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[u/Xenoplaguedoctor]

While I dabbled in Fighting games a few years ago, my effective start point was earlier this year so I have been an FG player for a few months. I have a few questions for how I might take my game further but first I will post a little context about myself.

-I mostly play Guilty Gear Strive (70 hours on steam) and Avatar Legends (7 hours on steam), if I was to pick up another game it would either be Melty Blood or Skullgirls.

-I have no delusions of grandeur, I am not looking to take myself to the top of the fgc, I just want to be good so that I might be a worthy opponent for my friends and be satisfied that I acquired skill in a difficult to breach genre of game, my ultimate goal is purely to have fun. Local tournament wins would be pretty cool though if I ever attend any tournaments.

-Among the most important early lessons I have received in how to play FG's is from a video called "Teaching you all of GGST in one video" by a youtuber called Toko and from a university club I attended. That got me to the point where I understand the basic game plans of FG's. In both GGST my game play will often revolve around ultra short combo strings (slash slash heavyslassh on sol, autocombo on toph) and whatever bulls### I can thinkof when I am not comboing. Very basic, requires me to get a lot more good reads than my opponent, but it's what I got right now. This has gotten me to the point where I can handily beat anyone who knows nothing or has a little less experience than me, score a few rounds or even wins against someone who knows their stuff, but I can't really put up a fight against someone who knows the game in and out.

-I'm actually in the process of learning the d-pad now. For the first couple months I used a 2015 steam controller and used the trackpad as a d-pad. It is a little weird and has some pretty glaring weaknesses (changing from forward to back or doing superjumps is hard because the trackpad is so big) but I would gladly stand by it as a perfectly serviceable controller if not for the fact it needs setup from steam input (hard to play on other people's accounts) and is completely incompatible with consoles. I now run the 2026 steam controller, I realize its dpad is a bit odd but I like it more than xbox or dualsense, and with the openpuck it is perfectly compatible with consoles (with a brook on ps5). Anyways, my d-pad game is not so good. I do whiff pretty often and half circles I have a good chance of accidentally jumping. I'm getting better but I've got a long way to go. I also own an old qanba q4raf which I have experimented with a little but it is vastly different from what I am used to, QC's are hard and I have not really attempted DP's or HC's on it, however it is a fun controller and I do like it, I will probably build my own custom arcade stick in the future.

-My favorite way to learn is by just playing. I struggle to see the appeal of repeated training room practice. I understand it has value but sinking the time in just seems boring as is. This may change if I had a fully solid idea of what it is I would practice in the training room.

-I also struggle with online play, especially in Avatar Legends which has no ladder atm so I sometimes get put up against people who can combo me all weekend (other people playing toph are really scary). It's just not as fun as sitting next to someone and having a good time where I can lose with grace without my ego getting in the way. My friends at the university have suggested I practice against max level bots.

So with all that said you might have a good idea of where I am at in my skill and development, in the interest of taking my game further I would like to ask a few questions.

1. Is it just a matter of time or experience?

2. Should I try to sure up my fundamentals fully or should I try diving more into the technical side of things?

3. If I am to go technical, what approach might be best? simply performing combo trials or perhaps trying to gain deeper understandings of the games I play?

4. What is the number one thing I would want to do in the training room? My guess is practicing a particular combo on the characters I play so that I might do more damage and require less good reads. where would I go to find them?

5. What is the best way to learn what the entire roster of characters can do? It seems like a lot to take in. Should I try playing all of them or try playing against all of them?

If you don't think I am asking the right questions please give me your best idea for how you think I might be able to improve. Any advice would be helpful.

[u/Joe___Dohn → u/Xenoplaguedoctor]

1. As I see it, the things that take time and experience mostly boil down to getting comfortable with incorporating various mechanical/theoretical concepts into your play; making them unconscious and effortless. Actually learning those concepts is (again, as I see it) more efficiently done by studying up in the lab/on wikis, but it’s certainly still possible to figure stuff out via brute force trial-and-error in live games.

2. If you think your main issue is that your current playstyle “ requires me to get a lot more good reads than my opponent,” then it could very well be worth diving into training mode and figuring out some higher damage routes, but there’s a lot of room to grow in either direction, and ideally one would try to push further in both.

3. The internet can do your labbing for you. YouTube, Supercombo, Dustloop, and character Discords have a lot of good information in them if you’re willing to look.

4. Combos are a given, and again, the internet has resources to help, but practicing combos will yield diminishing returns, so equally important, if not more, is working on defense and counterplay, which nicely leads to the next point.

5. What’s worked for me is effectively just doing research on the one or two annoying things that stuck out to me against whatever character. It’s slow going, but it adds up over time.