I Guess I'll Start A Training Diary...

@Swiftfox-Dash plays Peacock/Bella and uses M Item as his Peacock assist. You can call it just before you do a mixup and the item will sometimes keep you safe if they reversal. You can also use it to convert off Bella's instant elbow. Personally the Peacock assist I usually use is L Bomb, which you can just sorta call at neutral if nothing is going on, then try to go in ahead of it. The bomb will frequently break your opponent's combo for you so it sort of gives you free reign to play like a moron for a little while, which is perfect for me.

Can't help you with the controller configuration since I play stick. But I tagged TJ and he plays pad so hopefully he's got something for you. I remember he uses one macro set to all three punch buttons but I don't really remember why.

Excellabella is REALLY bad as an assist for Peacock btw. You don't need it for combos anyways since LnL can be used for combos. Something like s.HP > call Bella > cancel s.HP to M item > Bella hits gives you enough frame advantage to do a short dash into j.MK, and at that point you're off to the races. (I think that's what TJ does, TJ correct me if I got that wrong)

I would basically use HK Teleport to get out of the corner. You just want to be careful any time you teleport because if your opponent isn't committed to an action they can easily punish it. You want to teleport when your opponent is jumping or air dashing forward or something like that.

LBomb, MBoxcar, and sHP are all good assists for that team, just IMHO. Doesn't TJ use an item drop assist?

O yeah M Bomb is a good assist too, I think that's what @Mr Peck runs for Bella

mcpeanuts said:

O yeah M Bomb is a good assist too, I think that's what @Mr Peck runs for Bella

M bomb (boxcar) is great for Cerebella. You can call it up close to keep yourself safe or call it far away to help you get in, you can use it for crossups, and it's easy to punish your opponent with excellabella or airthrow if you think they're going to jump out to avoid having to block it. It's pretty easy to charge in with her command run and be a big armored jerk with a bomb making your headbutts safe, too.

turbo77 said:

Okay, I'm messing around with boxcar assist. It works pretty well. In fact, people tend to block low when I use the boxcar assist, so I jump over the opponent as the bomb hits and elbow drop punish as they still block low.

Elbow is fast but if it's not super low to the ground and if the bomb isn't covering it, it can be negative/punished, jLK and jMP are pretty good normals for crossing up and hitting high since they're respecting the bomb for whatever reason. Also, you can't do left/right when someone is already in blockstun, just like you can't throw them. Only high/low, so try to cross up with a timing that keeps that in mind.

I use my macro 1 as triple punch because I can do dashes and supers with Peacock regardless of which item I'm holding. I don't need M item assist to combo off elbow drop but it makes it super easy. It was better before the buff to it as I was the only Bella who could combo off elbow drop but what can you do lol. Also While LnL assist does help with Peacock combos, the best combo's she can do don't even need assists. When I go for optimal stuff H LNL assist just adds a little extra damage. Though I do have a fancy high damage corner combo that uses LNL early so there's that.

Oh and also M item drop for Bella leads to interesting resets I've come to find, so that's something I use for myself. Also in some situations can lead to your opponent getting stuck in the air blocking, letting you do crossunder or side switch stuff. I feel it's just really good when you find all the uses it has for point Bella.

turbo77 said:

-can wulf shoot be escaped if I was actually grabbed by Beo? Because sometimes I escape and sometimes I don't...

Wolf shoot can always be escaped by jumping.

turbo77 said:

I know that, but I mean if I didn't jump and he actually grabs me, how do I escape? Sometimes after a few hits I escape, i assumed I would have to press lp+lk before a hit.

Oh if beowulf doesn't finish his actions when he has grabbed you, you will automatically be free which looks like teching a grab. Otherwise, no you can't avoid it any other way. You cannot tech(lp+lk) command grabs and wulf shoot is a command grab.

turbo77 said:

-Alpha Counters
I recently found out about alpha counters, and my only trouble is when and when not to do it.

With Cerebella, make sure you have 2 bars before alpha countering into LnL because it's not really worth it unless you can immediately super cancel to Ultimate Showstopper after the alpha counter. Once you have 2 bars, alpha counter > showstopper will punish most moves in the game. Probably not light punches/kicks or jump ins, but most other things. It's especially good for punishing moves that are normally safe on block, like Fukua's fireball super or Bella's level 3.

Check this set out, IIRC TJ did two good alpha counters in this set (I say IIRC because I didn't actually rewatch it to make sure since I'm at work, but I'm pretty sure I remember him doing that):

turbo77 said:

-After bella lvl 3 whiff up close, I instantly went for diamond drop, I'll see if this is actually a viable way to make up for a lvl 3 whiff.
-I always jump out of Inevitable Snuggle, I'm going to see if there are any other better ways to punish it, one thing I did was switch a character out.
-Whenever I'd have a character enter from snapback or ko, I don't detect the crossup or throw that comes after entrance. Said crossup was Fukua's s.hp
-I tend to jump block shadows, if low it doesn't hit, if high then it's blocked.
-Whenever I blocked any hit, a wulf shoot is sure to be expected, jump out, bang (m) (peacock), or forward hp (bella) were ways I punished on the spot.
-can wulf shoot be escaped if I was actually grabbed by Beo? Because sometimes I escape and sometimes I don't...

1) You actually can be punished for lvl 3 if people take actions before you recover and they're happening when you do. Like if someone is behind you and starts hitting you during armor and continues hitting you after, you will get CH. As for what to do after diamonds on whiff recovery, there is no singular answer. I go for whatever feels right. Sometimes I take the risk of a command grab if people are hanging around there like an idiot. But 'just do diamond drop every time after you whiff diamonds' is not a great idea, for the record. You'll probably start getting blown up for trying.

2) If you jump out of Inevitable Snuggle you can do a falling normal to CH punish it, you can throw it on reaction to seeing it happen as well to prevent it from happening (since it has startup) unless its a setup that negates the startup so you're better off jumping. (cMP > Inevitable Snuggle does not give you a window to preemptively throw it.. at least I've found that out in matches.) I forget if you can sweep it or snap it. You can jump out of harms way and call assists that stay out a while to auto-CH it for you when it enters recovery or at least smack it with some nice damage through its armor. She isn't going to grab your assist, command grabs can't hit assists. If she has 3 or 5 meters, watch out! She can super cancel into those two supers if you hit her armor, making it like a pseudo-counter. She can't do this with her level 1 supers.

3) That's an incoming mix up and you have to try to avoid ever getting in that situation of course, but you're gonna be in that situation. Some incoming setups have to be blocked 100% of the time pretty much, especially if you play like, Parasoul, who has poor air options. A lot of them are ambiguous left/rights from below like Filia/Fukua sHP. Throw/hit is tough to deal with too. Most of it is guess work. It's possible SOME setups can be double jumped out of or something but it's purely situational. Try to read your opponent for what option you think they want, but people in this game, if with no other mix up, are pretty darn good at making it hard to determine what incoming mix up option they want to do.

4) That's called chicken blocking, air blocking is naturally resistant to high/low. You can't be hit high or low in the air. However, you should be careful about jumping around lows! If you upback around a low move within the right proximity to it, preblock may glue you to the ground so that it can hit you, which is it's purpose (I think~). If you neutral jump, preblock won't glue you, however, if the low move was done tightly enough, you could still get hit by it, because when you neutral jump, you're not blocking PERIOD. That's the sacrifice you make in order to negate preblock's effects and the chances are you will likely get hit anyways if its a good setup. If a Fukua is just throwing out shadows at a stupid range, I can see just jump blocking them all day, but if she's doing her blockstrings into LClone, I'd really suggest you block! Upback that and you're gonna feel pain. You can reflect her shadows with diamond deflector and M/HClone both have enough startup up close that you can interrupt them coming out and smack her around for trying it.

5) Beowulfs do love doing anything blocked into Wulf Shoot, if only because they dropped their combo that it had it in the middle of (sHK stagger > Wulf Shoot) so they just autopiloted into it and kept going.. this is QM Beowulf players anyways. Not to say it probably isn't an effective tactic if you don't do it every time, Wulf Shoot covers a lot of distance and likely is an excellent way to hurt people for pushblocking and not expecting it. It can be interrupted like Fukua's shadows. MBang is actually strike invincible, so you're interrupting it, if Wulf Shoot actually got to you faster, it would beat MBang I believe because it is not THROW invincible, and Wulf Shoot is a command grab. LBang might be a better bet because it will interrupt him or just naturally counter the command grab either way and you'll get stagger from it.

6) This was answered and the answer was correct. You cannot tech command grabs and his grab mode has a timer that he has to do things within or auto-tech happens, you have no control over this part nor can you interact in any meaningful way, however if a Beowulf keeps screwing up that badly, be prepared for it to happen and be ready to act when grab mode ends prematurely. The only 'command grab' that comes to mind that you can tech is Cerebella's aerial move Grab Bag, it's actually techable, probably because if it were not, there are setups to guarantee you landing in it with no way to, well, not BE there. So you HAVE to tech it. However, you can always move out of range of a command grab in neutral from any setup. You can always jump out. Even if you run into what looks like a nasty setup with an assist doing low and the main character doing command grab, if they time it so tightly that low/grab hit at literally the same time, you can jump out because of unblockable protection. However, if they stagger the approach to make it a 50/50 in some timing between the low and the throw (which one is gonna happen first so I know what to do), you're just gonna have to hold that.

turbo77 said:

-Zoning pattern
That's figured, I do s.hp > qcf hk > qcf mk > s.hp > qcb hp. It works well on the people I played against in QM.

-Making my way past Peacock's projectiles
I never had much experience with Peacock zoning patterns, the only times I encountered it was with SinHarvest9999, granted, most of the Peacock players I played against were either new, or didn't have a zoning pattern. I always hk teleported and that was a BIG mistake, so I took my zoning pattern into training and tried to make my way through the projectiles.

-Burst Bait
I'm all too familiar with dealing with burst bait. I tend not to fall for it, but there are occasions where I'd press a button on mistake.

-Alpha Counters
I recently found out about alpha counters, and my only trouble is when and when not to do it.

1) I believe that is indeed a standard/solid Pea zoning pattern and I'm no authority on those. Pea players already in this thread, they got this.

2)


3 and 4) You can alpha counter out of a burst bait! Before or after bursting, in the case of the latter, if you burst properly and hit them, with some teams/assists you can actually combo off that burst hit.. pretty sick. Anyways, alpha counters out of bursts can be a legitimate way to escape them. Otherwise, not bursting legitimate burst baits is usually the goal. Sometimes if its a one hit burst bait, you can delay your burst. Some people are going to attempt to make it a mix up of some sort, like burst/throw, so that if you don't burst, they throw you because you're scared to press buttons and might not tech the throw. If you mash throw to escape a throw attempt, and they burst bait you.. you burst. Versus these setups, it's best to tech the throw on reaction or explore stuff like AC options. There are one hit burst baits, multi hit burst baits (where all hits are safe), multihit burst baits again (where only some hits are safe and you need to be aware of when you can burst), totally not actual burst baits where people just triggers IPS/Undizzy either on accident or on purpose (a Peacock might do it to get you to burst her fullscreen so she can zone again! And still empty your undizzy!), 'gold' burst baits..

Which deserves it's own paragraph, actually.

If someone triggers your burst state (pink/green sparks) and dodges it entirely when you burst, you'll notice blue sparks emit from yourself. You got legitimately burst baited. Sadness.

If someone triggers your burst state and then armors that burst (big band, painwheel, cerebella, etc), parries the burst (big band), recovers and blocks the burst (anyone with a launcher or fast recovering normal like Parasoul jMK/jdMK), causes it with a projectile, or you wait 90 frames to burst (a mechanic implemented to prevent the effectiveness of extremely long entirely safe burst baits that would be essentially a form of unblockables in Skullgirls) then you will emit gold sparks instead of blue ones (admittedly tougher to see) and you can't be punished like you would be for a blue burst. You are allowed to act in any way after gold bursts, including blocking, pressing buttons, etc. That being said, gold bursts will still empty your undizzy and some characters will intentionally trigger them in order to try and mix you up afterwards! You should be wary of this. Even sneakier but definitely not mainstream is mix ups that rely on the fact that bursting on the ground causes you to actually be slightly in the air. This allows characters with moves that have low hurtboxes to do some near invisible crossunders after you gold burst that you will have to be prepared for and block. Cerebella and Double are the best at this, but Bella is more suited to attempting gold burst setups because she has armor. Painwheel is great at gold burst setups, but her crossunder from it is not universal and not easy to do.

Phew... this is a lot. I say too much...


...

Hope this helps!

Big Band

turbo77 said:

I have trouble against Painwheel, I think it's that Painwheel is crawling so I mistake lows for normals and what-not. I should also pay more attention to situational things. But I can work that stuff on my own or with someone.

It's about time I started looking into Cerebella resets, as well as correctly pushblocking. Overall my matches go well, I have a small problem going up against those I haven't played against, or haven't played against in a while.

I also want to use a third character, give me a suggestion guys.

I don't play Bella so I'm not much help with the resets. But if I was trying to learn Bella and wanted resets the first thing I'd do is ask @Mocktopus what his Bella resets are, cause his reset game with that character is really scary

What do you want your third character to add to the team? That might make it easier for people to make suggestions. Do you want a better point? A better anchor? Do you want another assist? If so what do you want that assist to do?

turbo77 said:

I should have been more specific, I need an anchor, if there's a character who has an assist that might be good for when I'm backed into a corner, or something that could work great with mixups/crossups.

Eliza's a real good anchor and has good assists for mixups like Dive of Horus and Osiris Spiral, maybe try her

So what assists are you running now?