Belial
Noob
OVERVIEW
This is for people, who just cant stop thinking BG is awesome and all those who say otherwise "dont know how to play". I bring you a lot of tech both universal and blood god only and I hope it will help you see both his strengths and his weaknesses as well. I am playing BG succesfully but I realize that he is fundamentaly a very bad character, but also that tweaking him could possibly turn him into a monster. This is 1.0 version of the guide that will be updated with time.
Pros
+ Good footsies
+ Lots of cool setups
+ Insane corner damage output
+ High damage output overall via crystal totem
+ Fun to use
Cons
- Setup heavy
- Lacks armor
- Lacks anti air
- Has a number of really bad matchups
- Low tier
Normals
D4
Arguably your best poke. Your options post landed d4:
- F1 can only be escaped by armor or backdash
- Run f2 will hit backdash and all jumps
- Run throw will work as a mixup
- Jump forward will counter backdash, jumps and possibly armor attempts
- D4 on hit can be safely cancelled into totem, despite small disadvantage its easy to bait and punish opponent pokes here by f1 or f2.
D3
Short range but great hitbox for hitting jumps give good damage on hit, allows for a throw/114 mixup
D1
Free throw/114 mixup, f2 cannot be interruped unless by armor and cannot be backdashed or jumped out either.
D2
Your uppercut. keeps the sky clear
F1
On block its safe unless you’re against cassie. fear of second hit will make your opponent hesitate. Your options here:
On hit: You cannot do much here b/c you are left too close to bait a wiffed poke on the other hand your throws do not connect. Also opponent is left at a range where you cannot really jump at them.You can try to mixup f1b2 and tiny walk forward into throw.
F1B2
You can OS that with obsidian totem which will make that less punishable(damage wise of course). You cannot do that, however if crystal totem is out, so be careful how you place it. This is your best mixup and wiff punishment tool
F12
Has slightly more reach than f1b2 and can be harder to punish or safe against some chars at far blocks. Extended reach can be used to catch opponent looking to punish a wiff at midcreen. Sends opponent across the screen making totem summon a safe option.
F2
Your 2nd best wiff punisher tool. Slower that f1 but has more range. Certain characters cannot punish this with anything but poke. Others (notably Kung Jin fucking retarded 111) get full combo.
Jump 2
Jump forward for offence, jump backwards for defence. The reach on that jump 2 is really something. Convert into combo of choice on hit and mixup throw/114 on close block.
Jump 3_4
Neutral jump kick has awesome hitbox that is especially great in the corner
F34
Your best corner mixup tool. With totem you’re looking at about 65% for 2 bars, hitconfirmable, semi-safe. Cancel into ex sun disk on hit for wallcombos and dont cancel on cancel into air grab for baiting and punishing armored moves. If they block sun disk they must face another mixup.
B1
With a lot of practice you can hitconfirm b1 into 4 or 2 which will make this an insane pressure tool near walls and a great midscreen poke (b122~exdisc will deal 24% damage if totem is out midscreen 32% and b14~sundisk nets 69% at wall if totem is out at the wall).
B14
On block you have number of options such as parry or obsidian totem, but overall this move is not super useful. On hit sundisc connects and is 100% hitconfirmable.
B122
Is utter garbage on block unless your opponent doesnt know MU
212
Combo ender, starts out with a high and is -1 on block but deals poor damage. Should it start out with mid could be decent. Provides different amount (more) of advantage if done as aeiral hit. 21 combos into ex sundisk.
B32
Nice safe i13 mid that covers a lot of range. Unspectacular damage makes it somewhat less useful than it could be. at close range hit and importantly in the corner b3 will combo into ex sun disk
Throws
Throws is super important in BG game. Depending if people will learn to reliably break throws on reaction will greatly depend his viability (from low-mid tier to crap tier)
Setups:
- d1, d3 and b1 on hit set up throw
- f1 and b14 allow for a throw if you take a small step forward
- Jump 2 allow for a throw at close block
- b1 and f1 on block are good throw setup b/c of the second hit option
- b14, f1, f3, b3 allow for a throw CORNER ONLY
Throw mixup
To break or duck a throw your opponent must release block, this will allow you to mix up your damaging options.. d1 and d3 provide enough advantage for 114 to be unduckable, you can try to safely use it as a mixup with a throw in this situations, same goes for jump 2 on block. Keep in mind, that moves that provide massive advantage on hit (d1, d3, b1) do not allow for immediate throw b/c it will wiff. you need to do a slight delay.
Post throw game
Landing throw nets untechable KD and huge frame advantage. You get a free and 100% safe totem summon here. Mid screen throw sends them full screen, available options are:
- For characters w/o teleport Sun disk is only escapable by staying OTG, they have to block it (reflect?) if they get up. No jumping, no backdashing. Sun disk provides around 3% chip damage (slightly more if crystal totem’s out) on top of throw damage as well as enough frame advantage on block for safe totem summon. They can wake up with a projectile to trade but since disk deals 11% it is in your favor. Also after landing a throw disk animation at full screen is concealed by screen border for some reason, which doesnt happen on regular full screen disk throw.
- If they stay grounded you can use sun ray instead they will be forced to eat at least 1% chip and move from that spot. Should you hit them with sun disk (probably ex version b/c noone will get hit by reg SD) you will put them back into Ray.
- You can use blood offering here, however characters with faster teleports can punish you (ex: scorpion WKA Teleport will, but Takeda will not)
Post Disk Game
On hit disk is almost equal to throw, however your opponent can techroll into WKA which makes SD into SD a poor choice especially against teleporting characters. Animation is not concealed here also so its easy to react. However EX disk is very safe here, while not a truly reliable tactic it is still possible to bait and punish teleport using disk into ex disk .on hit totem is 100% safe. As I mentioned above, on block totem summon is free.
Throw corner game
Throw nets you even more advantage, than aeiral 212 (see below). You can sommon totem here and hit opponent before he can do anything but WKA. Post totem b1 will hit opponent getting up and doing anything even jumping (opponent will be hit otg) from where you can hitconfirm into a combo or stop on block and try to set up a throw. f34 is not jumpable post totem summon also, but timing is pretty strict - even though its not so hard to hit them jumping, only earliest timing would allow for wallcombo via ex sundisk, any later and disk will wiff leaving you with a wasted meter and wasted setup.
Ending combos
There is 3 ways to end your combos
1) 212 ender
Best ender to combos when you dont have totem out or against enemy you’d rather keep close. Deals about 3-4% less than most damaging ender. Nets untechable KD and enough advantage to summon a totem AND mixup afterwards. Your options as follows:
Crystal totem, throw: they get up, they get hit by 16% throw into throw setups.
Crystal totem, f1/f1b2 or f2: f1 cannot be interrupted, backdashed or jumped if done properly. f+2 cannot be backdashed or jumped either side, but can be interrupted by faster pokes after get up. I belive f2 is a better choice here due to more damage and safety.
To beat the mixup your opponent will resort to WKA. Regular parry (post totem of course) will not counter fastest WKA throw, but in reality your opponent will mess up sometimes and get hit by parry. You can also parry and still break throw. Then of course you can duck it etc. You can use EX parry still to beat most WKA your opponent may try. Some wakeup atacks cant be stuffed (multihitting) by parry, so you can make an adjustment. Remember no one really forces you to use parry here. You can just block most wka and punish.
In my opinion this setup is what gets BG going b/c just one read off that combo will allow you to take from 50% to over 80% life at a price of 0-1 bar
2) Throw ender
Throw animation is so long that when you finish your combo with it your totem will expire. It is a good thing if you’re using blood totem or if you need to “renew” any other totem you have. Best against characters you’d rather have fullscreen or if you're looking for corner setups from section above. Keep in mind, that throws can be broken
3) Damage ender: Best option when you land a combo with totem out. I’d always go for “bar” combos here, ending them in b14~throw.
Post 212 corner game
In the corner you get more options post 212 juggle ender. Your opponent can jump b14 and f34 which will not allow for a corner combo.
b122 will hit aerial opponens but does not allow a combo with sundisk capping damage at 50% for 1 bar
f1~sundisk will hit for 66% 2 bar
b3~sundisk will hit for 68% 2 bar
21~sundisk can be confirmed into sundisk for 66% 2 bar
At 1 bar you will deal aprox 50% from each of these starters.
Cutting yourself
The only safe cut setup is a throw. You can get the most out of cut if you use it while having obsidian totem out, making it only deal about 6% damage to you, while still granting full damage boost of ~33% to your next 3 attacks. The problem here is that throw animation is so long, that your totem will expire before it ends most of the time.
Example of setting up a post-throw cut:
You use f1b2 and OS last hit into obsidian totem but your opponent misses his punishment, you land a throw back at him and cut yourself after the throw before totem expires.
Parry
Parry has 16 active frames but terrible recovery.
On succesful parry you are not guaranteed anything really and you cant truly react to most moves you parry.
Damage bonus parry provides is pretty unexiting (around 30%)
it only lasts about 1 second so only 1 or 2 your next moves will get buffed.
This makes an uppercut most reliable followup in most scenarios
On top of all that your ability to punish will vary depending on how late your parry absorbed enemy atack. Awkwardly, the later your parry works during animation the more time you have to punish your enemy, thus makes regular parry punishment unrealistic at best which also eliminates the idea that parry was designed for multiple uses, (ex: starting with regular version and then keeping up with metered one) b/c you cannot even followup a regular parry with metered one unless regular one hits really late increasing it effective startup from 8 frames to AT LEAST 16.
Interesting property of parry is that parrying normal prohibits special move followups.
Damage increase parry provides for notable punishes is following:
- d2 gains about 5% increase from 14% to 18.62%
- 114 will get a total buff of 4% damage 20% vs 24% , 1 bar combo 40% vs 44%
- f2 will get 5% increase from 43% to 48% (1 bar) this is also an unrealistic turn of events
- f1b2 will get 2% increase from 38% to 40% 1 bar
- Throw will get 1% increase 12% to 13%
Double Parry
- will deal 9% more damage on 114
- will deal 9% more damage on f2
- will deal 6% more damage on f1b2
Triple parry will deal
- 12% more damage on 114 (up to 32%)
- 14% more damage on f2 (up to 57%) (this number only if you did 1 reg and 2 master, otherwise you dont have meter to extend the combo)
- 10% more damage on f1b2
- 19% more on uppercut up to 33%
As you can see even if you burn 3 bars to parry a string (which is an enormous feat imo) to only get an increase ~10% combo damage
Combos
TBD
This is for people, who just cant stop thinking BG is awesome and all those who say otherwise "dont know how to play". I bring you a lot of tech both universal and blood god only and I hope it will help you see both his strengths and his weaknesses as well. I am playing BG succesfully but I realize that he is fundamentaly a very bad character, but also that tweaking him could possibly turn him into a monster. This is 1.0 version of the guide that will be updated with time.
Pros
+ Good footsies
+ Lots of cool setups
+ Insane corner damage output
+ High damage output overall via crystal totem
+ Fun to use
Cons
- Setup heavy
- Lacks armor
- Lacks anti air
- Has a number of really bad matchups
- Low tier
Normals
D4
Arguably your best poke. Your options post landed d4:
- F1 can only be escaped by armor or backdash
- Run f2 will hit backdash and all jumps
- Run throw will work as a mixup
- Jump forward will counter backdash, jumps and possibly armor attempts
- D4 on hit can be safely cancelled into totem, despite small disadvantage its easy to bait and punish opponent pokes here by f1 or f2.
D3
Short range but great hitbox for hitting jumps give good damage on hit, allows for a throw/114 mixup
D1
Free throw/114 mixup, f2 cannot be interruped unless by armor and cannot be backdashed or jumped out either.
D2
Your uppercut. keeps the sky clear
F1
On block its safe unless you’re against cassie. fear of second hit will make your opponent hesitate. Your options here:
On hit: You cannot do much here b/c you are left too close to bait a wiffed poke on the other hand your throws do not connect. Also opponent is left at a range where you cannot really jump at them.You can try to mixup f1b2 and tiny walk forward into throw.
F1B2
You can OS that with obsidian totem which will make that less punishable(damage wise of course). You cannot do that, however if crystal totem is out, so be careful how you place it. This is your best mixup and wiff punishment tool
F12
Has slightly more reach than f1b2 and can be harder to punish or safe against some chars at far blocks. Extended reach can be used to catch opponent looking to punish a wiff at midcreen. Sends opponent across the screen making totem summon a safe option.
F2
Your 2nd best wiff punisher tool. Slower that f1 but has more range. Certain characters cannot punish this with anything but poke. Others (notably Kung Jin fucking retarded 111) get full combo.
Jump 2
Jump forward for offence, jump backwards for defence. The reach on that jump 2 is really something. Convert into combo of choice on hit and mixup throw/114 on close block.
Jump 3_4
Neutral jump kick has awesome hitbox that is especially great in the corner
F34
Your best corner mixup tool. With totem you’re looking at about 65% for 2 bars, hitconfirmable, semi-safe. Cancel into ex sun disk on hit for wallcombos and dont cancel on cancel into air grab for baiting and punishing armored moves. If they block sun disk they must face another mixup.
B1
With a lot of practice you can hitconfirm b1 into 4 or 2 which will make this an insane pressure tool near walls and a great midscreen poke (b122~exdisc will deal 24% damage if totem is out midscreen 32% and b14~sundisk nets 69% at wall if totem is out at the wall).
B14
On block you have number of options such as parry or obsidian totem, but overall this move is not super useful. On hit sundisc connects and is 100% hitconfirmable.
B122
Is utter garbage on block unless your opponent doesnt know MU
212
Combo ender, starts out with a high and is -1 on block but deals poor damage. Should it start out with mid could be decent. Provides different amount (more) of advantage if done as aeiral hit. 21 combos into ex sundisk.
B32
Nice safe i13 mid that covers a lot of range. Unspectacular damage makes it somewhat less useful than it could be. at close range hit and importantly in the corner b3 will combo into ex sun disk
Throws
Throws is super important in BG game. Depending if people will learn to reliably break throws on reaction will greatly depend his viability (from low-mid tier to crap tier)
Setups:
- d1, d3 and b1 on hit set up throw
- f1 and b14 allow for a throw if you take a small step forward
- Jump 2 allow for a throw at close block
- b1 and f1 on block are good throw setup b/c of the second hit option
- b14, f1, f3, b3 allow for a throw CORNER ONLY
Throw mixup
To break or duck a throw your opponent must release block, this will allow you to mix up your damaging options.. d1 and d3 provide enough advantage for 114 to be unduckable, you can try to safely use it as a mixup with a throw in this situations, same goes for jump 2 on block. Keep in mind, that moves that provide massive advantage on hit (d1, d3, b1) do not allow for immediate throw b/c it will wiff. you need to do a slight delay.
Post throw game
Landing throw nets untechable KD and huge frame advantage. You get a free and 100% safe totem summon here. Mid screen throw sends them full screen, available options are:
- For characters w/o teleport Sun disk is only escapable by staying OTG, they have to block it (reflect?) if they get up. No jumping, no backdashing. Sun disk provides around 3% chip damage (slightly more if crystal totem’s out) on top of throw damage as well as enough frame advantage on block for safe totem summon. They can wake up with a projectile to trade but since disk deals 11% it is in your favor. Also after landing a throw disk animation at full screen is concealed by screen border for some reason, which doesnt happen on regular full screen disk throw.
- If they stay grounded you can use sun ray instead they will be forced to eat at least 1% chip and move from that spot. Should you hit them with sun disk (probably ex version b/c noone will get hit by reg SD) you will put them back into Ray.
- You can use blood offering here, however characters with faster teleports can punish you (ex: scorpion WKA Teleport will, but Takeda will not)
Post Disk Game
On hit disk is almost equal to throw, however your opponent can techroll into WKA which makes SD into SD a poor choice especially against teleporting characters. Animation is not concealed here also so its easy to react. However EX disk is very safe here, while not a truly reliable tactic it is still possible to bait and punish teleport using disk into ex disk .on hit totem is 100% safe. As I mentioned above, on block totem summon is free.
Throw corner game
Throw nets you even more advantage, than aeiral 212 (see below). You can sommon totem here and hit opponent before he can do anything but WKA. Post totem b1 will hit opponent getting up and doing anything even jumping (opponent will be hit otg) from where you can hitconfirm into a combo or stop on block and try to set up a throw. f34 is not jumpable post totem summon also, but timing is pretty strict - even though its not so hard to hit them jumping, only earliest timing would allow for wallcombo via ex sundisk, any later and disk will wiff leaving you with a wasted meter and wasted setup.
Ending combos
There is 3 ways to end your combos
1) 212 ender
Best ender to combos when you dont have totem out or against enemy you’d rather keep close. Deals about 3-4% less than most damaging ender. Nets untechable KD and enough advantage to summon a totem AND mixup afterwards. Your options as follows:
Crystal totem, throw: they get up, they get hit by 16% throw into throw setups.
Crystal totem, f1/f1b2 or f2: f1 cannot be interrupted, backdashed or jumped if done properly. f+2 cannot be backdashed or jumped either side, but can be interrupted by faster pokes after get up. I belive f2 is a better choice here due to more damage and safety.
To beat the mixup your opponent will resort to WKA. Regular parry (post totem of course) will not counter fastest WKA throw, but in reality your opponent will mess up sometimes and get hit by parry. You can also parry and still break throw. Then of course you can duck it etc. You can use EX parry still to beat most WKA your opponent may try. Some wakeup atacks cant be stuffed (multihitting) by parry, so you can make an adjustment. Remember no one really forces you to use parry here. You can just block most wka and punish.
In my opinion this setup is what gets BG going b/c just one read off that combo will allow you to take from 50% to over 80% life at a price of 0-1 bar
2) Throw ender
Throw animation is so long that when you finish your combo with it your totem will expire. It is a good thing if you’re using blood totem or if you need to “renew” any other totem you have. Best against characters you’d rather have fullscreen or if you're looking for corner setups from section above. Keep in mind, that throws can be broken
3) Damage ender: Best option when you land a combo with totem out. I’d always go for “bar” combos here, ending them in b14~throw.
Post 212 corner game
In the corner you get more options post 212 juggle ender. Your opponent can jump b14 and f34 which will not allow for a corner combo.
b122 will hit aerial opponens but does not allow a combo with sundisk capping damage at 50% for 1 bar
f1~sundisk will hit for 66% 2 bar
b3~sundisk will hit for 68% 2 bar
21~sundisk can be confirmed into sundisk for 66% 2 bar
At 1 bar you will deal aprox 50% from each of these starters.
Cutting yourself
The only safe cut setup is a throw. You can get the most out of cut if you use it while having obsidian totem out, making it only deal about 6% damage to you, while still granting full damage boost of ~33% to your next 3 attacks. The problem here is that throw animation is so long, that your totem will expire before it ends most of the time.
Example of setting up a post-throw cut:
You use f1b2 and OS last hit into obsidian totem but your opponent misses his punishment, you land a throw back at him and cut yourself after the throw before totem expires.
Parry
Parry has 16 active frames but terrible recovery.
On succesful parry you are not guaranteed anything really and you cant truly react to most moves you parry.
Damage bonus parry provides is pretty unexiting (around 30%)
it only lasts about 1 second so only 1 or 2 your next moves will get buffed.
This makes an uppercut most reliable followup in most scenarios
On top of all that your ability to punish will vary depending on how late your parry absorbed enemy atack. Awkwardly, the later your parry works during animation the more time you have to punish your enemy, thus makes regular parry punishment unrealistic at best which also eliminates the idea that parry was designed for multiple uses, (ex: starting with regular version and then keeping up with metered one) b/c you cannot even followup a regular parry with metered one unless regular one hits really late increasing it effective startup from 8 frames to AT LEAST 16.
Interesting property of parry is that parrying normal prohibits special move followups.
Damage increase parry provides for notable punishes is following:
- d2 gains about 5% increase from 14% to 18.62%
- 114 will get a total buff of 4% damage 20% vs 24% , 1 bar combo 40% vs 44%
- f2 will get 5% increase from 43% to 48% (1 bar) this is also an unrealistic turn of events
- f1b2 will get 2% increase from 38% to 40% 1 bar
- Throw will get 1% increase 12% to 13%
Double Parry
- will deal 9% more damage on 114
- will deal 9% more damage on f2
- will deal 6% more damage on f1b2
Triple parry will deal
- 12% more damage on 114 (up to 32%)
- 14% more damage on f2 (up to 57%) (this number only if you did 1 reg and 2 master, otherwise you dont have meter to extend the combo)
- 10% more damage on f1b2
- 19% more on uppercut up to 33%
As you can see even if you burn 3 bars to parry a string (which is an enormous feat imo) to only get an increase ~10% combo damage
Combos
TBD
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