Some Stuff is Not as Scary as It Seems (Anti-Sol Tips) | Guilty Gear Strive

[@SupermanSajam]

For those wondering, all of these lab sessions are somebody asking "Hey how do I stop Sol/Leo/Chipp/Ram/etc from doing X or Y?" and we go to training mode and I show some solutions. So if you ask about a problem, instead of yelling "X or Y character is UNSTOPPABLE" then I can help you out anytime.

[@cerebralsmash5707]

I appreciate the tips you give. Truly a legend. Making legendary videos to help us all learn MUs are something we appreciate. Thank you.

[@protodevilin]

What's a training mode? Anyway, Sol and Ram are OP, pls nerf.

[@zegreenemachine8160]

@@protodevilin no, please don’t nerf. Watching them do cool shit is the best. Instead, Make other characters better.

[@Korijira]

@@zegreenemachine8160 nope, I want every character to be boring with no options. I love SF1 btw.

[@zegreenemachine8160]

@@Korijira Well then, I guess we are at an impass

[@paxcaster]

Learning that Faust can crawl under far slash was a game changer for that matchup tbh

[@thedocmmd1366]

Go my man. Make the Sol players think.

[@Napstablooky]

Learning all the stuff Faust can crawl under is one of the things that make me love the character, crawling under Ky fireballs, Ram low sword throw, Anji butterfly, etc. it completely changes how the enemy has to do their gameplan

[@Drackzgull]

@@thedocmmd1366 oh we think alright, except when we consistently see that our opponent doesn't know how to answer an option, what we think is that we can shamelessly abuse that option against that opponent. I can asure you, no single option works against every opponent, no matter what character they're using. There's no unstoppable options, there's only opponents that have yet to learn the answers.

[@thedocmmd1366]

@@Drackzgull this mans spittin.

[@lordtachanka85]

Don't forget the faust combo I like to call faustys free for four cuts with a hole in one where you impale the opponent smack em with a golf club and then sprint over and give em a new cut

[@Raktr261]

ah yes, the downplaying Sol player tells us not to fear the God himself. Yes i shall listen. Real Talk tho, i do appreciate how you breakdown everything. Your knowledge of the FGC in general is astounding, and youre in turn, creating great players by proxy

[@Ken-zg3ze]

If you titled this video "How to beat Sol in Strive" it would have a million views in a week

[@nito1220]

true, accurate, correct and based

[@AntoRoberts]

Spot on Sajam. Reminds me of May's Dolphin being memed out of proportion when her normals and air normals are the real issue

[@asterhogan1]

just waiting for the classic "didn't watch the video but Sol is still broken no matter what you do"

[@CaptinSpyke]

It's a mandatory facet of life in strive comments and twitch chat, theyve gotta talk that ignorant shit

[@e1v1a19]

@@CaptinSpyke If the meta revolves having to learn to counter 1 character because they're so OP, then yeah Sol's broken as fuck. Same with games like Overwatch, Hearthstone, etc. Seriously, what is Sol even bad at? Especially when there's a shit load of stuff you have to learn to read/counter because they've got THAT many tools that beat out other characters. Most people learn from just playing online and test out ways to counter the opponent's strong moves/tools during the match and Sol has more of these than any other character.

[@Dirtyboots3strikes]

Yeah, I think it's happening now with some of the "downplaying" comments

[@maxrusty3596]

I mean whether u have to learn to combat his shit or not is irrelevant u have to learn every characters match up but fact is he is kind of broken. After extensive playing even may ram and axl are tough but u can learn to play the matchups and it feels sort of fair Sol tho yes u can learn to interrupt his fs spam but he is still a broken character he can do massive damage from literally any range has moves that u just throw out there and ppl have to deal with with huge reward and little risk especially if u have meter. Almost pot buster level command grab with way more mobility. So yea everyone but Sol players think hes broken and its just a fact dont use that as an excuse to lose but its ok to accept he needs a nerf of some sort so he doesnt just have an advantage over any other character he plays cuz thats not good balance and i disagree with buffing every character to his level cuz that would cause a myriad of other imbalanced people would find down the road just make Sol fair with a slight nerf is whats needed.

[@doublevendetta]

@@e1v1a19 Tell me you're an uninformed scrub without TELLING me you're an uninformed scrub.

[@humblegamer7876]

I set my first badge to the one that shows many sols I've beaten lol. This should be the community standard

[@slendercube6848]

I didn't even know he can charge air bringer. I thought it was a fixed timing. No wonder I kept thinking "why can't I memorize the timing"

[@yuuulincoln8267]

Just wanted to say that your “anti-character tips” videos are amazing and are helping me learn matchups. I’ve been watching your vids a lot. I hope you post more for other characters as well. Ty

[@kholdkhaos64ray11]

At this point Sajam should charge money to lab stuff for the people in chat Kappa BUT, we're happy that he doesn't :)

[@Ken-zg3ze]

He's doing mighty fine with all those subs. He doesn't even segue anymore because otherwise he would never get to his content lol.

[@komujimaru]

ermmm no

[@THENIGHTMAREINC]

I keep thinking I know the matchup until I meet a Sol who counterhits me once on a trade and takes 80% of my life bar.

[@RobbertRobbert12345]

Yeah. Knowing the matchup doesn't really save you from getting obliterated off one Sol conversion unfortunately. My man does Akuma levels of damage but none of the downsides of being Akuma.

[@rixaxeno7167]

PSA: Get in the habit of using FD against Sol 6S>Gunflame. Gives you space in the corner to jump out and airdash at him too.

[@spacemandru]

i appreciate the patience you have for us normie 4heads dude and thanks for all ur contributions to the community

[@finalbattlereplays478]

This is the video EVERYONE will be watching.

[@ky-passley4769]

what is he doing , is he betraying the order of sols. now the sol players have to actually think.

[@edwardedward842]

*Not be as stupid.

[@CaptinSpyke]

Learning how to learn is so hard for some people. I had a lot of trouble with that when I was starting out fgs playing Hyde in UNIST, so I understand, but it's on another level with this game I swear

[@felixc.4294]

Just lots of new players who haven't played a fighting game before. Not that that's a bad thing! Just means that we have a lot of new people in the growing pains of a fandom.

[@vostok2717]

Sol is not unbeatable, but whether it's fun playing vs a character so evidently jacked (and this applies to Ram and May in their own way as well) is an another matter. I think they did the game a huge disservice by intentionally making the popular characters (Sol, Ram) stronger than everyone else. While it doesn't seem to affect the highest levels of play too much at the moment, the low and mid level experience of Sol, Ram, May running their offense on rinse-repeat to great effect is really aggravating. They could have just been good, new players would have still enjoyed and won games with them and you wouldn't feel like you got shafted with some of the other characters because they're not the protagonist or at the top of the popularity polls. Giovanna is new player friendly and strong without being busted, so they evidently know how to do it, yet they chose not to. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that balance in a competitive game really shouldn't be a marketing and hype generating tool, which is what ASW is using it for (and Daisuke basically admitted it). Balancing failures are acceptable of course, because no one can take every situation into account once hundreds of thousands of people are playing - but that's not what happened here. Aside from the atrocious online performance, it's my biggest disappointment with Strive - I find myself not wanting to play against those characters, regardless of whether I'm winning or not, because their underlying gameplay is repetitive and boring (and effective) to the point that every match looks the same.

[@beekerboxjp]

Time to hit the training mode kid

[@jettmanas]

Thanks. Watched the Roofle Surviving Sol vid twice, and was told about your vid & watched it twice. Been playing GG since the first game, but am new to Strive. Impressive you found that answer to Gunflame (I couldn't find it in training). Have never beaten Sol in Strive (beat him in previous games), but hope this extra info will help.

[@greatheightsu]

Can't wait to see your SUPREME fridge, which will signify a true SUPREME player.

[@TheTrollingShuckle]

Sajam! I don't know if anyone told you, but Sol can actually DP a yrc if they try to yrc f.S! The timing is tricky, but I have video proof if you need this. Of course, this isn't very practical, and hyper risky, but I feel it needs to be said! The opponent can also change their yrc timing, but the threat is there.

[@rixaxeno7167]

Jeez! This tech isn't for reads, it's for the whole damn library!

[@ArcticWolfGod]

Man I gotta remember that you can punish Gunflame, they do seem to like using it a lot. It's just so scary to do anything against Sol since the slightest touch means half of my health is gone. Even when I finally do get to do something I fuck it up cause I'm so nervous and scared all the time and then it's probably back to blocking/eating his throws and whatever other horrors. Edit: Or then he just DPs and it never gets to be my turn.

[@AyayaKhali]

Thanks so much for this! Is there a chance you could do a video exploring grabs? I've been trying to answer more moves with grab, and incorporating it more into my pressure. But I find I often get counterhit, or whiff. And airgrabs are completely out of my league

[@rixaxeno7167]

Most likely you are whiffing because of distance. Some moves have lots of pushback that make it hard to punish with grab. Instant blocking can help you here. If you grab out of a gap, and the gap is EXACTLY 1 frame, you will get counterhit. If it is 2 frames or more, you will get the punish. In general, try using it on moves that leave the opponent close to you on block, or have really long startup. Admittedly, grabbing startups of moves is very tricky, as you have to keep the move you want to grab at the top of your mental stack. It's also worth pointing out that different types of block leave your opponent closer or farther away on block. Crouch block leaves the opponent closer than stand block, and FD pushes them away even further on top of your block type distance. IB is simple to understand because there is basically zero pushback and leaves them in grab range. In short: crouchblock and IB to grab, standblock and FD to whiff punish.

[@Nooctae]

6S has no hurtbox on Sol's head, so it beats Chemical Love into 70%+ combos for NO DAMN REASON. If I want anything to change about Sol, it's 6S. 5K > 6S is why the character is good, not because of fS.

[@generallytrash]

half the moves in the game duck under HCL

[@Nooctae]

@@generallytrash Yeah but 6S shouldn't. It only does because for no reason, Sol has no hurtbox on his head during this specific move. Go take a look at the hitboxes on Dustloop. All of his other grounded normals have a box at his head. 6S doesn't.

[@overlordcorgi5054]

@@Nooctae "No hurtbox on his head" - imgur.com/a/LgVvTOM

[@rixaxeno7167]

@@Nooctae I just looked, the hurtbox goes slightly over the top of Sol's head in the dustloop hitbox picture. It actually extends a fair bit forward from his head too. The problem here is the Chemical Love hitbox. It's only present on the top half of the spike, and does not go below the vertex of the move. If the hitbox was true to the visual animation, it would beat Sol 6S everytime

[@Nooctae]

Yeah the hurtbox goes high enough on his head, but they don't have the additional box for his head, that's the part that HCL can hit.

[@rckets]

jH recovers pretty fast because it has no recovery :smile:

[@memento-9971]

i would have given an arm and a leg to know that fafnir was throwable on reaction 2 weeks ago. Never even occurred to me for some reason

[@NeoBoneGirl]

People are really scared of Gunflame where the answer has always been just jump it and punish him. He’s in counter hit state for the whole recovery too lol, it was super intentional

[@Nooctae]

Every projectile move in the game is Ch recovery, it's universal.

[@Dirtyboots3strikes]

I'm amazed how many players just stay there and block Gunflame raw. Of course some Sol players will use that to set you in the air, but jumping is still a go-to anti projectile strategy

[@maxrusty3596]

@@Dirtyboots3strikes I mean it can be hard to react to here he clearly knows its coming but in a game its a little different if there even a slight delay ur getting dped. And guess what his dp is just about as hard to punish as ive ever seen a dp. So you people thinking ur woke dont understand even Sajam probably understands the character is a little too strong thats all anyones saying cuz he is. Hes helping ppl learn what they can do for now but hell get a nerf and thats deservedly so.

[@TheRadioSquare]

lol it's almost like he has options other than gunflame so while you're on the lookout for what he does it becomes too late to punish it. Real funny how Sajam and professional twitch chat players know what to do yet top players still sit there and block the gunflame.

[@maxrusty3596]

@@TheRadioSquare Exactly ppl don't even use there brains these days man.

[@YoshiSF]

welp now i know why i kept getting punished for jumping gun flame as Gio. I was jumping at him when i shouldve been air dashing at him. thx. You can also do a hard callout and dash 5k when you think he's gonna gun flame. not a great option but it's what i landed on.

[@yuurou7927]

I HS through gunflame countless times as Nago. For me Ram is the hardest to deal with of the big 3.

[@KittSpiken]

Maybe Sol's not that good, maybe people are just bad.

[@ryugalul3414]

anti Ram tips next?

[@cerebralsmash5707]

He already made a video

[@ryugalul3414]

@@cerebralsmash5707 oh sorry i'll check it out

[@cerebralsmash5707]

@@ryugalul3414 np

[@orczan8533]

Sol apologists apologizing. But seriously, great video. Love that you take the time to explore situations with chat

[@MegaBlademaster1]

Can you give general anti-Sol tips for Millia players so I dont have to see more nonsense Leffen tweets on my timeline

[@vostok2717]

Don't get hit

[@integra8472]

The anti-sol tip for an Anji player is going to same thing as for any other character: ✨spin✨

[@deco7217]

Spin and pray you don't get wrecked due to low-tier energy. Anji needs to usurp ASSji.

[@dylancraft790]

Is it weird I enjoy fighting sol more than chip. Like I know sol is so oppressive, but I find fighting him easier than chip.

[@maxrusty3596]

Just a character knowledge thing chip explodes and a lot of his stuff can be mashed out of. Sol is a legit op character in the right hands.

[@asdasddas100]

I'm in the same boat. I really need to lab Chipp cause I still don't know what the hell he's doing

[@edwardedward842]

Sol isn't unstoppable just very overtuned and has lazy design choices like a 3f 5K and no hurtbox on half of 6S. Coupled with his ability to be plus for godlike strike throw without meter and therefore become even scarier when using meter etc. People get mad because they think its downplaying to help learn the MU. Pro tip you guys can still learn from this video about the MU and hate the fact Sol is still overtuned and has relatively no weakness bar the neutral in like 2-3 MUs to a small margin. Its like AE Yun ex dash punch yeah it was crazy and idiotic but it had counters. Its just still hard to look out for and play around his other tools too. Sol will get nerfed but we gotta deal with him atm. If you keep this in mind dealing with him when he gets nerfed to some extent will be even easier down the line. Rather then whining not learning the MU and then still having to learn the MU down the line when hes still got atleast half of the good shit he does now.

[@Prince-pd2uf]

ok but honest question, as I-no how to deal with sol gunflame/ram corner pressure(without fd)

[@JumbaJumby]

For Ram, wait for her to throw the sword, and then before the explosion comes out, you can do either s or h stroke, or you can jump forward and the explosion will whiff, or you can super jump and then air dash or do the dive. If she's close enough after the sword throw to reach with 5 or 2k, then you have to Faultless Defense or she can loop the block string indefinitely. It's intimidating, but you have a lot of escape options, so the Ram should be so preoccupied keeping you from escaping that there isn't any real mix behind it. Don't go pressing buttons after fS or HS in the corner. There isn't any actual mix there, so she's praying that you mash a button there and get yourself hit. Wait for sword and take that as your chance to escape. Also if you burst right as she does the sword throw, she'll still lose the sword but be knocked full screen, significantly nerfing her for the next 8 seconds-ish. The only time that you just have to hold the mixup is when she uses meter, which is basically the same for the whole cast.

[@SupermanSajam]

For gunflame you can chemical love/jump and do dive on reaction pretty easily.

[@miloexe]

It would be so nice if guessing wrong against Sol got you slapped by a single gunflame and that was it, but you forgot to test out the part where 6S and and Bandit Bringer win against every option that beats gunflame, and how Sol is gonna punish you for twice the damage you would have done if you had guessed right.

[@miloexe]

​@@personallyunknown4670 Thanks, Sajam, that's the perfect answer to everything I didn't say.

[@drftr6073]

6S is so underrated. people just watch you mashing c.S f.S and don't use anything other than those two moves + revolver.

[@VinceOfAllTrades]

Ngl, I'm upset that they didn't implement the replay control from +R so I just haven't been labbing things in this game.

[@LaterHarmony]

Can we get one of these for Leo and Gio??

[@MrDeykar]

As a Millia player, how do i deal with Sol which just uses DP as an anti air? It seems impossible to punish. If i block it, the landing recovery will prevent me from punishig it. In fact, every time i try to punish, i get hit instead because he for some reason recovers before me.

[@mandatorycorpaccount]

did you try to bait it with a netural jump?

[@MrDeykar]

@@mandatorycorpaccount I tried all kinds of stuff, but not a whole lot of good options without giving up oki on wake up for example.

[@maxrusty3596]

You have to be very close to him to punish his dp and it usually has to be a hard read.

[@beekerboxjp]

Make it whiff

[@glassofmeat]

I think the main issue is that sol feels more like a complete kit compared to the rest of the cast. While I won't call him broken, I can tell more time was put into him than any other character in the roster. Most of the cast plays their own game well, but sol excels at just about everything they do. It's fine to play the top tier characters, but lets at least admit he's top tier for a reason.

[@maxrusty3596]

Ill call him broken because he is hes in a tier of his own and thats called broken. No other character gives him trouble hes at advantage in just about every match up with great mobility a command grab priority normals and massive damage hes stupidly broken. Impossible to beat nah but people will find a way to deal with anything. Should they be required to overcome this huge hurdle and is it balanced? Not even a little bit too players with similar skill play and one is playing sol and one is playing any other character and sol is winning everytime.

[@felixc.4294]

I made another comment pointing to this, but they need to make the other characters (except ram) feel more complete, especially off their light buttons and special followups. Nerfing sol by removing his (instead of just lowering his damage) would be incredibly lame.

[@maxrusty3596]

@@felixc.4294 U may call it lame bust it's much more realistic and fair if they nerf Sol.

[@komujimaru]

im just glad thuis new fg is better than sf5, sfv was honestly making me forget about fighting games.

[@MagnumbRevere]

look at all these comments from people who DEFINITELY watched the video 🌝

[@sinshenlong]

Stop snitching

[@freshbroceries4601]

there goes Sajam, downplaying Sol again. SMH my head.

[@SxfetyPin]

3:00 If you know your opponent will try to Throw, Sol can also go for the Command Grab to beat the Throw.

[@Sparklesniff]

This has been my daily dose of a Sol main giving me some COPIUM

[@thepear6684]

🍐

[@no_nameyouknow]

Im more scared of a lot of characters than sol. Prob in part because most sols are not great tbh. A real good one is scary but so is a good may ram even pot ino or.milla can be scary. Chip? A good chip is scary af till u touch him once.

[@MrDeykar]

He does so much dmg off random stray hits which are easy to confirm into like 40% dmg combos that you always feel like you have to play flawless if you want to win. If youre in the corner, its game over 80% of the time.

[@DXYS95]

Actually, I find it to be the opposite. Bad Sol players are way scarier because they'll get insane amounts of damage even if they don't know what they're doing. And they don't need to have a good game plan, they'll just go for strike/throw and you'll die if you guess wrong a couple of times

[@Dirtyboots3strikes]

I think what most people who complain don't realize is that most of the characters in the roster needs to be buffed to the level of Ram and Sol, not nerf. I see and feel most of these characters aren't as complete as Sol's toolkit, but they don't want to see that. nerfing seems to be the answer that easily comes to mind for some reason(which I admit, I also thought that in the past, but now I don't think that isn't the answer).

[@maxrusty3596]

Nerfing makes the most sense....buffing everyone is much more work and comes with many complications as far as game balance. Its much simpler to take a character that is a bit too strong bring him back down to earth cuz as is knowing all the things u can do to beat him hes still op. His moves have priority over so much stuff along with massive damage off literally any confirm. and a near pot buster level command grab with crazy pressure and mobility. Dont know what they were thinking honestly. And imo Ram is fair she has clear weakness' and isnt op but Sol is kind of broken atm.

[@TheRadioSquare]

Stop regurgitating worst point Core-A ever made. When there's 2 but really 1 character far beyond the level of everyone else then they need to be brought down, same way characters who are all around too bad need to be brought up. Having strengths and weaknesses makes characters feel fun and unique, Sol is the opposite of that, a Mary Sue who can do anything your char does but better.

[@Gankstomper]

The greatest anti sol tip is deny matches with him. =]

[@thegoose8663]

Ah, just the way i like it.

[@felixc.4294]

Hopefully Arcsys realizes that sol doesn't need to be tuned down, but that everyone else needs better pressure structures. The way his specials and command normals provide built in frame traps is great for making him pick up and play, but it also lets players be creative at higher levels. Giving everyone better things to do off of things like their light buttons (like maybe reducing pushback on a lot of K, P, and sweeps while making special cancels more tight and threatening) will make those characters 10x more fun to play. I'm having a good time with strive, but I'm playing ram. I was playing Leo beforehand, and the weaker air conversions as well as poor action off of kicks and punches (combined with awkward movement) made him very committed to slash normals. They'd make the opponent explode if you got the right hit, but having weaker lights made it much harder to establish much strike or throw pressure to actually open people up.

[@gatocochino5594]

They will nerf him I think. Strive gameplay doesn't work well when you have a character that can do 50%(or higher with high RISC as is often the case) damage off pretty much any stray hit, specially when his offense can be so simple, safe and effective.

[@maxrusty3596]

Yes just rework EVERY other character in the game as opposed to bringing one back down to earth thats totally a realistic way to expect things to go sure...God people are dumb.

[@TheRadioSquare]

Hopefully, people who play top tiers like you realize that buffing everyone just turns it into a kusoge. Sol is satisfying because he's broken as shit, and gets a lot of damage off of any hit, not cause he got options. Tune him down and Color 1 GG Players will start crying and none of them will be talking about gatling structure or follow-up options.

[@felixc.4294]

@@gatocochino5594 You can absolutely tune down damage without changing his pressure structure. They're separate ideas lol

[@felixc.4294]

@@TheRadioSquare Hey man, you could learn the matchup instead of complaining in youtube comments.

[@63skarduken]

6:15 most people in twitch chats and on reddit

[@enigmaticheart666]

Sol downplayer tells you you just don't know the matchup lmfao

[@DXYS95]

"...You see, if you call out a very specific option Sol is choosing, you'll get a HUGE 5% return!" Like, you have to read Sol's Gunflame. If you just react to it, it's already too late. You'll eat a 5K into 50% while trying to jump over it :^) Besides, what I find hilarious is Sol players telling you that you don't know the matchup. Bruh, Sol is the only character I face online: it's the matchup I know the most, while other obscure characters are way less problematic

[@SupermanSajam]

I know this is isn’t about this video right

[@SupermanSajam]

@@DXYS95 You can jump on spaced out buttons and react with dash to gunflame pretty easily, or do air dash/double jump/normal/nothing once you’re in the air. Holding up in general is one of the best options against Sol pressure, always has been.

[@DXYS95]

@@SupermanSajam Oh, so you're saying I should just jump by default on spaced buttons? I've never really tried this, but it sounds like good advice. Still, it doesn't really work when you're cornered, but you shouldn't let Sol or any other character corner you in the first place I guess. I'll try this out in the lab to see if I can counter hit him, thanks. This kind of advice is much more useful :)

[@SupermanSajam]

@@DXYS95 If he’s doing gunflame that’s not spaced out, he’s going to be negative so you can take your turn after. If he’s far enough away for it to be plus, it’s usually in range for you to air dash over it to punish or backdash to reset the position.

[@paz8723]

I'm not scared of Sol, I simply accept that he is broken by design and move on.

[@purpledragonfly9006]

that nago example is some of the dumbest shit but go on with the downplay we all downplay our mains

[@SupermanSajam]

I got asked a question, and I showed the scenario. More importantly, how is a video with only anti-Sol tips supposed to be a downplay video lol