Biollante

From Super Fighting Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Introduction

Traditionally considered the single worst character in the game due to her massive size and awful startup on attacks, her tier is now up in the air after discoveries of a practical touch of death and a semi infinite. The way she struggles in most situations and has severely gimped mobility and options compared to the rest of the cast, but only needs one or 2 openings to take a round gives her a playstyle reminiscent of Potemkin. Good for players who enjoy huge momentum swings.

Overview

Strengths

  • One touch kills
  • Acid mortars have very high durability and good frame data
  • Throws on average are generally less effective due her throw hurtbox being her body, and her ripped chunk mechanic

Weaknesses

  • Everything else has abysmal frame data
  • Massive target. Beak hurtbox is a huge liability, being so far forward
  • Needs to land running X or 270 throw to one touch kill, both are very difficult
  • Damage outside of her death combos is low
  • Helpless once cornered

General Strategy

There's not a lot really. Her run speed is quite decent, so most of your neutral is probably just running around randomly tossing acid mortars and looking to harass or confirm into her infinite. Run slide d+Y is an ok poke, and combos into itself. The release X vine grab is her other decently ranged poke, but is quite slow. Her stand Y and X have terrible startup, recovery, hitboxes, and frames in general, but they are quite high priority and can stuff a good number of normals. Her qcf+Y acid breathe pulls her beak hurtbox back a lot at startup and can be used to dodge and counter poke mids and highs aimed at her beak. Vine wall can block unblockables and roars, and neutralize chip damage, with only a very small window of punishable recovery if she cancels it manually. dd+Y can do massive damage if they approach too recklessly. Try your best not to get cornered, cuz it's rather easy for them to just frame trap you forever there as long as they stay out of your throw range. Ideally you get a passive antiair by them just jumping into one of your random acid mortars, and if you're very lucky they were hit in a way that you can confirm into running X to start your infinite. Otherwise, d+X has a deceptively massive hitbox and should beat most jump ins.

But really, all that's just fluff to help you lose slower. Biollante is all about getting creative and being annoying until she can find a chance to hit either her infinite or 270 throw and more or less immediately win the match. Take risks and don't miss your opportunities, because she is absolutely not a solid character and will not do well in a controlled fight. Get used to the hitbox and startup of running X, cuz it's deceptively tiny, basically just her chin, and doesn't have much of a vertical hitbox despite looking like it swings upwards. She can also setup guaranteed wrath hits if she forces them to block or get hit by a deep Y mortar.

Strategy Against

Data Arsenal

+

  • Run with no acceleration period. Has running normals, and can also run slide regular normals by moving dpad to neutral or down immediately before pressing Y/X.

+

  • Run with no acceleration period. Has running normals, and can also run slide regular normals by moving dpad to neutral or down immediately before pressing Y/X.

  • Second best in the game

Range

  • Above average

Stun Gauge

  • ?

Stun Recovery

  • ?

Wake Up Speed

  • ?

Other Mechanics

  • Cannot jump or crouch, but blocks high and low at the same time instead. Thorn wall can block unblockables and roars.
  • Throws that normally lift other characters instead rip out a piece of Biollante, and only deal a single hit of damage if it was multiple hits.
  • Awkward hurtbox, her head hurtbox extends all the way to her beak in most cases, while her lower hurtbox is all the way at the center of her stomach, making low pokes far less effective. Some of her attacks will pull her beak hurtbox back and can be used as pseudo dodges.
  • Cannot be launched, outside of post fight glitches.
  • Has no overheads.

Movelist

Ground Normals

  • Single bite with long startup, long active frames, good priority, but very short range and low damage. Is technically frame disadvantage, but because it's terrible as an attack, it will mostly be used as a counter poke to stuff enemy limbs aiming at her mouth instead, causing it to hit quite meaty, making it fairly safe or even plus. In many cases though, Biollante herself will just get stuffed instead, so it's important to know what it can and cannot outprioritize when using it this way.

  • Quick snout uppercut that launches slightly on hit, with surprisingly high damage. Links into itself on hit, making this one of the rare normals from this era that's + on hit but - on block. Startup is on the slow side, but funny enough, still faster than Megalon's. Her best get off me button to get out of pressure, but is subpar overall. Priority and range is quite good though. Also likely the highest damage light normal in the game.

  • Double bite. It doesn't startup any slower than Y, but has more priority, and much better frame advantage and slightly more range thanks to the second hit. The 2 hits don't combo, and are instead frame traps. Used in the same way as Y, to stuff aggressive limbs/approach. Much less safe on whiff cuz of the longer animation, but mixing this in will let you whiff Y more freely since the animation is identical. Damage is still quite low sadly.

  • Slow snout uppercut. Despite having the same visual animation, the hitbox and usage is entirely different. X version has much higher priority, and a much larger vertical hitbox that extends significantly past her actual sprite (and presumably, hurtbox), making this an excellent antiair. The lower and horizontal hitboxes are much smaller than Y version, making this much less effective on grounded opponents. Like Y, launches on hit making it safe, but is very minus on block.

(while running)

  • A slow half snout uppercut. Incredibly pointless move. Slower, less damage, worse recovery, smaller hitbox, less run slide momentum resulting in less effective range, and no combo followup compared to d+Y. So just use run slide d+Y instead if you wanna pressure with a running poke.

(while running)

  • Very exaggerated snout scoop. Mediocre startup, abyssmal recovery, and low damage. However, this is her most important button because it pulls and launches them behind her on hit, and she recovers fast enough to get a back turned unblockable meaty acid mortar, allowing her to loop back into this move until they're stunned. See combo section for more info. The move on its own is terrible. The hitbox is much smaller than it looks, only hitting a small area horizontally at the bridge of her nose, doesn't even extend all the way to the tip of her snout. Despite appearances, it does not hit above her, and is not an effective antiair. It has abnormally long blockstun, but because it also has negative knockback and terribad recovery, her opponents still get a free full punish of their choice anyways. Her touch of death semi infinite off landing this move is the only way to make the risk/reward of using it worthwhile, and is absolutely core to Biollante's gameplay. Always be on the lookout for opportunities to punish with or combo into this, cuz it only takes 1 hit and clean combo execution to put her opponent at death's door.

Throws

  • Flailing bite throw. Grabs and picks up opponent in her jaws, and flails them around left and right before tossing them away. Doesn't work on another Biollante. Opponent can mash to reduce damage like normal bite throws. Deals massive stun and damage, and gives her guaranteed meaty follow ups that result in almost guaranteed stun. Catching someone with this in wrath is touch of death, and even without wrath, leads to 70-90% damage, corners them from anywhere in the stage, takes away all their wrath, and vortexes into a meaty projectile oki, so death is still highly probable. Finding a situation where you can actually catch someone with this is highly improbable though.

  • Her "back" throw...that doesn't actually always work. Sometimes, possibly only on larger characters like Megalon, she'll just randomly fail to get them over her very tall head and just drop them down in front of herself instead, denying herself back turned pressure. That said it's her only easy throw, and her only other throw, so she'll have to use this anyways.

Special Moves

Hold 2 seconds, release

  • Tentacle choke grab. Slow startup, but very long range. It is a blockable hit throw that does good damage. Launch angle can be altered by hold f, uf, or u. Mostly used as a surprise poke.

(as tentacle grab hits)

  • Tentacle toss. Less damage than just choking them, but throws them very far away. Can also hold b while pressing X to instead throw them behind you. The forward throw will toss them full screen away and has worse recovery, leaving you with no oki or follow up options, so it's better for when you want to zone. The back throw doesn't recover fast enough for unblock meaty acid mortar, but you still get a back turned oki on most characters. On Gigan, you have enough time to go for a meaty unblock run X.

  • Tentacle stab. Does not chip, but does huge damage and low stun on hit, and pushes them almost fullscreen away on block, so it's pretty safe even if very minus. Tentacle will disappear if Biollante gets hit. Travels further and does more hits on closer opponents. A nice attack to fish with for its high damage and safety, but beware of it's very slow startup. Not actually effective at creating distance cuz the recovery is so bad that they can close the gap right back by the time you recover.

  • Low tentacle grab. Biollante's only low. Similar to the hold X grab, this is a hit grab. It's extremely slow, does not have a toss variant, and does low damage. You can delay the attack by holding down X to make it even slower. I think the intention behind the move was you were supposed to use it at fullscreen to bait them to jump, and hold X to delay it to hit them during trip guard. The reality is, this never works cuz they'll just hit you. Pretty useless.

/

  • Tentacle wall. Quickly builds a wall in front of her that magically also defends attacks from behind her. It absorbs a limited amount of damage, is chip immune, grab immune, unblockable immune, and roar immune. Stun bar will still stop regening while blocking attacks as with regular blocking. If it takes enough damage, the wall will be destroyed and Biollante will go into a long recovery period where she's vulnerable.
  • Y version is very slightly faster startup and recovery, but the wall has much lower hp. May be feasible to use like a parry to call out a slow midrange poke such as Godzilla dp+X or MG93 d+X, then use the fast set recovery speed to get a small punish. Also preferred for unblockable hit type wraths such as Gigan's, MG93's, and Biollante's.
  • X is much beefier, and more useful for negating enemy beams and wraths.
  • Protection persists for about half a second after it "dies", allowing it to potentially stop much more damage than its actual health if the hits are close together, such as against MG74 or Godzilla's wrath attacks.

/

  • Acid breath, similar to other characters' flamethrower breath specials, except not aimable. The damage is still very low, and her recovery is not good. It does have fairly long horizontal reach, but can be low profiled or jumped over. The one great thing about it is the startup animation pulls her beak hurtbox way back, allowing her to dodge and counterattack pokes targeting it. Always use Y version, X startup and recovery is so poor that it's easily punishable even on max range hit.

/

  • Acid mortar. A high damage, high durability projectile with slow startup, but excellent recovery. Fairly easy to hit confirm into a combo. The projectiles are a bit small, so hitting with it can be rather awkward, but it's so hard to punish that you can sorta just run around randomly and spam it. The arc is fairly good at controlling the air, but having only 2 trajectories makes it somewhat easy to run or dash under. Still absolutely core to her neutral game as a good hit can be confirmed straight into her infinite, and easily combos into a guaranteed wrath on hit or block.
  • X version goes farther and has worse recovery, but deals the same amount of damage and has about the same startup, making it difficult for your opponent to see which version you used until it's too late.

Wrath Attack

+

  • 2 part wrath. First part summons 2 tentacles in front of her that rush forward as an unblockable projectile that destroys all other projectiles they come in contact with, except Godzilla's wrath. If it touches them, they'll snap them down and spray them with acid for minor damage. If Biollante is hit or the tentacles whiff, they'll just retract and the wrath ends.
  • After the tentacle spray, Biollante will launch a cone spread of acid mortars from her mouth. If the tentacles connected from too far, this will not combo. The damage in general will be lower the farther they are because of the bullet spread.
  • Compared to other unblockable hit wraths, this has the slowest startup, is the easiest to hit out of, deals the lowest damage, has the lowest vertical hitbox, and slowest travel speed, but is also the easiest to confirm into. Basically just touch them with any deep Y mortar. This makes it the worst one to throw out reactively or randomly as a mixup by far, but also the easiest and most consistent to land and get full value from. Overall, a great wrath attack.
  • Because it is mechanically a projectile, it is very easy to time as an unblockable meaty. However, it also means moves with physical projectile immunity such as Gigan's wrath and MG74's barrier can pass through it unharmed.
  • At close range, this wrath is frame disadvantage and sometimes punishable on hit.

Combos/Punishes

Tech Punish

  • Running X -> infinite

General OTG

  • Qcb+Y/X xN
  • meaty qcb+Y, wrath

Links

  • d+Y x2
    • Due to awkward physics, this only works if opponent is grounded, or was high in the air
  • meaty or antiair qcb+Y, wrath
  • hit confirm qcb+Y, running X -> infinite
  • back throw, unblockable dd+Y
    • Doesn't always work due to overall inconsistent behavior of her back throw. How far you are from the corner, and how far you grabbed them from may also play a role
  • back throw, wrath

Advanced

  • 270 throw, run up OTG qcb+Y, deep meaty qcb+Y x2, run up roar (stun), qcb+Y xN
    • Touch of death when wrath is available. Finish stun combo with meaty qcb+Y into wrath. Otherwise, still does a solid 60-70% depending on how hard opponent mashes out.
    • Long stun bars and furious mashing during 270 might possibly cause the stun to not be guaranteed, but her roar is fast enough that it probably won't matter either way.
  • running X, (unblock meaty qcb+Y, running X) xN, when opponent close to stun, unblock meaty qcb+Y~dd+Y (stun)
    • Semi infinite. High difficulty, high risk, high reward, but core to playing Biollante optimally. 50-70% damage without wrath, less if they already had stun racked up. Chars with shorter stun bars take less damage, as stun breaks them out of the infinite. How much damage/stun you get from dd+Y depends on their distance from the corner, so in some cases, it might be more optimal to sub it with run slide d+Y x2 into roar if necessary. Avoid stunning with running X, as the long recovery will waste a lot of your stun time, reducing your total damage.
    • Her opponent has a small mixup opportunity to break out of the infinite loop, by doing any first frame wakeup reversal, causing them to stay back turned after being hit by the acid mortar. Comboing into the run X normally from this position will make them land with front facing Biollante, denying further reps of meaty unblockables.
    • However, Biollante can still save the infinite with a frame perfect timing of her own. As they are still back turned after the acid hitstun ends, if she times it so run X hits 1 frame after they recover so it hits as an unblockable during their turning around frame, they will again be back turned when tossed over. Note that they can also frame perfect reversal after the hitstun of the acid too to stay back turned a second time to make run X hit as a punish, and fully shut out any infinite opportunity.
    • Also of note, that combo timing is not an option select, and must be done on reaction. Delaying the run X that way if the acid hit normally will just result in them blocking the run X and punishing you. So it is far easier for them to break the infinite than it is for you to save it. That said, breaking it requires a 1 frame perfect input, and meaty acid lob is relatively generous. So the combo is still very much in your favor.

Matchups

Godzilla

Anguirus

King Ghidorah

Gigan

Megalon

MechaGodzilla 74

Biollante

Mothra

Super MechaGodzilla

Godzilla Kaijuu Daikessen
Godzilla Anguirus King Ghidorah Gigan
Megalon Biollante Mothra Gotengo
Mecha Godzilla (Showa) Mecha Godzilla (Heisei)
Super Mecha Godzilla
List of Fighting Games
Back to Mainpage