Matchup: Jaina vs Geiger

Seems impossible. He can keep up with her projectile spam, and can easily AA her when she jumps in, while she cannot.

Also he once he has full super he can punish fireballs reliably for 2 damage.

His jump in arc avoids her AA completely.

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He shouldn’t be able to keep up with her projectiles. She can supplement the ground arrow with air C arrows. Also, she can charge her arrows to level 2, allowing them to pass through gears.

Then again I have no experience in the matchup so this is all theory.

I once went up against a geiger who was content to keep up a fireball war till time over. mashing at full speed, the projectiles’ meeting point did not travel towards him as it should if he couldn’t keep up with it.

He totally keeps up with her projectile spam

But he doesn’t have the problem of being unable to aa a jump in

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I think this is the worst matchup in the game. He can stay back and spam gears to nullify her arrows then when he has super, he gets a free punish if she ever touches the arrow button. The only time she can use arrows when he has super is when she’s in melee range or full screen, which he can just walk forwards against. He basically forces Jaina to become a rushdown character until he uses super and I think we can all agree how sad that is.

On another note, why is it that her reversal hurts her AND is unsafe? It’s also her only good up close anti-air and the best she can get is a 1-1 damage trade. It should really either be unsafe and inflict no self-damage or keep the self-burn and make it safe.

So it isn’t just me!

Man this match up is bad.

Actually this complaint was before the recent nerfs to Geiger. Also, Jaina benefits from the addition of a throw button as knee/arrow is now much more consistent as a punish.

At the moment, Jaina is much much better positioned against Geiger. When I wrote this complaint, Geiger had literally zero recovery from his super so could punish arrows on reaction with abandon, he could execute his air flashkick without needing to warp first so could bait uppercuts without fear, and was all around terrifying to jaina.

Now, he’s much more tame and the matchup is easier. He can’t approach her and can’t bait uppercuts as well so is vulnerable to aggressive use of the DP. When Jaina gets in she can go for big damage punishes without fear as well, and she can use air arrows to terrorise him from the air.

The matchup is much better now.

I still punish arrows on reaction and enemies still punish on reaction. I don’t know why you would be aggressive with DP when it hurts you for using it. It’s really only good for getting people off of you and being aggressive with it only works if he’s near death, but he shouldn’t be letting you get a life lead anyways.

Well…if you’re still punishing arrows on reaction then good on you, maybe main Geiger then? It’s still possible but more prone to baiting now, as a smart Jaina will zone you out then bait a super when you’ll end up too far to punish her in recovery and just eat knee-fireball to the face, or DP, or block punish or whatever. Of course if Jaina is just derp spamming arrows like an idiot you can just position yourself properly, stroll across and ruin her day.

In short as I see it, the arrow game when he has super is much more fair now, in my experience. You can punish a badly spaced/timed super now because of its recovery frames, but if he does his job well he can punish your arrows. It’s not like before where he literally had no risk whatsoever.

And as for getting aggressive with the DP its all about understanding how that economy works. If you hit someone with it, you’re even on damage, but they are grounded and you have room to weave your rain of terror. If you play Jaina well you should absolutely shred health bars with block damage when you get a knockdown and room to breathe, and you use the tapestry to set up the next DP and keep the train going. Plus, since the DP can’t kill you, you aren’t really losing out. Play it well and they are close to death when you are, except that now you suddenly became so much more dangerous because you have unlimited DP’s.

The only time the DP is really counterproductive is when up against high health opponents such as rook and midori, but they do so much damage per hit if played properly that the difference between getting killed in 2 hits by rook and dying to one damage is almost immaterial.

At this point, no, Geiger no longer has Jaina’s number. If you’re getting slayed by Geigers, then do what the guys on the discord told me to do when I first started moaning about her…weave better arrows.

A well played Jaina is almost impossible to approach…

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Not really though, arrows can still be punished on reaction and gears still keep her at bay. He has more range with fA and his reversal works wonders unlike hers. Still see this as her worst MU by far.

Um… okay then?
shrug
My Jaina kills Geigers, I’m happy, so I guess I’m okay with just continuing to do what I’m doing then?

As Jaina, stand juuust at the edge of time stop range, and hold arrows a little before firing.
That way, if you’re holding an arrow and he time stops, there’s exactly one frame that passes by after the super flash, so let go as soon as you see the super pop, and your arrow will be sitting right in front of you. Geiger will stroll up, straight into the arrow.

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That’s a great tech, haven’t thought about it. Still, Geiger can always use gears to force arrows out and punish. I’ll have to see in game.

Thanks mate.

Yeah if you see him gear, release the arrow. Usually you’ll recover in time to not get messed up by time stop.

Are you sure? I don’t have the game anymore but I think I remember gear having less recovery than arrow, making Geiger’s reaction to the arrow just as possible.

Because of the increased recovery on time stop, if you release the arrow as soon as you see it, you should be fine.

I’ll try when I get the game back, thanks!

It is possible they’ll remove the one frame while time stop goes through, but because of the recovery it should still work. It’s the spacing that’s the main challenge, because Geiger will try to walk at you.