How to fight Giants Guide

[GcYoshi13]

INTRODUCTION

I saw some players struggling against Giants in EVO2010 and as a result, some of these players had some frustrating experiences.

Ultimately though, it’s not really the fault of the characters itself or the player using the giant, it’s the lack of preparation in fighting them. Giants are certainly beatable, and with the proper understanding, they can be entirely eliminated. Some characters have an easier time than others, but virtually every character is capable of something.

I’m a PTX-40A player myself, and it may seem ironic to be doing this, but I guess you can say that this is my tribute to the community. I understand some people’s frustration against giants and this is my way to sympathize.

Some great players were eliminated in EVO because of their lack of Giant experience. With this, I hope they can overcome the match-up. It will cause Giant players to pick-up their game, including me.

[GcYoshi13]

Taboos against Giants

• Do not use level 1 counter supers against giants. They have no effect whatsoever aside from getting you killed. Saki’s level 3 super however does work.
• Do not use beam supers for the most part, even if far away. Doing so far away, will just be as pointless as doing a beam super far away to a normal character; they will just end up blocking it. Doing a beam super at mid-close range will result in a bad trade-off as the giant will just run up to you and smack you out of it for a possible combo. The only exception is to chip a giant to death or if they have really low health and is getting careless.

Myths regarding vsing Giants
1.) You should never Megacrash against a giant.
Never is a powerful word. If Lightan gets you in a combo, and you see that he has 30% life. You’d want to baroque to at least break that combo. Though megacrash does not affect giants, there are good times to use megacrash so that you can escape their combos safely. Do not completely ignore megacrashes, but just don’t abuse them in the way that you might do so to normal characters.

2.) You have to play keep-away
Some characters do not have a reliable keep away against giants and must face them head-on. Not to worry however, they have a few tricks up their sleeves as well. Alex and Frank West are particularly devastating up close due to command throws, while Casshan and Batsu can deal reliable damage safely from an angle. There’s many ways to beat a giant really.

General notes against Lightan

• Lightan’s only way that he can threaten you from afar is his ground stomp special that can easily be avoided by jumping or blocking low. His ground stomp special can be canceled to his ground pound super and possibly into his level 3. For this reason, it’s best to remain in the air.
• Once Lightan dashes, he’s vulnerable for the entire duration of the dash. If Lightan dashes towards you and you have an super armor piercing attack of some sort, Lightan’s dash is a good cue to use it.
• If cornered, Lightan might try to pressure you by throwing repeated jabs. Just block them and super jump over him once Lightan pushes himself away.
• Lightan’s attacks have a lot of lag and recovery, so he’s an easy character to punish. However, be wary if he has any red life as he could just try to bait you into attacking.
• Watch out for Lightan’s launcher. It hits high and he can do some pretty nasty loops after. Like all of Lightan’s attacks, there is a lot of time to punish a missed launcher of his.
• Practice teching throws. Lightan’s command throw comes out fairly fast, but it shouldn’t be too challenging to consistently mash out of.

General notes against PTX-40A

• PTX’s 6B4B mix-up is his most dangerous tool. 6B (chainsaw slash) by itself is an overhead, while 6B4B(jetpack retreat) hits low. PTX can cancel 6B into 6B4B anytime before the actual hit comes out for 6B. 6B4B is the more threatening of the two as PTX-40A does not need red-life to follow it up into a combo. With 6B, PTX-40A needs red life and preferably a corner to follow it up with something dangerous.
• The easiest way to deal with PTX’s mix-up is to keep jumping. That way, you can block his overhead chainsaw and avoid/block his low-hitting jetpack retreat.
• PTX’s gatling gun has a lot of blind spots. You are still safe at around maximum super jump distance from his guns. PTX’s shotgun isn’t too threatening either as he has to be mid-close distance in order to do significant damage with it. In other words, PTX is not that threatening far away.
• If PTX ever does his gun super with his default weapons that he starts in a match (gatling gun + rocket launcher), the best spot to be at is behind PTX-40A. From there, you can hit him safely so long as you are not too close to his feet (rockets will target there). He leaves himself more vulnerable while preparing for his missle launchers.
• If PTX does his gun super with his default weapons in a scenario where it’s impossible to get behind him, the best bet is to jump slightly above ground and have the gatling gun hold you at that spot above the ground as you block. The rockets will end up flying underneath you and at worst, you will only be hit by the final rocket before the missles come out which is around 3k damage.
• PTX’s missles do a lot of damage even if it’s chip damage. Advance guard it.
• Practice teching throws. PTX’s throw is very obvious.

[GcYoshi13]

Character Specific Strategy

Alex

• Alex’s best answer to giants is a Elbow Slash -> Baroque -> Any ground normal -> Powerbomb. This combination is useful for the purpose of punishing a giants lag after a mistake, and also to close the distance making sure he his Powerbomb will land. Not to mention the damage is great.
• Alex cannot grab PTX-40A the moment PTX-40A initiates it’s jump. For this reason, spamming Powerbombs is risky. Play defensively.
• Stungun Headbutt is a fairly good super for punishing mistakes. Some good times to use it is after a blocked PTX-40A riot tackle or a blocked Lightan Battleship breaker. Be aware if the giant has baroque however.
• Remember, your air throws, command and normals, does not work against giants, even if both you and the giant are airborne.
• Your level 3 super will always out-prioritize a Giant’s attack so long as the throw CAN connect. This means that as long as the Giant is not about to jump, you can land Alex’s level 3.

Batsu

• Batsu’s sweet spot is near the front front of the giant but a fair distance above their head. Reason for this is that he can use all his specials effectively at this spot and the giant lack a decent method to punish.
• Batsu’s drill kick special is effective against giants. It does a lot of damage upon hit and it’s quite safe upon hit or block due to how he bounces backwards after the kick. You want to aim at the top of their heads as Giant have fairly poor combo capability at the angle. PTX-40A can really only get you with jab spam, while Lightan has some difficulty doing significant damage to close airborne enemies above his head.
• The moment Batsu’s fireball super comes out, the full potential of the super is out. It does a lot of damage and even if the giant attempts to punish you while you are recovering, they will be at the mercy of the full damage of the fireball. Batu’s fireball super is very good for trade-offs as it deals a lot of damage and stun, and if fired at the right angle, is very difficult to punish effectively.
• If you need to get out of the corner quickly, super jump and go for the drill kick over them.

Casshan

• Casshan’s drill kick is his main tool against giants. You’d want to stick with the heavy version obviously, as that puts the pierces the Giant’s super armor. After each drill kick you can cancel it into his Brutal Axe super (The green energy spire one) for hefty damage.
• Casshan’s drill kick is highly punishable however if whiffed or blocked, and most likely if it’s blocked, you will end up at the giant’s feet. You’d want to save yourself with baroque if possible. A good strategy after a blocked drill kick is to baroque it and double jump backwards and do another one, as the it might trick the giant user into letting its guard down.
• From full screen, call out Friender to bite the giant for a possible drill kick follow-up, or just a simple launcher into air combo. They are capable of mashing out of Friender’s bite however, so you’d want to be quick and alert to react.

Chun-Li

• Lightning legs slows down giants allowing you to easily stop or baroque it whenever they are about to do their next move. The damage done is fairly nice too.
• Always jump and move around. Let the giant chase you and punish any noteworthy mistake with the lightning legs. If you have lvl 3, use it at the opportune time. It comes out really quickly.

Doronjo

• Her best tool is summoning the the fat purple guy from the sky. It does good damage, and she can do it at full super jump height, which renders her safe from any giant attack except for PTX-40A rockets.
• Her giant robot ball super works well against Giants, as that pierces the giant’s super armor and knocks them away. It’s normally best to use it for crossover combinations as it will be harder for the giant to stop the ball from coming down and to provide cover for whatever character you wish to switch to. Not to mention, the chip damage is great if not advance guarded and might force the giant to back off for a bit. This super can be interrupted by just having the green guy hit before he’s able to push the button, so doing it while right beside the giant is not a great idea (unless you plan to crossover combo it of course).
• Her air taunt has some practicality in a giant match-up as it allows her to stay afloat for longer.

Frank West

• He plays similarly to Alex in a giant match-up, except he has far potential in terms of damage. He can do some massive damage if he sets up the giant in a juggle-able state. His command grab and grab super are two ways to set up these scenarios, and landing a grab on a giant is not a terribly difficult feat. He can also use zombies to get the giant stunned, which is also an effective method since giants have a more difficult time dodging anything.
• Like Alex, Frank cannot grab anyone that’s beginning their jump, giants included. PTX has some lag before his jump actually leaves the ground, but as long as you see that sprint of PTX’s jetpack on its legs before it leaves the ground, you can’t throw him.
• Learn to combo giants as Frank, Frank-finites work splendidly here, but giants have less duration time upon which they can be combo’d. For a great example, check out this video: [media=youtube]DgPBJ5_wc4I[/media] (note: you don’t need to learn this precise combo, just the idea behind it. You only really need to do launcher -> knee drop -> shopping cart, over and over).
• His Dead Rising level 3 super changes when fighting a giant. It’s basically a zombie that comes from a sky a few character distance in front of him (around the same distance as if you were to use his C version summon zombie). Lightan has a high tendency to pressure with jumping As and Bs, so you can use this to catch him. As for PTX, if he misuses a special or you block his 6B4B, you can quickly catch PTX with it.
• Zombies work against giants, and they have a much more difficult time dodging them (although an easier time hitting them). Using the C version of the zombie summon can set the zombie somewhere near you to trap the giant. Normally giants are right in your face, so the B version is rarely useful. The A version can be helpful if you are cornered. Use the A version when there’s breathing room, super jump and get to the other side to cross-up the giant with the zombie.

Ippatsuman

• While Ippatsuman’s level 3 super is very effective against giant match-ups, it’s better to save your meter for Ippatuman’s homerun super. What’s really neat about this super is that you can use it to instantly escape a bad situation upon wake-up (like if PTX-40A knocks you down and is preparing his gun super with two sets of unblockable rockets). Giants have a much harder time to dodge the sword and hand smash strikes. While in Ippatuman’s level 3, only use the unblockable attacks (basically anything that isn’t the swiping punches). The charge laser is still useless, so avoid it.
• If a giant makes an obvious mistake and they have no baroque to save themself (like Lightan misses a level 1 super, or you blocked PTX-40A’s chainsaw), Ippatsuman has a fantastic lvl 1 super (his bat swing one) to punish giants. Since the giants have such a huge hitbox, most of the baseballs should hit the giants, resulting in an instant 15k damage and also grants you a huge step closer to dizzying them.
• If you find yourself in a corner you can use his Justice Liner (his psycho-crusher looking attack) to go through the giant. Be wary though, you can easily be hit out while trying to pass through the giant.

Joe The Condor

June The Swan

Karas

Ken The Eagle

• Ken’s level 3 super is one of the best against giants. There’s incredible amount of invincibility frames within the super, the damage it deals is insane, and it’s not terribly hard to land against a giant. If PTX tries to launch a rocket for an unblockable set up and you have three bars, you can get 30k damage on PTX.

Megaman Volnutt

• Gatling gun has a short cooldown and can be fired VERY rapidly. When far away, it’s impossible for the giant to get close without having to get hit by a few bullets.
• If needed, use your mid-air weapon change for an quick version of your air dash.
• While it’s never really advisable to fight a giant head on, megaman’s drill is excellent for punishing a giant’s mistake.
• Remember that you can combo off after your level 3 super, although the timing is slightly different than normal characters.

Morrigan

• Morrigan’s air soul shot is her main keep away, but she takes a lot of time to fire the projectile, so it’s best to play conservatively.
• If a giant begins to close in and is pressuring you, play defensively and wait for an opening for her command throw.

Polimar

Roll

• Roll’s jumping C has covers a lot of range. The idea is to jump cancel each jumping C so you can hit the giant and block immediately afterwards. Roll has a great air dash for this cause. You can dash in, press C, jump cancel C, dash back.

Saki

• Giants cannot super jump. Saki at super jump height can only be harmed by PTX-40A’s rocket. She can still lob grenades and use her jumping C to hit the giant however, making her one of the more powerful characters against giants.
• If you are at full distance away from the giant, you can ready your unblockable bullet. Firing it straight from the ground might not be the best idea as the giant can jump over it. It’s best to jump and adjust the distance and then fire it so you are less likely to miss.
• Her command throw works against giants. Most of the time you should be in the air lobbing grenades and playing keep away, but the giant might leave itself open as it tries to frantically attack you upon landing. If you find an opening you can dash into the giant and instantly pull out her command throw for a free combo.

Soki

• He lacks a lot of tools against giants, so Soki has to rely on more primitive tactics. The only thing he has going for him is his high damage really.
• Soki’s best tactic against giant is to play defensively and wait for the giant to leave an opening. He can then go for a quick combo such as 5A,5B,5C,3C. You’d want to end any combo with a juggle launcher because you can super jump cancel out of the launcher, allowing you to instantly block or run.
• All of Soki’s supers are fairly useless against giants. If you end up fighting a giant as Soki, make him the first character. Once Soki dies, you’ll most likely end up with 5 bars of meter.

Tekkaman

• Tekkaman’s rope is fantastic against giants. There are numerous ways to get the rope to land, the most obvious being to just use the rope by itself. However, another very effective way is to combo it from a 2C.

Tekkaman Blade

• Tekkaman Blade is blessed with the best projectile to deal against giants. For obvious reasons, always use the B or C version of the Javelin Toss as that’s the one that pierces a giant’s super armor. Standing B version Javelin Toss goes all the way across the screen, which is good if PTX-40A tries to run away and fire guns. You’ll be wanting to use this a lot, but watch out for PTX-40A riot tackles.
• Crash Intrude is a great super to punish any giant mistake. It’s also a great idea to combo Crash Intrude from something simple like J.5C, or standing 2B. After the animation, you can always follow up with a J.2C for additional damage.
• Since Crash Intrude is so good, you shouldn’t really use your meter for anything else.
• Many of Tekkaman Blade’s good strategies vs normal characters also work well against giants. One of them being his Teleport Slash (his one special that can cross up) + assist. This is VERY effective with Tekkaman as an assist, since you can call tekkaman assist out and cross up with the teleport slash and as a result, combo the giant into the tekkaman assist. From there you can go to a devastating air combo.
• Blade’s air dash is GOOD against giants. Simply super jump and you can fly across the screen as if you were Viewtiful Joe.

Viewtiful Joe

• Viewtiful Joe has the best run away capability against giants due to his horizontal red hot kick. It screws up PTX’s charges completely and sets Viewtiful Joe on the other side of the screen to run away, throw voomerangs, or set bombs. He can even set bombs and use voomerangs to carry the bomb to the otherside. Being a small target is also helpful for getting out corners.
• Viewtiful Joe’s level 3 super is comboable after it’s done. You combo the giant afterwards or you can do the bazooka super after as well. For the bazooka special, you can’t do it right away as if you would to a normal character. There is a particular timing to get down.

Yatterman-1

Yatterman-2

Zero

• Zero Buster keep away is Zero’s best asset in Giant match-ups. Zero Buster when fully charged does a lot of damage and Zero recovers fairly quickly from it. Paired with the fact that he’s fast, he has one of the better run-away capabilities in the game.
• Zero’s level 3 super has a lot of invincibility frames, so you can use it upon wake-up if a giant tries something (such as PTX activating its gun super while you are about to get up).
• Zero is very effective at dealing damage against giants without the need to use any meter. It’s preferable that you have a partner that can effectively make use of this meter (such as Ken the Eagle or Tekkaman Blade).
• If you absolutely need the invincibility frames to avoid an attack or you just can’t seem to sake the giant off of you, you can use Zero’s rainbow super. During the time Zero is using this super, he is mostly invincible until the lasers come out. If the giants choose to block the laser, they will be pushed all the way back. If they wish to make the trade and take the hits to punish you, at least you will get around 14k damage.

More will be added of course.

[djjizzdrinky]

very nice.

[ILPremium]

Giants ban thread is blowing up…I feel sorry for you Yoshi
Like some just shitted in your face and said "FUCK YO SHIT NIGGA!"
Anyway nice thread this will stop most of the people complaining about giants being broken.

[RoyalFlushTZ]

This is really good seeing that it’s actually coming from the best PTX-40A player.

A few inputs of my own:

General anti-PTX-40A vs. anti-Gold Lightan: Characters can spam good projectiles on the ground against PTX-40A until he start shoulder ramming, while they should not spam grounded projectiles against Gold Lightan as he has his fullscreen, instant j.41236 super (which also hits OTG) unless Lightan is below 1 super meter.

Joe the Condor
-Can mostly spend much of the round just firing super-jumped 623A/B/C shots while preparing negative edge shuriken feathers.
-Last hit of Bird Missile super breaks giant armor and allows for juggles.

Jun the Swan
-421 special/super break giant armor, and the former allows for combo potential

Karas
-Not much Karas can do. Landing 63214 hook chain special leads to combo potential, but has limited usage. Better of just landing IAD j.C to jump cancel and block.

Megaman Volnutt
-Can easily spam jumping gattling gun 6A/3A for solid damage and also does chip damage. Charge a Buster Shot (which does good damage when fully charged and also does chip damage) during gattling gun special spam for more damage potential.
-When running away, be careful of your jumping weapons switch when you cross over the giant mid-air. Doing the wrong input can sometime lead you back to the giant, jeopardizing Volnutt’s runaway.

Polimar
-Spend much of the round running away since he has very few good attack options on giants. IAD j.C to jump cancel is probably the best damage Polimar normally gets. Dashed 6C or 2C to Handou Sandangeri to Baroque and block for additional damage, but use sparingly.
-Grounded Shinkuu Kakategoma super whenever the giant player is planted on the ground or tries to attack you on the ground.
-6B does not always cross through the giant.

[_OZ]

first at all i want to thanks those who took time to write this guide, i will also contribute to this i know i dont have any recognition in the gaming scene, while i lack tournament experience, i have some undestanding of the game mechaninism that some may find usefull, so i will contribute with what i know.

soki

the soki player have the worst time with gigants although as any other character he has his way to overcome this situation, level 1 supers and level 3 super are useless with gigants, while purification sword have a nice damage output on either gigant, it is punishable whether is block or not a gigant can get to you fairly easy so forget about super with soki, also oni transformation have super armor, but gigants break that super armor, counter moves will get you kill so forget about them, your best tool against gigants here is soki long range attack that goes to launcher, countering every move, a gigant does with launcher super jump attack jump cancel run is your best way to survive and win

morrigan

vector drain, and soul fist are your best friends here, dont overabuse vector drain, remember while both gigants can be command grab they can jump out off it and punish you badly, vector drain is best use as a counter move, why? grabs are use to stop momentum on the gigants, on PTX-40A use vector drain to counter his jab’s but be careful againt tackle baroque into grab or overhead, this is a 50/50, try to predict ground moves and counter them with vector drain, do have special care with PTX overhead air move, since this can be easily baroque cancel into another overhead, that does insane damage if it connect, super jump and try to stay in angle to throw soul fist, at long range, avoid close to mid soul fist, since both gigants have tool to punish and get near you at this situation, also drill kick is useful to get a fast 4.7k damage on gigants went they do laggy moves, since drill kick have a good recovery is a good option to make some damage get on the ground an go for vector drain, level 3 super is best use to evade dificult situation, such is the case of PTX unblockeable setups, generally capitalize on whiff moves, and play defensively morrigan cant take much damage but still have a good oportunity againts gigants

yatterman-1

long range move, and a good mixups are your friends here, at long range kenda magic is great, comes out fast, at its extremely difficult to punish, if engage in close, yatterman level 1 super yatter-wan kamizake is the best tool to get out of trouble, also get you is a point were you could easily super jump, and go for jumping hammer smash jump cancel an get out of there, or try a cross up and cancel it to yatter-wan to avoid punish, stay defensive and abuse your long range moves to archive victory also kick shock combo may come in handy since it can but a gigant just where you want

yatterman-2

almost the same strategy as chun-li(thanks to GCYoshi for providing the chun-li strategy), only big diferent is that yatterman-2 have tool for long range situation, so she can keep the runaway game, level 1 super summond friend is fairly good, since it will do an average amount of damage, yatter splash can slow down your falling so you want to use it whenever your above a gigant, try to build as much super bar, as posible since those are your wild card against both gigants yatter splash and spark fireball are the best for building bars

Zero

charge buster, level 3 super are usually what you will see amount zero players, but there’s more you can do, went this 2 option by itself arent enough, zero must keep the charge buster at all times, also teleport moves are crucial to zero mixups game on gigants, on air go for 5C cancel into hyenkyaku use hard version to get on a safe point shoot the charge buster an quickly get out of there, level 3 super is best used to counter gigants aproches, remember keep in mind any normal zero does on ground can be special cancel into hyenyaku into charge into back dash , so keep yourself safe, zero cant stand to get hit one combo for both gigant are destructive to zero, so stay out of their range is posible, but if need give a try on hyenkyaku it may do wonders.

Tekkaman blade

crash intrude, falchion, and baselard are your main tool for this, dont overabuse baselard, any gigant pro will eventually see them coming, ones that happen they will punish badly for everyone of them, try to get in close hit ones and throw baselard this is the best way to get a knockdown, went knockdown use falchion to get across them if falchion hit cancel into crash intrude, them go for a stap OTG, if your gigants get on dizzy state, go for launcher into tekkaman blade advanced combo, it work the same as normal chars, punish every laggy move with crash intrude, or hit cancel to baselard, to get a knockdown, careful with gigants if they have baroque, since they can easily go for powerful mixups and big damage, play defensive went need, but try to stay on the offense get possible.

i apologize for my english i from mexico so im not use the language

[Tangerine]

Hope you don’t mind if a scrub like me contributes

Ryu
-C Shoryuken then immediately Baroque, this will leave you safe and more importantly the giant player probably tried to attack you and now you have red life to repeat this process
-After you land a Shin Shoyuken you can 236A, BBQ, 66, 66, 3C, sjc, j.A, j.A, j.B, j.B, dj, j.B, j.B, j.C. It does around 26-28 billion (10% BBQ) off a hyper that punishes damn near anything a giant does. You can choose to end the combo with 236A>236AB but you won’t get the full hits and leaves you in a bad position. Pretty surprising, the amount of people who don’t capitalize on this.

[jtrgmr]

Some small Roll tricks to pull:

Roll

• Roll Power Up is your friend. Any boost in power helps against a giant. It also lets you use the straight forward version of the bucket projectile.

• If you have the meter, use a lvl 3 super as a trap or punish. It’s a great way to punish a PTX trying to use a gun super if you can get in on time.

• Throw water buckets at a distance. This is your only projectile you can use, and its free (if small) damage on contact. It’s also a semi-safe way to blow up missiles and rockets on contact. Baroque out of them if the giants close in too quickly.

• If a giant is at low health, get close and do a kamikaze Turbo Sweep. Seriously. If it connects, the speed of hits slow down a Giant enough to get most of the damage down before being punished. Use only if you need the damage, or if it will contribute to finishing off the opponent with your other character.

• There are no safe ways to pull this off, but if you have the opportunity to pull off Puddle Sweep Power Ups without dying, do it.

I’m still experimenting with Roll vs. Giants, but I think there are still a few more tricks to pull with her.

[Killtz]

The only thing I could assume for Soki is that he could do his lvl 1 super (kinda rusty, can’t remember the input. the single slash one) into the AB follow-up or whatever, then BBQ for safety.

[RoyalFlushTZ]

Another general anti-giant strategy: 5C, 3C, superjump to block.

The 5C part is not necessary, but adds a bit of damage. This is particularly good for characters who lack good approaches to giants. I call this the “treat a giant like boss character” strategy.

[Sh4dOwF_enD]

Joe the Condor: his command grab rapes.

yattergirl: ugh yattergirl against giants is so dumb, i recommend anyone don’t use her against them.

[Griffard]

very knowledgable thread, thanks for this.

[dori]

I would seriously reconsider throwing any type of grounded projectile at Lightan if he has meter.

[Syrius]

Great thread!

I’m no giant player, but I hate how people simply target them as the blame for their bad gameplay. I’m not saying giants are easy to overcome but there are tactics you can use so that you won’t be wrecked by them. People are just pissed that they can’t use their 40b+ bbq combos

[0ldskool]

this guide is very helpful, thank you

[DevilChrist]

Nice thread and see you in Marvel 3 Yoshi!