Mad C*** Shuffleupagus: Beyond Beat Extend L

[Shuffleupagus]

I started playing Skullgirls mid-2014 and it’s the first fighting game Ive wanted to play competitively. Ive played many fighting games casually in my youth like SF2, Tekken, VF, Samurai Shodown, etc. And I was always content with being a button mashing scrub for most my life, but in 2014 I wanted to be more, wanted to be better. However, my life is very busy and I tend to forget what I practice and learn in Skullgirls, so Im hoping that by making this thread Im able to collect my experiences, remember my thoughts, and understanding about this game and open myself to peer review and critique to better improve myself as a player.

Current Team:

Bella
Double
Big Band
​

Usual Assists:

LnL H
Hornet Bomber M (Bomber)
Beat Extend L (BE)​

Things I need to improve on:

Upback less
Fight other players more often
Properly learn about fighting an opponent with high dizzy meter
Be aggressive and open people up like a can of Milo
Fight to win and not squander resources so I can satchamo solo for victory
Watch my own replays
Mix up options
​

I recently played against Astra and @ClarenceMage (CM) today. I played with my trio and Astra played solo Eliza. CM would pop in and play occasionally for Astra during certain times. My thoughts going into the match was to focus on my Big Band and to control space and conditioning my opponent into predictable moves and situations for A-train and Giant Step reads. Astra being less a less experienced player I felt like I could really pressure him from a distance and easily condition him, I was right. When CM got behind the wheel it became a lot harder for me. Being an experienced player CM is a lot harder to condition into a predictable move, however, I feel I did manage to catch him off gaurd with some reads during some games - hopefully it wasnt just the lag - but there is much room for improvement.

Other keypoints are: My Bella was unable to open the can of Milo on either player, I did nothing but freestyle as Double rather than just winning, I tried to use satchamo solo as a reversal instead of just Beat Extend L, I didnt BE + Fleshstep enough as Double.

At this point im wondering if I really should be focusing more on being offesnive and making my opponent fear my advancement, rather than playing the neutral game and waiting to make a read or get lucky. My offense has always been mediocre to me and it really needs an imporvement. An example is BE + Fleshstep to mix up and create pressure, or Bomber + Giant step, basic stuff like that. I might focus on my offense this week and see how I go.

 

[ashxu]

f***

 

[Shuffleupagus]

So I've been working on two things for the past couple of days, opening people up and meter resource management. Ways I’ve been focusing on opening people up is with how I use my assists as a form of lockdown or just to keep the pressure up threatening with a mix up. An example of a mix up I’ve learnt from CM was that, in the corner, BE pulls the opponent out of the corner when blocked. So as Double using BE to pull someone out of the corner ill jump over them and MP which crosses up in the corner on the other side and, assuming it hits, I have a number of ways to take advantage of it.

Meter management is me saying using my meter optimally for my play style or what I’m trying to achieve with it. I tend to use Monster! as a way to keep Cilia Slides safe-ish, but to also keep up the pressure, and if the opponent gets bopped by Cilia Slide I will input Monster! and then go into a combo for a sliding knockdown and set up. I made a bnb for Monster! myself and felt proud till CM said his was optimised so I stole his. The damage (7000+with sliding knockdown, 7400+ If ending in Bomber H) is okay for 1 meter and the sliding knockdown is needed for Double in my opinion.

Something else I considered was the term optimised. Like most will think its just the most damaging combo you can do, but I believe optimised is more the most effective action(s) or whatever that leads towards your desired goal/purpose. Taking Monster! bnb for example the damage might not be very appealing compared to other bnbs, however, its the most damage you can do in those sequences of moves and gives you a benefit after its finished, that being the sliding knockdown, or if its just to get more damage the Bomber H ender for an extra 400.

J.mp is godlike on Double; I need to remember to apply it more for cross ups and stuff.

 

[Shuffleupagus]

I have been getting bodied by university, but now that it is over I have some breathing room.

In terms of my equipment, I have upgraded my rig and have installed recording and editing software which I want to use to upload some games from SG Oceanic (SGOCE). The SGOCE community is small and does not have a lot of coverage on it, so I aim to change that. I'll post links here for the first video when I upload it.

My team has changed since my last post. Bella got the boot and I now roll with:

• Ms. Fortune,
• Ms. Fortunes Head*,
  
• Double, and
  
• Big Band.

The assist for my team are:

• Dash,
• Bomber M, and
  
• Beat Extend L.

Since Fort has eh assists, I have opted for dash as an assist and my choice to run it was inspired by @ClarenceMage. When you alpha counter in Fort she has full invulnerability on incoming and can easily punish mix-ups or save a character from near death. I feel dash assists really rewards a defensive/opportunistic play-style. By defensive I mean one is willing to lame out the game for whatever reason. I do not really see any negatives from using dash other than 1 less attacking assist which could give me utility, however, I would argue that the dash itself actually lets me choose what attack I wish to use which gives me more utility, as were an already predetermined move as an assist could be predicted, baited, or just not safe to use.

Currently I am pouring most of my efforts into learning headless Fort. I find headless to be very rewarding when used correctly with assists and can be very oppressive for some match-ups. For example Big Band has a very hard time playing against Fort when there is a head bopping him from behind. At first I thought that headless was too intimidating to play so I mostly learned head-on Fort, however, I took the plunge and I ended up enjoying the challenges headless presented to me. I also get to play with 4 characters not just 3.* As for the others, for Double I am just focusing on character specific combos which are very rewarding and set-play options. Big Band still needs some work in terms of fully using his utilities and mix-up options.

The current improvement list is as follows:

• Learn all Headless's combos, conversions, mix-ups;
• Focus on snapping and using incoming mix-ups on characters with good assists that may threaten my game plan, aka BB; and
• Being more pro-active on defense, not just reactive.

 

[Yomabuddy]

Your headless is coming along fine fwiw. Two things I would say you can try are:
1. As soon as you take off the head, the opponent (me :^) treats the floor like lava and jumps a lot. If you get someone to block M Bomber assist during that time when they are airborne, you can get to move the head however you want. Beat Extend this is a little harder to do with considering it has less blockstun and is easier to chicken block punish, but it's something you can experiment with with both of your assists.

2. When you get a confirm, especially during happy birthdays, you can walk the head towards you to help you do axe kick loops instead of trying to sideswitch and potentially dropping the happy birthday. Axe kick loops to my knowledge are happy birthday friendly, but my headless knowledge is spotty so I'm probably wrong. Also you should try to use more head crossups as they allow you to attack and block simultaneously.

This is less important, but on your team since keeping Fortune alive is a huge deal, you might want to look to tag Double or Big Band in during combos. Nom is really good for that, especially for midscreen tags to Double.

 

[Shuffleupagus]

@Yomabuddy Cheers.

Okay so today is a very special day. I have edited, rendered, and uploaded my first video as a test:

Spoiler

With a lot of help from members of the SGOCE the quality is good (I think) and this should be the template for future videos.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I recorded the replay and it does not show the player names. I also forgot to edit in names, so left is me and right is Hagith.

 

[Shuffleupagus]

Spoiler

So my rust is worse than I thought. Dropped many BB combos which should be very easy and pick-ups. Spacing issues. Got air reversal'd for dumb stuff. My point character is garbo, which needs to change. There was a reset off a burst punish which was really dumb and waste of guaranteed damage. Could have easily used luger loops to make up for no OTG from said burst punish, or c.hp xx fleshstep for lower point in juggle. Many execution errors. Calling in MF assist when it's not even an assist to be called in (whoops). Used lights to punish. Too aggressive with CM's BE L on stand-by. Didn't even do my usual setplay strategies. Wew, I've got a lot to catch up on.

There's an editing error @7:30 because im still novice at video editing.

 

[Fizzxwizz]

at 2:09 you get a happy birthday beat extend in the corner, had you done full shake into smk xx snap you would have been able to get a doublesnap and turn that match way around.

at 28:20ish you get an assist kill and you went for the damage conversion from timpani with jmk when it would have just been waaaaaaaay easier and harder to drop if you had just used jlk and picked up with clp or something how could you DOOO this.

A lot of times you go for fortune clk when they're above you in the air, or when they're waaay to close, I don't think you ever opened cm up with this normal, you might be way better served doing run up slp in a lot of situations, especially when they're above you.

There are also a couple times where you go for super unsafe stuff as big band like fullscreen hbrass which is no good.

Dash assist didn't do nothin for you that entire set, partly because fortune spent a big portion dead, and also cause you didn't alpha counter to it a lot when she was alive. I would honestly really suggest using a different assist instead of dash, like cat slide, especially since cm keeps snapping fortune out at the start.

Also downback assist call is putting in hella work for both of you, you guys should like throw each other.

ok thanks that was my unsolicited opinionadvice good luck playing headless on a trio.