How Much Did They Change Faust In Guilty Gear Strive?

Swapping out doors for scarecrow was interesting. It feels like a downgrade in neutral but an upgrade for combo purposes.

While I understand Arcsys simplifying characters and removing a lot of specific tech, I still hope they give Faust the ability to FD cancel for the sake of it looking funny.

I have a feel that xrd faust in particular is not an item throw character. He has item throw and it's quite strong (compared to strive, but much weaker than plus r) but it's not his strongest feature. He's the strongest on offense, his combo pogo combos can easily give 200 damage in corner. In Strive he's a committed item throw archetype, he has no air movement, his ground normals are honestly not one of the strongest in the game. In Xrd, the matchups I personally hate the most are the ones where I MUST rely on items to gain advantage in neutral (eg vs axl and even millia), while the easiest matchups for me are where items can be largely ignored or is a detriment if read and punished (like chipp, johhny or ky). if he had kept his fdc in Strive I feel he would still be able to stick to this gameplan to a lesser extent, he would have less damage, no vortex, but getting up close close would actually be possible and more rewarding for him.

it never seems to brought up that while Faust can throw out infinite items, what items can be on the screen at one time is limited. you can only throw a new meteor after the last one has stopped existing on the screen same with trumpet and mini faust. so the more you pull the more limited the item pool becomes. your usually winning at that point so this is more a comment on an interesting mechanic of the move.

They murdered my boy.

An important thing to note is that the afro state given by the command grab and afro item allow for faust to do instant overheads via j.k and j.2k. so they took away his ability for instant overheads consistently, he needs to have them set up.

now that i think about it, afro is basically there in the place of fdc j2k, instead of being able to instant overhead whenever you want, you get it as a reward for command grabbing/opponent taking the item

Helium is a haha-funny move unless your against a Jam.

Maybe it's just me, but his teleport feels slower/more vulnerable in Strive than in previous GGs. The big visible scarecrows giving away the possible positions in advance of activation just seems to invite mashing through it vs the mystery of not knowing what's coming until he suddenly walks in through the door from nowhere/drops out of the sky. I'm not a Faust main, though, and I know using this without some kind of setup isn't a great idea anyway. Just my impression that it feels like a less effective version of the same tool outside of PRCing it into throw.

as someone who main'd Faust in EVERY game till Strive... I had to move to Potemkin when I finally started using Faust in Strive. I REALLY miss pogo and I hate scarecrow as a replacement for the door warps. it's so slow and dangerous compared to the doors I feel. and Mix x3 ehhhhh pain... BUT, I'm really not that great at the older games and had a really basic gameplan with Faust that revolved around confusing my opponent more than anything else. even with infinite items, I can't play Faust the way I did in Rev compared to Strive, thus me moving on to Potemkin instead. Sidenote: great video going over all this stuff btw. very informative. I didn't even know Faust lost some of this stuff (again, pretty casual player here).

Great analysis. I don't know what Arc's version plans are with Strive, but if they eventually expanded some character move lists, I hope someone in development finds this series and considers them in the design process. Particularly the point on the impact ease of movement has on defensive play. The capabilities of fast characters to safely close space and counter play options could be a good way to reinvent something like the pogo stance.

“You're gliding like a bird or a swan or something” A Raven, perhaps?

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I love Item throw character, if they are in a game I instantly main them

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I feel like Mix Mix Mix is the replacement for Pogo stance and Going My Way. Since these are both basically combo tools in Xrd (although GMW has some other uses), just having MMM as the combo tool makes the movelist a lot less intimidating for newer players, even if old players do lose some swag combo opportunities. Good video btw.

Love your content, Lk. There a few players that have your experience and even fewer that can put turn that experience into entertaining content.

Dope video as always. By far the best FGC YouTuber. Do you think you could do a look at how to win with “low tier” characters? I know you played Millia who most people think are low tier.

One of the biggest differences is the utility of item toss. In the old guilty gear games, he uses it as a safe way to end pressure and also get an item on screen. In strive, item throw is death on block and incredibly punishable. He has no good special cancels like in the old games, so he’s also forced to just end with the normal on block often times

@Lordknight random question - which headset do you use? Do you recommend it?

I hate how they took his Dive Kick Cancel away from him because it did help. I also hate that he doesn't have the old version of Mix, Mix, Mix. Wish he had both Version of Mix to be honest. And Spear Point Centripetal Force.