Guilty Gear Strive: How To Beat Giovanna

As a character built for beginners, many players may find a lot of Giovanna opponents online. Her straightforward kit and reliable options can be a problem as they're all effective tools that let her rapidly pressure her foes. Here's how you can fight Giovanna in Guilty Gear Strive.

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Giovanna As A Character

By design, Arc System Works intended for Giovanna to be a beginner-friendly pick for the newer players to the franchise who just picked up Guilty Gear Strive. Overall, almost all her buttons are rewarding on-hit as she has many options to continue pressing for more hits to deal more damage.

Giovanna also gets a complimentary speed which comes from her step dashes. This character gets step dashes instead of a regular run like the rest of the Guilty Gear Strive cast. These step dashes can be linked to each other rapidly through a simple press of the dash button and even be cancelled into back dash during any part of the animation of the step dash. Giovanna's footwork helps get in easily, escape from difficult situations fast and even fake out an offence to bait an enemy reaction.

On the receiving end, Giovanna can be a tough character to get off you once she gets in. Once she lands her close Slash on the enemy, she has a lot of options to break her opponent's defence up or even keep pressing to keep her enemies blocking.

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Flurry Of Kicks

As Giovanna is an unarmed fighter, her Slash and Heavy Slash attacks are still kicks. However, these kicks are suited for beginners players trying to find a good button to rely on in fights. Most Giovanna fights often include seeing her trying to land her knee (close Slash) or keep enemies at bay with a fast triple-kick (far Slash).

When Giovanna misses her kicks, this is an opening to punish her. However, make it quick as her kicks recover fast and she can deliver another swift kick if your punish is too slow.

More experienced Giovanna players will often use her step dash to extend the range of her kicks as she'll slide forward when she attacks during her dash. If this is the case, get prepared to jump straight up and drop down with an attack of your own.

Overall, a rule of thumb against fighting Giovanna is to keep punishing her cleanly when she misses her attacks up close.

Grounded Character

It's common for many beginners to squeeze out every bit of mobility from their character. Meanwhile, experienced Giovanna players would love Prepare for a lot of jump-ins from her if she can't get in from spamming her ground kicks.

Contrary to her flips and flying kicks, Giovanna works best when she stays on the floor. Her rapid step dash is only accessible on the floor and she gets a regular air dash like most of the cast. In mid-air, Giovanna's options are actually limited and you're going to be fine as long as you anti-air 6P (forward punch) her out of the air.

Make sure to space her out to keep her jump-ins predictable as it'll come at a similar angle.

Try To Keep Her Out

Similar to most rushdown characters without a projectile, Giovanna struggles to control a match when she's far away from her foe. In her kit, Giovanna has Trovao which can use to go through projectiles which you should be wary of. This move is the spring kick she does that takes a handstand before she propels herself toward her foe.

It takes some timing but this move can be stopped in mid-air with a well-timed Standing Kick for any character. Alternatively, backing away far enough to make it whiff or jumping straight up could also open up an opportunity to punish this move. If this is consistently done while preparing to anti-air her, she'll have to think of a way to get in which could be less optimal than her usual strong options.

Overall, Giovanna's game plan requires her to get close and keeping her at bay opens up her kit's weakness in trying to play far. Regardless of any character you pick, aiming to stop her approaches is a solid game plan to stop her from rapidly landing hits.

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