How do you beat Pain's J.MP Without Supers or Anti Airs? (The Forward Saw Thing)

[Notkastar]

This is a topic I've been meaning to post for a while now.
I can't figure out for the life of me how to practically counter this move without having Charged 'Dragun Punch' on standby or using a meter to ether drill or sing my way into a a possible punish.

The move it's self has some insane hitboxs

and comes out in an instant since people can cut the draw time on it veeery short by pressing the button ahead of time right after they jump. Making for a absolute wall of hurt that you can't really counter do the amount of block stun it has! (On top of all that it looks like it's only punishable from behind, Which I don't even know how a person could that pull off.)

The answer to this is probably pretty darn simple but, I just can't see it.
So does anyone out there have any tips on how to better block/counter this move?

My main team is Squigly and Fukua with Squigly taking to the air most of the time.
Making this a move I need to learn how to counter on the dime if I want to keep my team aerially focused.
=P

 

[Nine]

Hey there! I am by no means an expert on your team OR Painwheel, but here is what I usually do in regards to dealing with this move.

Let's talk about Painwheel's general gameplan. When she uses a jumping normal like jHP or jMP in the air, she is SUPER COMMITTED. If she whiffs that at all, she is totally open for a punish. If you watch strong Painwheel players like Stuff, Warped, and Taluda, a strategy that they often do is play patiently and defensively, waiting for their opponent to commit so they can snag them with jMP or an armored jumping normal for a huge damage punish (unless they play bad players like me, where they can play as aggro as they want lmao).

Yes, jMP and jHP have a ton of blockstun, so you just have to hold that when you block it. In terms of how to deal with her jumping normals, I find Fukua's jMP (I play Filia, I think they have pretty much identical jMP's) is good at eating all her armor hits if you catch her charging a normal fast enough. I don't know anything about Squigly, but I feel like her jLK is pretty solid at snagging someone due to how disjointed and fast it is. Definitely not good against armor, for obvious reasons thought. ;p

Oh shoot, I just realizd you were talking about jMP. Whiff punishing it is how I deal with it, personally. :^D


EDIT: Please just disregard this entire post lmao

 

[Stuff]

Generally you can either chicken block the jMP (land cancel) or out-prioritize it. If the Painwheel player is good they will generally space it in the most favorable manner by not moving forward at all making it incredibly hard to beat (unless you happen to have amazing air to airs which both fukua and squigly do but I'll admit it's still a bit tricky)

If all they do is jMP you can charge a sing then sing>sbo her for even attempting to fly.

If they do jMP towards you they are asking to get hit because it's really a slow normal at 20 something frames and if you also jump forward you can close the gap and hit her or trade (this is a little more risky)

Squigly still has jHP and even if Painwheel hits that she gets nothing off of it but iirc squigly can do something from her jHP. Squigly jLK is fairly fast large and active and is overall a great normal for A2Aing.

Fukua has SWAT jLP which is fast and beats pretty much everything and she can then restand from it killing pw. Fukua can also just hang back and fireball or use her AAs such as 2MP and 5HP

You can also just throw painwheel if you're feeling lucky. I think a lot of people fear taking on pw to the skies because they don't realize that they can super jump right over her since she has a flight ceiling and doesn't fly upwards as fast as you can superjump which puts you in a great position to hit pw or throw her or whatever.

I'm no expert on either of those characters but that's what I notice other players do to my pw. I can understand that jMP is a move that is difficult to punish as even on block painwheel just flies away and you can't really do anything about it (moreso when an assist is added) but I think in this case patience is key and you'll have to watch for when pw over-commits by flying forward and trying to hit you. (For example sometimes I'll do jMP a bit too close and that's where a Parasoul player can take advantage of my mistake and out-prioritize me with her jLK this would be the mistake you're waiting on otherwise the jMP will be at a great distance and difficult to punish unless you have something like sing>sbo and various other options that can punish a well spaced jMP)

I hope I made some sense I know I'm not the best at explaining anything.

 

[skull person]

When she uses a jumping normal like jHP or jMP in the air, she is SUPER COMMITTED. If she whiffs that at all, she is totally open for a punish.

This is like the polar opposite of how Painwheel works. :S
If she does anything unfavourable or misses anything, she can just flight cancel.
Painwheel doesn't have to commit to any of her air buttons, that's her special thing.


@OP

It's her best move, it's really bonkers but you just kinda have to hold that.
If she does miss and decide to flight cancel, she can't do it again until she gets space.

Because it has long start up Painwheel will want to pass through the start up frames far away from you using the momentum from the flight cancel so that it hits just as it goes active.
If she has to flight cancel after getting close, then she can't go through start up safely anymore, giving you some opportunities to hit her while she's flying.
[Try and focus on jHP during this window]
But yeah if she's fullscreen and you're coming in on her and she does jMP spaced well, you have to hold that.

You can try and get a land cancel to force it to be like +2 to +5 if you do it PERFECTLY with the rare blue moon chance of a +0.
But because this move's hitstop is still so high (so high that it actually locked your inputs and prevented pushblocking until a bug fix) it's really hard to land cancel.

If you do air pushblock it, just beware the flight cancel air throw.
She gets really good options off someone air pushblocking her jMP just above the floor since she can just fly into position and wait for the pushblock to be over.

 

[Shnarfl]

and comes out in an instant

Here's where you're making your mistake! The move is powerful, but Painwheel can't just throw it recklessly. It has a fair bit of startup, so one thing any character can do is jump at her and hit her out of it with a jab. Squigly in particular has jLK which is a really quick and good air to air move that can easily stuff a Painwheel just throwing jMP around. Fukua has jHK, which is stupid good and gets you a full combo for free afterwards, along with a suite of other great air to air normals. Stuff her a couple of times, and suddenly Painwheel has to space it correctly instead of just throwing it around willy nilly.

Of course, if Painwheel is spacing correctly, things get much harder, but that's normal. At that point, Painwheel is probably tossing out spikes and trying to stuff approaches by jumping back with jMP. In that case then just play your own game as well. Backdash then charge a stance on Squigly or toss out balls as Fukua, and now Painwheel has to be the one to risk approaching or else you'll be getting all the ressources you need to make it a pain for her to act.

When she uses a jumping normal like jHP or jMP in the air, she is SUPER COMMITTED.

I disagree on that! As long as she has fly cancels, she can fly/unfly relatively quickly and be a lot more safe than she looks. If she's out of fly cancels, then yeah, go nut-ish.

 

[Nine]

This is like the polar opposite of how Painwheel works. :S
If she does anything unfavourable or misses anything, she can just flight cancel.
Painwheel doesn't have to commit to any of her air buttons, that's her special thing.

Whoops! I stand corrected on like... Everything I said lol. :0

Yeah OP, listen to Liam and Stuff. Forget what I said.

 

[Notkastar]

Wow, Got a lot more amazing replies then i thought I would.
Thanks =)

@Hammerschmidt

Please just disregard this entire post lmao

Kk dude =)

@Stuff
What you said made a lot of sense actually and I really appreciate that input!
though I do have one question

out-prioritize

do you mean the fast move or do you mean somethings else altogether?

@Liam

If you do air pushblock it, just beware the flight cancel air throw.
She gets really good options off someone air pushblocking her jMP just above the floor since she can just fly into position and wait for the pushblock to be over.

Oh yeah, I forgot to bring up that little chestnut. You actually unintentionally solved another question I've been meaning ask. 'How is it that pinwheel could grab people out of pushblocks in the air.' Turns out that she isn't. She just flying close waiting for the push block to be up THEN grabbing you.

@Shnarfl
Sorry about the misunderstanding dood. Liam explains what I meant pretty well

Because it has long start up Painwheel will want to pass through the start up frames far away from you using the momentum from the flight cancel so that it hits just as it goes active.

Current Understanding:
Alright, When facing a Pain that's using this move in neutral (Just Jumping without actually going anywhere) I should play it neutral too with something like a 'Dragon Strike' or J.LK with Squigly. And With Fukua in that Neutral problem, Go for something like the Fireballs to try to knock her out of it and MAYBE a J.LP to swat her out of the sky and probably into something wacky.

Now if she's moving forward, I should block and hold off from push blocking till I'm on the ground; Where a grab would be a lot easier to see coming. There is a frame where I can guard cancel into something but, I guessing guard canceling only works if your on the ground, right?
Outside of all that, Try using some long range pokes or quick up close jabs to hit her out of the animation since there is a bit of wind up time for it that can be punished.

Now if she's using this for spacing like Shnarfl said then use that time to provoke 'Them' to coming to me rather then the other way around with some fire balls and charges.

That's basically the gist of what I all got from up there. Am I wrong?

 

[skull person]

Now if she's moving forward, I should block and hold off from push blocking till I'm on the ground; Where a grab would be a lot easier to see coming. There is a frame where I can guard cancel into something but, I guessing guard canceling only works if your on the ground, right?

You can PBGC in the air and ground, but you need something good to PBGC into if you try it in the air.
If you PBGC jLP / Air throw in the air you can get counter hit.
Neither Squigly or Fukua have frame one invincible air moves.

 

[Notkastar]

You can PBGC in the air and ground, but you need something good to PBGC into if you try it in the air.
If you PBGC jLP / Air throw in the air you can get counter hit.
Neither Squigly or Fukua have frame one invincible air moves.

Oh, awesome in that case though it sucks to know that I still can't just jab pain out of the move with a "J" mid animation =T

 

[skull person]

You can jab her out of moves with PBGC JLP or something, but if JLP has 7F start up that's 7 vulnerable frames where she can hit you first.
So if you think it'l hit, go for it, otherwise it's safer to block.

 

[Stuff]

By "out-prioritize" I just meant "use a faster move", sorry for the confusion.