Gigan

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Introduction

One of the melee specialists. Compared to Anguirus, Gigan is far more defensive and focused on playing solid. A great pick for players who want to play reactive and punish opponents for overextending or being predictable.

Overview

Strengths

  • Excellent normals with great startup, recovery, priority, range, and damage
  • High damage potential
  • Only traditional dp in the game, and it's very safe, though has no invincibility
  • Best wrath in the game, useable as antiair, anti projectile, tech punish, to stuff pokes, and can also be combo'ed into or used as a mixup

Weaknesses

  • Struggles to open up turtling opponents to deal said damage
  • Worst throw range in the game
  • Struggles from long range
  • Nonexistent chip damage pressure
  • Short stun gauge can make wrath hard to keep/build

General Strategy

His buttons have fantastic damage, startup, and recovery. His dp knocks down and is difficult/impossible to punish even on block/whiff in many situations, and his wrath is the most versatile in the game. However, with the worst throw range in the game and no overheads, no crossup, and the worst chip pressure on top of that, he will struggle immensely trying to open up a turtling opponent. If he does land his 270 grab though, he will easily take off 50%-80%. Even an antiair gone wrong can lead to 40%-70% damage off his air target combo.

As such, having good footsies and spacing is a must. He can challenge most pressure with his buttons, keep out most attackers with his dp, and has a very easy high damage tech punish with d+X. Y beam is the second fastest startup projectile in the game, and is a great surprise poke to keep opponents honest, despite its nonexistent damage and bad, but usually safe, recovery. His flamethrower when tapped has an extremely fast whiff animation, and can be used to feint opponents or option select as a situational poke/antiair/projectile cancel.

When he truly shines is when he has wrath. Not only does it make his already strong pokes terrifying, his wrath attack is a very short startup unblockable hit with a rather high hitbox, projectile immunity, and extremely high priority. It can be combo'ed into, used to antiair, tech punish, punish midscreen projectiles, or simply call out an extended limb. Because of its absurd properties, it can be used in many ways, including passively pressuring your opponent into jumping or backing up just by crouching from midscreen away because of how difficult it is to jump over on reaction. Thus, giving him an excellent backup plan if he's behind on life.

Also note that his dp isn't safe anymore in the corner, so make sure you still play actively and fight for screen space even if you're not looking to go in.

Overall, he is great at maintaining and keeping/extending a life lead, while also having one touch comeback potential from his low success but extremely high damage offense.

Strategy Against

Data Arsenal

+

  • One of the faster hop dashes in the game, with shorter distance

+

  • One of the faster hop dashes in the game, with shorter distance. Can only corpse hop smaller enemies.

  • Best roar in the game. Might even be able to use it as a pressure option from midscreen to goad a defensive player into coming out of their shell, especially if they're in wrath.

Range

  • Worst in the game

Stun Gauge

  • Low. One of the easiest characters to stun in the game, so make sure you make use of his strong defensive options properly

Stun Recovery

  • Above average?

Wake Up Speed

  • Slowest in the game

Other Mechanics

Movelist

Ground Normals

  • 2 hit vertical swipe. Does great damage for a light and is very + on block, enough to link into a variety of other attacks. Because his throw range is terrible, he sadly cannot get a forced throw setup from it normally. Because it's 2 hits, it's also relatively easy to meaty with. Sadly again, his combo finishers generally don't leave him in position to meaty. If you're able to whiff the first hit and only meaty the second, he could theoretically get a forced throw attempt.

  • An excellent low with good reach and great frame data. Superb startup and frame advantage, can tick throw if done point blank. Used to both challenge out of pressure and start his own.

  • Straight chest level punch with excellent startup, recovery, and priority, but mediocre damage. Stuffs and punishes many attacks, but the knockback usually ends Gigan's own pressure, so it's better used as a defensive tool.

  • A large 2 hit low swipe. Huge range and high damage, excellent horizontal reach and decent vertical. Quick startup, with mediocre recovery. His main poke and damage tool, and his primary threat overall aside from his wrath. Very difficult to punish even on whiff. Look for as many opportunities to throw this out as possible.

Jumping Normals

  • Vertical swipe with great priority and is active for the entire jump. Can be used to slow down his horizontal jump momentum for tricky jump ins. Also spikes aerial opponents down.

  • A lazy downwards kick with a low reaching hitbox and good priority, active for entire jump. Because of how early in the jump it tends to hit, it tends to be very punishable even on hit. Still, an excellent choice to finish a stun or kill due to how difficult it is to antiair. Might be able to instant overhead on the MGs, due to their extremely tall crouches.

  • A downwards diagonal hook swipe that spikes aerial opponents down. The low hitbox makes it not all that effective on fliers though. The excellent horizontal and downwards reach makes it a good fireball punish from afar. The high knockback and mediocre recovery means Gigan generally doesn't get good follow ups after it connects though. The active frames are also very short, so timing needs to be precise.

(x3)

  • An aerial target combo, 2 kicks followed by a tail stab. High priority, short reach, long hit/blockstun, low knockback. Horizontal and vertical momentum are stopped after first kick connects, so at max range, it's likely that the follow up kick will miss entirely, so first kick needs to hit with fairly precise timing and positioning.
  • Depending on how it hits, the timing to connect the follow up will change, though in most normal instances against a standing opponent, you could just mash X.
  • It's better to wait and do it as slow as possible though, so you land with more frame advantage. For optimal pressure, practice the timing so you can mixup doing either 2 or 3 hits on block, and land into a frame trap low or throw mixup. An unblockable low is also possible from the 3rd hit, which can connect on the same frame you land, but has really difficult timing. This is pretty much Gigan's only reliable mixup to open up his opponent.
  • Another advantage of learning to do the combo slow is that if you manage to catch someone air to air, you can walk them back to the ground to make sure you have time to get a full combo punish.

Throws

  • An uppercut launcher with low initial damage. His strong combo followup makes up for it, giving it a high ratio of damage to wrath gain.

  • Massive damage chest buzzsaw, and still allows for good followup. A devastating 270 grab if you manage to land it.

  • Lower damage chest buzzsaw. Pretty much only exists as a safety net for when you botch the 270 one.

Special Moves

/

  • Flamethrower breath. The worst in the game, with short reach, low damage, and poor startup and the worst recovery scaling. As a projectile limb, Y version will always have its uses as an unbeatable antiair, but the poor recovery still leaves him in a slight frame disadvantage position afterwards, so it's definitely very situational. It has really good recovery when you just tap it though, while giving out the same roar as his eye laser, making it a great feint.

/ (can hold, air ok)

  • A unique projectile that is sadly also the worst in the game. When tapped, only fires 1 segment, giving it a fairly short overall frame duration. However, because the hit/blockstun and recovery are abyssmal, this is still terrible pressure. To make matters worse, it only does 1 pixel of damage per hit while giving them a disproportionately large amount of wrath per damage if they do get hit by it.
  • Holding the button down will charge it, allowing him to fire more segments at the cost of more startup and recovery, cuz clearly it wasn't already unsafe enough! Still, you will sometimes need to do this to float in the air longer, or when you're sure it's gonna hit and want to make the X beam actually do significant damage.
  • The segments disappear on contact as normal when blocked, but the projectile will pierce and persist and continue to hit when it hits.
  • Air version has much better recovery, but is extremely awkward to use because it comes out so high. Still, instant air Y laser to pick off a predicted jump is one of his many ways to combo into his wrath, so keep that in mind.
  • Y version has a lower rate of damage, so much that the piercing ticks don't actually combo with themselves. They can get hit by a single tick then still block afterwards, making the damage output always nonexistent except on airborne opponents.
  • X version's ticks will combo with themselves, making it safe on hit. Damage is still awful though, and still not enough hitstun for Gigan to have an advantageous followup.
  • Mostly, if you ever do use this move, it'll be a 1 segment Y version as a surprise midrange poke to keep them honest. As Mothra is unable to block, this is relatively effective against her, allowing you to close to gap slightly while she's stuck in hitstun or dodging it. Be careful with the wrath you're giving her with it though.

/

  • A large backflip with his chest buzzsaw. Antiair dp with great priority, very fast startup, and high damage, but short forward reach. Because of how far he flies backwards, X is usually unpunishable unless he's cornered. This isn't as abuseable as it sounds however, since Gigan is generally at a strong disadvantage from long range. A great move to get of frametrap pressure also.
  • X version also knocks down on hit. On very close or crossup hits, they instead get knocked towards Gigan, giving him juggle opportunity and backturned unblockable meaty for massive combo damage.
  • Y version flips in a much smaller arc, only does a small launch even on hit, and is unsafe and punishable on hit or block, while also having much lower damage and priority. Never use it.

Hold 2 seconds minimum, (when life is low and flashing)

  • Play dead. Gigan stands in a neutral state for a few seconds wherein he is completely invincible. Throws will completely whiff, and if an attack connects, he will negate all damage and fly backwards as if KO'ed. Upon getting up, he still has full invincibility for about a second or so after he can move.
  • This is primarily a stalling move, as the clock still runs during the animation. Despite not dying or taking any damage, the long animation allows his opponent to retreat full screen away, denying him any opportunity to make use of his invincibility. He can use that time to do the move again and stall indefinitely without dying, but of course, this is only useful if he has the life lead at the time, which, if he's close enough to death to be able to use this move, would be rather unlikely.
  • Because it has no visible recovery, it is extremely hard to even deal chip damage in between recasts.

Wrath Attack

+

  • An SNK style rushing autocombo super. Has a short startup period where he's vulnerable, but inexplicably still causes forced block despite having no active hitbox yet. Afterwards, charges forward with an unblockable hit that goes all the way up to his head, traveling about half screen length. Has projectile immunity during the charge. Despite technically not being melee invincible, the hitbox is so large and has so much priority that it's exceptionally rare for him to be hit out of it.
  • Arguably the best wrath attack in the game, with Super MG's being the other contender, which has similar properties. However, Gigan's has more vertical reach, making it a better antiair, and has much more ways to combo confirm into it.
  • To avoid it, they must either back dash/run out of it's range, react very quickly to neutral jump over it, or do a back run to cancel out of forced block then cancel into a back jump. They can also hit him during the startup if in range, but doing this preemptively plays into Gigan's regular footsie and counter poking game.
  • Overall, Gigan having wrath is a massive game changer and he immediately becomes one of the most terrifying characters as long as he can get closer than about 1/3 screen away, terrifying enough to offset his lackluster offense outside of wrath.

Combos/Punishes

Tech Punish

  • d+X
  • Wrath

General OTG

  • d+X
  • d+Y, Wrath

Links

  • Y, d+Y
  • Y, X
  • Y, dp+X (wide chars only)
  • d+Y, B (point blank)
    • unsure if forced throw or just tick throw

Advanced

  • crossup/close antiair dp+X, juggle Y, walk forward, unblock Y -> X/dp+X
    • dp must hit in a way that their corpse gets clipped behind Gigan and pushed along the dp recovery
  • crossup/close antiair dp+X, juggle Y, OTG d+Y, Wrath
    • ~90% damage
  • B, qcd+B, walk forward, corpse hop f+A, unblock Y -> X/dp+X
    • optimal side switch throw combo, small corpses only
  • low height air antiair qcb+Y, Wrath
  • B, 270 B, d+Y, Wrath
    • max damage combo, ~95%
  • qcd+B throw, juggle Y, OTG d+X
    • basic meterless launch throw combo

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
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