GGST/Giovanna/Okizeme

Safe Jumps

Giovanna has a variety of safe jump setups that are done by landing with a properly timed j.H on the opponent's wakeup.

Giovanna's safe jumps are consistent against the whole cast. This makes for your default, consistent and reliable oki option out of nearly any hit.

If you have the chance to do either of your jump cancelable normals (c.S or 5K) as an OTG, you can then jump cancel them and IAD > j.H for a rather simple setup.

Each OTG move and their respective setups each have their tradeoffs:

• 5K is faster, longer range, but its narrow and raised hitbox demands you hit the OTG very early upon them falling on the ground, limiting its use after a long combo.
• c.S is much more forgiving with the timing and is usable in more scenarios.

Making sure you use 214K as high as possible to end your juggle combo is a good way to ensure the 5K safe jump's success.

There are also some ways to do the safe jump without an OTG:

• After a ground throw, you may simply hold up-forward and do j.H late in your ascent and it will give you a properly timed safe jump.
  • Doing a neutral/back jump into an IAD j.H or j.K may work to as well if one prefers after a ground throw, but it does demand more precision.

Remember that when doing safe jumps, the amount of frame advantage you have is in your control. If you're getting thrown after using c.S or a lower button you need to delay your j.H more. However, even with the minimum advantage of +4, you can still frame trap throws with 2P reliably. Delaying j.H or doing 2P are your two options to ensure the safe jump is true. Keep in mind that there can be counterplay to using 2P right away, but that's just the nature of fighting games.

You can also do a Super OS A shorthand for "Option Select"A situation where you perform an input and the game will "select an option" automatically depending on what the other character did. safe jump by performing a safe jump j.H~632146H. This will effectively counter DP Dragon Punch A move that has invulnerability during its startup, long recovery, and a rising motion.s, reversal throws, backdash, and mashing.

2D

If you wish to safely meaty the opponent, beat reversals, hit low to catch jumpers, and stay at a distance either for matchup or mixup reasons, 2D is a solid option. Because it has such a disjointed and active hitbox, you are often completely uncontestable using it from a distance if you have time to get it out, thus beating many reversals in the game. For more info on which reversals 2D will be able to safely beat, check out this table in the matchups section. Keep in mind that 2D is active for 10 frames, so optimal timing will require you to hit with it on the last couple frames. A properly timed 2D can be up to +1 on block. Off of a throw, Giovanna can help time her meaty 2D by doing Throw > whiff 5P > 2D.

c.S

After longer combos ending in a hard knockdown or after a throw, Gio has enough time to dash in and get a meaty c.S. This can turn into a mixup with a slightly delayed throw, dash cancel, backdash to beat reversals/throw techs, Sol Poente, and more. It's usually easier for her to bait throws with a backdash instead of trying to get a frame-perfect meaty or shimmy, but it's also generally less reward and leads to less pressure. If you're able to land meaty c.S, the pressure is highly in your favour, but be wary of trying to land multiple c.S together as the window is very tight and you can easily get grabbed out of it.

En236K

En236K may have a massive startup of at least 41 frames, but Giovanna has many ways to hit the opponent on their wakeup with it. The simplest two are after throw or 6HH, but it is also possible to do meaty en236K after 6P, airhit 5K, and airhit 5H. Airhit 5H requires a small amount of manual delay or else en236K will whiff (in the corner, a very large amount of delay is required, so other options may be better), but it's not too hard to time thanks to 236K's many active frames. In addition, if combo gravity is very heavily scaled some of these may not work, or may not require as much delay as usual.

When the opponent blocks en236K they are put into a lengthy guard crush, allowing you to do a very simple mixup between microdash 2S and dash throw. Thanks to the combination of guard crush not giving 5 frames of throw protection after it ends and 2S being a multi-hit low, this is as close to a true 50/50 as strike/throw can get.

• Delay jumping doesn't defend against this due to the lack of throw protection
• Delay teching doesn't work since 2S as a double hitting low will hit them with the second hit.
• Fast buttons won't beat the throw option due to the lack of throw protection, meaning that 2S as the strike option doesn't even need to frametrap to stop that kind of defense. You can still choose to make it frametrap to punish mashing even more, but keeping it a true blockstring keeps you safe to reversals and even potentially punishes reversals by catching the opponent not blocking low.
• Faultless Defense, Instant Faultless Defense, and even Deflect Shield have no impact at all on the position you are left at after en236K

In addition to throw vs 2S, you can also threaten other options, such as tap dust for an overhead with a 5 frame gap or simply frametrapping with c.S to maintain very strong blockstring pressure even if they block your strike.

The main weakness of meaty en236K is its vulnerability to invincible reversals. Its extreme startup means that the opponent can simply reversal on reaction to the startup, allowing them to reversal without any risk. Be sure to check if the opponent has the meter available to do an invincible reversal before committing to a meaty en236K. Use and abuse this tool if they don't, but it may be better to choose another option if they do. (Against Zato and Happy Chaos who don't have reversals at all, go nuts.)

Characters with meterless invincible reversals can always beat meaty Hitting an opponent to cover the moment as they lose invincibility. The most common one is performing an attack early on okizeme to gain frame advantage and bait reversals. en236K. When there is at least a 1 frame gap, such as after a throw,  Faust can also crawlGuardStartupRecoveryAdvantage- under it. Against these characters, meaty en236K is much harder to utilize since they always have the tools to beat it available. However, it is still potentially possible to pull off meaty en236K against these opponents by:

• Doing an empty Chave without a special cancel to fake meaty en236K, potentially baiting them into whiffing a reversal and making them more scared to use them in the future. However, smart opponents won't commit to the reversal until they see the 236K part of the move rather than just the Chave part, but this can still make many opponents think twice.
• Not commiting to en236K at all until you believe that they may be overwhelmed with thinking about how to deal with all of your other options and thus won't be prepared to reversal en236K on reaction.

Or simply don't do meaty en236K against these characters. You have many other, less risky ways of pressuring opponents after all.