Guilty Gear Strive: 10 essential gameplay tips

Guilty Gear Strive is the single most exciting fighter to get into and play with friends right now. It builds on the incredible roster and gameplay the series is known for and features major changes in mechanics and accessibility.

Some of these overhauls in the mechanics make many old strategies outdated and lead to an exciting period of exploration of what players can achieve in Guilty Gear Strive. Both newcomers and veterans are in the same pit now.

To perhaps aid in players at this time of learning, here are 10 tips to drastically improve performance in Guilty Gear Strive. This list will give insight suitable for beginners and returning players alike.

Guilty Gear Strive: 10 essential gameplay tips

10) Mix Dust into offense and use it to bait Bursts

Easily the most confusing button for new players of Guilty Gear Strive. This flashy-looking move sees characters knock their opponents into the air, allowing them to perform a mid-air combo. However, all that players need to know is that it functions essentially like a universal overhead and launcher simultaneously.

Mixing this move into offense to punish players for blocking low and learning one or two strings of moves to do in the air is greatly rewarding. Remember that opponents are very likely to burst upon dust connecting so it’s a good tool to bait out Bursts as well.

9) Use Bursts to break offense

One of the two main defensive tools provided by Guilty Gear Strive, Burst is a ticket to escape the opponent’s offense and can be activated by holding Dust and another button while being hit or when about to get hit. It can only be used when the Burst gauge is full.

Feinting to bait out Bursts is a very commonly used strategy to secure a tight offense, so make sure to use Bursts wisely.

Depending on the circumstances under which the Burst is done, there are different effects on the player’s Tension bar and Burst gauge, which is another topic on its own. To see more on it watch the video below.

8) Use Faultless Defense to escape pressure

The second and most important defensive tool in Guilty Gear Strive nullifies damage done and pushes the player back in exchange for Tension. It can be activated by holding any two buttons (except Dust) while blocking either in the air or on the ground.

Use it to escape water-tight offenses and create escape opportunities or to avoid chip damage when low on health. Another important application is to instantly block against anti-airs when jumping in and not let the opponent get away with scoring easy damage.

7) Mix grabs into pressure and air-grab often

The most basic offensive tool in the game is used to punish opponents that block too much and simply refuse to punish or poke back. Players must always diversify their pressure with grabs to keep their opponents in check.

Unlike other mainstream fighters however, Guilty Gear Strive offers players the option of grabbing opponents in the air. This is extremely important as in this game every character has incredible mobility and defense to easily jump out of offensive pressure and avoid anti-airs.

Therefore it is important to punish opponents that love jumping, by predicting and grabbing them as they jump. Also, remember that in Guilty Gear Strive grabbing is not a proximity input so it is possible to whiff them and get punished for it.

6) Be mindful of proximity inputs

The Slash button alone in Guilty Gear Strive is a proximity input and functions uniquely by altering depending on whether the player is close or far away from the opponent. Thus, depending on whether the player is close or far from the opponent, the Slash notation is c.S or f.S.

5) Use super jumps to switch up jump arcs and surprise opponents

Pressing down and immediately following it up with a jump allows the character to super jump in Guilty Gear Strive. Super jumping immensely improves characters’ jump height whilst shortening the jump arc and not allowing for a second jump.

Mixing up jump patterns can help reduce opponents from easily punishing or anticipating jump-ins. Super jumping also helps players close in the distance easily on projectile spamming opponents

4) Abuse Tension

The signature meter of Guilty Gear Strive has an incredible amount of flavor and potential to be abused, unlike most other fighting games. It fuels many of the main mechanics such as Overdrive Supers, Faultless Defense, and Roman Canceling.

Aside from providing incredible versatility to playstyles, it actively encourages players to use different mechanics by filling up extremely quickly for the simplest of actions and resetting every round. What differentiates players from each other in Guilty Gear Strive is how they use tension.

British fighting game YouTuber Leon Massey has created a wonderful video essay on this topic that is linked above.

3) Roman Cancel well to diversify character playstyle

Another major mechanic of the Guilty Gear Strive allows players to escape the opponent’s pressure or enforce their own for Tension. Roman Cancel is activated by pressing Punch, Kick & Slash simultaneously

Learning Roman Canceling is the first step beginners make when they leap between being new to being seasoned. New combos become possible, new ways to punish opponents, and in general Roman Canceling allows for immense creativity.

Roman Cancels come in various types and all Roman Cancels in Guilty Gear Strive charge 50% tension. To see in detail about the many different types of Roman Canceling watch the video below:

2) Set up the dash macro

Guilty Gear Strive allows players to set a macro for dashing forward so if a player has an extra button after setting their other macros, setting a dash macro is optimal.

The dash macro allows for greater control over movement, but perhaps its best application is to charge specials while moving for charge characters such as May and Leo easily. All that players have to do is press the dash macro and immediately begin charging.

It isn’t impossible to do conventionally, but it’s exceptionally easy to do with a macro.

1) Be mindful of wall breaks

The latest mechanic introduced to Guilty Gear Strive is the wall break, and it essentially works by letting your opponents reset to neutral if they take too much damage by having the wall against the corner break.

There is no doubt that this is done to cushion opponents unable to cope with the pressure and this can sometimes not be optimal for the player. If the player refuses to take the battle back to neutral and wishes to continue the battle in the corner they can simply stop attacking when the wall nearly breaks.

While it is an extremely unnatural thing to do, it is in many situations the better option as a wall splat opponent is the same as an opponent knocked down in the corner. So the player can instead focus on setting up okizeme.