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SkagMaster

First time with Guilty Gear

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Just bought GGXXACR+ and trying out every character to find my main.So fae, I'm clueless as where to begin learning this game, so.any advice? :p

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I was starting to write some stuff and then I remembered I wrote a thing a while ago in another thread that might help:

Although it's a complicated game, Guilty Gear has a bit of an exaggerated reputation of being hard. What I would specifically tell you to do as a new player is this:

First and foremost: Get familiar with your movement options. Neutral game in Guilty Gear is very strongly centered around movement, so getting a good grasp of it will help you understand the whole game, not just your own character. Sol has very normal movement options for Guilty Gear. He has a run, a double-jump, and an airdash. Get very comfortable moving around the screen. I specifically suggest practicing two technical kinds of movement: instant airdashing and dash braking.

An instant airdash is done with 956 or 754, which is to say, a forward or backward jump, then letting the stick go to neutral, then hitting forward or backward again. This is a little tricky and most players need to practice it a little before they can do it reliably. A forward instant airdash is a quick and universal way to approach when you are at advantage and want to attack. A backward instant airdash is a relatively safe way to build some distance from your opponent if you have space to do it safely. These are not the best tools for every situation, but they're good tools to have in your kit, and more importantly, they're tools that a lot of characters use and you want to be thinking about how to deal with it if someone does it to you.

Dash braking is cancelling your run on the ground with Faultless Defense. Running forward slightly and then braking is the safest offensive option available to most characters. It gains you distance at very low risk, and it's crucial to the neutral game in Guilty Gear. Practice braking as quickly as possible after starting your run. You will want to be blocking low almost all of the time, so the specific motion you should practice is 6561P+K. That is, double tapping forward to run, then hitting down-back and tapping two buttons simultaneously to FD. If you aren't sure what you should be doing with a very small window, this is a very safe bet.

While you're still thinking about movement, you should drill into your head where your throw range is, and remember that throws are instant. Throws are a big part of this game for the same reason that movement is, and I would consider remembering throw range to be a part of the movement game in high level Guilty Gear.

Secondly, get familiar with your character's normals. You want to know what distances you can cover and how quickly, where you're invincible, and what you get from landing your attacks. Sol's 5K starts up in 3 frames and has a great anti-air hitbox. Sol's 2D is low-profile and reaches pretty far in front of him. Sol's 5H has a ton of range. Sol's j.H recovers in the air and thus allows you to airdash afterwards. Play around with your normals some. A lot of the difficulty in Guilty Gear is knowing your matchups, and what you should be doing against specific other characters. The first and most reliable way to have a good idea of how to do this is to be very familiar with your own character. You should be thinking of this in a defensive context: What moves can you get away with throwing out when you have 5 frames? When you have 2 frames? When you're 5 character widths away? When your opponent is way above you? When should you block instead of attacking? What range is your character comfortable in? How fast is your character? Compared to other characters? Watching match videos can help with specific matchups. Don't try to watch what the players are trying to do, just watch what happens in the match. When Sol throws out a move against Testament and loses, what move did he throw out? Did he lose because he threw it out too early? Spaced it wrong? Or did Testament just choose an option that beat it cleanly? Same with when he throws out a move and it wins.

Third, get an idea of your character's offensive gameplan. What are you trying to land? What do you get off of it? A lot of people say Sol plays kind of like a grappler. This is because he has a very good command grab that nets him a lot of damage when he lands it. You should know some setups into your command grab, and then learn how to get some damage from it. You should know what Sol's lows are and what they'll beat out. You should know that Sol has three slow, grounded overheads (5D, 236[K], and 214K), but that most of his high-low game comes from air approach with his air normals. You should know that Sol has a fireball that he mostly uses to keep up pressure. You should know that Sol has a very invulnerable dragon punch that's useful for setting up frametraps with. This is where watching match videos is extremely useful. You can watch other players to get a good idea of what setups people generally use, and how you would use them differently. Once you're to this phase, I suggest looking at any footage of Japanese Sol players you can find.

On a specific note, one major pattern you'll notice in Guilty Gear is that okizeme is a big deal. Okizeme, if you don't already know, refers to the situation where your opponent gets knocked down. You should definitely know what you want to do when you get a knockdown. You should also know how to get a knockdown from a lot of situations, or at least from a lot of moves that you commonly throw out. This is more important than knowing your big-damage combos. It is a very valid and strong move in Guilty Gear to confirm a sub-optimal damage combo in order to secure a knockdown. I would seriously contend that if new players learned their okizeme setups and knockdown combos before they learned their huge damage confirms, they would start reliably winning matches against stronger players sooner. So do that.

Once you get those three things down, you're an intermediate player. The rest is all about learning matchups and playing headgames. Play against whoever you can find to play against. If you have trouble with a specific matchup, try to figure it out in this same order. What are the opponent's movement options like? What do they use them for? How big and how fast are their normals? What can you throw out to beat them from neutral, and when? What is their offensive game like, and how do you block it? At this point, it's helpful to watch match footage of the specific matchup between Sol and whoever you're having trouble with.

I think this is the best and fastest way to learn Guilty Gear. Good luck!

As for picking a character, all I can say is pick someone you like and remember that every character in every good game is hard at a competitive level.

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I'll take this into careful consideration, and I was in the training room to see which character(s) were for me. So far, I'm liking Johnny and Order Sol. Still, thanks for the info. :D

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Another GG newbie here. I understand how the genre works (SF4/KOF13 specifically), but am prety clueless on GG. That post above was super helpful. But to get a bit more focus for practice, can someone list the most important normals for Eddie (#R), and maybe some basic BnB/pressure string or two to grind and get used to the rhythms and stuff? Thus far I've been told j.K is "balanced" and beats all the things, and that spamming drills might be a good idea. HALP ^^'

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Another GG newbie here. I understand how the genre works (SF4/KOF13 specifically), but am prety clueless on GG. That post above was super helpful. But to get a bit more focus for practice, can someone list the most important normals for Eddie (#R), and maybe some basic BnB/pressure string or two to grind and get used to the rhythms and stuff? Thus far I've been told j.K is "balanced" and beats all the things, and that spamming drills might be a good idea. HALP ^^'

 

Spamming drills is never, I repeat, NEVER a good idea.  You WILL get read and punished if you get happy doing this.  That being said, Eddie is not a character I would recommend for newer players (this should not discourage you from learning him however) mostly due to his steep learning curve and momentum based gameplay. 

 

As for normals?  His aren't great for much, however,  6P and 2HS are your main anti airs, but they can be unreliable.  6HS can be used as well, but that is even more unreliable.  His farthest ranged ground normal is 5HS although it's unsafe as all hell.

 

A basic blockstring (w/o the shadow) would be: 2P, 5S, 2S, 22S.  You can however opt for another 5S into 22HS.  

BnB's are a bit more difficult however.  Are you familiar with how the shadow works?

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Spamming drills is never, I repeat, NEVER a good idea.  You WILL get read and punished if you get happy doing this.  That being said, Eddie is not a character I would recommend for newer players (this should not discourage you from learning him however) mostly due to his steep learning curve and momentum based gameplay. 

 

As for normals?  His aren't great for much, however,  6P and 2HS are your main anti airs, but they can be unreliable.  6HS can be used as well, but that is even more unreliable.  His farthest ranged ground normal is 5HS although it's unsafe as all hell.

 

A basic blockstring (w/o the shadow) would be: 2P, 5S, 2S, 22S.  You can however opt for another 5S into 22HS.  

BnB's are a bit more difficult however.  Are you familiar with how the shadow works?

 

Roughly. I haven't internalized what the different moves do but I know the basics of how it works mechanically.

Will be experimenting with Sol, Ky, maybe Faust too. Those three and Eddie all seem fun and all are in Xrd. Similar pointers appreciated for them too. Thanks already for the help, some grounding on what to try when learning a new game is really nice to have ^__^

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Roughly. I haven't internalized what the different moves do but I know the basics of how it works mechanically.

Will be experimenting with Sol, Ky, maybe Faust too. Those three and Eddie all seem fun and all are in Xrd :P

 

Those characters are pretty good choices due to their smooth and 'all around' gameplay.  With Eddie's heavy emphasis on negative edge (and his nerfs/buffs), he can be fun, but challenging.

 

As for shadow normals:  Using 236HS summons what I call the AC Shadow due to the moves it utilizes.  P makes the shadow slide forward using a bite attack.  while not used in most combos, it has other uses; locking an opponent down in sync with 22HS into shadow S etc.

 

K is your main blockstring/combo/mixup normal with the shadow.  It acts as a sort of 2 hitting hook (saw?) that pulls the opponent towards you.  Great for setting up overheads and command throw.

 

S is a sort of uppercut attack.  It used to be AWESOME before the nerf LOL Mainly used as a combo tool or to call out players trying to jump out of your pressure.

 

HS is the infamous shadow hole.  Was key in AC to creating unblockables (and IMO one of the things that made Eddie ridiculous in AC).  Now it acts as an otg tool to extend combos.  You can still create UB's with it,  it's just more difficult now.  Also uses up all Eddie meter.  Take care not to do this in blockstrings.  

 

D creates a sort of short range fireball that must be blocked high.  Great for UB setups while used in sync with drills. Uses a hell of a lot of meter though.

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214 HS summons what I call the Reload Shadow.  To be completely honest, it's been forever since I've used Eddie and while I know how this shadow's normals work, I haven't had much practice with them...

 

P pushes the shadow forward for a short ranged jab type move.  I've only ever seen this as a combo tool.

 

K creates a buzzsaw along the ground.  This is pretty good for blockstrings or for if you want to use Exhaustion to get more Eddie meter, though you have to be rather quick about it.  Can be used in combos.

 

S is a better (IMO) version of the uppercut shadow, and is key to doing grown man damage in corner combos, though it has less range.

 

HS trasforms the shadow into a 'bomb', which after a set period turns into a version of 22D.  I've only ever seen this used in corner UBs.

 

D is the infamous shark.  Makes the shadow leap forward a pretty good distance.  Again, used mostly in corner combos, though it can be used in UB in sync with 22HS for UBs 

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I'm playing #R. No AC on PC as far as I know, and my consoles/stick don't match (old consoles, Q4)

 

Well, I feel a bit foolish LOL Unfortunately, the only character I played in #R was Dizzy

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