Questions Mostly Regarding Neutral Game And Greatsword Counter

Hello,

1. Best way to beat a Greatsword is counter, you need to know that usually after every stoneform there is a charge attack.
2. If you click C + Right click on mouse you will go into uppercut
3. There are a lot of movement videos / combat videos around, your best bet is to watch people play and I would recommend Squikki_ on Twitch - he's amazing and runs a few custom matches so you can always see how 1v1's work in high ranks.

Greatsword depends on player skill. Bad GS user is easy, just clash with him and parry the stone form.

Good GS user is gambling, you have to make a read and act on it. And yeah, if you guess 50/50 wrong, you are probably dead.

For example if you auto parry after clash, GS can dash cancel into uppercut-lmb-rmb, which will deal more dmg than the stone form focus you tried to parry. Also don't throw obvious focus attacks, GS parry is the most damaging one (afaik) because it can combo from it.

Personally i avoid fighting GS, because imo it's more rng than skill. If i am fighting one for whatever reason, Longsword is generally just the best weapon and works against everything imo. Toothpick combo's do disgusting dmg, and GS is too slow to chase/follow if you kite with LS focus attacks.

I main GS (not the best at it by any means) and what a decent GS player will do is horizonta l- crouch vertical - horizontal - vertical. This combos gets 4 hits off, but doesn't work too often since hitbox can be buggy. Any variation of these attacks will allow a GS to hit you without ever using a focus(blue aura) attack. I'd recommend dodging the first attack and crouch canceling to stun lock. It's hard to out aggro someone when the GS swings so slow initially.

So when you talk about neutral game, I know that neutral is technically when you're not doing anything. But neutral in this game feels like when you're sitting in your focus attack charging. Because the focus attack is threatening, and you can just dodge out of it, it can definitely provide some breathing room to just charge focus, then dodge cancel it, into another focus.

--- that is usually my gameplay going into a fight, is to run up, fake focus and see how they react. If they are the kind of person that parries as soon as they see blue, cancel your focus by crouching, and right click if you're on keyboard. that will put them in the air where you can do one of those combos you saw on youtube (or you can start toothpicking them or whatever you wanna do ). if they charge focus attack and try to clash with you cancel into a parry, if they start swinging light attacks when you start charging focus attack? well just let a rip. Once someone commits to a swing into your focus attack you can just let it fly and it will win every time.

likewise grappling - if you have any expectation that someone is grappling you then start charging vertical focus attack and if they fly at you let it fly. because the blue focus will protect you from the hitstun of the grapple and they'll just fly into the damage. On the opposite end of that, if you grapple someone charging focus attack it does not mean you've lost, you have 3 options.

1. cancel your grapple with crouch or jump before you're in range of the focus attack
2. cancel your grapple directly in front of them with crouch and parry at the same time in hopes they let the focus attack fly
3. cancel your grapple in front of them by jumping (a little risky), and right click as you fly over them to plunge towards the ground and hit them in the back of the head.

Hopefully understanding that helps you feel more comfortable in neutral and gives you an idea of how to open someone up. And try to get into a combo.

As for the greatsword every second attack is blue. so if you ever see someone do 2 consecutive attack with the gs just parry it. If he never uses a focus attack then try to get yours off.

I have spent hours testing the best approach to fighting the greatsword in neutral. It will always be a risky weapon to fight, but if you need some help, add me on EU "Kitsukami" and I'll show you the safest way to engage it ^.^

1. Their white attacks are slow and you can hit inbetween. Dont try to insta parry their focus attacks. All, or most, of them hit more than once so you can actually run back and then parry into the 2nd swing. Especially important on stoneform hits.
2. I believe LMB has enough stagger to allow for uppercut follow up but I dont play dagger so i'm not sure about that one. You can test this by going into Aim Training and turning combat On.
3. Charge a sprinting focus then act according to opponent. If they're open, release before first charge -> combo. If they spam you, release focus. If you think they'll go for a parry, cancel into white -> combo OR wait for the parry and release right after/cancel into uppercut -> combo. Just some basic examples as vs better players they will also charge so now you'll have to take into account they have all the options as you do and they're forcing an action on you too. At the end its all mind games, charging a focus forces an action and you work with that.

The blue focus attack after a dagger dodge has long enough hitstun to confirm an uppercut, but you have to dodge again to get out of the recovery.

So it'd look like Dodge-LMB-Dodge-CRMB.

You have to be very quick on the uppercut, no other dagger attack inflicts enough hitstun to confirm the uppercut. You should barely move at all because you're canceling the dodge almost immediately into the uppercut, the dodge is just to break the long ass recovery animation of the dodge attack.