Screaming at Painwheel Matchups

I think its time i started one of these. I need improvement on, well, a lot of shit. About a year ago, around the time of big band beta, I got tired of going nowhere with team duckator and decided to start experimenting with other characters and teams. I picked up and played nearly the entire roster and as many combinations as possible: para double; para fukua double; val eliza filia; val eliza para; filia fukua; fortune double; squigly eliza; val bella; val eliza; val para; eliza para; double squigly; val filia; robo pw; pw fukua para; pw robo para. Im not gonna go on with it but if youve seen me on skullbats then you probably noticed I had a new team every few weeks or so and never seemed to improve. Problem is with no one to focus on for so long Ive been perpetually stuck at an intermediate level, which is pretty shitty of me since I have been hiding in the shadows since day 1 vanilla. Its also been hell trying to find locals because the CenCal SG scene is only me as far as I know. I met @Dolfinh , @Bit_Strife , and @PlatinumPad at NCR which was fun considering they were all really nice and i could actually block a mix up and combo without a lag spike stopping me but theyre all scattered about NorCal, not a huge inconvience to drive to but still. Thats the only local experience I have and any upcoming majors like EVO or CB arent an issue on money its people to go with because in my group of friends I am "that guy" when it comes to fighting games. So yea im practically isolated but def want to improve regardless. My other fighting game experience lies mostly in a lot of third strike (ibuki for life), bits of Guilty Gear, a month or so of messing with MvC2, and a bit of melee.

My current team is Painwheel, Double, and Parasoul. I like it and Im sticking with it, might change but consider it the final product. Parasoul is my strongest character, shes been played the most out of the past year and really just needs polishing. Ive been able to clutch 3v3 matches while the other team has full health. Can do tight frame combos even on a shitty connection. Mix ups are spectacular with her. Im fairly good at controlling space while zoning and quickly switching tactics based on situation. not on par with anyone like fenster, i think, but overall I consider her my strongest.

Double doesnt need to much improvement. Ive been playing her since around the middle of vanillas lifespan (def before lawsuit announcement). She is solid. All i need to do is knock of the rust and get her up to speed with all the new tech and combos. Im still doing barrel loop out of habit but i do have a combo and some resets for the current version of SG.

Painwheel is the problem child. Had a moment of clarity when it came to her combos and started playing her in preparation for NCR. She is fundamental at best. Ive optimized and stabilized her combos, basic resets, a few of her mixups, and recently started on more advanced tech like stinger x tk fly x stinger and corner combos. As of now she can do well in low level matches but gets decimated in any form of higher level play. Double and Parasoul are carrying the team. I dont want to drop Painwheel, i really want to stick with her. Problem is shes really fucking hard. What she really needs is matchup experience and ive been getting that in spades when it comes to all the high tier characters but gets killed regardless. I really need to get better experience with all of her matchups and quick match aint doin the job.

Of course i need higher level play experience in general if i want to improve but I want painwheel to be a priority for the moment, at least until im confident that she can handle most every match without dying. Other improvements would be: stop trying to pushblock like this is the old versions, stop crutching assists so much, and learn how to fight Beowulf (what the fuck is he?).

I think this'll be a good way to keep track of my progress and see what needs to be ironed out as I level up. Im also going to keep progress on other games that im learning because i need to move on from third strike. recently picked up Xrd because some dedicated venom guy at NCR (stick had venom art and everything) showed me how it all works and how to play, really cool guy. cant focus on the game until i have some way to play a stick on PS4 but gonna learn regardless. also going to get more into melee because its just really fun.

So yea stay tuned for more salt (fuck Beowulf).

Fought Bit strife last night and i would say it went well. one major problem that i had to remind myself was to improve my meta game. i kept getting hit by the same resets so thats gonna need work. Strife played val,squigs,bella so that definitely helped in matchup experience especially since pw has issues getting around them. I should start working on using PBGC more often. ive been able to play well without using it too much but i need to start using it to get out of corners rather than using assist. pw also has problems with capitalizing off of OTG and maintaining vortex pressure. Ive seen myself flycancelling j.mp all to often and get pushblocked way too far for me to get consistent mix ups and pressure with pw. Parasoul and double were as strong has i had remembered and double proved to be even stronger than i thought. a surprise for me but there was a rather janky connection going on that contributed to a lot of dropped combos and mix ups, it may have helped me to maintain the advantage. Regardless para/double did very well in maintaining pressure mix ups and resets. pw was able to get in a few times but had a lot o difficulty. I may have to play her solo for a while and just focus soley on her. Double also appears to be nearly caught up with new tech. I made use of flesh step crosses and throw resets but she still needs work on using monster properly and also not getting to crazy with the raw flesh step. Considering the somewhat weird connection I'd say it went pretty well.

PW

• needs combo and mix up improvement
• stop fly cancelling on j.mp to avoid being pushblocked back to half screen
• capitalize off of OTG
• find a way to use install combos and not just zoning

Parasoul

• be more careful about using mix ups
• use pillar more often against squigly and val
• optimize combos better. current bnbs are fancy and good at resets but do terrible damage

Double

• Be careful with flesh step
• learn how to use monster
• stop using cat heads so haphazardly

General

• Improve meta game, particularly in getting better at faster, smarter reads on opponents rather than on the 4th match in.
• Put burst baits into to practice more often. they are there but i need to actually use them.
• focus on using solo pw for a while.

Link to Bit stream

Xrd:
Maining Millia and its going very well against the AI. Im using very fundamental tech but shes improved immensly in the past few days. bnb execution could use work and i need to consider starting to use more situational combos for specific characters and set ups. Need to practice more on anti zoning tactics as Bedman and Venom are going to be an issue. Also need to learn how use hairpin extensions for my combos.

Melee:
Going to focus on this once i have a pc adapter for a GC controller. im not going to spend $80 on a game if i can spend 10 on an adapter and 0 on an emulator.

Wow Dime i figured someone would come along and help out but damn i didnt expect something so detailed. seriously this is going to save me a lot of headache with painwheel and a lot of scrounging through the forums. I also see what you mean by beat extend but at the moment i really dont want to start learning another character and bb doesnt really fit my style anyways. Still though good advice i really appreciate it.

edit

the conversions off of battle butt and pillar are pretty hard but battle butt is much more manageable i think. i only recently added double onto the team so its going to take some practice. battle butt moves faster than flight but pw can catch up using j.mp. regardless i see your point and i am going to try other assists to see whats easier.

Lot of practice this weekend with pw. mostly just late night quick match hunting. Not a whole lot to say here really except that @Dime_x breakdown really helped out. obviously im going to need more practice in the matchups but to get that breakdown really helped out when it came to fighting pretty much everyone. @Domo also gave some helpful advice when it came to capitalizing on OTG. i knew about going j.mp ( that still needs more practice) but i didnt think to use c.mp and that helped out. even so the dp assist capitalization is still a pretty situational tool here and needs a lot more work. Even so i only rarely used my team and im focusing just on using pw. what i need to do now is start practicing more advanced combos into my play as what i have now is good for BnB but wont deliver very much damage in certain situations. anyways im a little bit buzzed so im going to play Vsav now.

Did the casual skullbats tournament last night. finally got a good robo to fight and found how to get around her with pw. just have to stay grounded, use fly or jump to get in if there is an opening, and apply massive pressure; basically anti peacock game except robo cant escape nearly as easily. there arent very many robos at the moment so this is pretty basic for her strategy. I did like that i was able to figure that out pretty quickly rather than my usual nonsense of bang my head against a wall several times and finally have a breakthrough the 8th match in.

Xrd: started fighting ai on very hard and its really pushing my millia game. figured out how to use knife extensions on a whim. still need to start learning character specific combos tho.

I feel that pw is leveling up is ever so slowly. of course i still need to put in the effort of actually asking someone on my friendslist to do casuals and since pw isnt dying nearly as often (just barely) i feel its time for the next level. quick matches arent working for me anymore and any high level players simply show up out of the blue. i also got a corner combo going. on a 3v3 match it does about 75ish% damage which is pretty good but i still need to find a way of actually working it into my pw game. as of now i have it down and adjusted for each character. also moved on to more difficult resets, the ones that have easy to mess up input and are a bit more dangerous. tk throws, fastfall>low, fastfall>high and poke>charged c.hp. i dont know if they are considered advanced but they still make for some crazy mix up game. also in quick match i saw another pw convert from j.h.buer>2j.mk. turns out its pretty easy to do and it could lead to some helpful tech once i understand pw more but for now im just going to keep it in the back of my mind. I also got the hang of baiting opponents into doing dangerous moves but this goes into the meta and even with the execution that i have its not gonna mean shit if i leave myself open to baiting my bait. At this point most of the tech and combos are down and what i really need to do is start getting higher level experience. i feel pw is ready and shes bound to get bodied regardless of how ready i feel so theres no more pussyfooting around it any more. time to buckle down and get salty.

Xrd: still where i was. found out how to use secret garden and delay ring effectively for oki combos. really wish i could play Ps4 on a stick because the pad is fucking me up. i cant get half of my moves to come out because im so used to stick. please send help. make aksys pick up the stick driver. for the love of god.

that would be great. problem is i dont have a ps3. i was one of those guys that looked at microsoft and pretty much said "not gonna touch that" and went over to ps4.

wow okay totally forgot about that thanks pickles. also @indieanimator if youre going to norcal battle opera there might be xrd setups there too. dont know if there is going to be xrd that night but never know.

not much to update today. experimented more with pw tech today. practiced how to fly cancel out of charge and fastfall mix ups. found a few more useful resets and one that helps to carry into corner combo. started trying to get in the habit of using all of her armored normals to get in and using s.mp as another aa instead of just s.mk. havent been able to get around to actual matches yet but cant wait to try out some of this new stuff. also started looking at her frame data and hitboxes more. more interseted in the hitboxes as they are pretty strange compared to the rest of the roster. as a reminder to myself i need to also look and see what moves will leave a + or - as i havent even touched that yet. i also need to started writing down on paper what i have found with pw; a lot of the other characters ive played are pretty simple and could be picked up naturally but pw has gone so much deeper than filia or val ever did in the last few days that i should start writing down every little thing. ive studied my fair share of characters in fighting games but pw takes the cake. no one has ever been so complex that i had to write everything down, more of a mental kind of guy.

been awhile since i updated. basically still in the same spot. just trying to get more experience with pw and moving her up to a more "online warrior" tier. started getting used to hit confirming off of armored normals and thats been more awkward than i thought it was going to be. played a set with platinumrad, tried to record it but bandaicam was being a diva about it. it went okay, i was a little tired that night and wasnt really giving it my all. still only got maybe 7 or 8 wins out of it all compared to his 40. execution is still lacking but i do have the situatinoal combos down in offline training and arcade so maybe once i get more used to her timing while on a conncetion that should start to work itself out. havent gotten around to xrd this week so not even going to bother.

a short video to keep track of my bnbs and see how i can optimize them. not the most damaging out there but they get the job done fairly well.

1. a variation on the second combo. damage can be from 9.3k-9.5k (well tested)
2. for robo, parasoul, and double only. 9.3k damage. does not work on other characters (well tested)
3. can only be done while approaching the corner. must be at half stage or closer. beware of light characters once in the corner and use j.mk>j.hp (parasoul and val only) at the end instead of buer> j.mk > buer. does 9.5k damage (tested)
4. corner combo, universal, but use very delayed timing for light characters and c.mp x2 only to be safe. 9.8k damage (tested)
5. off of throw. universal. only needs usual timing adjustments for hurtbox and weight. 7.2k damage (well tested)
6. install combo. still new and will need a lot of work, likely universal. 10 k damage (untested)

thanks for the help with that but i already knew about how damage was going to be drastically affected in different matchups. like i said it was more to keep track of what i have but regardless thanks for the input and for going through the trouble of the breakdown.

kind of had a bad day and playing like shit because of it but what the fuck ever heres where im at woo.

• all characters are at about the same level and now need total focus
• parasoul and pw need work on confirming and combo stability
• double needs better resets
• experimented with pinion dash and cillia slide for a while. pin dash is not so great cillia slide is staying
• need to stop using pin dash like battle butt

also the recent stuff in the tiers discussion has compelled me to start seeing what i can do with a pw, filia team. might be shit. might be interesting.

• pw is getting better with confirms off of multi hit normals. parasoul not so much
• forgot to work on double resets
• Filia, pw team is hilarious with ringlet psych and flight assist, highly recommend
• also filia, pw has helped me to get better about not using assist

Just cruising along right now. i had a few in me the other night and t bagged people (whoops) other than that everything is just peachy. now i only t bag beowulfs and peacocks because im as salty as sea water on a weekday.

also working on approaching situations less cautiously. ive become far too patient and its getting me cornered a lot and i need to be aggressive, at least from a solo standpoint. meta is lacking somewhat as well. reading people has been a bit of a challenge for me lately.

cant think of anything else except that i found this gem on youtube the other day

edit: fucking beowulf

edir: dont ever change your steam name to "fucking sick of lag spikes" because people find it to be an open door to troll.

i took a break from skullgirls this week. finally picked up uniel. thats the highlight of my day. yay.

so i think im done experimenting with teams LOL YEAH FUCK THAT PICKED UP PEACOCK.
Parasoul wasnt working out. she was good but i wasnt going anywhere with her and i just couldnt seem to get any better with her play, she was very awkward to play and something just wasnt clicking and i could only get so good with her. im not dropping her, i just need to rethink how im playing with her and see if some other character might be better able to fill that gap or just go duo (team rylander. five people would understand that) altogether, after all i am in love with cilia slide set ups and i dont want to lose those.

This is where Peacock comes in. I started playing her last night and her inputs and playstyle are still as hard as ever but my practice with painwheel made that a lot easier to get a handle on this time. found a decent enough bnb that does some good damage but it did need some serious adjusting for heavier characters. the delayed air dash is also throwing off my combos. Zoning has been a bit difficult, i expected as much but the rhythm behind her projectiles are a bit odd. currently i dont have any tech or resets with her but i dont think thatll be much of a problem for too long considering, from what ive seen, she doesnt have a whole lot to begin with. most of the peacocks ive watched over the years use some really stagnant, albeit, effective tech.

For the team i decided to go with Painwheel, Peacock, and Double. (l.buer, l.bomb, m. bomber). the team has some interesting dynamics and overall isnt to shabby. im most concerned about losing cillia slide since that made for some killer oki set ups and mix ups. painwheel doesnt have anything worth covering peacocks dead zone so im gonna see where l. buer takes me. and it is surprisingly more effective than i thought. since most people tend to go straight for the dead zone punish buer takes them completely off guard. i cant imagine this will help in the long run but i should be able to find some interesting tech with this.

Painwheel is solid now and i can confidently say she may be my strongest with and without assist. My Filia Painwheel team using useless assists gave me the proper training to stop crutching dp and forcing me to escape corners with out an assist. I have also been able to get rid of some bad habits that have gotten me killed so many times in so many matches, my last habit to get rid of is j. mp for getting in, this gets me killed by everything. PBGC should be my next step with her as well. i know how to do it i just dont execute it well under pressure but a PBGC amored normal will give me the extra edge i need for painwheel. i need to also start diversifying my resets especially since pw has so many godamned resets and i keep going for overhead roundhouse on every character like an idiot.

Double is solid. she needs work on playing solo but still where she is she is quite strong. i have been using flesh step like a motherfucker despite knowing its unsafe and i honestly dont know why i keep using it. I just need to start using more resets that dont revolve around flesh step and assists then i think she'll be good.

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alright this had nothing to do with training.

The fg scene where live is suffice it to say, dead. if i try to find a local in my city or near one of the close by towns all i come across are the dead husks of local groups that have long ago disbanded. I know there are players around but no ones really been putting in the effort to get a local going and for good reason. arcades, both modern and traditional, have really bad luck staying alive in Modesto, not to mention most were pay by the hour arcades that also had shitty business practice from what i heard. Only 3 arcades still exist but the locations aren't ideal for an fgc meetup because theyre all token based coin op places that dont have any actual fighting games. beyond that getting setups is also an issue, people can bring their own setups but many local businesses dont have the resources, far as i know, to help with that. but thats a problem for another time. right now im just trying to find a decent spot where people can meet and play. the Queen Bean (local coffee shop) and the Junior College seem like good locations at the moment but i want to see what else is out there. tomorrow im going to be running around so im gonna check out some other places and see if anything strikes my fancy. if anyone reading is from the Central Valley (ie: modesto, stockton, manteca, merced, turlock) is there some meetup ive been missing out on for a while and it just isnt posted online? if so tell me. i will try to start a central valley/cencal thread and see what can be done about this or i may just post this in the Norcal thread since where i live people either call it Norcal or Cencal.

Ive been to Dolfinh's locals in the Bay Area before and Fresno isnt to bad of a drive for me if i do manage to arrange some SG meetup with Negus. What im looking to do is revive the fg scene where i live because as it is most anyone that wants to find some place to play has to drive 2 hours to some place like Fresno or San Carlos. assuming they can drive. I know a few people around here who would show up and im sure we can get something going. My real goal is just fighting games in general, if can get SG locals goign then thats just a bonus for me, but its not the kind of game anybody plays.

Basically i want to get things going for main stuff, Marvel, GG, SF, 3s, ect. other games with less of a presence like SG would be nice but having that as a main wont get the momentum going (albeit thats not to say it wouldnt draw people in), if you know what i mean.

It's been way too long since I made an update so here goes
-painwheel is chugging along, focusing mainly on trying to nail down block string pressure
- trying to get rid of a few bad habits: using jmp to get in, fly canceling at the wrong time, and using jhk for cross up
-decided to try Eliza with the team and she's ok, just sticking to the fundamentals for now
-Eliza does need work on proper block strings because big band pbgcs out of fucking everything

Right now I'm trying to just stay on top of myself and practice everyday. The ps4 version is also giving some experience on console since I can't play on that to save my life. Also console keeps randomly disconnecting my matches and makes me salty as all hell.

another short one woo so exited.

-decided to take a break from sg this week just for the hell of it but pretty much where i was in the last update
-optimized and did a little overhaul on my pw combos and finally got around to making a corner combo for heavies
-midscreen now does 7.7k (tall characters only)
-short character mdscrn does ~7.5k
-heavy corner is 8.2k, light corner is 8.3k, universal corner carry is 8.2k

-focusing mostly on execution
-there are some issues with otg douche canoe>h.dp only when im facing right, strangely
-light character have issues falling out of mdscrn bnb but thats just a timing issue
-big band is still pbgc beat extending his way out of everything i do

well thats all i can think of off the top of my head. ive been playing a lot of uniel and dark souls lately so this is some stuff to work on for sg next week.

So it's been a while since I updated and not really sure about Posting this stuff but I suppose it just felt appropriate considering how long I've played this game. So for those that don't know Dolfinh has had to cut back on FG's big time because adult life and stuff. Not to sound cold, I'm just not going to go into the details but seeing it has been making me think a lot about my own future and where I am in life at the moment as well as how much time I put into SG.

While I'm not exactly well known and I'm still an intermediate player at best I've actually put a lot of time into this game. Perhaps more than one would need to considering I've been playing since day 1 on console. There's never been a scene for this game in my town and my attempts to expand and create interest weren't successful (probably because I have terrible social skills). Within the past year I've been able to expand myself a bit; get more active with the scene, go on skull bats, drive 2 hours for a local, expand my steam friend list. Basically get more active.

That's sort of why I'm writing this. 2016 May be my last year to do anything with fighting games. My plan with college is to transfer and move out of my parents house and unfortunately when that happens I won't be able to afford to go out to majors. The most I might be able to do is locals and casual play. And much as I enjoy SG, and FGs/ video games in general i can't keep going on like this. It hasn't kept me from improving as an artist or from doing well in school but those things combined with work, finances, and trying to practice SG is a little too overwhelming.

Now to clarify at the moment everything is fine (except for my lack of sleep) and I'm able to keep up with my responsibilities. However, this is my first, last, and only chance to get out to SG majors. I want to perform well and I want to have a good time. I want to experience these things before my time is up.
So at the moment a lot of updates and SG activity is going to be posted on Twitter where it's more accessible on mobile because my laptop is currently taking the piss.
Find me: @SLUG_FAST

Hopefully I'm wrong. Hopefully I'll still be able to keep up once I move out. Hopefully some miracle comes around. But I don't know. I feel like I'm approaching a new chapter in my life and it felt strange not to at least provide some conclusion in a place that seems comporable to where my current one began.

It's rather late so I'm going to just post this pretty it up at another time.