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Painwheel Assist Discussion

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silverhydra

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I thought I'd start up a thread to discuss whatever of the following people find interesting:

Painwheel's options as an assist
Assists to get in/cover an approach
Combo extension assists
Mixup assists

For context, I'm currently running Painwheel/Squigly-c.HP/Parasoul-H Napalm Shot as my main team. (Edit: I had my team order switched. I've been running Squigly on point to get practice for so long I forgot to switch it back. Battle Opera > Hatred Install is a sweet DHC though)

What I've used personally:

Parasoul's H Napalm Shot
I'm liking this assist quite a bit. Painwheel's ability to call assists while in flight makes covering your approach much easier with the right assists. The tear persisting on the screen has been useful to me a few times, though this won't be the case if it passes offscreen. This assist is also easy to manage for characters with a projectile.

Parasoul's Napalm Pillar
Generally, I don't think we need to discuss how great this assist is as a reversal. I do find it difficult to convert off of a successful hit, though, minimizing its usefulness into I learn this.

Valentine's Mortuary Drop
Valentine was originally part of my team because I really liked the idea of using this assist. Unfortunately, it's extremely slow to start up and can be jumped. While Painwheel has exceptional control over the air I'm not sure you can leverage this tendency from opponents to jump the assist, at least not in any way that other assists won't do the same way. The damage is quite good, I feel, but it's a somewhat awkward and specific followup.

Squigly's c.HP; f.HP
I'm absolutely loving this assist. Demographic of online players notwithstanding, half the time I call this assist while I'm in air people get hit by it. It's pretty easy to get a guaranteed setup off of a block and this assist causes a massive amount of blockstun. Alternatively, you can use Squigly's overhead assist but I think you sacrifice air control to do this and I believe the overhead is quite a bit slower to start up.

Painwheel assist mentions:
c.MP for lockdown
s.MK for lockdown
qcf+ M/H for very limited space control
Pinion Dash M/H to cover an approach... I guess?
I'm not sure how viable using this assist is - I expect that it's similar to using Savage Bypass. It'd be nice to know the frame data though.
 
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When I run Painwheel I usually use qcf+ Mp for three reasons.

1. The block stun on qsf+ Mp is very low allowing you to call the assist at the beginning of your block string then letting them block it and go for a throw or high low mix up.

2. The hit stun is surprisingly high allowing it to be used for combos as well as a nutral game tool and if they get hit by it you can easily follow up.

3. With the new change to her qsf+ Mp Painwheel can now alfa counter in and flight cancel the move allowing for a somewhat safe alfa counter

As for Painwheels other assists I only see others running with c.Mp for the lockdown it provides. I don't know anything about Squigly but Parasoul works well with this assist.

I only started using Painwheel on my main team recently so I'm still looking for the best assist myself but for now I use qsf+ Mp.
 
Wait winnie isn't just keninblack's imaginary friend?
 
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I use double on point with L pinion dash in behind. call pinion dash, fleshstep has gotten me so much damage
 
winnie said:
When I run Painwheel I usually use qcf+ Mp for three reasons.

1. The block stun on qsf+ Mp is very low allowing you to call the assist at the beginning of your block string then letting them block it and go for a throw or high low mix up.

2. The hit stun is surprisingly high allowing it to be used for combos as well as a nutral game tool and if they get hit by it you can easily follow up.

3. With the new change to her qsf+ Mp Painwheel can now alfa counter in and flight cancel the move allowing for a somewhat safe alfa counter

As for Painwheels other assists I only see others running with c.Mp for the lockdown it provides. I don't know anything about Squigly but Parasoul works well with this assist.

I only started using Painwheel on my main team recently so I'm still looking for the best assist myself but for now I use qsf+ Mp.

Also, QCF+MP will hit the opponent during prejump frames if they're holding Up+Back and you don't have an attack out already. Blocking during prejump won't happen with projectile assists.
 
Has anyone here messed around with Pinion Dash as an assist? I had kind of written off this assist as being worthless without ever really trying it, but I ran into SoupySwan last night on ranked who was using L Pinion Dash assist, and it was actually giving me some problems. It's got a pretty big hitbox and causes a deceptively high amount of hitstun (kind of like how Painwheel's nails cause more hitstun than you'd think).
 
I tried H Pinion Dash with Peacock. I would zone for a while, and then call it and teleport behind my opponent. It hit a lot, but I didn't really have anything prepared to combo after it.
 
ButterKnife said:
I tried H Pinion Dash with Peacock. I would zone for a while, and then call it and teleport behind my opponent. It hit a lot, but I didn't really have anything prepared to combo after it.
Yeah, H Pinion Dash seems really hard to convert off of. I did find if you call it from full screen you can neutral jump and meet your opponent in mid air. Off a crossup like that, though, I'm not sure what you could do other than super.
 
The people I've seen using it (all two of them) generally use the L version.

Pretty good priority, good hitstun for Double to convert off of or at least get in for a low/throw check.
 
I've used buer reaper L with every character as a reset and it is awesome. basically it just sets up high/low left/right. Not too great with Double, Parasoul and Peacock get multiple resets on top of each other, val filia and fortune can do a iad to fast fall grab if you want to be really tricky, cerebella grab kanchou and what not, don't have the pc version so I don't know what squigs can do.
 
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H. Lock'n'Load is AMAZING for Painwheel approaches and setting up flight crossups.

Great damage, and the armor seems to work wonders against the invulnerable-startup AA assists that normally make life hard for PW. It helps soak projectiles, is really easy to convert from, and there's nothing harder than looking for carol's fuzzy approaches in a yellow-flashing calamity of tits and hat.
 
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hp lnl also set's up nifty mixups that are safe because of the slow startup of the assist. st.hp > fly+assist > high/low/throw is scary with that assist.
 
Opinions on LK Bomber as an assist?

Domo says it's bad, largely because he likes MK bomber for neutral and it sucks as a reversal.
McPeanuts says it's iffy at best, likely bad.
Sev gave a confusing answer.

I really want it to be good (even if it takes work/judgement/patience as a reversal) because I really want to play H.LnL Bella with my Painwheel. ;_;
 
l bomber is ok as lockdown but you don't really need help with lockdown as pw since she has ways of getting around pushblock and assists
 
Its great if you arent playing against peacock, bad if you are.

Lockdown is highly overrated in sg though. The best thing about lk bomber for pw is it is easier to convert off of on hit than mk bomber and it is also a true reversal/lockdown in that it cant be ducked like mk bomber.


Neither bomber however is as good for pw as pillar or updo since both of those moves make painwheels flight much more scary cause the opponent cant predictably take pw out of the air without dealing with those assists first, and because pw armor cant be reliably broken when she has pillar or updo or fiber upper:


Call assist, wait a bit, charge armor. If the opponent did something like a hairball, the anti air assist will hit the opponent before it can deplete painwheels charges... Takes being somewhat psychic, but since painwheel is charging her armor, it still has reasonable pressure if the assist wiffed or is blocked.

I used lk bomber for pw for over a year on my main team so im pretty acquainted with its strengths and weaknesses.
 
If you are playing PW/Double, lacking Fillia or Parasoul on the team, I guess it is probably what you should use.

I just don't like playing PW without updo really haha.
 
Personally I think LnL is the best assist for painwheel. It covers her approach pretty well which I think is one of her greatest weaknesses. If you do however want to go with pw/double, in my experience (m) bomber is the most effective because it covers an approach (not as good as LnL in most situations) better than the other two, more range than the L version, and not difficult to combo off of as H.
 
It's worth noting that I only recently switched to LK bomber. I've always used HK bomber which probably isn't the best assist for Painwheel, but I needed it to play Peacock. So I probably don't know what I was/am talking about.
 
does anyone use sguigly/painwheel? Honestly I think that's a pretty amazing pod and might one day be one of those teams everyone uses ( val/filia, peacock/double). I'm thinking pinion dash m or h would be good with squigly but what's a good assist for painwheel? I'm mainly thinking between center stage, silver chord, drag n bite, and cr.hp. If anyone has tried those assists with pw or just want to state their opinion, I'm all ears.....eyes, um well you understand.
 
Neither PW nor SQG are easy to play, both have severe weaknesses on defense, neither got an assist to cover its allies weakness, no stellar magic DHCs and both are subpar on point.
Why exactly is this a good team in the first place, and how do you get the idea that this would become one of the staple net teams? I'm utterly confused.
 
@Adeveis
Im kinda with vulpes here.

You dont state what you think makes the team good. If we knew what you thought was good about sqg/pw then we might be better able to point you towards some assists.

I however can infer that since it isnt assist synergy that you think is good..
It must be dhc synergy.

So you basically think that sbo dhc to install is the good stuff? As that is the only good synergy i can really infer from your post. Sbo dhc to install is decent, but the sbo wont track to cornered opponents and spending 2 meters to corner the opponent doesnt seem like that good of a use of meter imho, though my mind could be swayed.

I just want to know how your thinking goes.

As far as assists go, i really like squiglys cr.hp for pw since it hits low while painwheel is doing flight overheads plus locks down

And i also like drag and bite for general all purpose lockdown. For squigly i think pw cr.mp is by far the best assist for her divekick since squigly can divekick while calling out cr.mp and it will confirm on hit or lockdown on block giving squigly great pressure.
 
@Dime_x @IsaVulpes
Well yes obviously painwheel and squigly are a bit awkward to play, and yes the sbo to install is the main reason but not the whole story. With squigly/painwheel your main goal is to get the two bars for dhc but how you go about it determines how good the strategy is.
Now I've yet to try this myself so make any corrections you see fit. Sguigly has pretty far reaching grab, air grab, mp, cr.mp,cr, mk, cr.hp, and a good antiair being her hk. She is pretty much like a street fighter character because she is a little reliant on a footsy game and must have good reads on the opponent. She is very weak in defense yes so this may seem scary or down right impossible, but say you have thrown out one of these normal. You would either hit get full combo, whiff and have to cancel (hopefully in time), or the opponent blocks. Aside from whiffing your going to be gaining that meter even while doing a block string. At that point the opponent can pushblock or call an assist with invincible startup in between a link so your pressure would probably stop there. Fortunately though Squigly can back off at that point by entering stance to charge and call pinion dash especially if they pushblocked. Pinion dash has start up on it so if they did call an assist most likely it will whiff since she doesn't advance for a while, it also has a pretty big hitbox. If they pbgc, I can't think of anything they could do to punish you. Another use for pinion dash would be to cover you if you want go for draugen punch or liver mortis. This is all for an opponent that wants to rush you down and again ran into your thrown out normal. Against one that wants to zone you, your only option is center stage, silver chord, tremolo lvl2, and sbo which isn't saying much. Blocking, advancing, and picking and choosing those moves to do is really all you have against zoning. Any pod could use an extra support and although this one is obvious please note the others have them too ( val/filia/double peacock/filia/double etc.).
With the new changes to combos you can afford to make a bad read here and there and will undoubtedly gain those two bars. Your goal now is to once again hit or force your opponent to block, either way your going to end it with the dhc in question. Which brings in painwheel faster stronger and a fireball she can control. This is something your really going to have to go to the lab with, but control over the fireball position is crucial. It's possible to keep the fireball on the opponent and still be in range for a cr.lk. Unless the person just happens to not block low, this isn't going to do anything other than start something. By moving the fireball you have an opportunity to grab your opponent. You can fly to overhead and cross up multiple times. The fireball prevents assist calls and the only real way out is pbgc or wait for the end. Closer to the point, painwheel is very scary when she gets in and lockdown is her best friend. After the fireball ends or is moved out of position you can further the lock down with cr.hp assist which can be safely called from pw's cr.lk max distance. Roughly about 3-5 mixups can be done and when you get the hit it can be very damaging. If you've yet to kill, you still have the cr.hp assist to cover ground for pw as well as lockdown to get something started which will still be useful when the next character comes in.
Back to squigly, I feel it better for her on point because she has better defense options than pw but the pod can be played either order. Also the dhc if used right could guarantee a kill or at least an upper hand. pinion dash can cover the ground while squigly covers the air or charges, plus it brings the opponent to you if it hits. Squigly also gains more meter than pw or rather she can. Lastly she is less susceptible to dps. No cruel lily simply because I feel squigly can't get much off of lockdown ( f.hp is really slow and hk divekick is risky). You can add another character to strengthen the two defensively and offensively ( personally I feel cerebella lnl is the best choice but I won't go into that now). Finally, I will say this is pretty technical and kinda situational and I fully understand if this is not stable enough for people to have faith in. However, do note that we play a game of mashing up backing pushblock crazy monsters even amongst our expert players. Not saying this game is terrible or everyone sucks. What I'm saying is for now the possibility of this strategy working could indeed be in the 90% range.
 
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@Adeveis

Whoa.... Paragraphs please :) that is REALLY hard to read.

I get what you are saying about the synergy but i think you are overestimating it... No that i dont think it has its pluses. Also i dont know how to see these multiple painwheel crossups with cr.hp assist. One thing you should know is that high level players will start to pushblock autoguard during any lockdown mixup which makes lockdown mixups much weaker.


About the cr.mp:

With squigly i just use lk or mk divekick plus pw cr.mp assist by doing quarter circle j.lk + j.mk


You will get out a divekick that is backed by cr.mp and it will combo on hit or allow squigly an overhead F+hp or cr.lk mixup.

And if the opponent pushblock autoguard out of the mixup then you can jump forward and crossup with divekick or jump forward then double jump backward and non crossup divekick... Of which there are plenty of different mixups you could do.


Basically pw cr.mp makes divekick super scary cause it will always combo and give pressure and can be done from double jump height.


You should make a video of that tech that you are talking about with sbo to install so its easier to understand what you are meaning. :)
 
Dime_x said:
@Adeveis
:)
lol edited there is now a paragraph like structure. Also I did not mean cr.hp gives multiple mixups. It only give one ( two at best) but the combination of sbo and cr.hp or rather one after the other can give 3-5 mixups (said 5-7 in my post which is completely wrong). Lastly pushblocking isn't the overall answer. If you pushblock the sbo or assist it has no effect on painwheel. You could time your pushblock for when painwheel's attack hits you but it can be negated if she fly cancels or stop attacking for a brief moment ( I do it all the time with parasoul). Even the perfect guard suffers this weakness for it only lasts so long and can easily be waited out. As for a video, I will one day. Probably after the winter holiday.
 
@Adeveis

Understood, but 2 bar strats are still dubious to me, which might change in the beta.

Autoguard is just the tip of the iceberg as far as defending against lockdown. There is also invincible alpha counter and pbgc. Though I'm not saying that lockdown is bad, it isnt very good when its the primary strat... Having said that its still good as a tertiary strat.


Personally i like the theory behind your shell but i think it would be better served to be on a trio team with pw anchor and sqg second. This way you are almost guaranteed 2 meters coming in and sags come in is decent with divekick or. Double jump mixup to avoid the come in mixup. Though thats just me, but i havent had any problem with lockdown strats for avery long time... To many ways to stop them... For me atleast. :)
 
@Dime_x
Hmmm.....well think of it this way. I use parasoul with cerecopter. It's pretty big and takes up space so I like to throw it out on an advancing opponent. I am always in range to protect it if they start hitting it which parasoul is probably the best at that because of her disjointed attackbox. When they run into it but manage to block, they have to face one of Parasoul's many mixups. They can pbgc yes, but I always wait for the duration of the pushblock to end before doing anything. If they do it to super, I can always block or napalm pillar since I'm almost always charging. They perhaps may dhc into something safer which is fine since they're using up meter just to get out. If they try to jump out, i can low hit or airgrab. Now if they alpha counter, I can't imagine what they could alpha counter into and be safe since I'm there waiting for something. Updo to gregor is now unsafe and I can easily just do f.hp into scope to get a combo. alpha to install and catheads use up alot of meter and may be a way out (dependent on the timing since cerecopter is there) and gives a bit of an edge, but that meter deficit takes a toll. Honestly pbgc then dhc is probably the best option, yet it's rarely ever done (even duckator almost never does it). Therefore, all of those possibilities remain as such, so one shouldn't worry to much about them no matter what team they play, but I'm not saying you shouldn't take precautions. Squigly/Painwheel can do this too but I do agree with you that it's way better as a three man team.
 
@Adeveis

... Er i just dont think you get my perspective... Ahem, other fighters with lockdown assists:


High/low is 50/50

Sg with lockdown assist:

High/low is nonexistent as a rote mixup from lockdown cause of autoguard, which turns into pbgc, and can instead be done as an alpha counter.

The execution for autoguard is butt booty easy, all you have to do is pushblock and then qcb or roll 214,412,214 over and over again... You dont even have to think about what block you used first. Then after that, you can just mash qcf+pp after the autoguard and get out a pbgc.

IF YOU BAIT THE REVERSAL WITH ATTACKS THAT ALLOW THE LOCKDOWN OR PUSHBLOCK TO END, YOU OPEN UP OTHER AVENUES OF DEFENSE FOR THE OPPONENT.

I'm not yelling... Sorry, that seems more aggressive than what i was going for.


In my experience, using lockdowns as openers doesnt hamper me defensively much at all, and against other opponents that i use lockdowns against they dont work as good because of the scrubby nature of autoguard and reversal mashy pbgc.

I mean, autoguard makes your opponent IMMUNE to ALL mixups for its duration, and then at the end of its duration the opponent has the option of trying to block correctly again or reversaling out... Autoguard during lockdown has little to no weaknesses, it is the best defense in the game. And my point being why give the opponent such a powerful defense if you know they are liable to use it against any sniffed out lockdown strat? There are so many mixups that the offender has to use against a good autoguard user that it becomes a diminishing returns strategy in many cases.

The first defense is always to just not get put in blockstun in the first place... And once that is established against a lockdown team it becomes hard for them to establish a perfect ground lockdown that they can even attempt to high/low/crossup from...and remember that lockdown cannot be thrown so it takes away one of the most potent offensive moves out of the attackers hand.


Ive played against para/bella and found it lacking in many cases. It is ok. Its not bad and can certainly get wins, but it is nowhere near as good as something such as smart updo/ pillar spam imho from what i played against over here and what i played against at evo.



I could be wrong though since the game is young and new ways of doing things come about all the time... Perhaps you use these things differently from what ive seen... But yeah lockdown strats at this point in time dont scare me, at least. And duckator once said "lockdown is dead in sg"


Tldr:

Lockdown imho gives the opponent one of the best defenses the game has to offer and also allows the defender to reversal at there own whim, while taking throw options out until blockstun wears off and the attacker is exposed to reversals. And it does this for little to no execution hurdle.

:)
 
Can Magic Dime tell me how he does a 180 from "Hairball is the secret tech that is going to beat Duckator" to "Lockdown assists are useless in SG" in a few weeks?

And duckator once said "lockdown is dead in sg"
Uh, he said that referring to point Double with 1-bar-Catheads playing MvC2 Strider style or whatever. POINT CHARACTER LOCKDOWN.
 
IsaVulpes said:
Can Magic Dime tell me how he does a 180 from "Hairball is the secret tech that is going to beat Duckator" to "Lockdown assists are useless in SG" in a few weeks?


Uh, he said that referring to point Double with 1-bar-Catheads playing MvC2 Strider style or whatever. POINT CHARACTER LOCKDOWN.


Hairball in that situation isn't used for lockdown, it's used to beat other assists in startup... Particularly bomber?

But duck has switched up his game lately and doesn't use neutral bomber nearly as much as he used to.

Also you seem to have comprehension problems if you think I was talking about hairball for lockdown in that situation, when I stated very specifically it was used to beat his assists...
 
Hairball is a lockdown assist.
If you propose using Hairball, that's proposing to use a lockdown assist.
Whether you propose using it for "stopping assists", or for "Offering mixup hell" - doesn't matter.
They're both part of the assist.

Lockdown assists can be used for stopping the opponent from advancing (big hitbox on the screen, eg Copter),
for safely approaching behind one that moves forwards (eg Butt), for shutting down opponent's assist calls (eg Hairball),
for converting off low-hitstun mixups (eg Para j.2MK + PW c.MP), for making unsafe specials a weapon (eg Updo+Copter on incoming),
for gaining tons of frame advantage off moves you couldn't chain into anything useful (eg Filia c.MK + DnB), tbc tbc tbc ..

Good lockdown assists make your neutral a ton stronger, your mixups scarier and have any blocked move lead to madness.

And you say:
Dime_x said:
Lockdown is highly overrated in sg
I'd rather say you're /severely/ underrating it.
 
Ok vulpes... Lol
 
Drag n bite is a super good assist for pw if only for oki. Sweep > fly > late(ish) call assist. DnB auto-corrects if they tech behind you. Since it's a bit of a disjointed hitbox you can sort of use it at neutral, but the slower startup and 0 invul means you have to be active in protecting it. It's not a bad pair and I wouldn't let people who aren't you decide how you play, just know that PW has a lot less of a fun time without a dp assist.

Speaking of not having a DP assist, I've been playing with MP shot a lot more with PW and it's just too good. Controls space, sets up mixups, can save you as a combo breaker, it does so much. I've really just been freestyling with it but once you get the passive explosion time down doing mixups with it is so fun. I might stick with it, at least depending on the matchup.
 
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konkrete said:
Drag n bite is a super good assist for pw if only for oki. Sweep > fly > late(ish) call assist. DnB auto-corrects if they tech behind you. Since it's a bit of a disjointed hitbox you can sort of use it at neutral, but the slower startup and 0 invul means you have to be active in protecting it. It's not a bad pair and I wouldn't let people who aren't you decide how you play, just know that PW has a lot less of a fun time without a dp assist.

Speaking of not having a DP assist, I've been playing with MP shot a lot more with PW and it's just too good. Controls space, sets up mixups, can save you as a combo breaker, it does so much. I've really just been freestyling with it but once you get the passive explosion time down doing mixups with it is so fun. I might stick with it, at least depending on the matchup.
Brilliant! I might try both of those. I would recommend keeping the mp shot if it's so fun (I did with cerebella with lp shot). Also the advice wasn't necessary but I appreciate it nonetheless thank you.
 
While we're on the subject of projectile assists, how do you guys feel about MP/HP Nails?

I find that MP Nail is really nice for my Bella, and can make Double's Luger keepaway a little more irritating.
 
I'd say the slow startup limits it from being much more than a full-screen sort of option. I'm sure it might help buff some resets though, similar to how lock and load does. Also since you can fly cancel it at anypoint it's a decent alpha counter. Get in chip trouble > AC > fly to escape.
 
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It's good for Bella and peacock and even fortune:

Fortune gets midscreen throw combo confirms with mp nail.

Peacock gets fullscreen teleport mixups with mp nail as well as better ground control.

Bella can make her battletoads headbutt completely safe with mp nail, as seen in the Japanese player titled ms, games.

Overall it's not a great neutral game tool unless you really study the move and try to find situational synergies with it.

But once you understand that that's how it should be used, it's a rather powerful assist on the right teams.
 
I'm with Dime in that I agree that Lockdown isn't as crazy amazing as it seems. You can use PBGC and the pushblock safeties to negate mixups.

I still think lockdown assists are very good, especially with certain assists doing more than simply lockdown the opponent. Friggen Drag'n'bite pulls peeps out of the corner, similar to PW's s.HK, allowing overheads to crossup where they normally wouldn't.

As someone who has to make use of Double's bog-standard mixups all day 'eryday, I'm not going to drop cr.MP anytime soon, simply due to the fact that it will often catch defensive assist calls if someone's trying to OS their defensive options to escape/punish. I can't do that with MP.Nail.
 
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How quickly can you cancel MP/HP Nail into Flight? I'm thinking about a projectile assist for Peacock since Cerecopter already provides the lock-down I need and s.HP can give Bella enough lock-down to work with, but I still want a decent Alpha Counter for any line-up. I may go with HP Nail as an AA projectile as well as a tool for air resets (opponent has to deal with the reset due to projectile coming in).
 
View619 said:
How quickly can you cancel MP/HP Nail into Flight? I'm thinking about a projectile assist for Peacock since Cerecopter already provides the lock-down I need and s.HP can give Bella enough lock-down to work with, but I still want a decent Alpha Counter for any line-up. I may go with HP Nail as an AA projectile as well as a reset tool for air resets.


it feels like it can be canceled as fast as physically possible to do on a stick. ie way before the stinger becomes active.
 
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Yes you can cancel as soon as it starts, which makes for nail>fly>nail to have pretty specific timing.
 
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