Acceleration of Suguri 2/Saki
Credits to Nyu-13 for allowing us to transcribe their Saki guide to populate this page.
Introduction
Happy go lucky first boss from Suguri. A fairly well-rounded character who mainly fights at mid-range and can spend meter for space control.
Overview
Saki is an extremely combo heavy character that generally performs best when played aggressively. Being able to deal immense amounts of damage off confirms while also having a very strong pressure game to boot.
Due to her aggressive nature Saki usually relies on being rather close to her opponent, optimally sitting at a sweet spot range to get the most out of her tambourines, both in terms of damage and pressure. She thrives off creating a lot of 50/50 situations for her opponent using bell hyper, either forcing meter out of her opponent or getting them caught up in a high damage combo.
Saki's main gimmick is that most of her attacks are rather unorthodox, making a majority of them not as straightforward to get the most out off.
Difficulty: Hard
Having a bunch of unconventional attacks such as her reliance on aggression makes Saki one of the more difficult to pull off chars. The road to becoming actually good on Saki is a long one and will require you to really learn how all of your attacks work and which confirms you can go for on top of knowing when and how to best pressure with your normal attacks and hypers. That all being said, learning Saki will heavily reward you with an insane pressure game mixed with very high damage confirms.
Gameplan
Farming Meter
Saki’s best options for meter-building are dippin dots (dwA) and tambourines (Tap wB). Tambourines provide a nice chunk of meter while giving none to your opponent, and while dippin dots do feed notable graze meter, they also keep the pressure up on your opponent, making them less able to threaten you.
If you’re trying to build up meter, then make minimal-to-no use of hula hoops (Tap wA) and grenades (Hold wB); using them recklessly feeds the opponent a LOT of graze meter, benefitting their offense significantly. You should only use these moves during meterbuild when their specific niches (anti-melee/ballistic blockade and delayed escape route closer, respectively) are useful to you.
Due to the good meter that tambourines and maraca swing (dSPwA) provide, Saki ultimately has the most optimal meterbuild when she is going in and pressuring her opponent; not only does landing these moves grant you notable meter advantage, but it can also encourage the opponent to goldshield out of fear of the damage they will take. An offensive Saki is the best Saki!
Offense
Aggro is the default state Saki should be playing in, and tambourines (Tap wB and SPwB) are key to playing aggressively, supported by a backbone of dippin dots (dwA). Additionally, your options expand even further once you have meter; Saki benefits greatly from offensive momentum.
Tap wB is the most frequent move you should be throwing out; it eats a significant amount of space for a long time, blocking off escape routes and potentially punishing your opponent if they are playing recklessly. Once it does hit them, they are completely open for maraca swings (dSPwA), your primary source of damage. The only real drawback they have is their mediocre startup and recovery, which can occasionally leave you vulnerable to hyper punishes.
SPwB has a startling amount of range for a melee attack, and leaves opponents open for a maraca swing much like Tap wB does. It’s a great option when you want to suddenly surprise your opponent while rushing them, and can interrupt them during their melee approaches too. Abuse the speed at which it comes out, but keep in mind that Tap wB has a larger effective range that you can play around.
Setting up dippin dots (dwA) prior to launching your assault can add a lot to your combo damage when you land hits. It also continually pressures the opponent while they are throwing out bullets, adding good chip damage and stuffing some of their opportunities to punish you.
Once you have meter, SP.Hyper and B.Hyper are added to your offensive repertoire; SP.Hyper provides a juicy source of damage to sucker punch the opponent with, while repeated Bells can dry the opponent’s meter resources and potentially leave them open for extreme damage. Do not use Bell when the opponent has equal/higher meter than you do, however; they will be able to goldshield every occasion in which a Bell hits them, thus netting you little-to-no damage.
Defense
Though Saki benefits the most from pressuring the opponent, she is perfectly capable of playing defensively when she has a HP advantage; tambourines, in particular, are a powerful blockade against offensive approaches.
Tap wB tambourines eat up a lot of space, and linger around for a long time, as mentioned before; this allows them to be a great long-term wall against melee approaches. Similarly, Tap wA essentially serves as a shield from any melee attempt that doesn’t involve a halfshield, as it will most likely interrupt the opponent before they hit you. Dippin dots (dwA) can fill the same role, but as a delayed response instead of an immediate one.
SPwB > dSPwA and SP.Hyper are devilish surprises against opponents who think they’ve found an opening; with sufficient unpredictability, you can rush in and interrupt your opponent’s offensive gameplan, further securing your HP lead.
Keep in mind that Saki’s defensive game is a lot worse against characters who can play offensively at long range, such as Kyoko, Nath and Hime; her defense is best against characters who need to go in to hit you, such as Sora and Tsih.
Normal Moves
Weapon A
Weapon B
Hypers
Combos
Any mentions of Bells in both the combo and gameplay section always refer to their fully charged version.
Meterless
- Tap wB > Dash Cancel dSPwA
- Tambourine throw into maraca swing. Requires good situational awareness of how long opponent will be stunned for.
- SPwB > SPwA/ Dash Cancel dSPwA
- Melee tambourine into auto-cancel maraca hammer or dash cancel maraca swing.
- Tap wB > dwA bullets that have been set up prior
- Tambourine hitstun > previously summoned dippin dots. Can allow Saki to get some small damage confirms in situations where she is zoned out of maraca swing range.
Meter
Special Hyper is the preferred hyper if you have equal meter to your opponent; if it lands, it can often sneak in some damage before the opponent reflexively goldshields. It is also a good immediate damage confirm when Saki has meter advantage.
- SP.Hyper > Dash Cancel dSPwA
- Very simple confirm from Special Hyper; still deals good damage.
B Hyper is a good option if you have meter advantage over your opponent; it is rare for an opponent to be able to avoid Bell without using meter when you play correctly, so continual use can deplete the opponent’s meter and eventually allow a hit.
- B.Hyper (under opponent) > Dash Cancel dSPwA > wait > dSPwA opponent back into Bell > dSPwA x4
- Good optimal confirm for beginners from an immediately landed Bell. The easiest way to land a Bell immediately under the opponent is to cancel midway into a dSPwA that started above the opponent, or to cancel from a tambourine landed beneath them.
- Delayed B.Hyper hit > as many dSPwAs as you can land before the Bell leaves
- Simple capitalisation from a Bell landed in neutral.