GGST/Attack Attributes

Attack Types

Attacks come in three broad categories in Guilty Gear that define how they can interact with other attacks.

Strike

Strikes are the most common form of attack in the game like punches, kicks, and sword slashes.

Basically any standard attack is probably a strike. Strikes can clash with other strikes, but not with projectiles and throws. There are rare attacks that are exceptions to these rules, such as Potemkin's Heat Knuckle can not clash with strikes.

Projectile

Projectiles are attacks that are entities independent of the attacker, like Ky's Stun Edge.

Each projectile has a durability level. When two projectiles of equal durability clash, each projectile will lose one hit (so a 3 hit projectile will become a 2 hit projectile, and a 1 hit projectile disappears). Higher level projectiles will nullify lower level projectiles without losing any hits. Projectiles can not clash with strikes or throws.

Throw

Throws are short ranged unblockable attacks that temporarily turn both characters invincible before dealing damage to the opponent.

Throw interactions are described in more detail here.

Eddie (Zato's shadow)

Eddie's attacks are in their own unique category as strike attacks that can not clash.

Eddie is also surrounded by a hurtbox, so he can be hit by strikes and projectiles (but not throws).

Invincibility

Attribute Invincibility

Some attacks are invulnerable only to certain types.

For example: Sol's Volcanic Viper is only invulnerable to strikes and projectiles, but not throws. Leo's 6K is throw invincible, but not strike or projectiles. These situations are very simple to describe - the attack is invulnerable to the specified types during the specified times. To beat these attacks hit them with a type they are vulnerable to, or hit them before/after the invincible period.

Hitbox Invincibility

Some attacks shrink the hurtbox of characters, even when it looks like they occupy that space.

Most anti-air 6Ps fall into this category. Because of this, 6Ps can lose to air attacks when the opponent is able to get close enough to touch the character's hurtbox. Thus the same 2 attacks can win or lose depending on their spacing and timing. Players need to learn how their attack will behave in different scenarios, decide if the outcome is favorable, then correctly execute.

Hitboxes shown are purely for explanation purposes and are not meant to be exact in-game hitboxes

Example - Successful Anti Air

• 

  Sol jumps toward Ky

• 

  Both players attack. Ky's 6P is upper body invincible during startup, Sol's attack misses

• 

  Ky's 6P becomes active and above knees invincible. Sol's attack continues to miss as he falls into Ky's attack and gets hit

Example - Unsuccessful Anti Air

• 

  Sol jumps toward Ky

• 

  Both delay attacking, Sol is closer to Ky and the ground compared to the above example

• 

  Sol's j.S is now low enough to the ground to hit Ky out of the startup of his 6P

Example - Low Profile

• 

  Sol sweep can low profile under Ky's 2P

• 

  Sol using upper body invincible of his 6P to go through Ky's f.S

The frame data will state that attacks have "above knees invincibility", "above chest invincibility", "low profile", etc. to describe how the hurtboxes of attacks grow and shrink.

Counter Hit

COUNTER!

Hitting an opponent before the recovery of their attack will net you a Counter Hit (CH).

Some attacks also have counter hit state during their recovery, like Ky's Stun Edge

Counter Hits increase the damage of the attack by 10% and inflicts more hitstun or other special effects such as wall bounce or ground slide, allowing for stronger combos. In general, the higher attack's Attack Level, the more additional hitstun is inflicted. Throws can not Counter Hit.

Weak, Medium, and Strong Counter Hits

Using different attacks to counter hit the opponent gives different effects. In general:

• P and K buttons do Weak Counter Hits
• S buttons, j.H, and j.D do Medium Counter Hits
• H and 2D do Strong Counter Hits

Visually, the stronger the Counter Hit effect, the longer the slowdown effect and the deeper the camera zooms in.

R.I.S.C Counter Hits

Hitting an opponent when their R.I.S.C. Level is at 100% is a guaranteed Strong Counter Hit even if they were not attacking, even if the attack does not have a Strong Counter on standard Counter Hits.

Damage for that attack is also increased by 20%.

Additional Hitstun

Medium, Strong, and RISC Counter Hits also increase the hitstun for all subsequent attacks in the combo. Medium CH raises it less that Strong and RISC CH. This is explained in more detail here

Hit Effects

There are various effects that can happen to opponents when hitting them. We will breifly discuss them here.

Launch

Launches the opponent into the air, even when they are standing or crouching.

Potemkin's 2H is an exaple of this, also many Sweeps will actually slightly lift the enemy into the air and thus can be used to start air combos.

Guard break

When a guard break attack is blocked it causes a reeling animation for the defender where they can block but puts the attacker at significant advantage.

If the defender gets hit by a move during this animation it lists the combo as blue beat because they could have blocked.

This situation has more implication than it seems due to blue beat combos having different damage prorations. If a Leo performs a guard break and then does an overhead while the opponent is blocking low. The combo will say it is blue even though it technically is not. As well because of the proration the blue beat combo will deal more damage than a regular combo.

Crumple

certain moves causes significant hitstun preventing the opponent from attacking or moving. However the user can block fairly quickly

This does not come up too often but does for characters such as Giovanna's c.S or Leo's 6P. If Giovanna gets a hit with c.S she is +13 however even though this is the case, c.S microdash c.S is not a true combo due to how the crumple works. If the opponent holds back to block they can block to where it leaves Giovanna at +3 which prevents any followup attacks from comboing. This also means if the opponent would like to perform any action besides blocking they cannot until Giovanna is no longer +13. To get around this the opponent can FD block for 1 frame to reduce the crumple state to only be +4.

Float

On ground hit, briefly launches the opponent airborne before putting them back on the ground.

Hitting the opponent while they are airborne will count as an air hit. Many c.S style normals have this property. Sol doing c.S > 5H > 236K won't work if done immediately, but will work if 5H is delayed.

Stagger

On ground hit, a meter appears above the opponent. If they time a button press correctly, they will escape stagger sooner.

Characters can be thrown while staggered, making it a way to actually combo into throws! For escaping staggers, see here.

Wall Bounce / Ground Bounce

Some attacks bounce the opponent off the wall/ground when they hit.

This is useful for extending combos. The opponent's velocity after the bounce varies from move to move.

Wall Stick

File:GGST Wall Stick.png

You can tech off the wall after a certain amount of time.

Wall Stick will cause your opponent to stick in place on the edge of the screen.

When this happens, hitting them again will break the wall and both players will end up in the middle of the stage. If the opponent is left alone long enough, they can recover.

Ground Slide

Opponents slide/roll on the ground

Opponents are considered airborne during ground slide, so any hits will launch them.

Soft Knockdown

When opponents touch the ground after getting hit in the air (and there are no ground bounce/slide effects), they will immediately roll backwards and recovery.

Most attacks have this property on air hit. See this section for more details on .

Hard Knockdown

Hard knockdowns force the opponent into a longer knockdown animation

Hard knockdowns are useful for setting up okizeme. All 2Ds and normal ground throws have this property.

Off The Ground Attack

To Off The Ground (OTG) an opponent means to strike them after they are knocked down.

Attacks that OTG have their hit effects replaced with a slight blowback effect and a soft knockdown, making it very difficult to continue a combo afterwards.

Attack Level

Each attack has an Attack Level. Depending on the level, the attack will inflict a different amount of hitstun / blockstun, though some attacks override these default values with their own.

Use the chart below to determine how much hitstun/blockstun an attack will inflict. The level for each attack can be found in the individual Character Frame Data sections.

Hitstun and Blockstun Values

Level	Hitstop	Standing Hitstun	Crouching Hitstun	Ground Block	Air Regular Block/FD ※	Air Instant Block/IFD ※
Lv.0	11	12	13	9	Until Landing+19	Until Landing+5
Lv.1	12	14	15	11	Until Landing+19	Until Landing+5
Lv.2	13	16	17	13	Until Landing+19	Until Landing+5
Lv.3	14	19	20	16	Until Landing+19	Until Landing+5
Lv.4	15	21	22	18	Until Landing+19	Until Landing+5

※: Only applies to strikes. Projectiles follow ground blockstun values unless the defender lands while still in blockstun, resulting in 5 frames of landing recovery.
Note: Blocking a move in the air restores an air action. (i.e. air jump or air dash)

Frame Advantage

Frame advantage is the concept of who is free to act first after an interaction.

This is most commonly brought up after blocking an attack; who can act first - the attacker or defender? Frame Advantage has the answer! A negative value means the defender can act first, and a positive value means the attacker can act first. The value shows exactly how many frames one character can move before the other.

• Ex: Frame Advantage -5 means the defender is free to move 5 frames before the attacker.
• Ex: Frame Advantage +2 means the attacker can move 2 frames before the defender.

Each character's Full Frame Data page shows both the Frame Advantage when an attack is blocked as well as on hit. Air attacks don't have Frame Advantage listed since that value is heavily influenced by when the attacker lands after an attack.

Frame advantage assumes that the attack connects as soon as possible against a standing/crouching opponent, and that the attacker does not cancel the attack into anything else.

For more information on using frame data see here.

Hitting Two Opponents With the Same Attack

One attack can hit multiple targets assuming they are within range.

Normally, when an attack touches the opponent, the remaining active frames can not hit the opponent again. However, if there is a second hittable character (such as hitting Eddie first, then Zato), then the remaining active frames can still hit him!

This leads to visually strange situations like Sol's 5H hitting Eddie, then a moment later, Zato runs into the active frames and gets hit. This is further compounded by the fact that hitstop only applies to the attacker and the target, thus allowing the attack to hit the unaffected character with the active frames plus the hitstop frames!

This even applies to projectiles like Ky's Stun Edge, but since the projectile will disappear after hitting an opponent, this effect is much harder to take advantage of.

Misc Notes

• With regards to cancels on hit/block, hitting Partner characters (like Zato's Eddie or May's beach ball) counts as the attack hitting/ getting blocked, so attackers has all normal cancel options available afterwards.
• If two opponents are in range of the attack, they are hit on the same frame

Hitstop

When an attack hits an object, both objects freeze in place briefly to give the attack the feeling of more impact. This effect is known as hitstop and can vary in duration, like Sol's 5P compared to his Fafnir (41236H) . Hitstop helps with combo consistency because you can buffer commands like special cancels during hitstop and it will be executed immediately after hitstop ends. Characters with charge moves (like Leo's [4]6S) also have the added benefit of getting more time to charge those attacks.

Hitstop applies to anything that can attack or get hit - including projectiles and assists. We will refer to all of these as "objects" for the sake of brevity.

Objects experiencing hitstop are frozen in place, but other objects on the stage are unaffected. For example, when Ky's projectile hits the opponent, Ky does not experience hitstop, only the projectile and the opponent do. From Ky's perspective, the hitstop the opponent experiences can be thought of as additional blockstun/hitstun!

NOTE: according to this tweet's translation Hitstop that only affects the defender no longer exists in Strive (things may change as is not final product)

Projectiles

As mentioned above, projectiles are considered separate objects from the character that summoned them, so when they hit other objects, the character doesn't experience hitstop. The projectile itself does experience hitstop - which explains why multihit projectiles don't do their hits one frame after the other, they need to wait for hitstop to end before they can hit the opponent again!