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Helping our Patients (Match Up Thread!)

Camail

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It seems like all of the other characters have problems sleeping. As a nurse, Valentine has a responsibility to help them by any means necessary.

Post your tips and/or problems with match ups here, I'll try to be helpful but this is my weakest department. I can give one big tip though. Go to the other character sub-forums and read everything. If you want to know how to beat a character you are going to want to know their tools and their goals. This is something that we weren't able to do when skullheart was down, but now that we have a central hub for character knowledge we need to take advantage of it.
 
Painwheel and her ever present j.HK (bzz bzz) have been giving me hella trouble lately. I've been doing a lot of my own j.HK-ing and j.qcf HK-ing, which seems to work some of the time, other times not so much.

What do?
 
Painwheel and her ever present j.HK (bzz bzz) have been giving me hella trouble lately. I've been doing a lot of my own j.HK-ing and j.qcf HK-ing, which seems to work some of the time, other times not so much.

What do?
You might be able to beat it with Valentine's c.MP. Not honestly sure, but that move beats a lot of jump ins.
 
Also having a DP assist is really really good for valentine because he doesn't have the best AAs. You can keep control of the space above you with smart DP assist usage.
 
Against anything jumping and armoured by Painwheel, try to tap her with a fast air move and let your DP assist knock her out of the sky once you can weasel out a situation. Without a DP assist, use j.MP or j.MK, or even j.LP->j.MP.

If she's flying, she can't block, so Bypass->super->combo of choice is a decent option against her, though once the Painwheels start sussing it out they'll be throwing out pre-emptive normals once you start jumping at their height. This is good since you can abuse their commitment to get better positioning. If Flatliner is completely invlunerable until hit (i'm not entirely sure) that's also an option of they whiff something at full screen.
 
Thinking of learning Val in the future. Just wanna know how does she deal against runaway Peacocks and Filias who IAD J.HP all day?
 
A peacock kust always be wary of savage bupas xx scalpels, and val can superjump AD j.mk over peacocks projectiles if you can figure out when the peacock won't be dropping things from above.

The best response to filia's IAD j.hp is an assist, especially if they abuse it. Something that val can do herself is jump back j.hk, but you have to do it fairly early.
 
Match up help with Parasoul? Her s.HP and j.HP are really good keepaway/anti airs and her Napalm is annoying to deal with.

Mostly having trouble with her huge hitboxes.

I usually try to get in with Cerecopter or j.HK xx j.mp
 
In general if you're opponent is always whiffing normals to try and catch you going in you can recognize their patterns and use and assist to get in on them. For me I usually neutral jump just outside parasoul's j.hp range and call fiber upper assist and then AD in j.mp for the hitconfirm or the blockstun. For you it would be easier to just jump into the j.hp and take the block, but before you do call napalm pillar ( I assume that's you're parasoul assist). In general its really easy to blow up whiffed heavies with assists because they are so vulnerable for so long.
There are a lot of thing you can do but it depends on how they are using j.hp. If she is doing a regular jump then its pretty easy to superjump and then double jump and be in top of her, you can think of her doing a j.hp as commiting a fairly long time to having no mobility. She has no air game so she can't cancel out of it, so if you know she's going to do it you can put yourself into a good position. You don't really have to "beat" it with anyting in particular, you can just get above her when she can't do anything about it. The once thing I don't recommend is trying to land the CH all the time with j.hk, its a bit too risky for my taste. The spacing isn't always guarunteed. Also, this is all assuming that the person is using j.hp a lot, which if its a problem for you I assume they are doing. That is not the recommended neutral game for parasoul >_>...

As for s.hp as an AA...hmm... have you tried using a fast move to get in like AD j.mp? you can also harass with air/ground deadly cross if the parasoul is really focusing on AAing, you actually beat parasoul in a projectile war. If you can't get in then force her to come to you.
 
Hmm well truth be told the player I was thinking of that I had trouble with isn't that good but I don't think my performance was as good as it could of been. I won but I lost too much health which was because I didn't have an answer to her anti air.
 
Then I'll just assume you were beig really predictable with your IAD jump ins and he just happen to be pressing a higher priority button than you. I doubt it's even a match up secific thing.
 
So after watching duck's stream earlier tonight I came to the realization that Valentine doesn't flat out beat Parasoul in zoning quite as easily as I had thought. Before I believed that Val could stay at her max deadly cross range she could force Parasoul to come to her, but dekillsage was using some fancy tear tosses then detonating them in order to establish a fireball game that went over val's projectiles, and once Parasoul can get you in hit stun from one tear she can establish a really strong full screen zoning game. What this means is that if a Parasoul starts avoiding your Deadly Cross in this way that you'll have to super jump and get in a position to where your air Deadly Cross will hit the tip of her toes. Its a bit tricky and you have to be wary of the Parasoul getting aggressive while you reposition, but I think its the right solution. This doesn't take the overall zoning game out of valentine's favor especially when you consider her air mobility and air projectiles (and of course scalpels), but it does make it more complicated. If they start using AA tear shots then that is your opportunity to run forward and establish your own ground zoning. It largely consists of a few low risk 50/50s between ground tear shot and AA tear shot to get into a more favorable range. The only huge risk from a zoning perspective is that she fully established her zoning and is able to shut you down, so if all else fails pbgc jump to regain some control in the space she cant get you with tears.

I've only ever seen sage do this though, so if the Parasoul is still trying to out-zone you with normal tear shots or gets frustrated and starts jumping towards you you can react more normally.

(I hope this is all good advice >_>)
 
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Well Mike ruined the match up against Peacock for Valentine by making the plane track the enemy so air bypass xx scalpels doesn't work anymore, how does the match up work now? If they pack bomber assist, Peacock is the most annoying character to play against.
 
I've been theory fighting this for a while, but haven't really had a decent chance to study the match up. What I'm thinking is that you need to dash jump into mid range. At which point the peacock can do two things, reinforce her position, or teleport behind you. The first option is good for her when you attack her while her pattern has already sent out her georges because she can do item drop and assists to put up a wall at this range, but if you can somehow attack her while she's half a screen length away you can backdash airdash j.mp in between her george tosses (this will also go over hornet bomber, I think). You can also backdash double jump, then AD j.mp. Her two options for dealing with this once you are in is to mp bang or to teleport behind you. This forces her to commit to two possible options that you can bait and punish. If you can use assists to take the hit to open up room to move during the pattern this will be easier. But yea, its not as easy as it used to be, but that's good because I hate bypass xx scalpels.

Another option is to wait for item drop, then jump, double jump, AD j.mk (assist) deadly cross. The deadly cross will hit a peacock trying to SJ airthrow you if you do it early enough and you get your assist up close to her. If its a lockdown assist you're almost in there and if its a DP your at least putting something in her face that gives you some chance at pressure. And one more thing that I've done with valentine against a peacock that seems to "work" is that right before peacock starts her pattern you can harass her with deadly cross and take off a bit of life. It can throw them o their timing a little bit, but it is by no means a reliable tool that causes sustained problems for peacock.

Good old fashion ground scalpels as a read can clear the screen, punish hornet bomber, cause a knockdown, and you you a second to gather yourself and start moving in again. Like deadly cross, its not something you should rely on, but its a tool at her disposal and give you a chance to get into a threatening distance. You have to be sure to capitalize on that distance though.
 
@ashxu you can do it the touhou way and just dodge all bullets and wait for an opening to super double jump and dash outta there, but thats kinda not stylish and thats not what we're looking for, right?
what I do is a TK heavy bypass into scalpels, it dodges any georges on the ground, aswell as in the air, and properly timed its a pretty certain hit. also its super fast, harder to read than a bypass from a normal jump and safer than backdash to bypass imo, since the startup is a bit faster.
additionally, if youre close enough and they're flippin' da bird, you can dash toward them, avoiding the second part of the attack and attempt an air grab. might get chainsaw'd though

on some peacocks, theres also a window of opportunity to IAD jMP between ground and air george and right in her face. but thats kinda like playing touhou really
 
TK bypass gets blown up by s.hp and hp Bang. Any self respecting peacock will be covering up that hole with an assist or an item drop while they start up the hp bang. This will only work if the peacock is bad or you really have a read that the peacock isn't going to use either of these moves (or her cover options) in the next 2 seconds.

Another thing you can do against hk bomber is hit it with a jab after it's done. This isn't a lot of damage but it delays the call time and that might throw off the peacocks pattern just enough to give you a solid opening. Just make sure its safe to hit a button thiugh so you don't get CH into argus.
 
TK bypass only weakness is assist, but that would be horribly hard to time. sHP and HP Bang is avoided by not immediately bypassing as soon as youre airborne, but having the proper timing to be just about on peacock hat height, but also avoid all bullets, be it bang or george.
 
Ok so if you are on the ground you are very likely to be in block stun, they don't have to time the assist to predict our tk bypass, all they have to do is call item drop to hit you right when you jump, and then call the assist afterwards to protect them while you fall back down to the ground because you got hit or were put in block stun in the air. In which case you might try and pbgc bypass; but they see you in the air, the pushblock would gauruntee they are now full screen, and they are already prepared to call the assist. You would have to work really hard to time your tk bypass to occur while the item drop is still on cooldown and you haven't been put into a frame trap that catches your prejump frames and she can't be following up with hk bomber and she can't be reading you (which is very easy if this is the only way you can get in on a peacock).

So yes, in a perfect situation you can bypass all you want, but tracking air george added a huge element to her fullscreen frame traps. Send out a walking george with it and you have a wonderfully delayed pattern. So even when you have an opening she isn't going to be throwing georges because that little guy is still walking acrossed the screen, making your window of opportunity either 0 because of a block and easy punish (-10 is a bit easier to punish if you tk bypass, say hello to a full combo) or slim in order to get above the s.hp before it puts you in block stun (or she calls item drop, hit your prejump, puts you in block stun with the walking george that finally reaches you, and starts the pattern all over again).

Its much easier to deal with her pattern by jumping and blocking, tk bypass is a tool but it is not a strategy.
 
If you have time to jump up normally, you have time for a TK bypass, unless they have a reaction time of about .1 sec with item drop. Of course that isnt something you can use everytime, but it works with the element of surprise, which is usually there.
 
They don't need to react. They have their patterns and frame traps figured out before they even begin playing, you are already setting the peacock up for failure by refusing to think of their strategy. And part of my point is that I am laying out all of these options that don't happen on reaction, they are part of her gameplan, she can follow up with any number of the things I have mentioned earlier and they will hit you out of hk bypass start up (which is relatively long, any number of frame traps can hit you in that windows) and she can hit confirm into decent damage and then reinforce her zoning game or do a cross up set up into a 50/50 or dhc out and continue the combo into a reset and kill you. I don't think you have actually played against a good peacock because the element of surprise is pretty rare. They know there openings way better than a person who doesn't play peacock.

Or you can jump and block, pressure the peacock with your advance, and force them to play a game that isn't as strong as their pattern game.
 
How do you deal with Big Band as Val? It feels like I have to learn to establish a ground game (which I don't have as a Val player cuz ninjas stay flying)

Edit: note to self, A-Train/Brass Knuckles is vulnerable to sweeps.
 
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Well from fullscreen she can just dash jump and chickenblock, A-train won't be hitting that. From most ranges you can just watch for the overhead and wait for them to make a mistake by rush punching in or trying to go for an a-train read. I like j.mp against him because its a multihitting instant overhead they blows up armor and downback, you can use it at the range just outside his low, as long as the BB isn't mashing you can get some fairly easy pressure.

BB is actually pretty easy to deal with if you play safe and don't go too aggressive, just learn what to look for and the ranges of his attacks and you should be good. And make sure to block cymbals when he jumps back
 
"as long as BB isn't mashing"

When isn't BB mashing?

Another problem with the MU is that a lot of cross under/up resets don't work on him due to his weight and size. That's the only way to not get hit by super/knuckle mash during resets and they're not applicable to him, great.
 
The only mix ups that are prevented are cross unders, she can still do all sorts of cross ups, and some filia style instant overheads into cross ups. Dealing with super reversal is not just a big band problem. You don't actually have to sacrifice that much time in your reset to cover mashing. Fastfall, block for a 15 frames, maybe call a meaty assist, then put the pressure back on. Its not like getting hit by ssj is any different from dynamo. Other than the fact that dynamo is better. If you look at a reset as your opportunity to do a set up and assume you are safe to press any button you want, reversals are going to kill you. If you never show them that you are willing to bait then they will reversal super.

Also why would you ever get hit by a reversal knuckle, almost all of val's reset options are cross ups or j.mp, or throw. Unless all you do is cr.lk, cr.mk a bb that rush punches on reversal should be destroyed. You can jump forward instant overhead with j.mp and it does 4 hits.
 
Mainly referring to corner resets.

The thing about Dynamo is that if you bait and throw out a DP assist, you will catch the Dynamo and get another free combo but with SSJ you won't and they have the chance to DHC out.

What cross ups work then?

If you do a delayed c.lk you can do a cross under in the corner (Just figured it out a few hours ago)

Also baiting on the ground loses to throw mashing, it's like you're doing a mix up on yourself which I really don't like.
 
It doesn't matter if you like it, mixing yourself up is part of the game, if offense was always safe this game would suck. You are looking for a no risk reset. There is no such thing.

If they have a safe dhc then you make them waste 2/3 bars, if they don't you get to hurt a new character. Your assist bleeds a little, but they can regen. Its part of the benefit of having armor that a single hit wont stifle the super, but he doesn't get a combo off of it. You can jump back and block, wait, then air dash j.mp if you want. This will put distance between you so you can reaction scalpels. And it only takes a second, leaves you in a good position, and only loses to reversal a-train.

Also if you call an assist to cover your ground blocking then it will hit the grab so if you time it right they are forced to block. You have a seven frame window to cover with a well timed assist call and it completely shuts off that option. No one mashes throw because it doesn't have any invincibility and gets beat by everything, and if they do they are dumb and will die to all the other things you are doing. Practical theory fighter doesn't work like RPS.

The point of a reset is to let your opponent play the game. By landing the hit you earned the advantage of knowing when and how the reset is going to happen, but that doesn't mean you can just get free pressure, the defender actually has some agency. It all comes with risk, if you don't take risks and make reads you are going to lose.
 
Reminder for myself and everyone one else:
c.mp = near-instant 3 hits. stop up-backing and use that button on reaction instead to deal with rush punches.
 
The point of a reset is to let your opponent play the game.


I laughed. Heartily.


The point of a reset is to do more damage without huge scaling restrictions. There is no innate "fairness" in doing resets. The point of UNDIZZY is to allow the opponent to play the game. But a reset? No. Ash is correct in that the last thing you ever want to do in a reset is mix yourself up or take damage. At best what you WANT is a neutral outcome like the opponent teching the throw or blocking the low, etc. You dont want to get thrown or reversaled when doing resets.

Does it happen? Of course it does. But one should never go into a mixup situation thinking "if he guesses right i take damage" lol... As if. Fuck that dude. Just dont reset, or wait for a better time, or make sure the opponent respects your burst baits... Whatever. But the thinking that "taking some damage in the form of guessing wrong is to be expected" i just find to be flatout wrong.


Imo
 
If you actually gave valentine match up advice instead of scouring the forums to find something to argue about, I might actually respond properly. Sadly, this is not the case, please go somewhere else to derail a thread.
 
Resetting with the purpose of, and in such a way to avoid taking any damage seems like good universal matchup info to me. Don't try to derail the thread with "but dime is disagreeing with me abloobloobloo".

Big Band is difficult to reset in general, there's no real 'right' answer to it. Being mash happy, more burst baits are in order, since they tend to be pretty safe. Once they learn that if they press a button they'll die, then they stop pressing buttons, and you can do high-low-throw mixups.

Resetting him in the air is kinda meh because you can't do crossunders, but you can do air throws(but lol valentine air throws), chances are you could go for uncombo blockstring->big band lands->crossup shenanigans maybe.

Also, midscreen c.HP j.LP delay j.HP adf j.HP is a crossup, he's fat enough for the back of the second j.HP to hit.
 
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I don't think Dime is wrong. For resets the worst you want to happen is they block/tech and it's back to neutral.


I'm going to sound like a scrub for saying this but with Skullgirls being a very scummy/mashy game, I think Big Band is a really scrubby character. I don't mean he's OP since I understand if he guesses wrong he gets a combo, but so do you if you guess wrong. His armor also allows the player to ignore a lot of baits (which I've stated before) and his weight makes him immune to certain resets. I think his design is pretty terrible and he's one of the most annoying characters to fight against.
 
If you actually gave valentine match up advice instead of scouring the forums to find something to argue about, I might actually respond properly. Sadly, this is not the case, please go somewhere else to derail a thread.


I gave universal matchup advice (as Clarence said) when i saw something i found dubious. I wasnt and dont troll the forums to find things to argue with. I was in here specifically to find out what val has problems with, how she counters them and what matchups they are. I'm slowly picking up val, and i also need counters to her. Thats why i am here. I argue with everything i dont agree with because its obvious that if i dont agree with said thing, then i either have it wrong (very possible) or the person saying the dubious thing does. Either way, its a good learning point. It isnt knowitall shit. Its community getting better shit. And since I'm part of the community.. I want to get better and i need to argue with people and have them set me straight to do that.

So you do me nor ash nor yourself any good by shirking the argument. If you believe yourself to be more correct than me... Explain why. If you dont, just say... "You're right" it isnt that hard.


Anyways to keep on topic.... Here are some obvious ways to reset the opponent that will never damage your point character:


1. Empty jump and call invincible assist (if they reversal you get a free punish, hangs your assist but will probably kill the opposing character so its generally a good trade).

2. Burst bait.

3. Empty jump backwards when you have significant frame advantage.

4. Sweep and go for oki via empty crossups with assist.

5. Against parasoul, peacock, double and bella, airthrow/frame trap (which may not apply to val as much as other characters) is completely safe on either guess. The best they can hope is to block the frame trap and tech the airthrow. Everything else loses to either option if it was timed correctly.


Point being that there are many options that allow a high end probability of doing damage via a correct guess with no way for the opponent to do direct damage to your point character.



I apologize for being snarky though, its kinda just my nature.
 
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Yeah I like jumping/doing nothing and then call DP assist to bait out people who are pressing buttons, sadly (sorry if I'm acting like a bitch at this point) Big Band's SSJ has armor so he doesnt get slapped by the DP and his throw range is pretty big so you MUST jump.
 
Big Band hits DP assist ->deals a gazillion damage to your assist->you land and punish with large counter hit combo
 
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DHC thou

Well yeah you get the punish but I'd rather not let my assist take a ton of damage, especially since now they start healing after two seconds.

It's just the concept of not just nullifying them completely.
 
I don't know what you mean by "the worst you want to happen", you can't mean that I would actually want my reset to fail so I can only assume that you are making a general comment about what the worst SHOULD be, I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that you wish reversal supers weren't in the game but I could just be stretching it, just wild speculation.

I think none of this is addressing invincible supers as a defensive tool, and not as a mash. A burst bait set up doesn't (in any case I have seen) look anything like a reset point that you would choose to reversal super. Regardless of your game design inclinations, the fact is that we have a game where the person on defense is going to have to make a read on your reset, there are enough unreactable resets for a good player to force the defending player into a guessing game. If they have the right read to hold forward during a filia combo, they can have the read to reversal super and blow you up. Doesn't matter if you like it, if its invincible and you are anywhere near the hitbox you are gonna get bopped. There is nothing to argue here, its a fact of the game. That is where the conversation should start, how should val deal with invincible reversals? How should she deal with blocking + invincible assist? It comes down to understanding how aggressive you can be with your resets.

Like I was saying before, BB CAN grab you if you delay on the ground, that's an option he has. Why would he choose that option? It's very risky and if he guesses wrong he will probably get CH'd, that requires a certain kind of mind to react to a reset with a throw. Maybe they get a throw combo off on you because you didn't think they would take such a stupid risk, but now you have very important information. You can't just assume he is going to use the perfect counter to your reset. Once you get into the mind set that you MUST to jump because he MIGHT throw you, you've given up your ground game. Am I saying that every reset you should ever do should be a fast fall downback? No, but it sure seems like you think that's what I'm saying. You can't always protect against SSJ, or dynamo, or gregor, and you cant always protect against grabs. My goal is to get you to understand what you are committing to when you choose to reset someone. So many of the sick unreadable resets that people have created can get blown up by reversal super. If filia wants to IAD j.hk for an instant cross up she can because its an amazing and easy to use reset, then every time a filia uses that reset they are risking that the opponent will super. The fact that you are getting blown up by reversal SSJ is that you do resets that also risk getting hit by supers. If you accept that reversals are a thing in this game, then you have to be aware of your opponents options. You aren't mixing yourself up, you are playing a fighting game that gives the defender more options than just blocking and teching. Does that mean that every reset is rife with risk? Now, this game is centered around offense and most characters don't have really great reversals. I really feel like you just want a brainless reset that has all the work done in the lab. I keep trying to come at it at different angles that actually consider what the opponent will want to do but you keep wanting to latch onto the corner cases and remove all possible risk before considering it a viable reset. So we have downback + assist with a visual hitconfirm after the bait, we have short ground delay with no confirmation, just a timed delay you commit to, we have jump back and delay in the air for the same amount of time, you could also call assist. If timed properly these options leave only imperceptible time in between pressure strings, but they will catch reversal supers. No, none of these are the perfect resets, but they are still resets that serve a purpose. It might just be the purpose you want.

Now, are we here to talk about the "inherent properties of resets" or are we here to think about val? Because complaining is useless.
 
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DHC thou

Well yeah you get the punish but I'd rather not let my assist take a ton of damage, especially since now they start healing after two seconds.

It's just the concept of not just nullifying them completely.

Generally you are sacrificing some damage on your assist character when you bait with jump + assist as a reset.

If you are afraid of SSJ specifically, use a throw of some kind.
 
words
No one's complaining? I'm stating the problems with the MU against BB and yeah I don't like reversal supers because they can entirely flip the tables in SG. If reversals just got the enemy off of you and back to neutral then I don't think it would of been so bad but I think reversal supers are too strong in Skullgirls, which makes it a very mashy game and I admit I do it too.

Also for the love of god please use paragraphs
 
Wanna contribute what I think about the Val - Big Band matchup

Mostly, people play valentine very aggresively, so do I, and I noticed that it just doesnt work so well against big bands, so what do you do? You block.
Really simple actually, they'll dig their own graves most of the time with a panic H rushpunch or A train.

Also, you can either guess that theyre mashing (which some players always do) and just drop your combo and block, super will be blocked and you can combo again, beat extend will be blocked aswell and you get a free combo. For that you can either guess theyre mashing or use the audio trick
 
Won't you get free pressure then if you wait for him to fuck up? He has neutral game mix ups.

I know a BB player that I used to just wait until he fucks up but I always thought it was him that kept fucking up rather than it being a BB thing.

Also another thing vs BB, I just realized that Scalpels will do full damage (2.3k) at BB at point blank, compared to 1k-1.5k with others.