Guilty Gear FAQ Thread - Ask your questions here!

[zdravkelja]

Arcade stick is always recommended, but you can comfortably play it on gamepad or keyboard. I prefer keyboard. PC scene is still alive, there is a netplay mode (and there were always at least 40 people playing when I was active). And there are a few people from our region too Check online forum

[DJ Koopa]

I've been trying to look it up, what kind of sword does Johnny use exactly? Only one site I found had anything besides "sword" and it said it's a "katana"...but it sure as hell doesn't look like one. While katanas are generally generic like tachi, Johnny's sword is pretty friggin' straight, not to mention it seems kind of short to be one.

Edited January 16, 2012 by DJ Koopa

[Blade]

It's actually a variant on the Zato-ichi sword: http://www.sword-buyers-guide.com/zatoichi-sword.html

By the way, ichi means "ONE" in Japanese, and that's how you get the name Zato=ONE. :D

Zato-Ichi is famous for being a blind swordsman in Yakuza action films.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Blade

[Dizzy Kiske]

Haven't picked up my PS2 controller in a while :] Played Guilty Gear yesterday, and played Blazblue at a friends! I miss the glory days :'[

[Blade]

Hey guys, I was just talking to a friend of mine...

I seem to recall a Japanese video of Guilty Gear X or a Beta-test or Prototype of the Naomi Gameplay with an alternate Character Select (it looks different from the standard one).

Does anyone know if there was a prototype version of GGX? Or videos of it?

[lilmhack]

would have helped me here in time as I did not guiltygear least experienced ggxx play online I am appealing to you the members you help me how I make it online

[Stone Drum]

why is slayer considered broken? can't figure that one out from watching videos of him (i've yet to play GG)

what are johnny's coins for?

are H and HS the same button input, or is HS heavy + another button?

[Amadeous]

why is slayer considered broken? can't figure that one out from watching videos of him (i've yet to play GG)

what are johnny's coins for?

are H and HS the same button input, or is HS heavy + another button?

1) Slayer gets amazingly good damage. No one in GG is really "broken" though, everyone's pretty good in their own way. But yeah, Slayer can do 90% damage combos with enough meter.

2) Hitting with Johnny's coins level up his Mist Finer special attack. You can see it right above his tension gauge when you hit with one. They're also very good in pressure. Hitting with his Force Break followup also levels up his Mist Finer. Level 3 is the max, so don't bother trying to go past that.

3) H and HS are the same, yes. Both stand for "Heavy Slash" or "Hard Slash". Pressing 4 or 1 and pressing S+H will make you perform a "slashback", a risky but highly rewarding defensive option.

[reaVer]

1) Slayer gets amazingly good damage. No one in GG is really "broken" though, everyone's pretty good in their own way. But yeah, Slayer can do 90% damage combos with enough meter.

His damage isn't the problem really, he's got the most retarded hitboxes in the game. His damage just makes him him.

3) H and HS are the same, yes. Both stand for "Heavy Slash" or "Hard Slash". Pressing 4 or 1 and pressing S+H will make you perform a "slashback", a risky but highly rewarding defensive option.

I'd like to add that it's very rare for a H to gatling to S. Quite frankly I don't even think it's possible on any character. The HS denotes Hard Slash the most accurate but due to the ease of typing and because that S behind it is completely redundant, people tend to just type H.

[Amadeous]

His damage isn't the problem really, he's got the most retarded hitboxes in the game. His damage just makes him him.

Ah yes, nothing like his 6P anti air beating out my 2D sweep. >:T

[Stone Drum]

thanks Amadeous and reaVer

[reaVer]

Ah yes, nothing like his 6P anti air beating out my 2D sweep. >:T

6P, 2S hit low profile, 5H hits high, 2D can beat stuff like 5S, 2S, etc, jH hits behind him... Yeah, that's the lovely world of slayer.

[Pestilence]

6P, 2S hit low profile, 5H hits high, 2D can beat stuff like 5S, 2S, etc, jH hits behind him... Yeah, that's the lovely world of slayer.

Yea, the biggest issue I have with Slayer, certainly isn't his hitbox, it's the damn retarded animations he has making his mixup harder than it should be (for me) to deal with.

PS: I hate Slayer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkA05AivnoM&feature=plcp&context=C3a458a7UDOEgsToPDskLfqf7iRMEGXgWC6yHiYSmT

[reaVer]

This is gonna sound so bad but there's no way around it: You suck :P And as soon as you're willing to admit that, you'll get better. I don't really what was going on, but the progress you've made since AC's inception is pretty low; and your sparring partners are no exception to this either. What I suspect is that you never played the game just for playing it... always having theory in your head about how you and your opponent should be playing and then finding out your opponent doesn't do that and that you can't even do what you wanted to do... Sit down and play is the best thing I can tell you in general.

Now for matchup specifics, this should probably go in the OS forum and I can only tell you my perspective as an OS player. But the key to Slayer is his distance, if he's too close he can't do anything besides jabbing(and throwing) because his startup is too long to do anything else. He'll always try to enforce a 5K distance so he can do whatever he wants and you can't do much to him. Now during his offense you have two choices, either you play it hardcore and interrupt him with one of your moves that would do equal damage as when he would be hitting you, or you faultless guard and push him out. At a certain distance Slayer is forced to stop attacking or close the distance, if you were faultless guarding this usually happens after like 5K2K or something similar. He also wants to keep his Mappa safe so he has to guard ground with another move: 2H. That will be his real mixup that you will have to play, for me it's a choice of gunblazing/sweeping vs BRP/Ri and if I don't want to go for either I have the neutral jump H which is sure to slap him in most cases. Now the matchup will pretty much build from there, once he lets go of offense or tries to use CC mixups on you(5D, throw, etc) often enough your best option is jump FD or sometimes a dragonpunch if you possess one. If you can catch the forward dash, 5P/2P/w/e it because the last 5 frames on that dash are not invincible to anything.

If you're attacking slayer, be careful about going through the air or abusing low profile(GB) on him as his 2S will beat that, if you can bait 2S or 6P and then evade them(by backdashing or just being out of range) you have a free CH though(I use fafnir in those cases). One of the classic examples of forcing an AA from anyone is doing a backward jump in close range, because it's a direct mixup between doing a ground attack and doing an IAD attack.

Pretty much everything in a nutshell.

[Stone Drum]

on this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQoj8M8M7Lg&list=PL151E0C4B6DF9C8B6&index=5&feature=plpp_video someone made a comment that the game rewards you for successfully blocking. How is this so when the more you block, the more the guard meter or whatever its called builds, meaning you will take more damage if you eventually get hit.

How does the burst meter fill again?

I notice sometimes the guard meter resets back to 50/50 when shifted back to a neutral state, but sometimes it stays built up and slowly drains during neutral state. Why?

There are only two types of cancels, right? Roman cancels and force roman cancels? I take it roman cancels are the equivalent of rapid cancels in BB, but I forgot what frc's are and how to execute both cancels. Iirc, there is actually 3 cancels in GG, and the 3rd is the one equal to rapid cancels, but I can't remember what its called if there is a 3rd type of cancel. Nor do I remember the differences between these cancels.

[Amadeous]

on this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQoj8M8M7Lg&list=PL151E0C4B6DF9C8B6&index=5&feature=plpp_video someone made a comment that the game rewards you for successfully blocking. How is this so when the more you block, the more the guard meter or whatever its called builds, meaning you will take more damage if you eventually get hit.

They're comparing it to Marvel, so I'm not sure exactly on this, but I assume they're referring to Instant Blocking/Just Defend. Whenever you see them guard and flash white, they've blocked just as the attack is about to hit them. It results in not only less blockstun, but also you don't slide as far away, allowing you to punish your opponent easier. In addition, any hit in Guilty Gear can usually result in a lot of damage, so you have to block so you don't die in 3 seconds. Someone who's played Marvel 3 could probably answer this better.

How does the burst meter fill again?

The burst gauge slowly fills on its own, and fills faster the less health you have. In addition, every time you're hit you gain back a bit of the burst gauge. Read here for more specfics: http://www.dustloop.com/wiki/index.php?title=Defense_%28GGAC%29#Bursts

I notice sometimes the guard meter resets back to 50/50 when shifted back to a neutral state, but sometimes it stays built up and slowly drains during neutral state. Why?

If the guard bar's over 50%, it will slowly drain to be 50%. If it's under 50%, it will reset to 50% as soon as you tech or land on the ground and become uncomboable.

There are only two types of cancels, right? Roman cancels and force roman cancels? I take it roman cancels are the equivalent of rapid cancels in BB, but I forgot what frc's are and how to execute both cancels. Iirc, there is actually 3 cancels in GG, and the 3rd is the one equal to rapid cancels, but I can't remember what its called if there is a 3rd type of cancel. Nor do I remember the differences between these cancels.

You're right about Roman Cancels; 3 buttons after a move's hit/been blocked to spend 50% tension to cancel the attack instantly. FRCs or Force/False Roman Cancels cost 25% meter, are accompanied with a blue flash instead of a red one, and can only be performed on certain moves during certain frames. Whether or not the move has hit is irrelevant, just as long as it's during the frame period! If you go into training mode and turn on "Show Inputs", the input bar will flash blue the instant you can perform an FRC.

Those are the two main cancels use in competitive GG, but AC+ added two more types with Survival mode, Chaos RC, which lets you cancel one special attack into any other special attack instantly for 25% meter, similar to KoF13's Drive Cancels really, and Yellow RC, which I believe is just a normal RC but only costs 25% meter. Neither of these are usable in normal play though, so don't worry about them.

[Stone Drum]

thanks so much I finally have full grasp of all of GG's basic mechanics. It's pretty smart how they all work together. Now time to read about jump installs and the complex stuff.

Oh wait, I think the 3rd kind of cancel I was referring to is the slash-back? or it's called something like that. It's not really a cancel, but more like a parry that is used for counter hits, since it reduces blockstun entirely and you don't get knocked back at all, or very little.

[xlolxlolx]

slashback is pretty much a parry, not really worth using since you can expect to eat a gigantic counter hit combo if you mess up

[Amadeous]

Slashbacks are a 2 frame window to block an opponent's attack, and after a failed attempt you have 30 frames where you're completely unable to block, so yeah. Like you said, you hardly get knocked back and have greatly reduced blockstun, but it also raises the Tension Pulse, which is the rate at which you gain tension. It can even raise it past the normal levels a character can have, so it's actually even more rewarding.

Still...not that good of an idea to use it unless you're 100% confident you can do it.

[Honnou]

Slashback is 100% worth trying to get in special situations, where opponents do a move that has tons of recovery, but is hard to punish. That way, even if you miss, you won't eat a combo, unless you slashback too early. Aim for exact timing, also, slightly late slashback attempts won't get you hurt at all.

Best examples:

Badlands/TK Badlands 2nd hit

Stun dipper 2nd hit (when Ky won't frc the stun dipper but does it spaced out, making it hard to punish)

Sol no frc gunflame when used for pressure but you're too close to jump out.

Johnny wake up super

May whale super

**I'll add more later**

None of the above are very hard with practice. Just make sure you're confident with GG basics and slashbacks in general before you attempt them in matches, like Amadeous said above.

[Amadeous]

It's also worth SB when your opponent gets lazy/autopilots, but that's for when you're much better. Earlier I was practicing SB Testament's 2D in blockstrings, since a lot of Testament players like to end any blockstring with it and go into EXE pressure. SBing projectiles can also be worth it for the tension pulse gain.

[doragonkoroshi]

on this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQoj8M8M7Lg&list=PL151E0C4B6DF9C8B6&index=5&feature=plpp_video someone made a comment that the game rewards you for successfully blocking. How is this so when the more you block, the more the guard meter or whatever its called builds, meaning you will take more damage if you eventually get hit.

You might be a little confused on what was meant here. It's not good to sit there and wait for your opponent to attack you so you can get some kind of bonus from blocking. What someone might actually mean by that, is that GG requires you to block well, be patient, and wait for an opening, and if you can do these things, you can win. In GG, once pretty much any character gets on the offensive, they have a considerable advantage, they can do frame traps and mixups and crank your guard bar, and maybe eventually get a combo and kill you. However, if you know your opponent, their character, their block strings, their mixups, and can react to them with proper defense, you can turn the tables on them, and give yourself the same offensive advantages they just had. Basically, it's saying that blocking is rewarded, because you have to learn to do it well, or you will die quite quickly, as opposed to other games where you might not have to block too long before you and your opponent return to a neutral situation, or where throwing out invincible moves, supers, or assists is a lot easier or more beneficial than blocking an extended string of attacks.

Don't get me wrong, blocking is important in any game, but in GG you will often find yourself in situations where you have to do it for an uncomfortably long period of time, and with all of the defensive options in GG, a lot of it has to do with using the right option at the right time.

[Pestilence]

This is gonna sound so bad but there's no way around it: You suck :P

Do you know me? I don't think I've ever played a reaVer so I can't tell if you're trolling or if you're trolling?

[reaVer]

Stay free.

[Shiawase]

What makes Eddie so good? I'm assuming that he can set up unblockables with himself and his little creature but that can't be the only reason.