Recently, somebody within my personal MvC2 circle decided to start playing with Guile and asked me for a few tips. For those who do not know, Guile is a key component in my team simply because of his great priority. He may not be a God or Top tier character but is still very fun to play with. Unfortunately though, there are not many guides and even fewer videos on the character so I thought I would shed some light on the tactics I use with him.
Charging
If there is only one thing you take away from this post, it is the art of charging. Charging is constantly holding the down-back direction whenever possible. By doing this you will always have a sonic boom or flash kick up your sleeve ready for launch. This is key to most of Guile’s strategies. Flash kicks are great to keep opponents air game in check and will keep them on their toes. Sonics booms are essentially the same but you have a bit more flexibility.
You will most likely use your sonic booms much more often than your flash kicks. Flash kicks are most effective capping of Guile’s air combos or if you just have swept twice (to avoid roll out) and are out of supers. But with sonic booms you need to learn the ability to walk them. This refers to using the low punch version of the move to produce a much slower projectile that will linger across the screen giving you time to get close enough to deliver an aerial or ground attack in addition to the sonic boom. The opponent has to now worry about defending two different sets of attacks and if you super jump to do an aerial attack they will most likely forget the sonic boom is even there.
Learn to Walk Sonic Booms
Walking sonic booms is something you should not take lightly while playing. Anytime I hit the ground, I walk a boom before launching any attack. It is just good practice and will allow more room for Guile to operate within. When I feel like messing with people that love to block, I walk a boom –>dash forward, 2 low sweeps XX walk another boom and repeat. While I am performing the sweeps is also when I am charging for the oncoming sonic boom. There is really no time for them to let the block up due to the constant attacks coming and usually gets under their skin a bit. This forces them to try and for an abrupt exit and usually get caught in one of the attacks. Now that probably won’t work on MSP, but is great for casual low tier matches.
Assist Type
The only one the matters and should be used is the anti-air (flash kick). I am not even sure what the others do. I know one is a sonic boom but haven’t not used or seen those in so long it is really irrelevant. In all honesty, the only reason I started playing with Guile was for this assist. I was not a fan of CapCom’s assist because it had no direction like Guile and I was not skilled enough with Ken to utilize his. For some reason Ken is my worst of the Shoto (maybe due to his lack of a true projectile) but that is something to be look at in another post.
Supers
Guile has 3 Supers and two of them link to most of his moves with relative ease. The most common methods of linking are by sweeping twice (make sure you get the second sweep off to prevent rolling) then hitting the sonic hurricane or flash kick special. These can also be linked while standing as long as you combo into them.
His air special takes a little more finesse to hit. It can be launch from the ground by using the half circle down-up motion, the same one use for Cable’s AHVB. But I rarely am able to hit with that method. What works best for me is trying to trick my opponent while I am in the air. I usually back flip and try to draw the opponent into jumping along with me. Since I am going backwards they will most likely have their guard down and try to attack leaving me an opening to cancel into this special. That works most of the time for me but I try to concentrate on using his ground specials more.
That is my Guile in a nut shell. Tell me what you think and if you would like to see a guide for a specific character let me know in the comments.
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