Trial by Fire... Lots and Lots of Fire

Right off the bat my laptop has an error that only a recovery drive can fix. While my USB is getting the necessary files to do so, this training session is heading to my Xbox.

Taking the role of a lab rat and focusing on BnBs. Working on this one in particular:


Whether it's chains, links or just cancels combos don't come easily to me. I expect to be in this phase for quite some time.

Training primarily using the save states, 50% slow motion (why don't more fighting games have this?), one hit guard and hit stun meter. Just keeping it simple so there isn't too much clutter on the screen. That and avoiding information overload in general. With the core combo above, getting the first air dash in order to get enough height for j.mp (3 hits) > j.hk is proving to be finicky. Though for now I was at least able to reach the re jump j.lp a couple of times. Personal goal is to hit the entire combo at least five times before ramping up the speed.

Update: First goal reached and transitioning pretty well between 50 and 75 percent. Personal problem point now is at the second air dash cancel going into j.lk right before the restand.

Apologies if the writing is dry. Don't really have any action to report until I get into some matches.

Finally was able to post after Toronto Skullgirls Monthlies yesterday. Managed to get a few casual games down with them. I was mostly getting bodied left and right but it was still fun and they were great people and players. Just going to bridge the gap between the last time I posted along with things I learned since then.

-I have since changed my anchor to Ms. Fortune. I've always wanted to play as her since her debut but I could never manage to wrap my head around her moveset and combos. I initially played Valentine/Fortune in vanilla but from what I understood back then neither of them had any great assists at the time. Now that Fortune has a better heavy Fiber Upper I thought it was the perfect excuse to pick her up again.

-I got my Valentine BnB mostly down but I still have a tendency to drop it against Squigly. Other related things I need to learn with this combo is the timing against heavy characters, getting resets off of it and if I can sneak a vial in there.

-I am free to cross-ups and throws but that has been a recurring thing in any fighting game I play. All I can think of to improve this is to play more and get used to it. Other general fighting game aspects I could stand improving on are proactive defence, general patience while blocking plus knowing when and when not to throw out assists.

-One of the players I faced that stood out to me used Squigly (Center Stage)/Cerebella (Cere-Copter). From what I understood, his typical game plan is to play keep away with Squigly, going into mix ups and combos to get a hard knockdown and starting the process again. When he switches to Cerebella he uses the assist to set up mixups (typically with an overhead) or to generally get me back in Cerebella's face. That and using Center Stage assist on incoming for ambiguous purposes to disguise the direction my character is coming from. Once I get a better grasp of my characters I want to switch my Squigly assist to Center Stage and find out if there is any synergy with them using these matches as inspiration.

-New BnB for me to learn:


So yeah a lot of work on my end to getting good but there seems to be a lot I can learn from here. If I end up tracking down the stream archive I can point out the Squigly/Cerebella player in question and a point in the stream where I was playing.

Hey again it's been a while.
Managed to pick the game back up again and been playing sporadically for a couple of weeks. I've just been learning BnBs with the rest of my characters, these in particular:

Squigly:
[cr.lk, cr.mk, st.hk x2 > Seria Cancel]
cr.lk, cr.mk, st.hk,
j.lp, j.mk, j.hk > H Fallen Woman
cr.hp > The Silver Chord
st.lp x2, st.mp, st.hp x2 > Arpeggio > [LM Squigly Battle Opera]

Ms. Fortune:

cr.lk, st.mp, st.hk > H Cat Scratch x2 > Cat Slide
st.lp, st.hp
j.hp, Air Dash, j.lk, j.hp, M El Gato
st.hk > L Fiber Upper > j.lp, j.hp
cr.lk, st.mp, st.mk, st.hk > H Cat Scratch x 3 > [Cat Scratch Fever]

Got them down pretty well but I still need to work on Fortune's in particular. The moves I highlighted in bold are my typical chokepoints where I drop my combo. That and I don't know how to time the combo on Painwheel and Peacock so they can remain standing after the M El Gato.

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At this point in time I have zero meaningful fight time online or offline with this team, just content to try and get my BnBs right and messing around with set ups (I am sticking to Mortuary Drop assist dammit, I've been doing it since launch day). Hoping to change that soon since I just signed up for Get Good on 7th and a local scene event on the 14th. My personal goal is to have something every week so I can have something to show for it on Get Good month end. Here's to hoping I stick around this time!

Special thanks to Kyugetsuki on this one and everyone I played yesterday.

I just found out that I have no idea how to go about the neutral with Squigly or Ms. Fortune. Watching some pro players use those characters should remedy that a bit. I have no problem getting Seria charges with Squigly with Fortune backing her up, however I am at a loss on what to do after that apart from spamming j.hp, j.hk and the occasional divekick. As for Fortune it's pretty similar, I'm typically going for j.hp Airdash j.hp.

One of my recurring problems any fighting game is trying to condition my opponent to block so I could get meaningful pressure on them and eventually open them up. Things I need to look for that could help are lockdowns via assists (Hopefully Ms. Fortune's H Fiber Upper is decent at that) and punishing opponents on unsafe moves. That and trying to keep my offence relatively safe on block or whiff.

Another recurring problem I have is not knowing what to do on the opponent's wake up other than blocking to bait a reversal. It is obvious that I stay blocking so I end up not baiting anything. If I try to go for something like a jump in, I typically eat said reversal. Looking into frame data and when is the first moment/frame the opponent can act should help but apart from that I don't know what else to look for.

Not sure how much practice I could squeeze in before Get Good but I hope I can get in at least a couple of more nights. I'll be sure to tune in to the TeamSpeak channel to get a look on what exactly I'm doing wrong in real time.

I think I'm going to enter Intermediate next time around. A friend of mine referred to himself as High beginner/low intermediate and he consistently beaten me and I used that as a litmus test on how I should enter Get Good. I should've put on the entry form how I know a bnb for each of my characters but I am clueless at neutral. Though I wouldn't be surprised if I end up being put in Beginner anyway.

Once it gets up I'll try to put it here as soon as possible. But from what I can recollect I should work on my neutral game, punishes and I made some questionable decisions under pressure.

P.S. turns out I can't enter the Casting Corner room as we play. So I'll just hunt for the video and put time stamps when it's up.

EDIT: http://www.twitch.tv/rskullgirls/b/666888430 @ the 1:25:00 mark

Generally I got bodied at the Toronto Skullgirls monthly meetup, as expected. I pretty much monopolized the footage within the first hour of casuals, trying to get a feel for the matchups. Still learning of course. Gonna review the footage to see what I can come up with.

http://www.twitch.tv/worldjem/v/6175746

Just concluded my set at Get Good, good games Scout. More match ups, more getting bodied, a bit more lag than I'm comfortable with but it's all good. Thanks to Waifu and Tommer letting me listen in on the commentary live. I'll post the stream with the time stamp once it's available. Any critique of the footage here or any others posted would be much appreciated.

http://www.twitch.tv/rskullgirls/b/671221496 Here it is @01:19:30

Some notes:

-I have no idea how to get in with Squigly. Any idea how to do that with my set-up? Other than judiciously using Fortune to cover if they're up close?
-On stream nerves defintely showed here. It benefited me two weeks ago, not too much here. Quite a few dropped combos on my end.
-Proactive defence: I know I need to do it more but for me it's figuring out when and actively integrating it into my gameplay.

Back at it again. Life in general and the discovery of Yatagarasu. Planning to enter Get Good on November 1st. Not much to report here, everything from the previous entry is the same apart from a renewed interest. One thing I'd want to throw out here and maybe in the Ms. Fortune folder as well.

Head-On Cat Scratch Fever typically ends in a slide. However when I perform:

cr.lk, st.mp, st.hk > H Cat Scratch x2 > Cat Slide
st.lp, st.hp
j.hp, Air Dash, j.lk, j.hp, M El Gato
st.hk > L Fiber Upper > j.lp, j.hp
cr.lk, st.mp, st.mk, st.hk > H Cat Scratch x 3 > [Cat Scratch Fever]

Cat Scratch Fever becomes a techable knockdown. Is this because it is performed when the undizzy bar is full? If not are there any full combos where Cat Scratch Fever still slides?

EDIT: Looking into it, the change appears to happen when the combo reaches Combo Stage 5 regardless of undizzy.

EDIT 2: Ok scratch that. Providing examples as I find them.

Test 1
cr.lk, st.mp, st.hk > H Cat Scratch x2 > Cat Slide
st.lp, st.hp
j.hp, Air Dash, j.lk, j.hp, M El Gato
st.hk > [Cat Scratch Fever]

Combo Stage 5 -- 170/240
Result: Techable Knockdown

Test 2
cr.lk, st.mk, st.hk > L Fiber Upper > j.lp, j.hp
cr.lk, st.mp, st.mk, st.hk > H Cat Scratch x 3 > [Cat Scratch Fever]

Combo Stage 5 -- 150/240
Result: Sliding Knockdown

So this appears to be independent of Combo Stage or Undizzy. Anyone know why this is?

CaioLugon said:

A sliding knockdown becomes techable after you use your otg.

Looks like I should've been digging around the forums and familiarizing myself with the mechanics more before posting. Thank you for the quick reply.

Shoutouts to worldjem, Dorkstorm, man0 and everyone who attended the monthly. I've basically been a lab rat until now so getting some match-up experience and tips from everyone was a great help. Ended up getting a couple of matches on stream. The video is spotty in certain places but it still should be good, so constructive feedback and critique would be welcome.



Some things I can think of for my training to do list:

• PLAY MORE MATCHES
• Record a Peacock pattern and practice defending against it (i.e. pushblocking Shadow of Impending doom in order to dodge George at the Airshow and continue approaching).
• Learn a Valentine corner/vial combo
• Work out/learn set ups with assists

Based on how I've been playing and where I am as a player, what else you guys think I should be focusing on? I've already signed up for Get GR8 so hoping to get more footage and development by then.

Thanks to NO837 and Three Dog OWWW for hosting Get Gr8 and providing helpful commentary as well as Yorrick for hosting practice lobbies before and after the event.

Definitely not my best showing this time around to say the least but it was still great. Coming from EST what are the best days and times to find online matches?

Messing around with Peacock, Painwheel and possibly Big Band in training mode just for fun and seeing what I could come up with. I always wanted to find a set up with Lonesome Lenny > Hatred Install DHC and exploit Hatred Guard for potentially big damage. This might not be exactly what I was expecting due to scaling but this is what I came up with:

Peacock > Painwheel DHC Setup (trio damage)
Bang! xx Lonesome Lenny xx Hatred Install
Flight, j.hp, c.lk, c.mp, c.hp* xx L Gae Bolga Stinger
>[midscreen] (charge) s.mk, s.hp xx M Buer Reaper xx Death Crawl (~9307 damage vs trio character)
> [corner] (charge) s.mk, s.hp** xx H Buer Reaper xx Buer Thresher (~9144 damage vs trio character)

Midscreen works on: Parasoul, Ms. Fortune, Valentine, Double, Eliza, Beowulf and Robo-Fortune
*For Corner combo: Substitute for s.hp against characters it doesn't work on midscreen
** Substitute for s.hk (1 hit) against Squigly

A few questions:
-Has anyone tried something like this before?
-What combo can I do with Peacock to set it up without triggering undizzy with Painwheel?
-For the three meters it uses, is it worth it?
-Is there any way to make this universal?

Unfortunately I don't have any way to record training mode footage.

Tired of writing a variation of "Got bodied on stream today", anything else I should write about?

Also I finally got around to learning a vial combo with Valentine.

Finally realized that I have no idea what to do on the opponent's wake up with each of my respective characters. I also have a bad habit of trying to reversal with grab and my assist timing isn't so good. I have been told that I need to pushblock more but sometimes I do the command when I am out of blockstun and dash into whatever the opponent has in store for me. I'll try to list more I need to work on as I go along.

Can't be a lab rat forever, making an effort to actually play with others now that I have a bit of a network. Despite still getting bodied it's a good reminder of why I want to still keep playing in the first place.

This has most likely been documented elsewhere but it's a fun personal discovery for training mode: Holding the joystick left or right before the match starts in each respective corner. This also applies when selecting the "Play Again" option after choosing to exit the game.

Piecing together two bnbs I previously learned for Ms. Fortune, I got this combo using H Fiber Upper as a starter:

H Fiber Upper,
j.hp adc j.lk, j.hp xx M El Gato,
c.mp, s.mk, s.hk xx L Fiber Upper
j.mp, j.hp (land)
s.lpx2, s.mp, s.mk, s.hk xx H Cat Scratch x3 xx Cat Scratch Fever

I wish I could squeeze in another M El Gato in place of "(land)" but any normal I use by that point will trigger IPS. Weight and height from which I hit the opponent will be a factor but this is something I still want to make it work dammit! Also seeing that it's possible for Ms. Fortune can still spring up from an H Fiber Upper stunt double/cross-over counter, I want to see if I can use it for just that.

Update: Testing it as we go along.

Currently works on:
-Peacock
-Filia
-Fukua
-Parasoul
-Eliza
-Cerebella
-Big Band
-Beowulf
-Robo Fortune
-Double
-Painwheel
-Squigly (2 hits st.hk)
-Ms. Fortune
-Valentine (2 hits st.hk). Due to her freefall animation, Cat Scratch Fever will whiff after heavy rekkas, still testing.
Pending

Other Findings:
-Can only combo on mid-air opponents if the first initial strike hits since the command jump will only trigger then. Most likely impractical as a result but I'll see if I could test it further.

Skodial said:

What system do you play Skullgirls on?

Primarily through Steam, here's my profile if you wanna add me: http://steamcommunity.com/id/maverick_j/

Think I'm showing steady improvement as I show up to get Gr8 events since im not getting blown up outright this time around. Trying to keep up heading in on a bi-weekly basis. Push blocking and reversal assist calls getting better. I still have a tendency to drop combos or otherwise choke when dealing with unfamiliar situations but that can only be remedied by putting myself in those situations more often. Shout outs to rock this week, learned a few things about Squigly from facing you, ggs!

Skodial said:

You did great yesterday. I really think your combos were great and you stayed competitive. After my match I stayed and watched the whole event, and I'm glad I did. I learned a couple things just by watching and listening to what people were saying. At the very least, I'll return til I win a match...and work my way to go up against you

Looking forward to it man!

Finally learned all the combos I will ever care to learn, now it's just about landing and making sure I still remember them. Not only that I need to learn about how mount pressure when I have the advantage, what to do on the opponent's wake up and setting up in general. Still a recurring thing since all I've done in training mode until now was learn BnBs and I'm not sure how to replicate mixup and wakeup situations other than playing matches.

I'm incredibly stubborn with my current characters and their assists so those are unlikely to change. I swear I'm going to find a way to set up Mortuary Drop assist and learn how to convert with Fortune!

Just broke 100 hours on Steam for Skullgirls. Without exaggeration at least 65 of those hours were spent in training mode. Planning to fix that for the next 100.

Special thanks to Customer Service Heropon and Enzo (not sure of Skullhearts username) with playing a few sets with me at a local today. Gotten pretty rusty lately and want to get back on track. Hoping to participate more from here on in now that I have a new rig and find some way to record my matches to help you guys with feedback.

No guarantees on how active I'll be with school and work but with 2nd Encore+ out I really want to ease into the game alongside the new blood. Skullheart, Discord and Reddit are probably going to be my best friends in match making but we'll see how things go from here.

I credit the new release and this article in renewing my interest in this game. I mostly felt at home in games where footsies and okizeme games felt more pronounced. Mahvel-esque fighters typically didn't click with me since I couldn't get into combo-heavy fighters since my execution is poor. It was primarily thanks to save states, slow motion training options and the threads in this very board that I was able to drill some decent combos, get anything resembling results in the game and having fun with it.

And then resets happened. Multiple, multiple times. Typically on stream.

I know I know git gud and learn to play the game, I'm working on it now but at the time it was discouraging enough to quit. Reading and learning that landing reset after reset isn't the only viable way to play convinced me to give Skullgirls another look.

Also these combos are killing me atm, still having trouble putting it all together then and now. Between delaying M Savage Bypass to get the rest of the combo to hit and landing low enough for Air Flew Shot > dash > st.lp to combo. Still chipping away at it but with how I want to make setting up vials and actually using them a part of my gameplan I don't think I should get into any matches just yet until I finally get them down.


TL;DR more fighting games need slow motion training tools. Frustrating losses via resets made me quit. Finally getting it through my head that there is more than one way to play brought me back.

Just fooling around with this a bit and it is the reason why I started this thread.

Still don't have enough confidence to actually get into games since I don't have my midscreen vial BnB down. I figured I should just keep labbing it if my gameplan is going to revolve around setting up okizeme, loading and using vials. Could do it relatively consistently at 75% speed but I'm still working on it.

Despite that I've been messing around in the lab for a solo Midscreen Mortuary Drop Combo:

Mortuary Drop, Air Checkmate Incision
Air H Savage Bypass, Air M Savage Bypass,
adc j.hp, land, j.lp, j.mp(3 hits), j.hk
adc j.mk(2 hits) xx Air L/M Savage Bypass, land
dash, st.lpx3, st.mpx2, cr.mk(2 hits), st.hkx3 [xx H Savage Bypass xx EKG Flatliner]

Done 1v1 vs a Parasoul.
L Savage Bypass versions do 4073[5591]
M Savage Bypass versions do 4088[5606]

Thank god for slow-mo. Can only currently do this with a save-state before Air Checkmate Incision at 50% speed but the L Savage Bypass versions are tremendously easier. I've only managed to do the M Savage versions once each. I have no idea how universal these combos are. Not sure how these stack up against Duckators assist-less combos shown below (at 0:36 and 1:01) due to ratio differences between 1v1 and 3v3.