Why You Are Wrong About May Guilty Gear 

no special note this time besides pls subscribe i feel a silver play button in my future so PLEASE uwu edit - there are a lot of comments already, so instead of replying to a lot of people individually, I'll address a lot of the common replies here and leave it for now 1) "something something Slash is the only person who does well with the char" -she has more results from earlier versions -just because a char is good doesn't mean they will necessarily have a lot of results. Right now GL and Sin are considered S tier, and GL players miss top 8 at major/super major events often, main one he has off the top of my head are EVO Japan and CEOtaku 23. alternatively, chars that are "bad" get good results too, it's the nature of tournament since the balance is OK 2) using 5k vs jackO is cherry picking neutral interactions -this is just one of the more famous ones, there's more + some her shit just wins into death 3) using super rc for defense and comparing to dp rc is silly and bad -i go out of my way to mention that it costs 100 meter -you are trolling if you think it's not good -it is undeniable it's one of the better 100 meter options -this here was also to add that she is one of the only chars that has reversal > 50/50 in a safe way -i fucked up here, but the point was that she pretty much has the best defense out of any char that does not have a meterless reversal 4) she's less fun -has nothing to do with how good she is shoutouts to the May defense force, y'all are the only reason I haven't been playing her for a year straight lol. it's ok for her to be top tier and she is definitely not one of the villains, please accept her being good and thank you :) finally this video is approved by slash

May Guilty Gear, her legal name.

slash is so good at using all of these crazy strong parts of her kit

at this point it feels like its guaranteed that arcsys is gonna rework may every season, its gonna look like a nerf, and then slash will figure out a way to keep winning tournaments anyway

TOTSUGEKI IRUGATAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I've always loved how you make the top-level thought process and more nebulous concepts easy to understand for players of any skill level, you're really good at breaking down complex things into little bite-sized chunks and connecting the dots so people can understand the bigger picture. Keep up the great work! :)

I'm not sure if this is a hot take but I've been playing May since season 1 and her current version in Season 3 is probably my second favorite version of her to play in Strive. Season 2.5 was probably my overall favorite (I miss those CH 5K > 6H > Up Dolphin combos) but I've still been having fun with her in season 3 especially after they made the input buffer for split/stop more generous. It just took some time and effort to get adjusted to her in season 3 because they drastically changed how she played. I do agree that some May players have been overly dramatic about her changes throughout the course of the game but to be fair ArcSys patch notes have a weird way of making May nerfs look waaayyyy worse on paper than they actually are in practice. I remember when the first season 3 patch with Johnny dropped I saw several people who don't even play May cheering for her nerfs and claiming she's basically trash now. This started to change when dedicated May players started to figure out how to work with her new kit.

I always thought it was weird that May didn’t have blue wild assault, seeing as she’s a character who gets rewarded for her plus frame guessing game and has a pretty useful command grab

great vid, i feel like this really helped me understand what this character wants to do. the s dolphin on block into 5p to counterhit sol 2p was an eye opening moment. i feel like this even serves as a pretty good character overview for people who might be interested in picking her up!

Hey lk! Been a big fan since i saw you play mitsuru vs bananaken in side evo finals. It got me into persona and one of the better margs in the community thx to you. I know persona isnt popular but it would be super cool if you made a marg video going over how you invented the j22c oki and more. After watching your match vs grover recently (although it does suck that grover got the runback win), im sure it would be interesting if you ever do make another persona video

hey my friend and I are picking up gg strive and I was wondering what are the best things for beginners to focus on with gg like should we lab rc or is there something better to build are fundies? we have played fighting games before like melee and street fighter so we understand the basics of fighting games already. Thanks!

A big thing about May changes since release is that they tend to be pretty substantial, Dolphin went from being a default range to you having to hold down S or H to travel full distance to now where its full range but you have press a button to cancel it. Her 3K used to be a hard knockdown and 6H used to always ground bounce and now S Dolphin is more negative than ever. Everytime a big change like this happens, more and more of the non-dedicated May players probably drop her.

Good video may is obviously very strong and her weaknesses are pretty minimal yet shes common in casual play but uncommon in competitive kinda reminds me of a certain flag user

The thing about may players taking nerfs badly is so REAL! The only may player I know dropped the game entirely after that patch and still mentions it on occasion today lmao.

Great video. It will never stop amazing me that despite how easy (and fun) charge characters are to play, so many people just can't hang with them. Even I-no's hover dash scares people off come to think of it, I was scared off from that too for a while so I guess I can understand. But they are both so much fun to play with once you're used to them.

Im so glad to hear this! May was the reason i got in GG strive which in turn got me into the series. Shes of one my favourite video game characters and shes a lot of fun to play as! TOTSUGEKI 🐬

On burstbait, do you think one char being considerably better than another at baiting burst is a bad thing? And thanks for the May update.

I think some great points were made in this video, but they seem to kind of avoid the real elephant in the room. You gave reasons why there's limited representation for such a strong character, and I personally think May is a high A-tier character, but outside of Slash being a May specialist, there really aren't many Mays coming out of the woodwork. If Slash was playing a different character and this narrative about May wouldn't even exist cause he's literally the only one. Hell, after your invitational, Tempest ran some sets playing May with Hotashi, and still showed up in tournament with Leo. And tempest is not afraid to try new characters in tournament, he did it with Sin and Elphelt, but stuck with Leo at the end of day. I know that tournament results aren't everything, but let's be honest, the tower system in strive is garbage and we aren't measuring popularity. Like all games, the pro scene is the best indicator for character power, because those players are incentivized by more than bragging rights and reddit points. Larger instances of data makes a picture make more sense. And when you compare May to a character like Asuka, who currently has multiple high level players exploring him, and I think that's a clearer signal that Asuka is strong. Zando, Umi, Pep, Leffen, Gobou and I'm sure many others have invested some considerable time into exploring this character, with Zando having the largest body of success. but that's not the case for May, and there are similar the discussions around Sin and Goldlewis. So, are we normal people really supposed to believe that characters like this are just insane but no one wants to play them cause comfort? I just don't understand this narrative, and definitely didn't observe this ideology during HC's reign, so...

0:34 Click sound jumpscared me into thinking there was a graphic saying to like and subscribe or that there was gonna be a sponsor spot.

I love ♥playing ⚓May 🐬(her mobility buttons and dmg are so nice). What characters play like May (SF6, TK8, GBVSR, Uni, Melty, BBCF...)?

LK how do I get my skin as smooth as yours?

I would rather have season 2 may back with half the damage than this new may I don't like her new play style and I HATE 6H not launching Don't think I am alone in this opinion either

May is actually very popular in SEA, she's pretty much the gatekeeper of celestial in Asia.

as may player myself, in defence of us complaining about her nerfs, they often tended to take away some combo routes (for example when they removed her 6HS launch) which is kind of annoying when you don't have a lot of meterless options to combo off of edit: i never meant it was justified for us to doom about her, just that when she gets combo routes removed again, some of us might get very annoyed by it

that momohime mod is fire 🔥🔥🔥

I want to point out, especially on the loss of May players, since this is a thing me and a bunch of other May players (Pluto and Corey especially) experienced. She's been reworked fundamentally 2.5 times (Jacko patch could be argued as her changing with intro of TOD May era until that got taken away). They changed dolphin extensively in Season 2, which a lot of players adapted to and had fun with, the pseudo negative edge version. With Season 3, they deleted almost all her whiff routes from Season 2, while adding in the tough, new ones off 5H counterhit, as well as a major nerf to her other launcher in 6H. With Season 3 reworking dolphin and adding one of the biggest single move frame data changes (both horizontal dolphins got 9 more frames of whiff recovery), combined with Wild Assault being added, just made a lot of players not have fun with her. She got reworked into something entirely different, on top of being years of constant, unfiltered hate. There have been times I or other May players have just been subject to being hated by people for only our character, and has been so bad that even Yurikov had to step in one time (when he had #1 May hater in his bio) to tell people to chill with it. It's why the talent drain is going to happen again with Slayer and unless she gets a 3rd rework or given an actual new move to allow balancing her without nerfing her launchers again, it will just get worse. Arcsys also has this really bad habit about making a giant change to May that looks awful when you read the notes, and then changes later on

hey lk! just a small feedback: the hitboxes interaction would be much easier to see with the framedata / hitbox viewer mod. other than that, great vid as always!

You should make one of these on HC, even if he's still an Enemy, he's def weaker than he's been and I think it's worth conceptualizing why people are not seeing him as highly as before.

May was one of the first characters I tried. I immediately said "this character is strong as fuck!"

what do you mean by may has guts so it takes more to kill her. Where can i like see that stat im confused

May has an annoying kit and voice. Totsugeki apocalypse on release (probably because of Dunkey). That being said she's still more respectable than Nago.

The pro scene has some kind of mind virus where they feel the need upplay straightforward characters like Sin or May when they get the slightest hint of results while at the same time downplaying genuine cancer characters like pre-nerf Zato, and HC even while they're dominating tournaments.

I am not wrong about May

SLANDER AGAINST CREATURES!

Wideo about Millia PLS

You should do a video like this but for ramathal. I have never gotten the hype. Also many ram players at the highest level dropped her

Don't give away our secrets

Orca getting called a whale when she has a literal whale super and Orcas aren't even whales is crazy

Lordknight please train me in the ways of strive. I could really use the assistance.

please LK you need to buy a mic that doesn't register your stick sound its so loud... :') (well maybe its just a me problem)

May Totsugeki

im a may main please delete this i dont want arcsys to see

I don't know, I find not that difficult to fight may, I play Faust/Sin so her jumping or hopping will not throw me off guard that often.

I just bought the game to play her because I thought she was silly 😭 😭

As a Celestial May main, I feel that season 3 May takes a lot of effort to get used to due to the changes with dolphin rps and them changing the inputs for early dolphin cancel (honestly the dolphin cancel change destroyed me for a long time, I much prefer letting go of the button rather than pressing P to early stop.) Dolphin RPS change made a lot of prior knowledge irrelevant, so we had to restructure our gameplan. I think that is some of the sources of annoyance from May mains. I dont think she got much weaker, but the patch meant having to spend a lot of time relearning things to stay effective.

Thumbnail is so cursed

Roundstart 5k vs johnny 6p straight up whiffs

A video like this for Kyle?

TOTSUGEKIIIII ! JIYUNA-SAAAAAAN !

....totsugeki good?

Tempest is thanking God every day for the fact Dunkey retired from competitive Strive early. Best May in the universe.

UWWHAAAAAAAAAAAAA

how bout this for May's next retool: her projectile becomes a proper fireball with really fast startup, and in exchange her dolphins lose their ability to split/stop

I can’t wait until I find out I’m wrong about June Guilty Gear too…

Fear not the man who practices a thousand moves once. Fear the man who practices one move a thousand times. TOTSUGEKI!!!

nah may needs buffs desperately

Jacko (and Goldlewis) 6P's not working isnt a strength but arc sys not lowering the hitbox slightly for some reason While she can use leap to bait 6P, there are plenetly of 6Ps that do reach high enough to smack her out of the air. Im not downplaying, just being the "acktually" guy. She was 100% evil af for a good portion of this game's lifespan. Her ungodly damage, her evil ass buttons, CH 5K > 6H (god I miss her). Everyones been getting better conversion, tools, etc, making her once free matchups actually require thought XD. Like she used to eat Axl alive but hes capable of putting up a fight now. Few tips on fighting against her, she needs a close range button, counter hits or meter to combo you. Try jumping more in neutral, the corner and pressure, the area 45 degress of her she has trouble hitting as her jump and air buttons are very vertical, the best options shes has is f.s or 6H(this one is whiff punishable). If youre trying to check dolphin, 6P isnt always the best option, if you have one that can hit her out of the air of she leaps, go for it. But you can also press a quick . The hurt box is pretty big and will lose to about anything. If you whiff, its possible to recover in time to block or at least not get counter hit. Learn Totsugeki RPS, theres two senarios YOU need to lab, as it is character specific what the best options are. The first is on block and the second is on hit. Set May to: -5P -2P/5K -Backdash After blocking, check what beats these options then try again while FDing, then again for on-hit for both standing and crouching (its 0 on standing and +1 for May if youre crouching). Jumping out is also an option. If youre fighting a may fishing for CHs try beating her at her own game and go for whiff punishes.

Fighting May is still less frustrating than fighting Leo, and people downplay Leo even more than her. Thanks to TempestNYC, I'm looking forward to season 4 balance patch to alleviate that.

Clearly if a top tier gets nerfed then they are never good again! Every time!

May Players "I have Full Tension and Burst and 1 HP... I'm still in the lead"

May, the guiltiest gear

I feel targeted

KONO TARA

May is so strong that every tournament we see Leo and Sol destroying everyone.

Obviously I'm biased cause of my pic. But oh no not the dread reversal 50/50 for 100 meter, that most character get for 50 :P

May's only true weakness is her player.

dash macro op

Move over May, king of counter hits is coming back with a pile bunker.

Jacko 6p vs may 5k is cherry picking, most 6p beat 5k

have May or Sol ever had a bad showing in a GG game in these past 20 years? I hated fighting her back in the day, her style was so off beat...and had some surprisingly hard hitting moves hidden behind those quick bursts. Damn that whale super too damn it all to heck.

Very cool, very cool. Now please show me any player getting good results with her that isn’t Slash 😄

I'm kinda glad the vast majority of May players have the IQ of a walnut to bar themselves from Slash's level of success at a competitive level. I love the boy Slash, but I despise the character.

how much did the zato clique pay you for this one? yeah may, the famous bracket-ruiner that literally nobody plays despite her being pretty easy and "top tier." same as how zato was mid tier at best when he was at the peak of his power and HC is currently just barely passable despite being basically the same as last season.

She was Top Tier but now she has a losing matchup to Axl since he got his Tornado. She's literally the worst character to try to fight against tornado in neutral. For the first time in this whole games lifespan I can actually zone her better than most other characters. It's not even me over hyping the move. She really just cannot do anything when Axl does a tornado move in neutral. It was one of the worst matchups for Axl but nowadays Mays are afraid of Axls. That should tell you everything. So just to clarify she WAS top tier. But now because of White Wild Assault and all the new zoning strategies for characters like Jacko or Bedman actually hurt May a lot. She was one of the best characters because her matchups were generally her favor but now they completely changed her matchup spread. Losing to Axl, Jacko getting buffs, more and more zoner-types, high damage is pretty average for most characters, and she doesn't really have a "Unique Trait" which is why her Neutral game is suffering in this specific season. Like for real pilot Axl against the best May player you can find and you'll quickly discover "Oh shit I'm winning". She acts like a mid-range hitter but she's really a close-range type which is why she can't just beat a tornado like how Sol's 6S just swings through no problem. 5:01 It was hard to stop her neutral. Now you can just straight up counter pick her.

This video honestly feels pretty disingenuous. Ive liked alot of your content but with the strange cherry picking from jacko 6p beating may 5k (it loses to 6p on nearly every other character) or the complete overemphasis on split in neutral as some kind of guranteed whiff tool, or forgetting to mention simple things like how negative js is on block is very strange. Not to mention comparing orca rc, something that requires 100 tension to do, to a regular dp rc which only costs 50. This feels like its just an outlet to drive even more hate towards may than there already is, which is unnecessary, seeing as shes probably the most hated character in the game atm despite there being clearly stronger alternatives. It was also strange how you failed to mention the reason why so many may players have stopped playing her, and why there are so few who continue to use her as is.

may players love saying that the character isnt good just because there isnt much pro representation but if you look at any high level players tierlist may is up with leo and sol. shes under represented because shes changed a lot since release and isnt the most interesting in terms of gameplay loop. shes really, really good.

Latif was spitting about this character tbh

Explain to me why you look 20 and 40 at the same time.

Blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink

the May Paradox: May is the best character in the game, yet no one plays her.

Why you Are wrong about Millia Guilty gear?

Wait, May's Japanese?

Quite literally the only character that makes me mald Next time shes punishes dire eclat with dolphin without IB'ing im gonna lose it

I got hit by a May pressing nothing but the H button and I only cried for twenty minutes

The way you describe May, she seems to Strive what Akuma was to T7. Outside of tearing her down and rebuilding her from the ground up, I don't think she'll ever be considered outright bad in Strive.

No.

Nah. May isn’t good. Slash is.

My man looking like a silver fox

dum may stat: 5D,5D,5D MAYbey win

may does insane damage while being well-rounded. she really doesn't have any weaknesses you can exploit.

I picked up May and all my friends dropped the game🥲

Hmmm, i think TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI TOTSUGEKI

Yeah but she isn't fun anymore

I hate may

this is about as cringe as if a Marisa main in sf6 complained about Honda being too strong. Nobody is being gatekept out of brackets by random May players. May is not dominating every tournament and winning grand finals all over the place. There aren't tournaments with 4+ Mays in top 16 the way there are tournaments stacked up w HC, Sol, Leo, etc. She's the definition of a "scrub killer" character. Is Strive so well balanced post s3 that this is the crap we're still complaining about?

Another factor to May's low playrate is that she doesn't seem very fun to play. She's 1 of 4 well rounded, easy characters that are currently good. Ky, Sol and Leo all seem more interesting or fun to play.

It's still correct to bully may players.

Delete this video LK

A reminder to Strive players that GG Strive has not been a competitive game for 3 years. The whole meta in this game is cheap brainrot gorillas or broken characters with autopilot mod for 3 seasons in a row. Balance simply doesn't exist

I think may should be removed from the game