Nothing is more satisfying than those big hits from thrashing a giant coffin around. And mastering the Behemoth Typhoon has been more enticing than ever in Season 4 of GGST. The multi-directional half-circle inputs for Goldlewis Dickinson have 8 different variations, and these special motions can be awkward and difficult to learn on a leverless. But the lab monsters at Hit Box have your back in Guilty Gear -STRIVE-. So LET'S ROCK!
Though Behemoth Typhoon (BT) may feel unintuitive and overwhelming at first, it is actually easier to master on Hit Box than other controller types. This guide will teach you the rules behind BT half-circles and break down each individual variation. It focuses strictly on the execution of inputs and how to master them from an unbuffered, standing neutral position.
As a note of caution, the Descending Half-Circle motions at the end are likely the most difficult moves in STRIVE. But fear not, we have the methods to master them!
This guide uses numeric notation (numbers to represent directional inputs). When you see numbers like 426 and 624, these are shorthand to help identify the motions. For a breakdown of numeric, here is a quick reference guide.
Engine Rules
There are some game-engine ground rules to go over that are important to master all the variations of Behemoth Typhoon.
Input Shortcuts:
In GGST, half-circles do not need every directional input from one end of the half-circle to the other. Techniques in this guide deliberately skip certain directions to make life much easier!
You are allowed to omit one direction in the middle of the motion, meaning either diagonal input or the center cardinal direction. For example, a normal "Half-Circle Forward" is described as a full arc of 4-1-2-3-6. However, there are 3 possible alternate shortcuts based off of this input rule:
- 4_236 (skipped diagonal)
- 41_36 (skipped cardinal)
- 412_6 (skipped diagonal)
This leniency is to our advantage when creating the fastest and most consistent techniques. This also opens up mental doorways to help approach half-circles in a new light.
Let us rethink the shortcut 4_236:
Tap Back, QCF:Back(skip the diagonal)DownDown-ForwardForward
By deliberately skipping the diagonal, the HCF motion can now be simplified to thinking about a Quarter-Circle Forward motion rather than a full arc.
Pre-jump Frames
Just like attacks, jumps also have startup frames before you are considered airborne. Pre-jump frames are the amount of time you are still considered grounded after hitting the Jump button.
Goldlewis has 5 pre-jump frames. This is important to know for the advanced half-circles that have the "Up" input. To swing the coffin unbuffered while standing, 5 frames is the amount of time you have to complete the BT once you tap the "Up" button.
Attack Buffer Leniency
Finally, you can input HS up to 3 frames before the final direction of the Behemoth Typhoon. With this knowledge we can be much greedier with our timings. Other games you would want to leave yourself safety frames to ensure HS is not pressed too soon, but in GGST we can try to be perfect without fear - or even aim slightly ahead of finishing the motion to ensure your attacks come out immediately.
Tactically, something less obvious is that by pressing HS before the motion is complete, you cancel your pre-jump frames with an attack. This is extremely helpful with the more difficult standing Behemoth Typhoons, where the motion needs to be finished before you are considered airborne. You can aim HS for 3f early to buy yourself more precious time for that 862 Half-Circle Down BT.
NOTE: The numeric titles for these motions (246) are for shorthand naming conventions only. A complete HC motion in GGST needs one additional middle-input.
Rising Half-Circle
Forward - 268
The Rising Half-Circle Behemoth Typhoon is trivialized by putting the (above) engine rules into practice. This otherwise bizarre motion becomes familiar when you treat it as a QCF. The key focus here is that this input is being separated into a Quarter-Circle input and a single direction (in this case, Up).
236_8:Quarter-Circle Forward,Up + Heavy Slash (HS)
The other big advantage to this is that it removes any risk of accidentally jumping. When we omit the Up-Forward 9 input, our pre-jump frames do not begin until we are already finishing the motion. To guarantee this, it is very important to use your right hand for Up + HS at the same time. It ensures a quick input and naturally yields a just-frame finisher.
__________ 
Backward - 248
For the other direction we are doing the exact same motion, only rolling a QCB for the first half.
214_8:
Quarter-Circle Back
Up + Heavy Slash (HS)
Remember to use your right hand for Up + HS to better time the finish.
__________
Overhead Half-Circle
Forward - 486
This is where the Behemoth Typhoon starts getting alien (pun intended). The "rainbow" half-circles are indeed difficult to get started with.
Starting Out:
Beginning the motion by tapping "Left" by itself. This maximizes our pre-jump frames. The following step is to roll a Quarter-Circle with your Thumb to Index Finger. It is a weird input, but with practice it is second nature.
Remember, once you press that "Up" button the pre-jump clock is ticking. However, it is recommended to practice this BT airborne and in attack buffers to get the motion down slowly before you try to get it while standing.
Forward
Which Thumb? It is fine to roll with your Left Thumb, but the mastery curve is easier using Right Thumb. Right thumb lessens the weirdness out of your left hand, as well as employs a SOCD safety net at high speeds.
__________
Backward - 684
Once again, we highly recommend using your right thumb for this technique. It liberates the heaviness of rolling your thumb. Your left hand only taps "6" and "4," and your right thumb taps "8" for the quick finish.
__________
Attack Leniency:
Do not forget that you can press HS a little bit earlier to take advantage of the Attack Buffer Window. You have a 3-frame window to press HS before the end of the motion, which cancels the pre-jump frames before the motion itself finishes. It is not recommended to overly-focus on this leniency too much, but if your input history is consistently showing that you are pressing HS late, it is a good sign you can be more deliberate about pressing HS earlier.
High Speed Leniency
It's time to go really fast. Up to this point, most of the time these BT motions have cleanly resulted in the ideal "Tap Back, Quarter-Circle" type transcripts as seen above. And now that your BT fundamentals are built into muscle memory, your motions will naturally speed up and the pre-jump frames will become less of an issue to swing-while-standing.
But at the highest speeds, we need to maximize our safety options and margin of error. At the fastest speed, we can now mentally perceive this motion as three cardinal button taps (rather than rolling) and let our hands take care of the rest:
Tap Right
The three cardinals by themselves do not give us a half-circle yet; however, the diagonals will happen naturally the faster you go. Mentally targeting the cardinal directions creates a safety net for moving faster than the pre-jump window for a standing Typhoon. The required diagonal input will come either before or after the "Up," or can even diagonal to diagonal.
It is beneficial here to utilize the input leniencies as intended... to be lenient! That's right - I'm giving you permission to be (tactfully) sloppy! Once your inputs are flowing confidently at a high enough speed, you will knowingly be taking advantage of all input leniency variations (while still intuitively knowing how to lean into the finish).
The job of the left hand is to drum directions "Left," then "Right," which means that timing your thumb at high speeds will have variable results at max speed -- so aim for the input the middle!
Rewatching the first 486 video above, my fingers look like they are actually hitting 478_6, rather than the shown recommended transcript. The 684 video above looks like I am actually striking the SOCD variant. Rather than re-recording or changing the recommended transcripts, I think they serve as a good demonstration of how things will naturally work out at full speed (even if my pride is wounded).
- 478_6: Tapping "Left" too slowly or tapping "Up" too early.
- 47_96: Tapping "Up" early and releasing slowly.
- SOCD: Overlapping your "Left" and "Right" fingers is a momentary SOCD "Up" (Left + Right + Up), with either/both diagonals finding their way into the sequence: 4~(8)~6
Descending Half-Circle
Forward - 862
This is it. This is the hard one. This is how you can consistently hit Descending Half-Circle motions unbuffered while standing. Descending motions start with the "Up" input, which means pre-jump frames begin on frame one. We will be employing everything we have learned thus far to make it a viable tool in your arsenal.
The goal is to tap "Up" for only 1 frame. This means hit it as crisp and clean as you can. Either slap the button with your thumb and let it bounce off with the recoil, or you can graze the button as you slide your thumb through.
Add Back + HS.
Leveraging "SOCD Down" is the key. By ending the motion on Right + Down + Left, we do not roll our fingers at all: we only add button taps, not remove. Collapsing your fingers generally is much easier than rolling (which requires lifting fingers). Try drumming your fingers like you are bored.
__________
Backward - 842
For me it is slightly more natural to drum my fingers Left to Down to Right for this motion, much more so than Right to Down to Left while descending to the right. However, the principles are the exact same.
Add Forward + HS.
__________
Input Leniency
Once you have the correct motion sequence down at a slower speed, the input leniency will help us once we go full throttle. Even if you cannot perfectly tap and release "Up" in one frame every time, you can have several frames of overlapping inputs still fit the requirements for half-circles.
89_32: Releasing "Up" too slowly still outputs a 9 Up-Forward input as you begin to drum out the "SOCD Down."
896_2: Releasing "Up" too slowly but also releasing "Forward" too slowly still gives you a Descending Quarter-Circle.
These inputs will happen, and they are to your advantage. Do your best to sequence your fingers out cleanly as recommended and be aware of the input history what your fingers are really doing.
Attack Leniency:
The reality of standing Descending BTs is that you have to hit 4 directions within 5 frames. That is fast. Not only that, you also perfectly time your HS to not waste any extra frames.
Do not forget that you can press HS a little bit earlier to take advantage of the Attack Buffer Window. You have a 3-frame window to press HS before the end of the motion, which cancels the pre-jump frames before the motion itself finishes. If you are struggling to hit standing BTs, this might be the final piece of the puzzle to get them consistently.
It is not recommended to overly-focus on this leniency too much, but if your input history is showing that you are pressing HS late, that means you are wasting those precious pre-jump frames.
BONUS! 2-Finger Slides
Backward - 624
That was all pretty hard-core tech. In the end, our true motivation is smashing people with a giant coffin from Area 51. So let us end on a fun note!
This is a viable alternative to standard half-circles as much as it is swaggy and fun! Pinch your Middle and Index fingers together and slide from the "Right" button to the "Left" button.
The 2-finger slide method hits every direction in the arc (no shortcuts). While sliding may look impractical and just for show, it does simplify and remove most all finger coordination in comparison to piano rolling your fingers.
Forward - 426
Pinch your Ring and Middle fingers together this time and slide "Left" to "Right." Sliding from "Left" to "Right" is a bit harder, since you are using your less-dominant fingers. If this feels too awkward, try sliding with your Middle and Index fingers again and it may feel more natural.
Make sure you do not slide too far into the attack buttons! To help avoid this, stop sliding your hand on the "Right" button (seen above), or you can lift your hand after the final direction.
Swing those fingers in solidarity with Goldlewis!
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this guide and find it valuable! You now have all the tools you need to bludgeon everything, everywhere, from any direction to his bad-ass theme song.
That's it for the advanced Behemoth Typhoon motions! This guide solely focused on the hard-core unbuffered, standing BTs. But, ultimately, remember that you can use these tools to swing coffins in the air just fine, as well as buffer the "Up" direction in recovery / reversal to bypass pre-jump. All of these motions and rules work well when input slowly in combos just as much as they are effective at optimal speed.
Happy Training
- Hit Box Dustin
Dustin co-created the Hit Box controller with his brother Shawn in 2010 and slowly grew the leverless revolution from the garage to all over the world. Dustin has remained the 'hands guy' in Hit Box videos since and continues his passion of developing and teaching new input techniques. He is also president of Hit Box the company and loves Marvel vs. Capcom.
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