How To Deal With A Character Crisis

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[@GekkoSquirrel]

Play Enlisted today using my link for a free bonus pack with soldiers, weapons, and more: en.live/gekkosquirrel

[@thisgoddamusernamestoodamnlong]

I thought a character crisis was when a game adds too many characters and the balance gets fucked up.

[@feedingz7132]

I will never cheat on my honey bun sugar plum zato-1. He’s too cool, too edgy, and his lore is too good.

[@SupremeLordBruv]

**Milia Rage Wants to know your location**

[@yugijak]

"It's common to get worse before you get better." I... should keep this more in mind

[@Sewer-coon]

I’m a testament main this is just my life now

[@notmyfullname598]

Don't give up, testament has never been nerfed, they're gonna do some big buffs next time I can feel it

[@lojika1majik]

@@notmyfullname598I am going to start dodging testament if they buff them. That character is actual bullshit.

[@Sewer-coon]

@@notmyfullname598 oh trust me I’m not giving up I love this character too much but uh still sucks that 2/3 of my mains got nerfed they needed jack o as well Baiken is still fine though

[@notmyfullname598]

@@lojika1majik most people tend to think they are one of the worst characters in the game, or at best middle of the road so it makes sense to buff them

[@evilded2]

Bro testament is broken! the tree? The net? I get cursed and just die smh.

[@skelebrosgaming2187]

In my friend group, I'm the "Wild Card" in fighting games, so this topic hits me hard. Every week, hell every set, I play a different set of characters because I get bored. Because of this, in every fighting game I play, I can play any character on the roster and do well. My fundamentals have gotten so crazy because I can't rely on character gimmicks. I wish there was a random button when playing ranked. Most modern games have you pre pick characters before queueing up, so you cant pick random like you can on locals.

[@crusaddy]

THIS. I cannot stick to a character for even a day because I get bored. I wish I could find mains and actually dedicate myself to literally anything

[@PenguinWithInternetAccess]

I feel this minus the fundamentals part

[@iamleahvictoria]

Street Fighter 6 has random select in ranked.

[@vivianlessthan3]

WILD CARD, WILD CARD the word of a man who never faaaaaiaiaiills

[@PenguinWithInternetAccess]

@@vivianlessthan3 JUST LEAN

[@Maxler5795]

I did NOT expect ultrakill music in my gekkosquirrel video. But its there and i am ALL for it

[@jet7172]

I am a zato /bedman main. I am happy that bedman is finally playable now but incredibly depressed that zato died. Again.

[@Ramsey276one]

Considering canon... Q_Q

[@fr0stdr4ke95]

I play characters from Ganondorf in Ultimate to Arakune in Blazblue. I never experience a character crisis. I experience knowing I made a mistake and accepting my new fate.

[@MrPickleEdits]

Can i report them for cyber bullying? they play Arakune.

[@fr0stdr4ke95]

@@MrPickleEdits I only picked them up after seeing an Arakune meme video aweek ago. I haven't learned the war crime inputs yet.

[@pavlox8099]

@@fr0stdr4ke95you have the potential to be a war criminal, some say you already are, so we must snuff you out immediately

[@trickytristan1]

Insert that one hard drive article that’s like “man is surprise that everyone he plays is low tier”

[@kalinkessler5759]

Respect for main Ganondolf

[@JamieIsJammed]

I'm absolutely not having a character crisis, I'll always love my main, but I absolutely think getting burned out by your main's weaknesses is absolutely a thing. Very insightful video, I love how it all comes from a place of experience with you, anecdotes and all. Keep up the content ❤

[@vibescorner863]

As a faust main currently regreting my frame data, this is certainly a video that i appreciate.

[@Anticssc]

STAY STRONG MY FAUST BROTHER. WE MUST DEFEAT THE ALLEGATIONS!!!

[@brianparker5323]

I feel so called out by this. I am constantly undergoing a character crisis in whatever game I play, for most (if not all) of the reasons you mentioned. I do admit that I can get bored with a character, or hit a wall with progression that leads to self doubt and spirals into anxiety. But I like labbing a character after getting wrecked by something to figure out a countermeasure. Which means I have to put some time into them, and then here we go again. I thought it was bad in tekken 7 when I changed mains like five times, but I’m doing the same in strive. Launch Leo until Baiken (Xrd main) came out. Baiken until I hit a wall. Faust because I hate myself apparently. Ky for a well rounded character. Back to Baiken, Faust. Dabbled in Giovanna, Testament, Johnny. Now I’m liking goldlewis for some reason? But hating zoning matchups. So I….aaaaaaaaaaa. Yes, I know I have a problem. I really, really wish that Strive had character specific tower progression so I could work on characters separately. No, I am not a great player. Anyway I felt this video so hard. Thanks for the hard work and great video.

[@Saskaruto16]

After playing fighting games for many years here is what I have found: I frequently end up dual-maining in games I play a lot because some matchups/metas just simply require it for my own enjoyment. Rarely is their a character with 0 awful/unfun matchups. Sometimes no one fits 100% of what I want and that usually means I don't really love the game, and tends to happen in more stripped down games frequently. Sometimes in games I really love I could see myself maining 4-5 different characters because they all offer things I really enjoy and don't feel lacking in any major way. I experiment a lot especially in friendlies: Nothing wrong with putting some time into a new character. Maybe you end up liking them more, or maybe you just learn more about how they play and how one thinks while playing them, where their execution and neutral stress points are, etc, which can help you in the matchup with your other characters. This style of play has greatly improved many transferable skills which can always aid me later with different games/characters, where as optimizing something hyper character specific will only help in that one game on that one character in that one situation. It's also a big part of the reason I like individual character ranks a lot because it encourages this experimentation. It heavily increases your ability to play neutral in different ways, adapt to the opponent, make reads, etc. Honestly the hardest part for me in many games is grinding the punish game to take my characters to the next level, because I find most games combo systems extremely boring compared to the neutral I have spent so much of my time learning more and more of over the years. What you do with the hit is so often set in stone and so much less interesting than winning the situation to get the hit in the first place, at least to me. I have for sure put way too much value into tier lists and matchup charts before which especially in early/immediately post patch metas are just not accurate. What's more important in those kinds of data sets is the why rather than the placement itself, that's the valuable information. At the end of the day you want to pick the character(s) that you can both do best with, and enjoy the most, and how you strike that balance is up to you. If you have 5 you like, try them each out and really study them to understand their game plans and what playing them will actually be like, don't focus on winning or losing because it's completely irrelevant on characters you don't actually know. You will likely be able to widdle it down farther and farther the more time you put in as you can better weigh the pros and cons of each character in comparison. If you can only get it down to 3 or more, just play who is working out for you better for now and you can always switch later if you don't like it long term. If you know all of them well, which ones do you do better with, which ones are more enjoyable, and find your balance. I have had days where my main or even secondary just wouldn't work, maybe my mental or tech skill or both were off. Long term yes push through that and figure it out, but short term just try throwing something at the wall and see what sticks whether it's playing a different way with one of those characters or switching to some pocket character you have just because you are feeling that character in that moment in time. Infiltration switched to his fun low tier Hakan just because he was feeling it and his main wasn't working. Daigo has gone from playing super safe and defensive to just throwing out shoryus and nonsense like a madman because his gameplan wasn't working. Do whatever works for you, and just keep trying things until something works out.

[@angem.6717]

When that happened to me, I basically took a break from the game, and watched a bunch of very high level matches to see how other players were efficiently using the same tools in a different manner. This was very eye opening and made me bot only stronger, but also love my main even more when coming back

[@t3hNEWhypro50]

My big one was "if I'm really struggling against ONE particular character, I should at least learn that character to know why I do" and SOMETIMES you end up a Ramlethal main

[@Himbologist]

I've been dealing with a character crisis at the moment as you guessed, I mained Anji in GGST since about February of 2022, and for a while now, especially with season 3 and his new move, I feel like his character identity has slowly but surely been stripped away at least for me. It's not even that he's bad or anything I couldn't care less about how he preforms, but he just feels worse to play. It just feels like they keep taking the "trickster" out of the trickster. TLDR, Anji isn't fun to me anymore and it kinda kills the game cause I don't want to switch off I bought the game for him.

[@morhjort]

I've pretty much had the same experience with Anji, several times even just from small changes. I think that his cr.HS didn't used to launch which really changed how i used to do pressure and that was actually a buff but it never really felt good to me so i stopped playing him for a while. Just goes to show how small changes can be for you to not like how they feel.

[@Himbologist]

@morhjort yeah for me it was a lot of things that added up, like that 2H things sure but it's the fact that we're 3 seasons in and his 6H still doesn't function constantly, or that his neutral hasn't been touched but spin has, or that he's one of the few characters that doesn't get that much reward off red WA, or that they completely removed the fear of fuujin entirely, or that midare while fixes core problems he had now makes him more one dimensional as a result, my case might be more extreme than yours but it sucks to play the same character for almost 2 years now and he couldn't feel any different from the character you fell in love with.

[@Himbologist]

Either way us Anji Bros stay mid as fuck

[@nkirmath8621]

I was already considering maining asuka coming into season 3, but after it hit, I felt much the same as you and was able to easily drop him for a character who I think is just much more fun. Personally I miss just how much mix anji could get off of everything. Honestly, I miss season 1 anji and prefer that to all that they've done to him I'd take the worse character for hard knockdown kou, and fcf launches because those made the character fun. Edit good luck finding someone else you vibe with.

[@nkirmath8621]

@@Himbologist Every time they did anything to make him better they gutted something that made him fun and it just made the character over all worse as a result

[@mawillix2018]

I love this video everytime, been watching versions of it for years!

[@derpybreads2212]

When SF6 came out I played Juri exclusively, I liked her feel, her button, she's high tier, and I liked learning her. But then one day, my friend told me he wanted to play SF6 and learn Kimberly, he's still pretty new to the genre, only playing SF4, V, and 6, so I started learning Kimberly so that I could teach him, and I found the most fun character I have ever played in a Street Fighter game, so then I started maining her, and I play Juri a lot less now

[@pinhead1048]

The axl hate caught me off guard but amazing video as always and happy to see you get sponsored man, you definitely deserve it, you make by far the most entertaining and accessible fighting game content out there, can't wait to see more !

[@rappa4022]

yes Gekko we do love your silky smooth british voice

[@nkirmath8621]

I recently have gotten over my crisis. I used to main anji, but when asuka was added, I slowly adjusted to the much harder character.

[@fatyoshi696]

I feel that a major thing that can contribute to a character crisis is dlc being paid bonus content, I've played like 150 hours of strive without buying the dlc and I didn't really mesh with any of the base cast characters, but I don't know if it's worth buying the dlcs since I don't know if I'll like them, especially after the regional pricing removal which doubles the cost of all of them for me. I don't get why being able to test out dlc characters before buying them is such a rare feature, the only game I can think of that had it is rivals of aether before the dlcs were made part of the base game, and I also think dlc practices are getting ridiculous with some games having half the cast or more as dlc, the way dlc is handled in most games has hurt my enjoyment of a lot of otherwise great games

[@SPZ-gv2on]

That's part of the reason I fell off strive. I do love potemkin but I would like to play a better character. The issue is that all the better characters that interest me are extra money and I'm not going to gamble on that when I have other fighting games I enjoy and don't have to fork over more money for.

[@Wubsaurus]

sf6 rental feature

[@galius3507]

we play a ton of characters in Strive semi-competently, but we still have our main for when we're struggling against a friend, haha. Sol Badguy's just simple, straightforward, and fun, but we still enjoy playing characters like Happy Chaos (who is kinda the opposite of simple and straightforward), and sometimes it's just fun to hop into a new character and see how it feels.

[@nukuomespookuome]

So I started playing faust when I got guilty gear strive the month after it released. About a year ago, i decided I just wanted to try something new. I'm not a big competitive player, but I do like ranking up and winning online matches. It wasn't that I was on a huge lose streak, but rather that I wanted something new. So I tried out Goldlewis, love him (he's now my second main). And then, whenever I played with my siblings or friends, I started picking whatever character I felt like playing that moment which would lead to me switching characters almost every match. And now a year later, Faust is still my main but I also have a much better understanding of all the other characters (except sol, Potemkin, and ky) and can switch characters and play them relatively well almost whenever. I'm no where near being "great", I'd say I barely border on "good" for most characters, but that newfound understanding of how other characters generally move and play I feel has really helped my game play and strategy.

[@jgblkshot8375]

I've actually had a character crisis before with Accent Core... when I was still learning Kliff and dealing with bad matchups with characters like... Justice, or Testament, or Bridget... but funnily enough that crisis was immediately solved with, as you said... just picking up more characters and learning their tech. I've picked up the other big-bodies of that game... Potemkin, Faust, Justice, and honestly it's so fun switching between all the characters and keeping things fresh... and then competetively when I stick to Kliff, I just simply took the time to learn more advanced tech or matchup knowledge with the character, and things have just been smooth sailing ever since. I still have alot to learn with this game, and I still have alot of areas I need to improve on... but I can confidently say that I beat my character crisis. It also gives quite a new perspective on certain characters too... where once I would absolutely hate Justice and Potemkin players... now I REALLY appreciate the amount of WORK that people put in when they play these characters... there's alot more going on under the hood when you switch to a character you normally hate fighting against. Great video Gek! Looking forward to the next video.

[@taysonhall1243]

i always like to aim for 3 mains in each game to avoid being burnt out. Start with a familiar fighting class, than try out something new, than once you got those 2 down, go for one more and don't take em too seriously. for example I learned testiment first, than switched to jack-o and recently Anji after his new move came out.

[@Ramsey276one]

Go FISH! XD

[@rosesarered3435]

my character crisis is more just across games in the series, they took my main from the previous game, jack-o, and entirely changed the character to the point they dont feel the same whatsoever so im left trying out other characters, i picked nago at first, then nago blood gauge got nerfed to the point where i dont wanna do combos or play him due to the mechanic killing me so i just bounce around the whole cast currently trying to find my main, other games i play most of the cast so i wouldn't be surprised if i do that here too lol

[@absoul112]

I had one in Strive. I played Anji at first, but over time he became less fun to play. I tried out other members of the cast, and Milia and Leo were decently enjoyable but not as much. Then Bridget got added and she’s closer to the +R version I enjoyed than I expected so I stuck with her.

[@FabschOblivion669]

I just pick the character I end up having the most fun with, but I also enjoy characters that aren't too complicated to learn and master. Back in XX+R and Rev2 my main was initially Faust since I find him a lot of fun, but then I started to branch out and eventually dropped Faust because I was having more fun playing Slayer in both games. I still main Faust in Strive and also play Goldlewis in that game because of the common denominator of me finding them fun to play.

[@wildmonkeycar]

I wanna say, I appreciate these mentality-focused videos. Mentality is such a huge part of fighting games, and barely anyone talks about it

[@Drydoctor-qo5wt]

That Happy Chaos fucking teabagged holy shit that’s ballsy

[@syloboy163]

I like to think I'm an honest and simple person - that's why I like to play simple characters. happy chaos: shoot the gun (simple). little mac: punch stuff (simple). you get the gist.

[@michelebenedetti7507]

I was a SSBU competitive player, when Terry came out I switched mains, and never looked back... But on strive, I mained Pot 1 month away since i started playing the game. Even though I enjoy Bedman?, Johnny and Testament a lot... but when I play and lose my first thought is "If I had played Pot I would have won here"

[@Maxler5795]

I fucking love sol because hes a mix of "edgelord" and "bored with high fantasy man"

[@Mojomoud]

This is basically what happened in Xrd when I played Johnny and Sin because no one else was fun for me and I couldn’t play Order-Sol anymore. But I came back for Strive in a big way when they showed off Nagoryuki and I’ve played him since day one, with the only other character making me switch off him being Johnny. And then there’s Street Fighter 5, where I dropped the game because I did not care fir how hard they broke Ryu legs in Srason 2 on top of no one else in the cast being that appealing and the V-System being a set of mechanics I personally didn’t care for. Thankfully SF6 fixed both of those problems for me

[@vanessalaplaige8806]

I went through a C crisis because my first main was nago but now that I use sin every is better

[@mrRiverbear45]

This video came out at the right time I’m going through it with Anji in Strive right now :’)

[@WestCero]

For me, it depends on the game. Strive and Tekken 7 have multiple characters I like the feel of equally. BBCF and UNIST I really only love to play Es and Phonon respectively. For me it really is all about the tactile feel of playing the characters

[@carlos41519]

I don’t play or haven’t played fighting games in a very long time. I sometimes went through this but i usually just ignored it and kept playing. I face this issue with a different game (splatoon 3 specifically) cause sticking to one weapon is so difficult for me. I’ve ended up playing like 5 weapons at once

[@moistwindow6094]

My crisis is that to my monkey brain the most fun characters are also just like the worst in their respective games, not really an actual crisis, but just self inflicted uphill battles

[@Papyrusking]

Strive was the first Fighting game I took seriously and I naturally went to Sol,then Potemkin for 2 weeks,then Ky for about two or three months,and right now I am back with Sol as my main,but I also have Gio as my secondary character to keep things fresh when I start losing.

[@mr_meety779]

I kind of feel this. I started out as a May main in GGST, then "reformed" into a Goldlewis main. I did this to give myself a challenge, as May is overbuffed. But now I am starting to miss my funny, big-anchored, dolphin girl. I wish they would nerf May's damage so that I can play her without the game being too easy.

[@McdonaldKnight]

when sin came out, i was like "so, should i be extremely annoying with totsugeki or extremely annoying with the funny flag boy ?" and then decided to be both since both are fun. Now instead of not learning one character, i'm not learning two characters

[@yurazah]

you made this video just in time, may has been my favorite gg character for a long time, and she recently got dumpster'd, and not just nerfed but completely reworked so half her kit doesn't work anymore, and im dooming cause no matter how much i practiced i couldn't get past being a low-mid level player and that was pre nerf, she always felt like she was lacking the lockdown power of other characters, but now? my character is significantly worse and feels like a mortal amongst gods (most would disagree I know) but its such a struggle cause she feels like trash to play but Im really big into playing characters i like and shes still my favorite mmmm... sad days... and additionally I had a character crisis perpetually in the past game I played, so in strive i was going to commit. and i did.... for like 2 years, but now what is a boy to do...

[@profsalad6414]

I had a character crisis in strive for quite a while. having played sin on release i loved him initally and even went from floor 7 to floor 10. Though my climbing quickly haulted there. Though sin on release wasnt unplayable it was still pretty challanging. I played strive a bunch before, being the first game i started playing fighting games i switched constantly until i reached nago, reaching floor 7. But i wasnt performing terribly well due to my lack of blood management. But as Sin released i understood mechanics alot more. But at higher levels my understanding wasnt reaching newer heights. I tried moving around a bunch. switching to nago, happy chaos, gio, baiken. Whatever i could find. but i could never perform as well as i did with sin. Returning to him eventually i just stuck with it for a while. Eventually reaching that burnout i just took a big break. but when i came back johnny had released. Having switched to him i now use sin as a side pick. Though i dont think that was the solution to my burn out. Think it was just taking a big break.

[@SpicyLove12]

This is kinda why I tend to double main often. If one of my characters gets hit, I'll have someone to fall back to.

[@mhbplooni5848]

This is exactly what I do. I pick 2 characters I like whose moves sets are similar enough to not be playing Zato and Potemkin but not so similar I end up playing Ryu and Ken. I want them similar enough that my playstyle mostly works with both so If one gets Nerfed I play the other more.

[@EzKay_PX]

Lil personal story about this topic (and strap in cuz this is a long one) I've been playing MBAACC for about a year and 8 months or so, it was my first fighting game and ever since I've started I've always mained Aoko. I had my phases of going though her different versions, eventually landing in Half Moon Aoko because I just love rushdown too much and the other 2 are too setup reliant. And when I did the switch to half moon I my passion for the game did a 10x. Now I didn't have to to dumb 3 step multi command setups to do a deamn overhead and keep my pressure, I just needed to do a DP and I got the overhead I wanted, oki? just 214b and if it hits confirm into 214c for ez tech traps and meter break, etc. And so I stuck with her for about half a year. However, after that I just started to feel that something was off, my tech just didn't feel fun, every missimput tilted me more and more and I just couldn't play the same with her for some reason. And I don't know if out of either luck or destiny, I randomly chose Half moon Arcrueid by accident, and just roll with her for the luls against one of my best mates (which is about the same level as I am) and even though I had about 2 hours of experience with her compared to the 6-7 months that I had with H-Aoko I just run home with her, the combos which I didn't know just happened to click mid match, every hit I did confirmed into something awesome and even though I lost all my precious projectiles I still had a monstrous pressure that was not that hard, yet so, SO SATISFYING I put up some excuses as to why I had so much fun with her saying that it was luck, but after the same thing happened again with 2 other of my friends (one of them which I considered much better than I was) they all collectively were like: "Nah bruh, that shit ain't luck no more" Still doubtful of the switch, I have been "The Monkey Ass Aoko Main" for almost 2 gosh darn years after all, and switching from basically a spicy shoto to the equivalent of Chipp levels of rushdown feels off aswell, but it also clicks in a way that I just frankly cant ignore. If you read all of this, thanks for reading and try some stuff out! You might be surprised at how much you might like it

[@Ramsey276one]

Since Switch Joycons are making SPD Anji's super, I am now relearning my PS2 Kou-baiting ways and using the new 3P and Fuujin Rin in a new dance routine And Umbrella Helicopter when I want to really counter something XD

[@Samael2513]

Best thing is when the characters have the same inputs, it makes things 1000 times easier, like did you know potemkin and Leo have multiple moves with the same input, or Bedman? And Faust(best character). I've been really struggling with adding to my total roster of who I use across all fighting games, I'm usually better about these kinds of things but I am starting to feel like the fun was turning into work, my usual solution of trying out new characters to train against my mains wasn't working so I decided to start trying local tournaments without practicing for a few weeks as anyone can imagine I got rolled over hard, but it turns out that revenge really is a good motivator, I got my Drive back, and it's not going away anytime soon.

[@hteety]

I mean, this is 90% of FG characters anyways. Every fighting game uses Z, QCF motions, with most grapplers having some half circle or full circle motions. Truly, inputs don't vary that much across fighting games once you really come down to it, especially in certain games like Street Fighter where you only have 2 buttons that do special attacks for each character (most characters having each one throwing out different versions of the same move).

[@cherryboywriter6299]

In Tekken I play Steve Fox as a main but I mess around with several other character. Steve can be played in alot of ways and I basically play other characters that more focus on the aspects of the game and then reuse what I learned into Steve Fox. I'll play Bryan Fury and Miguel to practice slowing down and counter picking. Now currently I'm messing around with Lidia to experiment with hyper aggressive play. It all goes into the brain and keeps my gaming fresh.

[@noah-ux2cz]

In skullgirls i played solo big band for about a whole year. It started to hurt my mental only playing this character and nothing else, and I started to resent the game. So I took a month break, decided to pick up Mrs. Fortune who was a character I liked for a while, and I started having much more fun. That’s how I dealt with my character crisis.

[@Mag5c68]

As a day 1 Brig main, regardless of her being good or bad, i dont plan on quiting her anytime soon. I did play Faust and Ram at launch but dropped them once Bridget came out and havent looked back.

[@GeorgePtacek]

I’m someone who usually just hard picks one character at a time and becomes best I can until I get to a point I burn myself out and pick a new character to play and master. This has left me with a collection of characters I can play as I please (which in my only fighting game I play is Goldlewis, Leo and Baiken). Hell, one of the things I love about your channel is that it’s very relatable for other genres. Right now in wargaming I’ve not been doing too well with my blood angels and now I’m trying to figure out where in my army I’m lacking and need to either readjust them or just not play them for awhile. My own “army crisis” so to say.

[@dyldragon1]

Im currently experiencing this in KOF XV. I really wanted to play Darli since I'm a big Samurai Shodown fan but she just doesn't feel fun at all in this game. For that character slot, now I'm not sure I can go back to one of my old team members (Athena, Maxima) or someone new (Nakoruru, Sylvie).

[@PenguinWithInternetAccess]

As a new fighting game player (currently on GG strive, gonna start sf6 and maybe XRD very soon) my list of characters I wanna main grows each training session I do, I just like them all 😅 But I'll probably settle on two characters for each game at most

[@l.a.g3098]

A new player might get a crisis when they think they finally find that character that fits them, but they keep hearing from more experienced players that they're bad or have too many flaws compared to this or this character. Obvsly the new player is gonna think "ah they know better than me so I should reconsider", when those other players might be biased or not know enough about said character. I always liked shotos but since they don't have a specialty they get kinda crushed compared to those focused on a category, so i usually ended up hearing bad things about them like "they're pressure/zoning/neutral/etc isn't as good as [insert character here]", which made me want to switch. But then I realized, in exchanged, they have tools for *everything*. They may not be the strongest tools but I have an answer for everything. I can be flexible unlike the specialized characters. It's kinda reassuring in a way. So I've stopped listening to the endless comparisons. And this is how I still main Ky and Jin.

[@ezracasillas6568]

I've played fighterz for a while now I always have been a 16 main just due to him being one of my favorite characters and I do like myself some dunks but recently more so to the changes to limit break and some full screen super dash shenanigans and also just buffs to Yamcha i've found myself playing less and less 16 and honestly all I did was just watch gameplay of Yamcha and go that looks fun and learned how to do it myself,

[@TCPolecat]

Honestly, I'm stuck in a permanent character crisis in almost every game I play. The game devs never give me the tools I need or want in a character, and the rare times they do they make the personality so odious I can't tolerate them. The closest I ever got to a "perfect" character was Bruce from the older Tekken games, but they replaced him with Bryan Fury, who lost the reach I treasured and has a personality that is like nails on a chalkboard for me. And that's just it, I favor punishment/counter style play over all else with minimal combos, an uncommon set of preferences that has extremely few reps, and who always seem to get replaced by characters that go on to be more popular.... to everyone else but me. And so, I go on the search yet again.

[@SirthOsiris]

I came up with the idea recently to have a main, then when having a bad night switch off to someone else and have fun with them. I was struggling with Bridget one night, then switched to Testament for the rest of the night and had a better time.

[@biggieshlak]

Picking the coolest character mostly worked for me most of the time. I always just pick characters for their design and it usually ends up being just one char so I don't have a problem with that. But MK1 was a really hard choice, cuz there were 3 different characters that I really liked so I played a hell lot of the PvE content and finally decided on Smoke. Aaaaand than I found out I cannot access multiplayer because of my rottan potato PC ... great. oh and btw hearding lethal league osts always makes my day thx

[@SliminBlue]

I started playing Strive in April this year as my first "true" fighting game after playing Smash 4 and Ultimate for a couple hundred hours casually, and I picked Chipp as my main on a whim because his lore was funny. Honestly, he was a pretty good pick to start with, he's relatively easy to understand and doesn't have any gimmicks, but he has a high skill ceiling with some really quick and complex combos. Is he the best character to start with? No, but coming from a game as fast as Smash Ultimate, it was a pretty smooth transition once I learned how traditional FG's control, and it made me fall in love with rushdowns. Over time though, I think my skill with Chipp kinda evened out, partially because I played inconsistently for a few months, partially because I just wasn't trying too hard to get better. So recently, after trying out all the DLCs, I picked up Sin as a secondary, and he might not be a top tier, but he's a DANG fun character and is absolutely a rushdown despite Strive season 3 calling him a balance character. Having a secondary gives me more variety in my practice, and means if one character gets boring, I can go back to the other for a while. And because I'm not super good (hovering around floors 4-5 right now), I don't need to worry about getting especially good at either for the time being, since realistically I can still work on my fundamentals a lot before trying really hard at learning the nuances of a specific character. Plus, Sin is a simpler character than Chipp, so I don't need to learn as much to be good with him. It makes a nice balance and adds variety, even if I need to balance practicing multiple characters.

[@ShadowCrescent]

For me, I solved my character crisis with the use of some factors after playing a bunch: 1) Do I like this character? 2) Are their moves "keyboard friendly"? (Yes, I play FGs on a keyboard) 3) Am I having fun with this character after about an hour or 2 of playing? 4) Ultimately, is it decent enough for me to learn for a substational amount of time? This is how I became a Kimberly main in SF6 after flipping between Ken, Juri, and Kimberly.

[@lizabeth529]

keyboard SWEEP

[@Halo_Chief343in]

I had a mini character crisis recently and I’m not sure if it even counts. TLDR at the end. I’m extremely new to the fighting game genre and was introduced to Guilty Gear Strive when my friend hosted a mini tournament with us “unenlightened” folk. I rocked up, looked at the cast and won as Nago. Skip forward a couple weeks I got really interested in Nagoriyuki and Giovanna. The “tournament” got everyone involved into the game so we often played together, though when we did I found my friends disappointed or mad when I won. Usually they passed compliments to the victor or just said GG, but I got disappointment. Then every now and then they talked about how easy Gio and Nago were, one straight up said Gio was annoying to fight. I heard one getting compliments for playing Zato because he’s a one star, I think we know where this is going. I basically dropped Nago and Gio for That Man himself, Asuka R. Kreutz. He’s cool, he’s difficult and has an amazing design. Surely I’ll get some sort of positive feedback instead of making them pissed, right? Wrong. I get sighs or get stomped. At this point I’ve committed to Asuka. TLDR; won a friendly tournament against my friends as Nago, got GGST, played Nago and Gio, was talked shit about for playing easy characters l, switched to Asuka yet I’m still met with disapproval when I win. What am I doing wrong here? Is it too petty to switch to Asuka like that? Is it a justifiable reason to switch? I am really enjoying Asuka, though not sure as much as I was Nago and Gio. Sorry for the long comment.

[@azurethecobalt]

I usually pick up 2-4 characters or more a game without feeling too hindered or in a character crisis outside of Smash Ultimate where I just can't imagine which one character to use. Only recently have I started playing characters I wouldn't have called my mains being Ryu and Incineroar. I wanted to play Ryu because I like Capcom's fighting games and I can rep MvC by constantly referring to it's mechanics. Incineroar is just cool and hits hard lol.

[@bardockvegetable6377]

As a shoto main Can't relate

[@cherryboywriter6299]

Respectable

[@fr0stdr4ke95]

White Bread Sandwich players are the backbone of our community. Keep playing water with no ice, because you are more brave than most of us.

[@jeph115]

I've had a huge problem with this myself I'm pretty new to fighting games, only having started out with MK11 practically only a few months when it had come out and realizing the game was pretty harsh, Hop-attacks are different than air attacks, every character has 30 different combos as well as specials they can change with their loadouts, etc. It was extremely chaotic, and I mostly stuck to the offline modes due to how bad the game, in general, is. There was a period where I tried to get some outfit through the online and it was by far the worst period of playing fighting games I'd ever experienced. Fast forward a few years, I get introduced to GG-Strive by a good friend: I start out with Happy Chaos as any shitter would, but he's *extremely* hard to convert with, learning all the shots to extend your combo and breaking your fingers to perform was pretty insane, even nowadays with how much I know of it I still struggle to produce any results with him. I was mostly going with what kind of characters I liked, so later on I played Goldlewis through steam sharing, I liked him quite a bit but the 789 or just generally any Jump-input Behemoth Typhoon became a little frustrating, especially when 987 was considered such a good input. So after buying the game on my own, I realized I owned *none* of these DLCs, I had no idea most of these were even DLC characters to begin with, so I started looking for a new main: Axl Low was incredibly fun, I picked him because I liked his plaid jacket and because his overly british voice was the best of two worlds: Extremely grating to the ears and Funny. Fast forward learning a few bomber loops and how absolutely frustrating they are to do, but really rewarding once you get them down and I have a lot of fun, except nobody else does. Apparently I had stumbled upon a really high tier character that nobody likes. So here comes the actual problem, Nobody has fun when I play them; Fair enough, Z*ners are always looked down upon in fighting games. Of course, GGST is practically the best when it comes to learning new characters, Most normals you'll get used to quickly and slowly learn their properties (Wall bounce and whatnot), alongside 8 specials *maximum*, and most people have 6 or so. I start playing Sin Kiske, since he's always the dumbest in the room and I can resonate with that on a spiritual level, he's really fun even if entirely unreliable (at the time) with his combos, it wasn't until season 3 that you could hit something without being frame-perfect. (I still hate Tyrant Barrel timing) It goes alright, any complaints I can clap back with "He's the shittest character" and what not, but it's still insane how unhealthy some people are with competition, they keep coming because "His pressure is too strong" or "He does too much damage", so while I mained him for a while, It was time to switch once more because, even if I liked him, the *entire* roster was so easy to learn it was actually quite fun. Enter today, I play Axl, Sin, Ky, Leo, Goldlewis, Happy Chaos, etc. It's hard to keep up with all the balance changes with all of them (Worse of all Leo), But switching characters can be quite a refreshing experience whenever I get frustrated with the game, and it always helps others with the argument of "Hey, if you're not having fun I'll switch characters, might aswell since I want to play someone else anyway" and it often ends there, but it unfortunately came to a point where I practically never play Axl since *everyone* dislikes him, and I'm a bit sad to drop him for so long. I tried recently and bomber loops are a lot harder for me, I'd pretty much forgotten about the properties of some of his normals, and even totally forgot that 6H was a jump attack that could set up some wicked meaty situations. I'd love to hear from some other folks that went through this, sometimes it's a lot better since I've got a few folks that don't care about matchups and any of that boring tournament-level shit, but the only advice I can give is stay away from Asuka# players: Some of them are *total* tools.

[@callMEchaos544]

I’ve been in a character crisis like 5 times since I got ggst and I somehow always end up playing the funny gun man at the end

[@LunarNeedle]

I bought Strive recently and was looking through the cast and found my main immediately (Goldlewis) but it was adding a secondary main was very, very difficult so I can relate a lot to this video. 10/10!

[@bananaleg82]

I just go with the mindset of wanting to level up every character, and on my journey I'll find the right character for me while learning about others.

[@mikeledrew5830]

I've dealt with character crisis many times, one of the best things I find that makes me happy is to choose a secondary character who plays nothing like my main so if I start to get bored or frustrated I can switch and have something completely different. For instance, in Tekken, my main has always been Hworang, but in Tekken 7 I switched it up and I alternate most of the time between Hworang and Gigas as they play very differently and each scratch a different itch, in SF6 I've been rocking Marisa since the game came out, but AKI is looking like a fun alt to mix it up and keep the game fresh.

[@rose_goose]

If/when I get bored or frustrated with my main, I usually just learn a character and call them my "dedicated pocket," learning them with the intention to switch back. I did this with Bridgette (main is Gio) in Strive and Terry (Main is Richter) in Smash Ultimate. It's helped a decent amout, and now I have alright counterpicks

[@kitkatiecat]

Holy shit I needed this video desperately, I'm like 150+ hours deep into Strive and still feel like I can't choose a main I started with Bridget however her low HP and low damage really annoyed me, plus it felt like her gameplan was incredibly meh, it's just get HKD and do yoyo shenanigans I did like how evil her midrange control was though And ever since I've just been playing random characters with not much luck

[@shellularity]

my progression's been weird too, i went from bridget > millia > bedman (who is currently my best character) > trying to at least partially switch to jack-o or giovanna

[@pablodelrosaljimenez3530]

Right now im going through a character crisis in GG Strive, I have 80 h in the game and I've been maining Potemkin. But lately I've been feeling like the character is too hard for me. I dont play many anime fighting games, this is the first one im getting into. One of the reasons i find him hard is because of kara cancels. Wihtout them, I cant do a lot of his mix-ups. Lately I tried out Giovanna. A character wich I thought was boring at first. Though after learning a few things now I think shes relly cool and easier to play. I dont now if should stick with Potem and just get good, change to Gio so I have an easier time since I do enjoy playing as her a lot or try to learn both even if I already have a troble just learning how to be a glue eater. Alos, I felt pretty bad when you talked about people who complain about their charater being harder than the others because now I feel like that would be me.

[@yp.m1534]

Im going trough a character crisis right now, i picked up Sol after playing a bit of the strive crossplay demo/beta but after so much time of playing him as a main, im starting to doubt my choice of picking him as a main. And is honestly so weird because Sol is pretty good in season 3 and yet i dont feel like im having so much fun anymore even if i practice and do good combos sometimes but it just isnt enough. Or maybe im just bad who knows.

[@JayPfo]

Obviously great video with great advice but the only thing I would add is how you play your character. Approaching the same character with the same tools from a different perspective can really help you fall in love with your character again and provide the diversity some people are actually craving

[@JcgLounge]

I think MK11 may have been the first fighting game where I sorta had a character crisis. For the longest time I during my time with that game I tried to see if it could stick it out with Sub-Zero, Jax, and Jacqui. But then I really enjoyed Sonya Blade. And dabbled a little bit with Johnny Cage. Then Nightwolf came out and I did not expect to like him the way I did. Then Fujin came out in May 2020 and I really liked him. Then Rain came out later that year and I really enjoyed him. So now my whole thing was this: Who do I want to prioritize. Nightwolf most definitely was at the top, but I still wanted to utilize Jax and Jacqui since I knew their kit. At the same time though, Sub-Zero was just an easy pick up for me. That game it was hard for me to choose a DEFINITIVE main or set of mains.

[@hydrolur3959]

I have not tried this personally but I may have been affected by this. I for the longest time could not play sol. It was my first fighting game and I could not wrap my head around comboes and complex cancels, which is why I couldn't. So I chose Leo. I then worked my way to Baiken and incorporated stuff like comboing after specials, and tiger knee inputs. These were all skills that help me to this day as a Sol main. I think there is something to be said about playing less complex characters that you are interested in in order to prep yourself for more complex characters and gameplans. Like, learning a character that has bad defense so you can play better defense, etc.

[@Theconstantrose]

I started playing strive as Zato and I was kicking ass. But as all things go, being at a higher tier than the people around you makes it to where they progress faster and that kind of turned me away from Zato. I wasn’t practicing as much as I should’ve because i was already winning, but they passed me at aome point and I eventually just got tired of losing so damn hard. I then switched to Happy Chaos (mind you, this all happened within the first week of me playing the game) and i was struggling even harder since I didn’t know how to play neutral AT ALL. I later found a my bread and butter combo with HC and started to win more and more. Later I found out that HC was a top tier character and was like, “Huh. Neat.” Then i had an Anji phase and that ended about as quickly as it began. Then i was rocking with Potemkin for a short time, then HC, then Zato, then HC, then Anji, then Leo, then HC. I tried so hard to break free from HC but I couldn’t escape. He’s taken over. I tried to learn Jack-O and was doing good, but got 3-0’d and went in with HC. I cant escape the influence…

[@shawverno.1130]

I had a “character crisis” with my main splatoon weapon because being consistent with it was really hard for me. The solution to my problem was getting 8 hours of sleep and taking care of myself better and not playing as long. Which is a real shame because with school I was only able to stay just barely above fumbling that healthy rutine and didn’t have time to play ,_,

[@mr.mcflurryco.1034]

I've been bouncing around different characters in GGST for a while now, going from rushdowns, zoners, and shotos alike. I've found that I have a decent bit of fun with Testament and Gio, but at the same time, it always feels like I could be doing better. I got to Floor 7 with Testament (even though I got kicked out after my first set) and felt like it worked, but I also felt like I haven't found the right character yet. I've played Ky, Sin, Nago, Bridget, and Johnny, all with varying levels of success, but not being hooked by them. Leo is my character of choice now, but I may go back to Gio or Testament soon, for better or for worse.

[@Drawfill]

Sounds to me like you like characters with big normals.. i'd even say you're a "zoner" type of player. Have you tried Axl?

[@bignoob2726]

Sounds like you should play Ram. There are no guides for her tho. Ppl must really HATE her.

[@mr.mcflurryco.1034]

@@bignoob2726 She was one of the reasons I bought the game at first, but I couldn't get a hang of her. At the moment I'm doing well with Baiken and bet I could still play Testament well. The first guy might be right about zoners, although Axl hasn't particularly caught my eye just yet.

[@mr.mcflurryco.1034]

@@Drawfill That's seems about right. My first actual main (Bridget) was where I first got to Floor 5 or 6. I then went to Gio as a side and then Testament, who I believe is my best character. I could check out Axl, but he isn't really my first pick to say the least.

[@Drawfill]

@@mr.mcflurryco.1034 Hopefully you end up liking him. He's not the most popular because he seems bland but he's one hell of a zoner. REALLY annoying to play against one who knows what they're doing.... but if you like testament, they are pretty even at zoning so I don't think you'll enjoy axl more than testy. Idk try em both and compare! Personally ive been stuck on millia since release... im getting good at her but no other characters feel as fun to me so i'm having a real hard time to learn a new character.

[@ThrasherDBS]

I'm never a competitive player and am firmly casual but I do think it's good to check out other characters, especially if it's a character that you're having trouble going up against. Axl is someone I hated going up against, but after trying him out myself in practice and a few matches, I felt a little more confident going up against him because I had a better idea of what his toolset was and thus what exactly I was up against.

[@Pherna_1]

Idgaf about tiers I just NEED JAM PLEASE DAISUKE

[@ayers01]

Character Crisis has been one of my biggest hurdles with playing fighting games. It can even lead to dropping a game entirely due to it. For example, in Strive, I started out playing Nago, then five months later started playing Gio, now since around April this year I've been playing May. Overall I'd rather be really good w/ a few characters then sub par w/ a lot. I'm trying some new ideas such as sticking w/ characters from the base roster. And only trying new character if they catch my interest in season pass. Hopefully it'll give me enough time w/ my main and by the time season pass character arrives. I'll have put in enough to get good with my initial main.

[@brandontucker7460]

This video is pretty good and informative but idc how good or bad he is i will always pick yoshimitsu because i like pogo sticks and helicopters 😂

[@thatbluegamet]

I actually had a brief character crisis with Guilty Gear strive. I was maining Bridget for a bit getting back into online but whether it’s because of patch or me not playing the game for a while I just couldn’t play the character. So I decided to switch and the main thing I wanted was a less overwhelming move set for me. I ended choosing Testament cause they were living in my head rent free and boy am I glad I chose them

[@lemonlord1594]

This just happened to me as a Sin main. Yes I'm Happy that he is very good now but in my eyes after awhile I feel...ehhh. I went back into the character roster again and tried people like Zato and Nago and after awhile...i stick myself with Millia

[@cosplaydeninjagaiden591]

I'm dealing with a main weapon crisis in splatoon 3. My current main weapon got buffed and is stronger than never, but I bore of my main weapon. Now because of this video I will learn a weapon that counter pick splatling/charger (gatling guns snipers).

[@yourfriendlyneighbourhoodc8475]

I wouldn't say I am having a character crisis, GGST is my first ever fighting game where I've decided I will actually sit down and get good at, so every now and then I'll try a character to see if they stick with me but so far I haven't gotten attatched to anyone nearly as much as I have with Testament, Baiken is who I play whenever I want something different, and Happy Chaos felt really fun until I realized I do not have nearly enough skill to use him properly. There's just something about Testament not just as a FG character, yeah I love the feeling of essentially catching someone in the perfect spot and getting to do whatever I want with Stain setups and all that, but its just something about them in general, they are mostly soft spoken, they're elegant, they're friendly, simply want to enjoy life and experiences with everyone, they have a gyat dayum scythe and demons as weapons and happen to basically be my ultimate goal of being someone who perplexes the people around them gender-wise TLDR ok this was a lot longer than i expected, Testament's awesome and I've tried different things but so far I've never been able to get attached to anyone nearly as much as I have with them.

[@joreass6150]

Currently in a character crisis. Been playing millia since I started in february, i have over 400 hours on her, but then I got bored before s3 came out. Swapped to ino for season 3, and have had a lot of fun with her, but now I have found Jack-o to be interesting and want to learn her too. Also Millia got a lot of cool stuff in s3. Anyways I will fully commit to jacko for a little while, while I find out whether she is the one. Thanks

[@Jesus-hu4lq]

Sf5 was the game that gave me the biggest character crisis. Season 1 through 4 was ryu and juri because all the other characters just didnt feel right until lucia and rose came with some buffs for ryu mika alex and juri

[@SeñorBroseph]

While yes I struggle with finding a main in most games, I like to keep an open mind on the cast. In Strive I struggle with sticking with a character in general as I find them not fun to play and I’ve taken a break off the game to try Xrd. I had less of a hard time in that game as I played very casually and used the character quiz to select a pool of characters to choose from. The characters was Sin, Raven, Leo and Elphelt. Out of all of them I had the most fun with Elphelt it just clicked and even I lost a lot with the character I still wanted to learn more.

[@soulvagabond9655]

I was having this issue with Jack-O and I took a break from the game. I then came back after a bit and Sin had been released so I tried him and since he has become my highest level character. I love Jack-Os technicality, but Strive is just too fast paced for my brain to process getting minions out and utilizing them before I or they get hit. I still play her when wanting to take a break from Sin, but usually just against friends.

[@maxcar7298]

There's nothing wrong imo, i mained anji in s1, but I always played other characters casually in the meantime, especially dlc, they hurt my boy so bad in s2, i just wasnt feeling anymore, so Jacko just clicked for me, and here we are, always giving new stuff a try, for example i had some fun playing GL, but Bedman just is my big body character now, learning a new way to play the game is so fun

[@sleepybinch]

Played Strive a lot around release - I'd already decided based on my short time with Xrd that I'd main May. Over time, friends stopped playing, the ranked grind really isn't engaging with how easily you can hit the top rank, so I mostly stopped playing, aside from some games here n there. Once the latest season was announced though, I was enticed by the new changes to start playing again. Only problem is, once we actually got the changes, I really wasn't a fan of May's. She'd just changed too much from the character I picked up at launch. Figured i'd try something new, and picked up Axl, having never played a zoner. After 1 month, I've learned why I haven't mained a zoner: Zoning isn't fun for me, even if its working. There's still parts of Axl I like, but there's no way I can keep playing him when staying in his ideal range just isn't enjoyable. So now...idk what to do. Nobody else seems to grab me the way learning these two did. I'm just stuck in the DLC waiting room hoping someone fun comes along so I can play this game again.

[@Drawfill]

I main millia since release. Im very average at her. She's not considered too good on most tier lists... but I just can't drop her. She might be "bad" but she FEELS sooooooo good to play...

[@fentmaxxer2115]

as a fairly new fighing game player, after maining baiken for the whole time while learning the game i found myself wanting to play something else but when i found out i would be garbage without putting in the same amount of time to even compete in any way with a new character i felt really discouraged to play all together. The only fighing game experience i had before hand was for honor which is a big strech calling it a fighting game but it has its similaries. In for honor i played pretty much every hero and now when i can play only one character im just getting the ick to play a diffrent one all the time. I always loved learning new characters but this time it just felt like too much, like im learning the game from scratch pretty much.

[@huntertw]

13:00 this is.. definitely one of the hotbar setups of all time

[@ilavain]

When I got SF6 at launch I was excited to finally get into a fighting game for the first time. It felt like Manon was the character for me and I had a lot of fun for the 80 hours I played her. But another element of feeling like you're not winning anymore is that sometimes you feel like you're not improving anymore, like you are not good enough to get more consistent at getting in, comboing, pressuring, etc. And if you feel like no matter how hard you try to learn you only get worse as others around you get better- trying a new character and not being able to get the hang of them can be the last nail until you never play that game again. It could be a skill issue of course, but this is how all my attempts at getting into a fighting game end.

[@mawillix2018]

What games do you play?

[@ilavain]

@@mawillix2018 My first fighting game was Skullgirls in like 2017 but I gave up before I even learned my character's bnb combos (in the middle of the process). Then SF6 at launch and tried Strive when it went on sale like a month after SF6 launched. Quit Strive before I even fought a single match because I got overwhelmed. Definitely a personal failing and lack of real motivation to learn.

[@funniloneliboi]

I love the Cyber Grind kicking in when he starts whining about tier lists. It helps to accentuate his annoyance with all of it and I find it really funny.

[@ollolool]

Ever since I found jack-o I have not been able to succeed with almost any other character other than like I-no. Admittedly it’s because she is a little oppressive yes, but I can also feel as if it’s my fault for losing

[@OldSweaterz]

Ive been playing rayman in brawlhalla for years and I've recently entered a character crisis with the release of battle boots

[@jxckdue2063]

what i do to avoid a character crsis is i just take breaks and try a new character for a day or two. it resets any anger or sadness i may feel about the character and feels good to try something new sometimes.