- Joined
- Sep 3, 2013
- Messages
- 220
- Reaction score
- 73
- Points
- 28
- Age
- 40
This writeup will outline some of the basic mechanic in Skullgirls, some of these you can find in the tutorials and i highly recommend you play through that if you are new to Skullgirls or fighting games in general.
Character select; your team and you
The first thing to do when playing Skullgirls is picking your team!
there are several things to consider when forming your team. The first is team size! Each number confers benefits and disadvantages, lets look at them really quick.
Solo: the most life and the most damage! the solo character allows you to make the most of each hit and survive a beating. the downside of the solo character is no assists to cover your weaknesses, no DHCs to get more off of any super, no alpha counters, and no way to regain red life. you also can lose as much of your teams life as you possibly can off of one combo. another bonus of a solo character is that each of your hits do a lot of damage, so you can get lots of damage in before undizzy kicks in!
Duet: two charcters is a nice medium of power and versatility. each of your characters are stronger and you get all of the benefits for having a partner that were listed as detriments above. the downsides are not as much versatility as a trio and you can lose half of your team off of one really good combo then are left with a weaker solo character.
Trio: All the bonuses of versatility but with the drawback of having the weakest characters. If you get caught by a lower number team there is a really good chance you will lose a character, but hey, you still have two left, right? Undizzy is also a weakness of this team. Before the patch, and undizzy, trio teams would do lots and lots of damage to their opponent by having their combo go through their entire roster. with undizzy caring about hits and not damage this team will hit the threshold at a lot less damage than a solo or a duet.
After you have decided on a team size, think about what characters you want to play. When forming a team, these are things to consider: assists that will cover for the current characters weaknesses, ability to DHC from one to another, and good assists for alpha counters. Feel free to chose one of the two assists provided for you, but play around with the custom assist option, most of the best assists are buried in there somewhere.
Movement
Like other versus style games, you can press two punches at the same time to get a dash. if you hold back while doing this you will dash backwards. there are several details to keep in mind here
Infinite Protection System (IPS)IPS works in one very simple way, do not start a chain in your combo with a move you have already hit with.
the details, though, have mostly to do with combo stage. (you can see combo stage in training mode if you activate "show damage") a chain in a combo is pretty easy to determine. whenever you go back to neutral a new one starts, this includes jumping and landing. you can always ask yourself this question to figure out if you are in a new chain, "can i hit with an attack that is lighter then the last one i used?" if the answer is yes, you are in a new chain!
Stage 1 is your first jump in chain. if you start on the ground you will go immediately to stage 2. stage 2 is your followup chain, this can either be on the ground or if you air dash cancel into another air combo after stage 1. stages 1 and 2 completely ignore IPS you can do whatever you want here!
stage 3 is the chain that follows stage 2, it most usually is your first launch combo. stage 4 will only show up if you dash cancel into more air stuff during stage 3. stages 3 and 4 record what moves you are using but will not activate burst.
stage 5 is anything after! if will record all moves used and burst if you start a chain with a move you have already hit with!
there are a few more details to look into. all grounded normals are considered the same. so your crouching light punch and your standing light punch are read as the same move! this also is the case for command normals (like cerebella's towards and heavy punch or parasoul's back and hard kick). Also, all specials of the same type are considered the same. you can't hit with filia's light punch updo then later start a chain with her hard punch updo, this will trigger IPS.
IPS also is character specific. this allows you to do a combo the ends with a super then do an encore super[i think thats what they're called...](DHC) then pick up with the new character and press all the same buttons over again!
Pushblocking
pushblocking can be done by pressing any two punches while in block stun, it will push your opponent away and give you some breathing room. if you are forced to block another hit while pushblocking it will cancel the pushback! this mostly means you have to wait till the last hit of a move like cerecopter or filia's crouching medium kick to pushblock.
pushblocking is also not always the best idea! if your opponent does something unsafe, like doing a super that you block, keep them close so you can punish them!
Pushblock absolute guard (thanks dude)
one interesting mechanic with PBing is the 'absolute guard'. What happens is your block direction during a PB gets "locked in" for the duration of the PB animation. So, if you PB while holding back, then immediately change your blocking direction from B to DB (or vice-verse) you will be blocking both high and low at the same time (hence the 'absolute guard' moniker). This is because your first block direction is locked in, and the second direction is being input. As soon as the PB animation is over you will only be blocking in the direction you're holding.
Use absolute guard during lockdown-assist pressure to make life much easier for yourself.
Alpha Counters (stunt doubles)If you are in block stun, you can press towards and tag. the character whos tag command you pressed will swap about places with your point character and do their assist action (this does take a stock of super to do). they also get 13 frames on invincibility so unless you assist is a very slow move they probably wont get hit before their attack actually comes out! this can be exploited in a few ways because the cancelling rule still applies. basically, if your assist action is a normal, you could cancel that normal into any special or super as it is starting up or if it is a special you can cancel into any super. a good example of this is cerebella's lock n' load assist being used to alpha counter then cancel into ultimate show stopper.
you can also alpha counter when you infinity burst, but i haven't dont anything with this so i'm not really sure on what to do with it! maybe i'll play with it and wright more later.
Undizzy
updates to Undizzy:
max gauge is now 240.
undizzy starts to accumulate at combo stage 3.
undizzy will not activate until undizzy stage 5.
for the rest read Dude's great guide to Undizzy here http://skullgirls.com/forums/index.php?threads/understanding-undizzy-the-green-burst.70/
Also read this for more on the topics above and defense in general
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=172074812
Character select; your team and you
The first thing to do when playing Skullgirls is picking your team!
there are several things to consider when forming your team. The first is team size! Each number confers benefits and disadvantages, lets look at them really quick.
Solo: the most life and the most damage! the solo character allows you to make the most of each hit and survive a beating. the downside of the solo character is no assists to cover your weaknesses, no DHCs to get more off of any super, no alpha counters, and no way to regain red life. you also can lose as much of your teams life as you possibly can off of one combo. another bonus of a solo character is that each of your hits do a lot of damage, so you can get lots of damage in before undizzy kicks in!
Duet: two charcters is a nice medium of power and versatility. each of your characters are stronger and you get all of the benefits for having a partner that were listed as detriments above. the downsides are not as much versatility as a trio and you can lose half of your team off of one really good combo then are left with a weaker solo character.
Trio: All the bonuses of versatility but with the drawback of having the weakest characters. If you get caught by a lower number team there is a really good chance you will lose a character, but hey, you still have two left, right? Undizzy is also a weakness of this team. Before the patch, and undizzy, trio teams would do lots and lots of damage to their opponent by having their combo go through their entire roster. with undizzy caring about hits and not damage this team will hit the threshold at a lot less damage than a solo or a duet.
After you have decided on a team size, think about what characters you want to play. When forming a team, these are things to consider: assists that will cover for the current characters weaknesses, ability to DHC from one to another, and good assists for alpha counters. Feel free to chose one of the two assists provided for you, but play around with the custom assist option, most of the best assists are buried in there somewhere.
Movement
Like other versus style games, you can press two punches at the same time to get a dash. if you hold back while doing this you will dash backwards. there are several details to keep in mind here
- if you hold up and press two punches at the same time you will get a minimum height air dash (known as an Instant Air Dash or IAD)
- pushing down while dashing will stop your dash short for some characters, this is known as wave dashing.
- using the double tap on the joystick method can be beneficial when dash cancelling a move or trying to dash as soon as you recover from a move because using the directions will buffer some while pressing two punches will not
Infinite Protection System (IPS)IPS works in one very simple way, do not start a chain in your combo with a move you have already hit with.
the details, though, have mostly to do with combo stage. (you can see combo stage in training mode if you activate "show damage") a chain in a combo is pretty easy to determine. whenever you go back to neutral a new one starts, this includes jumping and landing. you can always ask yourself this question to figure out if you are in a new chain, "can i hit with an attack that is lighter then the last one i used?" if the answer is yes, you are in a new chain!
Stage 1 is your first jump in chain. if you start on the ground you will go immediately to stage 2. stage 2 is your followup chain, this can either be on the ground or if you air dash cancel into another air combo after stage 1. stages 1 and 2 completely ignore IPS you can do whatever you want here!
stage 3 is the chain that follows stage 2, it most usually is your first launch combo. stage 4 will only show up if you dash cancel into more air stuff during stage 3. stages 3 and 4 record what moves you are using but will not activate burst.
stage 5 is anything after! if will record all moves used and burst if you start a chain with a move you have already hit with!
there are a few more details to look into. all grounded normals are considered the same. so your crouching light punch and your standing light punch are read as the same move! this also is the case for command normals (like cerebella's towards and heavy punch or parasoul's back and hard kick). Also, all specials of the same type are considered the same. you can't hit with filia's light punch updo then later start a chain with her hard punch updo, this will trigger IPS.
IPS also is character specific. this allows you to do a combo the ends with a super then do an encore super[i think thats what they're called...](DHC) then pick up with the new character and press all the same buttons over again!
Pushblocking
pushblocking can be done by pressing any two punches while in block stun, it will push your opponent away and give you some breathing room. if you are forced to block another hit while pushblocking it will cancel the pushback! this mostly means you have to wait till the last hit of a move like cerecopter or filia's crouching medium kick to pushblock.
pushblocking is also not always the best idea! if your opponent does something unsafe, like doing a super that you block, keep them close so you can punish them!
Pushblock absolute guard (thanks dude)
one interesting mechanic with PBing is the 'absolute guard'. What happens is your block direction during a PB gets "locked in" for the duration of the PB animation. So, if you PB while holding back, then immediately change your blocking direction from B to DB (or vice-verse) you will be blocking both high and low at the same time (hence the 'absolute guard' moniker). This is because your first block direction is locked in, and the second direction is being input. As soon as the PB animation is over you will only be blocking in the direction you're holding.
Use absolute guard during lockdown-assist pressure to make life much easier for yourself.
Alpha Counters (stunt doubles)If you are in block stun, you can press towards and tag. the character whos tag command you pressed will swap about places with your point character and do their assist action (this does take a stock of super to do). they also get 13 frames on invincibility so unless you assist is a very slow move they probably wont get hit before their attack actually comes out! this can be exploited in a few ways because the cancelling rule still applies. basically, if your assist action is a normal, you could cancel that normal into any special or super as it is starting up or if it is a special you can cancel into any super. a good example of this is cerebella's lock n' load assist being used to alpha counter then cancel into ultimate show stopper.
you can also alpha counter when you infinity burst, but i haven't dont anything with this so i'm not really sure on what to do with it! maybe i'll play with it and wright more later.
Undizzy
updates to Undizzy:
max gauge is now 240.
undizzy starts to accumulate at combo stage 3.
undizzy will not activate until undizzy stage 5.
for the rest read Dude's great guide to Undizzy here http://skullgirls.com/forums/index.php?threads/understanding-undizzy-the-green-burst.70/
Also read this for more on the topics above and defense in general
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=172074812
Last edited:
