Since you are reading this page, chances are you want to play Millia. She’s a great character with amazing mobility and okizeme, but she’s very unforgiving when it comes to making mistakes. In my opinion, she also requires a specific mindset that doesn’t go over well with some people.
Strengths
Let’s begin by talking about her strengths. She’s one of the fastest characters in the game with a ton of movement options. On the ground, she has a great dash and her backdash is really fast and recovers quickly. She even has a roll which can be used to go under attacks. Her jump and superjump are quick and go up really high, and she is one of two characters in the game that has a double airdash. Millia is a character who should rarely get caught by antiair attacks and airthrows: she just has so many ways to manipulate her air movement. Other than attacking and blocking, she:
- Can fall quickly to the ground at a 45 degree angle using Turbofall
- Has two different ways to throw out the Hairpin projectile
- Can come down quickly with a Badmoon(rarely used in neutral but still an option)
She also has some of the best okizeme in the game. Okizeme, which is the mixup that a character gets when a knockdown is obtained, is really strong in Guilty Gear, but Millia’s okizeme is especially good because:
- It’s hard to block
- It resets into itself
Her mixups are usually covered by a disc(H Tandem Top and FB Pretty Maze) or orb(Secret Garden). This means that even if her initial mixup attempt fails, the frame advantage generated by these two projectiles let her continue her pressure and get another opportunity to open up the opponent. When her mixup is successful, she can go into her standard combos and score a knockdown, to set up even more okizeme.
Millia has the most difficult-to-block okizeme in Guilty Gear. Some people even say that the opponent just has to guess because her mixups are unblockable on reaction. These people are wrong, and probably don’t have a good deal of matchup experience versus her. Her mixup is definitely hard to block correctly, but it’s not impossible; it’s just easy to get distracted because of tunnel vision. For example, getting caught by a throw when you were focusing on high/low. However, I’m gonna contradict myself by saying that she does have one set of mixups that are truly unreactable, involving the FRC on Iron Savior. More details on that in the okizeme section.
Her ground throw at first glance seems pretty bad, as it has poor range and low damage. But she makes up for the lack of throw range with her ground dash speed, and she is also one of the few characters in GG who can combo off her throw in all situations.
In almost every fighting game, it’s more favorable to have the opponent cornered instead of midscreen. Millia is no different, and one of the best things about her is that all of her combos send the opponent into the corner for a knockdown. This also applies to combos off of her ground throw, so this makes her mixup even more deadly.
From what I’ve written above, if Millia were to be classified using standard fighting game archetypes, she’d be a pixie. A pixie is a character who is blessed with great speed, nice mixup, and high damage but hindered by poor defense and endurance. Millia fits the bill rather well, although her damage isn’t that great.
Weaknesses
Since she’s a pixie, she also has the same weaknesses! She has the 2nd worst defense in the game, right behind Chipp, so all combos do massive damage to her. Most characters’ basic combos will take off at least 50% of her life. It’s also not uncommon for her to be losing upwards of 80-90% of her life when she gets hit with a cranked up guard gauge. What this means is that the margin of error in playing Millia is very low. You really can’t afford to make any mistakes, because the tables can turn very quickly.
Millia’s defensive options are generally poor. She doesn’t have an uppercut or any moves with great hitboxes and fast startup that can be used as counterpokes. Playing Millia means you will have to block well. Sounds grim, but always remember that her mobility is meant to be used to prevent her from getting into tight situations.
Millia’s normals are very weak. They don’t have great hitboxes and don’t do much damage. Not only that, but her gatling options are rather limited. This has several consequences, one of which is that it makes her ground poking game extremely weak. Because of the limited chain options, even if her pokes land, she generally can’t convert them into full combos. It’s also difficult to confirm ground pokes into knockdowns. Most characters in GG can combo their 2p and/or 2k into a 2d sweep. Millia can only combo into her sweep from 5h, and 5h has really poor reach so this puts a significant limit on her effective range.
This also ties in to the concept of abare. The meaning of abare changes depending on context, but in 2d fighting games it generally means the ability to convert random hits into damage. Her pokes are already bad, but even if they land, she can’t get a lot of damage out of them. In addition, some of her best normals(j.p and j.k) have severe proration so followup combos do terrible damage. Millia is one of those characters who has to rely on setups to get big damage.
The last weakness is one that arises from the game environment. Accent Core is an extremely high damage game, which is doubly bad for Millia. Not only does she have poor damage output, she also dies easily. She can be a very unforgiving character to play.
General Gameplay
Since Millia’s normals are weak, she won’t be able to fight many characters head-to-head. In terms of risk/reward, she is going to be losing most exchanges. Most characters have better normals and better damage than her. So the main idea is to use her superior mobility to position herself favorably for a mixup attempt. I need to make a special note about her hairpin projectile, because its usage can really determine how some of her matchups go. In some matchups, the hairpin is literally Millia’s only way of getting in, so it’s very important to learn how to use it effectively.
Difficulties
I would say Millia is about intermediate level in terms of difficulty. The execution requirements for playing her aren’t too high, as her combos are generally simple and don’t require FRCs. Her mixups are also easy to understand and execute.
Even though her combos are easy to execute, they are much more difficult to do in matches because they’re situational and character specific. This is not something unique to Millia, as every character in GG has to deal with this to some extent, but Millia has an especially hard time. Be prepared to spend hours upon hours learning character specific nuances. Learning to spot situational combos is essential and will also improve the average amount of damage that she will be dealing.
I now want to mention what I feel is the most difficult part of playing Millia, which is the mindset that is required. Throughout the years that I’ve been playing GG, I’ve met lots of people who were interested in playing Millia, only to give her up later because she was “too hard” or “got randomed out too easily”. Because Millia takes so much damage, the margin of error allowed for playing her is very narrow. In addition, because her normals are generally poor, there are some things that she just can’t fight against, no matter how much of a read you have. For example, you’re playing against your A.B.A friend and you are 100% sure he is coming down on you with a jump heavy. Yet there’s nothing you can do to beat it. For Millia, sometimes the best answer to something is just to run away and reposition yourself more favorably, and this doesn’t sit well with many people. If you have the mindset of “If I am 100% sure my opponent is going to do ___, then I can counter it”, Millia will be an extremely difficult character to play.
Final words
If you’re willing to brave these difficulties, then Millia will be a very rewarding character to play. She’s a ton of fun and really sexy too. I don’t know about you but I enjoy playing hot female characters, so if you’re into that it’s another reason to play her!