@lordknight I will Wipe the floor with any of your characters you play me with because I’m better and I play anji and I know I can beat because you think his weak .
Also important to note: the startup animations for fuujin, spin, and kou are all different, INCLUDING if you hold them down. If a button is held down to grant spin to any of these moves, the animation of the original move plays for a single frame before transitioning into the spin animation. This might not seem like a lot, but it's incredibly noticeable for kou in particular because anji leans forward a significant amount. To test this out, go to training mode and set an Anji bot to do held kou and held spin randomly. If you watch him, you will be able to tell when he's doing kou, which makes held kou essentially useless as an animation mixup both in neutral and in pressure since whiffed kou always guarantees an air throw.
The thing is good Anji will not even let you have time to think or react. He can make you so busy with worrying with other stuffs. However bad and normal Anji players just spin without knowing the purpose thinking it would beat opponent options and that is why they are losing. Cuz they don’t understand how human react to the string or options. To be good at Anji you have know at least 3 steps ahead of your opponent, not randomly spinning like a gorilla. I used to main Anji and i have no problem beating the shet out of people in Celestial, sure some weird interaction happens, his offense is hard to keep up but as long as you read your opponent 3 steps ahead, YOU WIN
Anji main here, Rating Update has me 3rd best Anji on PSN and I got 17th at East coast Throwdown (Somehow. I still can't explain why or how) I think this is a decent breakdown from an outsider perspective, but there's a fair few things I think you missed. Spin and Fuujin are great, but you didn't address that their ability to change the pace makes it easy for Anji to actually just play with his solid buttons now. His autoguard stuff is a good layer one, and should be mixed in, but the 'Play Neutral different' is kinda meant to be level 1. Delay Nag absolutely punishes fuzzy jump and guard. Fuujin followups have a huge window, which is going to screw with musclememory in general. Anji has plenty of counterplay for bad OS decisions. Not mentioned at all is corner carry. Anji's corner carry is kinda ridiculous thanks to dash cancel Kou and j.D. Both these options mean that a good Anji combo should lead into the corner, and maybe even a wall break. This mitigates some of his poor oki options. Also not mentioned at all is 2P. Anji, no cap, has the best 2P in the game. Mashing 2P with Anji will win you games. The counterhit change has made it even more absurd, as now he can go to 2P 6H which not only leads to decent damage, but has decent corner carry even without bar. It also catches backdashes in the corner, and can lead into a full combo that will likely break wall. Anji's frame data, empty fuujin buffs, lunging moves like 6H and spin, and odd hitboxes on some generally stubby buttons can allow him to reset his pressure constantly. It is fake to a degree, but it's not any less fake than most of the high tiers who can lose on their turn. Anji with meter is kinda ridiculous. You alluded to it, but it's absolutely absurd what he gets away with on positive. The big thing you didn't mention is that his Strike-Throw is really damn scary now. +1 on c.S mixed with Fuujin being kinda scary means that run up throw after 5S is quite good and it does mean he can set up oki quite well. This is also made even more true with empty spin into grab. You can grab him sure, but decent Anji's should just keep track of how much they mash grab in certain situations and then just punish them for mashing grab. Overall, Anji is just a hard condition character with a bunch of tools that are built for that. He's not really meant to be a safe character, he's more meant to reward hard commits and call outs. That's his core design philosophy, and it's great. The real issue is Anji doesn't get enough reward for calling out poor decisions on the enemy's side despite his design kinda necessitating it. He's meant to be a high risk RPS monster built around conditioning, but the game doesn't always reward that. Anji's oki is quite good when he can set it up, but the problem is he's struggling to set it up. 2D and Grab aren't enough options. I think they were worried about a big damage character getting vortex shenanigans, but this goes to his second issue. His damage isn't *always* amazing. It used to be before Season 2, but now it's a lot more flaky thanks to Fuujin changes. 2S and f.S on counterhit doesn't lead into that much from most ranges, which is a problem since those are your most consistent pokes, and his lack of knockdowns means that blocking poorly against Fuujin isn't usually a big deal if he doesn't have bar. (This wasn't an issue last patch, but the changes to Charge Fuujin mean he can no longer pop characters up and get a full combo). The fact he doesn't get these two basic rewards for most of his attacks is his biggest problem by a wide margin. He commits big, does a bit of damage, and resets to neutral if he doesn't have the bar to spend. This may be a little rose tinted, but I think a lot of people who say Anji is bad don't understand how close he is to being a consistent threat. He's just lacking a small bit of reward in situations it really feels like it's deserved. Anji would be honestly very good if the Overhead just gave hard knock down on hit and charge Fuujin had its launch properties back to some degree. That's really all he'd need to be a relatively fair, but strong character.
What about changing how Nagiha works? Unless I'm mistaken currently Nagiha serves as Anji's main grounded combo ender, blockstring ender (stagger pressure not withstanding), and conditioning tool when using Fujin. And yet the reward you get on hit is not all that great, from what I remember usually you at most get a f.S or 5HS meaty (if even that). And on block it is punishable when not properly spaced. Couldn't increasing the reward of using Nagiha help a lot as well?
another good thing with anji having good corner carry is that while you're near the wall you have the option to get butterfly oki even from soft knockdowns. It's not as good as old kou but it's still a nice option
I think there are no truly bad chars in this game. They are just missing a couple of things, as you mentioned. Or, from a competitive perspective, they are either inconsistent in important situations, or there is a char who plays similarly but is better.
I agree a lot with what he need. I'm still puzzled as to why they removed the launch on fuujin for season 2. On CH and charged it really feels off. I would argue that he also didn't need to lose hkd on Kou.
I needed to read this lol thanks for all the info! Ps. I don’t know if anyone has said this yet or not but what do you think about fan needles also hitting you on the way down?
Good vid, couple notes: - Anji's 2S got buffed last patch and is probably his "best" poke now even if it isn't his furthest-ranged. It's fast, pretty disjointed, and goes into anything far slash does. You need to use them both but 2S is good for Anji and you didn't mention it so I wanted to throw it out there. - This is a matter of opinion but I think Anji's 6p is pretty good specifically as an anti-air. The hitbox is big, not as big as some other characters, but it works well as an AA. It also can be used thanks to the Fuujin buff to set up butterfly oki after on counterhit which isn't bad. It does take too long to whiff though, have no idea why it's designed that way. - In the last patch they made Fuujin -8 instead of -16 which removed the super/DP mash OS, and also they intentionally slowed Nagiha down a little bit. What this means is that while delay jump works if Anji commits to a follow-up, you can do a fairly spaced "safe" raw Fuujin that you can use to discourage the delay jump OS. as he can often spacing trap attempts to take turns back and also anti air in time. I agree that Anji's pressure is mostly RPS that isn't in his favor but it's probably worth mentioning that empty Fuujin is a reasonable tool on block now that can be used to discourage options that would have previously covered anything Anji could do, so he does have some kind of answer. - A buff that would really help Anji out a lot is just making Nagiha safer, like -4 or -5. I don't think he'd be a strong character with that change but it would make it safer for him to exit his rekka on bad spacing. Something people sort of miss when talking about game design sometimes is that character strength as it can relate to exiting mistakes or bad commits really does make a difference in the real world and Anji has nothing to help him get out. As it is, there are characters that can punish it at almost anything at max spacing which is a real drag. - Finally an important note: Anji has no way to combo into hard knockdowns anymore, so every time he hits you without meter he's just resetting to neutral where he isn't that great. Like, connecting with Nagiha pushes them so far out that if the opponent backdashes away he often can't chase. He needs a counterhit to get a hard knockdown.
As another Anji main, ill drop my thoughts on this to. 2s definitely is his better poke and one of his better round start options. Especially since a lot of Anji's important moves can get 6p'ed (Fuujin, Fs, J.S and J.HS). While it is disjointed, its not that disjointed. Its disjoint is strictly average to underwhelming in the current patch. 6H can anti air but the timing is very rough and death on whiff. I am pretty sure only 2nd hit hits in the air. otherwise, you get counter hit, which is death against most advancing air pokes. 6p is far more consistent. Respect your opinion though, it can lead to Kou combos on anti but to committal for what I would go for. The raw fuujin recovery buff is great, it helps bait reversals and by god is the punish good if you get it. Until your opponent punishes you for being -8. If the opponent reads either jumps forward or overhead, they can hit most buttons and you will get punished for doing nothing. It's somewhat safe but if read (even read incorrectly) is really bad. I wouldn't mind seeing the recovery slashed off nagiha, but that doesn't really fix the problem with his entire kit/gameplan. It would give him a truly safe offense ender, but his other glaring issues on offense would make the buff almost worthless on its own. The HKD issue really sucks now because landing a midscreen kou now isnt very rewarding for the amount of commit it takes. You basically have to go in to 2d from 5k or 2k but both of those moves have no disjoint in a game where everyone has solid disjoints on their larger pokes. Otherwise, you need meter, but that just means your opponent has to guess one more RPS right and your meter is gone. Resetting to neutral is almost always disadvantagous for Anji. So, wall breaking is very risky, even if you get the meter to take more chances off of it. Some other issues I don't think were touched are how bad he is at dealing with corner pressure (or defense generally) and his utter inability to deal with meter less reversals. His 2p is solid but still only 5 frames, he trades a lot of gaps other character punish. He also gets destroyed by DP's. You commit, you get dp'ed. You don't commit, you never win. His baits are also below average to really bad.
Great information, I'd also like to add a few things: - I agree with 2S being one of his best preemptive options, f.S is great for whiff punishing but for any other use in neutral 2S is almost always a better choice. - My personal theory is that Anji's 6P was designed to be an anti-air and that's it. Spin tends to be strong against the same kinds of moves that you would normally try to counterpoke with 6P in neutral, which leads me to believe that the intention is for spin to serve that purpose rather than his 6P. - I also think that empty Fuujin is a very strong option to steal turns. IMO, the “layer 1” Fuujin mindgame should be between empty Fuujin and delayed Nagiha before implementing any of the other followups. I also think that empty Fuujin makes Hop obsolete; I've had much better success against strong players just running up and throwing after they block Fuujin. - Nagiha definitely needs some love, probably in terms of pushback or frame advantage. 6H for example is so much weaker as a pressure tool because there isn't enough pushback to space Fuujin for a safe Nagiha ender. (Thankfully, -8/-6 empty Fuujin makes this situation less awful now.) - For what it's worth, at most ranges the Nagiha knockdown sets up an RPS situation where Anji can get meaty 2S or catch backdashes with 6H. Kou also sets up airdash > whiff j.X > land > meaty c.S with left/right mix depending on timing and spacing, which IMO is generally stronger than the long-range Shitsu he got before. - One big thing that I hope gets addressed in future patches is the opponent being able to PRC on spin activation. I'd suggest letting Anji PRC his animation as well, but then you get situations where the opponent *doesn't* PRC and Anji gets massive reward by spinning a light attack. I'm not sure what the best solution is, but for a mechanic that constitutes so much of Anji's power budget it sucks that the opponent can spend 50 meter to turn a successful spin into an extremely advantageous situation for themselves. My take on Season 2 Anji is that he's actually a complete and coherent character now. He is clearly still weak, but at least it's because he's undertuned compared to the overall power level of the game rather than being an inconsistent gimmick. I really think he only needs some 2 or 3 pain points smoothed out to be considered a strong and well-rounded character.
@@cob1million I wouldn't even say empty fuujin makes hop obsolete, hop was already obsolete if the opponent was aware of it. But it definitively is a great way to steal another turn now.
@@erichbauer3991 For sure, Hop has always been a meme in pressure. I just meant that if you DO want to do a silly callout with throw, empty Fuujin makes you more likely to get away with it.
@@PKD145 You can make the -8 on block Fujin thing not a issue by spacing. Haven't tested on every character but most characters don't have a 8 frame or faster normal that has enough range to punish a spaced raw fujin
Anji has always struck me as a character that is going to randomly one day become a god because they made a change to him that looks small on paper but accidentally busted him.
Coincidentally I've actually been learning +r Anji recently and I think some things really got lost in translation to strive, even though I'm generally a fan of the way they've simplified other characters. Anji used to be a character with a very large kit, where (almost) all of his tools had a distinct purpose, but each one could only be used in very specific situations. His autoguard is a good example of this - since it can only block lows or mids/overheads depending on the move, it can't be used recklessly, or you'll get blown up. Also, since each autoguard normal has a variety of different properties such as total duration, autoguard frames, hitboxes, movement, etc, each one is uniquely suited to beating different types of attacks. This mechanic conflicts with Strive's design philosophy. Movesets in strive are generally much smaller in an effort to eliminate "useless" moves, while (I assume) attempting making the game less intimidating for newcomers (whether or not you think this is a good philosophy is a different discussion). The nature of the mechanic requires a larger moveset - you need to have lots of different normals with different autoguard properties, plus you need to have various followup attacks for a successful guard, so I understand the desire from the devs to rework or replace it. However, spin just ain't it chief. Spin is a move that, unlike autoguard, requires little precision. As long as you know that your opponent is going to do something with a hitbox, you're fine. Worst case scenario, you end up blocking or in an rps situation. This is incredibly strong, so the devs needed to do something to weaken it. They did this by making it punishable on reaction with a run-up grab. This means that, in many matchups, spin is a hail mary - very powerful if successful, but, if your opponent is playing reactively, will usually end up with you in a terrible spot. This makes the move really hard to balance as well - as it is now, it's very hard to use at a high level, but if its recovery is buffed too much, it could become an overtuned, meterless neutral skip. The removal of autoguard reveals just how crucial it was to the character in other areas of his kit as well. Think of vanilla Rin - an extremely slow, yet high reward overhead makes a lot more sense when you realize it used to have autoguard. The DP OS would have been a lot less scary as Anji if he could autoguard through a DP for massive reward with Rin. His defense was also much better in +r - while he wasn't as scary to pressure as someone like Sol, some of his normals had frame 1 autoguard, which would allow him to disrespect some pressure, or at least make his opponent think twice on offense. Now all he has left is a 5 frame abare button (was it 6 frames on launch?) And one of the weaker reversal supers in the game (loses to grab.) His normals at this point range from ok to actually bad, and he's left feeling like a character who's ok at best at everything accept damage. If anything I said in here was wack let me know, I'm not exactly a +r or anji expert. Also curious to see how others feel about him.
I only played Anji in +R and when he was announced in Strive, I was super happy. I literally bought the game for him. It ended up not being worth it because of everything you mentioned. I hate dying for my own offense with Fujin and I hate that Spin.
@@SolidFake that's valid, I didn't know about the air moves thing. I might be wrong about the precision part for sure but I do think the absence of the old autoguard leaves some holes in his design that spin doesn't entirely fill.
Very true. The only part of Strive that I never understood or liked, was the devs trying to force each character to have four special moves. Guilty Gear isn't tekken, so I don't know why the devs thought having like 9 special moves would be to much for new players.
This is only the tip of the iceberg of anji’s issues but a good vid regardless. You could’ve mentioned how 6h sometimes whiffs on hit, how the second hit of kou will whiff if the opponent fd air blocks, how his uncharged D has the worse range out of the cast, how you can prc out of his spin and force anji into a mix up situation, or how his 2d is basically the same as sols but worse in every way possible.
@Tommy Clout To be fair, I think using FD to counter kou in midair would be a cool interaction if anji was good. As he is though, it just feels like another part of his kit didn’t get enough testing. It’s like we’re looking into anji, and we’re finding unique flaws instead of unique strengths.
Something that wasn't really touched on in the video but I think is important is that Anji has a lot of trouble keeping up offence midscreen after he gets a hit if he doesn't get a CH or have meter to spend. This is mainly due to his main grounded combo ender, Nagiha, always returning to neutral which makes his very commital neutral stick out even more.
playing against a good chipp as potemkin is an absolute nightmare. Chipp can whiff punish you from nearly fullscreen, has a dp, has extremely fast buttons he can use to contest certain options from pot, has alpha blade and a command grab to mixup, and if they wallbreak and get a positive bonus, you're in a 30s blockstring having to guess high and low constantly, while also having to account for a command grab or even a normal grab
Side note on the 6p conversation: what also REALLY puts zato's 6p into the realm of ignorance is the disjoint it has even after it loses upper body invuln. Gio's 6p is almost identical frame-data wise (just 3 extra frames of recovery but a few more frames of invuln) but the added disjoint on zato's makes counterpoking it after the invuln is done a huge struggle compared to others. Its far less likely to trade in addition to being hard to punish.
I also think one problem Anji has is he's one character the dev are for some reason scared of? For some reason he's one of the few character that actually get "balance" while some top tier straight up just get buffed. Like you said his oki is nice... but they removed his most common hkd with the buff in 2.0 by removing from kou so eh... His damage is also nice, but again, asw gave and take. Since the last change, a lot of his route doesn't work anymore and there's some button that gives him nothing. For instance, 5h is a big CH that use to lead to very damaging combo because you could launch with fuujin, now if you don't have meter, you get close to nothing out of it. The bounce removal on rin also damaged his combo game, it use to grant wall break consistently from a lot of position where you couldn't just kou loop, where now you will soft knockdown and end it here. Also one thing that I've been hating since the start : you can prc spin which is extremely infuriating to me. I take the risk for spin, even if it connect I don't always get rewarded, but if they prc it straight up put me in a disadvantage situation, wtf? Finally, this is personal opinion but, you could objectively argue that Anji is a better character in season 2, but to me he's way less fun to play now. It's stupid but one thing I enjoyed a lot before with Anji was fuujin launch, idk why but there was something extremely satisfying by popping of the opponent in the air after a CH or just through raw charged fuujin. Same with Rin bounce. Like those move in animation and effect really felt like they had a lot of power in them. Nowadays I hit rin without meter and it's like I slapped them with a noodle, not satisfying.
Even though it has been quite a while I'm still not used to the changes. ASW seems to be pushing the Fuujin pressure approach a lot and, even though Fuujin is mostly better than it was before, it's still not good? I felt like the character make sense before. If your opponent doesn't leave autopilot you would convert punishes into Kou and start your oki; if they become too afraid of guard point the full charged Fuujin would lead to insane damage; Grab game stays pretty much the same alongside pressure. Now with only two ways of getting hard knockdowns your presence is much weaker in general. Like I said, Fuujin is better on paper but it feels like now I'm the only one thinking during the exchanges. Hop still sucks, Nagiha still needs to be well spaced, Shin is still very situational plus it needs conditioning for actual Fuujin pressure and Rin still is reactable, unsafe on block but now won't even combo anymore. The opponent can do so many different OS on autopilot while you have to select your route while paying attention to their models in case you can quickly change approach. The best """oki""" Kou has to offer now is air dash safe-ish jump, sometimes you can even swap sides which is strong but most of the time kou will throw them too far away. When I play against stronger characters I'm always on my toes on defense. They have so many options, good buttons and tiny gaps. When they are on defense they just need to call my bluff once and restart their gameplan, not even a risky call since you can simply jump or DP so much of Fuujin followups. I simply don't get how to beat other pressure characters when they get it going with Anji. When Goldlewis start hammering you down it's hell. Honestly if Nagiha wasn't unsafe and he had a meterless reversal this character would instantly jump tiers even if it isn't a satisfying solution. I still had more fun with earlier Anji though, his neutral is still bad if your opponent is aware but it held more weight and oki gave him a lot of character. I really like +R Anji because you can be a guard point menace or a Fuujin unga and find success. It's not even a binary thing but you can still change your approach during the match, it's sick. I like being able to find my playstyle within the character. When I compare Anji matches the only things that really jump out are awareness and reactions. Feels like everyone is playing AS Strive Anji but not with Anji. I tried other characters but they don't click as well even if I find more success. Bridget is almost bringing me back to Strive because she has a lot of variety, corner pressure and setups are pretty sick, problem is that I can't stop thinking "this should be Anji!" :(
Lots of great comments here, and I wanna add one of my own as well. Another thing to keep in mind in terms of weakness, is that if you actually do get a guard point on someone, they can just choose to not experience the negatives. PRC completely counters guard point. Which doesn't feel great.
Imo Anji is struggling by design. I think there is a group of characters in Strive that the development team is very scared of making good because it's extremely easy to go too far with them. I think his high commitment type of toolset while definitely notable are far less of an issue than the enormous gaps in his gameplan. His ability to transition from different gameplay states is far too inconsistent because his kit is still not complete in my eyes. That said, they're getting closer every time they patch the game so I wouldn't be surprised if the next patch or somewhere down the line they just let him free. When that day comes, these videos will be nice time capsules. To you in the future, yes it's true, Anji was not always top 8. Fujin did not always guardbreak nor scale it's follow ups with charge. HC was never banned even though people will say he was, Leo was dumb from launch, and yes we were still getting hit by 5D on and offline. Did a Ram win a major yet? Did Aba or Dizzy get in? Did we ever get forcebreaks? Are there still a bunch of Baiken players that don't play Baiken and a bunch of Zato players that only exist when he's top 5? Let me know. Sincerely past Razzle Dazzle.
I picked up GGST about a week ago, and Anji very quickly became my favorite fighter. Hearing that he's struggling is disheartening, but at the same time I still have a long way to go before character strength is even worth consideration. If I work on the fundamentals, I'll still improve against any matchup, even if a few are scary! So I'll stick with him. Committing is more fun than the safe game most other characters seem to prioritize.
You can play any character in this game to Celestial and even do decently well in tournaments. An Anji made top 32 in evo's stacked bracket. My locals feature two good Anji's, one of whom regularly wins
Strive is a very balanced game. I don't think LK is saying "Anji is trash never play him you will never win", he's saying he struggles a little bit more than others who get to do things easier. But due to how balanced strive is, it will almost always come down to skill first, then matchup. I've mained Anji since dropping Nagoryuki a few weeks in, and I regularly hit celestial. Don't play the meta, play the character that's right for you.
imo, anji's oki/wall pressure being good doesn't matter if it's near impossible to get him in a position to use it against characters that can just disrespect almost all his options (which is most characters on the roster). his neutral has been abysmal since launch, and the s2 "buffs" did nothing but take away most of his reward while adding to his risk; taking away his hard knockdowns from kou and rin also took away the best chances he had at setting up oki scenarios. now landing either just puts him in neutral. I'll never understand why they're so scared of letting anji be strong when there are a number of bs characters that can get an INSANE reward for only a tiny fraction of the risk anji has to take.
I wish you brought up spin PRC. I love playing neutral until the opponent has 50 meter and my now weaker buttons/spin are worse. Spin prc actually makes me sad haha 😂
Been playing anji almost solely for a long time now. I definitely agree with a lot you had to say here. I also appreciate the other information the comments mentioning the points not as mentioned like 2S buffs and empty fujins. As mentioned by people here while Anji struggles, he still can be a threat if unprepared for him. And with a few tweaks to his fujin follow ups and Kou I think he can really make himself a pretty decent character. Will he be top teir like someone the likes of Nago or Zato? Probably not unless they do some truly insane buffs to him, but he could become a stronger character with some tweeks.
great video, i think that his last changes really support your points. Fujin was changed to be a tighter block string and to be less punishable when a followup isn't used. At the expense of a combo starter in Rin and the fully charged fujin launching. On paper it looks like a give and take less risk for less reward, but in practice he is significantly better, if still not performing well. simply because his advantage when pressuring (mainly with meter) is so extremely powerful now thanks to fast RC, more improved than any other character in my opinion, allowing him to win from his own offence more. The character has done a pivot in gameplan through the patches, as hard knockdowns and combo routes shifted. Encouraging players to lean towards fujin orientated risk/reward rather than fishing for throw/2D/Kou knockdowns on loop. so it will be interesting to see what they want him to do.
Lordknight, do you have any tips on how to fight Baiken? I really struggle with her pressure and getting parried is absolutely devastating. But pro players seem to be able to deal with Baiken. What am I missing with how to fight this character?
I think this video explains it pretty well. Most of his things are high risk low-medium reward(he can do big damage but from the things you commonly hit with you don't get as much as other characters like ram or nago). He doesn't have great hitboxes on a lot moves, especially if the opponent is airborne, for example if your opponen jumps while you do fuujin spin you've just lost neutral. Spin itself is also pretty bad against most airborne moves since they don't have a lot of recovery. Spin in general can make you lose neutral extremely easily, especially if the opponent has a projectile. But I'd say he needs a lot of these weaknesses just due to how oppressive spin can be, I just wish he had more ways of countering system mechanics rn. Anji doesn't really have any burst bait moves outside of the common ones like cS and 5k and rc general. Rc is also pretty bad for him since again he doesn't have anything specific to call out yrc (spinning yrc is pretty - afaik), prc beats spin even if you got hit and yrc just makes the long duration of his moves even worse. Then there's his reversal which is fine most of the time but it could give him some better oki after it hit's and maybe be more safe on activation.
It seems like the designers were scared he was gonna be too good, so they did a *complete* 180 by making all his tools extremely punishable and telegraphed.
Summed it up perfectly. I really have fun playing him, but i really wish his neutral was a lil' bit bore solid. Maybe if they made the spin a little better it would help, but i dunno. I'll keep FUUJIN GO BRRR until then
Ive always felt like FDing his blockstrings was actually better for him because it helps him with nagiha spacing. It also makes throwing out butterfly to extend his pressure safer. AFAIK u can always mash out on reaction if he does it after the first normal like cS or 5K, or u can IAD on reaction if he does it after 5K>2D, cS>2S, 5K>2K, etc. It's like he checkmates himself whenever he uses a special move unless one of u uses meter.
I think for these character discussions you should bring on another top player who mains them. Not sure if that would gel with the video essay format you have going on but it would be interesting if you could have their perspective as the player with your perspective as the opponent fighting against this character.
I think the big problem that is recognized ny the most players first is that when you want to do anything relevant you have to use fujin but if you use it you are screwed most of the time
The first example at the start of the video is NOT strong oki. If you OTG after your throw, the opponent has time to act and punch your teeth in. Reversals and in this case Baiken parry beat it on reaction and it's easy with how slow it is. Some fast moves also beat it by mashing. If you hit Anji the entire butterfly is deleted. The only way to get good oki is to just butterfly after the throw. In the corner you have to take 1 step back to make it hit.
You can also use butterfly oki to set up another grab and just mix up oki pressure to where you make them think and hesitate. Probably only sometimes going to work on strong players I.E. weak character.
2S OTG in the corner will space Anji out so that most reversals will whiff, and for the ones that won't, 5H/2H will do the trick at the cost of giving them a touch more wiggle room.
500 hour Anji only main here, I'm actually incredibly happy with s2 Anji, the only real changes I want now is 6h vacuum on hit, and make his c.S his 5s and move f.S to 6s similar to AC. I don't feel like the current implementation of Anji is a character that you want to be particularly strong, he would just be too annoying, I think he's fine as he is strength wise if he's going to be more conditioning and read based.
Can they make my super reversal a guaranteed hit when I do succeed in landing it? I sometime go under them if I land it on a jump attack and it sucks losing 50 meter from successfully calling them out with a high risk move that also loses to throws and leads to no follow-up/pressure unless I have meter because it launches opponent full screen. Makes Baiken's counter feel better than Anji's unless his closes the round.
this is one of those situations where a major defining gimmick of a character may be the thing that's holding them back. spin is a major defining feature of anji in strive and it completely changes how a lot of characters should approach anji from most other matchups the problem i see with the character is that if the character's normals are to become more in line with the rest of the roster, then his defense could end up becoming way too strong and if you shave effectiveness from his specials (spin, kou and shitsu in particular i would argue) to compensate then he risks losing his identity as a character i don't play the character, but i wonder if part of the reason anji's normals are as wack as they are is because of spin and how it's follow ups interact with the rest of anji's tools and i don't know a good solution that would solve this issue. i think this is also highlighted by how fucking juiced of an option kou is on offense despite not giving a HKD anymore. he's just extremely lopsided in his design and i suspect that spin is at least partially cause for that coming from the view of playing against the character, i want to see spin and kou nerfed straight up just because i hate seeing them but i have no idea what should get buffed in order to make up for those losses
(not relevant to why anji is weak discussion, just wanted to talk about some points about anji's offense lk pointed out) the thing about anji mains is that we like how committal he is since it reinforced his read focused playstyle. pre-s2 (i'm still not over it), this was fine since he had rewards for his callouts. overhead led to full combo and kou led to hard knockdown to setup butterfly oki. but now anji has to work way harder to gain an advantageous position even if he makes the corrects reads because they straight up yoinked those properties of his tools. his new gameplay is to loop slightly advantageous situations (a bunch of soft knockdowns he gets to meaty the opponent after at best) and push the opponent into the corner while cranking risc and then blow them up if they slip, but this is more so an "ungabunga hope they don't notice your fake ass pressure" gameplan rather than what he was before. not that old anji is better but he was more satisfying.
Definitely felt this after the changes he got. The overhead follow-up into full combo being lost really makes me sad. It was already a high-commitment option and now the reward for landing it is practically nothing without meter or CH.
Before watching, I'm boutta guess it's because spin is super easy to deal with, and the reward is like 0, his mix does very little damage with or without meter and is way too linear, his fundamental pokes and neutral aren't as good as they need to be to compete with other strive style poking characters, and his only reversal being a counter. Those are all pretty bad things to have, and since he's supposed to be a mix-up/Oki character with decent poking, it means he's kind of nothing. R.I.P guard points, Invincible H Fujin, and anji's reliable access to overheads and pressure resets, you will be missed.
Man, i just want every char to feel decent and like they can win once they get their gameplan going. We feel SOOO close. Just a few more buffs to a few more char and i think the game would be near perfect balance-wise. The rest of the cast isn't so far behind the top tiers that i think the top tiers need nerfs. We just need the rest of the cast to get brought up just enough that they all can fight a good chunk of top tiers.
Why is Anji struggling? lol cause this video just helped a bunch of people fight him muhuhaha, dope thanks for the delayed jump on fujin tech! I play on PSN so it can be hard to react, ps5 too which up till recently was impossible to block some stuff. Great video though.
Another issue to note about Anji is his Blockstrings are VERY weak to FD. His moves naturally have a large amount of pushback on block, and if you add the extra pushback from FD, it cuts a LARGE amount of his blockstrings incredibly short so his pressure is very susceptible to a very core mechanic of the game. And you can say that maybe some other characters have this problem, but Anji has this problem as a MASSIVE highlight in bold print. You can basically FD a majority of Anji's blockstrings in the corner and never once have to worry about being mixed and get whiff punishes very easily. Not many people seem to talk about this either but they actually kinda not nerfed but definitely traded out something for Rin a while back to balance out the speedup for it, exchanging the extra speed for removing the large pop up ground bounce effect it had so you can't combo off of it without spending meter, making the move significantly less threatening when Anji doesn't have any meter.
Not sure if I buy that. There's a video out there where the advice on defending against Anji is that you don't FD because if you FD, you push him in the range where you can't counter attack fast enough to punish him while he's constantly moving forward with held Fujin. I personally have found greater success just letting Anjis glue to my body and hitting them with a grab at this point.
it would be super interesting to see you talk about potemkin, seeing a lot of people putting him really low nowadays and i can kind of figure why but at the same time spelling it out would be cool to see.
The most stupid thing is...the opponent can PRC out from the spin but Anji can't 🤦...so Anji can get punished even he get the spin if his opponent has meter..
and here I am as a PSN May player and absolutely hating Anji. "Just use a projectile on spin", man I wish my projectile wasn't 93 frames from start to finish. I really hate how Anji breaks the rules, being able to alter the duration of spin/Fujin and canceling Fujin on whiff, it just makes punishing his neutral inconsistent in the most obnoxious way.
Lordknight, the millia player, saying a character shouldn’t be designed to get in and kill you off of 50/50’s that loop into each other. And that their offense should be interactive.😂
...hmmm looking at this move list , Anji seems to be missing half his moves and his FWD HS is now garbage ...previous versions of said attack could counter a special move if timed right . Not to mention he had a HS DP throw that hit like an artillery shell and took people out of mid air mix ups, AAAAAAND his mid air P move issss ...gone. SO yeah this Anji is a bit slower, is always out of position , and his HS is nerfed. Yeah and is missing some of his best moves so I'm not surprised.
Every time I look at a fighting game and settle on a character I like or that I think looks cool, it's always the same when I look for guides: this character is trash, go play someone else.
LK do you think gio is a threatening enough character to be considered top tier? she has some of the safest offense and her defense is acceptable, except for a lack of meterless reverse imo. you emphasize the importance of safe pressure on high tier characters, so it makes me wonder why gio is generally considered a B - A tier character.
Gios pressure is far from safe. Literally every one of her special moves loses to 6P, and there is only a three frame gap to catch the 6P with Gios 214K. also just being a strike throw character means that there are very strong ways to counter what she is trying to do, unless she has meter to RC throws. Her defense is also incredibly average.
@@badcatsgetdissolved4506 her pressure is safe in a different way despite her being nerfed, advanced Gio pressure has her attacking from like 2 char lengths away and dash throw is unseeable at that range
As a new player to Guilty Gear Strive, I really enjoy watching this series of videos and hearing your thoughts. Would love to see one for each member of the cast.
Don't let the shape fool you. A Sacred Treasure's form is merely a reflection of the wielder, not of its power. The Zessen is one of eight components of the magic-amplifying superweapon Outrage. Created over 100 years ago by the scientist-turned-Gear Formerly Known as Frederick, the Outrage Mk. I, created as a countermeasure against Justice, ended up being too powerful to be used by anyone on Earth, and was instead divided into eight pieces. During the Crusades, these eight components, including not only the Zessen, but the Fireseal and Thunderseal swords as well, became known to mankind as the Sacred Treasures (and more recently, the gear now known as Sol Badguy reclaimed the Fireseal and the Flashing Fang, and used them to develop a miniaturized Outrage Mk. II). Until more recent years (some time before Guilty Gear X), the Zessen was being used to power a dimensional barrier which hid one of the Japanese Colonies from the rest of the world. Until a man calling himself "Anji Mito" (originally a resident of the colonies) claims to have "stumbled upon" the Zessen, before taking it and running off to pursue his curiosity.
