Guilty Gear XrCise - Defense
Difficulty Beginner
Focus Defense
Guilty Gear has a lot of defensive freedom compared to some other games, but as a result requires a higher amount of awareness and calmness in defense situations. The ability to Green Block, also known as Faultless Defense, gives a player a more active role in the resultant spacing of a pressure string. Additionaly, stand blocking and crouch blocking can sometimes have different push back values. Therefore, in Guilty Gear, it is important to understand your spacing at all times as it may not always be obvious. While some of our other XrCises explore the use of green blocking and the effect of ones defensive spacing, the exercises listed here are geared towards going beyond those concepts, to help you understand the different properties of your moves in a defensive context. Defense in Guilty Gear can require a lot of stress in terms of different timings and reactions required to keep a situation from getting bad or worse, and continue defending. As a result, these exercises are designed to mostly point out the less obvious options in a defensive situation to give you a broader base to work from.
These exercises are all under the Match Up section of the Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 Missions. These missions can be found by going to Battle > Dojo > Missions, from the Start Menu. Be sure you have selected Match Up missions and not Universal missions, in order to get the correct exercise.
These exercises are a supplement to the Missions content and are not intended to be replacements. If you find yourself confused by some of the terminology used throughout this exercise guide, or if you are new to Guilty Gear, we strongly encourage you take a look at the Universal missions first, before using ours.
While you can attempt these exercises with any character, not all of the advice is applicable to certain characters, due to the high variability of character abilities in Guilty Gear. The most important thing to note in these exercises is just as much when an option cannot work for you, as when it can.
We highly encourage trying the End Goals of the exercise even if they may not utilize the most optimal approaches for your character, as the End Goals are meant to teach a broader concept. Just be sure to note when said approaches are less optimal.
As these exercises are intended to supplement the game's existing tutorial content, not all of them actually require completing the goal given in the Match Up mission. Mastering these exercises is less about completing the mission given by the game, and more about how you approach the situation that the mission presents.
Match Up Exercise 35
Character Requirement
No specific character is required for this exercise.
Goals
- End Goal - Poke Johnny out of his dash at the last possible moment.
Exercise Summary
Poke Johnny during his fixed dash. This is largely an exploratory type exercise, intended for you to learn your basic neutral options under pressure. The longer the button you hit, the more likely he can whiff punish you. Therefore you want as quick a button as possible. Mastery of this exercise is punishing the dash at the last possible frame your option allows.
Additional Notes
You can try the trial as normal as it has a similar precise timing concept and it is good to learn the execution for throw teching, however this exercise is mainly about learning your options in neutral. Johnny can block and do other things if you mistime it.
Match Up Exercise 28
Character Requirement
No specific character is required for this exercise.
Goals
- End Goal - Use your invincible moves, parry, or 'evasive-hurtbox' moves to stop Ramlethal's second hit in her string.
Exercise Summary
This exercise is fairly straight forward but difficult on execution. If you have an invincible move, parry, or evasive-hurtbox style move that can avoid the second hit in Ramlethal's string, block the first hit and use the invincible move to stop the second. If you have mastered the timing for that, try Instant blocking each hit before doing the invincible option.
Additional Notes
To be added later
Match Up Exercise 20
Character Requirement
No specific character is required for this exercise.
Goals
- Starting Goal - Get a feeling for Venom's different strings. First block all moves high, then all low.
- Secondary Goal - Learn what moves can push you out of green-block (Faultless Defense). Gain a comprehensive understanding of this enough to know how to use green-block to get the situation where Venom does his divekick style move, and you avoid it completely just by standing.
- End Goal - Fuzzy guard and green-block Venom's strings such that you can consistently block the entire string and often avoid the divekick style move by stand blocking.
Exercise Summary
Complete the trial, but focus on fuzzy guarding. In most fighting games there is a difference between standing and crouching block. For Guilty Gear there are multiple differences including push back. This exercise is largely about figuring out the difference of them, and how to fuzzy guard. Mastery of this exercise means you are generally able to understand the difference between crouch, stand, and green blocking on your spacing, and can consistently fuzzy guard all of Venom's moves used in this trial.
At first you may end up blocking the highs and lows slowly, but once you get an idea for the rhythm, try to gradually build up the speed of switching from high to low until you are rapidly switching. At a certain point it will seem as if you are stand blocking and immediately going into crocuh guard on connection and vice versa. This is what fuzzy guarding generally looks like and is generally how you know you are starting to get the hang of it. Fuzzy guarding isn't always the best thing to do when the opponent's moves and patterns are predictable to you, since you can still get hit, but this is a skill intended to semi-option select mix up situations which is why it is important.
Additional Notes
Fuzzy guarding is alternating between crouch and stand block quickly such that your character can block both low and high hits even though you are alternating between the two. Try to find Bonchan's explanation of fuzzy guard online if you are familiar with the player.
Match Up Exercise 13
Character Requirement
No specific character is required for this exercise.
Goals
- Starting Goal - Test your low profile options to see if you can evade Chipp's cross up. For some characters they will have a move that moves them forward in a way that avoids the cross up.
- End Goal - Learn if it is at all possible to punish Chipp's cross up while using the low profile option to avoid it.
Exercise Summary
This exercise is mainly to learn the hidden defensive properties of your various moves. You can use this exercise to explore what buttons may have the ability to low profile an attack (to go under it by doing a specific move even though you would have been hit if you were just blocking). Some characters, such as I-No, may moves that can pull or move your collision box forward enough to avoid certain things instead though this exercise is not specifically designed to find all of such options but I-No is confirmed to work in that way, so you can try it with her to see what it feels like.
Test any low profile options you may have and use them to avoid Chipp's cross up drop. Once you have a hang of the timing, try to both avoid Chipp's move and hit with it if your character is capable of doing so. Mastery with this exercise is being able to do your low profile at the shortest possible timing, and either understanding why your character cannot hit, or in the case of characters like Baiken who can hit him do so.
Additional Notes
In many fighting games there are moves that can go underneath other moves. This is referred to as low profiling (3D games sometimes use different terminology). Other moves can go high over low moves, this is referred to as high profiling.