GGML/Mechanics

From Dustloop Wiki

Teching

Teching, also known as "down recovery", lets a player recover hitstun after being launched or knocked down by pressing 8+Any Button, including taunt.
The tech window begins on the first frame that the player is launched or knocked down, and they will recover 9F after tech is input. Teching leaves the player airborne with all options restored. If they are hit during tech's 9 frame duration, the player will not suffer hitstun, and instead only take damage.

Although the tech window always begins on the first frame after being launched, the duration of the tech window varies per character. The tech windows are as follows.

Character Ukemi Window
 Axl 18F
 Baiken 12F
 Baldhead 38F
 Chipp 42F
 Justice 60F
 Kliff 8F
 Ky 40F
 May 24F
 Millia 56F
 Potemkin 16F
 Sol 36F
 Testament 26F
 Zato 22F

note: under normal circumstances, Testament cannot perform ukemi. For more information, see GGML/Testament#Ukemi

Tech Bug

After being thrown, if you mash tech using P, K, or S, then the game will state your character has teched yet they will fall as though they haven't, and will not have the other visual effects that accompany a successful tech. However, your character becomes air active after a little bit, assuming you didn't hit the ground first. When reaching the ground, techs will immediately be active and not go into OTG. A mysterious mechanic (bug) also occurs after this is done. The next time you're thrown, you will immediately be air active after the throw rather than having to tech. This behavior is still being investigated further.

Let's Talk About Taunting

Because they are so similar in other games, many people will lump Taunt and Respect together when discussing this game. This is actively detrimental to understanding the game. Taunt and Respect are entirely different mechanically in this game, and they are also entirely different buttons on your control scheme. It is best if you completely divorce the two in your mind.

Respect:

  • Used as an input in Charge moves
  • Used while blocking to FD
  • Used for ukemi To recover from a knockdown or air hitstun state, usually by pressing a button. This is a common action found in games like BlazBlue and Guilty Gear. (teching)
  • Used for Respect Sliding
  • Plays an animation for however long you hold the button (tapping very shortly transitions from running to walking)

Taunt:

  • Used in the air to turn around manually
  • Plays a canned animation start to finish, when used on the ground
  • Used to perform  Kliff's BAKAMON!! attack

Instant Kill

Every character has access to an Instant Kill move by first inputting P+K. Hitting this attack enters the so-called "Sakkai" state, during which the screen turns red and both characters are frozen. The player who initiated this state needs to input 236+Attack Button in order to dial the actual Instant Kill attack. Successfully landing an Instant Kill decides not only the current round but all subsequent rounds as well.

The other player can avoid this attack by inputting 214+Attack Button at any point while this red Sakkai screen is visible. If done correctly, the defending character will enter a dodging animation and the attacking character will dash through them, not dealing any damage.

The Sakkai state can also be triggered by performing an Instant Block.

IK Dodge Frame Data

When performing the input to avoid getting instant killed during the IK Sakkai state, the defending player performs a sort of "dodge" with specific frame data and invuln.
The durations of these animations and their respective invulnerability period is listed below.

Character Total Duration Invulnerable Period
 Axl 26F strike invuln 1~7F, 18~26F
 Baiken 27F only invuln to IKs
 Baldhead 20F strike invuln 1~11F
 Chipp 20F strike invuln 1~20F
 Justice 36F Strike invuln 1~36F
 Kliff 20F only invuln to IKs
 Ky 39F strike invuln 1~11F, 27~39F
 May 34F strike invuln 1~5F, 26~34F
 Millia 23F strike invuln 1~9F
 Potemkin 42F strike invuln 1~42F
 Sol 28F strike invuln 1~11F
 Testament 31F strike invuln 1~31F
 Zato 37F strike invuln 1~11F, 27~37F

Entries highlighted in green are invulnerable for their entire duration.
Entries highlighted in red are only invulnerable to instant kills.

Guard Cancel

Guard Cancels, known officially as "Dead Angle Attacks", are special moves performed during blockstun. Any special move can be used as a guard cancel for free. This allows you to interrupt your opponent's offense reversal style specials.

The community does not often use the official name in order to avoid confusion with more recent and popular titles where Dead Angle Attacks behave entirely differently.

GCJ Glitch

The Guard Cancel Jump, or GCJ, is a niche technique that allows you to jump during blockstun. To perform a GCJ, input jump immediately after blocking an attack. If performed correctly, your character will levitate into the air while in blockstun without going through their prejump animation. Blockstun sustained before leaving the ground persists as you become airborne.

This phenomenon is still being researched, and is not fully understood at this time.

Charge Attacks

Each character, except for  Axl,  Testament, and  Justice, has a specific special move that can be charged. To charge a move, perform that moves input, but use the Respect button instead of the normal attack button. Your character will play a unique animation and gain a charge level. That move will become powered up for each level that you charge it.

For reference, this is very similar to  Order-Sol's charge mechanic in +R, but hilariously busted. This mechanic, after all, inspired that character's design.

Charge Canceling

Charge Canceling is the mechanic which allows most characters to perform frequently seen infinite combos. Any grounded normal can be cancelled into the charging animation just like one would into a special. Since the charging animation ends instantly as soon as the player releases the Respect button, this can essentially serve to remove all recovery from any ground normal.

This allows characters with a charge to simply hit their opponent with any normal, gatling into a normal with a decent amount of hitstun, cancel into charge, immediately release the charge again, dash up and repeat the process indefinitely until their opponent is either stunned or runs out of health.

The same principle can technically be applied to blockstrings as well, however the strength of defensive tools such as Missing Link's Deadangle Attacks or Instant Block to trigger Sakkai state make this a pretty risky option.

Charge Times

Different characters gain charge levels at different speeds. These charge times are measured in frames. For example:  Chipp gains levels twice as quickly as  Potemkin.

Character Charge Time
GGML Kliff Icon.png Kliff 85
GGML Potemkin Icon.png Potemkin 80
GGML Zato Icon.png Zato 70
GGML Sol Icon.png Sol 54
GGML Ky Icon.png Ky 52
GGML Baiken Icon.png Baiken 50
GGML May Icon.png May 48
GGML Millia Icon.png Millia 45
GGML Baldhead Icon.png Baldhead 45
GGML Chipp Icon.png Chipp 40
GGML Axl Icon.png Axl -1
GGML Justice Icon.png Justice -1
GGML Testament Icon.png Testament -1

Note: A charge time of -1 indicates that the character cannot charge.

Charge Sliding (Wave Dash)

If you input a Dash at the same time as some charge inputs, your character retains full dash momentum without deceleration until it reaches the opponent. This can be done with any character that has both a dash and a charge input, inputted as: 2366R. Although it seems to be impossible with 2266R and 62366R. Similar to Dash Bug, this allows you to slide fullscreen with any option. Performing a Charge Slide will also carry the hitbox of a dash attack, applying to every hit of your next move until you stop sliding.

The following characters can charge slide:

Guard

Guarding, known commonly as blocking in the FGC, works as expected in GGML. Most moves can be blocked low, high, or both, with a few special moves being unblockable. Blocked normal moves will usually deal no damage to the blocker, and specials will do significantly reduced damage, known as chip damage Damage incurred when blocking an attack. Typically, only Special Attacks and Super Attacks have chip damage, but there are exceptions.. It should be noted that unlike later entries in the series, in GGML all attacks can be blocked in the air without the use of any secondary mechanics with the exception of a few air unblockable moves.

Faultless Defense

Faultless defense is performed by holding the Respect button while blocking an attack. It will only activate against moves that do chip damage, where it will negate all chip received from that attack at the cost of a moderate amount of meter, known in game as the Chaos Gauge. Unlike in later games, it cannot be used against air unblockable moves.

Instant Block

Instant Blocking is performed by inputting block at the same moment that an opponent's attack would hit you. Doing so will cause you to enter Sakkai and potentially perform an Instant Kill on the opponent immediately. This IB Sakkai can only be performed while standing and outside of blockstun.

Dust Attack

Dust Attacks are launcher attacks which are performed by inputting S+H. If you hit the opponent with a dust attack, the opponent will be sent flying in a special launch animation for unique combo opportunities. Pressing 8 shortly after the dust launch happens will make you perform a special super jump.

The following characters have Dusts which are overheads:

The following characters have Dusts which are Lows:

All other dusts are mids.
1Does not hit most crouching opponents.
2Hits low on second hit only.

Velocity Dust

If one character hits the opponent with an attack that deals at least a certain amount of damage (usually 15), and the opponent is traveling above a certain velocity, the attack will apply the hit effects of a Dust attack.

The requirements to trigger a Velocity Dust against each character is as follows:

Character DMG Velocity
 Axl 15 1664
 Baiken 15 1536
 Baldhead 15 1664
 Chipp 6 2816
 Justice 15 2048
 Kliff 15 1024
 Ky 15 1664
 May 15 1536
 Millia 15 1536
 Potemkin 15 2048
 Sol 15 1536
 Testament 15 1536
 Zato 15 1536

Chaos Gauge & Overdrives

The Chaos Gauge is Missing Link's equivalent to the Tension Gauge mechanic from later titles, and it will frequently be referred to by the phrase "Meter" as a blanket term. In Missing Link, the only two things to spend meter on are Overdrives (your characters' Supers) and Faultless Defense.

How relevant a character's meter is to them at all can vary wildly between them, with many simply not making use of the mechanic or paying attention to their current gauge percentage at all. Either this is because it serves little point in their gameplan or toolkit and its status as a "combo ender" falls flat in comparison to killing the opponent with a Charge Cancel infinite, or the super simply fails to function from being punishable on hit, too slow to combo into, and other factors. Most lack any form of startup invulnerability and none are true reversals, killing expected utility elsewhere. For this reason, a character having a "bad super" fails to become relevant in practical gameplay.

Amongst the roster,  Potemkin,  Justice,  Testament, &  Millia are the characters who care about being able to use their super the most. The common trend between them is that they either fulfill some unique utility in neutral or are useful on a character who cannot CC infinite as a combo ender.

Some supers are rarely seen but have occasional utility, such as  Baiken &  Baldhead's being unique mixup options which are sometimes used to close out rounds, or  Sol's Dragon Install being a hard-to-apply but scary stacking buff. For the majority of the roster, however, a characters' meter plays a much smaller part than it does in other fighting games that possess one.


Desperation State

When a character's health drops into the yellow, characters enter the desperation state. During this, Overdrives can be executed regardless of how much the Chaos Gauge is filled. While Overdrives essentially become free through this, they still drop the Chaos Gauge to 0, preventing the use of Faultless Defense for the time the player is performing Overdrives continuously.

This desperation state is not tied to any requirement or timer outside of the character's health so it lasts until the next round begins.

Meter Gain Modifier

Each character has a meter gain modifier value. The greater this value, the more meter that character gains per for each action.

Character Meter Gain Modifier Meter Gain as % of Mean
GGML Baldhead Icon.png Baldhead 15 150
GGML Justice Icon.png Justice 15 150
GGML Sol Icon.png Sol 12 120
GGML Axl Icon.png Axl 12 120
GGML Baiken Icon.png Baiken 11 110
GGML May Icon.png May 10 100
GGML Zato Icon.png Zato 10 100
GGML Testament Icon.png Testament 10 100
GGML Millia Icon.png Millia 8 80
GGML Kliff Icon.png Kliff 8 80
GGML Potemkin Icon.png Potemkin 5 50
GGML Ky Icon.png Ky 5 50
GGML Chipp Icon.png Chipp 4 40

Minor Mechanics

These are not necessarily unimportant, but there's not a lot to say about these mechanics.

Air Blocking

As a general rule, most moves are blockable in the air. There are, however, significant rule breakers that are air unblockable, even if they were otherwise blockable both standing and crouching. Moves which can be blocked standing or crouching, but not in the air are denoted as Mid guard. Moves which are blockable in the air as well as standing or crouching are denotes as All guard.

Here is a list of air unblockable moves:

  • Universal Dash attack
  •  Axl
    • 2K, 8H after Rensen Geki, Benten Gari (623S)
  •  Baiken
    • Tsurane Sanzu Watari (2363214H)
  •  Chipp
    • Beta Blade (623P)
  •  Dr Baldhead
    • 6P
  •  Justice
    • 2nd Hit of Michael Sword (41236S), Strike Back Tail (421K)
  •  Kliff
    • 6P, Scale Ripper (SxN)
  •  Ky
    • 6P, 1st Hit of Stun Dipper (236K)
    • Ride the Lightning (412364H)
  •  May
    • 6P, 2H
  •  Millia
    • 6P, 2H
  •  Potemkin
    • 5K, 2K
    • Gigantic Piston (632146H)
  •  Sol
    • Air Volcanic Viper, Level 2 & 3 Ground Volcanic Viper, Dragon Install Volcanic Viper
    • Tyrant Rave (632146H)
  •  Testament
    • Grave Digger (236S)
  •  Zato-1
    • All shadow attacks during Climb Darkness (41236H)

Jump Cancels

As a rule, all normals in the game (except for ones that put characters in an aerial state like  Axl Low's 4/6H) are jump cancelable, regardless of how long ranged they are or whatever properties they have. Be aware that your character will still need to go through their prejump frames while airborne, meaning that characters with slow prejump frames might not have enough time to jump cancel jump-in attacks before they hit the ground.

Clashes

Millia's 1f j.S is anti-aired, but it continues to clash until landing.

A clash occurs when 2 attacks connect with each other. Unlike in future games, attacks don't need to be two disjoints touching eachother for a clash to occur: most any overlapping attack hitboxes will clash instead of trading. When a clash happens, both players can cancel their current move into another attack. Also unlike in future games, you can only cancel into a move that the clashing normal is capable of canceling into or the same attack that clashed, rather than being able to cancel into any move.

Most notably, characters with 1 frame aerial attacks like  Millia are difficult to adequately anti-air as most attempts to do so will simply result in a clash until the aerial opponent touches the ground at best.

Instant Kills will not clash, only beating something clean or not hitting at all. Combined with the upper-body invulnerability most possess, they have unique utility as anti-airs & counterpokes in certain situations due to this mechanic.

Backdashes

Backdashes mostly universally send the player flying back a good distance while fully invincible with no recovery. This makes backdashes an incredibly powerful defensive tool every character has access to. Theoretically, one could backdash an entire round and be untouchable, but this is humanly impossible since you'd need to do a 44 input in one frame.

 Baiken's backdash has no invulnerability, but otherwise functions the same as other characters'.

 Kliff's backdash is a uniquely inputted specialGGML Kliff Undersn 44.pngGuardN/AStartupN/ARecoveryN/AAdvantageN/A which can be cancelled into a unique attackGGML Kliff Undersn 44P.pngGuardAllStartup1Recovery17Advantage- at any point. It retains the standard full invulnerability that backdashes have, and has a 1/8 chance to fail & damage him instead.

Dash Attacks

Dash Attacks are a universal attack everyone in the cast has bar  Potemkin &  Kliff, since they can't dash, and also  Baldhead &  Baiken for some reason. They activate automatically when running for long enough while you have full meter, shown by the "BREAKER" text and screen flash. Most are unremarkable and cause a techable launch on hit, though some are plus on block for pressure. Likewise, all are air unblockable, though due to their distance requirement before becoming active and mediocre hitbox, this rarely comes up.

This mechanic is referenced in later Gear entries, where it's EX  Order-Sol's "Special Skill" &  Robo-Ky's Spi-KY.

Counter Hits

Counter-hits in Missing Link give approximately 30% bonus damage to the initial hit and seemingly have no other special properties found in other games, such as bonus stun damage or hitstun. For most characters, this is inconsequential, but for characters like  Kliff, this majorly impacts sources of large, single-hit damage.

The criteria for landing a counter-hit is the same as in other Gear games; if you strike the opponent while they're in the startup or active frames of an attack of any kind.

Dash Bug

If you input a Dash at the same time as any grounded attack, your character retains full dash momentum without deceleration until it reaches the opponent. This can be used on specials by inputting them as 2366X, 62366X, 21466X, etc. Notably, doing the dash bug with 623 motions (62366) is near impossible for humans. This has a number of applications on throughout the cast such as  Axl's Dototsu (214K) becoming a near fullscreen invincible attack, or  Chipp using the dash bug with Tsuyoshi-shikii Ten'i (236S) to gain a near fullscreen teleport. Also,  Kliff and  Potemkin are incapable of doing the dash bug since neither have a dash.

Jump Startup

Jump startup is fairly unusual in the Missing Link. It varies heavily between charactes, ranging from 2 to 12. When you double jump or jump cancel, a character must go through their whole jump startup again. Most interesting though is that you're considered airborne during jump startup, even from the ground. This means if you're hit out of jump startup, you'll take one hit then immediately hit the ground with all options available, most notably throw. This can be used as an way to escape pressure, although there are many other ways to do this.

Damage Display

There is a minor difference in how damage is registered between the PSX and PC versions of ML. On PSX, the health bar updates 1 frame before the hurt animation plays. On PC, the health bar and hurt animation are sync to the same frame.

Dust Launchers

If a player is moving at or above a certain speed, dependent on each character, and that player gets hit by an attack that deals more than 15 damage, then that attack will gain the launching properties of a Dust. It will also display the "DAST" text on screen, as if a normal Dust attack had hit.

Homing Jump Bug

If you hit the opponent with a dust, do homing jump, and then hit them with one of three specific special moves, then the character will subsequently continue to home towards the opponent in a strange bugged state, although the effect wears off quickly. This can only be done with  Chipp's Beta Blade (623P),  May's Aqua Rolling (236S), and  Baiken's Youzansen (623S). Only Chipp can really take advantage of this.

Dizzy

Dizzy, also known as "Stun" or "Bear Stun" is a punishment for getting hit. Each character has a Dizzy Threshold and a Luck value which are used to determine if and when that character will get stunned.

Every time an attack would put your dizzy value over the dizzy threshold, the game rolls a random number between 1 and (64-LUCK) to determine if you get stunned or not. This means that characters with a lower stun threshold start rolling dice to get stunned more quickly than others, and characters with high luck have a better chance to avoid the stun after passing their threshold than others. However, the luck stat is statistically useless and you can realistically expect to be stunned each time you are put above your character's dizzy value.

Character Dizzy Threshold Luck
GGML Axl Icon.png Axl 25 10
GGML Baiken Icon.png Baiken 30 12
GGML Baldhead Icon.png Baldhead 35 12
GGML Chipp Icon.png Chipp 18 10
GGML Justice Icon.png Justice 35 10
GGML Kliff Icon.png Kliff 16 10
GGML Ky Icon.png Ky 30 10
GGML May Icon.png May 38 10
GGML Millia Icon.png Millia 25 10
GGML Potemkin Icon.png Potemkin 36 10
GGML Testament Icon.png Testament 30 10
GGML Zato Icon.png Zato 30 10
GGML Sol Icon.png Sol 24 10

In practice, the importance of this information is limited. If you're playing "honest" Missing Link, then it just means that  Dr Baldhead and  May are the hardest characters to stun, and  Kliff is the easiest. If you're playing Missing Link with no holds barred, then none of this matters because you're probably going to infinite the other person before stun is a factor. The main exception to this is  Kliff, since his attacks do high stun and he has no infinite.

Frame Advantage

Missing Link's hitstun is rather eclectic and strange. As a result there are some caviats involved in the frame data presented on this wiki:

  • All On-Hit values are tested on  Ky
  • All On-Hit values assume earliest possible ukemi/tech from the opponent when applicable
  • All On-Hit and On-Block values assume worst case scenario frame advantage

Wakeup Throw Invuln

Players are invulnerable to throws for 6 frames after waking up from a knockdown. On frame 7, they can be thrown.

Combo Scaling

In Missing Link, combo scaling is unique to each character. Below is a table representing the damage multiplier based on the number of hits the character has done in a combo.

Hits which have significantly non-standard scaling are highlighted.

  • Green multipliers are abnormally high
  • Yellow multipliers are abnormally low.
Hit Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Axl Low 1.00x 0.87x 0.62x 0.62x 0.50x 0.50x 0.43x 0.43x 0.31x 0.31x 0.31x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x
Baiken 1.00x 0.93x 0.87x 0.81x 0.75x 0.68x 0.62x 0.37x 0.34x 0.31x 0.28x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x
Chipp 1.00x 0.87x 0.75x 0.68x 0.62x 0.56x 0.50x 0.43x 0.37x 0.31x 0.28x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 1.00x 0.12x
Dr Baldhead 1.00x 0.31x 1.00x 0.50x 1.00x 0.75x 0.43x 0.68x 0.34x 0.31x 0.28x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x
Justice 1.00x 1.00x 0.93x 0.93x 0.87x 0.81x 0.81x 0.25x 0.25x 0.25x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x 0.12x
Kliff 1.00x 0.62x 0.56x 0.56x 0.50x 0.43x 0.31x 0.31x 0.31x 0.31x 0.28x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x
Ky 1.00x 0.87x 0.81x 0.75x 0.62x 0.50x 0.43x 0.37x 0.31x 0.28x 0.28x 0.25x 0.25x 0.18x 0.18x 0.15x
May 1.00x 0.81x 0.68x 0.62x 0.50x 0.50x 0.43x 0.37x 0.34x 0.31x 0.28x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x
Millia 1.00x 0.87x 0.81x 0.68x 0.56x 0.50x 0.43x 0.37x 0.34x 0.31x 0.28x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x
Potemkin 1.00x 0.75x 0.62x 0.56x 0.50x 0.43x 0.43x 0.37x 0.34x 0.31x 0.28x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x
Sol 1.00x 0.81x 0.68x 0.62x 0.50x 0.50x 0.43x 0.37x 0.34x 0.31x 0.28x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x
Testament 1.00x 1.06x 0.87x 0.81x 0.75x 0.56x 0.43x 0.37x 0.34x 0.31x 0.28x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x
Zato 1.00x 0.87x 0.75x 0.68x 0.56x 0.50x 0.43x 0.37x 0.34x 0.31x 0.28x 0.25x 0.21x 0.18x 0.15x 0.12x

In practice, the importance of this information is limited. If you're playing "honest" Missing Link, then this can help you optimize your combo routes. If you're playing Missing Link with no holds barred, then none of this matters because you're doing an infinite combo.

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