1. defence in gg is not super approachable and takes a long time to fully get used to so dont feel
bad. truthfully, defence in gg varies significantly on who you play, and who you play against.
there's two types of general offence in gg you need to understand to defend well:
1. RPS characters (strike throw mixup, basically) - sol, slayer, potemkin, ky, etc; characters who do
not open you up through usual high low mixup but instead by reading your defencive habits and
going for a throw or frametrap. usually does a lot of damage or controls space extremely well, or
both
2. mixup characters/setplay characters (high/low mixup characters basically) - millia, ino, dizzy,
etc; characters who mostly open you up with hard-to-react moves. usually has decent to strong
neutral with strong setplay at the risk of lower health
for both, you must understand the characters general options on offence. if you dont understand
the characters then you will have a really tough time regardless. theres a lot of knowledge checks
in guilty gear so its important. system mechanics tend to be very good vs both, such as IB or FD
rps characters are, well, based around playing RPS (rock paper scissors - i get this question a lot)
in conjunction with other things usually matchup specific. e.g. a lot of RPS characters tend to
become weaker on fd because they lack range, or sometimes ibing leaves gaps allowing you to
get out or mash. the basic RPS is them going for a frametrap, throwing you, or usually a unique
3rd option for that character relating to whiff punishing or trying to catch you jumping out. for
some characters, getting thrown is much worse than others (getting command grabbed by
sol/pot is much worse than ky/slayer) but usually remains the least damaging option in
comparison (sol's command grab averages around 165 damage, potemkin's is around 130
outside of the corner) to getting CH by a button. with this all in mind, you can structure your
defence in the least risky way, but you don't want to ever become predictable. if you allow
yourself to be too easily conditioned from them going for throw into frametrap, it'll only get
harder. truthfully, there is no direct answer to these characters. you have to understand the
person you're playing against, and the character. understand that these characters are usually
more risky than mixup characters and them going to throw you is a committal. usually fuzzy jump
is extremely strong against these characters (1 9 FD 1 as an input example)
for mixup characters, it's about good reactions, and using fuzzy defence to help you block. the
idea is to do something like 1 4 1 in mixup situations. usually lows are faster than highs, so
structuring your defence like that will help mitigate the problems a bit. however, regardless of
how well you fuzzy block, you need to understand their gatlings and jump cancels, especially for
characters like millia who have 6k + badmoon. unlike vs rps characters, usually its best to respect
until their pressure is fully over or they commit to something that is risky, also like bad moon. tap
blitz usually is a very effective option against these characters with projectile oki as well. much
like rps characters, though, it is also dependent on the mixup character you play against. some
are much safer than others.
defence in GG is actually much stronger than most people will say. my biggest pet peeve,
personally, is people who discuss oki or pressure in gg like it is impossible to deal with. however,
there is definitely a huge learning curve to maximizing usage of things like FD and IB because of
the high damage of the game and risc, but if you keep what i said in mind and practice vs the
cast, you'll be successful v fast i'm sure
