Gier: good Arcana or best Arcana?
After having jammed out a lot of AHF, I've come to love Gier. He's pretty awesome. He is one of the deepest Arcana in the game, and I think he's one of the most fun to play.
Gier revolves around delaying his attacks until they will be most effective. Most Arcana specials require a telltale "casting" animation before the special fires, and the casting animation is pretty slow - much slower than projectiles in GG. This makes Arcana specials limited inside the fast-paced agressive world of AHF.
Gier is no different; he still requires you to "cast" his attacks before he can defend you. The difference lies in that you can hold D at any time to delay his attack. While holding D, you can manuever Gier around the play field with directional inputs. Much like Lieselotte's pet Elfriede, Gier can be moved away from your Maiden by holding the directional input while crouching or jumping, but only while you are holding D to maintain a ready Gier attack. If you are not holding an attack, Gier will slowly make his way towards your Maiden if he is not nearby.
A held Gier is extremely dangerous. Your opponent does not know which move you are holding (unless you are holding the super) and generally must manuever inside a very controlled space in order to attack at all. Releasing Gier at the right moments causes great deals of frustration in enemy attacks - fighting against him is practically like fighting a whole character in addition to the enemy Maiden. This means Gier is at his best defensively. While you can use him for offense (especially with the super), Gier's day-to-day use is best served when he is able to stifle your opponent's attack patterns.
A held Gier cannot be held indefinitely; if your opponent strikes you in any way (even if you block, but not if you clash), your attack will be lost. Also, while this may be obvious, while you are holding an attack for Gier, you cannot use the homing button in other ways, namely to homing cancel or use homing for mobility. If you are used to using low air homing to cover further-than-IAD distances in less time, Gier may not be the best choice for you.
THE MOVES
Gier is pretty simple. He basically has only 3 moves (he has 2 more, but we won't be using them). The key, really, is that the shark is so versatile and powerful that it can overcome a lot of stuff all on its own.
236D: Schmerz
Gier turns into a shark and jumps at the enemy. This move covers a good portion of the screen but is not a full screen projectile solution. The distance is roughly the distance of Fiona's 5C. This move is the core of Gier. If it hits, it knocks the opponent in the direction Gier was moving. If he was on the left side of the enemy, it will knock the enemy to the right, and if he was on the right side of the enemy it will knock them to the left.
If applied after a knockdown, Schmerz forces the opponent into a defensive wakeup situation. If you have a held Gier, wake-up specials and supers become much more dangerous, since you have Gier to threaten the enemy instead of your Maiden. Poking games done by your opponent on wakeup become much more risky as well. This should not be used as a full license to rush your opponent down without thinking, though - a well-timed activation, invincible attack, or insane clashing (it happens @.@) can still beat this pressure if applied without thought. If you have super meter, you can force damage out of a knockdown using your super, so you should do that instead whenever possible.
After a blockstring, activating Schmerz is also effective. If you release immediately and your opponent tries to gain the advantage, Gier will counter hit your opponent and likely give you a combo opportunity. If you hold it and they do not try to immediately attack you, you basically get a held Gier "for free." This is probably the easiest way to get Gier on defense. It is also a good alternative to doing laggy, punishable 2C attacks (eg. most; I think Kamui is sort of an exception) in blockstrings; many opponents will GC4 the second hit of your blockstring, causing your 2C to whiff and opening you up to punishment.
If you have Gier held and ready, positioning Schmerz is fairly important. Placing him slightly behind you allows you to interrupt any jump-in (even late crossups). Placing him behind the opponent makes him overall very dangerous, threatening almost all of the enemy's potential actions and garnering the best possible combo opportunities. However, doing this in the heat of a match can be very difficult.
Comboing after a "forward" Schmerz (where Gier leaps away from you) can be somewhat difficult. If you IAD in before you have verified that Gier connected, you can usually get some form of combo followup. Some characters have guaranteed followups in most situations (eg. Lilica 236a~C, Kamui 5BC) but those are character specific. Comboing after a "backward" Schmerz is quite easy - most people can do their bread and butter post-homing followups with no tricky manuevers required.
623D: Schere
Gier turns into a bigger shark and leaps directly upward, eating the enemy for 2 hits. This move has more vertical coverage than Schmerz (hits roughly 2 characters high) but much less horizontal coverage (about as big as a Mei-Fang width). It is overall less useful than Schmerz but is still quite valuable.
Schere is only really useful defensively. It is far too small to afford pressure on offense, although holding it can confuse your opponent into thinking that Gier will attack horizontally. It can be used either to interrupt your opponent's poking game (esp. Fiona, Kamui type games) or to beat jump-ins.
The best placement for Schere is almost directly in front of your character. Since this is one of the worst positions for Schmerz (Gier can be 'crossed up' causing him to whiff) you should make a point to not hover him in this spot. If you manuever him more forward, you may convince your opponent that you are trying to get Gier behind them. Obviously, Schere is very useless if Gier is behind the opponent, so release it early if your opponent decides to jump, air dash, or homing dash at you.
Schere is extremely effective on hit. Gier vacuums the enemy up and hits them, leading to easy money combo opportunities. It is overall much easier to follow up after Schere than with Schmerz, although either one affords combo opportunities. The timing is somewhat trickier at first, since Schere is techable almost immediately after its second hit. However, it is overall much easier to combo after Schere, due to the vacuum effect.
214D: Fallen
This move is generally not used by Gier players. It turns Gier into a puddle that hits instantly and voids the opponent's ability to leave the puddle by any means for a few seconds.
The main benefits of this move are crippling the opponent's ability to jump (somewhat meh) and allowing for the chaining of multiple wallslam moves in the same combo, since a wallslam will cause the opponent to not lose height, you can combo ground hits into a wallslam, then follow up with another wallslam (eg. meifang 214C, heart 236b/c, kamui 426c) before the opponent actually goes flying.
If you do a normal launcher string (eg 2c hc6 5ab) or a command launcher (3c, 5a+d), Gier will force the opponent to the ground, causing you to drop your combo. Thus, the only way to really combo an opponent hit by Fallen is to use wallslams.
There are no widely known setups into Fallen. It is generally seen as a useless move.
236236D: Martern
Gier does a triple Schmerz. One of the best moves in the game, if not the best move in the game; this is the broken move that people select Gier for. Consumes 1 stock of super meter.
Anything you can use Schmerz for, you can use Martern for, with the additional benefit that Martern is faster to execute.
Because Gier leaps three times, he can travel an exceptionally long distance in order to strike his opponent and moves incredibly quickly, faster than any and all normal projectiles, allowing Martern to interrupt very long-distance attacks if anticipated, or if Martern is held and your opponent is stupid.
If Gier is near your opponent when Martern is activated, he pretty much forces you opponent to either block or take to the skies for an extended period to avoid him. Since Gier forces the opponent to guard for so long, a guard crushing 6C or 3C can be quite devastating.
Just the fear of having this move held can lead to free throw setups (although that is the case with other Gier moves, to a lesser extent).
Comboing after Martern is usually fairly easy, since he hits three times. Just put yourself in a good spot to follow up after the third hit.
Arcana Summon (236A+B+C post-activation): Schwur
A close-range command grab that turns your opponent into a blob. The blob cannot block or attack, which lends itself well to certain characters (particularly Fiona) being able to link very large unblockable single hits together.
Not useless, but since your opponent knows you are able to do it (since you have to activate) and can stay in the air in most cases, you will likely not get much out of this move. However, it is important to know it is available, since the rewards for landing it are extremely high.
OVERALL
Gier is a strong defensive arcana with a few very powerful offensive tools. However, in most cases you have to give up immediate offense and stop pressuring in order to get Gier ready to attack. Because of this, complete rushdown characters (eg. Lilica, Konoha) benefit less from Gier. In general, Gier is good for giving characters more attack opportunities, but is not good at maintaining them or capitalizing on them (eg. comboing into Gier is pretty much impossible/useless).
Compared to other Arcana, in particular Moriomoto, Dieu Mort and Lang-Gong, Gier lacks in the ability to do more damage after a hit is scored. Also, Moriomoto can deliver very powerful wakeup scenarios as well, which benefits certain characters better (particularly Lieselotte, although Gier is still a very good pick).
Compared to other Arcana, Gier is also lacking in passive abilities. Bhanri, Tempestas and Ohtsuchi give more solid passive skills, allowing you to get in more easily, keep the opponent away more easily, or punish the opponent for non-mistakes.
Despite this, Gier is one of the best picks in any situation. All of the Maidens benefit from him, from Maori to Fiona to Konoha. He is extremely versatile and useful and all Maidens gain something from using him. No Maiden is terrible with Gier, which cannot be said for the other Arcana.
The characters that benefit most from Gier are probably Kamui, Fiona, and possibly Kira; the character that benefits least from Gier is probably Konoha.
Gier revolves around delaying his attacks until they will be most effective. Most Arcana specials require a telltale "casting" animation before the special fires, and the casting animation is pretty slow - much slower than projectiles in GG. This makes Arcana specials limited inside the fast-paced agressive world of AHF.
Gier is no different; he still requires you to "cast" his attacks before he can defend you. The difference lies in that you can hold D at any time to delay his attack. While holding D, you can manuever Gier around the play field with directional inputs. Much like Lieselotte's pet Elfriede, Gier can be moved away from your Maiden by holding the directional input while crouching or jumping, but only while you are holding D to maintain a ready Gier attack. If you are not holding an attack, Gier will slowly make his way towards your Maiden if he is not nearby.
A held Gier is extremely dangerous. Your opponent does not know which move you are holding (unless you are holding the super) and generally must manuever inside a very controlled space in order to attack at all. Releasing Gier at the right moments causes great deals of frustration in enemy attacks - fighting against him is practically like fighting a whole character in addition to the enemy Maiden. This means Gier is at his best defensively. While you can use him for offense (especially with the super), Gier's day-to-day use is best served when he is able to stifle your opponent's attack patterns.
A held Gier cannot be held indefinitely; if your opponent strikes you in any way (even if you block, but not if you clash), your attack will be lost. Also, while this may be obvious, while you are holding an attack for Gier, you cannot use the homing button in other ways, namely to homing cancel or use homing for mobility. If you are used to using low air homing to cover further-than-IAD distances in less time, Gier may not be the best choice for you.
THE MOVES
Gier is pretty simple. He basically has only 3 moves (he has 2 more, but we won't be using them). The key, really, is that the shark is so versatile and powerful that it can overcome a lot of stuff all on its own.
236D: Schmerz
Gier turns into a shark and jumps at the enemy. This move covers a good portion of the screen but is not a full screen projectile solution. The distance is roughly the distance of Fiona's 5C. This move is the core of Gier. If it hits, it knocks the opponent in the direction Gier was moving. If he was on the left side of the enemy, it will knock the enemy to the right, and if he was on the right side of the enemy it will knock them to the left.
If applied after a knockdown, Schmerz forces the opponent into a defensive wakeup situation. If you have a held Gier, wake-up specials and supers become much more dangerous, since you have Gier to threaten the enemy instead of your Maiden. Poking games done by your opponent on wakeup become much more risky as well. This should not be used as a full license to rush your opponent down without thinking, though - a well-timed activation, invincible attack, or insane clashing (it happens @.@) can still beat this pressure if applied without thought. If you have super meter, you can force damage out of a knockdown using your super, so you should do that instead whenever possible.
After a blockstring, activating Schmerz is also effective. If you release immediately and your opponent tries to gain the advantage, Gier will counter hit your opponent and likely give you a combo opportunity. If you hold it and they do not try to immediately attack you, you basically get a held Gier "for free." This is probably the easiest way to get Gier on defense. It is also a good alternative to doing laggy, punishable 2C attacks (eg. most; I think Kamui is sort of an exception) in blockstrings; many opponents will GC4 the second hit of your blockstring, causing your 2C to whiff and opening you up to punishment.
If you have Gier held and ready, positioning Schmerz is fairly important. Placing him slightly behind you allows you to interrupt any jump-in (even late crossups). Placing him behind the opponent makes him overall very dangerous, threatening almost all of the enemy's potential actions and garnering the best possible combo opportunities. However, doing this in the heat of a match can be very difficult.
Comboing after a "forward" Schmerz (where Gier leaps away from you) can be somewhat difficult. If you IAD in before you have verified that Gier connected, you can usually get some form of combo followup. Some characters have guaranteed followups in most situations (eg. Lilica 236a~C, Kamui 5BC) but those are character specific. Comboing after a "backward" Schmerz is quite easy - most people can do their bread and butter post-homing followups with no tricky manuevers required.
623D: Schere
Gier turns into a bigger shark and leaps directly upward, eating the enemy for 2 hits. This move has more vertical coverage than Schmerz (hits roughly 2 characters high) but much less horizontal coverage (about as big as a Mei-Fang width). It is overall less useful than Schmerz but is still quite valuable.
Schere is only really useful defensively. It is far too small to afford pressure on offense, although holding it can confuse your opponent into thinking that Gier will attack horizontally. It can be used either to interrupt your opponent's poking game (esp. Fiona, Kamui type games) or to beat jump-ins.
The best placement for Schere is almost directly in front of your character. Since this is one of the worst positions for Schmerz (Gier can be 'crossed up' causing him to whiff) you should make a point to not hover him in this spot. If you manuever him more forward, you may convince your opponent that you are trying to get Gier behind them. Obviously, Schere is very useless if Gier is behind the opponent, so release it early if your opponent decides to jump, air dash, or homing dash at you.
Schere is extremely effective on hit. Gier vacuums the enemy up and hits them, leading to easy money combo opportunities. It is overall much easier to follow up after Schere than with Schmerz, although either one affords combo opportunities. The timing is somewhat trickier at first, since Schere is techable almost immediately after its second hit. However, it is overall much easier to combo after Schere, due to the vacuum effect.
214D: Fallen
This move is generally not used by Gier players. It turns Gier into a puddle that hits instantly and voids the opponent's ability to leave the puddle by any means for a few seconds.
The main benefits of this move are crippling the opponent's ability to jump (somewhat meh) and allowing for the chaining of multiple wallslam moves in the same combo, since a wallslam will cause the opponent to not lose height, you can combo ground hits into a wallslam, then follow up with another wallslam (eg. meifang 214C, heart 236b/c, kamui 426c) before the opponent actually goes flying.
If you do a normal launcher string (eg 2c hc6 5ab) or a command launcher (3c, 5a+d), Gier will force the opponent to the ground, causing you to drop your combo. Thus, the only way to really combo an opponent hit by Fallen is to use wallslams.
There are no widely known setups into Fallen. It is generally seen as a useless move.
236236D: Martern
Gier does a triple Schmerz. One of the best moves in the game, if not the best move in the game; this is the broken move that people select Gier for. Consumes 1 stock of super meter.
Anything you can use Schmerz for, you can use Martern for, with the additional benefit that Martern is faster to execute.
Because Gier leaps three times, he can travel an exceptionally long distance in order to strike his opponent and moves incredibly quickly, faster than any and all normal projectiles, allowing Martern to interrupt very long-distance attacks if anticipated, or if Martern is held and your opponent is stupid.
If Gier is near your opponent when Martern is activated, he pretty much forces you opponent to either block or take to the skies for an extended period to avoid him. Since Gier forces the opponent to guard for so long, a guard crushing 6C or 3C can be quite devastating.
Just the fear of having this move held can lead to free throw setups (although that is the case with other Gier moves, to a lesser extent).
Comboing after Martern is usually fairly easy, since he hits three times. Just put yourself in a good spot to follow up after the third hit.
Arcana Summon (236A+B+C post-activation): Schwur
A close-range command grab that turns your opponent into a blob. The blob cannot block or attack, which lends itself well to certain characters (particularly Fiona) being able to link very large unblockable single hits together.
Not useless, but since your opponent knows you are able to do it (since you have to activate) and can stay in the air in most cases, you will likely not get much out of this move. However, it is important to know it is available, since the rewards for landing it are extremely high.
OVERALL
Gier is a strong defensive arcana with a few very powerful offensive tools. However, in most cases you have to give up immediate offense and stop pressuring in order to get Gier ready to attack. Because of this, complete rushdown characters (eg. Lilica, Konoha) benefit less from Gier. In general, Gier is good for giving characters more attack opportunities, but is not good at maintaining them or capitalizing on them (eg. comboing into Gier is pretty much impossible/useless).
Compared to other Arcana, in particular Moriomoto, Dieu Mort and Lang-Gong, Gier lacks in the ability to do more damage after a hit is scored. Also, Moriomoto can deliver very powerful wakeup scenarios as well, which benefits certain characters better (particularly Lieselotte, although Gier is still a very good pick).
Compared to other Arcana, Gier is also lacking in passive abilities. Bhanri, Tempestas and Ohtsuchi give more solid passive skills, allowing you to get in more easily, keep the opponent away more easily, or punish the opponent for non-mistakes.
Despite this, Gier is one of the best picks in any situation. All of the Maidens benefit from him, from Maori to Fiona to Konoha. He is extremely versatile and useful and all Maidens gain something from using him. No Maiden is terrible with Gier, which cannot be said for the other Arcana.
The characters that benefit most from Gier are probably Kamui, Fiona, and possibly Kira; the character that benefits least from Gier is probably Konoha.