I just picked up Dragonball FighterZ and holy cow - I don’t think I’ve been this hooked on a fighting game since Tekken 4! Its getting slightly overshadowed by MH World (which is also an amazing game in its own right) so I haven’t seen much talk about it here or on Twitter.
As a pretty big novice, I’ve been enjoying the fact that the autocombos are decent and that the special moves aren’t too hard to pull off. That being said, there’s still a huge amount of depth that I haven’t come close to mastering yet. I’ve been scouring Reddit and YouTube for tips but I was wondering if anyone here has their own ways of learning!
I’m also interested in what other people’s favorite characters are so far. I’m really loving Yamcha because Wolf Fang Fist’s branching combos are so satisfying to pull off, especially when you’re constantly switching sides and confusing your opponent. I’ve dabbled in Cell and I like him, but can’t figure out a good rhythm quite yet.
You should stick with autocombos until you have a comfortable grip of spacing and zoning, especially in this game since there are so many aggressive options that can make pulling off manual combos very difficult in the thick of things.
At lower levels of ranked play, you’re going to deal with a lot of people overusing the Super Dash, as well as mashing on buttons because so many attacks are safe on block (meaning, there’s little-to-no time where they’re vulnerable after you block their attack). The defensive options are also much less than other games like Guilty Gear.
For punishing Super Dash, know that uppercut (down + Heavy) will always punish aerial attacks, provided you’re not in the startup animation. This’ll allow you to punish players who recklessly use super dash way too often.
Against heavy offense, you’ll want to get a good grasp of recognizing the heavy and overhead attack animations on characters because those are the ones that are the least safe on block. If you’re stuck in the corner, don’t hesitate to use Vanish to get out because it’s otherwise really tough to punish blockstrings in that situation.
I’ve started practicing with manual combos, and they’re a lot of fun in this game, but it does cause a habit of being too focused on pulling them off instead of trying to control the space. The auto-combos are efficient enough for damage that you can get away with not learning manuals until the much higher ranks.
This is great advice! I’ve definitely felt a little bit of pressure to learn cool combos first before I get spacing down, and that’s probably been hampering my effectiveness. When I’m being rushed, all of that combo practice kind of leaves my head and I start panic pressing buttons and hope for the best. I’ve been scared to hop into online too much but I think I’ll do it tonight just to get a sense of how other people are playing these characters too.
If you play on PS4 we have a decent playerbase over on the unofficial GiantBomb fighting game Discord server. Everyone is nice and we have a lot of players that you could fight with and share tips and whatnot (although I’m in the unfortunate population of players for whom Ring Match is still completely broken). Pop in and say hi if you’d like. GBFGC Discord
As for me, I’ve only really put a few hours into the game so far, mostly because I haven’t found any characters that interest me. The only one I cared about at all before the game released was Android 21, but then they turned her into a weird pink goo lady so now throughout the entire cast I’m interested in about .25 characters. That said people tell me Frieza is the most zoner in a game where everyone has a button dedicated to projectiles so my current team is 21/Pink Goku/Frieza or it would be if I ever can play other people.
As for tips, depending on how much into fighting games you are…remember to crouch block. It stops 2/3rds of attacks so you’re covering most of your bases there. That said you still have to worry about overheads. I mention this tip specifically because I didn’t start to improve in fighting games until I figured this out. When someone’s pressure you they’re going to mix-up between these three kinds of attacks (standings, crouches, overheads) to try and make you slip up while you’re defending. The best defence, blah blah blah.
Right now I want to run Goku/Trunks/Android 18, but I’m in the process of unlocking 21 so that might change.
