Strike Freedom Gundam

Model Number: ZGMF-X20A	Pilot: Kira Yamato
Cost: 3000 Hp: 600 Transform: X Form Change: X

Strike Freedom

An upgrade to the Freedom Gundam, the Strike Freedom Gundam was specifically tuned to match Kira Yamato’s combat style. It has new and improved armaments that match the technology of its era, including beam shields, the Voiture Lumiere system, and its signature Super Dragoons that act as part of Kira’s signature Full Burst.

Move Summary

Ranged	Armament	Ammo	DMG	Notes
Main	Beam Rifle	12	80	High damage with a wide shooting angle and high ammo count
Charged Main	Long Beam Rifle	–	130	One-shot down, travels fast and has a large projectile size
Charged Melee	SEED Mode	100	–	One use per life, greatly increases mobility and recovers a small amount of boost.
Sub	Full Burst Mode	1	89~191	Gerobi that travels fast and has a fast start up. AOE of Full Burst increases with 5AC, dealing higher damage when you hit with the middle beam, lower damage from the Dragoon beams (17~128)
Special Shooting	Super Dragoon (Neutral deployment)	16	26 ~ 138	Dragoons surround Strike Freedom and will not fire until AC is pressed again
Special Shooting	Super Dragoon(Lever input)	16	26 ~ 138	Dragoons will chase after the target and automatically fire
Special Melee	Somersault	–	–	Does a somersault in the input direction. Cuts tracking on input. Cannot use in overheat
Burst Attack	METEOR FULL BURST MODE	–	327(S)/299(F & E)	As what the name implies, Strike Freedom will dock with METEOR and carry out its iconic Full Burst attack. Has super armor on startup.

Melee	Input	DMG	Notes
5B	5BBBB	205	Standard melee
	5B(BB)~8B	168~205	Launches into the air
	5B(BB)~2B	181~215	On heel kick, instant down. Strike Freedom will also quickly fall towards the ground.
8B	8B	85	A very fast kick, Short travel distance but good enough to thwart incoming melee. Somersaults on hit but DOES NOT cut tracking
4B	4BB	166	Good curve and priority
	4B~8B	124	Launches into the air
	4B~2B	140	Exactly the same heel kick
2B	2B	80	Simple 2-hit combo uppercut melee
CC8B	CC8B	104	Good chase distance, low proration, easy to follow up with another attack
BC	BC~B	148	Somersault which cuts tracking. Inputting B will make Strike Freedom chase the target and do a slash. The chase distance is very far, but slow.

Cancel Routes:

A : AB, AC, BC

CSA :BC

AB : BC

AC: BC

BC : A, AB, AC

5B, 4/6B, 2B, CC8B: BC

Overview

Strike Freedom Gundam is one of the fastest suits in the game, enjoying fast pivot speeds and high boost dash counts. It also has the single highest BR ammo count in the game, and because it carries 2 guns its in-angle firing range is very wide. It deals higher than average BR damage which makes this suit excellent in long to medium ranges. Using melee is more for self defense, however it can do good enough damage in the melee range. Its ranged weapons are easy to use, and the Full Burst mode has a fast startup. All this plus its fast gerobi travel speed makes it easy to punish foes. The Super Dragoons exert a lot of pressure, whether you fire them or simply leave them in their undocked state.. An added effect is that when the Super Dragoons are deployed, Strike Freedom enjoys a small mobility boost with no penalty.

All of this high performance comes at a high price. Its fall speed is significantly lower than average, making you extremely easy to punish if you fly high and run out of boost. Boost management is key with this suit. It also has the lowest HP within its cost bracket- a measly 600. This HP pool makes it lower than some of the 2500 cost suits in the game. This means eating even a single melee combo or gerobi as Strike Freedom can be devastating. In a nutshell, be like Strike Freedom in the anime: do not get hit if you can help it. Having low HP and low damage doesn’t matter if you’re not getting hit, which Strike Freedom excels at given its amazing mobility.

Ability Details

Ranged Weapons

Main: Beam Rifle

A higher-than-average damage BR with a huge ammo pool. Reloads 1 ammo every 3 seconds. This is your only move that does not cause vernier, so you need to be careful with using it.

Charging your CSA gauge while firing your shots is an important technique that leads to the Second Impact technique, a great way to make up for Strike Freedom’s otherwise middling damage output.

Because Strike Freedom moves so fast, sometimes in the close range the muzzle correction can’t keep up with your speed and you end up missing Zunda shots. Watch out for that.

Charged Main: Long Beam Rifle

2-second charge time. Stands still and combines the two Beam Rifles to shoot one big, fast-travelling beam, leading to a one-hit down and dealing high damage. The muzzle correction is also excellent, in other words this is a high-performing weapon in all areas.

You inherit a lot of inertia prior to firing this move. You can also cancel into BC after this move, making it a low-risk option compared to other similar one-shot down CSAs.

Contrary to the anime, which only shows this move being used once or twice, you should be using this move very often as it is one of Strike Freedom’s best moves. This is great for catching landings or lazy boost dash jumps, as a melee intercept, and as a combo finisher.

Charged Melee: SEED mode

2-second charge time. Only one use per life. When activated it gives Strike Freedom a huge mobility boost, and making boost dashes consumes less boost. It also recovers a little boost, helping you to escape from dangerous situations. It must be noted that if you get hit and damaged in SEED mode, it will end immediately and you will take 1.5x more damage. This should be used more as an escape tool, however more experienced and comfortable players can use this to chase down low HP opponents to close the game. Combine this with your Bursts to make this a very potent tool.

Sub: Full Burst Mode

One of Strike Freedom’s iconic moves, it will also be one of your go-to tools for punishing opponents. Fast startup and gerobi travel speed makes it a potent tool at all ranges. Inputting 5AC and performing AB will make your deployed Super Dragoons fire thin green gerobis as well, essentially greatly increasing the effective AOE.

While this is great for catching landings or punishing verniers from all ranges, especially long range, this tool is just as potent in the close range due to its strong muzzle correction on startup. This makes it suitable for melee intercepts in the close range.

Essentially, mastering this tool means understanding the situations where this will hit but your Main or CSA won’t. The downside of this move is that the gerobi is thin without the Super Dragoons deployed, greatly decreasing your chance to hit, and making its viability as a close-range intercept questionable. Deploy the Super Dragoons in advance to ensure you can blast this at full power at a moment’s notice.

Another downside of this move is its low damage output. The Super Dragoons (green beams) also deal less damage than the main chest beam.

Special Shooting: Super Dragoon

Reloads 1 ammo every 2.5 seconds, a heartbeat faster than a regular BR reload. Stands still and takes about a second to deploy 8 Super Dragoons.

The Super Dragoons can be deployed in one of two ways. Whichever input you use, ammo is consumed when the Super Dragoons fire. Although the reload is relatively fast this consumes up to 8 ammo each time it is fired, so you’ll find yourself low on ammo more often than not. However, you can still deploy the Dragoons even if you have no ammo and you gain a mobility buff while they are out (and you still reload ammo while they are deployed), so you may simply deploy the Dragoons to exert pressure on the enemy.

5AC:Deploys the Dragoons around Strike Freedom, which fire rapidly one at a time on a second AC input. Deploying Strike Freedom’s Super Dragoons will increase its mobility as long as they are out, hence deploying them around Strike Freedom will increase the time in which this mobility buff occurs. 5AC into AB will lead to a wider area of effect which is good for catching opponents. Lastly, it’s a very good melee deterrent, they will only return to Strike Freedom when he is downed or knocked back. As long as you command the Dragoons to fire before you get hit, even if you get hit (as long as you don’t get downed) the Dragoons will fire, and hopefully interrupt the enemy’s combo. Don’t forget that you can also cancel into BC while the Dragoons are firing to simultaneously attack while evading.

This is most often used for self defense, but it’s also great on the offense or as an okizeme tool. You can easily hit confirm into this from your Main as well when needed. Also, if you change target while the Dragoons are firing, they will automatically switch over to attack the new target.

4/6AC: Deploys the Super Dragoons to chase, surround and shoot at your opponent in an all-range funnel attack. Tracking is good and provides a means to add pressure on your opponent. The Dragoons will automatically return to Strike Freedom once all of them have fired.

The Dragoon deployment and chase speed is faster than most funnel type weapons. You can use this to bust blocking enemies, or cover your own block. While the damage off this move is not phenomenal, they do hit more often than most funnel weapons, and can allow you to follow up with a combo.

Special Melee: Somersault

Flies slightly towards the enemy while executing a somersault, cutting tracking. This maneuver cannot be executed in overheat. 4/6BC will make you backflip diagonally backwards while somersaulting, while 2BC will make you rise slowly but fall quickly while somersaulting. The falling speed while executing the 2BC is faster than freefalling.

You can cancel into this maneuver from practically every move in your arsenal, and subsequently cancel into Main, AB, or AC. Inputting melee will execute a special BC~B derivative (see the melee section for more details).

One downside to this move is that it consumes a lot of boost, roughly 20% of your gauge. You also cannot sidestep out of this maneuver, but you can blue step (during S burst) or boost dash cancel it.

It’s a common tactic to fire your Main right before touching the ground after using this maneuver, in order to keep your landing safe and buy some time for you to refill your boost.

While this is a great maneuver to keep many of your moves safe as well as mix up your landing timing, over-use will result in you being predictable and easy to punish, especially in the close range. Pick the best timings to use this move, and keep your opponents guessing.

Melee Set

5BBBB: Beam Saber combo

A standard 4 hit combo. This is poor as a combo starter, and while it has almost no cut resistance it’s still a useful combo part for bigger damage.

5B~8B derivative: Air launch

Launches opponents into the air, good when you want to follow up with a CSA. Can be cancelled anytime between the first and third hit.

5B~2B derivative: Heel Drop

Will bounce your opponent but cannot follow up as they will be in yellow lock, useful as Strike Freedom will approach the ground. Causes a ground bounce and can be used in big damage combos.

8B: Kick

Fast and high priority melee that is nearly impossible to see coming as it has very little start up frames. Has very low chase distance so it should only be used in extremely close ranges. The somersault after the kick unfortunately does not cut tracking, but you can sidestep cancel it.

4/6BB: Horizontal Slash

2-hit combo with a good hitbox and wraparound. This is a good tool for rainbow step wars. You can use this for intercepting melee attacks, or as part of a well-rounded offense when used in conjunction with your other moves.

You can cancel into the same 8B or 2B derivatives as 5B.

2B: Uppercut

Nothing outstanding of note here, a simple 2 hit combo uppercut that you can follow up into other melee strings or into your burst attack.

CC8B: Issen

Strike freedom’s iconic melee move. Has good chase distance, tracking and proration, but a small hitbox, so it’s not suitable to use for clashing against enemy melee attacks. It can easily link to other melee strings and the proration is excellent, meaning that it’s both useful as a combo starter and as a combo part. It’s a high risk high return move, which goes against the Strike Freedom playstyle, but with the right openings you can make it work.

BC~*BB: somersault into slash and kick

BC derivative. Dashes at the enemy and delivers a multi-hit slash before kicking the enemy away. It’s easy to follow up after the kick.

This is the furthest travelling of all of SF’s melee moves, but because you have to backflip before dashing towards the enemy it has a crazy long startup time. Overall this move is difficult to use outside of surprise attacks from your backflip.

Burst Attack

Burst Attack: We don’t want an unchanging Future!

The very iconic Full burst that Strike freedom will perform while docked in METEOR. Has high damage and super armor on startup, and decent tracking. However, it is very hard to hit it raw due to its relatively long startup time. It is recommended to use this as a follow up after a melee string, eg CC8B~ABC, 2B>>(backwards)ABC, or simply on enemies who are not paying attention to you.

Strategies

This suit can be considered an all-rounder suit, but its main strength lies in medium and long ranges, where you can take full advantage of your fast projectiles and high mobility.
CSA is very important for Strike Freedom, it has high damage, travels fast, and can be even more potent when used with the second impact technique. CSA is important for many of the high damage melee combos for Strike Freedom.
While having one of the highest mobility in the game, the “floatiness” otherwise known as the slow drop time for Strike Freedom is the bane of its existence. You can overcome this by using 2BC~A to quickly land on the ground, just don’t do it all the time.
Strike Freedom is one of the very few suits that does not have any amkeyan or freefall moves. The 2BC makes up for this deficiency.
As the regular 2BC does not make Strike Freedom immediately land on the ground even though it has reached the ground, cancelling the somersault action with A will greatly reduce the your landing recovery time.
5AC is a good way to close in on your opponents when necessary, your opponents do not have much options to deal with you in close range unless they have a means to stun you or knock you down.
5AC is also good for okizeme on unsuspecting players or players who do not respect it.
Your HP is the lowest in the game for a 3000 cost. It is therefore necessary to avoid risky plays that yield small rewards unless the time calls for it.
SEED mode can be used to escape sticky situations, however its 2s charge time requires you to preemptively charge it even before the situation goes wrong. Read the situation and react accordingly.
Strike Freedom’s AB can be quite predictable for an experienced opponent who will block the attack. One way around it is to input AB and before it fires cancel it with boost dash and make yourself unpredictable.

Recommended Combos

Ranged Weapons
Input	DMG	Notes
A>>A>>A	168	Zunda.
A>>AB	187	167 damage if you do A~AB
A~CSA	171	2nd impact
A>>A~CSA	188	High damage and saves ammo
A>>CC8B~CSA	216	BnB
Melee
5BBB~8B~CSA	255	High power combo but risky
5BBB~8B>>CC8B~CSA	265
4/6B~8B~CSA	233	High damage combo, recommended
4/6B>4/6BB	184
4/6BB>CC8B~CSA	262	To connect 3/6BB to CC8B either boost dash forward ASAP or fuwastep right
8B>8B~CSA	231	Fast and damaging combo
CC8B>>CC8B~CSA	264	High damage combo
Burst CC8B>>CC8B>>CC8B~ CSA	304	Touch of death combo

Burst considerations

F-burst

This burst is for the brave. While it does increase Strike Freedom’s mobility and melee potential. It does not do anything much else unless you really want to go all in with Strike Freedom’s melee combos.

E-burst

This burst is good for Strike Freedom, particularly in shuffle matches where you have the potential of meeting 3000 cost partners. Increases Strike Freedom’s mobility even more, combine this with SEED mode and you literally will be running laps around your opponents without needing to land.

S-burst

The go-to burst for Strike Freedom, the amount of beam spam you can do in this burst is insane. Many suits cannot match the offensive potential of Strike Freedom in this burst. Combine with SEED mode to apply more pressure on the opponent.

Partner considerations

Ideally, Strike Freedom wants a partner that can either compliment its shooting by having a partner with even more shooting options or a partner that can do a patrol, attacking opponents that come close to Strike Freedom.

3000 cost

Accident partner due to shuffle. In this situation, Strike Freedom should go to the back role unless the partner is Ex-S or Zabanya.

2500 cost

Recommended partner for Strike freedom. Many suits in this cost have the performance to be able to match Strike Freedom. Even if the 2500 cost dies 1st, Strike Freedom will still be able to support from the back. Noteable suits in this cost include: Strike Noir, GPO3, Akatsuki, G-self, Arios, Infinite Justice, ZZ, AGE-2 Dark Hound, Qubeley, Hyperion.

2000 cost

An alright partner for Strike Freedom, this combination is a more stable formation. Partners should lay down covering fire for Strike Freedom while being safe from battle as much as possible. This partner will not be able to keep up with Strike Freedom, therefore is very likely to get isolated. Noteable suits in this cost, Exia.

1500 cost

Not recommended at all. The performance difference is too great and will almost always end up with the 1500 cost partner being targeted and killed 1st. Noteable suits in this cost, Zaku II kai.