A Somewhat Comprehensive Giovanna

Reference for Specifically Alex

Giovanna Pros:

- Fast, Versatile Grounded Mobility due to unique step-dash mechanic: Where other
characters break into a sprint when dashing forward, Giovanna gets a short burst of speed
forward for each press of the dash button.
- Strong, Versatile offence, with a good variety of Mixup options for getting past the
opponent’s defence once close to them.
- Unique mechanic where she deals more and takes less damage as she builds more Tension
meter.

Giovanna Cons:

- Weak arial options: Has only the most basic of options to mixup her jump-ins, as well as her
super, Tempestade.
 - Short range: Giovanna has few good midscreen attacks and no good fullscreen attacks,
meaning she does have to get in close to be effective.

Neutral: AKA the part of the game where nobody is currently hitting
anyone else

Step Dash

Giovanna’s standing forward dash has some unique properties: it moves the player forward in a
quick burst, instead of breaking her into a sprint like most other characters. The dash has variable
length: By holding back immediately after the dash is input, you can shorten the dash, and by
holding forward while inputting the dash, you can elongate it. This is highly useful, as it means
Giovanna can either shorten her dash, in order to bait out an opponent’s attempt to hit her while
she’s dashing, or to close the distance incredibly quickly using the long dash.

Super Jump

A universal mechanic allowing the player to jump higher than normal by flicking down briefly before
inputting a jump. Can be used in order to make it trickier for your opponent to anti-air you.

Air Dash/Double Jump

After performing either a normal or super jump, you have the option to either input a dash or
another jump. Dashing will allow you to perform a short, quick burst of movement backwards, or a
longer, slower movement forwards. Jumping will allow you to perform a double jump. Both of these
moves are useful for either closing the distance between you and your opponent, or baiting out their
anti-air attempts.

Standing Heavy Slash

Giovanna’s most standard poke, executed by pressing the heavy slash button (B on an Xbox
Controller). Relatively fast and with good range. Useful for pre-empting opponents who try to hit
you with their own pokes, as well as opponents who try to close the distance on Giovanna by
dashing towards her. By inputting a quarter circle away from your opponent and hitting kick after
hitting the heavy slash button, Sepultra will come out only if the move hits or is blocked, giving
Giovanna an easy way to knock down opponents on hit and get her offense started.

Standing Kick

Another poke, with most of the same properties as Standing Heavy Slash, executed by pressing the
kick button (A on an Xbox Controller). Slightly faster and with slightly shorter range than standing
heavy slash. Can also be cancelled into Sepultra using the same technique as heavy slash. The move
is also dash cancellable, meaning that you can dash in after an opponent blocks this to attempt to
setup a strike-throw mixup. Also can be combed into 6P > Sepultra > C.S to setup a safe jump (see
more information on safe jumps in the offence section)

Sweep (Crouching Dust)

A long-range, slow to start up poke that the opponent can only block crouching and grants a
knockdown, executed by crouching (holding down) and pressing the dust button (RB on an Xbox
controller). More situational than her other pokes, but very useful nonetheless.

Trovão
A divekick with slow startup and long range that leaves Giovanna at frame advantage when blocked.
Goes through most projectiles in the game, making it useful to close the distance on opponents
spamming projectiles from a distance. Executed by performing a quarter circle towards your
opponent and then pressing kick.

6P (Forward Punch)

A standard anti-air and counter-poke tool. Giovanna is completely invincible above her knees
starting from frame 5 of this move, making it a good option for knocking the opponent out of the air.
Can also be used in anticipation of the enemy’s poke, to hit the extended hitbox of their poke while
avoiding damage yourself. Can be combed into Sepultra on hitting an airborne opponent to get a
knockdown and start your offence. Executed by holding towards the opponent and pressing punch
(X on an Xbox Controller).
Sol Nascente

A more advanced anti-air and counter-poke tool. Has the same invincibility as 6P, but the much
larger hitbox means that this will beat many jump-ins that 6P would lose to. Can also be used to
counter pokes, much like 6P. Grants a big damage combo on counter hit. Executed by performing a
“dragon punch” input towards your opponent, then pressing the slash button. (A “dragon punch”
input is performed by holding towards your opponent, then doing a quarter circle backwards until
your stick is pointing straight down, then preforming an eighth circle forward until you are holding
down-forward).

Jumping Heavy Slash

Giovanna’s most basic jump-in option. On hit, can be combed into standing kick, which can then be
combed into Sepultra for a knockdown to begin your offence. Executed by pressing the heavy slash
button while jumping (Duh).

Tempestade

A jump-in super, used to mixup your air approaches. Its fast, diagonal trajectory can be used to hit
the opponent earlier, or combined with double jumps and air backdashes, later than they would
expect to be hit by a jump heavy slash, giving Giovanna an option to get past opposing anti-air
moves. Executed by performing two quarter circles towards the opponent, then hitting the Heavy
Slash button. Costs 1 bar of Tension meter to perform.

Defence: Aka the part of the game where your opponent is in your
face and you need to stop them from hitting you

Blocking
The most basic defensive option, blocking is performed by holding away from the opponent while
they hit you. While generally one of your safest options, simply blocking is rarely going to get you
out of your opponent’s offense, and so other options need to be used to actively escape. However,
simply blocking does give you time to figure out your opponent’s offensive habits and choose the
right option to beat them. Blocking always loses to your opponent throwing you, and blocking while
standing loses to low attack, while blocking while crouching loses to jump-in attacks and overheads.
Faultless Defence
Faultless defence is a metered form of blocking that is performed by holding any two attack buttons
except dust (I personally hold punch and kick) while blocking normally. Faultless defence has all the
benefits of normal blocking, but in addition pushes your opponent away from you as they hit you.
This forces the opponent to either take more risks to reset their pressure, or simply get pushed back
far enough to return to neutral. Faultless defence consumes a variable amount of Tension meter,
based on what attacks you block.

Block-Jumping
Performed by holding up and away from your opponent, jump-blocking is simply the act of holding
jump and block at the same time. This is most useful either as a tool to avoid ground throws, as
ground throws cannot hit opponents who are jumping, or as a way to escape some larger gaps in
your opponent’s pressure. Note that during the brief period where you are winding up to jump but
have not yet left the ground, you are vulnerable to being hit (though not to being thrown), and so
tighter gaps in opposing pressure can still catch you trying to block jump.

Just run under them bro

If you spend enough time block-jumping or faultless defencing them away from you, you may find
yourself in a situation where your opponent will choose to jump at you, either to try and reset their
pressure or to catch you with an air throw. If they do this too predictably, you can just, like, dash
under them and end up behind them. This option is surprisingly hard to pull off, but incredibly strong
in the corner, as it now puts your opponent in the corner and gets you out of their offence. This is
one of those things that’s really obvious when you hear it, but practically quite hard to pull off.

Backdash Mashing
Backdashing is a decently strong defensive option when not in the corner, as it provides some
invincibility frames, moves you away from the opponent, and beats throws. Still, it’s more situational
than the various forms of blocking gone over so far, so it’ll likely take a bit of experimentation to
figure out after what moves you can afford to do a cheeky backdash and get out of your opponent’s
offence.

Yellow Roman Cancel (YRC)

By pressing the Roman Cancel button shortly after blocking an attack, you will push your opponent
away from you and gain +10 frames of frame advantage, effectively turning their offence into your
offence. Your opponent can counterplay this in a couple of ways, such as using long-range moves
that put them out of the range of the YRC, using moves with short recovery and then blocking the
YRC, or just hitting or throwing you so you never get a chance to block and therefore use the YRC.
Still, turning your opponent’s offence into your own at the press of a button is an extremely strong
defensive option that should not be underestimated. A common sequence for YRC in the corner is to
YRC an opponent’s attack, dash up to them to close the distance, and throwing them behind you to
put them into the corner. Yellow Roman Cancel costs 1 bar of Tension meter.
Light Attack Mashing
The standing and crouching punch and kick attacks in this game are collectively referred to as your
light attacks. These attacks are exceptionally fast, and are therefore useful for hitting your
opponents during gaps in their pressure. The punches are slightly faster and can be combed into 6P
on hit, whereas the kicks have longer reach and can be combed into sweep on hit. These combos
make mashing light attacks a particularly rewarding option for getting out of your opponent’s
pressure: however, if you mash an attack during too small a gap, your opponent will hit you during
the attack’s startup, causing a counterhit and giving them a massive, highly damaging combo, so
light attack mashing is always a risky option.

Mash Throw
Pretty much everything I said about light attack mashing, but this time you’re mashing throw
instead. Only works at point-blank range, comes out faster than lights. Only useful in really, highly
specific situations.

Burst
Burst is the “ultimate” defensive option in Guilty Gear Strive. Upon pressing any other attack button
and dust at the same time, your character will generate a massive explosion around them that will
fling a hit opponent to the other side of the screen. Burst is unique in that it’s the only game action
you can take while being hit, and therefore the only way in the game of actively getting out of your
opponent’s combo. Burst is tied to its own meter, the burst meter, which refills slowly, both over
time and as you get hit and block attacks. Since the burst meter refills slowly, and burst is the
strongest defensive option in the game, management of your burst meter is a critical skill to learn.
Namely, you want to use your burst in a situation where it is likely to result in a round win, or at
least a trade with your opponent’s burst. There are two variations of burst: performing a burst while
getting hit or blocking will result in a blue burst, which has all the effects I mentioned above, and
gold burst, performed while not getting hit or blocking, which has all those effects plus also fills your
Tension meter to full.

It is worth noting that, despite its raw power, there are some counterplay options to burst. First off,
a player can simply stop their offense or combo and block the burst. This is extremely risky, as if the
opposing player simply does not burst, you have effectively stopped your offense and returned to
neutral for no reason. However, the reward of getting a big combo and your opponent’s burst can
sometimes make this worthwhile against more predictable opponents. Secondly, super attacks
cannot be bursted, meaning a player can go into a super earlier in a combo in order to outright
prevent their opponent from bursting, which is particularly useful to finish off an opponent with
burst. Finally, there are some combos which are burst-safe, meaning some or all of the combo
cannot be bursted successfully. Most often, burst-safe combos occur because a player is physically
far enough from the player they are comboing that the burst simply will not connect (looking at you,
Happy Chaos).
Ventania (Reversal Super)

Ventania is a super which is fully invincible immediately on the move being inputted. This
invincibility means that, theoretically, if you had the ability to perform the motion instantly,
Ventania could go through any gap in your opponent’s offense, no matter how small. However, the
motion for Ventania is not only quite complex, but also starts with a forward input, meaning you
cannot block while performing it. The result of this is that what gaps in opponent’s pressure you can
get out of using Ventania is somewhat dependent on your own ability to perform the input. That
being said, Ventania is still an extremely useful defensive option. One particularly notable use for
Ventania is as you are getting off the floor. The invincibility provided by being on the floor provides
ample time to input the motion, and if properly timed, you can be invincible from the moment you
stand up, potentially stopping your opponent from hitting you as you stand up. This technique is
known as a “Reversal”, and the game will display that word on the screen if it is performed correctly.
It is also worth noting that, much like burst, your opponent can block in anticipation of a Ventania,
wasting your meter and giving them a big punish combo.

Offence: Aka the part of the game where you’re in your opponent’s
face and must get through their block to hit them

Close Slash

A normal used to gain frame advantage. Grants a large combo on hit: however, due to being a mid, it
will rarely actually hit, and is used more for its +3 frame advantage to safely setup Giovanna’s other
mixup options. It is, however, generally unnecessary to use this move against opponents who are
knocked to the ground. The move is dash cancellable on hit or block, which can be used to either
close the distance on opponents attempting to push you away with faultless defence, or to setup a
strike-throw mixup after the opponent blocks a close slash.
Safe Jump
Safe Jumps are an advanced technique used to pre-emptively prevent your opponent from using a
reversal or burst on their wakeup. The technical explanation for safe jumps is a little tricky to grasp:
basically, you jump in on an opponent as they’re getting up and time a jump-in attack so that it will
hit them on the first frame they get up and will be cancelled by you hitting the ground. If the
opponent burst or performs a reversal, you will hit the ground before the start-up of the burst or
reversal finishes, allowing you to block. This is highly useful against most of the cast, as most
characters have reversal supers that can be performed by spending a bar of tension, and some
characters have special moves that act as reversals that can be performed without spending any
tension meter. Plus, even if the safe jump is blocked, the landing cancel will leave you at frame
advantage on block, meaning you get to continue your offence in relative safety. Safe jumps can be
manually timed on some knockdowns: However, the knockdowns that you can manually time are
rare enough that manual timing can be safely ignored. The more common way to setup a safe jump
is using a combo that gives you the perfect timing automatically. Giovanna has two very notable
combos that do this (see the combos section below). It is worth noting that some characters have no
reversal whatsoever, making safe jumps relatively useless against them, and some characters have
parries, which render safe jumps an actively bad option. The breakdown for characters and safe
jump usefulness is as follows:

Characters with Meterless Reversal Special Moves, Safe Jumps Always Useful: Chipp, Sol, Ky, Leo,
Bridget, Sin, Askuka R#*

Characters with Reversal Supers, Safe Jumps useful if they have meter: Testament, Jack-O,
Nagoriyuki, Millia, May, I-No, Faust, Axl, Ramlethal, Giovanna, Goldlewis, Bedman

Characters with no reversal, Safe Jumps Limited Applicability: Happy Chaos, Potemkin, Zato-1

Character with parries, Safe Jumps actively bad: Baiken, Anji

*Asuka’s meterless reversal is a spell card, meaning he only has access to it if he happens to draw it
from his spell deck. He has no reversal super. God this character is complicated.

Ground Throw

A move that beats both standing and crouching blocks and results in a knockdown to continue your
offence, ground throw is a strong and versatile offensive option. However, it has relatively low
damage, and if your opponent jumps or backdashes away from it, they can generally get a decent-
sized combo and start their own offense. Note that this move cannot be performed immediately
after close slash on block: you either have to do it instead of the close slash, or cancel the close slash
into a dash to once again close the distance on your opponent and get in range to throw them. The
direction you hold when you throw someone determines which side of you they will end up on after
the throw. A throw is performed by pressing the dust button while standing and holding towards or
away from the opponent.

Air Throw

Air throw is a somewhat situational move used to catch opponents trying to jump away from your
other options. Since most options will tend to hit the opponent during the startup of their jump
anyway, this option has limited utility, mostly related to opponents jumping before you can close
slash them or some faultless defence situations. You can cancel into a jump from a dash or a close
slash to go directly into air throw.

Crouching Slash (Low Mixup)

Giovanna’s crouching slash is a 2-hit move that leads to a sepultra on hit and can only be blocked by
crouching opponents. Thus, it is useful to hit opponents who like to block standing. You can cancel
into this move from Close Slash. Can be cancelled into Heavy Slash on block to continue standard
stagger pressure. It is performed by hitting the slash button while crouching (Duh).
Standing Dust (High Mixup)

Giovanna’s Standing dust is a move that hits overhead, meaning it can only be blocked by standing
opponents, making it useful to hit opponents who like to block crouching. This move has two
variations: an uncharged version, done by tapping the dust button while not holding a direction, only
gives a combo either if your opponent has full RISC (a meter located underneath burst that goes up
as you block moves and causes any hit on a player with full risc to counter hit and therefore lead to a
combo), or if you spend a bar of Tension meter to roman cancel the move. The charged version of
the move, executed by holding the dust button and holding up, is slower and easier to react to, but
will always lead to a massive damage combo on hit. Both versions of this move are slow enough to
lose to opponents mashing light attacks. This move can be cancelled into from close slash.

Sol Poente (Crossup, High Mixup)

A move which can be used to cross over your opponent’s head and hit them from the other side,
forcing them to switch the direction of their block or get hit. It is worth noting that this move does
also serve as a high mixup that can only be blocked by standing opponents. However, it does not
lead to any combo on hit, and loses to opponents simply mashing their punches, making it
somewhat risky and low-reward. This move is performed by doing a quarter circle away from your
opponent and hitting slash. It is worth noting that it can be steered left or right somewhat after
performing the input, and that you must steer towards your opponent in order to cross over their
head.

Stagger Pressure
Stagger pressure is the technique of performing a series of moves on your opponent’s block, with
small gaps between the moves called “frame traps”. These gaps are small enough that your
opponent will have time to start an attack, but not enough time to finish the startup of the attack,
before your next attack comes out, resulting in them getting hit before their attack startup is
finished. Stagger pressure is useful both to hit opponents trying to defensively mash against you, but
also to condition your opponent into holding block on defence, allowing you to more easily perform
your other mixups. If the opponent chooses to simply block the stagger pressure instead of trying to
attack you through it, you can perform a “pressure reset” by cancelling any of the normals in the
sequence into Trovão, allowing you continue the pressure. A standard stagger pressure sequence for
Giovanna is Close Slash > Standing Slash > Standing Heavy Slash > Sol Poente, with the Close Slash
being cancellable into a dash as an alternate pressure reset. Stagger pressure generally beats
opponents mashing light attacks, but it is weak to faultless defence.

Combo Trials
These are practice numbers for the various combos mentioned in this reference. These can be used
in-game to search up the combo trails to practice the combos.
Heavy Slash Poke Combo: 34256

Kick Poke Combo: 68765

6P Anti-Air Combo: 34260

Sol Nascente Counter-Hit Anti-Air Combo: 68772 (Waring: Hard and somewhat Unnecessary)

Heavy Slash Jump-in Combo: 34259

Kick Safe Jump Setup Combo: 82865

Close Slash Hit Safe Jump Combo: 92630

Full Risc Uncharged Dust Combo: 68782

Charged Dust Combo: 34255 (This combo involves several jump cancels. Since jump cancels are not
included in the in-game combo notation, the full notation is as follows: Dust> Homing Attack > J.H >
J.S > Jump > J.H > J.S > J.H > J.S > Jump > J.H > J.H. A homing attack is simply what happens when you
hold up after hitting an opponent with a charged dust)