GGACR/Bridget/Strategy

General Tactics

Movement is a huge part of neutral in Guilty Gear, and Bridget's movement options may be the strongest. There are a lot of ways to use that movement. The playstyle you're most likely to see is Bridget dictating the pace of the match, running away from the opponent and harassing with his long normals and yoyo specials (examples of players using this style to great effect include Ruu and Jais). But another popular strategy is rushing the opponent down, using Bridget's movement to get in the opponent's face and stay there, and using the yoyo to extend pressure (players to watch for this style include Mugen and j-1Sco1s&t=2m22s Mahouko). You may find yourself playing somewhere in between, switching back and forth depending on the matchup or match situation.

No matter which end of the spectrum you favor, you'll want to utilize Rolling Movements (especially FD Canceled ones) to extend your air options. While Bridget would ordinarily only have one air option once in the air (a second jump or an air dash), using Rolling Movement changes that. You can get more height before your air dash (making corner escapes more difficult to stop). You can delay your falling or change where you're going to fall to make it harder for the opponent catch you coming down. You can even special cancel into it to extend combos.

Another important facet of Bridget's game to understand is good yoyo placement. While he can get some use out of the yoyo anywhere on the screen thanks to Rolling Movement alone, you'll want to maximize what you're getting from it. The yoyo is typically most threatening when it's behind the opponent, trapping them between Bridget and a possible recall or Roger move. 4H and 7H Set are very useful for getting the yoyo behind them. But sometimes, the yoyo is better off sitting high. This offers the threat of a Roger Get to control the ground, or Jagged Roger/yoyo recall to control air space. A high altitude Roger Get, in particular, can be scary for an opponent. The sliding low that makes up the second part of the move sets up an unblockable opportunity, and so opponents will often jump when it's called to avoid blocking it. This provides an easy chance to anti-air them or air throw them (especially easy since Bridget's H button won't do anything while Roger's on the screen).

Blockstrings

Okizeme

Tips and Tricks

Fighting Bridget

The key to fighting Bridget is to prevent him from taking control of the match. Bridget is at his best when he is able to dictate where and when each engagement will take place, and his kit provides him with almost all the tools he needs to do this effectively. However, when he finds himself unable to approach or disengage safely it can throw off his gameplan and leave him flustered, opening up chances for you to expose the weaknesses inherent to the character and blast away all his squishy little boy life.

The first weaknesses to look towards exploiting are the obvious ones. Bridget has no HP. Bridget does no damage. Bridget is very hard to play. In other words, the Bridget player is living with the constant terror that if he doesn't constantly outplay you his waifu(male) will turn into a small puddle of goo and lose the match. With just a little bit of prior knowledge about what setups you need to actually fear, you can leverage this to disrespect a lot of Bridget's stuff relatively safely (especially if you're playing someone like Sol, Jam, or Slayer who can delete Bridget in 2 hits). Bridget has so little room for error that the threat of someone who has just turned their brain off can be very real, especially to newer Bridgets, and can seal a lot of his options. Obvious disclaimer, but the better the player the harder they are to terrify into submission. As a general rule though the first thing you should always look for when struggling against a Bridget is if you're letting him get too comfortable. Good players probably won't get caught too often by your random DPs, but if you don't even force them to worry about stuff like that you're gonna get memed on.

The second weakness to explore vs a Bridget is zoning. This seems weird, especially given Bridget's notorious keepaway and silly long range buttons, but Bridget can actually struggle at full screen. All of Bridget's long range tool bar a couple are designed specifically to keep people out, not to score hits on somebody who's also trying to stay far away. Roger can take a long time to travel long distances and can have trouble reaching really far away, which is tricky since most of his specials send him back to Bridget instead of the enemy. Bridget's movement options are amazing, but from full screen they can be surprisingly easy to call out once you understand how 214K works. Bridget's other approach options can also be dealt with as follows:

KICKSTART MY HEART: You will actually see this used to approach way more than you expect, especially from good players. Typically they'll recall the yoyo so it follows right behind them as they Shoot towards you, making the move much safer and calling out people who can't deal with it. The other trick is using RC on block and going into jD, which virtually always winds up with the opponent getting hit. Keeping a projectile or hitbox between you and Bridget at all times to prevent them from throwing this move out (especially when you see a suspiciously placed yoyo) can be a good idea, and in the event they do go into Kickstart a fuzzy jump is a pretty guaranteed way to beat out the "mixup" (Shoot into RC, Stop to bait DPs, and do nothing into throw for people who just downback).

ROGER HUG: If you try zoning Bridget out he will spam this move at you. Don't block it, as that still gives him a free in and can even set up Killing Machine pressure. Instead just hit the yoyo (or Bridget) whenever he tries it. The startup for this move is far more telegraphed than any of the other Roger specials as it's the longest one, can only be done on the ground (which as a rule makes Roger calls take longer to start up, remember that), is accompanied by Bridget flailing his arms wildly, changes the yoyo's sprite, and has very short effective range.

ROGER GET: Oh lawd he comin. Roget Get setups are one of the main reasons why a lot of characters hate when Bridget goes fullscreen. However if you're looking out for it you can beat them reliably. Assuming Bridget doesn't think you're an idiot he probably isn't going for the unblockable when he throws this out fullscreen but rather to try and bait a jump. A very short hop, FD to stop 6S (if you know you'll trade using something like Robo's cluster bombs don't bother, Bridget loses all trades), followed by any long horizontal hitbox (longer than Bridget's jS) should catch most of the obvious followups if he calls Roger close to the ground. If he's being really scummy and trying to stay above screen to both hide Roger's zoom and his position you can just bop Roger with any active grounded hitbox and wait for him to come down. He doesn't have yoyo anymore so he has almost no options outside of DP (which HE WILL USE) so as long as you watch for that and air throw he's pretty fucked.

FB JAGGED ROGER: This is the problem with zoning out Bridget. Every other option he has from fullscreen either goes towards him or loses when forced to contend with another hitbox. FB Jagged Roger breaks both these rules, plus a third rule that none of his other specials do where it stays active even if Bridget himself gets hit. While yes, it does technically go away if you hit it, do not attempt contesting this move directly if you want to win. Jagged Roger beats everything. Once FB Jagged Roger comes out, the best way to deal with him is to run towards Bridget as fast as possible to build distance and keep Bridget occupied (preferably by beating him up) until Roger goes away. In the very likely event that Roger is in between you and Bridget, you can try throwing out hitboxes that won't contest Roger to catch him approaching but since Roger will eat almost anything he touches you're pretty much forced to let him get in. Ideally, you never see FB Jagged Roger at all. Bridget is very meter hungry, and going up against zoners only makes that issue worse. His air movement is actually very expensive, because not only does all the FD breaking he do cost meter but it also decreases his tension gain during the times he's most likely to be moving forwards. If he's forced to do the real tricky stuff in the air and still has to burn FB Jagged Roger to approach safely he isn't going to be doing very much damage even if he does hit you. Plus, if you hit him in the startup frames FB Jagger Roger just eats his tension and does nothing, so while it's very annoying he probably won't get too many chances to use it against highly active zoning.

The third glaring weakness you can use to throw a Bridget player off their game is his frame data. Now as a rule Bridget is incredibly safe, but most of his buttons are rather slow to come out. In fact, when forced to actually deal with pressure head on Bridget's rock solid defense crumbles. His fastest button is his stubby little 2K at five frames, forcing him to rely on his "pretty much a real DP", IB/Slash Back, and throw whenever he's forced to block something. 6P's hitbox is very small and spends most of it's time positioned at inconvenient angles (unless you're directly above him, don't do that), and in addition to being slow his hurtbox fills back out as it goes meaning it's really only an anti-air for 4 frames (as during the final 2 active frames the hitbox is around he knees and his hurtbox is slightly larger than normal). It's slow animation also hurts his Dead Angle, although with how much meter he needs he really doesn't want to use that anyways. 6S stuffs a lot of approach options, but up close suffers from a very annoying blind spot and is far too risky to use. In fact, this blind spot is shared by almost all of Bridget's defensive moves. Attacks coming in from a high diagonal angle (think Bandit Bringer and Greed Sever) leave Bridget very little room for error when it comes to anti-air. Either his moves don't cover that angle or only do so for 2 to 4 frames at most, meaning his most common answers are either to jump up and use an air to air or to strap on he heelies and GTFO. His only super (heh) reliable answer here is his explosion Overdrive, which has a somewhat slow input and costs a lot of meter he'd rather not spend if he didn't have to.

The issue with Bridget's pressure "weakness" is that actually pinning him down in order to make him take the pressure in the first place is really, really hard. With his crazy movement, ability to delay his wakeup, and Roger there to wall out unwanted approaches he's one of the slipperiest members of the cast. However there are a few things you can do. Firstly, know your oki. While he wakes up just like everyone else while yoyo is set, his delayed wakeup is hard to deal with and can require pretty specific setups, especially if you're worried about frame 0 throws. If you don't know how to deal with it (or are playing a character who can't) you might want to consider going for big damage enders (or resets) instead of hard knockdown if he doesn't have the yoyo out. While letting Bridget airtech for free might seem insane, remember that without yoyo set he loses access to a large part of his movelist, including all his air mobility. While your goal should be to develop some form of Bridget specific oki, if you don't have any just take the extra damage and deny him the free yoyo set. Also as a general rule don't go for super short conversions that favor hard knockdown over damage vs this character unless you're very confident in the matchup, in which case why are you even reading this?

Bridget's evasive nature isn't only problematic on wakeup. As everyone who has ever fought this character knows, just getting in at all can be a struggle. The general "flowchart" for pinning Bridget down is as follows. First, leave some projectile (Gunflame, バカモン, Mini-Faust, Note, Mr. Dolphin, Coin, etc.)on the ground to seal Kickstart if possible. Ideally do this just as Roger goes away and you start jumping towards Bridget. Approach from high up abusing the blindspot mentioned before. Play with the timing of your approach a little through FD breaking or a character specific mechanic if possible, remember Bridget has very few frames to punish attacks from this angle so you don't have to do much. Keep an eye out for a quick superjump into air throw, jP, or DP as those are Bridget's options for dealing with this approach. Many characters have buttons that should catch the first two, but against a very good Bridget (especially one who has the FRC timing on DP down) jDP can be tricky. Now assuming everything went perfectly you've just hit your average Bridget player, but things rarely go as perfectly as flowcharts make them appear. First of all Bridget is watching for an approach the moment Roger goes down, so trying to go in at the perfect moment is a good way to eat a 6S. With good spacing and matchup knowledge you can punish this though. Because of this a lot of skilled Bridgets will avoid calling Roger during standoff type situations, instead keeping the yoyo on the screen as an escape route and to threaten a quick FB Jagged or Killing Machine if they get spooked. Setups directly over his head, such as the one he gets from delayed wakeup, are some of the scariest. Not only does Roger Get threaten unblockables, but he comes out fast and covers Bridget's blind spot really well. In that situation you want to either punish the yoyo set (since Bridget will likely want to jump before setting it for a bit more height on the yoyo) with a good air to air, or put yourself in a position where you threaten an attack from the blindspot to bait Bridget into doing something stupid.

A few general pieces of anti-Bridget info:

Always respect Killing Machine (and to a lesser extent Jagged Roger). There is not a single defensive mechanic in the game that beats it, including Burst and Dead Angle. If it comes out you either need to run away as fast as you can (feel free to eat a 6P as long as it won't lead into anything else, KM setplay is one of Bridget's few sources of serious damage) or just sit there and hold that, and when I say hold that I mean hold EVERYTHING including chip damage. Attempting anything other than holding downback while Roger is spinning on you is too risky. IB can open you up to some really nasty tick setups, FD opens you up for crossups instead of just high lows, and even fuzzy jumping is a risk. Air FD can give Bridget a chance to airthrow you back into the bear for a conversion. The safest option if you have to block is to just lowblock (stops fuzzies and his 5f low) and watch Bridget very, very closely for a jump or 6k.

Rolling Movement is easy to predict, unless Bridget is right on top of the yoyo. In that case he'll do a weird little hop in place midair.

Watch the yoyo. If it starts spinning in place that means Bridget is holding a recall. This often means he's planning something (or trying to fake you out) even if it's just throwing out a poke.

The big Roger at the end of the Loop the Loop overdrive hits overhead. It's also unsafe and has an FRC point right before the bear. If you block this the opponent probably fucked up or panicked.

Despite appearances and having a hard knockdown at no point is Kickstart ever a low. However it's still smart to block standing/fuzzy because if Bridget Shoots over your head the move becomes much scarier and harder to punish.

If you're VERY confident in your spacing c.S often whiffs when it comes out at max range.

Matchups

NOTE: The old matchup subforums can be found here: http://www.dustloop.com/forums/index.php?/forums/forum/97-bridget-matchups/

Things to note when discussing matchups:
-General ratio
-Optimal/inoptimal spacings
-Strong/Weak buttons
-Things to watch out for
-Character specific confirms
-etc etc

A.B.A	-/-
Anji Mito	-/-
Axl Low	-/-
Baiken	-/-
Bridget	-/-
Chipp Zanuff	-/-
Dizzy	-/-
Eddie	-/-
Faust	-/-
I-No	-/-
Jam Kuradoberi	-/-
Justice	-/-
Johnny	-/-
Kliff Undersn	-/-
Ky Kiske	-/-
May	-/-
Millia Rage	-/-
Order-Sol	-/-
Potemkin	-/-
Robo-Ky	-/-
Slayer	-/-
Sol Badguy	-/-
Testament	-/-
Venom	-/-
Zappa	-/-