Where's the Beef? A GGXXAC Health Tier List

[Silmerion]

EDIT: Osuna has pointed out that in cases particularly unlike the continuum approximation made for guts (i.e. massive life loss right before the first guts interval), this ranking does not hold. The numbers back him up on this. Take what follows with a grain of salt.

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I've had a few people who are new to Guilty Gear ask me who has the most and least health. That's easy - Potemkin and Chipp, respectively - but the rest are not so obvious. Guilty Gear's combination of guts ratings and defense modifiers, as opposed to simply varying a character's flat amount of health, makes it somewhat difficult to easily say just how durable a given character is. So, naturally, I tried to quantify it.

Guts Rating

Guilty Gear's health bars are like Persona 4: Arena's in that equal parts of the health bar do not represent equal amounts of health; but, unlike P4A's binary Awakening system, whereby any combos started on a character below 35% health will do reduced damage, Guilty Gear's guts system has multiple intervals and multiple options for each interval. You can read more about guts in its Dustloop Wiki entry.

To calculate health when accounting for guts, I used the formula

Health w/Guts = 420 * [(0.44/G1) + (0.15/G2) + (0.1/G3) + (0.1/G4) + (0.05/G5) + (0.05/G6) + (0.06/G7)],

Where GX is the guts multiplier for a particular interval. Note that this equation is not quite representative of an actual game situation, since (as far as I know) the guts modifier is applied at the start of a combo and does not change mid-combo. Nevertheless, it would be impossible to acquire a useful value any other way. This equation yielded

Health w/Guts Rating 0: 503

Health w/Guts Rating 1: 510

Health w/Guts Rating 2: 522

Health w/Guts Rating 3: 531

Health w/Guts Rating 4: 543

Health w/Guts Rating 5: 558

Defense Modifier

After ascertaining what each character's health when accounting for guts is, I divided that value by that character's defense modifier, which you can read about on the Wiki.

You can see each character's effective health, as well as values from other steps in the process, in this table.

Naturally, I made a tier list:

(Key: "=" means the characters have the same effective health and the same defense modifier, "&" means the characters have the same effective health but different defense modifiers)

Preeminent Potemkin (600+)

Potemkin

Sturdy Sluggers (550-599)

A.B.A = Robo-Ky

Adamant Assailants (500-549)

Order-Sol = Slayer & Johnny, Anji, Zappa, Sol, Ky, Faust = Testament, Jam = May

Burly Bastards (450-499)

Axl Low = I-No = Venom, Bridget = Eddie, Baiken

Capable Contenders (400-449)

Dizzy, Millia, Chipp

And here's the list for AC+R, to which I have added numbers, and its associated table:

Peerless Potemkin (600+)

Potemkin (624)

Steadfast Strikers (550-599)

A.B.A = Robo-Ky (565)

Athletic Attackers (500-549)

Johnny & Order-Sol (543), Justice (541), Slayer (531), Anji (526), Zappa (522), Sol = Testament (510), Ky (506), Faust (503), Jam (500)

Beefy Brawlers (450-499)

I-No = May (492), Axl Low = Kliff (481), Eddie = Venom (474), Baiken (472), Bridget (470)

Competent Combatants (400-449)

Millia (438), Dizzy (437), Chipp (417)

Some interesting changes from the AC health tiers.

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TL;DR: Potemkin tier.

Questions? Comments? Feedback?

[Solid Gold Wall]

huh, i guess baiken's not the 3rd worst health character like i thought!

interesting stuff, thanks

[Blade]

I got a dumb question but...have you messed around with Gold Johnny's Mist Finer at all on them? Or even calculated stuff like Health Regeneration for Golds at all?

I figure might as well ask since people DO fight golds online at times. (Also wondering if Guts Ratings are different for EX Characters too).

Also, where do Justice and Kliff lie on Guts Rating? (Has it changed in R?)

[Osuna]

This isn't particularly meaningful. How much guts can help just varies way too much. If at 57% (I think that is 240ish?) Baiken with guts rating 5 gets pot bustered she'll lose about 165 and go to 75 with is like...18ish percentish. Then her guts will only protect like 30 points of damage that probably won't save her life. The data hardly means anything as it is.

[Silmerion]

Okay, let's look at the Potemkin Buster example.

Baiken's initial health: 420 * 0.57 = 239.4 ~ 240

Pot Buster damage: 140 * 1.18 = 165.2 ~ 165

Baiken's actual health after PB: 75 = 17.9% of full health

Effective damage scaling at 17.9%: 0.60 * 1.18 = 0.708

Effective health at 17.9%: 75/0.708 = 105.9 ~ 106

Now let's compare that to Dizzy in that situation, who would be a spot above Baiken in the health tier list if only defense modifiers were considered:

Dizzy's initial health: 240

Pot Buster damage: 140 * 1.15 = 161

Dizzy's actual health after PB: 79 = 18.8% of full health

Effective damage scaling at 18.8%: 0.72 * 1.15 = 0.828

Effective health at 18.8%: 79/0.828 = 95.4 ~ 95

So when we consider guts, Baiken does have a slight advantage over Dizzy. I think it's pretty clear that while how much guts helps is highly variable, that it helps in some way is hard to dispute.

Now, how applicable is this? I honestly couldn't say. It probably isn't any more than a curiosity, but I'm fine with that.

@Blade: I haven't touched anything but the normal characters, and in fact I haven't even touched them - this was all data found on the wiki. As such, I have no idea where Kliff and Justice fall (DL has no data for them).

[Blade]

Well, as I understand it, Kliff has even lower health than Chipp if that's even possible. Though I'm not sure where Justice is on that scale.

Though to be honest, in Justice' case, it would be much higher in R because of her reduced mobility.

How reliable is that Wiki data? And has anyone updated it with the new R Mook that came out not long ago?

[Osuna]

snip.

I'll dispute this. You don't get identical circumstances and if you did have identical circumstances you'd have to apply defense too so dizzy would be more like 101, which can be much wider if you change the scenario, or in another scenario Baiken just Dies and Dizzy survives the same beating. The point is defense is guaranteed but you cannot rely on guts to provide such hard values. Especially if deals in low life totals where it might not matter at all. I guess it is nice to look at people in a sorta vague general ranking, but the numbers are fuzzier than this suggests.

[WolfCrimson]

Screw GG's health/damage calculation system, shit is way overcomplicated.

[Silmerion]

I'll dispute this. You don't get identical circumstances and if you did have identical circumstances you'd have to apply defense too so dizzy would be more like 101

I applied Dizzy's defense modifier; that's in part how I got her numbers.

The point is defense is guaranteed but you cannot rely on guts to provide such hard values. Especially if deals in low life totals where it might not matter at all. I guess it is nice to look at people in a sorta vague general ranking, but the numbers are fuzzier than this suggests.

I think it's a curiosity that makes some assumptions, in particular that it's only true when all other factors are held constant (in the Baiken vs. Dizzy example, we can say "Given a bunch of scenarios in which Baiken and Dizzy take damage in the same chunks as each other, more often than not Baiken will survive slightly longer").

[Hecatom]

Interesting

Screw GG's health/damage calculation system, shit is way overcomplicated.

Shut up

[Silmerion]

Shut up

I dunno if GG's system is actually more complicated than, say, BB's, but it's definitely more unintuitive.

[Osuna]

I applied Dizzy's defense modifier; that's in part how I got her numbers.

I think it's a curiosity that makes some assumptions, in particular that it's only true when all other factors are held constant (in the Baiken vs. Dizzy example, we can say "Given a bunch of scenarios in which Baiken and Dizzy take damage in the same chunks as each other, more often than not Baiken will survive slightly longer").

There so much that messes with that I don't know that's true even though one would think so because of Baiken's crazy high guts. Match ups and battles flow so differently and so many other factor can mess with damage that I'm not completely sure Baiken does live longer, or if she does that it is by any meaningful amount. Comparing across seems weird to begin with, and there are other points on this list that can vary even more wildly. I only chose baiken to demonstrate that guts is much more variable. In the pot buster example her functional life total for that match is lower than 400, which is lower than your lowest range's lowest point. So yeah there are tiers in terms of functional health, but how much you have is different round to round and there is plenty of room for overlap.

180 damage to baiken to get to 240 is more like 174-5 to dizzy. Puts her functional life at 101ish after guts on the extra life.

I dunno if GG's system is actually more complicated than, say, BB's, but it's definitely more unintuitive.

More complicated. They have forced proration, defense, guts, and guard bar. Guts and guard bar can have different results based on small differences you have to gauge visually. BB has hard numbers and simple multiplication only. It isn't hard to figure out BB damage at all. GG damage varies a lot.

Guts is actually functional though, which I prefer to BB's method of just dividing the health bar weird. Even if it varies a lot.

[Silmerion]

There so much that messes with that I don't know that's true even though one would think so because of Baiken's crazy high guts. Match ups and battles flow so differently and so many other factor can mess with damage that I'm not completely sure Baiken does live longer, or if she does that it is by any meaningful amount. Comparing across seems weird to begin with, and there are other points on this list that can vary even more wildly. I only chose baiken to demonstrate that guts is much more variable. In the pot buster example her functional life total for that match is lower than 400, which is lower than your lowest range's lowest point. So yeah there are tiers in terms of functional health, but how much you have is different round to round and there is plenty of room for overlap.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Obviously, if different things happen because of the match-up or whatever, we're going to be looking at different situations. I've already conceded that this is not going to represent reality, and I'd definitely agree that there are match-up-specific factors that make a character more likely to survive than another in a particular case, but looking purely at the health bar and holding received attacks equal between all characters, this is where people fall.

Oh, and just so we're clear: in no way am I claiming that this is anything more than a theoretical curiosity.

180 damage to baiken to get to 240 is more like 174-5 to dizzy. Puts her functional life at 101ish after guts on the extra life.

Ah, yeah. Forgot that part. Baiken's health is still higher, though negligibly.

[4r5]

Who wants to try and rank the number of bursts each character gets?

[TheRealBobMan]

If I could find it, I would link that silly Chipp combo video that has him punish May's gold burst with a combo that does like 15% damage and gives her back her burst. I think it's that one with the random scenes of guys wearing sumo garments spanking each other? Anyone have the link?

[WolfCrimson]

Guts is actually functional though, which I prefer to BB's method of just dividing the health bar weird. Even if it varies a lot.

I thought BB's weird health bar segmentation was CT only. Was it also there in CS1, CS2 or CSE?

[Blade]

All I really wanna know is...Justice' guts rating in R.

[Final Ultima]

I thought BB's weird health bar segmentation was CT only. Was it also there in CS1, CS2 or CSE?

Edit: Actually, I was mistaken. It turns out that the life gauge in Continuum Shift and onwards is a little misrepresentative of your actual life, but in a consistent way across all characters, not like it was in Calamity Trigger. But yeah, in Calamity Trigger, that health partitioning actually served a purpose.

[Solid Gold Wall]

If I could find it, I would link that silly Chipp combo video that has him punish May's gold burst with a combo that does like 15% damage and gives her back her burst. I think it's that one with the random scenes of guys wearing sumo garments spanking each other? Anyone have the link?

whoa, you need to find that.

[Seku]

If I could find it, I would link that silly Chipp combo video that has him punish May's gold burst with a combo that does like 15% damage and gives her back her burst. I think it's that one with the random scenes of guys wearing sumo garments spanking each other? Anyone have the link?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdwbbzDQ2EI

This is the only CM I know of that has "homo" wrestling and it doesn't have that combo you talked about ( Unless I missed it, gonna dig around some more anyway )

[Osuna]

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Obviously, if different things happen because of the match-up or whatever, we're going to be looking at different situations. I've already conceded that this is not going to represent reality, and I'd definitely agree that there are match-up-specific factors that make a character more likely to survive than another in a particular case, but looking purely at the health bar and holding received attacks equal between all characters, this is where people fall.

Oh, and just so we're clear: in no way am I claiming that this is anything more than a theoretical curiosity.

Ah, yeah. Forgot that part. Baiken's health is still higher, though negligibly.

Because there are other equal theoretical situations in which that list has different rankings. Your arbitrary calculation of the value of guts is responsible for a lot of the order you have set up. There are other ways of speculating the average value of guts that would make your list look different.

[Solid Gold Wall]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdwbbzDQ2EI

...oh my god that was easily the greatest combo video of all time

[Silmerion]

Because there are other equal theoretical situations in which that list has different rankings. Your arbitrary calculation of the value of guts is responsible for a lot of the order you have set up. There are other ways of speculating the average value of guts that would make your list look different.

If you can give me an example of one such situation where you think the order would shift around, I'd be happy to do the calculations.

[M.Song]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdwbbzDQ2EI

This is the only CM I know of that has "homo" wrestling and it doesn't have that combo you talked about ( Unless I missed it, gonna dig around some more anyway )

i would also appreciate it if you could find that one... i don't have it anymore and can't find it online

pretty sure someone said it was dora that made that one

[Circuitous]

All I really wanna know is...Justice' guts rating in R.

We actually know this. According to the +R mook, she has a defense rating of 1.03 and 5 Guts.

Name		Def	Guts	Stun		Changes

Sol		1.00	1	60		unchanged

Ky		1.03	2	60		unchanged

May		1.06	2	60		guts 3 -> 2, stun 70 -> 60

Millia		1.21	3	55		unchanged

Eddie		1.06	0	60		unchanged

Pot		0.87	4	80		unchanged

Chipp		1.30	4	50		unchanged

Faust		1.00	0	65		unchanged

Baiken		1.18	5	55		unchanged

Jam		1.06	3	65		unchanged

Johnny		1.00	4	70		unchanged

Axl		1.06	1	60		unchanged

Anji		1.06	5	65		unchanged

Venom		1.06	0	60		guts 1 -> 0

Test		1.00	1	65		guts 0 -> 1

Dizzy		1.15	0	50		guts 1 -> 0

Slayer		0.96	1	70		guts 2 -> 1

I-No		1.06	2	55		guts 2 -> 1

Zappa		1.00	2	60		unchanged

Bridget		1.07	0	55		1.06 -> 1.07

RoboKy		0.89	0	80		unchanged

ABA		0.89	0	80		unchanged

OSol		0.96	2	60		unchanged

Kliff		1.06	1	50		new

Justice		1.03	5	70		new[/code]