Yuel's strengths, weaknesses and how viable her gameplan feels in practice — Gameplay impressions for Granblue Fantasy Versus' newest addition
She's definitely speedy rushdown as expected, but of an entirely different breed than the already existing Lancelot
Last weekend, we were treated to the newest addition to Granblue Fantasy Versus roster with the dancing fox lady Yuel who brings with her a bunch of flashy moves, stance mechanics and adorable Kansaiben accent (it's a true treat to anyone who knows Japanese, trust me). But how good is she in the Season 2 meta?
While I did write several articles of speculation on Yuel, one based on how she works in the source game Granblue Fantasy and another one based on her trailer footage now that I've actually gotten some playtime with her to explore how her options work in practice, there are some things that have stayed true and others that have shifted quite a bit. So how does Yuel feel after roughly one and a half weeks of playing as her, against her, watching tons of footage of her as well as analyzing tournament matches of her? Let's dive into it.
The first thing that comes to mind when looking at Yuel from a gameplay standpoint is that she's a fairly technical character who needs to make a lot of decisions in a short amount of time to be played optimally. This allows her to strengthen all of her powerful areas even further and seal a few of the holes which are presented by her weaknesses.
Let's start by looking at one of the most central points that makes her lean more towards the technical side, namely her Unique ability.
Third Dance
Third Dance is activated by pressing Yuel's Unique button and can be canceled to from her normals and even after her specials to directly transfer her into this stance. Within this stance, Yuel can no longer walk, run or jump but instead gains a dash and backdash which is a small lhp forward or back, a new set of standing and crouching normals and also her Eye of the Sparrow, a counter move which will automatically activate against non-projectile attacks that are neither high or low (that is to say, attacks that can be blocked standing or crouching) if she's in neutral.
What I realized fairly fast when experimenting with Yuel is that Third Dance is a very effective tool, but not in the way I expected it to be. When watching her trailer, my impression was that the scariest part of it was her Eye of the Sparrow and that this autocounter would be absolute hell to deal with, but quite frankly that is not the case.
That isn't to say Eye of Sparrow is bad, it's still an automatic counter which will catch your opponents off-guard in many situations and is also a useful tool in setups. For example, Yuel has specific situations she can set up where she will get a devastating meaty on her opponent if they press a button or don't block, have positive frames on block and trigger the Eye of Sparrow counter if the opponent does a reversal, even Skybound Arts (as long as they aren't projectiles).
But given this stance being susceptible to lows and jumping attacks, it's not nearly as big of a threat as I was originally expecting it to be. What is a gigantic problem if Yuel gets to enter Third Dance in optimal circumstances, though, is her various normals within it. She has a croucing medium which is a low (fairly rare in this game) and reaches far while also being plus on block, giving her amazing pressure from it.
She has a standing medium which functions as a throw bait since she does a slight flip into the air (it can also avoid lows, though it doesn't always so it's not entirely reliable in the regard). What makes this throw-baiting move scary is the fact that if you did go for a throw, you'll be in a counter hit state which lets her move in to Yugetsu, her crouching heavy in stance, leading to massive juggle potential.
Yuel in general is a fairly low damage character, but proper usage of Third Dance and when to employ it gives her a lot of explosive potential, which moves me right to my next point.
Situational awareness and spacing
Part of the situational awareness needed with Yuel comes from needing to effectively utilize her Third Dance stance mechanic, but that's not all you need to pay attention to with her.
Another limitation compared to most characters in the game is that Yuel actually doesn't have that much to juggle with once she gets you in the corner. It's fairly common for characters to have three special moves they can use in the corner for juggle situations or have two into a Skybound Art, though with Yuel that generally is not the case unless she gets a very luxurious hit with her Hanaarashi, a situation quite unlikely to happen.
She also doesn't get any big normals from her main juggle tool, Starlit Sky, and has to settle for juggling with a standing or crouching medium in most cases. Unless you've got some very good spatial awareness, that is.
Yuel benefits greatly, much moreso than other characters, from getting a hit a fair distance from the corner and then letting Starlit Sky send them flying a certain distance before wallbouncing, since it will unlock much bigger juggle potential for her and even let her connect to Foxflame which she wouldn't be able to do in normal juggle situations.
The basic gist of it is that Yuel does have high-damaging juggle combos and long sequences she can connect, she just needs to be at very specific ranges and spacings to be able to pull them off — which makes the player's awareness of where exactly they are on the screen relative to the corner that much more important when playing her.
In short, her damage dealt from common interactions is low, but situational awareness heightens damage potential immensely.
Pressure and frametraps
While her damage potential may not be notably high from basic corner situations, something Yuel has an abundance of is plus frames. Especially for someone like me who's coming from maining Metera, who most definitely does not have them.
Yuel's crouching light, close light and far light are all moves with plus frames and while her mediums may be minus they are generally safe and if not they're exceptionally difficult to punish due to the spacing on them. She also has her crouching medium in Third Dance which I mentioned earlier.
On top of that, she has fantastic frame trap potential with Foxflame — a fairly slow special move but with amazing frame advantage, the medium version going as high as +5 on block.
All this in combination with her natural agility makes it so that her pressure is absolutely gnarly and lets her check opponents constantly if she plays her cards right. Her quick movement speed, fairly fast jump and various Third Dance shenanigans combine together and let Yuel make life an absolute hell for her opponent if they aren't careful.
The fact that she has a straight up reversal move in her arsenal as well means that even when she ends up being minus she can still steal her turn back from you to make for an even more frustrating ordeal.
Yuel's pressure game coupled with constant throw guessing due to her fast movement speed is further enhanced by the fact that Yuel's far light is not only plus on block but is also a standing low. It may not have the longest range, but it's still a scary tool to deal with and forces you to block crouching at further ranges than you'd be used to.
If you do get tagged by it, she can connect to her main combo tool Starlit Sky from it and put you in a knockdown situation. She also has access to a three-hit light confirm via crouching light, close light, far light so there's ample room for Yuel to press these buttons and be safe on block or have a long window to confirm to a knockdown.
Speed and movement
Much like her fellow fast rushdown character Lancelot, Yuel is a character who can quickly make distance across the screen and will be right up in your face in just a second if you're not careful, though she goes about it in a somewhat different way than Lancelot does.
While Lancelot's options tend to be even faster and he has teleportation-type moves at his disposal, he also ends up unsafe if he uses them poorly. In Yuel's case, they're a bit more telegraphed but even if you're neutral jumping to try and punish something like her Hanaarashi, odds are you won't be able to tag her in time before she gets to block.
As a tradeoff, Yuel is instead positive on many of her tools to close distance, or at least can be with the right spacing in the case of her Third Dance-move Guren. It also couples well together with her rapid runspeed and her jumping fast.
Even her jumps are capable of catching foes off-guard since her jumping Unique is something of a divekick type move, though it won't let you combo even on hit which makes it more fair.
High speed and varied movement options give her flexibility, but she needs to control the pace of the match to be effective. In another counterpoint to Lancelot, who can typically adjust himself to the pace the opponent is trying to keep the match thanks to his very quick momentum-based specials and having a multi-hit slow moving fireball, Yuel needs to make sure that the opponent is constantly on the defense to truly be effective.
Getting in isn't too difficult with Yuel, but once you're out the opponent gains a lot of space and more importantly breathing room, something that you as a Yuel player definitely want to make sure they're not getting.
Pushing your opponent and keeping them in a stressed state is important for Yuel to truly thrive, at least based on these roughly two weeks of experiencing her.
While it's still very early since her release and it's obvious to anyone who put time into her that she's too technical to figure out in just under two weeks, we're starting to get a picture of how she's supposed to be played and what the developers had in mind when designing her.
It's too early to say where she ends up in the tier list, but right now she feels like a definite candidate for a high tier position unless some serious cracks start showing in her armor.
