A little under a year ago, I wrote some first impressions about Dizzy after she was added to Guilty Gear Strive. My general takeaways were mostly negative even though I found her really fun to play. There were a lot of small reasons for that, but the biggest unifying theme of my complaints was that her design felt muddled. Her tools seemed built with zoning in mind, but she was fairly mediocre at keep-out. She wasn’t much better at traditional strike-throw offense either, which left Dizzy in this weird limbo state where she couldn’t do anything particularly well.
I wasn’t the only person who came to this conclusion about Dizzy either. Over the next several weeks, countless tier lists were published by different notable players, and every single one of them put Dizzy in the bottom tier. Heck, some even said she was the worst character in the game.
Now, this isn’t the first time that people have claimed a newly released character was the worst in Strive, so it’s important to take such claims with a grain of salt. Infamously, some said that Happy Chaos was trash when he was first released. In the following months, Happy Chaos crept to the top of most player’s tier lists, and also won EVO 2022.
Though, in fairness, that EVO win came after Happy Chaos received totally unnecessary buffs to the majority of his attacking moves. This was done as a way to compensate for a nerf to the character’s zoning capabilities, but many considered this change a massive net positive for the Happy Chaos playerbase.
Regardless, the point remains that many people had grossly underestimated the strength of Happy Chaos upon his initial release. As such, it wasn’t unreasonable to think that myself, and others might have missed the mark with Dizzy too. Perhaps there was something we’d missed that would unlock the true potential of the character.
However, as weeks turned into months, people continued to nod their head in agreement about Dizzy.
On one hand, this was extremely vindicating. I don’t always have the most confidence in my opinions as it relates to Fighting games, so it was nice to see a bunch of other players (at various levels of play) all coming to the same conclusion that I did with my initial assessment.
However, this also kind of sucked because I really enjoyed playing Dizzy (when she worked). That sort of sentiment shouldn’t ever stop you from playing a character that you enjoy, but it’s hard to maintain a consistent level of enthusiasm when you’re reminded how much easier it’d be to just play somebody else.
That said, there were 2 major balance patches to Strive between when I last played Dizzy and now. Surely, Arc System Works buffed her to a point where she can actually compete, right?
…Right?
Guys?
All joking aside, here’s the list of (relevant) changes that Dizzy received across those 2 patches:
- For Roasting Chestnuts (236K)
- First hit no longer counts as a projectile & hitbox size increased
- Causes a knockdown on hit
- Can now neutralize other projectiles
- Far Slash (f.S)
- Increased hitbox
- Crouching Slash (2S)
- Increased hitbox
- Michael Sword (214S)
- Causes a knockdown on hit
- I Used This to Catch Fish (236S|H)
- More than doubled the active frames of the attack
- Frozen State
- No longer (erroneously) triggers a wall break
There was also a change that buffed the power of Yellow Roman Cancel, and damage was nerfed across the board. Both of these changes were huge for Dizzy since it increased her defensive utility, and brought her damage output inline with the rest of the cast. In fact, you could reasonably argue that Dizzy was one of the biggest beneficiaries of both changes.
So, after a few more weeks of playing Dizzy, what do I think of her now?
Here’s a short video that I believe accurately captures my impressions:
This character is a lot better at zoning now. Her tools actually compliment one another thanks to the additional knockdown opportunities afforded by both versions of Michael Sword, and Chestnut. In all cases, Dizzy has the option to set up additional projectiles, Wings of Light, or Ice Field which allows her to run her gameplan a lot more consistently.
In addition, she has stronger tools (namely For Roasting Chestnuts) for challenging the other cast members when she gets into a zoning war. This means that she doesn’t feel completely defenseless like she used to when she had to rely solely on I Used This to Catch Fish, which was too slow to meaningfully challenge most of the cast with any degree of consistency.
While the massive buff to I Used This to Catch Fish is certainly the highlight of the current patch, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find the changes to Chestnut from the previous patch to be more impactful. It’s actually wild how much mileage I can get out of this special attack now. It helps to keep folks locked down, and the added knockdown makes it very easy to consistently place Ice Field. This is notable as the added icy terrain makes it much harder for opponents to approach Dizzy.
That said, I can’t overlook the changes to I Used This to Catch Fish. The almost 40 frames that this attack is active for is insane. I’ve caught so many people off guard with this attack because it’s active for so long. I think it sits firmly in gimmick territory, but I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t an effective gimmick. And that makes it a nice option to exercise, especially against players who’re unfamiliar with Dizzy.
I’m also loving the hitbox changes on Dizzy’s Slash normals. The extended hitbox on Far Slash has led to several instances where I’ve had it clash with an opponent’s reversal (invulnerable get-off me attacks like Shoryuken), which led to an advantageous follow-up for me. This is the sort of power I was used to wielding while playing May, and having it now on Dizzy has made her feel a lot better overall.
Also, Crouching Slash is basically just May’s Crouching Slash from before it was nerfed to be 10% slower. That attack was best-in-class prior to the nerf, so Dizzy having an equally strong attack here feels so good. Plus, Crouching Slash was (it still is, honestly) my favourite way to control space with May, and it works just as well on Dizzy.
All said, I think Dizzy is in a much better place now than she was when she first released. She feels like a solid middle of the pack character, with well defined strengths to accompany her many weaknesses. She has a very strong presence from everywhere on the screen, and can easily suffocate her opponent after she builds up some momentum. That said, all of her attacks have exploitable dead zones, and she still struggles to cover the space above her head.
Regardless, I’ve continued to have a ton of fun playing Dizzy. More so than before I’d wager. I wasn’t expecting much given how few changes she’s received over the past year, but it seems like those changes targeted the areas where Dizzy needed the most help. Now she feels like a strong zoner with unique tools, instead of direction-less generalist with meagre damage output.
I also felt comfortable enough to use Dizzy last week in bracket at locals, and I won all 5 games where I played her. Granted, I was still playing May for the majority of my games, but it was nice to finally show off the work I’ve been putting in with Dizzy.
Here’s hoping that I continue to have fun as I progress even further with her.
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Frostilyte Writes 