GGST/Movement

Ground Movement

Walking

Hold or

Walking is the most basic movement option in your arsenal. Walking is a slow low commital way to move and presents the least risk.

Walking can freely and immediately cancel into any action - including blocking, making it useful when baiting and whiff-punishing moves or in spacing attacks during combos and pressure while minimizing risk.

Running

or + Dash

Running moves your character forward faster and more effectively compared to walking. Keep holding forward to keep running indefinitely.

When ending a run, there is a skidding animation that can immediately cancel into any action except normal blocking. Players can mitigate this by spending some meter to immediately cancel a run into Faultless Defense. This technique is known as FD Break.

Forward Dash

Not all characters can run - characters like Leo and Giovanna can only dash fixed distance forward, and Nagoriyuki and Potemkin have no forward dash at all.

Backdash

or + Dash

Backdash to quickly move away from the opponent.

Backdashes have some invulnerability on startup, which can help you evade opponent's attacks. Be careful when using it, as the invulnerability does not last long for most characters and is best used when there is a specific attack you intend to avoid. The exact duration of backdashes and invulnerability varies between character and will be listed in the frame data once measured.

Air Movement

Most characters only have 1 air option: you can either double jump or air dash, but cannot do both. There are exceptions, however:

• Nagoriyuki has no air option whatsoever.
• Potemkin can only double jump; he cannot air dash.
• Millia and Chipp have 2 air options, but with their own restrictions: Millia can only air dash twice or air dash after a double jump; Chipp can only triple jump or jump after an air dash.

Jumping

// while standing/crouching to jump in that direction

Jumping is the primary air movement of all characters and has lots of potential options afterwards.

All characters except for Nagoriyuki can double jump by inputing another jump while airborne. By canceling a run into a jump, horizontal momentum will carry over into the jump giving players additional jump trajectories to move around the opponent's attacks. Some normals and/or specials can be jump cancelled on hit or block.

High Jump (Super Jump)

Quickly // before jumping

High jumping is like a regular jump, but travels higher and faster. After a High Jump, charaters can airdash, but not double jump.

Air Dashing

Quickly / or / + Dash while airborne

Air dashes are a fast way to move horizontally while airborne

• Backward Air Dash is instaneous, and that's about it.
• Forward Air Dash will propel the character forward after a short delay

After air dashing, characters can not cancel into other actions immediately - they must wait a brief moment before being able to attack or block. The amount of time varies by character and exact values can be found in each character's frame data.

Instant Air Dash

Instant Air Dash ( ) is a technique to quickly airdash after jumping and is useful for quickly air dashing over projectiles and covering ground quickly from the air.

See Instant Air Dash for more info.

Prejump

Jumps and High Jumps are not instantaneous - before going airborne, characters enter a state called prejump, where they can not block, but are invincible to throws. If hit during prejump, characters enter standing hitstun.

Characters have different amount of prejump frames, but the rule of thumb is that the heavier/slower they are, the longer the prejump. Exact prejump duration can be found in each character's frame data.

It is actually possible to cancel prejump into Specials and Overdrives, though most characters do not often use this. This property exists so that attacks that involve an Up input, such as Leo's Eisen Sturm ([2]8S/H) can be used without doing tricks to hide the jump input (such as whiffing moves beforehand).

Landing Recovery

Some airborne moves have a set amount of landing recovery like Ky's Aerial Stun Edge

This is straightforward; upon landing the character will enter a completely vulnerable landing animation.

After performing any action after jumping (double jumping, air dashing, any air attack without specified landing recovery) there is a unique landing recovery animation where

1-3F after landing can not block

1-6F can not do any movement options

7F onwards all actions possible

After landing while in air blockstun

1-19F after landing can only block

20F onwards all actions possible

After landing from an empty jump

1-6F can not do any movement options

7F onwards all actions possible

Another quirk about landing in this game is that the frame before landing, characters are considered grounded meaning they can be hit by ground throw during the last frame of jumping and getting hit on the last frame will result in ground hitstun.

Ground and Air Recovery

Knockdown Recovery

After getting knocked down by most attacks, characters will instantly roll backwards and quickly recovery. This is fuly invulnerable and lasts for ?? frames.

Certain attacks cause a hard knockdown, where the character will lie on the ground for 55 frames before getting up. The character is considered in an OTG state during this time and if hit will go into a less combo-able hitstun animation. Thus most players tend to use this time to set up Okizeme rather than continuing the combo.

Stagger Recovery

File:GGST Stagger.png

Mash when this icon appears to recover faster

When hit by attacks that cause stagger, players can mash buttons to recover more quickly.

Cancels

Cancels are the act of canceling one attack into the other. Usually this requires the first attack makes contact with the opponent. Cancels are commonly used to make combos and blockstrings.

There are many types of cancels, we wil go over them here.

Gatling Combination

Normal attacks can be cancelled into other normal attacks, this is known as a Gatling. there can be character-specific variations, but the general rule is:

• -> or Command Normal.
• -> or Command Normal.
• c. -> or or Command Normal.
• -> .

Special Cancel

Most normal attacks can be cancelled into special attacks. Nagoriyuki can also cancel special attacks into other special attacks, although it will raise his Blood Gauge.

Jump Cancel

Some normals can be cancelled into a jump/high jump.

On the ground, all characters' 5K and c.S can be jump-cancelled. In the air, all characters' j.K and most characters' j.D can.

Dash Cancel

On the ground, few moves have this property. Some examples are Sol's 5K and May and Giovanna's c.S.

In the air, all j.K and j.S, and some j.H and j.D are. Potemkin and Nagoriyuki cannot dash cancel, as they do not have a traditional forward dash or airdash.

Clash

A clash happens when you and your opponent's attacks hit each other in a way that both attacks are nullified. See here for a more detailed visual example. During a clash each character can cancel into any attack or FD, but not movement or normal block. Thus when clashes happen either the players are unable to react to it because it is unexpected, or they understand how the attacks interact well enough to intentionally cause a clash to cancel out the opponent's attack, then retaliate with their own!

Roman Cancels

The Roman Cancel System in Guilty Gear Strive was designed to be multifaceted and comes in various colors.

Each color of RC releases a shockwave in a circle around your character with different properties and uses:

Red (RRC)

• Performed while hitting the opponent.
• Shockwave launches the opponent at the cost of slightly increasing damage scaling. Used to extend combos for more damage and/or better oki.
• The opponent is launched upward if you drift downward or backwards, up and away if you don't drift or if you drift upwards, or away if you drift forward.
• Will cause a hard knockdown if the opponent isn't hit after being launched by the shockwave.
• Not available when using a projectile.

Yellow (YRC)

• Performed while in blockstun (even when airborne!)
• Shockwave puts the opponent into a guard reel but deals no damage. Used as a defensive "get off me" tool.
• Not available when in a guard reeling state.

Purple (PRC)

• Performed during the start-up or recovery of an attack. Also works during the active frames if the attack whiffed.
• Shockwave slows down the opponent but doesn't put them into hitstun or blockstun. Used to stay safe when using committal attacks.

Blue (BRC)

• Performed while you're in a neutral situation (I.E. not attacking or blocking).
• Shockwave slows down the opponent but doesn't put them into hitstun or blockstun. Used to catch opponents doing something other than block, then punish them while they are slowed.
• Has the longest slowdown timer of all the Roman Cancels. This allows for links that aren't normally possible, like 5K into c.S.

RC Drift

Sike, I wasn't actually there!

• Available for any RC except Yellow.
• Input a forward or backward dash just before RC'ing to move in that direction during the RC's activation. Can also input dashes up or down to drift in that direction.

RC Fast Cancel

Go straight into the next attack of your choice!

• Available for any RC except Yellow.
• Prevents RC's from producing a shockwave in exchange for canceling into any attack, even special moves.
• Input the attack just after RC'ing. There is a visual indicator of when you can do this (when the initial effects from a Roman Cancel disappear before the shockwave occurs).
• Useful for some combos or to just be able to act quicker after using RC.
• Preserves momentum from before the RC.