Now that guard impacts require a full soul meter to perform, their utility seems to have flown out the window. They aren't even improved from in the previous games, where through them out was completely free.
Guard Impacts were a big part of my game, and now I am having trouble figuring out how to initiate an attack against an aggressive opponent. Are there any generic strategy changes that would help me, being an old player of the Soul Calibur franchise, adapt to this new system? Are there any new tricks that were added to the game to compensate for the decreased utility of Guard Impacts?
Edit: After playing a bit more, I have noticed I seem to be blocking too much. My health bar is often flickering yellow or red, and it's because I don't know exactly how to deal with an aggressive offense without Guard Impacts.
Edit 2: All the answers so far are focusing on how to use the new Guard Impact. While this is good information, it's not what I'm primarily asking for in the question. I want to know what my other options are that don't require any soul meter to employ, with a specific emphasis on strategy.
Best Answer
Maxx already gave a good answer for when to use Guard Impact so I'll focus on how to play without it.
This is coming from someone who played semi-seriously for months before starting to incorporate GI in SC4.
The first thing to know is your character's fastest moves. It's often just a straight horizontal hit. After that it's a matter of knowing your opponent's attacks and knowing when there's going to be an opening. There's always going to be some time interval either in between or at the end of a combo where you can get in a quick swing,by which I mean you can safely do attack, not necessarily that it will land unblocked. Even if your counter attack is blocked, at least now you're on the offensive.
I've only played SC5 once so far, but it seems like Just Guard gives you a slight edge where you might be able to get in a quick attack before the opponent has a chance to block in some cases, but it comes down to knowing your opponent's moves and how to react to them.
Also some moves have a higher tendency to supersede the opponent's attack than others. I know in general a vertical hit usually cancels out a horizontal hit. Some moves are also faster than the initially appear. I know personally I've found moves that I previously disregarded as not useful turned out to quite useful as they are faster than their animation would make it appear. I think it's an issue of our mind typically watching the time between the start and end of a swing, rather than the time between the start and the time of impact, which may happen well before the end of a swing.
Finally there's a rule of any pretty much any competitive game that has a meta-game component: Set up expectations, then break them. Repeat a pattern until the opponent figures it out, then break the pattern with something that counters what the opponent's going to do to counter you. For example, lots of characters usually have variations on combos, so there's mid-mid-low, repeat that a couple times, then occasionally throw in mid-mid-mid. They'll go to block the low and get slammed with the mid at the end (bonus points if it's a ring out!). It's like in Starcraft, making your opponent over-commit to anti-air, then coming in with a big ground army instead.