A video on Guilty Gear Strive's high level of success with empowering the heavyweight archetype. Twitch: / eddventurefgc Twitter: @Eddventur3 Eddventure's Discord: / discord
A few corrections on small mistakes throughout the video: - Pot does have a double jump, I said he doesn’t but I meant to say he doesn’t have an air dash - Goldlewis does not have the only + jab, Pot’s is +1 - In a quick graphic I mistakenly labeled Johnny’s f.S as 6f startup, it’s 9 frames. Not fair the numbers look too similar 😭
@@eddventure6214 Unfortunately Potemkin's second fastest normals are both 8 framers, so he can't really take advantage of the +1 his 5p gives him that effectively with anything other than itself. However Goldlewis being +3 on both of his jabs is AMAZING when paired with his 7 frame close slash or 2K
@@LoraLoibu That's true, but thanks to the 5 frames of grab immunity they can still mash out of it. Generally if I'm catching someone with a 5P, say after buster oki or a safejab, I either go for a delayed 5P to catch mashers, or immidiately tickthrow... more likely the latter because it catches a lot of people off guard.
You also said that Asuka's projectiles can be flicked, when they actually cannot be reflected. They can be attacked, however, so I suppose you're technically correct.
Fun fact: The reason it's written as "Bedman?" in Strive is because it's not entirely clear whether this is the original Bedman's spirit possessing the bed or if the bed is just acting on programming that Bedman installed before he died.
leo being a "heavier version" of ky gets funnier when you realize that in cannon theyre both kings of the same country, just that leo is in charge of war and general conflict.
One thing I think helps a lot for the satisfaction factor of heavyweights is just Strive's ungodly amount of style. Like if you land a HPB you see art of deities in the background as Pot yells his heart out. Even Goldlewis, probably the least flashy of the bunch, whips out a minigun and feels like he's throwing a bus with every attack. A character that feels good attracts players that play good, and Strive heavyweights feel VERY good.
Nagoriyuki has my favorite super in the whole game. good lord the rising slashes into the The Great Wave off Kanagawa finish is superb. plus the baseball super is quite funny if almost impossible to land.
Yeah, honestly no joke but the main reason I even became interested in guilty gear in the first place was because of the HPB Strive animation It's just, so flashy and good!
another thing about Goldlewis when it comes to the satisfaction is with BT your inputs actually reflect the move being thrown out (rather than for many specials being somewhat arbitrary), it makes really satisfying just to input the move.
@@tivus i am thriving, my bones have doubled in density, i can speak to the dead, i can use j.s without immediately imploding, the game is too easy now, he needs to be nerfed
Calamity Trigger is a certified kusoge. Also, Galileo/Garireo (that's not me making fun of him, I've seen both spellings in tournaments) later moved on to Litchi, so don't feel too bad.
The high damage of GGST in general is another reason why heavyweights are a lot better. In a game where many characters will 2 or 3 touch you, getting to lose one extra neutral interaction due to your high HP is a much bigger deal vs a game where the average number of interactions per round is higher.
What is this incredibly sexy editing you've done? Plus, the great scripting. You really got into the nitty gritty this time, damn. You keep getting better and better, keep it up! And yeah, the combination of a smaller screen, plus 'I win neutral' supers, plus more meter gain, plus white wild assault... at a certain point, you're forced to ditch what you've always understood to be the traditional weakness of this archetype. Jarring stuff, but that's Strive
I think the sheer power of guard crush plays a large role. It's disproportionately available to heavies, and often their tools are built to facilitate access to guard crush. The lack of throw protection on it, enforces the kind of true mixup that literally breaks the baseline rules of the game's systems in regards to strike-throw - they're permitted strike-throw mixups that are more threatening than the rest of the cast because of the lack of that 5f gap, AND several have command grabs or high throw reward on top of that as well (and command grabs benefit from guard crush massively). EDIT: I also think the emphasis on tier placement is misleading - the majority of the cast is altogether solo-viable, and the gap between top and bottom is MUCH smaller than most other fighting games. With the exception of MAYBE the bottom 1-3 characters, everyone is seriously able to compete to the point where relative character strength is essentially irrelevant outside the very highest competition.
That's objectively not true though. This game has a worse balance than any recent game in the past 4 years with maybe one or two exceptions. That's also why you see the same 5 characters in every major top 8 (6). And that goes for the entirety of its now over three year lifespan. In one year of SF6 we've seen more characters perform at a top level than in Strive's entire lifecycle until now. Even Tekken 8 seems to have more, even though it came out only half a year ago. This narrative about Strive is still talked about a lot by a select few people when the reality has shown time and time again the complete opposite. A game's volatility, where thanks to it theoretically any character can win, doesn't compensate for its overall balance.
@@Nyagrour literally just lying This year, Every big body but 1(bedman) are represented in top eights, sol who has been pretty represented in top 8 through most of strive life cycle hasn’t actually been represented as much this year, with sol only winning 1 tournament(umisho, ceo-2024, it’s a major so still pretty important) and placed top 8 in one other tournament this year(Bridget’s is more represented than sol in top 8’s), u have characters like, ino, Bridget’s, sin, aba, and ky, who are all represented in top 8,s, which are considered mid tiers(scratch ky), while u have characters like Ed, Ken, bison and Akuma and occasionally Cammy who consistently place top 8, it’s actually worse then that in topanaga, one of the most stacked sf6 tornoments with a 4.000.000 dollar prize pool, Ed, Ken, bison, and Akuma were represented 18 times in the top 27, akuma being represented over 7 times in top 27, that’s 25% of of top 27
@@whogotthesushi3897 Did you even look things up before typing? You literally only cherry picked the only exceptions, and overblowing the rest of your claims. Even in CEO this year, you had THREE HCs, two Leos, one Pot and Sol. Arc World Tour: Happy Chaos, two Leos, May, two Asukas, the outlier being one Faust and Pep switching to Johnny because Zato is unusable for over a year now in high level play, with Asuka being his secondary for tournaments. ComboBreaker 2024: - Happy Chaos, Leo, Sin, Asuka, May and Sol. One Bridget being the only outlier. You can look even further back and see none of your claims actually being backed up and you were spouting literal bs. Looking at 2023 and older, the results are even more one sided. The stuff you're smoking seems pretty great. But unless you don't even take a little time doing a few searches, don't bother typing anymore. Have a good one!
@@Nyagro my point isn’t that u won’t see any top teir picks that would be like saying u won’t see Ken in any major, my point is COMPARITVLY strive is doing better then sf6, and I looked at more then three tournament, S-factor 11(2024), the mixup(2024), etc Also u bring up ceo which proved my point that heavy body’s are represented in high level plays their were two gold Lewis players and a pot, in top 8, pot and goldlewis which in season 2 would never show up in a major, let’s compare this with sf6 Which had the same characters not just be represented but be over represented 2 Luke’s, 2 akumas, 2 Juri, and 2 jp all in top 8 Vs 3 hc’s 2 gold Lewis But strive has the worse balance ever right, not to mention that while hC was picked leffem and Lucien pick mid tiers as their secondary, which is why I said u see aba and sin represented in top level play compare that with punk who picked akuma, cammy, Ken Combo breaker(2024) 2 Leo’s, sol, may, sin, asuka, bridget, and elphelt(tempest secondary) Vs 3 Luke’s, Juri, Ed, zangeif, Lilly So again strive has more diversity in its top level play even in ur fucking examples like wtf, why don’t u read Maybe I’m being obscure let’s look at idk evo Japan 1) Blanka/Luke 2) jp 3) guile 4) Ken 5) jp/ken 6) Chun 7) Ken 8) Blanka Huh 2 blankas, 3kens, and all the usual top tiers Vs strive 1) Leo 2) chaos 3) ky 4) jacko 5) auska 6) sol 7) chaos 8) zangeif Only 2 repeat characters and the tournament saw a lot of representation with Ty playing ky, sin, and Bridget, wow would u look at that Bridget again being represented in top major 8, and jack winning the 5th spot And of course theirs topanga, which is weird that u saw that as cherry picking it’s one of the most stacked tournaments featuring some of the best players in the world, and a super big prize pull, but it’s for some reason not valid because 25% of top 27 was represented by akuma And speaking of jacko, I wonder if a mid teir would be represented in evo this year, no way tho right, strive has only the same characters winning or maybe Also ur argument alone is retarded even if the difference in between characters is small statically as long as u have a big enough population those small differences become the major factor and if all other factors are equal amongst players then the deciding factor would be difference in characters
@@whogotthesushi3897 I wish more people provided evidence and elaboration like you did here. Thanks for the info legit wasn't sure how different the character representation was for both games. It may also be because since the characters in Strive tend to be very different from each other, people may not switch characters as often as in SF6, where the cast tends to be (comparatively) more similar to one another in terms of how they play neutral and run offence.
I love how this video came out days before White Wild Assault got nerfed. I’m no competitive player so I dunno how significant it’ll be in the long run, especially since I don’t play any of the WWA characters, but I think it’s funny timing.
It remains a very powerful and threatening tool for the heavyweights, but isn't as unstoppable anymore. The changes mostly just mean Goldlewis can't just use it whenever he feels like, but it still remains very threatening when used wisely.
It still remains an important tool in a few matchups, but it neutered the ability to use it an extra pressure extender/insane neutral skip. The universal change of WA HKD was also a big nerf, for the same reasons as everyone else. Alas, im not 100% sure how much the nerf harmed it since I didn't use WWA in s3.
Man, remember when people were able to look at Goldlewis and say "He's like Sol Badguy, but ethical"? And this was back when his drone was *really stupid*. Good times.
In the developer backyard they said the next patch would focus on universal mechanics (again). I wouldn’t be surprised if we learn about a WWA nerf at EVO or something.
I honestly wonder how their going to keep the aspects of its unique properties without having it be so powerful. After all it would look bad if they just took it away from the game so they are definitely not doing that.
My favourite thing about current strive is even the lowest tier characters are still functional (except zato sorry blind brothers). Even characters like Johnny, Elphelt, and Bed are absolutely terrifying when played by people who know what they’re doing. They tend to just be slightly more fair than the rest of the cast, which bumps them down.
correction: bed is terrifying when played _against_ people who _don't_ know what they're doing. It doesn't really matter if you know what you're doing when the opponent does too and mashes out of your pressure and then proceeds to force you to play midscreen again
@@Brass319 I (sometimes, because Slayer came out, but he kinda has the same problem) play Nagoriyuki and the game literally turns to 3 hours of blocking while he is is floating upwards and throwing projectiles. I still win. It doesn't make it less AIDS and unfun. Also, fuck WWA
to reiterate stuff said by gcyoshi, xrd bed (while also not great) had the saving grace of being a mobile big body - meanwhile, strive bed has more average movement with 8-way airdash being surprisingly slow & short, it has frankly terrible air conversions, and the smaller screensize makes it even harder to actually be evasive. Bed is also *very* reliant on WWA as things stand so I doubt it'll be easy for arcsys to bring bed up to par while reigning in WWA. Interested to see what they do for s4 bed nonetheless.
I feel like there's a case to be made about Bedman's visual clutter. Theoretically, you'd be able to counteract his offense with timing and some mashing. Practically, it comes to a point where there is so much happening on-screen that you can barely process what is going on. Also, i'm surprised you didn't mention the bed install.
A note about 33:29 pot cannot flick ANY of Asuka’s projectiles and he can’t armour through half of them because they are multi hits, making this matchup suck (until Asuka runs out of mana and he takes 75% from one grab)
This video was excellent!! Great editing and videography, attention grabbing ways to present information (those red & green plus/minus frame shots), and a lot of good, concise but well explained information. Highly looking forward to your next video!
The jumpscare pot buster at the end of the video just sends me. I just realised you spent the entire video not talking a lot about roman cancels and i think that they help a lot too since heavy weights kinda can use more of them.
Fun fact: 7:09 Snake Eyez picked Potemkin & win the major just to prove a point that that Leffen is trash & the game is too easy to win. Whether it proved a point or not, imma let y’all decide.
the first thing to mention when talking about strive balance is always the fact that there are very few low tiers and most of the cast is between top and mid tier and even then the "low tiers" are doing relatively alright
I will mention as a Bedman enjoyer and Nago/Slayer main, Bedman is frustrating sometimes cuz of his lack of guts, but running his offense with his install super is amazing and really satisfying. Nobody else in the game has a move that will still come out if you hit him during the animation.
I played so much Strive when it dropped and into the first season, haven't played in a while. I am not having the right kind of fun playing SF6 and T8 that I had in Strive, maybe its time to come back. Quality content like this really pushes me towards a return.
one thing i will mention is that, with the new patch that came out a day or two ago, wwa has been SIGNIFICANTLY nerfed, losing its guard crush and changing to -3 on block (not a lot but enough to not be able to steal turns out of thin air)
I think it mostly boils down to how little interactions you need in strive to win. You really only need two sometimes even one interaction to take a round. In other games heavyweights have to work so hard for each win but it doesn’t matter as much when you only need one. (Or when you’re names nago and you can win off of round start (idk if you still can I haven’t played in a bit but wow that was something))
Honestly one of my main concerns is how the nerfs to WWA will affect Bedman?. Nago has enough to function fine without it, and WWA IS one of the main reasons Goldlewis is so good, and IMO Potemkin has enough tools to work without WWA (and even then, he might receive minor buffs to accommodate for the loss in the upcoming patch) But that leaves Bedman?. Now keep in mind he's already a subpar character (not horrible, but lacks a lot compared to most of the cast) But my main concern is HOW he uses WWA. Bed is a character who already has poor neutral, and even on successful use of WWA, he doesn't get as much reward off of it as the other 3 do. But he also uses it to extend his pressure in the corner without resetting or leaving a gap. So a nerf to one aspect of WWA like for example making it neutral or even minus on block, which seems totally reasonable for the other 3, would kneecap a decently substantial option for his gameplan. I don't have a smart solution to this. I just hope the buffs in the patch later this month are enough to make up for whatever changes to WWA they're making in addition to just buffing him in general.
In general the only way they can fix it only for bedman and worse for everybody else, is making it only upper body invul, bedman being an aerial character forces the opponent to use high hitting pokes, so forcing the opponent to take risks by checking WWA with low pokes gives bedman a huge advantage, while pot and Nago and also goldlewis arent really air focused characters, so using low pokes against them is way more willy nilly
In the defense section for pot, you forgot to mention his back daci as reversal, it's slow, very invul, and barely moves him back, back dash followed by pot buster is a scary thing he can threaten on wake up.
Really nice video, specially for someone who hasn't been keeping up with season 3 that much cause I've been too busy. Only complaint is that your voice sound mixing is a bit low in some parts which makes it difficult to understand specific words. Overall a really good analysis
Also important to mention is just the existence on roman cancels. Especially PRC. I know this video is mostly comparing it to other GG titles. But if you compare it to fighting games in general, having a "remove endlag" button just makes heavies a lot more viable.
So where would Slayer go? He technically fulfills both the power fantasy and struggles against Zoners* (asterisk for a reason) *struggles up until Hand of Doom
I’m considering making a video on the term players have been using to describe his type of character in strive - that being bruisers - similar to this in the future. Characters who don’t have crazy long blockstrings or high reward mix, and focus on strike/throw, but also aren’t exactly rushdown
very very well done video, very fun to watch and easily digestable. my only gripe is voice modulation. At times, it peaks when starting sentences or asking questions, but while finishing sentences it's gets so quiet it's often hard to understand. Like here at 30:59, it starts pretty loud, then slowly gets quieter to the point the last word is almost silent, I needed a few times to understand it - is it "neutral"? I'm definitely not saying it's unwatchable/unlistenable, I want it to be a fair critique because you clearly have editing skills and will to do research and record footage, and it'd be such a shame if your speech held video's quality back. There's plenty of techniques and excercises to work on that. That aside, great work, and keep on doing what you love 👍
A not-uncommon suggestion for fixing white wild assault is just replacing it with red or blue wild assault on the main 4 heavyweights, and as someone that plays Potemkin, I'd unironically love blue wild assault on him. It would give him an easy time converting off his pokes whether they counterhit or not, and while the extra scaling means that the impact of say, far slash heavy slash blue wild assault pot buster wouldn't be as dangerous as it sounds, being able to convert that wild assault into say, close slash down heavy garuda for great oki would be excellent. That's the main thing I love about this suggestion. While white wild assault is just an independantly strong tool on a character with neutral struggles, blue wild assault has more direct synergy with his big pokes, giving them more time to shine.
I like white wild assault on Nago (I’m a mid level player). It’s a nice way to help me get in on zoners so I hope they keep it but maybe make it way less fast or something. I know Nago has other ways of dealing with projectiles and zoning, but I’d hate to lose this bit of player expression. I love Nago and will still play him regardless but it’s pretty fun to have a cool burst option in blood rage too
I think one of the most oppressive things is passive resource generation. The more you get hit the more chance you get to two touch your opponent. If they scale burst and meter gen according to HP% it would be an instant nerf to heavyweights.
