be extremely patient with this character, which generally speaking in a game with such ignorant offense puts her at a disadvantage. Spacing traps are her biggest weakness I feel like, because defensive options in this game tend to be about creating space in the first place

 

Frame advantage on wall break, another difficulty with her. You can spend your super gauge near the wall, but then you do a stance swap. If you're in rage you lose your meter, no advantage. You can swap back to normal mode and super but I'm not sure right now the right setup for that. But a lot of ABAs end up using their 236D for HKD instead (which given her weaknesses wrt the defensive mechanics in this game might be the best option here)

 

Is she bad, no I'm dooming her a lot. The game should have more characters that require work, it makes the game more interesting. She's a polarising character like Nago and with some bad balance decisions she could end up ruining the game by being too much, and it takes a while for a meta to develop over how best to handle her kit. She also has some of the most easy to execute corner to corner high damage combos in the game, that cannot be downplayed (the kara links are really difficult though, and unstable). But does that mean she's really strong as well, I don't feel that to be the case. I like Hotashi's video

 

 

 

I've found this character interesting to play around with cause it's forced me to actually interact with defensive options against character gimmicks rather than responding with my own gimmick, like leaping over testament's zoning as mentioned. Also there's spacing-based reactions you can do against Baiken's mat (highly active attack, get hit early and its more minus, get hit late and there's a gap to stuff with f.s). I'm trying to learn to fuzzy guard against auto pilot Kys who cycle through stun dipper and foudre arc (block low, then high to get advantage on foudre arc's earlier active frames). There's other stuff I'm sure. 

 

If you want for SF I can drop my 2 mains and play with a different character, not immediately but when you're comfy on system mechanics and have BnBs and stuff. I can try Aki

[one-armed dwarf]

Another vampire guy is next DLC

 

 

[Maf]

He looks like Hit from DBFZ with he’s shotgun punch and vanish/mist counter move

 

Looks like the most fun character of S3 for sure 

[one-armed dwarf]

You don't think A.B.A sounds fun from the way I described her in my screed?

[Maf]

She sounds like too much hard work. Still a super strong character, though. 
 

Slayer looks like bullshit city 

[Maf]

I wish I could play fighting games like this. Must be nice to be the comedian instead of the joke 😑

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Ky likes doing that charge dust stuff, I guess cause people are trying to watch for stun dipper all the time.

[Maf]

I don’t know if the frame data is different for each character’s charged dust, but I think some characters are blessed with more deceptive looking dust attacks than others. Ky, Sol, HC, Leo. Their animations aren’t particularly distinct so when trying to look for so much they’re much harder to block.

 

Where as Jack-O and Zato for example, look I’m not saying I never get hit because I sure do. But their dust animations I think are really unique and easier to see coming on start up

 

Fast dust for every character is a cursed button imo, but it’s not especially dangerous except for characters that get really good combos off of it RC