GGXRD-R2/Venom/Okizeme

Introduction

Venom's oki is one of the most complex and explosive in Guilty Gear.

At a basic level, Venom has to think about five things when he sets up his oki: which move did he knock the enemy down with, how many balls does he have already in place, how far away from the enemy is he, what defensive tools does the enemy character have, and what resources does the enemy have.

This page includes many stable routes for oki, but Venom's oki options are too numerous to list in their entirety, and as such some responsibility falls on the player to discover which setups fit their play style and skill level.

Example Routes

Below is a list of pre-made, stable oki routes.

This section is not an exhaustive list, but is instead aimed at giving the reader a baseline oki series which they can experiment with and expand upon.

For additional Oki ideas, see the Absolute Oki Repository. Note that not all of the oki in this document is practical.

Midscreen 2D Knockdown

P Ball

After a close range knockdown, cancel into 214P.

Depending on the distance, use 5P or 5K to hit the ball and start pressure or go for a mixup from there. Simple stuff, especially recommended when one're very new to Venom but playing matches.

Mixup options: Throw, Low.
Strengths: Gives a Low/Throw mixup.
Weaknesses: Loses to IB and Blitz.
Required Setup: None.

S+P Oki

This setup is one of the easier 2 ball setups.

After a 2D(2) or long range 2D(1) knockdown, cancel into S ball and then P ball. After the P ball one needs to determine the distance of the enemy. If they enemy is further away, use micro-dash 5K to hit the balls. If the enemy is closer do a micro-dash 5P. This will give one 2 balls at different heights to create pressure from.

Mixup options: Throw, Low.
Strengths: Easy to execute, beats jump out, can bait DPs.
Weaknesses: spacing and wakeup-timing dependent.
Required Setup: none.

Midscreen 6H Knockdown

K Ball

Cancel into 214K, and do a micro-dash jump and hit the ball with j[K]or[S]. The ball will hit meaty giving one a chance to go high, air dash into multiple highs, or empty low. If one manage to land on the other side, one can go low or airdash backwards with a crossup j.S. In addition, a whiff crossup j.P into throw can be an effective setup.

Most K ball okizeme loses some effectiveness as a mixup when one's opponent has 25 meter. Reversal Blitz will almost always beat this oki when the ball is launched with j.K, and if one's spacing is bad it could potentially beat the j.S hit too. The j.K hit will yield a better frame advantage than the j.S ball which forces one to choose between safety and advantage. This can be somewhat circumvented by jumping forward without running to hit the K Ball, then airdashing. In this case, empty low is mostly eliminated as a mixup, but one can vary the amount of overheads one do (such as j.SH vs j.SPS as strings, as well as adding Mad Struggle at certain points).

Be careful of Dragon Punches and other invincible reversals. one can also come down with FD as DP bait, but this limits one's mixup options.

Mixup options: Empty low, late airdash air buttons, late backwards airdash crossup.
Strengths: Gives access to a potentially blitz safe High/Low at long range. Gives a decent Left/Right at closer ranges.
Weaknesses: j.K BH loses to blitz. j.S BH has worse frame advantage than j.K. Sometimes pushes Venom too far away from the enemy to get rewarding follow up.
Required Setup: None.

H Ball

Setting an H ball after knockdown can lead to a safejump.

If one's opponent lacks meter for blitz, it's one of the best safejumps in the game. Set the ball, running jump and j.S to hit the ball, but whiff one's opponent when done right. When one's opponent has 25 meter for blitz though, one can get rejected for trying this. The ball becomes more of a bait, and one'll usually either airdash in chaining one's air normals similar to K ball without the ball or empty jumping and going low, or even going for throw if one're feeling frisky. one're not touching the ball in this case.

H Ball oki after a ground or air throw midscreen leads to a charge ball. Slam them into a wall with a 5H/6H/cS and charge a hQV to finish. Immediately charge an S Stinger Aim to level 2/3hits, and use backspin. one can tap it with 5P/5K for more freedom in the setup and to make it safer vs blitz, or use f.S>set to make the sequence a blockstring while adding another ball. This is easier on air throw so practice that first. Rev 2’s new spin options open up extra possibilities with pQV as well as hQV.

Mixup options: Empty low, Safejump.
Strengths: Safe against wakeup DPs.
Weaknesses: Low reward if the enemy doesn't DP.
Required Setup: None.

Corner Specific Oki

Charged sSA

sSA oki is extremely powerful, but requires setup in order to be possible.

sSA requires a pQV combo ender in order to set up a P Ball before the enemy is knocked down in order to allow time for venom to charge sSA(L2). Use the sSA(L2) to hit the P ball left over from the pQV ender into the enemy, causing a meaty ball hit. Use top-spin or back-spin depending on one's screen position in order to place the resultant L3 ball in between Venom and the enemy. Then use either micro-dash 5P or f.S to hit the charged ball into the enemy and cancel into another ball set. Micro-dash 5P is slower and is hard to make gapless on characters who wake up quickly, but it always blitz safe. f.S is able to be made gapless depending on wakeup timings, but it can be harder to make it gapless while also charging the sSA enough. This oki is very strong and can be arbitrarily canceled into Dark Angel or set up for any of one's other oki setups.

Mixup options: Leads into K or H set. From there the player can choose to go into either ball's respective high/low mixup, or H ball's safejump.
Strengths: Very strong chip damage, Places Venom at a safe distance.
Weaknesses: If the spacing is wrong the enemy can Blitz or Low Profile the level 3 ball.
Required Setup: Requires a combo which ends in pQV.

Pball dash 5P Pball Oki

Similar to midscreen Pball, but because of one's proximity, one'll have time to set another ball.

A simple, effective setup is with the first Pball ball meaty, set another P ball and tap it with 5P, so that the 5P makes contact on the opponent's block. One can then jump cancel the 5P into a S Mad Struggle or go low with 2K or 2D for a simple high/low mixup. Another option is to use S Carcass Raid backspin on the P ball, then immediately hit the ball with 5P. From there, one can use micro-dash 2S to try to force the enemy to block. 2S can then be special canceled to extend the pressure. Finally, the last easy P ball option that can be used for oki or pressure in either case, is after a P set, press 2S. Note the way 2S and the ball interact; one can special cancel the 2S. While QV can combo if one can hit confirm, one can also pressure nicely by repeating 214P>2S. When one think they may jump out, after a summon, press 6H to lock them in place.

For more advanced routes of this oki, refer to the video linked in the section header.

Mixup options: Teleport j.H, TK sMS, fuzzy overhead.
Strengths: High reward off of overheads, can loop into itself, uses many low hits and charged ball hits.
Weaknesses: very weak to FD, susceptible to to tap bliz.
Required Setup: Does not work off of BNBs (needs throw combo?)

Fake sMS Low

After a combo use a kQV ender followed by P set.

This oki will place 2 balls low to the ground, with one directly in front of the enemy. Use a low TK sMS to hit the low ball into the enemy and then use 2H when Venom recovers landing. The 2H can open the enemy up with the low first hit, or make them block it. The second hit will then launch your second ball into the enemy to keep them in hit/block stun. On hit you can then run up 5K into your preferred followup combo.

Mixup options: Teleport j.H, TK sMS, fuzzy overhead.
Strengths: High combo reward off of low, messes with enemy expectations, beats DPs, beats Blitz, places venom far away on block
Weaknesses: Low reward on block
Required Setup: Needs a QV ender + a ball set

K+P Oki

This setup is primarily used with Venom's teleport.

Immediately after setting the P ball, tap it with 5P then teleport. The ball one hit will keep them blocking and one can try chaining and/or airdashing normals, or going low. Experiment with a few different ways one can try utilizing the K ball after the teleport. one can also skip the teleport and try a few different options after the P ball such as a summon or Carcass Raid, but this is somewhat unexplored. Part of the beauty of this character is discovering new setups and branching okizeme/pressure paths. What one will see in these setups will never be everything, but between them, enough to get one started.

Mixup options:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Required Setup:

Choosing an Oki Route

By: BadoorSNK

There are a few qualities that one needs to consider when choosing a specific oki route.

"Can I even do the oki?"

A lot of intermediate level oki require specific combos or enders or even knockdown distance to work.

When one hitconfirms, they need to know if they can go for a route or not. Generally, the oki that requires these specific routes are stronger (or at least the relevant okis, not all of them are stronger than simpler okis). This is why c.S(3) > xQV on standing enemies is a strong combo. It generates a ball mid combo so after the knockdown one won't need time to spend time on a ball set because the ball has already been made by the QV. The same is true for QV ender. QV ender makes Venom free to charge Stinger Aim (xSA) or perform Carcass Raid (xCR) or Ball Set sooner than if he did 6H and canceled into Ball Set. Sometimes one don't need to do them sooner (an example is P-ball sCR-BS 5P Ball Hit (BH). One can do this fairly quickly so the extra time one would gain from landing a pQV ender isn't going to help much, but It won't hurt either.)

An Oki With a Better Mixup is Not Always The Better Oki

I [BadoorSNK] learned this by fighting Slayer players in Japan.

Teresa once said, "A Slayer that blocks on wake up is rarer than the birth of a sea-turtle". Basically there is more to oki than the mix-up or damage conversion one gets out of it. Sometimes what one really needs is to force the opponent to block in a safe way from afar, without risking putting yourself close for DPs or Blitz or throws, etc. Chip damage is another quality that can make an oki stronger without having to get a better mixup or more damaging follow up.

Make Any Oki Better With Meter

Whether it is with Dark Angel (DA) or YRC, or even RRCing a far 2D(2) > H Double Headed Morbid/hSA for a safe unthrowable empty low or FDing on the way down from a j.S BH to block DPs.

Basically, with meter one can cover some of the faults of the oki that is currently in place. Obviously, DA is like the peak of what Venom can do: Big chip, long lockdown and it can obscure the enemy's view of Venom. But think to yourself "do I need to use it when I have the best meterless oki (corner c.S(3) hQV...pQV kd sSA lvl3 TS) set up and ready to go?". It might be a good idea even then if the enemy has low health and since DA could chip them out (or force them to FD under Dead Angle's cost, and one's mix up would have to be respected). Alternatively one can use DA to basically set up the early H, pQV ender oki even if the route wouldn't normally allow it. For example: if one opens the enemy up crouching, they normally can't get that oki, however one can do theit combo, end it with hQV, do pSet and then DA and start charging sSA after. YRC works in a similar way too. One good YRC oki Is corner pQV kd, sSA-BS lvl2 then YRC microdash 5P BH jump then airdash or low (or even late EMPTY airdash low for extra confusion). This last point probably falls under general meter usage wisdom in Xrd, when to spend or not to spend. In the end, meter is always gone at the end of a round so better to use it than lose it.