Gargos’ instinct is a suicide unless you use it 100% properly.
I think i have his instinct figured out, and how you are supposed to use it, but im keeping the tech ideas to myself for now.
Why do I get the feeling everyone’s already playing Gargos, but me? I thought it was supposed to be a very short, exclusive list…
That aside, it’s nice to see that Aganos’ stone skin (or bronze in the retro’s case) beats Gargos’ stoneskin. 
@Infilament Can Gargos use instinct explosion in mid wall-crash (that is to say, as he goes through the wall itself, or in between multiple walls after being knocked through at least 1) from Aganos?
The list of people that have access to him was posted in that news article. It’s only about 12-15 people. Everybody else (like ZDhome above) is just theorizing in their head.
As for the Aganos thing I’m not sure, I’ll test it when I get my Xbox working again hopefully tomorrow.
Which is actually a pretty common oki tool on a character that has instinct and an invincible reversal. At high level you kind of have to take into account they probably respect the option, but anywhere below that it’s pretty common to stick out a meaty limb for you to DP (or burst, in this case) and then on reaction to the instinct cancel, turn it into a wrath cancel. It’s one of the stronger conditioning tools she has - nothing like stuffing an invincible reversal to convince someone they have to sit still on wakeup.
I think the instinct will be strong situationally, but I don’t see this as too dangerous. Does no damage and resets you to neutral, and while 3 instincts might be standard, I still think 4 or 5 might be reaching a bit. If Gargos is getting those kinds of instinct amounts, then he’s probably winning anyway I feel like.
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I was going to say that you have to consider the disadvantages of using Instinct but I think everybody summed it up nicely.
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If your getting locked out on Aganos then your mashing.
Mind you Aganos has the best one chances in the game they do like 8 or 11% so its not super risky to eat a one chance or two. However if a Aganos is landing big clean combos on you that forces you to Explode then you gotta stop drop and relax on them break skills.
Actually now that I think of it. Gargos instinct is very much like a burst from something like guilty gear. It can be used outside a combo to get people like sabrewolf or rushdown people to get out of pressure
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It’s definitely way better than burst, because you can use it while knocked down to also avoid oki. And in the context of KI, you can save yourself after getting locked out. Also because of the way the KI combo system works, it’s really hard to bait. You can’t pre-emptively stop your heavy linker, for example, so Gargos can just wait until you commit to a combo action and then burst. In GG you can stop your combo at way more points more quickly for baiting bursts.
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The way I see Gargos’ instinct, I don’t think he’ll ever activate in the neutral, or to confirm into a combo for that matter. His instinct will probably be used 95% of the time as a wake up tool and a semi-parry tool.
You see your opponent stick out a button, you pop instinct, check if the button is a light or medium or a special and blow through it with armor for a free combo.
And when you end your combo, it’s probably wiser to explode and save the rest of your instinct to repeat the process.
Because of this, when Gargos’ gets to be played at a decently high level I really think he’ll be at 3-4+ instincts per match, regularly.
But also because I don’t think he’ll activate much in the neutral, I don’t see the explosion becoming that big of a deal because you won’t use it as a combo breaker as much as you’ll use it as a wake up reversal, IMO. While it’s a really really strong tool, taking into consideration the resources it requires and the drawbacks to his instinct mode, I don’t expect it to be OP.
In any case, I can hardly wait to start seeing some good gameplay of Gargos. This guy is insanely interesting, IMO. So many tools, so many possibilities. If he does end up being balanced right off the bat, my hat’ll go off to IG for a unbelievable job.
Without this trait, his instinct would be garbage.
Offensively, his instinct equates to a relatively free chance to try and get in. It will be very tough to open up your opponent being weighted down, but the ability to burst mitigates the risk.
It still has to be used very strategically. If you use instinct at the wrong time, you’re probably going to end up just taking damage… regardless of your ability to burst. It’s going to be hard to find the right times to use it and actually convert into offense.
I’m with Skryba that Gargos will probably just activate, see what’s happening, maybe get a combo if you meatied with a non-fierce, and then just immediately burst. If you hit him with a sweep in footsies, he should just always burst immediately (while he is knocked down). He shouldn’t even attempt to stand up, because that means the opponent has a chance to bait the burst with a punish combo, and waking up without being able to block has no positive benefit. You’re basically on a negative freeroll (I will press fierce and you MUST explode, but maybe sometimes I won’t press fierce and you’ll explode and then I’ll kill you; there is no other positive situation for Gargos here).
In my head I don’t think this instinct is that good, although it is possible you will want to use this in neutral more (where you get benefit from the armor and hitting you with a fierce isn’t free). But because he can’t really move around, I don’t really know what he plans to do to hit you, and why you just wouldn’t back up, block some zoning, and then press your best fierce button when he tries getting close.
Also, every hit that is absorbed with armor gets the 200% damage bonus. This is a huge deal, because if I throw a shadow fireball at you, or do something else that you have to block that is unpunishable, you just have to burst immediately or else eat like 200% times the damage of the move even if it’s multi-hit. Like… I guess you could bait a meter out of me (because you can explode in the air too so I can’t get guaranteed anti-air using shadow moves), but I’ll trade a shadow for 7.5 seconds of your instinct, or maybe I’ll just not do it and hit you with fierce anyway, lol.
Like, think about this situation. I knock you down from range (or I knock you down from close range and back up, for… some reason), and then throw meaty shadow fireball at you. As Gargos, if you don’t have meter or you aren’t in range for using shadow psycho crusher, what are your options? You either take like 15% damage from the shadow fireball, double what it normally is for each hit (which I’m super happy about) and you get no return, or you burst immediately and make me waste a shadow. What I’m trying to say is, it doesn’t even matter if I’m close range or not to meaty with a fierce, you don’t ever want to be in this situation at all from almost any range. I’m going to make you take serious damage even if I don’t get a full combo, and then I’m going to run away and make you waste your instinct so you get fewer free wakeups later (doubly bad!). You’re better off just always bursting before you even wake up, even from full screen.
I dunno. Guess we’ll have to see how it shakes up. I don’t see any real situation where it’s super useful, and yippee, you get to get out of a few mixups per game for 0 damage.
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From playing multiple sets with Gutter this past weekend, it should be said that what IG said is true about this being “the hardest instinct to utilize optimally” (paraphrased).
This instinct explosion does no damage. So if a Gargos has instinct, your best decision is to meaty Gargos with heavy on wake up. What does this do?
Because armor loses to fierce attacks, and Gargos cannot block, Gargos gets hit unless he uses the stoneskin explosion. However, there are other things that beat this.
- Tusk can deflect the Instinct explosion
- Kim, Arbiter, and Hisako can all parry the attack
- Spinal can Power Devour the attack
- The attack hits once and will lose to armored attackers (Aganos and Glacius can benefit greatly from this)
- Invulnerability attacks can enable the move to whiff if predicted
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Instinct into Shadow Devil’s Divide is pretty decent too, but will, again, lose to grounded heavies.
Gutter was showcasing some cool setups and grab strings in our lobby last night, I will be creating videos from replays today.
So far I mainly use Instinct as a reaction to my opponent’s attacks, trying to knock them down and take the upper hand on their wakeup.