Do I REALLY need a fighting stick to play better?

Don't need a fightstick tbh. the "king of skullgirls" plays pad. always has and always will be.

Are you using off-brand controllers, or official ps3/360 controllers?

Wired 360 controllers work fine on PC, and PS3 controllers work if you get some sort of driver with them. The issue here you're having isn't needing a stick to improve as a player, it's that your controllers die after too little use! I haven't heard of anyone I know of that uses ps3/360 pad to play needing to regularly replace them, so perhaps look into either one of those options, instead of shelling out heaps of money for a stick.

Stick -is- really fun though, and getting used to it means you can play in arcades if you make the holy fighting game pilgrimage to Japan. But stick is not necessary.

While we're on the subject, if anyone else has trouble w/360s on the d-pad like I do, give the analog stick a shot. It works easier for me. I'd love to get a fighting stick, but haven't been able to. So I've had to make the best of pad usage.

You don't need a stick. Everyone's got their own preference, and whatever works for you, rock with it.

I've played things on keyboard my whole life, and skullgirls isn't any different.
However I'm tired of missing motions because of ghosting/because I don't have good dexterity with my left ring finger and doing QCBs usually screw me up. I am planning on buying a stick, but this kind of stuff is hard to find in Brazil.

About pads, the only things I feel like they must be played on a pad are PS1 and PS2 games, because of nostalgia.

ps3 analog stick is the best thing for fighting games imo

It's entirely a matter of preference. I wouldn't sink big money into a stick if you're unsure you'll use it or enjoy it. Find a friend who does have one and see if you can find out if it's for you or not. I used to use a PS3 pad when I was learning, but I didn't like doing motions on it so I ended up grabbing a stick. A bunch of high level SG players play on pad as well!

the top 3 at Combo Breaker this past weekend are all pad players too

lol I use keyboard

Certainly not for Skullgirls, watch the top 8 from CB and count the controller players.

Do we really need to keep resurrecting this thread...?

AdenPhoenix said:

Certainly not for Skullgirls, watch the top 8 from CB and count the controller players.

Half of top 8. #PADBOYS

No.

Wenzel said:

No.

:(

Pad is fine, ask the champ of Skullgirls from Combo Breaker. PS4 controllers work out the box without needing a program like ps3 controllers.

cloudKing211 said:

:(

its was "No" to the OP, not you post CloudKing!

dMags said:

the top 3 at Combo Breaker this past weekend are all pad players too

Hilary said:

Spoiler

top three were all furries too

Spoiler

never said this

@dekillsage They're on to you, get the guns ready. *Pew Pew

simplyB2K said:

What would you say about Keyboards?

my friend uses keyboard and he is pretty decent with it, but like he cant go to tournaments and we really cant play offline because of it :/

There are some pretty great Skullgirls players who use the keyboard as their controller of choice, yes.

TL;DR: objectively, sticks are better because they allow easier execution typically & use wrists & fingers resting/controlling individual buttons instead of 2 thumbs for a bunch of buttons despite being close together. However, you still have to practice. It will not "level you up" just because it's a stick. Use the official 360 or XBone controller & you'll be fine until then. Just take good care of your controllers. Don't punish the buttons & wrap your cord gently. Not tightly. I've only bought 1 360 controller & have had it for 6 years. If I can you can too.

Controllers are just tools...it depends on how you use them. You can have a stick & it DOES help you respond better in terms of movement in some cases. You're using you're fingers individually resting on big buttons instead of your thumb/finger to switch around. Also using wrist movement is much faster (relatively speaking) instead of thumbs for moving around.

It's not so much about "playing better" as it doe helps successful execution percentage & decrease Input fails dramatically. Now don't get me wrong, once you hop on stick, it won't feel natural at ALL. And your character will feel like an alien. But with that said, this is the BEST time to get a stick. It's wonderful & quite fun.

I'll just add that even though stick is better objectively, pad is fine too. Just requires you to really be purposeful in your execution. Also...dontttt wrap your cords too tightly!! So many people do that. Headphones, wires to charger cords...don't do it. Also don't mash buttons till a move comes out. Try to get in the habit of pressing a button once till the move comes out. Occasionally you'll have to mash...#reversals, but otherwise a pad works fine to start with.

No! You don't need a stick to play at the highest of levels.
Sticks, pads, keyboards and hitboxes are all tools, and tools don't make the master.
A good artist is not the one with the best paintbrush.

simplyB2K said:

What would you say about Keyboards?

If I was to personally rank each type of controller by least to most useful, it would be Controller, (specifically Xbox, Playstation, Pad,) Keyboard, and Fightstick.
Keyboard is probably your best alternative to a fightstick or a pad. Keyboards have plenty of buttons with plenty of accessibility to them, as there is minimal movement to move between them. I used keyboard for a huge amount of time and only recently switched to fightstick, and to me, keyboard is still a completely viable option.
Sadly, most fighting games are on Ps3/Xbox, so if you play keyboard you're going to also need to learn a controller/pad or a fightstick unless you plan on playing exclusively on PC.
Also, keep in mind that if you are planning on going to tournaments, most tournaments are on console instead of PC, so a lot of time you can't use keyboard.
Controller is a bit weird for Skullgirls (unless you use a 6 face-button pad) due to two of your normals always going to be away from the face buttons.

Meow-Professor said:

Controller is a bit weird for Skullgirls (unless you use a 6 face-button pad) due to two of your normals always going to be away from the face buttons.

Dunno, I'm using an Xbox 360 pad for Skullgirls almost two years now. I never found it weird nor uncomfortable that the heavy normals are away from the face buttons, yet hear people who do not use pads that it's weird. At which point I ask them why, at which point they say "well, because it is?", at which point I say "but it isn't?", at which point we both stare at each other in awkward silence and with odd dissatisfied looks on our faces.

Muro said:

Dunno, I'm using an Xbox 360 pad for Skullgirls almost two years now. I never found it weird nor uncomfortable that the heavy normals are away from the face buttons, yet hear people who do not use pads that it's weird. At which point I ask them why, at which point they say "well, because it is?", at which point I say "but it isn't?", at which point we both stare at each other in awkward silence and with odd dissatisfied looks on our faces.

Hopefully I can provide a reason why.
To me, it seems weird because of how spread out the buttons will be.
I usually associate the shoulder buttons/bumpers with macros. It seems awkward to me because you're going from the face buttons to the shoulders/bumpers in the middle of a combo. You're going from the face buttons with your left hand, to the back of the controller to your right/left, now back to the face buttons, now back to the bumpers. I don't see how I'd be able to manage it.

Honestly I feel like if you play keyboard and like it, and you plan to go far in skullgirls, you should invest in a hitbox relatively early. Pretty much everyone who started out on keyboard and stuck with the game enough to go to locals has switched to hitbox because it feels similar and it's actually compatible with tournament setups (i.e. console). Other than that I disagree completely that pad is objectively bad, no controller is "bad" I only say don't use keyboard because you can't plug it into a ps3/ps4, there's nothing inherently wrong with keyboard as an input device. I agree with Muro that people just think pads are weird if you've been playing stick because it's so different, but as someone who's played on pad for years I think stick feels really weird. Pad isn't bad, 3 out of the top 4 and 4 out of the top 8 players at the biggest SG tournament of the year played on pad. (I think the 360 controller is worse than ps3/ps4 but thats just me)

I played fine on 360 pad, only issue was accidentally getting back or down instead of downback, so I got a stick. I used PP and KK macros and called assists with right stick. Punches aligned to left, kicks aligned to right.

I played fine on my qanba q1 on square gate, after a long adjustment period, but I liked to ride the gate, as I rode the 'gate' on pad (circle), and I wanted that for QCF/QCB/360/etc
I switched to octogate, and played fine on that. I liked the 8 corners. I could find downback. I could lock to a corner to ensure DP. I could ride the gate like a lazy butt and get my circle motions.

I could tilt the stick slightly in my lap, causing downback to suddenly become back or down, leading me to fail to block again or do inputs correctly.

I could burst into a fit of screaming rage. A lot.

I decided to purchase a hitbox and immediately began grinding rekka combos in KOF XIII on the keyboard on hitbox layout.
I got my hitbox. I jumped with my thumb. Unfortunately, I was trying to do LK, because on my stick, my thumb was LK, not jump.
I jumped in people's faces. A lot.

I couldn't do normals right after jumping after a launcher, I couldn't jump cancel right after launching. I made a lot of janky combos to get by.
I grinded. I got good. I did HCB into DP loops with EX Iori. I did barrel loops with Double. I did Valentine combos.
I learned to jump with either thumb, predominately right. I learned to do 360 motion, though only really cause Mike Z is nice to hitbox players. :^)
I learned to input assist calls manually again using my new finger arrangement.

I still can't hcb as reliably on P2 side as P1 side, because I slide on one side (hitbox technique) and finger on the other.
But I work to overcome the execution barriers as I meet them. I learned to fly up and forward with Painwheel in combos, and down and forward, and learned to do diagonal blitzers with Beowulf.
I learned to double tap kicks or alternate kicks for flight and fiber upper.

Now I'm doing directional rekka combos with Akihko in P4AU and I can do my tear toss routes with Parasoul again.

And I could find downback, good God, I could downback, like a scrub, and get hit by all the falling normals my opponent throws out when I still fail to flash kick and get sHK.
And it's wonderful. And it's all preference.

Use colossi's screwdriverdualshocknumpad thing, imo.

Nuuance said:

Also using wrist movement is much faster (relatively speaking) instead of thumbs for moving around.

Is there any kind of source on this?

Squire Grooktook said:

Is there any kind of source on this?

Let's get a hitbox vs keyboard vs pad analog vs pad digital vs stick vs screwdriverdualshocknumpad comparison

Meow-Professor said:

Hopefully I can provide a reason why.
To me, it seems weird because of how spread out the buttons will be.
I usually associate the shoulder buttons/bumpers with macros. It seems awkward to me because you're going from the face buttons to the shoulders/bumpers in the middle of a combo. You're going from the face buttons with your left hand, to the back of the controller to your right/left, now back to the face buttons, now back to the bumpers. I don't see how I'd be able to manage it.

I've been doing "face button to the shoulders" for combos since Mvc1 and any 6 button fighter. It's not any more complex then memorizing the combos themselves.