PROJECTILE MANIPULATION

Hey kid you wanna hear me talk about Venom and Haehyun but mostly Venom for 10 minutes.
/ leonmassive

[@rasmusmalmberg6468]

Never played a real fighting game before. The Jacko clips activated my fight or flight response.

[@kidontheinternet8107]

Don’t worry, I play fighting games and she triggers flight or flight.

[@jordanguelbert7754]

That is the proper reaction to Jack-O ever. Good job.

[@plabcentral630]

What is the unreal fighting games you play

[@tdimensional6733]

Smash Bros, probably

[@plabcentral630]

@@tdimensional6733 I also play smash bro’s, but also real games

[@hollowknight4630]

Venom is the only zoner I have ever seen that made me think “wow that zoner looks fun” and was half the reason I got guilty gear, cause if you make a ZONER look fun you got my vote

[@drfudgecookie5800]

Wouldn't call him a zoner tbh. He fits into multiple archetypes actually. Its up to the player to find what they find engaging and use that to play. Whether that be a zoner with complex setups to control the screen, a rushsown character who covers himself with flexible projectiles or of course an oki based character deadset on destroying your will to live with oki setups. And he can change fluidly from these. This is why gg is nice, it allows the player to do what THEY want with the character.

[@PanagiotisPolitis-bl9xj]

Street fighter got one of those now in the form of JP

[@redacted7931]

He's really more of a midrange-rushdown with screen control

[@parkerseal1520]

Happy chaos

[@balasong295]

Venom is exactly what I had hoped Beerus would be, picking up guilty gear just for that.

[@swaglish1415]

If they couldn't super dash through it it would be good but it would also be pretty broken so sadly no :(

[@destroyerofworlds4663]

@@swaglish1415 How would it be broken?

[@swaglish1415]

@@destroyerofworlds4663 the orbs around the screen could be used to block any form of super dash meaning it would be hard to escape from his string and approach him

[@destroyerofworlds4663]

@@swaglish1415 Beams and vanish would like to have a word with you

[@gyve6581]

@@destroyerofworlds4663 Beerus' DP punishes beams at range & vanish doesn't work when it gets 2h'd on reaction. Truth is, beerus's orbs are incredible Oki & pressure tools & are great for baiting SD or harassing your opponent in neutral when they start to respect you too much. Their only problem is players seeing a move and assuming it'll be powerful in a way it isn't.

[@monstermadchenkoishi2403]

The entirety of Touhou Hisoutensoku is basically Bullet Hell: the Fighter. You have projectiles you can manipulate with movement, projectiles that change trajectory on hitting a wall, projectiles that shoot projectiles, projectiles with no hitbox but you can detonate, projectiles that shoot projectiles and are detonatable, projectiles that split into more projectiles, and so much more. All of what I just said are either basic specials or literal normals, and there's more creativity in Soku's supers and the wtf stuff that happens in its story mode. They're balanced by an 8-way movement system that lets you move through projectiles (grazing), but become vulnerable to the giant melee attacks that all characters have, which themselves can't be thrown out easily without first winning space control through projectiles or by deftly using grazing movement. The unfortunate thing is that every character in Soku has the creative space for some really cool projectiles in their moveset, but most projectiles in the game are either only aimed forward/at the opponent, or screen fillers. Sure, Soku interacts with projectiles in a way that no other fighting game ever has, but the game doesn't fully realize the design space that its bullet hell nature and movement system offers. It really could've been so much more, like projectiles that extend your attacks, fully manipulatable sentries, creating actual physical obstructions that you have to platform around, projectiles that turn into movement options (it's criminal how Soku has none or barely any of these), projectiles that come from the foreground or background, projectiles that leave behind zones or areas that affect you or the opponent, projectiles that both you AND the opponent can manipulate, and whatever else weird projectile stuff that's possible with the limitless design space of a Bullet Hell Fighter.

[@pohatunuva3771]

While there are a few options that fit the stuff you talk about, like Tenshi's keystones that function as walls and platforms, or Youmu's reflector, or Alice's everything, I do agree that they're restricted to very few options. The lack of attack extenders or movement options is especially unfortunate. AoCF doesn't do too much better in any of these regards.

[@tycoonstorm]

The funny thing is that the first Touhou fighter, IaMP, had a lot of unique bullet types that gave the player lots of options in their use. (Such as: -Marisa's exploding "puffballs" which let you set up crossups or delete and punish someone's poor zoning attempts from full screen. -Sakuya's bouncing/delayed knives which let you keep pressure up close with good timing or maintain cyclic but constant screen control from anywhere else. - Youmu's C projectile which let you force pressure in neutral by performing a physical sword poke that was immediately followed up by a delayed stream of projectiles. or -Alice's j.2C Which causes her to place a turret and bounce backwards, leaving her airborne with her full movement options intact. ) However, as the series goes on, they remove more and more of the, "set up" and "indirect" based projectiles, favoring "direct use/fire and forget" style bullets. Leading to the current AoCF where outside of a few standouts (sumireko), bullets exist either to be hadokens with almost no hitstun or low damage knockdowns that reset neutral. Ironically, making rushdown the only useful means of attack in a series about bullet hell.

[@fluury]

@@tycoonstorm You are out of your mind if you think AoCF is all about rushdown. Arguably enough the current "meta" is just keepaway Reimu or walling people out with Kasen.

[@tycoonstorm]

@@fluury There's a difference between someone failing to get in and someone getting zoned out. If someone repeatedly runs into Jin Kisaragi's projectiles while he runs away from them then they are "failing to get in." But if someone is slowly being pushed to the corner by Nu-13 only to end up trapped with no idea how to escape or avoid chip, they are "getting zoned out." The problem is, you can't do the latter in AoCF. If the opponent opts to run away from your zoning, you can't keep them pinned long enough to prevent them from escape. Bullets are too direct and there's too many possible holes of escape that you can't cover. This is because AoCF's long range options all result in minor hitstun (can only be capitalized/converted from if the attacker is already midrange or closer), short term knockdown (the consequence for eating a large bullet is getting to airtech and invincibly wake up in the direction of your choice?!?) and most importantly low damage (not factoring in guts or regen, the large bullet does enough damage to KO the opponent if they eat 9-10 of said bullets raw. With the same specs, it takes 4-5 combos with ground and wallbounce to achieve KO in comparison.) The main thing you have to fear from eating projectiles in neutral, is not getting to run your offense. Not the damage or effect of the projectiles themselves. Instead, the only danger you have to fear in neutral is getting your movement caught by one of your opponent’s many pokes. As those pokes are the only thing that allow a player to dish out the damage and control necessary to establish them as a threat. This is also why, Sumireko is seen as the dedicated zoning character, because she has a bullet that allows her to convert into considerable damage from full screen. A trait that almost all the other characters do not have. (Incentivizing them be in your face instead.) Lastly, your mention of the current meta involving keepaway or walling, both require that at least one of the two people playing is trying to get in. You can't play keepaway/wall someone out if the other person isn't actively trying to get you. Instead, it just turns into a zoning battle. A situation that is not supported by AoCF's game design. For example, have you ever tried having a dedicated long range battle in AoCF. Its terribly unfun. There's no difficulty in avoiding bullets (you just graze forward at bare minimum) or ability to set up complex walls of attacks (almost no bullets stall, so you can't establish layers that force your opponent into awkward grazing patterns.) Unlike, the older games, (mostly IaMP, due to the extremely limited/specific grazing options) The nuance of establishing screen control by canceling your opponent's bullets to force their movement or overriding your opponent's bullet pattern with your own isn’t there. Instead the bullet aspect is an afterthought, there to encourage aggression up close rather than giving the option to dominate from afar. However, in the long (and arguably unnecessary) process of writing this, I've thought about things some more, and I will take back my comment that implied the game was about mindless rushdown. Instead, I feel that AoCF at its core is about using bullets to scare your opponent into moving forward so that you can then convert your mid-range pokes into damage, and begin opening your opponent up with pressure strings. But, it's not about zoning. And it's certainly not about creative application of projectiles. (Except for Doremy's vacuum attack. The ability to vacuum in projectiles on block or hit is one of the most creative things I've seen in a while.)

[@fluury]

@@tycoonstorm well that was quite a wall of text I'm not doubting your position that most projectiles are pretty lame (although I'd argue there are more neat ones than you think, don't even know if Mami's pokeballs count as projectiles). But reading AoCF being about rushdown just made me wince - these ain't the early ULiL days bud. Your new stance is much more agreeable.

[@b.blobbentein5774]

Shoutout to Beerus, who perfectly embodies the playstyle of "Venom but pathetic and shitty" edit: dammit you talked about him too

[@uristmccheeselove1019]

Hahahahahahahaha How The Fuck Is Super Dash Real Hahahaha Nigga Just Walk Backwards From The Opponent Like Nigga 2H That Shit Haha

[@Xenoblade_Natsu]

Actually in the current patch of DBFZ (Season 3.5), Beerus is pretty solid.

[@thewarriorofboros]

Ah yes, a bad character, that's why like 3 of the best players in the game play him this patch

[@inakibolinaga8078]

@@thewarriorofboros This comment was made a month ago bro things can change

[@meathir4921]

@@thewarriorofboros Release Beerus was arguably the worst character in the game next to Nappa. He had a 7f 5L with pathetic range, his 2M was jumpable on reaction into full whiff punish and even at point blank range had like 14f start up, he couldn’t get a sliding knockdown mid screen without meter and his assist didn’t lead to DR like it does right now. I believe his 2H also had a smaller hit box, but I don’t remember for sure, but either way it’s an unreliable anti air compared to most because him stepping back often causes the opponent to land and the hit box to whiff which... again leads to full punish. He had a few minor strengths; orb kick/summon has always been plus on block (but you could always reflect out the blockstun), 5H is an excellent disjoint, j2H is an excellent move period, his level 1 is top tier (but lol Beerus and Tien were hit by far the hardest by the multi super nerfs because they had the most ubiquitous supers for multi super setups), he has a low 2L and a meter less DP (not a very good one because the hitbox comes out obscenely late... and is a ki blast... and it’s badly positioned so often whiffs... but it’s better than not having one which is most characters I guess).

[@frinf1802]

It’s honestly baffling how underrated you are, keep up the great work man!

[@RED-jg6mt]

facts

[@forrestbrockett2231]

Honestly mate. Keep up the content creation 👌 You're funny as hell. Pretty solid editing as well.

[@TheGeneReyva]

How about now? 77K. Certainly well deserved. I hope that sub count keeps going up. Leon's fucking ace.

[@destroyerofworlds4663]

@@TheGeneReyva *99k

[@RestlessDipstick]

I will always have a great amount of respect for people who can master characters like Venom. Characters like him are definitely the kind I struggle to play the most in fighting games, so I'll always appreciate those who can pull off the really insane stuff with them.

[@ScribeAwoken]

Rivals of Aether has some interesting projectile manipulation stuff going on with some of its characters. This game operates on a *very* Smash-like framework, so keep a lot of this in mind when it comes to this stuff. Kragg has a projectile that's pretty much meant to be an homage to item play in Smash - neutral special pulls a rock out of the ground, which he can throw in one of four trajectories - up throw which sends it straight up before it comes crashing down; down throw, which sends it straight down while giving you a bit of extra height; neutral throw, which flies forward in a high arc; and forward throw, which flies forward in a lower arc but travels farther than neutral throw. Once the rock has been thrown, you have a few other options from there - you can use neutral special to pick it up off the ground or out of the air so you can throw it again, you - or your opponent - can attack it to send rock shards flying in whatever direction your attack would launch in, or you can just leave it there, since the top surface acts as ground you can stand on and the sides act as walls. Absa sort of does the "fireball that has no hitbox but you can detonate" thing. You can place a cloud with either neutral special (which places it directly below Absa, who does a slight hop as she does so) or side-special (which works a lot like Zelda side-special in Smash). Once a cloud is out, you can either do a small detonation by tapping neutral special, make a big lightning bolt that travels between you and the cloud by holding neutral special, or turn it into a time bomb with down special. You can also hit it with the strong hits on her forward, back and down aerials to get a strong detonation that retains the properties of whichever aerial you hit it with. Elliana has two bits of projectile manipulation - her side-special is a projectile whose trajectory can be curved, like Pit's arrows in Smash, but that's kinda old hat. Her strong attacks (Rivals' equivalent to smash attacks) while she's not in her overheat state create a big cloud of steam that hangs in place, and any player can reposition it by hitting it.

[@Denter86]

Yeah, when I heard the end, I immediately wanted to comment about platform fighters in general. Because you get more space and movement options, these games also tend to give you a lot of weird projectiles and tools to play around with. Smash has an entire character archetype based around it that doesn't really appear in any other game. *Item characters* : R.O.B, Diddy, PAC-MAN, Mega Man, Snake, the Links, Wario, Peach, Banjo, technically Sheik, Villager and Brawl ZSS and probably more I forgot. They can all summon items on command which have different properties but work just like the ones that normally appear in casual rulesets, making them very interesting to interact with. You can interact with them like any projectile through reflects and other stuff, but you can also hold them in your hand, toss them in four directions and two speeds from the ground or the air, drop them gently for a slower descent and no lag, pick them back up with an attack or normally, you can use windboxes to mess with them (for at least some of them, damage is calculated based on their current velocity so in the right situation, you can let your item be pushed at lightning speed for >60% and that's some sHIT), you can cancel a jump or roll with a toss to slide on the ground for various flavours of bullshit (except in Ult, still don't know why they took it out) and most importantly, because it's Smash, your opponent can also pick them up and use them like you would, which, holy fuck, leads to so much interaction. It gets even more interesting when you combine all these with the properties of your character's item(s). I play R.O.B. I *love* R.O.B. He has a gyro, which in this case is not a Greek kebab-like dish but a spinning top that can do some funky shit. R.O.B summons the gyro by shooting it with his dspe, and he can charge it for extra distance and speed (and thus damage). Just the dspe is already pretty fun to play around with, because you can cancel it with jump or shield which stores the charge. Using that, you can cancel it into any out-of-shield/aerial option and bait out defensive options and jump-ins, turnaround/B-reverse/wavebounce to change direction/momentum in the air, keep them guessing on how you'll recover offstage, or even charge it halfway and keep it stored until they forget before reminding them with a Mach 3 projectile coming at them while they're struggling to recover because you're already peppering them with lasers. The gyro itself deals good damage and is affected by gravity; it will bounce towards you if it hits an enemy making it easier to catch and immediately disappear if it hits a shield allowing R.O.B to charge and shoot another one immediately. It can also bounce off walls, including the side of the ledge, on which it can go in various trajectories depending on the angle of the surface for some fun edgeguards. However, the gyro completely changes properties once it hits the ground after being shot from dspe. It will start spinning, moving slowly across the ground with a constant weak hitbox which knocks away from the gyro's center, will not get people off the ground until extremely high% and can even cause tripping. When this little wonder's out, any space between it and R.O.B becomes very hard to contest, because getting hit there will always lead to huge damage. He can send you into the gyro with d/ftilt and spam dtilt to make you keep getting hit by it (this is affectionately dubbed the "Gyrozone" and it looks a lot like Haehyun's combos) ; he can grab you and start his insane B'n'Bs or bury mixups for a kill, he can use nair which is a giant disjointed combo starter and start more combos... Trying to get past the gyro in the first place already forces you to take some committal options because you can't just run towards R.O.B and you can't run-up shield to deal with it as it will not disappear on shield in this state. However, if you're good enough, you can time a normal to pick it up safely and not only get past it, but keep R.O.B from shooting another and use it for your own deeds... and if the R.O.B player knows how you're going to pick it up, they can act on that too. It's when both players are capable of that that the _real fun begins_. The best part is that the gyro changes properties a third time after it's picked up and tossed again. This time, it will always act like the first state, but instead of spinning when it hits the ground, it will bounce a bit, linger in place for a few frames and then disappear. When the gyro is in state 1 or 3, it will always, no matter what, knock the victim in the direction its owner was facing when they tossed it. This applies even if you threw it up or down or you simply soft-dropped it, and even if you're already in front of the gyro and facing the opposite direction. I love that property, because not only does it give R.O.B crazy combos and setups, anyone who picks up the gyro can also use it to pull similar things and anyone who knows their character and how that property works will be able to figure something out on the fly and get a combo, maybe even a kill setup, if they manage to land the gyro hit and follow up on the victim's knockback and DI. It's fucking sick. This is only some of the things R.O.B can do with his item and some characters like PAC-MAN can have even more. Item play is one of the more fascinating aspects of Smash and it's one of the things I've always wished other games were able to reproduce somewhat faithfully.

[@Denter86]

^ I ended up writing a wall of text about just R.O.B (it's more common than you'd think), but to talk about Rivals too, the Workshop has a ton of characters with interesting projectile manipulation. In fact, most community-curated characters do because they often follow Rivals' design rule of giving everyone a spatial resource. The coolest one I can think of would be Otto, who can be described as "what if Venom and Wario had a threesome with a bee and their weird three-parented child had a rebellious phase". He's got a billiard ball he can charge from 1 to 8, which changes the angle and the kill power (also lv.8 has stun) and he can hit it to bounce it around and stuff. He also has a bike which enhances his movement when he's on it and can be hit into your opponent when he's not. The way each part of his kit interacts with the rest is really fun.

[@muno]

@@Denter86 woag

[@ScribeAwoken]

​@@Denter86 lol yeah I'm actually one of the main TOs for the workshop scene *and* I used to play a ton of item characters in Smash. I tried playing ROB, Robin and Bowser Jr. early on in Smash 4, during the 3DS days, then gave up on them, then played Toon Link for a while before dropping him as well, and then played Daisy in Ultimate for about a month and a half after I switched to playing on Smashbox but then I dropped her once the Terry DLC came out.

[@nauticalmoon2109]

Come to think of it all characters in rivals have a way to control space from Zetter’s fire puddle, SK’s mobile gear and Etalus’ ice

[@turbogeschwindigkeit6180]

I play Jack-O and I sleep like a baby while knowing this fact. Speaking of detonateable hadouken, that's also in under night lol.

[@hack2true]

Ki cinder aswell.

[@Iroi]

Big brain Venom, hope he will be in strive!

[@leedlebob2667]

Didn't he die though.

[@cspcchcody]

@@leedlebob2667 well, he was picked up by Robo Ky's head in the epilog, so it still has the possibility

[@leedlebob2667]

@@cspcchcody we can only hope

[@DollRyougi]

Becuz of gg strive system.. Venom decided to become chef

[@maxcar7298]

@@leedlebob2667 hes now runs a bakery bc yes

[@adams_chong9450]

Where's HOL HORSE GUN IT'S LITERALLY CAN BE CONTROL FULL SCREEN

[@kopv1827]

YES OMG HE EVENS KNOWS THAT HERITAGE IS A THING!WTF!!!!

[@big_azzy]

Slow bullet is the sickest unblockable super I've seen thus far

[@CrystalJupiter]

Hol Horse is the first thing I thought of lmao.

[@lapotato9140]

Fuck gun

[@adams_chong9450]

@@kopv1827 hell yeah!!! finally someone that understand me

[@braydenlynch4655]

Found this channel last night, gonna shill it to my fgc bois.

[@zero123alpha6]

I think you convinced me to play Jack-o' Lantern, and i have been trying to stray away from Guilty Gear until I get some Fighting Game experience.

[@Blues0824]

Same kinda. Street Fighter 5 is so much simpler. I'll tell you that Guilty Gear XX Acent Core just got updated with really good online, and its a really good game, and is also simpler than Xrd. (No roman cancels)

[@guardianspirit5998]

@@Blues0824 +R has fewer roman cancels but it still has some. It's got Red Roman Cancel which works like it does in Xrd and it has Force Roman Cancel (FRC) which is basically a YRC that you can only cancel in 2 or 3 specific frames as opposed to any point in a moves startup or in neutral, it's much harder but just as important as YRC

[@wuhoh5274]

I don't think that's what he wanted at all!

[@stein_i]

it pains me to an unbelieveable degree that neither kum haehyun nor venom are in strive, i miss them man

[@Masque1419]

This video makes me want to play Jack-o tbh

[@epicmarko1125]

Whos here after venom got announced for strive

[@TemkaUwU]

Hell yeah brother

[@grandpanoogie2665]

And then there's Johnny's coin which for some reason covers the perfect area at the perfect speed with no end lag. Yes as a Johnny player it feels good to have such a busted move.

[@beyonderaatrox1670]

What I learned - Pros and Cons are important to characters because if they have options/abilities to cover their weaknesses then they can be very frustrating to play against and likely also be unbalanced. Mind games are cool and add layers of depth to characters which is cool, which allows you to realise a characters potential and go farther with them. Projectiles don't have to be about chip damage or keeping people at bay! It's more interactive for everyone involved if they're used to rushdown or get on top of characters, and do more than just 'deal damage from range'.

[@Bklynxrage]

Spiral, in X-men: Children of the Atom, had AMAZING projectile manipulations. Too bad Capcom didn’t expand her concept in future iterations.

[@bananabike279]

"What if there was a hadouken that you could detonate at any time you want"? You know, in the game Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle, there IS a character that can- * gets dragged off stage *

[@ballsofpokemon9831]

Skullgirls too. Parasoul can set up projectiles without active hitboxes that she can detonate at any time

[@SchAlternate]

Technically, there's also Zelda's Din's Fire in Smash

[@SuperLegendOfBros]

Justice in GGAC also has a similar projectile that you have to negative edge but can manual detonate by just letting go of the button. The only difference being that while they pass through other projectiles they explode on contact with the other player.

[@maagic2031]

Yeah but what if that character was in a game that was fun

[@ieatatsonic]

I have the same feeling about these types of characters. I like being able to be creative with my options in an expressive way. Some of my favorite examples are Elliana in Rivals of Aether, whose steam clouds makes her essentially the platform fighter version of Venom with how she controls them, Mu-12, who has a lot of options with where she places her steins, Alice Margatroid, who's the touhou version of Mu, and BBtag Rachel, whose wind allows for shenanigans with how you move her lightning rod projectiles and her frog. Peach in Melee kinda gives me the same feeling of huge creativity with her options due to how many different ways you can use her turnips there are. Snake in PM and ultimate has a similar thing with his grenades, since those you can lay on the ground. Ultimate Link really fits because he can smack his bombs around as well as pick them up and toss them or drop them.

[@lua-in2sl]

hey twak fancy seeing ya here

[@ieatatsonic]

@@lua-in2sl fellow projectile manipulation enjoyer

[@UnusualTheMedicMain]

This is the type of channel that makes me want to play fighting games, and I suck at all of them

[@UnusualTheMedicMain]

update: I've played fighting games, I still suck at all of them

[@CCuppy29]

Parasoul in Skullgirls does the whole detonating fireball thing which is pretty cool

[@qedsoku849]

In my opinion, Hisoutensoku has some of the best projectiles in any fighting game. It has 2 dedicated projectile buttons meaning every character has like 10 different normals which are projectiles (and a bunch of specials) and unsurprisingly many of them are quite creative (with that many there had to be). Also, all of them are hijump cancelable or airdash/flight cancelable depending on wether you are grounded or in the air, and can be canceled from any normal melee on hit/block, meaning they are (very) commonly used in pressure. This is balanced by the fact that hijump, dash, airdash, backdash, and flight are all universally projectile immune from frame 1 as well as a number of other things.

[@NemSumeragi]

"What if there was a hadouken that had no active hitbox but you could detonate it whenever you wanted" Strive Jack-O

[@greatpapyrus6264]

that’s what i thought about too lol

[@casimirskouratov1537]

If Jack-O makes it in Strive with the last slot imma implode Daisuke you'll have to carry that weight for the rest of your life

[@Mr.9]

Ok. Bye bye rock daddy

[@yocarter9221]

@Martin Toledo Robo Ky was in Xrd story mode but never came back

[@awesomehazimex7410]

HEY HEY HEY! (Her mechanic changed lol so don't worry about fighting a LoL nexus)

[@Mr.Faust3]

She looks a lot different now

[@Micha-Hil]

oh dear

[@ScoutOW2]

"You wont see soomething like this in Street Fighter" ....Menat???

[@LeonMassey]

I always forget about meat since I don't play SFV ._.

[@LeonMassey]

Manet how the fuck did it auto correct to meat?

[@ScoutOW2]

@@LeonMassey Haha thats what i originally typed then Googled to make sure cause i always type it wrong xD

[@bara-9136]

Also Abigail with the tire

[@URAYULI]

Thank you so much for making this video. You completely fucking opened my eyes to what fighting games can be. I'm getting guilty gear by the end of the week. Wish me luck.

[@LeonMassey]

😭 This is the best thing I've ever read. The mountain you are climbing is very steep, but I believe you can get to the top.

[@URAYULI]

@@LeonMassey Thank you so much!!!!! You're my favorite content creator rn and I know you'll soon be the next core A. That truly means a lot to me.

[@hoxatron6024]

@@URAYULI how'd your journey into guilty gear go

[@Winnarly]

Ayyy I made a lethal league/venom character in my platform fighter because projectile manipulation is dope

[@goon5665]

What is your game and where do I buy it!

[@Winnarly]

@@goon5665 Slayers For Hire! It's in Early Access on Steam :) Only three characters at the moment, but we've got rollback babyyy. Matchmaking is sparse so you probably ought to check out the discord if you're looking for matches.

[@goon5665]

@@Winnarly epic. Idea for you, a character that is able to dash cancel aireals. Example would be giving him a side b that dashes him forward then giving him a small meter. As soon as the meter fills up you can use that side b to cancel the endlag of an attack to combo into another

[@blazefactor6849]

@@Winnarly Yo, didn't expect to see a Slayers dev here! The game is sick, thank you so much for making it into such a fun time!

[@Winnarly]

@@blazefactor6849

[@yuboyyuboy12]

3:30~3:35 actually laughed.

[@Ethantuffy]

Comedy genius

[@goon5665]

Funny alert

[@Ejeffers-eh2om]

I've been playing the "cool projectile" game with koko's fireball in CF. From what I can tell, Koko has better things to be doing than becoming a zoner, mainly because it takes so many frames to setup, but when it's slick it's slick.

[@JunkoAJ]

The unique "projectile with no hitbox unless you explode it" actually exists in SFV, in the form of Falke VS2, it's pretty neat

[@kotl7]

also Cinder in KI with his bombs

[@longbeing]

And now Johnny’s cards in Strive

[@SquidGuy11]

Venom honestly does not have bad wakeup options because of his godlike backdash and 6p. But also fast faceup wakeup. I'd argue Faust, Dizzy, Zato, and Millia have it worse

[@tylercafe1260]

That 6P can be the stuff of nightmares. An anti air that also has great horizontal distance just makes him scary. 6P and 2D are just so good for Venom

[@looneymar9153]

Honorable mentions: ino having piece of kums direction control over her note, dizzy also having that and Venom's trait of choosing when the projectile actually becomes a hitbox with her bubbles

[@fauxfirefur]

"Shockingly", my favourite projectile is also in Guilty Gear. It's antidepressant scale, I-No's note. The fact that you can move it up and down as well as it gaining more hits the further it travels, and her being a hoverdash character with opressive rushdown based on crossup/mixup all comes together as the most beautiful oki tool ever created.

[@AzazelTheMisanthrope]

I too am a shit Venom player; however I actually really like Jack-O non ironically.

[@spaxhuxley302]

That description of Jack-O seems pretty accurate to her character, so her gameplay is probably accurate to that. So an annoying gremlin that does whatever the hell she while pressuring you into a scenario where you can’t do anything, is in character.

[@tylercafe1260]

Well her buttons aren't that great and she's very dependant on the level of the houses. Even if she has all houses out if they're still just Level 1s it makes them easy to ignore then you can just bully her. Level 2 and Level 3 means she can finally play lol. But if she gets hit her minions go away unlike venom who can teleport out of pressure if his ball didn't timeout. Not to mention how losing a house can set you back a long ways unlike Venom who's setup is fast.

[@chillmadude]

honestly this is one of the reasons i'm exited for the riot fighting game, they already have a lot of interesting character's that can turn archetypes on their head. like they have draven who probably wants to zone you out with his axes, but because of his gimmick in league he also needs to catch the axe on the return or else he loses the ability to zone with that axe untill he go picks it back up. illoai would undoubtedly be a grappler with a rather long reaching grab, but you can still fight back while being grabbed, and if you don't/can't you're probably giving illoai a massive advantage. zed probably both a puppet character and a rushdown character who wants to use his shadow to help him get in or give him some dirty crossups/mixups, and i'm not entirely sure what his weakness would be, but the potential for a great anime fighter is very much here

[@kurisu96]

Another good example is Rachel. Not only can she manipulate her projectiles mid flight to have them serve as anti-airs, more basic fullscreen fireballs, and tools to approach with, but she can also use them in oki situations in the corner since their hitbox regenerates upon touching a wall, and since they slide up the walls they can come back down to bap unsuspecting foes. On top of that, once they hit the ground, she gets even more options wherein she can detonate the rods to punish someone trying to counterzone or run at her or convert them into moving hitboxes, creating a "forest" that your opponent has to navigate. I've always called this kind of thing "proactive zoning," but your term projectile manipulation makes much more sense. Great vid, thanks for explaining it in a much better way than I've been doing in Rachelcord, lol.

[@illastar]

Great now I wanna learn Venom. This really reminds me of why I started maining Hazama a few years ago; I like the concept of having such flexibility and creativity in a kit.

[@baadshahmiya]

Funnily enough, Street Fighter V finally included projectile manipulation with Seth(Vt2)

[@IfYouInsist]

Incredible content. Love the depth of introspection on the fighting game genre in your videos.

[@Isonade_Celica]

This video alone has made me a Venom main in Plus R. Thanks Leon, this is the first zoner character I've ever enjoyed playing.

[@yusharider]

3:21 a question that has boggled the minds of men for years.

[@hrgrhrhhr]

This is barely related to this but I miss when I-No could split her music note thing in two with 214D in +R, that was such a fun ability to abuse

[@lapotato9140]

Janemba’s green ball in dbfz is essentially the detonatable hadouken, but i dont see it get used too often unless to be funny which on that character is 67% of his kit

[@kennythekid130]

I feel like the sickest projectile character would be a portal gun type mechanic since it could be zoner/setup mixed with any other archetype the potential is crazy

[@longbeing]

There’s a Rivals of Aether Workshop character called Monarch that has portals. Don’t let the “edgy-cool middle schooler OC” vibes throw you off, it’s incredibly well-made and fun to play.

[@geraldtheoctopus1594]

I now understand the Leauge of Legends Nexus joke

[@RoyArkon]

Reptile in Mortal Kombat ix the originator of a Zoner with more than one projectile on the screen at the same time. His combinations of Acid Spits and Forceballs make so much room for so many things to do. Also as mentioned earlier, a character that can detonate projectiles does exist. That is Liu Kang in the Dualist Variation from MKX :)

[@greenhillmario]

Meanwhile I’m here just... “so nanase b fireball when in corner yeah?” Or “is this where I disk?” As someone only just getting into ggxx learning Millia Holy crap man your vids are all really good!

[@strang7739]

does Menat from SFV count as a projectile manipulation character? I feel she’s interesting too

[@S-treme]

The fact I watch a man talk about balls for 10 minutes and I don't regret nothing just show how good you are dude, continue with that

[@nowthisisepic1919]

I know this is very silly to say but, thank you. Your videos and this video in particular got me really into fighting games and even picking up guilted gear Xrd rev 2 (idfk the title off my head) and playing venom! I hope you keep making fantastic videos like these and I can’t wait for your new content everyday! And while venom isn’t in strive I can’t wait to play axl! Again just thank you, your videos are so good and it’s helped me quite a bit.

[@obsessivelyobsessed5263]

KOF has some interesting projectiles. Like Elizabeth Blantorch, her projectiles are delayed, or Ash Crimson, he has so many different types of projectiles that he punishes you for trying to get close, being close, being far away, or playing the game at all.

[@bigbone_99]

You gotta see some top level C-Aoko gameplay in Melty Blood to see some awesome variable projectile stuff. The character can set up orbs on the screen that are either proximity mines or can be detonated by letting go of a button. Combine that with a fuck ton of other crazy tools like a super that repeats the last beam/orb you used with less recover and you get a pretty versatile character that can pressure hard or zone well

[@voltekka47]

the repeat super doesn't bring back orbs iirc, it's only the beams

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

My favorite projectiles are Dizzy's missiles(both accent core and xrd), Nu 13's annoying blades and Nanase's wind blade thingy that lingers in one place because they don't look like hadouken.

[@gab_gabriel7091]

7:09 literally Skullgirls Peacock

[@luicifiero]

that Venom section of the vid got me intrested in GG ngl as a guy coming from Tekken

[@danger2236]

ok, this is a bit of a deep cut, but in Jojo's bizzare adventure there is a character that could either create a projectile that either explodes on hit, or explodes at a set distance, the set distance explosion could be used as a way to stop people from just going around it, and one of the key parts is that there isn't a way of knowing which one he used, this could be a sort of zoner that is heavily countered by good reads, and is heavily incentivised to mix up their moves

[@XC11301991]

Uh oh looks like Jack-O might be taking Venom's job

[@mrpinguimninja]

Venom is so fucking cool that after I watched Peppery play I was immediately sold on becoming a Venom main and any other fighting game I try I look for a character that can offer at least some part of the venom experience. Be it the aggressive screen control, the complex juggling of interactions, the half-zoner/half rushdown gameplan or anything in between

[@MrBoingus]

hello Mr massey. chances are you won't notice this comment in the many that you get, and that's okay, but I wanted to type it out. I've been having an insanely tough night as I'm having a very emotionally difficult time getting over the recent passing of my cat of 12 years or so, and I'm laying here in bed having to be up in 4 hours bawling my eyes out and getting nose stuff everywhere and I decide I need a nice video to relax and entertain me but also interest me. so of course, I came to you. so thank you leon, genuinely, for the effort you put into your videos for us. as incredibly stupid as the "diving GEAR" joke followed by the Seinfeld noise was, it genuinely made me laugh and I feel so much better. and if you do read this, I hope the rest of your day or night treats you well

[@neoj7560]

This channel made me pick up Xrd Rev 2 for me and a few buddies when it was on sale, and I was having trouble finding a main, then decided on a whim to buy Haehyun. Legit this vid solidified my meh opinion of her into my current main. TY leon.

[@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034]

Psst Bridget from GG +R is a better setplay projectile character

[@homemaderamen]

For me, this is one of the reasons I play Smash as my main games. The only “traditional fireball” I can think of in Melee is Falco’s laser. Moving on over to Ultimate, you have so many different characters with projectiles that aren’t exactly “traditional”, and it’s extremely fun to play around and build your play style around.

[@VegaSlides]

Alright, FINE! I'll go back to learning Venom. KZbin algorithm caught me lacking

[@patrickplaehn4492]

over a year later and still no venom in strive :(

[@brendan1871]

This video gives me a new appreciation for Wii Fit Trainer in Smash Bros. Ultimate and her Header special move which can be canceled and it in a variety of ways or simply hit immediately or delayed by the attack itself in the theoretical game design aspect of things. In fact, I think there is a lot of projectile manipulation in Smash Bros. games now that I think about it...

[@user-ux4gu2lh8c]

Id forgotten why i stopped playing guilty gear as a noob and this brought back repressed memories of getting destroyed by like 5 different Jack-Os in a row online.... Just glad she isn't in Strive

[@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034]

She will be btw

[@thebigcheese5536]

I found a really cool version of Projectile Manipulation in a game called Hyperfight. This character called Dr. Kero can shoot out a big purple, physics based ball which you can propel forward, IAD over and make it bounce in place, take out your tongue and swallow it or shoot it back out. Makes this character best in the game.

[@dracodragon4294]

A few things I want to say about things you said: There is a projectile that splits up or down and that's I-no's note. Also in +r I-no had a force break that shot out 2 notes both up and down. There also is a projectile without an active hitbox until you detonate it in Jojo: Heritage for the future. Avdol has a projectile that floats around toward your opponent and you can detonate it when you release the button you held down. About Jack-O's dp, it's technically not a true reversal since it is throw vulnerable, but it's still good. Also Slayer doesn't have a meterless dp, but he definitely does have a meterless reversal. Back dash canceled(BDC) bite is a meterless, fully invulnerable reversal that is also a throw. Slayer also has BDC jump fd, which allows him to escape a lot of mixups for free. I had written a paragraph about your comments on Venom's weaknesses here but then I realized I was just mad because I play Slayer and playing against venom makes me want shove a pool cue down my throat because that matchup suuucks.

[@Dirtboy37]

Your videos are some of the best fighting game video essays on youtube. Easily up there with core a gaming. Keep up the great work!

[@iliakatster]

RoA's Eliana's missles are fully controllable and its really fun to see high level players loop them back around and blindside people from behind. Also Zetterburn's clone acts a kinda like a controllable projectile (stretching, I know) that controls space but also also confuses the crap out of the opponent, its really fun to see cakeassault's matches where he comes out of smoke and suddenly another zetter comes out from a completely different angle and you're like, that's the real one, but then the first one runs up and pulls a full combo on the opponent, into the clone explosion setting up for a killing smash and everyone's brain explodes.

[@RetroWrathX13B]

Leon Massey: “I want a Velkoz fireball in a fighting game” Me: IM WORKING ON IT, DAMN IT

[@thedoctah1428]

Haven’t played gg since high school, but seeing your vids make me want to play it again.

[@J0ulez5]

The quality of this vid is only matched by the soundtrack choice. Love it

[@imperatorsael9086]

As a strive jack-o main, xrd jack-o is a disgusting affront to god

[@chaotickreg7024]

Does anybody remember Toon Link in Project M? Boomerang, fire arrows, bombs, and hook shot are all projectiles with different trajectories, but bombs interact with all of them in different ways. You could also use a bomb to give yourself arial movement. Lunchables was a legendary player who could manipulate these all with extreme calculation and precision, very fun to watch.

[@whatahoot1185]

Wii fit trainer side b volleyball is so fucking fun dude. You get a funny spike hit box alongside weird bounce combos. Truly my muse

[@TheYakikate]

Well with Testament announced now you have someone with pool of blood and projectile, in a game you play! :)

[@xanious3759]

Honestly half the reason i main elliana in rivals is because playing around with steam clouds is really fun and i like the seemingly endless applications steam clouds have in terms of zoning and pressure Basically steam clouds deal damage to enemies and deal hitstun if they're not throwing out a hitbox, so they're a soft aerial denial tool to force your opponent to use an aerial or attack poorly to get through them, or parry the steam cloud if its low to the ground That's not the neat part though, the cool part is that steam clouds can be pushed by any attack in the game, so you can do stuff like place a projectile in a way so that the enemy's fireball actually pushes it where you want it to really go, or you can do a d-air low to the ground to make the steam cloud just nyoom all the way across the stage and its really fun during edgeguards or to catch a bad aerial in neutral. This is already on a character with aerial smash capabilities and a controllable missile projectile so uhhhh yeah elli is sick and i want more projectile manipulation in platfighters. Or just games in general.

[@iso1127]

This is very late, but Parasoul in Skullgirls can also manipulate fireballs! She shoots "tears" of napalm, which she can fire like a sonic boom with a hitbox or press QCB+K to place one without a hitbox at different angles around the screen. They detonate after a while on hit or block, but she can detonate them manually with [2]8+LK. They're +approx. a billion on hit and +2 on block so she can frame trap and mix and combo with them as well. She can fire a boom at full screen, detonate it and get a confirm into super. It's so fuckin cool.

[@werderlork9056]

This video has just acquired a whole new level of humor to it

[@tdimensional6733]

there's a remarkable amount of power behind the way he says "What if I could level up my balls?"

[@dannyreyes3380]

My idea taking this route would be a sort of "Keepaway" Shoto with 3 different types: String - Pull various Hados towards a focus point (Light, Medium, or Heavy) Knock - Hadokens bounce off walls and other Hados Detonate - Hadokens explode whenever triggered And you can make 3 Hados

[@ADxTygon]

smash melee samus has my favorite example of this with the extender tech you essentially turn your ranged grab into a a projectile grab with homing, but have to choose when to trigger the hitbox, leading to a deeper guessing game in neutral and on oki/techchasing if you're able to set it up properly. its not a great tool since the pace of the game's faster characters invalidates it, but man is it fun

[@15MinuteUpload]

EXTENDUUUUUUUUR

[@MatithiusX]

Kum is the reason I bought guilty gear. All my combos maybe button mashing trash, but I’ve never had more fun playing mind games with my friends thanks to her fireballs.

[@ivanmehboob]

I love the fact that most of the stuff in your vids can be applied to smash, especially for ult where everyone but me hates projectile characters

[@Hoarseplay]

Long overdue comment, but I just want to mention that Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat X has a fireball with no hitbox that can remote-detonate at any point it's on screen. It's pretty cool. I guess there's also Kung Lao with his razor hat projectile you can influence the verticality of, but it's not that essential to his gameplan. On a side note, I think having a "MK-style" fireball that ignores other fireballs would be interesting in a more traditional fighting game. Uhhh... Cinder in Killer Instinct 3 has remote sticky bombs, but because there's no hitstun and the do DOT, so they're more of a pressure tool rather than a zoning tool.

[@walabixha1746]

"hadoken that could go up or down" isn't that just Ino's fireball?

[@davidk3849]

Duck hunt in Smash Ultimate has projectiles with a lot of depth. His Can special is similar to Venom's Balls with the exception of that he only can have one out, but their damage and stage presence is huge. It explodes on demand and has cool set ups. Then there are gunmen you summon with unique shots, who also will take hits for you. And finally a disk toss that sets up for any kill option you want depending on the percent. His projectiles appear simple at first but are secretly one of the most in depth parts of Smash Ult.

[@juanokug4]

Y'know, at first i thought "why does he hate jack-o so much, she doesn't seem that ba- *Oh"*

[@ZetsubouGintama]

When I play Venom I am just "FUCK BALLS! LET'S SPIN THE SHIT OF POOL CUE!".

[@druharris6974]

The detonating fireball is already a thing believe it or not. Dualist Liu Kang in MKX can do a lot of what you said about it and he also has 2 different fireballs he can use... tbh he should’ve had his own section in this video

[@zenith1040]

You are the reason I’m getting strive. Your content is amazing

[@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034]

WAIT BUT STRIVE DOESNT HAVE VENO-

[@tricksyfroggy]

love this vid! since all of jack-o's dust moves take up 1/4 of a bar, i really think an easy way to balance her dp would be to just make it not invincible if you dont have the meter. not sure why it still works meterless, since her other moves get way more nerfed when she doesn't have the meter for them. it would force her to be more aggressive since that's pretty much the only way to build meter in guilty gear. the amount of meter she builds from spamming 2hs is pretty absurd too lmfao

[@awesometonio1]

Fun fact, if you want a hadouken with no hit box, but you detonate it, Falke has that with one of her V-Skills. Send out a fireball, and it go boom when you hit it with your stick. Actually a lot of fun. Now if only the rest of her kit was as fun as that.

[@yourassistant981]

glad i found these videos there just nice to watch despite me not being a hardcore fighting game player

[@burntastic7547]

at 9:25 you exactly discribe Falke, you should check her out. its a street fighter character that has projectiles that explode on command or when you it them with your weapon. and for the rest have no hitbox

[@ecanoya]

I kinda wish you'd have changed the background music to "Moon Men" when you did that Vsauce reference

[@cococolson]

Thanks for including 2:35 an example of you getting your ass handed to you. I assumed you were a golden god