Plasma Sword/Gore

Introduction

Overview

(Insert brief description about character and how they play, other details)

Strengths

Weaknesses

Big Metered Damage: Gore's Black Hole Super combos into a fireball or his Meteor super, giving him gigantic conversions off his confirms or anti-airs with it. i10 Launcher: Gore's 4K is a backwards moving i10 launcher that confirms into super. For perspective, Zelkin's fastest poke tools are i10. High Horizontals: Gore can chain 5BBB together for a natural combo at point blank, which is something of a rarity for this game. He also has an extremely strong 4B with lots of range and instant overhead properties. If the opponent isn't able to low profile well, he can leverage these two moves well to cut off step. Decent Zoning: While far worse than what other zoning characters in the game have to offer, Gore's Exploding Fire Projection/Composition Conversion/Spinning Leg special moves all work together to create a mobile and frustrating character to get in on for some of the close-range characters in this game. Giant Attack: Gore's Plasma Field leads to as much as half life damage or more, and can potentially be combo'd after in order to build back meter. Tons of Gimmicks: Gore is contention for the "most knowledge checks" in the game award, thanks to stuff like a lay-down stance with a command grab, non-guaranteed OTG throw, backswing blow-type reversal, and more. Fighting him can be very disorienting for both new and familiar players.

Needs Meter: Gore's threat without meter is virtually non-existent outside of praying someone runs into QCF+B. This is all made the worst by the fact that your normal meterless combo ender, your fireball, is unsafe on hit in certain matchups. Awkward Hitboxes and Spacing: Gore's normals are just very weak in general, with far worse range and hitboxes than many other characters in the game. He struggles to check opponent's pressure and has far worse zoning and close range options than his peers. His horizontals have strange oversights, such as an overhead that doesn't swing low enough to hit most of the characters in the game when they're crouching. Despite having some decent frame advantage here and there, these poor hitboxes force him to go on the defensive more often than not, since lacks strong catch-all checks without meter. Bad Stance: Gore's Absolute Rest stance feels like it should be the primary reason to play as the character, as it has a ton of options in it, some of which are on paper quite good, such as his command grab combo starter. However, Absolute Rest cannot be cancelled into, and despite the animation, there isn't a lot of stuff it actually evades, which is odd in a game that otherwise is very generous with evasion. Poor Ground Movement: Gore's best forward dash cancel box-step (the cartwheel) starts on frame 11, and if you lose track of which direction that is and accidentally do his normal step boxdash, it is the worst in the game, uncancelable until frame 16. To make matters worse, it is the further reaching in terms of distance, and there's some matchups you have to use that one in order to get out of specific situations. In otherwords, you have to carefully keep track of Gore's stance positioning in order to properly play this character. Unpopular Pick: He's not a terribly well researched or popular character, partially due to the difficulty of picking up his non-standard toolkit. Because of this, there is a non-zero chance there is tech for this character that simply hasn't been found or written down yet. Luca: You'll notice this wiki really doesn't talk about Luca. This is the worst movelist in the game, and the difference between Luca and Gore is that Gore's primary strengths, his supers, are removed and replaced by worse supers when Luca is picked. Luca is not completely without value: there's a few instances where Meteor super is a viable anti-air, for example. However, Gore isn't exactly a character hurting for a anti-air super, either, so those situations are niche at best, and probably don't outweight Gore's much, much higher damage output.

Move List

Vertical Normals

5A

A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	14	-	-	-	-7	-	-	Ground
A mediocre vertical poke that can occasionally hit anti-air, but not reliably. Perhaps best used for its ability to 2-in-1 into fireball.

5AA

AA

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	14	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

2A

2A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	11	-	-	-	+4	+4	-	Ground
One of Gore's most important pokes. It's held back by range, and it doesn't naturally duck highs like you'd think it would, but it nonetheless is an i11 poke with frame advantage and a string that combos into super. The fact that it's also + on block means you can reliably do some frame traps with 2A->5K or 2A->2A, but keep in mind that 2A pushes out further on hit than on block. Unfortunately, not a low.

3A

3A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	19	-	-	-	X	+5	-	Ground
Long range stab-type move. Knocks down, and is special cancelable on block, hit, and whiff. Unfortunately, its too plus for fireball to not jail (so you can't get it to hit if they try to step/jump) and its not plus enough to really frame trap off of with normals.

4A

4A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	15	-	-	-	+2	+2	-	Overhead
A surprisingly good overhead that jumps and is unseeable. Unfortunately, it doesn't have much range, and the pushout on hit makes it difficult to capitalize on the frame advantage,

While Running A/B

While Running A/B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	4	-	-	-	X	-4	-	Ground
Buried in a movelist of slow, awkward hitboxes is the game's fastest knockdown. It is not special cancelable nor has any other unique properties other than being fast, and unfortunately the second hit tends to whiff if the first hits on CH or if the character is small and crouching. Still, its a bit of a shotgun of a move, and a great alternative approach if you're tired of 3K all the time.

Horizontal Normals

5B

5B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Mid	9	-	-	-	-4	-	-	Ground
On one hand, having a 9 frame horizontal is very, very nice, and on paper, the fact that this leads into a pretty big combo string should be pretty good. Unfortunately, in almost every situation where a frame trap into 5B would be meaningful, there's enough push out that, even if 5B hits, none of its follow-ups will, or at best will inconsistently. This, by itself, is probably at its best at checking jump/step in frame advantage situations. It also tends to whiff crouchers in most situations.

4B

4B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Overhead	13	-	-	-	+5	-2	-	Overhead
A secretly juiced overhead that can't be reacted to and catches step. The fact this is an overhead almost feels like an oversight, since it only connects with crouchers at point blank range, and doesn't interact at all with characters that can shrink their hurtboxes while crouching (Cats, for example.) Versus the characters this will hit overhead, you have an unseeable overhead into fireball/super. Versus standing opponents, the range is actually quite large. If he swung a little bit low to catch low profiles, it would probably unquestionably be his best move. Alas, Gore isn't allowed such things.

2B

2B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Low	21	-	-	-	+1	-	-	Low
There's no other way to really say this: Gore's horizontals are quite bad. 21 frames, barely having frame advantage and barely having range makes Gore's 2B perhaps the worst in the game. If that weren't enough, it also just sometimes doesn't hit steppers depending upon how early the step is.

3B

3B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Low	22	-	-	-	Knockdown	+5	-	Low
Only a frame slower, 3B at least knocks the opponent down and can be special canceled, making it superior in virtually every way to 2B. Sadly, the range still isn't quite good enough to justify its slow speed. Its frame advantage coupled with low pushout on block do give it some value in a moveset otherwise lacking in strong horziontals, but like 3A, it has too much frame advantage for 3B->Fireball to do anything other than jail on block.

Kick Normals

5K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	12	-	-	-	+4	+6	-	Ground
One of Gore's fastest pokes and best interrupts. Decent range and speed, though not better than anyone else in the cast, really. Good advancing range and pushout on block, plus it can't be countered since its not a weapon attack. Unusually better frame data on block than on hit. Would be a better buffer into fireball if he didn't have KA, which tends to cause input overlap issues.

5KK

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	12	-	-	-	-5	-5	-	Ground
Consistent but small combo string from 5K. -5 on block is really safe for a non-committal string. This string IS cancelable, but the fireball doesn't combo, and the opponent can still jump over the fireball even on block.

5KA

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	12	-	-	-	-8	-	-	Ground
You'll more than likely get this if you mess up 5K->Fireball. Still, the string itself isn't bad on hit, given its followups, but it is linear and the whole string itself is prone to whiffing at various parts due to range.

4K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	10	-	-	-	-	-16	-	Ground
Don't let the -16 fool you--because this both can't be parried and because it moves Gore so far backwards, this is one of his best tools. It's very difficult to punish this on whiff and virtually impossible for a lot of the cast to punish it on block, and is in general a great way to build meter for this meter hungry character. This has a visually similar startup to his Spinning Leg special move, which can bait funny reactions out of people, too.

3K

3K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	13	-	-	-	-	-28	-	Low
Arguably Gore's most important mid range move, this jumping low leads to Gore's only viable stance transition and his launcher. He gets low to the ground and its far faster than one might initially think looking at the move, making it an all purpose tool that must be sidestepped or made to whiff in some way to properly punish. The main reason it is reasonably safe to throw out is that an opponent trying to poke back after blocking this move runs the risk of getting hit by 4K afterwards, which cancels instantly from 3K for a combo on hit.

2K

2K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Low	10	-	-	-	+4	+3	-	Low
Maybe not the most exciting move in the world, but a i10 unparryable low that's + on both hit and block is a rarity in this game. Can combo into super but is difficult to confirm (any delay in the super input causes it to be blocked) so it is generally better to use it as a 2-in-1 into fireball or as a whiff punish. You will be using this a lot.

While Running K

While Running K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Low	12	-	-	-	Knockdown	-17	-	Low
Sliding low that knocks down, but is also quite unsafe on block.

Jumping Normals

Late Jumping A/B

Late Jumping A/B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground
One of the worst jumping normals in the game. Completely ignore what your eyes see in regards to the jump arc--this attack will pass thorough airborne and standing still opponents more often than not.

While Falling A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Special Moves

Exploding Fire Projection

Exploding Fire Projection
236A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-23 at point blank	-23 at point blank	-	Ground
Gore's main projectile. Goes most of the screen, but not quite max. Fairly fast and somewhat safe due to push out, decent damage, and a good way to encourage opponents to jump at you. Loses to step, like most projectiles, but that doesn't stop you from building meter and controlling the opponents neutral with it. Unfortunately, there are some characters that can punish it on hit (Blood, for example, can always rekka it) so your options on using it are limited in some matchups.

Composition Conversion

Composition Conversion
236B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-38	-	Ground
Gore's alternate projectile is a short range pink gas cloud. When it hits, the enemy is frozen in stone and you can get a juggle off of it. Because of Gore's high damage off of his black hole super, simply going straight into the super is the most consistent thing you can do. This has a decent preemptive anti-air hitbox if the opponent is jumping in from far, but tends to lose to any lateral movement or closer jumps. Unsafe.

Absolute Rest
222

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Stance

Spinning Leg

Spinning Leg
214K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	+7	-	Low
Gore jumps backwards, gets low to the ground, then spins wildly forwards while spewing green orbs everywhere. This is a great "backswing blow" sort of attack that is mysteriously plus on block. Great for evading throws and low profiling some attacks, it can also occasionally clip stepping opponents. However, he's not invincible, and the spin can be beaten with attacks.

Centrifuge Separation (236K while opp. OTG)

Centrifuge Separation
236K (while foe is down)

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	OTG Throw
This hit throw only comes out while the opponent is in a grounded state. While in most situations in the game, this would mean you'd never see it, Gore can actually guarantee this from his Kancho throw. The timing is tight, though: you want to hit the K of 236K roughly right after the sound of the second ground splat.

Absolute Rest

A.R. 6A

Get Up Jump Attack
A.R. 6A

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Overhead	32	-	-	-	+3	+2	-	Ground
Hard hitting jumping overhead with some nice evasive capabilities. Due to push out on block and hit, pretty much resets to neutral in most matchups. Which, to be fair, is a good position for Gore vs most characters, as he can threaten Giant Attack/3K.

A.R. 6A+B

Vibration Treatment
A.R. 6A+B

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Unblockable Throw	15	-	-	-	X	X	-	Ground
This unique command grab with an extremely suspect name is your main goal in Absolute Rest. It does a lot of damage on its own, and even allows a small followup in the form of 4B afterwards. If you've gotten people scared of this, you have successfully used Absolute Rest and the rest of his options open up to you.

A.R. 5K

Getting Up Attack
A.R. 5K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Mid	22	-	-	-	X	-11	-	Ground
A lifting uppercut. Its relative safety is nice considering it guarantees a high damage juggle afterwards.

A.R. 6K

Get Up Leap Slide
A.R. 6K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Low	31	-	-	-	X	-19	-	Ground
A long range low kick that guarantees 3K,4K on hit into super. Visually confusing, as it really doesn't look like a low. Unfortunately, it is quite unsafe.

A.R. 2K

Getting Up Lower Attack
A.R. 2K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Low	25	-	-	-	X	-10	-	Ground
Breakdance low. Knocks down.

A.R. 28K

Getting Up Anti-Air Attack
A.R. 28K

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	Air	16	-	-	-	X	X	-	Ground
Giant jumping uppercut that only hits far above Gore in the air. Does not seem to interact with grounded opponents at all? Sadly, does not seem to have any sort of invincibility.

Gauge Moves

Engetsu
236AB

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Rasetsu Zan
214AB

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Plasma Revenge
AM

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Plasma Reflect
BM

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Plasma Field - Plasma Sword
BK

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Miscellaneous

Throw
5AB

Damage	Guard	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Adv	Block Adv	Meter Gain	Property
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Ground

Strategy

Matchups

Vs. Zelkin/Eagle (3.5:6.5)-- The lone hope Gore/Luca have in this match is the safety of their 3Ks, since the birds can't really punish them. Gore might do a little better with Black Hole super panic/anti-airs, but mostly, Gore/Luca will be running and praying that they don't get caught by 2K/Flight Cancels.

Vs. Hayato/B. Hayato (4.5/5.5)-- Gore cannot do fireball upclose without getting hit by Shinden, which is a relatively strong meterless punish for Hayato that sets up his command grab mixup. Gore generally outdamages Hayato otherwise, and has a bit more going for him in terms of frame traps and pokes. Leverage your kicks in particular (3K,5K,2K), be willing to use Plasma Field, and be prepared to punish any big whiffs as hard as you can.

vs. Gerelt (4:6)-- Gerelt is a particularly annoying counterpick for Gore for the simple reason he easily punishes 4K on block, which few characters can do, and he wrecks fireball on hit, so Gore basically can't 2-in-1 off his best pokes without risk. Mercifully, Gerelt also does about half the damage per conversion that Gore does, so you're always in the game as long as Plasma Field or Black Hole super has a chance to hit. This is a battle of attrition between interesting bottom tiers.

vs. Gamof/Gantetsu (5.5:4.5)-- Easily Gore's best matchup vs the S-tiers. The key difference maker here is that, for the first time in their lives, Gantetsu/Gamof have to play like the grappler archtypes they are supposed to be, since they can't mindlessly ignore Gore 3K/Fireball. Gore's pokes and zoning control the pace of this matchup, and Black Hole's damage output means that he does a little better at ignoring the tank health of the grapplers better than most. There's even certain ranges where 3K anti-airs late Gamof j.K, which is massive for Gore. The worst thing that can happen to Gore in this matchup is have his fireball jumped or his black hole randomly not juggle, which can happen depending upon what the ever shrinking hitboxes of grappler late j.K decides to do. Might be closer to 5:5 considering that grapplers are always a j.K away from stealing a round, but let's let Gore have something nice.

vs. Blood/Shaker (4:6) Gore gets hit by Rekka for free when he lands his fireball and doesn't really have any particular strength to balance this out. He certainly doesn't out damage Blood and he definitely doesn't have better footsies than him. This is probably worse than 4:6, but I'm being generous based off the fact Blood can't Rekka 4K and, at the end of the day, Gore still can snipe Blood with 3K/PF/Black Hole like any other character, he just has to be more careful to not get struck by Rekka/Time Stop.

vs. Saturn (5.5:4.5) Might be closer to a 5:5, as Saturn's ability to air control means he can mess with Gore's otherwise good anti-airs, but Saturn is taking a far bigger risk playing with the fire that is Gore Black Hole Super. Couple this with the fact that Gore's small size and key moves all either low profile or straight up beat Saturn Drill (Black Hole Super, 3K, 2K) and Saturn suddenly finds himself having to think about when and if he should do drill at all. Not many characters do that to Saturn, which is a plus for Gore.

Vs. Rai-On (3.5:6.5) If Gore loses track of which foot he has facing forward, which he has to manually control via 4B, he might get the wrong step, which means he can't step 2KK->Slide after blocking 2KK. If that doesn't tell you the pitiful state of this matchup for him, I'm not sure what will. His normal reversal, Black Hole Super, also does not work versus repeated divekick pressure due to Rai-On simply passing past him. Gore can punish Blanka Ball on hit, mercifully, with his meteor super, but that's about it and it's a little expensive for the reward. (He can do Tech Roll 3KK, but 3KK->Black Hole whiffs.) The saving grace for Gore is Rai-On's low health and his extremely high damage: 3KKxBlack Hole->Meteor does just shy of 50% health on the cats. Gore's Meteor super also makes for an interesting punish when Rai-On whiffs his air string in neutral, but he has to time it to hit Rai-On as he lands. Coincidentally, Luca's Meteor Super will actually hit Rai-On out of divekick->divekick on block if it's not at its lowest height... but since it doesn't have invincibility, she can't do it on reaction, she just had to yolo it and pray, so one of the few edge case reasons for Luca still really... isn't. One other detail that helps Gore/Luca out is that they duck Rai-On's jab if he's close, so they are slightly less susceptible to 5A pressure than others.

Combos