acfan's training diary!

[acfan]

So I came to the realization that I should make one of these things.
As of this post I've been playing the game with the mindset of learning the game, the mechanics, the characters etc since December 2014, a good 3 months. I've played fighting games for years before with experience ranging from SF2 to GG to MVC2.
But that has nothing to do with this diary! I think? Not sure, this is my first time typing something like this.

Anyways
I've figured out who I like to play in SG. And those are painwheel, double and fukua mainly (even though my main team atm is PW/DBL, I do switch to fukua when I feel pressured). Characters that I find interesting but I'm not very good at are valentine, filia, cerebella, and peacock.

I'm still practicing my combos but I've noticed my movement in general has gotten a lot better, I can space better and play the neutral game easier.
Will update when I figure out more things and will try to post sets with my friends! :)

 

[acfan]

update from last week
i hate parasoul and everything about her as she's a hard counter, or at least from what ive seen to painwheel; and have picked up eliza as retaliation. need to figure out more things about parasoul.
need to practice and refine my bnbs and figure out more of painwheel's neutral game before i go any further. and im still figuring out my team, if i want to run 2 or 3. might be dependent on the matchup/ who im against.
@dekillsage beat me senselessly on stream but i learned a lot! :)

 

[acfan]

Monthly update boys-
Spent the majority of last month practicing my execution and sifting through the cast to find a good supplement for my Painwheel, and I believe I've settled on Fukua and Double for my team as they compliment Painwheel's weaknesses quite well (or at least what I plan on using at Combo Breaker).
And leading from that I'm able to say I'm going to be able to attend Combo Breaker! I finally found the funds and am really looking forward to it as it'll be my first time in Chicago.
I also entered my first online tournament hosted by @Dolfinh this past Saturday and even though I went 0-4 I learned a lot and found out where I'm lacking, which is mainly confirms and actually finishing my combos, which I have problems with Painwheel due to her charge feature.
@LSP has more or less been my Painwheel teacher and he's taught me a lot, mainly how to deal with the Parasoul/ Squigly matchup my friend runs and I can't seem to beat. I'm not there yet but I know I will be with enough practice.

 

[acfan]

its been over 4 months since i updated this so here we go.
coming off of combo breaker and just recently summer jam 9 ive taken a different approach to the game, mainly in terms of my team. im going to start running double/ pw since people have discovered how good double is on point, which also fixes a lot of problems in my team. you can do some nasty stuff with car into install as well! ill still run pw point if i feel the MU is better though.
for the most part ive gotten down my combos/ resets on pw minus the random drops on ps3s and the basics on double with a reset or two, but i need to keep grinding out confirms and work on not fucking up my flight; execution problems etc.
what i really need to work now on is my neutral game and some character matchups, mainly being eliza, big band, fortune, filia and squigly. i need to stop downbacking in pressure as i get opened up super easily by overheads which is what the aforementioned excel in in neutral.
that along with working on my absolute blocking to cover up those mixups, and reacting faster to throw resets and knowing when to mash out of corner pressure(pw air super really only works in this situation). for the past month and a half ive noticed i can now see when people go for a reset but my reaction speed just isnt up to snuff; i hope this fixes itself the more i play and get used to my opponent's/ character's playstyle.
ive also gotten a lot better working under pressure/ dealing with tournament nerves by entering multiple things online and calming down before a match. when i was fighting natezer and worldjem i was able to keep my cool even tho i got spanked 2-0 by the both of them.
next tournament for me is (hopefully) TFC and then NEC. i hope to go positive in both tournaments and keep up the improvement.
also pls play me in sets, quick match is awful. ;_;

 

[acfan]

Pre-NEC update.
I went 4-2 at TFC, splitting 5th with Shade only losing to Cloud and Peanuts. I actually took a game off Cloud in tournament so that felt pretty great. Anyhoo I took a break after TFC for the majority of October until 2 weeks ago due to burnout but I'm back into tournament prep.
I've created what I believe is my best team which is Painwheel/ Double/ Fukua or Double/ Painwheel Fukua depending on matchups/ players. Drill as a whole compliments my team extensively especially Double and L Pinion helps out Double point massively when I can't use drill. If Painwheel goes point I usually use c.MP or s.MK assists though. Fukua herself provides an excellent amount of utility to my team as stated above plus her damage and amazing anchor status makes winning games much more feasible. She's easily my weakest character as I haven't seriously played her in over a year and playing someone that isn't Painwheel/ Double since April is very very tough but I'm getting somewhere. I know 2/3 combos and basic resets, need to learn a few more and get much more comfortable at neutral/ j.LP the god. Thanks @joshb911 and @dekillsage for helping with fukua combos and whatnot. (Plus drill/ barrel overheads are too much fun.)

Besides having a finalized team my execution has gotten a bit better, my joystick in my arcade stick has gotten very loose and I've suffered a lot recently as a result (if anyone here watches me stream SG you know how bad I fuck up basic inputs like buer/ fc), which is basically a result of the spring loose. I've ordered a heavy one which will arrive in the coming days which should hopefully fix these problems so I don't superjump when I input L buer thanks game fuck.)

Some of my bigger problems are I press buttons way too often in the air, mainly j.LK??? I have no idea why I do this when I'm being pressured, but it's probably a nerves thing/ I feel like I have to be doing something which I've learned is obviously not true. I also have a habit of trying to read/ throw way too fucking much which I'm also working on. My blocking has gotten a lot better in regards to absolute defense and mixups but I still panic and attempt to PB too early resulting in me getting CH'd which sucks.

tldr
got my team finalized
execution has improved a bit
need to learn different combo routes for different situations im put in
need to work on not randomly pressing buttons in the air
pushblock/ absolute defense better
learn more fukua shit
stop fucking throwing
block resets and same side shit better fuck you @SonicFox5000

I'm hoping to go positive at NEC and keep improving my tourney record.

 

[joshb911]

Spoiler

This is just to give you some ideas.. I made this a while back just messing around. This video isn't edited and a lot of this is garbage but what eves.

 

[acfan]

Hello it's 2016 and I'm here to give an update to things
i dropped fukua because shes not fun
i went 1-2 at nec, losing to sonic and twerk which is fine and i learned a lot
i picked up bella for copter assist but im actually enjoying her as i play more
my team is painwheel cerebella double (l pinion, copter, m bomber)
my next tournament is combo breaker (magfest doesnt count)

my execution has actually gotten a lot better, i can do the painwheel jmk x2 air conversion after almost a year of having trouble with it
im getting better at converting off of weird/ unnatural situations due to consistently playing against high level players (thanks cloud)
i know more combos now
ive picked up commentary and find myself commentating on matches i watch which makes me able to look at the game in different ways
playing the sf5 beta has calmed down my aggressiveness as painwheel and i play more reactionary/ adaptive to my opponents
COUNTER CALLING WITH COPTER FEELS SO GOOD

i still get easily opened up in pressure with downbacking and i cant tech very well at all
my bella is ass and i hope to get her to a decent level by combo breaker
my double is okay but i need to learn more combos and conversions with her
and i also attempted for the first time earlier this week at analyzing a set i had with warped
@mcpeanuts if possible could you skim thru this vid and give me some advice on how i looked at it? im not gonna record with replays again

willing to take all criticism and suggestions for next time!!

 

[mcpeanuts]

I watched about half of this because that's what I had time to watch. Here are my thoughts.

Regarding the analysis itself:

One thing I would definitely recommend if you're gonna analyze your matches is watch the matches ahead of time and think about what you want to say before you start recording. Trying to watch it for the first time and parse what's happening while ALSO talking about it and conveying that information to the viewer is too much, imo. Better to do one first then the other.

I would avoid falling into the trap of thinking that if something worked, it wasn't a mistake. Some things are mistakes that work. There's a few points where you did an unsafe thing but Warped fails to punish, but you don't really make a note of it. Those kinds of things are still mistakes even if your opponent doesn't capitalize. (By the same token, you can't assume that something IS a mistake just because it DIDN'T work).

For any part in this video where you say something like "I wasn't sure how to punish this" or "I wasn't sure what to do here", I would hope you went into training mode after and figured out the answer to those questions. This is the big thing I think analysis helps with, it gets you to ask these questions that you otherwise wouldn't think to ask, but if you don't then try to answer those questions, it's not that useful, you know?

Go into offline mode on Steam and turn off all instant messaging programs before you start so that Longshot can't message you asking for a set. lol.

Regarding the gameplay:

A lot of the time it seems like you're calling an assist just to call it. You should have something specific you want to achieve when you call your assists. Cerecopter is best called when they're already blocking something from your point character, you can also call it preemptively and put it out as a wall that covers your retreat, again though you need to do that preemptively because it's slow to start up and has no invincibility. Hornet Bomber is your neutral assist, you call it from long range to cover your advance, or to counter call. With your team there is NO reason to EVER call an assist while you are half screen or closer unless you are already at frame advantage. In particular there is no reason to ever get happy birthday'd with this team because you should never call an assist in a situation where that could happen, so if it ever does happen you seriously screwed up.

Warped's corner pressure with Double + Spiral wasn't always frame tight, I know that's an infinite blockstring if you do it perfect but a lot of times he doesn't do it perfect, you should watch for that because there's places you could have reversaled.

Remember even "safe" DHCs can be beaten with alpha counters. Dunno if your assists work for this but it's worth checking. If the alpha counter by itself doesn't work try alpha counter > super cancel to invincible super.

If you're full screen and you want to get Painwheel out, can you do something like charged H Nail xx Death Crawl DHC Ultimate Showstopper? Like, whiff the first super then also whiff the second one, and the nails cover you while you're doing this. idk. Just a thought I had while watching this. If you have three bars you can do the Duckator thing where you DHC all the way through to Double.

There's a point in game 3 where you land a Dynamo and decide not to DHC because Painwheel is bleeding. The thing is I think you actually could have killed Double there if you DHCed to install and did a full install combo ending with air super (which gets a big ass damage boost from install). You could have then tagged back to Bella after the kill. Always kill a character if you can, that's what I say. Even if you have to DHC and lose a ton of red health.

Have you seen NCV's video on max range conversions with Painwheel? You should check it out.

Learn max undizzy combos with all your characters. Here's Double's:
c.LK s.MP s.HK xx H Luger,
s.LPx2 s.MKx2 c.HP xx H Hornet Bomber xx Car

 

[Pickles]

Learn max undizzy combos with all your characters. Here's Double's:
c.LK s.MP s.HK xx H Luger,
s.LPx2 s.MKx2 c.HP xx H Hornet Bomber xx Car

general rule of thumb is 2 ground chains will do more damage than 1 ground chain w/ launcher into another air chain, this isn't just for double. Haven't tested it but I'd bet that Bella's will be c.lk c.mp s.hp runstop <whatever optimal normal chain ender she has> and pw's would be c.lk c.mk s.hp L nails <whatever optimal normal chain ender she has>

 

[mcpeanuts]

Painwheel I think is weird because she gets more stuff at max undizzy than she "should". Or she did, I don't know if that's true anymore. Haven't mained her since MDE.

 

[Pickles]

Painwheel I think is weird because she gets more stuff at max undizzy than she "should". Or she did, I don't know if that's true anymore. Haven't mained her since MDE.

I know from when I was playing PW that ground chain FC air normal ground normal pops IPS and warped told me one of the things he doesnt like about PW is that her damage at max undizzy is low (even with 2 ground chains the only way to link 2 ground chains is L nails which autoscales to 50%)

 

[mcpeanuts]

I know from when I was playing PW that ground chain FC air normal ground normal pops IPS and warped told me one of the things he doesnt like about PW is that her damage at max undizzy is low (even with 2 ground chains the only way to link 2 ground chains is L nails which autoscales to 50%)

You used to be able to do like c.LK c.MK c.HP xx H buer xx fly > air L buer xx fly > j.MK xx L buer > OTG death crawl which did a lot. But now I think it doesn't let you do that many Buers.

 

[acfan]

text boys

Thanks for the tips, I'm going to definitely go into offline play for next recording.
I have gone into training mode and looked at how I can work on those questions, just some of the situations are super specific and I can't really re-create them in the lab.
The mistake bit actually makes a lot of sense, I never thought about it that way.

For the gameplay- I definitely rely way too much on copter, and treat it as a DP assist even though I've never used them?? I don't get it.
The assist bit really makes a lot of sense.
Alpha counter is something I have to remember and work in because Bella can USS from it.
The meter stuff is just scary but a kill is a kill.
Yeah I've looked at the video but I know for some characters l buer will hit because of size differences but it won't for Filia and I forget and I'm like fuck lol

These max undizzy combos are awesome btw, I labbed them last night and know 'em; now I just need to remember to use them lol.

Again thanks! And yung @Pickles as well.
I had a set with Duck I'm gonna analyze and upload later in the week with this new advice in mind.

 

[acfan]

post-cb update
im back from cb, went 4-2 and lost to warped and adeveis; with them edging out a 3-2 victory in both sets so im not angry about my placing at all.
i had settled on my duo for the tournament because after months of tossing around/ forcing myself to run a trio i finally said no and stuck to my duo which made me play a lot better and calmer.
that being said i will be once again going back into the lab to hopefully train a 3rd character in time for CEOtaku so that i hope to make it out of my pools. im seeing a huge increase in my play but i still autopilot and dont reset enough.
that changes now.