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Hi! I wasn't sure if this should go here, in the Beginner's threads, or in the Beta changes, so I went with here.
Basically, I was wondering if anybody had advice on how to tackle Bloody Marie with Solo Eliza under the current Beta changes?
Last time I pulled this off, I was able to final-boss the final boss and beat her with projectile minions. That's... less feasible now.
Specifically:
Couch is blocked by standing exploding skeletons
Horus is really easily startled out of his kicks. (A Horus Heresy, if you will.)
I've tried aerial crossups and heavy punching, but Marie's gotten better at countering with diagonal skull trains lately. The boat (c.HK) doesn't take me through Marie, otherwise I'd use it for a cross-under. Marie seems to be weak against multi-hit attacks, so any advice on comboing into H.Osiris Spiral would help. Sekhmet's multi-stab will likely also be important somehow, probably somewhere around that final form.
I've never been able to beat her, assuming this is Marie's highest difficulty we're talking about, but I've come quite close, but with Eliza, I found that her Bull Head kick thingy in the air j.hp that throws her back a bit is a fairly effective move against Marie's second and third stage for singular hits, but aside from that, Sobek or her s.hp combo, ending with Osiris Spiral before the third hit can be fairly effective.
Bull Head (j.HK): Hurty, but leaves you vulnerable to skull banging.
HP->Osiris- not enough to actually stun her, leaves you open to counter attack/skull banging.
Hm... Maybe I can use the kickback of j.HK in a reverse airdash to get out of the way of Marie's retaliation. Only problem is, this means I have to jump back into attack range, and good luck finding an opening in the skull-field.
I might be able to chain a lighter Osiris Spiral into something else (Multi-Stab?)... I need more practice...
Yeah, sorry man. My advice isn't really viable. Sekment's multi-stab can stun her. I'm not for sure on the specifcs of the combo, but with it's armor you may be able to use that. I use Sekment to beat normal Marie with Eliza, but that wasn't solo nor was it at highest difficulty, so I don't know how viable that'd actually be.
It's a riddle, that's for sure. Normally I duo ElizaBella and deflect the first and third stages, and Sekhmet stab the second one. I need to look into ways to follow up the multi-stab. I had some decent luck with alternatively stab, return, something else- was able to burn my entire life bar to cut down Marie's first stage, but that's it.
I tried this, had some success getting past her first stage, but I lost way too much health doing it. Was even able to get Marie to her third stage, though, so that's progress! I'm really vulnerable to that grab of hers, as it throws my loop out of sync with her attacks and I have to readjust... which often involves getting hit. It's that "getting hit" thing that seems to be the main problem.
I need a better link between Butcher's Blade and j.HK
I'm really vulnerable to attack and interruption when releasing Sekhmet. Boat -> Sekhmet isn't nearly as seamless as I thought.
j.HK -> Airdash away is really clunky, as you have to jump a little forward for j.HK to hit
It sucks Eliza really doesn't have any offensive specials that are just a number of clean hits. Only one she really has is her lvl 3, which would and is highly effective on stage 3, but sometimes I use specials to fix the flow of the loop when using more awkward charactes like Big Band, who really just has to j.lk and j.mk, usually into cymbal crash outta habit, but with Eliza, it's a lot harder to use said specials to fix that.
You could use Lady of Slaughter to get you back in, with it's large speed, though that'd be a waste of meter for no damage. If it gets you in long enough to deal the necessary damage, it might be a cost worth paying.
This is a pretty reliable method of beating Marie that works on Nightmare as well (if anyone asks, Arcade too). You can also subsitute the M Sekhmet near the beginning with H Osiris Spiral as well, though its a little riskier.
You could use Lady of Slaughter to get you back in, with it's large speed, though that'd be a waste of meter for no damage. If it gets you in long enough to deal the necessary damage, it might be a cost worth paying.
I remember trying a while back, Lady of Slaughter doesn't work on Marie- apparently it counts as a type of grab. D:
@fenster- that video's beautiful, and is much of what I'm currently trying. I'll give it another shot, but Nightmare Arcade Marie really loves her ground-grab against boat/Sekhmet as well as her overhead pain and general interruption.
@fenster- that video's beautiful, and is much of what I'm currently trying. I'll give it another shot, but Nightmare Arcade Marie really loves her ground-grab against boat/Sekhmet as well as her overhead pain and general interruption.
Still, onward. For science...
It requires a bit of luck to get the first stun, but after that then you shouldn't have to worry about Maries grabs, so it should be smooth sailing. Pun Intended.
It requires a bit of luck to get the first stun, but after that then you shouldn't have to worry about Maries grabs, so it should be smooth sailing. Pun Intended.
"I'm on a boat!" -Eliza 2015
I was able to match the stun on normal Marie with solo Eliza, but upon trying her hardest difficulty, I found that she fell outta hitstun quicker. Got a lucky skull in and I never got anywhere near her again. Perhaps I just fluked, though, I'm not that great with Eliza
Taking a break for now. Salt's not good for the blood pressure, eh? Current results:
Marie's very immune to Lady of Slaughter. Sekhmet launches out and just kind of nudges Marie forward a bit. It's a little awkward, really.
Those grabs have a disturbingly large hurtbox. I'm pretty sure they caught me in the air once.
However, I can avoid them by launching Sekhmet right after the attack; they'll try to grab Eliza's base of delicious preserved organ meat instead. Eliza is best haggis!
s.HK is surprisingly useful, and the first hit transitions into Butcher's Blade fairly well. A decent starting option, at least. Unfortunately, it and j.HK are very easily interrupted. Still, it's faster than the boat.
Marie seems to notice if you keep coming in high, medium, or low, so I need to vary my assaults accordingly
However, she only notices where I am, and not if I've actually hit her. A few times, I'd j.HK her and miss, but Marie would counter the air. If I can get this to work reliably, I can get her to attack where I'm not, which would be handy. As I recall, I did something similar back before Albus and Horus took their pay cut.
c.HK -> Osiris works on the second phase, but I have to get the timing just right. Float and sting with j.HK is similarly reliable. Marie's second phase in general throws me for a loop anyway; I need to get better at it.
I need to find a better way to neutralize those standing exploding skeletons; Upper Khat leaves me stunned too long and I get skullbanged.
So, if I can somehow notice and respond to Marie rather than try a formula, I'll be golden. Specifically:
I need to trick her into attacking the air while I'm on a boat. Therefore, I need to get better at jumping, hovering, and then boating. j.LK might help this out.
I need to figure out how to launch Sekhmet right after Marie tries to grab
I need to get better at staying within attack distance of Marie. Range is way way WAY too much to her advantage. Unfortunately, it's hard to block without backing away. Crouch block as default? I need to get better at that anyway.
Typing of the Skullgirls may be in order, I need longer fights with Mare Bear for more data.
s.MK -> s.HK -> Osiris links well; doesn't stun Marie.
s.LK or s.LP -> s.MP -> s.HK or Upper Khat also link well, but that's more for general use. It's just as well, my Eliza needs some variety anyway.
s.MK -> Upper Khat -> j.HK seems to link. Nah, too much delay.
Hm... Upper Khat has some invincibility, if I can use that, that'd be nice.
I think I need to actually design a combo using a spreadsheet and frame data and stuff. That, or figure out how not to get hit.
I used to be really good at just barely hopping over Marie with Ms. Fortune and hitting her on the cross-up; I think she received a mobility update since then. Also, I've also picked up a bad habit of always superjumping. This is a problem.
The tactic i used was very similar to the video except during the first phase, i only used c.hk and just timed all my attacks to audio queues (the armor actually generates you more meter, which i blow on the last phase)
I'm not perfecting her yet. Don't know if I will. Maybe? Don't know. Either way, I tend to get grabbed out of my boat, so I figured advice would be handy.
I can't just sit here and wait for stuff to happen. I'm the Marie expert goddamnit.
Precision before I go ham :
My Marie knowledge is only based on my (way too fucking long) experience with bella against her. Stuff may not apply to other characters.
I know your goal is probably not to perfect Marie. Maybe later, who knows? Still, the most yellow there is left on that health bar of yours, the better.
Marie's very immune to Lady of Slaughter. Sekhmet launches out and just kind of nudges Marie forward a bit. It's a little awkward, really.
Like all grabs/hitgrabs, unfortunately. Only way to spend meter will be sekhmet and lvl3, but sekhmet may present some flaws. I'll get back to that later.
Those grabs have a disturbingly large hurtbox. I'm pretty sure they caught me in the air once.
They also have a disturbingly long active period. So maybe you think they caught you in the air but maybe you just landed on it and it was still active.
s.HK is surprisingly useful, and the first hit transitions into Butcher's Blade fairly well. A decent starting option, at least. Unfortunately, it and j.HK are very easily interrupted. Still, it's faster than the boat.
Thing is boat gets you closer to Marie, so s.hk will only get handy when you got the hard part done : getting close.
Marie seems to notice if you keep coming in high, medium, or low, so I need to vary my assaults accordingly
However, she only notices where I am, and not if I've actually hit her. A few times, I'd j.HK her and miss, but Marie would counter the air. If I can get this to work reliably, I can get her to attack where I'm not, which would be handy. As I recall, I did something similar back before Albus and Horus took their pay cut.
c.HK -> Osiris works on the second phase, but I have to get the timing just right. Float and sting with j.HK is similarly reliable. Marie's second phase in general throws me for a loop anyway; I need to get better at it.
[...]
I need to trick her into attacking the air while I'm on a boat.
I need to figure out how to launch Sekhmet right after Marie tries to grab
That's something important I want to talk about. My knowledge on this is limited and requires some testing, but here's what I got on the subject :
Marie does indeed only care about where you are when she decides to throw an attack, not about what you do/did. BUT I'm not sure she selects her attack depending on that.
What I think (and needs to be tested) is that Marie decides about when to throw an attack randomly (I didn't notice a position during phase 1 that makes her use an attack more than another). Then the type of attack is also randomly selected. Then only, if the attack selected is a skull train, she will make it have a different trajectory depending on where you were when she started her attacking animation. If you were on the ground, it will always be close to the ground, and always high if you were airborne. I've seen in pretty rare occasions a medium-height skulltrain when it was coming out while I was about to land from a jump.
I am unsure about the diagonal skulltrain. I think it's a different attack from the horizontal one, so it doesn't care about where you are and might come out at any moment, whatever you do.
I don't know the give away for the diagonal skulltrain, but for the horizontal one, she points her left arm (the closest one to you) towars your char and shouts "DESTROY!" or "CHARGE!", and maybe something else (I never wrote these down and I didn't fight Marie for 2 weeks :^/). Anyway, the finger pointing is enough to give it away...Annnd I'm not sure but it could also mean skull swarm :^(
Again, requires testing.
More important for you :
give-away for grab and exploding skeleton :
raises both her hands like she does during round start animation to get her skeleton armor. Also goes for some quotes like "do something useful" and other ones I can't remember right now. Her hands are a good enough give away anyway and is 100% reliable. If she raises hands, she will either grab or exploding skeleton, nothing else. BUT : sometimes in her phase 1, she will try a throw right after doing another kind of "big" attack (either skull swarm or skull train). If she does, THERE WON'T BE ANY GIVE-AWAY. So keep in mind that as long as she's not stun, being sekhmet while getting hit by skulls doesn't mean you're safe.
Pointing her right arm at you and saying any other quote will result in a simple skull attack. I don't remember getting thrown by surprise during one of these, but be aware of the fact the attack can come out super fast or kinda slowly, apparently depending on the quote she went for.
For phase 2, it's pretty simple :
- shadow appears behind her : shadow attack incoming (duh...). Reacting on the type of shadow attack is pretty hard, even for me after quite some time spent deflecting these.
- raises both hands : servant attack. No give-away on which servant it will be before it appears on the screen. As they have all different speeds, hitboxes and even apparition timing (unsure), react correctly to each one accordingly can be even harder than shadows, especially when you're at melee range, as the machine gun servant will instantly hit you upon apparition.
- Shadow appears while you're at less than...uh...one BB's c.hk range from her, she will most likely do her "DP", with the shadow hitting you immediately without moving anywhere, throwing you into a sliding knockdown.
- sometimes do some finger pointing, resulting in...nothing. Can also raise hands for a very short period, resulting in nothing too.
IMPORTANT : as long as the starting animation ended for one type of attack, she can throw the other type at any moment. She can go for an over head shadow, and while it's "charging" above you, start a servant summon, which would result in both attacks hitting one right after the other (shadow first, servant right after).
As well, when you are right against her, she can do servant summon, and just after that DP shadow your face.
In this phase, the give-away will always be here to tell you approximately what she will do and when.
OTHER IMPORTANT THING : even when she's stun, she can still DP shadow your face, probably because she doesn't need to do any animation to throw these out.
I need to find a better way to neutralize those standing exploding skeletons; Upper Khat leaves me stunned too long and I get skullbanged.
Possibly stupid idea :
when grab/exploding skeleton comes out, block, and if no grab came out, dash to get into the right position to hit the skeleton with M upper khat and then hit Marie with H, so you'll be able to jump cancel, while dealing some damage and getting rid of the skeleton. The spacing between the skeleton and Marie may make it impossible, I don't know.
Except that, I guess just couch it and then wait or go for something else while the coast is clear.
I need to get better at staying within attack distance of Marie. Range is way way WAY too much to her advantage. Unfortunately, it's hard to block without backing away. Crouch block as default? I need to get better at that anyway.
Block and pushblock. You won't move while pushblocking, and it won't push Marie away.
The principle behind your Bella work is why I think this is possible: As I understand it, maximizing stun to minimize enemy attacks. Weirdly enough, "Perfect" is possibly the simplest goal to work towards. "Shoot for the moon and land among the stars" kind of thing.
I'll definitely need to study and test those battle-prompts of Marie's. Seems accurate, though. Thanks!
Possibly stupid idea :
when grab/exploding skeleton comes out, block, and if no grab came out, dash to get into the right position to hit the skeleton with M upper khat and then hit Marie with H, so you'll be able to jump cancel, while dealing some damage and getting rid of the skeleton. The spacing between the skeleton and Marie may make it impossible, I don't know.
Except that, I guess just couch it and then wait or go for something else while the coast is clear.
The positioning probably won't work well for it, but it's worth a shot. Only trouble with couching the standies is that the couch shatters on them now. In Retail, couch bypasses them just fine.
I'm confused. What do you mean with "link well", while Marie isn't stun?
BTW get your ass in here you stoopid, instead of creating threads in subforums.
I created the new thread because I was specifically trying to counter the various Beta changes; I'll try to merge this into the greater Marie Thread... somehow. Didn't think it was a problem; I'll think of something clever.
Also, by "Link Well" I mean certain moves transition into other more smoothly. I, uh, might have used the post as notes to myself while testing it, hence the poor structure therein. When I do start combo-building, I figure these moves can be used with others to maintain and grow stun.
Still, I need to get my happy face into a spreadsheet. I think a spreadsheet will help.
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