Why Everyone is Saying ABA Might Be DOOMED In Guilty Gear Strive

ABA is the latest addition to the Guilty Gear roster and initial impressions of her strengths are...not great. I weigh in on my thoughts and explain why that's the case!
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00:00 Intro
00:50 Normal Mode Struggles
2:40 Jealousy Gauge
4:20 Install Mode
6:30 Burst is a Problem
8:30 Gobou the Savior? / Final Thoughts

[@Assaut19283]

Just make her parry instant. It's not like it deals damage and doesn't garuantee you'll be able to take a turn. It's literally just a meter builder.

[@strotch7753]

absolutely do not want aba to be yet another character who gets their resource back passively, buffing her parry is absolutely the way to go or maybe returning the dreaded danzai burst bait.

[@arualtucliist7149]

Make parry and danzai have armor on frame 1 and I'll be happy

[@Evannd97]

Buff her parry startup, recovery, and give the opponent stagger on successful land. I would even be open to giving it a property where she can hold it to gain a little meter back too if they decide to not buff the frame properties

[@Nyagro]

100%. I don't know whether buffing parry is the answer, but making it so she is yet again another character who gains her ressources without doing anything (even with a super that would feel kinda lazy like with HC) contributes to the resource management characters to feel way too samey. ABA is, and was always was, kinda supposed to be that character which struggles until she gets her game going. Passive resource gain would basically put that state on a timer and the player would only need to focus on staying alive until they can go into Moroha. In +R she has all the resources from the beginning of the match. The hard part is managing that correctly during the round and in Moroha in order to not die if you mess up your resource management. The issue she has in Strive which isn't present in +R is that she needs to engage and actually hit the opponent somehow in her normal state. In turn she really doesn't get penalized during Moroha but rather that she can't get her resource back easily.

[@KyokujiFGC]

That's how she was good in AC+R. If you tried to burst out, she would just destroy you a lot of the time.

[@d1egolophu]

I dunno man, as a Chipp main whenever I do the smallest mistake and the enemy ABA enters jealousy mode it's the most terrifying shit I've seen in my life

[@AoAD]

Parry is absolutely terrible. I'd rather it act like Raven's excitement, where she can hold it and it gains jealousy meter. Or at least let her immediately cancel after a successful parry.

[@schemingbanana2213]

Better yet, just add raven. I miss him...

[@Evannd97]

I thought i was the only one! The startup is too sluggish, has to be a read and done before the move lands, if you think youre going to perfect parry with it on reaction you will get counter hit every.single.time. Not only this, the recovery is often too slow to parry several things in succession, the opponent has no stagger from a successful parry that I’ve noticed so you’re cooked if they continue pressure and have fast frames. In its current state it’s hardly a useful strategy, can be used as a last resort but useless as a consistent defense strategy like I think they intended.

[@anormalhumanhopefully8570]

Just add Raven (god I miss him)

[@Evannd97]

Arcsys definitely has had a fear of making characters too strong since Strive’s inception but it’s been sooo selective. It always seems to be the characters with potential but very obvious losing weaknesses when Arcsys is like “idk lets not make them too strong” and then gorilla characters with literally no weaknesses they’re like “hmm they seem perfect actually”. They nerfed the living hell out of Millia after open beta and it took three seasons of several micro buffs to get her at a solid competitive spot again. Fingers crossed we’re all just dooming and she’ll have an HC level unlocking but we’ll see

[@cowgba]

I'm very much a beginner at fighting games but I always heard that one of the best things about GGXrd was the balance. I remember hearing that the gap between the best and worst characters was small enough that even the "worst" character was viable in high-level competitive play. Since getting into Strive a little bit and watching some character impression/ranking videos I've been surprised by how much worse the balance seems to be compared to Xrd. It seems like half the cast is considered mid-tier/situational at best (Millia) or totally non-competitive at worst (Zato), while the top tier characters seem to be massively powerful with relatively few drawbacks. I'm nowhere near experienced enough to form a firsthand opinion, but that seems to be the community consensus. It's kind of a bummer, especially because it sounds like a lot of the DLC characters have been underperforming, and the balance issues still seem significant after 3 seasons of patches. I have no intention of ever playing at a competitive level so maybe I'm worrying too much about a problem that doesn't affect me, but I enjoy Millia and Elphelt's playstyles and it's disheartening to think that playing them could put me at a disadvantage when I'm already fighting an uphill battle as a new player.

[@cringusmingus]

@@cowgba elphelt is stronger as a new player than any other part of your skill curve, and millia will absolutely not hold you back. i put 600 hours into millia and goddamn she is incredibly strong in season 3

[@culturemanoftheages]

@@cowgba Millia was absolute dogass at launch, don't believe a thing LK says! She was just like SQ says ABA is now, a whole bunch of effort for some of the lowest reward in the game. That said, she's been significantly buffed literally every patch, and now she's a solid character that can absolutely win tournaments/give the top tiers a run for their money. Also she's a ton of fun so don't feel discouraged about learning her.

[@Evannd97]

@@cowgba Coming from a Millia main that has stuck with the character since the game came out, do NOT be afraid to stick with the character, in fact I highly encourage it at the spot Millia currently is. Season 1 and 2 she was dogshit and wishes they were Season 3 Millia. She is so actually god-like now if you get good with her, which is absolutely doable for a beginner to strive. I wouldn’t say she’s the easiest to play right off the bat but with a little labbing and practice very easy to get decent with. She is hard to master though because has incredibly high potential, mix up tech like you wouldn’t imagine, but worry about that stuff later. Begin and learn her fundamentals and I promise you will not regret it, one of the most rewarding characters to play imo. Also the swaggiest combos in the entire game, if you get good with her mix your opponent won’t even look like they’re playing.

[@Nyagro]

@@cowgba What you say about the balance compared to older games, not just Rev2 but +R as well, is actually quite accurate. But as someone who played the series for nearly a decade now I feel like the issue in Strive's case isn't the character balance necessarily but the design philosophy of Strive itself. The game was always intended to be a simplified streamlined version of GG. If you reduce characters' toolsets and homogenize so much about their unique parts coupled with Strive's super high and easy accessibility of damage, you have to strike a fine balance in order to not make the characters feel too samey. Characters that are "harder" to play in Strive need to be worth the effort in order to not be outshined by the literal gorillas with a simple gameplan and huge damage output. But the damage tends to be so explosive for a lot of the cast (again, kinda contributing to the homogenization), that the characters with a simple gameplan tend to be way better in practice unless your character is designed to not let your opponent play (launch Happy Chaos, Asuka). I'm curious how Slayer will turn out seeing that 80% of the cast does his damage output which was unique to him before. How will they make his playstyle revolving around conditioning your opponent and making the correct read turn into big damage work out since that's what many characters in Strive essentially do anyway.

[@thegreatwizzard2295]

Sounds like she could have a similar threat to zato, dangerous with meter but vulnerable without. But, not giving much options to get the gauge back makes her seem almost like a one shot character.

[@mojolito]

They are definitely releasing new characters "pre-nerfed" to not fuck up the meta too hard. Depending on how she develops, there are for sure some factors that could be tweaked. Like you are saying the parry could be buffed a lot or even reworked. How fast JR is spent can be tweaked. Maybe a full meter could be 12 sec instead of 10 or something along those lines. They could also make it so that your throw doesn't deplete meter during the animation, and maybe meter depletes slower when you are in hit stun or block stun. However I think the key balancing point is how easy she can go in and out of JR. Simply not being GGs after going back to normal mode without meter should probably be the first thing to buff.

[@TuMadre8000]

ya'll just aren't BELIEVING hard enough

[@fr0styfgc861]

The biggest thing is definitely not being able to build any Guage if the opponent decides they want to stop interacting. Everything else at least feels solvable.

[@qspec2002]

Agreed on burst... hell, she feels countered by her own burst. Deflect can hurt her too. If they deflect Danzai, you're getting punished. If they deflect something else, you've lost a ton of jealousy.

[@pootsiii8178]

I'm not even sure what they were thinking with her parry, 7 frames so you just get constantly counterhit, a measly 1 bar of Jealous Rage for landing it, I have literally no idea how it's suppose to work when an opponent has actually hit you because it seems that you pretty much just guard crush yourself.

[@qspec2002]

I could handle 7 frames if I could at least hold the button to hold the parry. There's a ton of things that are stupid hard to time like Faust bombs or Elph's rebound shots. Even if I see it coming, I have difficulty parrying them reliably.

[@enhasiac4153]

Worst part is that if they never made burst fullscreen Danzai combos would be hella buest safe

[@ColinSpurr]

Manual transformation should be at least a little faster and less prone to failure when hit. Also, it would be a good move to let you hold down the button to ki charge your gauge if someone is avoiding you. They should let you cancel a successful parry too.

[@iiWazzi]

A way to charge the gauge from full screen would be nice

[@angel__king]

bruh. she's strong af. Once she lands a single hit in bonding and dissolving she can do 90% of your health with basically no issue. She is definitely not low tier and doesn't need buffs if anything she needs nerfs because giving her armor on her bounce and insanely fast mix-ups which hit light a freight train wasn't a good idea

[@TheJenovaQC]

she needs like a special that gives gauge for health or something (Like Asuka Mana). Or increase the range of Key grab. Or make her air dust invincible. Or the parry teleports you to the opponent when it connects.

[@jackhanma2342]

So fun playing her, kind of like the taking and dishing out taken to the extreme type of gameplay. I do agree that her jealousy fills up slowly, but I don't think that her normal form is that bad that you can warrant an increase in meter gain. What I would like to see is a buff to the key move range. As it is now, I feel like you often cant convert into it, where you should be able to.

[@nirvana1986]

I think we should give more time , it’s still too soon to give any concrete ideas about the character.

[@RavenAstralis]

honestly after a week. I think people have already enough thoughts about her. The Honeymoon phase is over.

[@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034]

​@@RavenAstralis People said that about Nago too, and then a month later everyone's crying because of how busted he is.

[@Gameboi-101]

Well to be fair, we didn’t know how anyone would end up. It was the start of strive and nobody knew anything, but now we’re nearly done with season 3 and we have a lot more knowledge and understanding of what makes a character good

[@juliancalendar328]

​@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 exactly

[@youare5907]

This is what people said about millia and here we are 4 years later and she's still bottom 3 since release.

[@genitur]

I feel like making the parry good and reducing the jealousy gauge drain a bit would go a long for making the character viable

[@peerlessvillain]

Aba might be the strongest in the game. But she also is the most volatile

[@AllegoryGar]

To fix burst from just beating the character, I wonder if there could be a way to make it so that jealousy gage is only consumed when launching and inputing attacks, rather than passively being drained?

[@digitss8477]

We should give her more time tbh it's only week 1. Maybe one day you'll wake up and suddenly she'll be able to move and build guage passively and have good normals, and not get fucked by burst and YRC. Trust

[@SQuirrel147]

So true, my bad. Didn't think about all that

[@sKinCollector]

Aba might just be better nago if you rlly think about it Does nago even win any matchups? He can't move All he does is bloodrage and die Just burst /yrc him when he's high blood and he can’t do anything

[@brycerichardson3687]

so true

[@asome626]

Bye sKin

[@sKinCollector]

@@asome626 bye

[@Evannd97]

You definitely have some solid points. I honestly want to believe we’re all dooming and her meta will develop like Nago’s did in a month or two.

[@shunpo5394]

Thank you for shedding light on this topic, nago is in a really really bad spot right now. The fact that his frame data is really bad compared to characters like baiken and johnny really concerning. ABA literally plays strive on creative mode at this point. (Gamemode 1: Normal mode, Gamemode 2: Install) Its really bad where nago is just in gamemode 1 everytime. The fact that nago does not have solid ways to open up to opponents makes it hard for him to do any damage or approach neutral. Happy chaos and asuka can perma zone nago and he cant do anything about it. Unlike ABA where she is excemptional with dealing with chaos zoning and asuka zoning. The burst changes killed nago because he builds so much burst compared to happy chaos who barely gives any burst. Bloodrage is a joke of a mechanic, why am i being punished for playing the game? Sol badguy. The fact that when i use only 3 specials i pop and its ggs. Nago is mid tier.

[@somesubstitute4242]

Honestly, her parry needs the most work. Aside from the slow start up, the actual period it's active is near frame perfect to begin with. She has some good moves to connect with, and decent range with neutrals, but getting into that range effectively needs a lot of reads. On top of that, a lot of her moves advance, so if you misread and whiff, she gets herself into punish range. Now for the good I have to say, being tied for Chipp in speed while in JR has saved my tail in several matches, her reach on 5S and 5H can make great counters, and her 2K reaches a good distance, so if you can play defensively and time your anti airs, she can do a hard knock down combo even without JR. She can hit hard and keep the pressure on, it just takes some time to really familiarize yourself in each fight. Pick your battles, find the weakness, and she can be devastating.

[@jerlbays7412]

i feel like the hopeless fullscren-no-meter neutral checkmate situation against aba is fine as thats supposed to be the punishment for poor meter management i just think her rage mode isnt much better than just base Sol Badguy or other characters so all the extra effort to mitigate normal mode and enter rage mode just feels kind of moot and pointless when you could just pick a different character and be that strong from round start.

[@cringusmingus]

i do agree that aba should be heavily punished for bad play since her advantage state is so incredibly overwhelming, but being heavily punished for just going into jealous rage at all while your opponent has burst is brutal. maybe aba should recover her meter like manual install cancel when she is bursted

[@AnimeRoyal_25]

people love to doom asap, lets just wait for a bit and its pretty normal for ggst dlc to not be asap top tier lol.

[@Sparda51]

Tbf most dlc in this game are bad or mid on release outside of a few characters. They usually end up buffing dlc characters.

[@AchedSphinx]

if she was top tier people would go "p2w" so you can't win.

[@A2ZOMG]

​@@Sparda51 as Hotashi put it, it's because we already suffered through HC who broke the game to pieces on his release. Makes more sense competitively for DLC to be underpowered to avoid drastically warping the metagame in unhealthy ways.

[@Sparda51]

@@A2ZOMG I kinda of disagree, DLC should change up the metagame. Maybe not as drastically as HC but its really bad for new characters to come out and have zero effect at all in the metagame. Competitive players dont like when things change negatively towards them. They want thier shit broke and to not have thier character "ruined". I want to see aba,elphelt,testament,bedman( I want to see all dlc do well these are just ones to my knoweledge dont see success for at least one rep at majors) etc do well competitively.

[@SmotheryAxe1414]

Nagoriyuki was also considered bad back when players didn't know how to play him.

[@hakumenx1]

He was objectively bad in the beta and was buffed twice before evo after launch. He was horribly blood negative beforehand during 1.0. Ive said this before but our first impressions have been right far far more thab wrong. Nago at strives birth because ppl didnt fully understand the game Happy Chaos because he functioned on a system people were very unfamiliar with. But everyone else? GL BR TS Sin Bed Asuka Etc we were absolutely correct about concerning how weak or problematic aspects of their kits were.

[@SmotheryAxe1414]

@@hakumenx1 I see

[@Dr3am9553]

Im going to say a couple things. 1. Parry can have less recovery when triggered but it getting faster startup as well is much less okay. You don't want parry or danzai to be "that" much better. Having a character who gambles in neutral that hard into real reward would be scuffed. The best i can see is f3-4 startup. If we get 1f this character will run shit 2. Keygrab has negative range. If that was mixed to be a more generous hitbox her match flow increase 5 fold. As its her best method of managing guage. 3. The mid dodge isn't actually as good as one would think. With 26f total duration she's not actually true punishing that many moves. But if she goes any faster you can't see it and she's 2K 2Ding like mad

[@krazyzyko]

Maybe use her HP to regen jelly meter like asuka? And her key grab should have more range, enough to combo off any normal.

[@bunger108]

"jelly meter" 💀💀💀

[@J4MC4ST]

maybe this is just me and me bying a floor nine player i havent had any problems playing ABA. Admittedly there has been matches where i just get zoned and cant do anything about it. But i dont think theyre completely unwinnable. But once again that may just be a skill level thing. And i also havent had a problem with keeping JR. Even when i completely run out(which is a rare occurance for me) i still manage to build it up pretty fast. But once again that could just be because of the floor im on.

[@TylerrTazer]

I find the issue is when you start fighting people that makes use of the defensive mechanics against no install or do longer combos to stall your JR mode they can just camp you while you have no JR bar

[@J4MC4ST]

@@TylerrTazer that is annoying. I’ve had matches where I knock down, go into my JR and they press buttons on wake up into a combo and I don’t get to use my mode. It’s so annoying.

[@TylerrTazer]

@@J4MC4ST Honestly I only get annoyed if my uninstall happens, normal ABA has ok pressure and mixup with tension atleast

[@wispperd]

I think the fact there is this much speculation about whether shes good or not makes me feel like she leans on the stronger side. It was pretty quickly decided that johnny and elphelt were weak. There definitely wasn’t this much debate and speculation lol.

[@SQuirrel147]

Is there speculation? I don't think any top player thinks she has any more potential than being mid currently and that's being generous lol. Just no one is gonna completely write off a character in the first week naturally

[@wispperd]

@@SQuirrel147 You’re right that there aren’t really any top players saying shes high tier. But there is still a larger gap of opinion on whether shes mid or the worst character in the game. Leffen vs LK are a couple of opinions that come to mind as pretty different. But my original statement is mostly due to all the creators making these type of speculative vids just after release compared to previous dlc’s.

[@blookimane9076]

I think if a whiffed parry just gave like 10% gage or put aba in a state that gradually regens up to 25% gage until she’s hit, that would be enough to force opponents to keep engaging her in normal mode, and even then i think giving it a faster startup and leaving her plus as well would be reasonable

[@Shurmash]

Watch Gobou use her and tell me she's no good. She's a monster when used correctly. And she hasn't even been patched so we have no idea what's in store. When you utilize all of her options she's a beast. The people saying that she's no good probably got beat bad by her or don't know how to use her yet. From what I've seen she's dangerous and can come back from almost no health. I really like her.

[@cringusmingus]

yeah i love playing the character but its hard to deny that she is put in a nearly unavoidable terrible situation if you burst her while in jealous rage

[@hakumenx1]

The fact that she can successfully parry me and its still my turn is absurd. Id ask what were they thinking but i dont think they were.

[@Yahto1337]

This does not even cover -She gets nothing off grab. In fact grabbing while in jealousy mode is a detriment because jealousy drains during the animation -She has no grab protection when leaving her un-install animation, or after the end of her parry -Using her super while in jealousy mode is throwing unless you know it'll kill because it sets you to 0 gauge, back into neutral. -The wall makes her gimmick somewhat counter-intuitive. If you break the wall while being low on gauge, you might be screwed -Unlike Nago, or Sin, who passively gain back their gauges, she does not.

[@BudewFan_]

She does get a lot off of grab, especially in jealousy where she can do 50/50 fuzzy on hard knockdown into a full combo for like 60% on ky, other stuff still stands tho

[@Yahto1337]

@@BudewFan_ grab in normal mode (if you ever do land it) grants you nothing except maybe an OTG for some jealousy. And while you can get that 50/50, you lose probably 10% jealousy during the animation, and if you run out you un-install with no work-around

[@wispperd]

⁠@@Yahto1337after getting that fuzzy you have several options to get out and back into install. If you walk stick or you if you meter for an RC you have an opportunity to extend your install. she def gets a lot off a grab.

[@Evannd97]

Jealousy draining at the same pace during any kind of hit/throw confirm is legitimately insane to me, and if your opponent is good at stopping your pressure then you just wasted your entire jealousy blocking their counters. You’re penalized for both winning and losing the interaction it’s not very thoughtful design. I’m assuming their thought process was “well if she goes into jealousy she automatically wins the round” but that has seemed to be far from the case.

[@SQuirrel147]

These are all mostly true. I couldn't include every detail for sake of keeping the video short, but they are good to mention regardless.

[@DanTilden03]

my confirmation bias feels so good after watching this video x) i was litteraly whining about her 7frame startup parry, the lack of good tools to do anything in normal mode and the existence of burst making her efforts useless but i said to myself "nah you just suck search opinions online"

[@kurikari1675]

JA is objectively broken so normal mode needs to be as weak as it is

[@user-vs9kk5kk5v]

Well, don't want her to gain her resource passively, so parry buff would be very nice. Hope she won't be another "not good" character in the long run, as it's really upsetting that, like, almost every character I find interesting in this game turns out to be low tier.

[@joeyrhubarb2558]

Agree with pretty much everything. If you do get a hit you have to route correctly so that you are maximising JR gain, and even then its not guaranteed because of system mechanics. Totally agree she needs some form of passive regen, even if its not very good, just to incentive the opponent to approach and attack her and then she can at least play the game. Feels like many people aren't playing that passive/reactive enough against her yet but im sure that will change given time. Unfortunately, a character getting a whole new move seems very unlikely if you aren't on the base roster or S1, so if they do give her some way of passively regenerating meter, it has to be some way that doesn't include putting resources into making a new move. If they aren't careful they could go the other way and let her stay in install for far longer, but that could result in her just staying in install way too long where she is just basically stays being a top 1 character the whole time. The most likely thing i think will happen is that they'll give her 75% or 100% JR meter at round start. Having more meter at the start means you can use JR in neutral off the rip, and having more meter means that you get more meter back when you manually deactivate, allowing a potential 2nd shot at raw activate if you get bursted (albeit with much shorter time this time)

[@jamesk2325]

Aba is really cool and I love playing her she's absolutely my main til slayer drops I've enjoyed every character this season and it's the only one I'd say that of, but I do wish they were more effective

[@finallyanime]

But she does have approaching tools. Intertwine & tilt the pole vault move

[@deadninjas]

Have you actually tried using those like nago beyblade or pot hammerfall? She has nothing remotely close to those fullscreen gap closers. Also the answer to my question is no, because if you had tried to use those moves as approaching options, you would quickly have learned to stop using them as they lead to DEATH.

[@SQuirrel147]

I mention them in the video and why I don't think they are that strong contextually in her kit or relative to other advancing special moves

[@cringusmingus]

intertwine's invulnerability is super quick but the total duration of the move is long, to the point that a lot of high pokes will just recover before you can punish. if you guess perfectly then pole vault does a solid job, although on normal hit you dont get oki or enough time to install and continue pressure. pole vault's invulnerability is also pretty slow, so it loses to a lot of close-medium range lows even if they start at the same time

[@MagnumbRevere]

"aba's potential is huge!! remember when ppl thought nago was weak?" he was weak in beta, weak on launch and got absolutely manhandled by launch sol 6S (as did everyone else on the roster). nago got buffed a couple patches in a row and _then_ became strong. anyways aba looks relatively weak if the opponent camps and doesn't give her meter for free. she needs the ability to build meter in neutral to mitigate camping and force interaction, like oh i don't know, using a bloodpack or something. even then, aba will still have bad matchups by design if the potential buffs don't overcompensate.

[@TheOblomoff]

It's time to bring weight classes back? Ha-ha-ha. Just to make her get pushed back less by meter stuff.

[@nomnom9477]

Lowkey I see why people are dooming(all that is said is true) but I am hopeful! Give it some time and I think she will be seen in a slightly better light tho.

[@avenblue9563]

yeahhh in a rough place. I think the bloodbags of the original aba (not that I have played much plus R) seemed like a good way to offset her meter problem. Like, at least then you have slightly more chances. or doing the plus r mechanic where her gauge lowers more slowly, but knockdowns take a huge chunk?

[@wl4810]

Honestly, far from everyone is saying that since like, day 2.

[@benisign]

Idc how good she is I just love the drake 6p

[@mergo5956]

>makes a sppech about how pro players have never really been wrong about prediction on how good a character is > he is wrong about ABA

[@QuyenNguyenHuu-ew7bs]

Bruh, why differences in grab animation duration effects her install game? 😂 She is such a beta character. Even buying bedman wasn't felt scammy as buying aba. See you in next year patch

[@SueTheGuiltyDeer]

You seem to be ignoring how good she is in Maroha...

[@canpakes8471]

I will simply just gap

[@blooddumpster3427]

yeah, i watched those gobou matches too. It took me the first two games to see that if you run out of resource while you're getting hit, you lose, full stop.

[@blooddumpster3427]

I think she's gonna get a ground key similar to rams rock

[@mainaccount8293]

Reminds me of nago on launch

[@cong5805]

he got buffs to his meter management before he was considered good

[@user-gp9mb8gk7v]

@@cong5805didn’t nago win evo online before patches

[@pinecone6432]

GREAT VIDEO SQ

[@trinitygsaint2383]

Testament

[@meepsies669]

Or maybe you just suck playing her.

[@gonogg]

still better then... axl low

[@sKinCollector]

So true

[@Grux_ASG]

Oh i just saw you on twitch

[@nemuriyagi]

I think a lotta these complaints are very mu specific; some characters "not interacting" with aba is horrendously stupid to say for any character that works with long range committal normals, or 2-step gameplans at all. Those characters work off of landing a lot of stray hits, ESPECIALLY in the case of faust w/ items, pokes, etc. All of these sit at a range where aba is not getting punished for parry, and quite literally invite parry opportunities simply by existing as a character. HC zone? parry is fine. Axl throwing any pokes? Parry is fine. There are delicate instances of using parry that are not very punishable at all during a lotta mu's. I would simply just say mu's where opponents can mindlessly achieve damage without "interacting with aba" are where she's weak. Those that even at full screen are tooled to interact quite literally play into her hands of just sitting full screen, getting enough gauge to get in, and risk the one shot.

[@SQuirrel147]

I don't think Faust even needs to throw items at her is the problem. If he has a life lead already, there is no real need to throw any, and even if he does and she parries them, he's still at advantage and can go for a mixup (parry has no throw invul after recovery frames so she has to guess on strike/throw harder than usual) Parrying HC shots is a pure guess as he can just delay when he shoots. Even in the rare case she times a parry correctly, he's still at advantage and gets to run a mixup. The parry is literally whiff punishable on reaction in most cases. Certainly what she has to try to do but I wouldn't say it's effective.

[@mrluthfians01]

abababababababab

[@jorian10]

you’re cute

[@Memokarp]

A L G O R I T H M I'm still busy with school but not busy enough to stop me from supporting a SQ youtube vid