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Chronicles of the UOP King : Cross Generation of Garbage Gameplay

Ravendeth

The Dream is Dead.
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Ravendeth
Filia Double Robo Fortune
Fair Warning: I have a tendency to drop huge, living, breathing walls of text that are a mausoleum of equal parts wisdom, trashy bad opinions, and pointless exposition.

TL;DR - I am a (very) low execution player that values mindgames and strategy and would appreciate any honest advice.

So I'm looking for advice in general. Gameplay advice, personal advice. I can't seem to break the "git gud" sound barrier. I'm taking a little break from playing right now, since my salt levels are critical lately (I played three days straight yesterday). I've been in a slump, and seem to keep going on autopilot when I shouldn't be. I'm hoping this time off will help me figure out and identify more of what I'm doing wrong.

I feel like I'm missing something that I should be doing. I've dug through metric tons of these guides, watched a lot of matches, played nonstop, reviewed my recordings closely. I just feel like there's some extra layer of offense and defense, this advanced, invisible "expert" level if you will, happening before my eyes that I'm just not aware of, but keep running into like a brick wall when I fight anyone actually good.

How do I see, and escape The Matrix and become The One?

I think I know myself pretty well:
Pros
+ I can generally confirm stray hits and follow up combos.
+ I think I can guess better than the average bear.
+ I take team construction pretty seriously.
+ I can play any character not named Peacock at an okayish level.
+ I tend to have a good feel for things like frametraps.
+ Strange combos means strange resets.
+ I'll fight anybody. I've taken at least a game off of anyone not named Magicman in two months of playing.

Cons
- I'm just some scrub (ultimately).
- I have some amount of motor disability; so my combos, reaction time, and neutral game will always be (relatively) bad.
- I get too impatient when fighting any team with Parasoul or Big Band.
- I get way too damned pissed lately when I can't defend that grab/crossover/crossunder online.
- I can never decide on a team, nothing ever "feels" right.
- I'm still bad at double snaps, my hands can't do most of the standard finishers.
- My point character is always unreliable.
- I'm garbage. Work on the basics, there is no red pill.
- This list does not identify core gameplay concepts in any meaningful way.
- I never shut the hell up.

Any feedback or questions at all would be a big deal to me. Level up my magikarp. I'm always up to talk about anything.
 
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I experimented a little bit with Squigly on point. Seems to be working alright, despite her being an incredible support. Consistency is a little better, which is sorely needed. It's so hard not to just use other peoples' teams, just to have a toolbox I can understand well.

I got a couple of double-snap kills today, I can do them if I can find an extremely simple variant.

I'm focusing a lot on blocking, avoiding, and especially patience in approaching. I beat a couple of guys that I can't usually beat. I still get bodied by anyone who actually truly knows what they're doing, it's hard to find that balance.

A lot of it is just my shitty attitude. A lot of my emphasis will have to be on my saltyness. I try to keep my head cool, but there are things that make my blood boil, and it's hard to learn when things stop making sense to you, and you feel like you're not improving. It's easy to forget that your worst enemy in these games tends to be yourself. I can be neurotic at times. (what, you couldn't tell?)

I've had trouble finding really good players to have consecutive games with. Usually they will just dunk me with all of the corpse comboing they can muster and leave. It's probably because of my freakish waking schedule and horrendous social skills.
 
I got bodied by a Fukua playing lame today. A lot of it was just me dashing in. I guess I have to work on that terrible habit, I must have picked it up playing against these online Peacocks.

None of my teams feel right still, even after several hours in training mode.
Squigly/Cerebella/???
Maybe Double, or switch the order for Painwheel or something? Filia or Fukua?
I think Squigly on point works for me because I tend to have an avoidant playstyle.
Still, there are a lot of squigly players out there, and I usually lose to them head-on.
I wonder if I should go back to my old trio team.
I actually literally have a journal of 50+ something teams from when I was trying stuff.
Am I just doomed to playing duo forever? It feels so hard to deal with pressure in a duo though.

I need to learn to use meter better, I keep just using it for every combo.

Still getting hit by every crossunder. Is there some kind of landing lag that I don't know about?

Getting very slightly better at punishing Parasoul for things like tear and pillar>biketrain.
 
My experience today in the danger room with @Fedora_Ninja and @joshb911 :

Good Games. I got dunked hard in the beginning, Fedora uses a lot of the characters I hate fighting. I started to get more of what was going on by the end of it. That was actually the most fun I've had in this game in a long time. My controller broke though. Again. Karma for playing Painwheel. Again. (that's two pads since Eliza came out.)

Vs Josh
I push the buttons. All of them. I got bodied by Josh in the first round because of this. I think it's just a bad habit whenever I play Painwheel again.

I get no double-snaps. I don't know why. None of my combos seem to catch filia. I should have snapped to Filia if nothing else. Back to the lab.

I have a bad habit of getting crossundered, even by myself. I need to learn the two-way aerials people have. Hitboxes would be so much easier if I wasn't colorblind.

Josh is one of those guys that zips all over the place. He tends to jump just outside of range, and when he gets in it's crossovers and air resets. I find myself trying to ground him so that he stops moving. Crossunders work alright but I have to be very careful about the spacing because this guy knows his aerials.

That Fukua is a problem, I start trying to focus on her to to try and gut this team's damage. It seems to work, it's still a matchup I'm bad with though.

Vs Fedora
I learned a lot more about fighting Big Band. The same patience thing still applies, but staggered blockstrings are hard to deal with. The best way to fight it is just not to be in the danger zone.

Those whiff and jab punishes are impressive. There are a lot of tick throw setups and crossunders. So many of these setups need to be neutral jumped, but it's so hard to ingrain it as a new habit. This guy has a tough defense, he gives off the vibe of a Street Fighter player.

After some matches I could see that Fedora down-backs a little too much. Fedora is about two tiers better than me (as a player on the official Dethycanon player tierlist), but that was all it took. I used more crossovers, and I started winning after that even with all the combo drops.

I still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory due to bad consistency. Getting comeback'd on is nothing new for me. I wish I had an answer for this, for some reason killing that last guy always feels the most difficult. I keep wondering if I should be using a different anchor.

Vs Myself (My Failings)
My pokes and blockstrings are ass. I whiff a lot of weird normals just trying to get that hit. I get frustrated when I can't punish something, when it's just out of reach. I need to pay more attention to what normals actually work.

Dropped combos. A lot of these. Don't really know why, confirming is usually one of my stronger traits. People at this level just space better than I do. We don't seem to get much damage on each other in general, we were probably sitting at max poke range.

I call assists too much for no good reason. That panic button. I don't really know why, it's karma for using updo forever.

I failed to DHC hard. Almost every single time. This is extremely bad because Painwheel/Cerebella/Filia was a team that I made specifically to DHC shenanigan with, since the team generates so much meter. I actually felt like it was lag from recording? This is still not really an excuse, and I need to learn the DHC timing windows better.

Overall we had a lot of close (and hype) games, I don't mean to make it sound like I downloaded people, but that's just how I have to play. I'm a very slow and bad execution player, if I don't catch peoples' habits I will lose every single time. I lose to my own failure to capitalize, and my own bad habits, more than anything.

I didn't get to play against Twerk because my controller died, but I pretty much always lose to Twerk (and really good Fukua players) anyway because I screw around too much. Some other time ;(

I will try to get the videos put up by tommorrow (barring any youtube issues), but I missed a couple of good matches because my hard drive filled up. If Fedora puts up the recordings, you are better off watching those.
 
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Here are the match videos with Fedora and josh.

Edit: So youtube is still having issues. This is roughly the first half.
I get bodied for a while, I am a slow starter. The first match has gundam music, in the battles afterward I use my better judgement.

Here is the second half.
A lot of good matches. We start understanding the matchups better. There are a lot of fun and close games.

I drop a lot of things. There is a lot of random movement. These are the biggest issues, to me, my spacing and pokes (that and not failing every DHC ever).

I really need to work on this when I stop having USB problems. I'll take a break to think things over, and will probably be back monday.
 
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Have been trying various teams with Filia leading today. I feel like I'm getting better and more consistent results. Usually.

Taking up Filia means that I have to dedicate myself to learning her more though. My block pressure in particular needs a lot of work.

Cerebella still seems to be my best mid. It's probably because I'm not used to the mvc3/modern style of "support". I just feel like I want to keep fighting, my support goes on the end.

I'm having trouble with the anchor still. I'm using Double right now because with Bella using anti-air grab, and Filia's hairball now being on point, I'm lacking a good forward assist. I really don't want to have to use hair twins just to keep my team decent.

People keep saying I should buy Big Band. It's probably true. It annoys me that I have to wait till next month for my bank account to unfreeze. And it annoys me that such an influential character for certain optimized teams is DLC. I also really hate fighting him with a passion.
 
To be honest with you man you just gotta find a team you like and stick with it (I can play a lot of characters but not that well) You've got all the experience and dedication to be good you just have to settle on your arsenal.
 
To be honest with you man you just gotta find a team you like and stick with it (I can play a lot of characters but not that well) You've got all the experience and dedication to be good you just have to settle on your arsenal.

"But I don't like anyone!" it's kind of true though. What actually ends up happening in most games is that I end up playing all of the really weird characters. (like twelve from SF:3S)

There's also a lot of weird stuff going on in beta right now. I don't wanna decide on someone, then find that I can't do any of their combos anymore. I need to wait till next month till I can get Big Band, and I'll spend a lot of time focusing on trying to settle on something. I'm almost positive that I'll swap to robo-fortune when she comes out too (old robo-ky main).

You do have a point though. I'm gonna try to just, use my best leader, use my best second, and use my best anchor, synergy be damned. It will probably end up being Fortune/Eliza/Filia or something like that.
 
I've been using Fortune/Eliza/Filia at @joshb911 's suggestion.
It's been going pretty well. I haven't taken down anyone *really* good in a while now though, which irks me a little bit. A lot of the pros are using Filia duos lately, and I have a lot of trouble with that. I've been beating other people that I usually have a lot of trouble with though, so hopefully it's a good change?

I've mostly been working on my punish game this past week. I'm finding all of these little gaps in setups and blockstrings that people use a lot. I feel like it's improved my game significantly, I lose a lot less to gimmicky teams now. I can at least compete at neutral now, instead of just hesitating for a bigger opening all the time.

I've been in the lab more often. Just trying to lengthen combos and find more reset paths. Got a lot better at tick throwing. I have a couple more strange mixups. I can convert much better in general. I have more combo paths for unusual conversions. My spacing and pokes make a bit more sense.

Characters. I'm dumping painwheel, squigly, and fukua. parasoul may be on the chopping block next. I just have no business using these guys when I can't do a 50% combo or poke/approach properly. There's just no room for stuff I can't play.

Assist calls. I still have my shitty panic button moments. I do it less now, but it's still a huge problem that needs to stop. I need to figure out better when to use them and when not to, what the theory behind it is.

My defense. How the hell do you alpha counter? I feel like everything I read gives a different answer, and I can never seem to get it to work. I got better at blocking on the ground, but worse at stopping air resets.

Impatience. Whenever I fight characters like peacock/fukua/parasoul for too many games, I get annoyed and just start running in. I need to remember that there is generally a right way to fight at long range, and a wrong way.

Team? Doesn't really feel optimal still. I die a little too often, trying to get a tag or setup sometimes. The resets are not really dangerous enough. The synergy is kind of ass if Fortune dies quickly. I don't want to dump Eliza, so I'm trying to find all of the best tech I can. This character's combo paths are still so unexplored still, I feel.
 
As far as "team" goes, swap the order to be Eliza on point, Filia in the middle, Fortune on anchor. With Butcher Blade/Hairball/Fiber Upper assists, that team should be fine.
 
I disagree. The way raven plays Fortune screams put me out first coach. Raven also utilizes several parasite combos which would indicate that he requires Eliza at mid or anchor. And I believe Filia right now for raven is safest in the back until he can utilize a more aggressive play style.

Lastly raven keep up the good work you've got all the experience and drive to do well. I would however suggest some more baits and resets for your team
 
Even with Sekhmet combos (which really don't do much more damage than just staying as Eliza once you learn that lk spiral -> s.lk link), Eliza has relatively little use for her meter, since neither of her level 1s are reversals, and LoS is unsafe in the corner on hit, which means you *never* want to use her supers unless its for a kill.

Meanwhile, Fortune is the least assist-dependent character on that team, making her a natural anchor (Filia needs an assist to help with her neutral game; Eliza needs a "GTFO" assist, since she has no decent reversals).
 
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Cynical you would have to play raven to understand why I suggested the team. Yes all of your comments are 100% correct (for the most part). But as someone who has seen ravens gameplay and knows his shortcomings I still think it's a solid team. And i play Filia anchor and I really don't have a problem with needing an assist
 
Wow, responses? I think my head exploded. For the most part I actually agree with these suggestions, having run Eliza or Filia on point at different times in the past. I'm gonna list my lame excuses for this current team arrangement under the spoilers, feel free to ignore these.

TL;DR - I suck with Filia point, I suck with Fortune anchor. I don't like Eliza point, I don't like conventional support mid teams, preferring frontloaded teams. I suck in general. SCRUBDO, SCRUB THAT DO.


I have Fortune on point because Fortune is my best character. Yeah, shitsux. This is probaly an unfortunate side effect of me being the random shithead that I am. I tend to get the most meter, landed supers, happy birthdays, and successful double snaps with her. This is that caveman logic. She uses all of the assists here pretty well.

My point Filia sucks. Fortune gets me easy resets and block pressure. Filia approaches better but takes me more work to get these things. too lazy to press buttans halp.

Eliza is second because DHCing into level 3 is horrendously stupid. Mostly that. Doesn't happen often, but I've beaten players much better than me when it does. I like butcher's blade assist a lot, enough to want to use it right away. A lot of my gimmicks actually do require Sekhmet to crossunder/crossover or whatever. I will blow 2-3 meters to get 50-75% damage and a kill with Sekhmet, rather than try to put 3 LK-spiral ground loops into every conversion. This is inefficient as hell, to be sure, but at least Fortune and Filia generate obscene amounts of meter. I also don't have as solid a support shell to put behind Eliza as @Cynical does.

I don't like Eliza first because of her tendency to either reset somebody for 60 seconds, or to get reset for those 60 seconds. To me, this is too unstable to have in the most important team slot with two dedicated assists (personal opinion). I'm also shit with traditional supports. By using her akin to a ghetto mid cerebella, I can guarantee good damage DHCs and raw tag combos slightly more often. Anchor Eliza is out of the question for reasons others have given.

Filia is last just because I've made the most comebacks with her. Also scrubdo. Because 10 years of using Psylocke-AA assist has damaged my brain cells. If Eliza dies horribly, I like Filia with tons of meter slightly more than I like Fortune with tons of meter. Her damage without meter is still pretty good, and easier to pull off for me.

I also have a bad history of flubbing comebacks with Fortune. I feel like her randomness hurts more than it helps. It's so much harder to get a delicious happy birthday or head setup endgame.

Shitty excuses. Reactionary thinking, largely, based on past results, and cop-outs for my poor comboing ability. I just wanted to settle on a team of three people I can use comfortably, because I kept fucking around with teams too much to actually get better and work on my basics.

@Dreamepitaph I will probably practice with Filia on point for a while to try and fix this fucking travesty. Running Hairball again sounds so fucking delicious. If it turns out that I ultimately cannot Filia for shit, I'll look into putting someone else there.

@joshb911 thanks? was there a compliment somewhere? lol. This team order actually does blow though. You're right about my play, but I'm gonna have to grow out of it eventually. I feel that stability/team support is gonna be more important than having a good DHC in the long run. You're right about the resets, I'm working on more crossovers with everyone. Baits are harder for me to figure out, because I can't tell what color the meter/bursts are, and I can't see the hitbox colors. I will generally just go for damage or a reset.

Thanks for the response guys, I actually do take this stuff to heart, and will give it serious thought.
 
It was all supposed to be a compliment. I'm sorry if it came off as insulting raven
 
It was all supposed to be a compliment. I'm sorry if it came off as insulting raven
Naw, I'm not one to get butthurt over anything. I just couldn't figure out what the message was. I guess it just is what it is.

I know I play like shit though, I'd rather people just tell me honestly. When I'm too dumb to figure shit out. Which is always. If I was just smarter I wouldn't have to ask this kind of shit all the time, lol. I'd be playing instead of sitting around on my little forum diary.
 
overall what i'm trying to say is know all of your character on a solo basis. Only then will you be able to fully utilize each character in your team to the fullest. not rely on assist as your main goal like 80% of SG players does.
 
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know your characters and shit

I agree. Filia was my anchor more because my Fortune anchor was shit. When it came to actually putting in work.

And my Filia point was shit. So I ended up with two assists on a character that doesn't need them (fortune). Assists are just tools for making a good point character better. I mean you only get to play with assist like 25% of the time or less anyway. My neutral is utter shit, and even I know, that if you just sit around waiting for updo, what's the fucking point yeah.

Why play the game to sit around. I love hairball and butcher's blade because it keeps me from sitting on my stupid ass.

I think I've actually played solo more than anything this week. It's fucking good advice though. If I can't get gooder with Filia, I'm gonna dump her for a character I can actually play solo since she'd be pointless.
 
I feel so salty to be testing team builds in matches again. Reserving this post for results.

My head is fucked over the change in dynamic, I guess that's to be expected. Just have to tell myself that this is what I'll stick with.

Filia on point actually feels fine. I never really *needed* updo, it was just a thing to send into the sky after Valentine because she annoys me. But I've played this a little bit before, it feels more comfortable than I thought it would.

Needs work on the control, as well as approaches. I know how to reset, but my movement is ass.

Fortune anchor is going terrible. I might play the solo fortune dream in quick match for a while, just to figure out what it is that I'm doing so wrong. Maybe I need to work on her conversions a lot more.

Overall I think that the team is slightly better, even with all the issues I'm having. I just need to stop hitting so many buttons, I was better about it a while ago and then got worse again.
 
I've gotten better with Fortune anchor, so it looks like the team might stay this way. The only real change is to cheese with supers at the end of combos more. It's stupid, but the sliding knockdowns make a big difference for keeping up pressure/head positioning.

On another topic, since duo teams seem to be flavor of the month, I've been screwing around with Fukua/Bella. I hadn't played Fukua since the Eliza patch, so @joshb911 had to show me how neutral works again, and how to read and write and push buttons. The stupid damage is pretty fun with this pair.

Though it's fun, I don't think I have any business using Valentine, I just can't do the combos that make her good. Even my Parasoul and garbage Painwheel are better. I miss playing Double. I wonder if the Killer Whale super is gonna be enough to make her worthwhile again.

Mandatory todo list, for a semblance of relevance:
- Stop mashing assist in neutral, this ain't marvel 2, nobody gonna save your dumb ass.
- And watch your damn legs, you should know better by now.
- Enter a random team tournament, king of indecision 2014.
 
I notice that I keep fucking around with teams/team members constantly so it would pay to keep some notes on using them, to keep from repeating mistakes.

Team Construction: Two point characters, and an assist they both fully abuse on the end. That's it. I don't understand roles or manage meter well enough to play Marvel 3 styled point/support/anchor teams, I'm too simple for this shit. Shut up and fight.

Big Band: F. Don't own him. I'm probably too random. Don't really use anyone he goes with.
Cerebella: B. I am not bad. Maybe worthwhile anchor, made a lot of comebacks with her.
Double: C. Doesn't seem good currently? I like her, was old main, but what does she do anymore?
Eliza: A. Probably my single best character. What keeps me from solo/point eliza is matchups.
Filia: B. I'm not great with her, but she ranks in my favorite assists. Consistency is good.
Fukua: B. Mine is alright. I understand how she works in teams pretty well, I used to play her.
Fortune: B. I can fight anyone, the problem is I can't do her really abusive combos. I'm getting there.
Painwheel: C. Meh. I know her tech, but I can never get a rhythm for important FP/fly.LK shit.
Parasoul: C. I can play her pretty decently but I can't make her work in my teams, oddly.
Peacock: F. Just no. I can't do her zoning patterns to save my life, my inputs are too sloppy.
Squigly: C. I used to always play her support. I like her teamwork, but I can't do her good combos.
Valentine: C. I like playing her, but I can't fix her shortcomings. I like her teams but can't play her.

Soloable: Eliza, Cerebella, Fortune, Filia, Parasoul.

Things I need to know when maining a character (the Dirty Dozen):
Movement: What are their movement options, what are they for, how to abuse them all.
Neutral: What do all of their buttons do, what do all of their specials do, use them fully.
Punishes: How to punish midscreen, how to punish air whiffs, punishing reversals and assist calls.
Combos: Find universal combos that do at least 50%, one meter max. Have a midscreen, and corner combo.
Blockstrings: How do you make block pressure safe, air, standing, low, staggered.
Reversals: How to get out of bad situations. How to escape air resets.
Teamwork: What DHCs do they like, what assist do they abuse best. Who is their assist best for.
Resets: Combo paths. Every launch, every frame advantage in air/ground combos is a high/low/throw opportunity.
Confirms: Able to combo from jab, throw/airthrow, otg, midair, midscreen poke. consistently.
Crossovers/Crossunders: Know one of each for everyone. Find air side switches when possible.
Oki/Setups: What you should be doing on knockdown. Unique character gimmicks/double threats.
Set Play: How to transition from neutral into setups quickly, making pressure repeatable/inescapable/riskless.

Nobody is perfect, but tech is opportunity and knowledge is power.

Also stop calling assists in neutral, fuck.
 
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Bitch fit incoming.

Yes I've been mashing buttons and holding upback lately. Yes my neutral game went to complete shit. Yes it's stupid and I deserve to lose.

Please stop spamming me with group invites and shitpost messages, people. It's not just one person. Harassing me after every single match will not help me focus on my gameplay mistakes or make me a better player. Thanks.

I've been in bad health this week and I just want to play a game I like, goddamn.
 
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I hope it's not me your referring to :(. If so I honestly appologize
 
I hope it's not me your referring to :
Naw, it's not you. I don't really care who it is, I don't even care quite enough to call anyone out, or tell my babysitter. Just wanted to get it off my chest.

You get this shit when playing stuff online sometimes, tis a fact of internet life, half the time it's not even in english. I shouldn't even really be complaining about it, I've just had a long week. I'm a neurotic fuck and writing it down helped me blow off some steam (sorry). I'll probably hide or erase all this shitposting when I start doing proper work again. Jesus knows that this thread could use ten tons of bleach.

If I want to write something substantive, I've been toying with random duos all week since I can't play my shit anyway. To be honest I don't really like any of them: Fukua junk, while she still has easy-123 combos. Parasoul experiments. Janky Silent Scope, Daisy Pusher, Hatred Install, and 360 setups that are probably not worth two meters.

Duo has become a bad excuse for me to play Cerebella or Double occasionally, just for fun. I'm nowhere near doing anything that makes playing Duo optimal, or even worthwhile, not even close.
 
If I could suggest anything I would say try out solos for a bit just to get your neutral game under controll. Like I've said before you have all the skill you need you just need to be more confident and stop second guessing yourself
 
I am horrible at fighting Filia in general. This is not news to anybody, but I do keep forgetting to write it down. You'd think after fighting Slyzor like 500 times I would understand something. Nope. And it's only becoming a bigger problem as time goes on.

I can't find any openings that aren't behind my head. There's obvious things like "keep her out" and "don't let her get started" but I feel like this applies to everyone. Does she have any other weaknesses or bad matchups?
 
I can't find any openings that aren't behind my head. There's obvious things like "keep her out" and "don't let her get started" but I feel like this applies to everyone. Does she have any other weaknesses or bad matchups?

It seems that a lot of people think that filia doesn't do well against Parasoul, and I don't think Eliza does too badly either. I think the go to advice is something like: filia's approaches are usually fairly static, either iad or a sweep or a L Hairball, so you need to learn to be ready for all of these approaches.
 
It seems that a lot of people think that filia doesn't do well against Parasoul, and I don't think Eliza does too badly either. I think the go to advice is something like: filia's approaches are usually fairly static, either iad or a sweep or a L Hairball, so you need to learn to be ready for all of these approaches.
What are you doing in the Eliza vs. Filia matchup? My experience is that I just have to YOLO DP/Sekhmet to stop her from doing whatever IAD bullshit she wants.

(Also, in "Filia approach options", you missed superjump -> airball up -> come down with j.mp).
 
What are you doing in the Eliza vs. Filia matchup?
Getting bodied.

It's mostly just me trying to get air, to airgrab or do j.LK stuff. It's stupid, I know, but it feels like no matter what I try to do on the ground, nothing works.

It looks like the consensus is "stop her approach". My problem is, everything seemingly gets beaten by Filia's IAD normals cleanly. Nothing really covers that "far and high" angle well enough.

Whenever I try to pull any YOLO shit, Filia reminds me that she has a DP and damaging grab combos. Sekhmet gets me grab punished, and they go right over Upperkhat. Air stuff gets me DPed. If Filia plays safe, I can't really do anything.

I can at least understand how Parasoul covers those areas well, I just can't seem to contest anything, or mount an offense or defense, because of the priority on all those normals.

It COULD just be that the Filia players I keep running into lately are just way out of my league. It still bugs me when I know a move is coming, but can't seem to do anything about it. I need to see if the beta changes make it any easier, or if I need to swap someone out for someone lamer.

Making a team of three airdashers was not really one of my brighter ideas.
 
What are you doing in the Eliza vs. Filia matchup? My experience is that I just have to YOLO DP/Sekhmet to stop her from doing whatever IAD bullshit she wants.

(Also, in "Filia approach options", you missed superjump -> airball up -> come down with j.mp).

I counted the superjump airball within the L Hairball approach. Never see filia's do normal jump hairball, which I figured wouldn't be useful cause I thought she could only side-switch auto correct her normals from superjump (like normal superjumps do) but I guess I don't really know that for that special move.

Anyways, that's just my feeling based around how I look at Eliza's normals. sLP to me feels really nice and what should maybe be an answer to IAD pressure; like she does IAD HP over and over, maybe the (or 1) solution is PBGC sLP like what parasoul can do, though Eliza's button covers a high angle mostly. I feel like her sMP is great at covering ambiguous crossup air approaches which is super nice, I still need ot get more accostmed to this button but it has worked out pretty well so far. And imo her sHK probably fits in somewhere, it's a bit unexplored and I think the button has potential to be solid.

I think all these things, along with well timed Horuses, should cover Filia's approaches decently well since Filia mostly uses the same angles. But again, that's just my feeling so far and I still need to get more experience with using Eliza's buttons first to really get a handle on them. Nothing else in the MU seems problematic I think, since I don't think Filia exactly shuts down Eliza offense well; the key is more in how to deal with IAD pressure from filia.
 
I haven't played as much lately, but in roughly 20 horus dive attempts to stop her jumps in the past week, Filia has blown straight through all but of 2 of them with IAD normals, in one case with her j.LP. I'm not even kidding or exaggerating about this frequency, it's absolutely disgusting.
Neither s.LP or s.MP seem to beat anything, mostly due to having lower range than the air normals I'm trying to stop. They do have a use if she's jumping in range of my nose (and doing an IAD setup without an assist), but that's about it. Being able to stop the crossover is nice, but even that has the caveat of not being stuck in j.HK blockstun already. The problem with standing normals is actually so bad that I've started using snapback just to reach her airdash.
s.HK is...interesting. It's really damned slow. Ghetto Parasoul j.HP? It doesn't cover a whole lot of useful situations that s.MP doesn't already. I still like using it in certain matchups, like parasoul, squigly, painwheel, when people are doing jumping shenanigans way too much. It seems too slow to really stop anything else, it really does feel like the slowest normal in the game.
I think that ultimately I will have to just pushblock more. A lot more. And accept that it's just a quirk of spacing and hitboxes. I *do* think some of the Filia changes in Beta right now, should make it much more managable. The answers you give are good, and intuitively they should work (these were the answers that came to mind for me too), but they don't really seem to work with any reliability in retail right now.
At least I'm not really having trouble with other character matchups right now, especially using Eliza, so maybe Filia's bad for her? Or I'm just bad? It feels most annoying for me to fight IAD characters in general with her (personally). It could just be me.

Anyway thanks for all the feedback, I actually do really appreciate it. I'm not really on you guys' level, so I reserve the reality of being horribly wrong. I could just be mistiming things. I can live with that.

I'm honestly not trying to shoot you guys down or be a dick, I've spent about four hours hitting buttons against this Filia dummy trying stuff, Ignore me if I'm just driving myself nuts in my padded particle accelerator here.
 
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Sooo an update, since it's been a while. I got better. So did everyone else. Dat hyperbolic time chamber. Everyone knows more mixups now, even for Eliza, so my tech doesn't really measure up anymore. I can live with that, tech was never my strong suit, so it's about time guys.

I made a main team (Fortune/Eliza/Double) and it works pretty damn well for me. I wouldn't really call it a great construction, but it's the three characters I enjoy the most. I basically asked myself "what characters do I get the most happy birthdays with?" and there it is.

The team has good offense, seems to be able to beat Filia, and has good character synergy; that's enough for me. The "plan" is to generally just DHC into Eliza (especially her level 3) because it does retarded damage. I actually got the idea from fighting @FuLLBLeeD 's team, and seeing the ridiculous amounts of meter he always managed to have.
And then I stopped playing it to fuck with Duos some more. I think it's because I realized that I still depend too much on team mechanics to fight. It went awful for a while, until @Rynozilla gave me the idea to play duos like it's TvC. Assists are for blockstrings, combos, and blockstrings. Then, magic. I can now play duos if I want to. The power of playing solid.

My favorite one right now is Filia with Parasoul (L-Napalm Shot). Fast, flexible, good damage and combos, and those missiles are hidden. I've had some really good matches with this, it's a serious contender for a main team. Filia/Parasoul has been annoying me for a long time out of Japan, it gives me the sweet taste of vengeance. Thanks to @gllt for teaching me Parasoul with great discussion and matches.

Another duo I screwed with is Valentine/Cerebella(Diamond Drop) which is hilarious. The damage is sexy, but some matchups are hard to crack. I actually love this team, shout-outs to the "@Fedora_Ninja special" from a while ago.
I've been practicing one thing: pressure, pressure, pressure. The results are mixed and character-specific. I can finish matches better, but get too zealous sometimes. Overall it was worth spending that time learning how.

My defense and neutral got better. I can counter the gaps in blockstrings pretty readily, usually. I can chase and whiff punish most things now. I still need to work on pbgc but at least I'm getting back into the habit. The problem is that there's not always players worth learning to pbgc against, I have to force myself to practice more.

Still inconsistent. There are still days where I fail to block low seven times in a row. Not sure what to do about this. Maybe just fatigue from too much practice, I'll cut down my obsession a bit.

Can't beat anyone crazy good. This is not new, but these people are controlling forward space like crazy now, it's hard to get anything going. Rather than worrying about fast pressure transitions and mixups, I now need to worry about how to control neutral like they do.

Matchups. I can beat Filia, and just about anything else. The only character I really have trouble with anymore is Fukua, which brings me to my last thing...
What to work on next? Relearning Fukua, weirdly. It'll help my patience, spacing, my blockstrings, and also I can't keep ignoring this character or matchup anymore.
 
Sure. I try to give credit where it's due. Sorry if I made you hate Eliza. :P Might be nice to play again sometime soon, I am gonna try to tone down the constant practice though, I think it's burning me out. No, I'm not gonna play League again, lulz.
 
So I found this thing (millia blocker)
XftNI3a.jpg

This is actually the best I can do (average is more like 40), to give people some idea of what I'm dealing with.
 
Another update, since it's been a while. Yes, I do still play this game.

----- Things I need to work on -----
- Respect moves more. Find a better way to get out of +20 blockstring newshit.
- Work on real setups. Going caveman tech isn't cutting it anymore.
- Change team colors. I'm tired of playing "follow the red team" when I'm colorblind, seriously.
 
So it's been another long while. As usual, everything is written much longer than intended.
The TL;DR is bolded in each section.

Take my opinion however you want to, I don't claim to be good. That said, I'm known for my bizarre waking hours, and my weird internet that somehow has the same ping playing against absolutely everybody.

I made a serious effort, for about two straight months, to try and figure out what JP players are doing so differently from US, EU, and BR, in their neutral play and character choices.

I would sum it up in one phrase: block pressure. Characters that are more prevalent there (painwheel, big band, fortune, and the point/para/filia team construction) all have this trait in common. Specifically, there is much more effort on making everything safe on block, staggered/unusual blockstrings, frametraps, and using generally ambigiously-delayed pressure to start mixups. All of the characters listed are also capable of good mixups without assists, placing a lot of importance on comebacks. They also all have fairly good meterless combo damage.

I think that Painwheel is a particularly good example of this, avoiding hits, being able to confirm from stray/unusual normals, often making everything safe easily with the right assist, and negating pushblock. All by simply using small variations in blockstrings and movement. It's my opinion that these traits are why half of the japanese players I run into are playing this character.

Anyway, this is basically anime fighter stuff. It's pretty useful, I've used some of it to good effect, since a lot of US players tend to just block or mash, waiting for a gap in the usually-static blockstring. Use it to bait the enemy's defensive assist out at the wrong time, with some practice you get used to hitting any assist out of vulnerable startup frames, with much more than just jab.
I have to give this character credit for giving me a gateway into really learning this game. She reminded me of Doronjo from TvC, or other heavy airdashers from anime games that often summon strikers. But it was always in the back of my head, I need to play someone safer, I need normals I can be more comfortable with. She also tended to wreck my team compositions, keeping me away from my ideal theory configurations.

Ultimately, I just feel scummy about some of the safe/instant ambigious air stuff she can do, and this is not the character I feel that I signed up for. A lot of characters in her unusual archetype don't have that. All the more power to you if it's your thing, she is not without weaknesses.
I intend to actually stick with this.
Thanks to @joshb911 for helping me test stuff out. We mostly just went over my neutral habits in solo, and these three characters worked best. I badly need to play solid, and be comfortable. I've been screwing with teams for way way too long. Apparently this is what happens to your team when you have sex with JP tech. Me playing Parasoul? what planet is this? Did I catch something from @gllt ?
Most of the space I am not currently controlling in neutral, is in the low area where certain standing normals should work. I'll just grind this out in the scenario lab sometime, hopefully shouldn't take too long. This would be so much simpler with colorblind-friendly hitboxes. Or bounces, assist indicators, etc. I've already brought this up before, so enough bitching.
WARNING, Nobody wants to hear this stuff, turn back now.
This obstacle sucks, but is not unexpected. It means I've probably hit my limits, roughly anyway.
So I will be living the casual play life. As if I wasn't already right?
I basically have the arthritis of a 90 year old, the 2-seconds-to-react ceiling has always been there.
I played much better than I thought possible, just last June I could barely string buttons and movements together in MvC2 anymore. It hurt my hands physically, but I sure as hell relived some glory days with this game. I'm pretty proud of myself for coming this far. I broke out of intermediate, if only just, and...That's about as far as this road goes.
I'm not exactly quitting this game, because being some online scrub is not really a position you quit. You just won't see me grinding to git gud, for 3-6 hours a day anymore.

This fraud's glory days are over. The dream is dead. But I'm actually not sad at all, I've made some pretty good friends. I have a fair idea of what "good" setplay looks like from Marvel 2, but I just can't reach it anymore physically or mentally. I will simply be focusing more on games that don't kill my hands so bad, like Melty or whatever else I come by.

If you missed the gist of things, I'm done trying to play this game seriously.

I will still come back around occasionally, to test my crackpot tech and theories, since that is what interests me to begin with. I am not a combo video guy unfortunately, unless you are interested in what a disabled player's BnBs look like.

If you have any interest in my thoughts on anything, feel free to ask me. To be clear, I don't want pity, I don't care if anyone gets mad, I just tell it like it is for my own sake.

This Training Diary is effectively dead.
FIN
 
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