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Dime_x's SG Journal

Glad to have that cleared up.
 
So I watched that TTHSK stream.

Sure, it was online. Still.

Dime, you jumped around like an idiot often, and you got blown up for it often. You even do it when your assists are dead.
You don't know how to approach with Big Band, and you autopilot at neutral a lot. (If you want advice a-la FukuaTwerkTeam I will totally give you some.)
No wonder you think jumping around and upback is so good, you don't realize how much it's getting you hit!

We're still gonna try the doublejump thing, and I don't want to be insulting...but honestly...the person playing in that set is not someone I would go to for solid theories on how to improve SG neutral at high level.
 
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Mike_Z said:
So I watched that TTHSK stream.

Sure, it was online. Still.

Dime, you jumped around like an idiot often, and you got blown up for it often. You even do it when your assists are dead.
You don't know how to approach with Big Band, and you autopilot at neutral a lot. (If you want advice a-la FukuaTwerkTeam I will totally give you some.)
No wonder you think jumping around and upback is so good, you don't realize how much it's getting you hit!

We're still gonna try the doublejump thing, and I don't want to be insulting...but honestly...the person playing in that set is not someone I would go to for solid theories on how to improve SG neutral at high level.


Yeah it was online. And it was around 130 ms with 1 delay.
It was my first time playing against beowulf (and robo fortune) and i was trying out different tactics and assist combos and team combinations because it was my first time playing beowulf.

Whenever i watch anyone (high level) play sg they all jump alot. I dont remember seeing any high level players staying particularly grounded. The closest i see to that is turtle BB players that just like to backup and guess brass/a-train or peacock players at fullscreen.

Gfarmer jumps alot
Magicman jumps alot
Khaos jumps alot
Ken jumps alot
Sonicfox jumps alot
Sage jumps alot
Tj jumps alot when upclose.


This is also the first time ive played tomo in months and he had new characters.

Look at how i adjusted.

First games im getting tagged by beowulf super from everywhere (i didnt even know he had an AA grab super) im getting outprioritized by jhp and constantly in its range.

Towards the end games i adjust and stop getting hit by the AA super because i read how tomo looks for it (after blocking my fully charged stingers, and when hes doing nothing and just walking backwards to bait me into jumping, and when hes waiting in general) i didnt know that beo had a mixup after his AA super. Tomo went high on the mixup everytime. I only blocked it once and then i didnt transition to low block fast enough. Thats because im not used to the matchup yet.


What you saw on the stream was me practicing and learning matchups. No one is going to look great in those circumstances im jumping around like an idiot cause i dont know what else to do in the matchup and i want to see how he overcomes it.

I saw how. He likes to backup with beo and engineer a max range j.hp xx blitzer. He does this i assume because beowulf jhp must not be fast on the draw so he needs to be spaced correctly to have it out at its max priority.


Once i saw this and saw the ranges i got much more comfortable on the ground knowing where he could safely reach me and pressure me.

And as far as BB goes... My BB was actually doing quite good against him at neutral. I was double jumping to get above his j.hp and it was working. I was mixing up my double jump distances and my regualr jumps to keep him guessing and i was pressuring him with bands j.lk. He did really well against my painwheel till i figured out i had to play more grounded, my BB howvere was a thorn in his side the entire time.

I wouldve kept on playing but right at the end of my last match that i won, my comp decided it wanted to overheat... Good thing i won huh?

Imagine if i had lost and was on my last character... You would no doubt be accusing me of ragequitting even though i NEVER ragequit.


So yeah, you really shouldnt judge me by 130 ms laggy games where im constanly switching teams and learning a matchup. Also, tomo doesnt abuse the double jump thing like cm and shuff and dean... Or at least he wasnt against me in those sets though in retail in the past he has been an abuser of said tactic.


If you have any advice for BB neutral im all ears but from where im standing looking at my replays, it looks mostly fine for the lag we were playing in.
 
@Mike_Z
Also, youve got to remember that i havemt played in quite awhile (i said this in my first post lambasting the new upback in the beta thread) while tomo and everyone else has been playing with the upback since it came out.

The reason why i havent been playing is because of my work schedule and because my internet has been trash for the last 6 months or so. My internet finally got fixed like a month ago, but ive been busy with work since then... If you dont believe me just ask clarence mage. Weve been wanting to play but my internet and schedule were keeping us from it. Ive only had the computer to play against for like a good 3 months.


The primary thing is that everyone else has been playing the new upback and has adjusted. I havent. Im still getting used to it and trying to abuse upback myself to have my opponents show me its weaknesses and so i can learn its strengths and weaknesses.

Upback wasnt harming me basically at all in most of the games. I was getting opened by beowulf blitzer crossing me up and his jhp outprioritizing my pw. I tried lots of things for pw:

I tried charging jhp... Mildly effective. I tried dash jump throws... Mostly beaten by jump back jhp from beo. Then i started trying some various sorts of assist spam... Once again more used to retail and my assists rooting against upback, and hitting against upforward. Didnt work well of course so i finally came upon throwing stingers with pw.


Its much more effective against beo than in any other matchup that ive seen, in the limited experience that i have playing against him. Hp stinger kills has jhp and air wolf blitzer, mp stinger kills ground blitzer and since hes slow on the ground, simply staying grounded is actually effective against him.


I also had problems with robo. Also a matchup where i have no experience and dont know optimal places to be in the air or on the ground. I did reasonably well though imho. I had few problems against eliza in that set... She doesnt seem like the best anchor tbh... But i digress, hard to tell from only a few games.

I also have no idea where to pushblock beo or robo on block... So... Lots of learning going on there.
 
Juuust a bit of an update about getting good and some aewsome tech stuff:


Tech stuff: @ClarenceMage old tag os still exists, albeit in a not as good form. The os is basically: cause burstable hitstun while falling from a jump attack against a grounded opponent (painwheel does this exceptionally well with fly attacks) then as you land hold upback then press tag. If the opponent bursted, pw will go into blocking animation then cancel that blocking animation into invincible tag. So... If you have a tag that is comboable afterwards... You get a very nice option select burst bait. If they dont burst, you will just jump and nothing will happen except you will get out an airnormal since you can tag in the air.

Clarence developed the original idea to do this off a launcher and make you guess between being airthrown, or not. That however no longer works because the new upback doesnt cause aerial bursts to force upback to stay grounded unlike ground bursts.

More tech stuff:

Been trying to find "pressure resets" against mashed invincible assists during resets. Found a bunch of good stuff. Safe jumps are much stronger now than ever before for me because a safe jump puts the opponent into blockstun that they cant call assists during, and since jumps recover as soon as they land, this gives the offensive person ALOT of "opponent cant call stupid AA assist" frame advantage. Thusly, there are only 2 other things to worry about:

Being pushblocked
Gettin greversaled by the point

And this is where the insidiousness resides... Since this "uncombod" that means you can use your assist to pressure while you are being pushblocked, even if your combo started with an assist.

Another thing found in training mode:

1 frame resets dont allow assists to come out. Now this might just be a painwheel thing or not. But the computer wont call an assist as reversal during them and i couldnt call an assist against the recording either... So im calling it... At this point in time its impossible to call an AA assist during a 1 frame reset. The specific situation is coming out of hitstun and transferring to neutral. I dont know how to test it when going from blockstun to hitstun. And as i said earlier, it may just be a painwheel thing.

The ramifications of this are great however. It means that a one frame reset goves the attacker the ability to have a "free" mixup during the opponents blockstun. So for painwheel specifically, i can one frame reset with with fly 6j.mk, then immediately do another fly 6j.mk after i land, and the mashed reversal assist wont hit me. So i can call assist to beat the mashed assist or put pressure on it. But anyway it goes, though the window is certainly small... With practice and specific setups, lots of crazy shit can be thrown in there. Never underestimate the power of a "free" mixup. (Sans point character reversals, which assists eatup anyways)

The las bit of tech is armor tech for painwheel. I found it myself, but clarencemage also found it and other painwheels may already know as well:

Use fly attack hitstun to cover for the startup of painwheels armor charges. This has lots of setups, but the easy mode powerful ones are:

Lk buer xx fly then df j.lp, or uf j.lp,j.lk both of these leave painwheel at around +20 or so while painwheels st.lp armor charge is around 24 frames or so (cant remembr exact numbers ATM) anyway it goes, this produces a pleasing situation for painwheel:


If the opponent reversals painwheel, she can reversal their reversal or tag into a comboable tag since she is in the middle of armor frames she doesnt have hitstop from supers and since shes using a normal she can cancel ino super or tag. So...it beats many super reversals, even SSJ. Would lose to ultimate showstopper, val level 2 and regular reversals that dont have super flash, etc etc.



If the opponent tries to jump forward, they will get hit while in the air. If the opponent tries to mash throw they will get hit in startup. If the opponent tries to upback they will be planted on the ground.

So pushblock once again becomes a very attractive counter, but if timed perfectly, painwheel can cancel the st.lp into cr.lk, and call assist with the cr.lk and force the opponent to block. So...a pressure reset basically.


Sounds super strong on paper, but irl is just a basic way to repressure the opponent. Not great as a mainline tactic imho, but good to use 2-3 times a match imho. Keeps the opponent wary of differing options rather than the same ol same ol.

And finaly, last bit of tech, i dont know if ive posted about this here in this journal, but painwheel has unblockables. Well, hard to blockables is a more accurate description. Especially since australia is getting much much better at blocking them. The thing is sgs unblockable protection only works during hitstop of an attack. Painwheels j.hk however only has 2 frames of hitstop..
Combine it with a low assist and proper timing and you have an unblockable that has a 2-3 frame window to be switch blocked from high to low. If you hold either low block or high block for the duration of the unblockable it will be impossible to block. Autoguard is actually much harder to do rather than just blocking it if its done as a reset.

And its setups are the easiest thing on earth:

Fly plus low assist that is between 10 and 18 frames of startup, then immediate 6j.hk.

Depending on your assist the unblockable is easier and harder to block. Faster assists are easier to block and slower assists are harder to block. Squiglys cr.hp assist is 18 frame startup.


Other assists that it works with:

Filia and fukua cr.mk
Val cr.mk
Parasoul cr.mk
Eliza cr.mk (though this one is weird)
Peacock cr.hp


Off the top of my head, though im pretty sure any low that is between 10 and 18-19 frame startup should work.


So yeah, theres that. Also, if the opponent ever starts to be able to block it... The easy mode mixup is to just use the assist as a crossup while pw flies over their head. The unblockable is very strong. But it loses to reversals and gets your characters happy birthdayed to boot so care needs to be taken in its use. However if you snuff out the feversal painwheel has the games easiest safe jump in st.hp xx fly 6j.mk (found by clarencemage as a safe jump afaik) the unblockable though is my own creation, some may have known about it or not, but i was the first (and only person) to post about it and i didnt take it from anyone elses gameplay.

I was goingto post about getting gud... But this post has already become bloated and ive been writing for an hour so... Save that for another day.
 
More painwheel tech:

Some characters on this game actually Kara there moves. We all know this but the important part is that some characters Kara after the active frames, into a chain.

So as an example with painwheel:

St.lp, cr.lk chain results in painwheel being pushed out if the opponent pushblocked the st.lp.

Incidentally the st.lp has no Kara properties, though the cr.lk does, but that's moot for this example.


However, if painwheel did cr.lp, cr.lk instead, cr.lp has a forward moving Kara, so if the opponent pushblocks the cr.lp, the cr.lk chain WILL STILL MAKE CONTACT.

This is pretty huge because it means that pw gets a confirmable, plus on block pressure tool, that leaves her close to the opponent on hit block or pushblock. If the opponent pushblocks the cr.lk, like they should, then the pw player should of course have anticipated this and called their lockdown assist with the cr.lk anyways. Especially if this is done as a reset.

This gives pw more options than just going for tick throws or fly mixups which can become stale after awhile, and the best part by far is that the cr.lk will always make contact and therefor can be called with an assist to put some real pressure on the opponent. Pw is +5 after the blocked cr.lk.

This same thing also applies to other characters in the cast:

Squiggly as an example gets pushed out if she does cr.lk,cr.mk as a chain and the opponent pushblocked the cr.lk. However if squigly uses her st.lk instead, since it chain karas forward, it will move the cr.mk forward and make contact with the opponent.

This is very useful to add on pushblock time to the opponents hit stop and allow for more disgusting pressure.


Another small thing. Pw flight cancel negates all offensive pushback from painwheels pokes (not from pushblock though, lol). I never knew this... Lol. But now I do.


Knowing chains that don't allow you to be all the way pushed out if the first attack is pushblocked, I think will become more and more important to SG meta as the game goes on. And may even make lockdown assists more attractive.

Pbag/pbgc will be a good defense to this of course, but it's something else that is powerful at limiting your opponents effective options, so it can be very useful in theory if the player... Knows how to use it right. LOL.


BONUS:

Backwards karas are VERY good if your character has any. They make your ranged moves safer and give them more priority. As an example that I didn't come up with, bigbands st.lk has a backwards Kara property and can be used before L brass to make it an even more functional poking tool from closer ranges.

So if you can find any backwards karas, they will probably be very good for your characters neutral... Such as something like backwards Kara into gunshot for double. No need to backdash, just backwards Kara. I haven't actually checked if dubs has any backwards karas... Just making an example.

Good day.


-edit

If you want an easy way to find forward or backwards karas, just go into training mode and put on advanced hit boxes. That will give your character a dot on the ground that represents where their middle is currently. When you do a move, if that dot moves forwards or backwards, then you have a move that karas in said direction. Doing this with training mode grid on will also allow you to see which forward Karas move you further and etc etc etc.

Also, if you use training mode alot, you should probably always have advanced hitboxes, grid, and hit/blockstun bar on. It just makes things easier.
 
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Lol training journals are soooo talking to yourself for me... But w/e. A simple update on where I am on SG currently:


Haven't played in months. Tried to "comeback" and play a bit against newt and shuff. Lost both sets pretty badly. I'm super rusty and everyone else has gotten better. Lag was a major factor against newt but basically a non factor against shuff. Duos seem very hard to beat nowadays with trio. If the duo hits me first it seems like the match is 80% over if I have trio, whereas if I have trio and I hit the duo first (with an optimal starter) the matchup seems much more evenish as far as winning chances. This makes me sad whether it's true or not (because it's true in my play whether it's ultimately "true" at highest levels or not) I prefer to play trios because of more characters and thusly IMHO, more fun via more choices and options... But the undizzy just feels so stacked in duo favor now that it just feels... Well, dumb to me. But that's a small gripe, not a deal breaker for playing the game or not.

The biggest problem I'm coming into now is lack of time in general, getting old and just not caring anymore, and lack of want to grind shit... That's a young mans game that doesn't have 4 year olds that want to play basketball with them and 1 1/2 year olds that are just to cute to not choose over SG, nor 84 hour work weeks, nor wives that just sit there cross armed when their husband fires up the old SG... It's just tiring now.

Then there's the fact that au scene in general has gotten very boring to play against (everyone runs BE) which is good shit. It's an excellent assist so it makes sense, but it gets old when every good player except one runs it (besides myself since I dropped BB awhile back)


All in all just not feeling motivation to play anymore even when I do have the time cause of said reasons.


So... In light of what I just said, I will no longer be playing SG at any kind of a decent level or trying to in most cases. I plan on maybe trying to go hard on sf5 if I like the game since there will be more local players to play against and since I won't have to deal with all my connections being only ok except for one, like it is with SG. I won't be quitting SG fully and I may even have a change of heart and try to be competitive for a month or 2 here or there... But right now I'm certainly decided to slow down on SG extremely, which for me is saying something since I never put THAT much time into the game in the first place.



Good news is that no one cares and life goes on. I may have a change of heart but I've been thinking of "quitting" for all intents and purposes since CM and I had words... No longer want to play him and so... No longer have any real motivation to play since age and folks also "quit"

I will always love SG though and though there are things in the game that I wholeheartedly disagree with balance wise and mechanics wise, I do consider SG to one of the greatest fighting games I've ever played. Up there with A2 and ST imho. It hasn't stood those tests of time so it's very premature to say that, but I know I've had as much fun playing SG as any other fighting game.. And at the end of the day... That's what counts the most.

:)
 
Yo if you ever have some space free in your schedule and when i have some money saved, I want to come visit you and even though the last post you said you quit, i want to play a First to 50 with you lag free before you put your SG Skill on a shelf to collect dust, aight?
 
Dime_x said:
The biggest problem I'm coming into now is lack of time in general, getting old and just not caring anymore, and lack of want to grind shit... That's a young mans game that doesn't have 4 year olds that want to play basketball with them and 1 1/2 year olds that are just to cute to not choose over SG, nor 84 hour work weeks, nor wives that just sit there cross armed when their husband fires up the old SG... It's just tiring now.

I hear you, man. My wife and I just had a baby (11 days old today). I'm finding my free time has been devastated. To top it off, I've a million things I need to do. I need to get better at computer shit. I'd like to finish that website I was building for my mother-in-law. I'd like to start up on my own website. I need to program a game or something to tighten up my C++ and learn Python. Need to tighten up my Linux if I'm ever going to find a job as a SysAdmin in the future.

Moreover, I'm a man of hobbies. I love board games, and I especially love miniature games (Malifaux and Warmahordes) which have fallen by the way side. I'd like to get a Vassal up of the greatest fighting game ever made, Battlecon. I'd like to fuck around with Tabletop Simulator, and see if I can't do some work there. I'd like to tighten up my Racquetball game too. Hell, I'd like to sit down and give some of my massive Steam library a shot.

I'm finding all of this incredibly difficult to do while also playing competitive video games. I'm not giving them up just yet, but my time spent in SG is almost nil now (don't have the time to learn new characters and am frankly a bit tired of running solo-PW). I've been playing Rising Thunder quite a bit which is nice because I can drop in and drop out without too much problem, and none of the characters are frankly all that difficult to learn. I'm still pretty hype for SFV and KI coming to PC... but who knows how much time I'll have when they launch? I'd fucking love to get good at Xrd, but between my console hate and my lack of free time... I play one character, and not very well.

Anyway, if you ever want to get something going that's not dependant upon a good connection, look me up.
 
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@Spencer


Congrats on the little one my dude :) it's an awesome experience for both you and your little person. Cherish it, they get old quickly and my wife is already clucky on the fact that our little boy is 4 and "no longer a baby" so cherish those early days as much as possible, get as much video and take as many photos as possible :) yeah mayb one day we could play some games that don't get killed by lag such as chess and hearthstone... But I wouldn't hold my breath :(

It takes time to be good at those games as well and to maintain it. I no longer have that time, so competition in those sorts of games seems to be nigh impossible.

@Dean[SG]

Hmm... Maybe one day we could do that, get together and play some games... But seriously I'm not taking this game seriously anymore. I'm not QUITTING so much as no longer entertaining the idea of being training mode person or a set sets sets person. From now on I'm going to mostly be a path of least resistance person, so that means more than likely dropping Beowulf from my team since I don't like the assists that he uses in conjunction with painwheel, and I will be picking up parasoul at the middle spot with double at anchor. This team has issues with people midrange upbacking/turtling as well as with peacock in general, but this team other than that represents my 3 best characters minus peacock and BB as well as a decent/good assist structure for painwheel and parasoul.

Upback will still kill the team from midrange but so be it. I've been playing (experimental) teams for over a year and I no longer have the time or even want to try and make them good, anymore. It's time to stop team xperimentation and go with what I know I'm naturally good with and let the chips fall where they will, and just have fun with the game with as little time put in as possible.
 
It doesn't really take any time to get good at Hearthstone, just a decklist copied from somewhere and enough money to make it reality.
Game is really easy + you can always throw in a game while sitting on the toilet or so

Not much else for me to say in this thread
Have fun with your kiddos and raise them well! They ARE kind of more important than SG, despite anything Mike will try to tell you
 
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Well, my interest in the game is rekindled. I don't know why, maybe it's because the last doom post in here made me upset, or maybe it's because of 2 recent beatings at the hand of CM (he beat me 20-2 both times) the first set I blamed on my pw inability to convert off of the assists that I had and was using. In the replay it was very obvious that that was a dear problem. So I bit the bullet and put scrub extend back on my team. I don't like it but it's the only AA assist that pw uses REALLY well. It's just that everyone else uses it well also... But I digress.

So that out of the way, I still hate playing against BE so I also put robo h beam assist on my team. And even though cm still destroyed me, the games and neutral were much closer in general. I just kept dying cause of band rust, pw reset rust, having no robo whatsoever, and having super poor defense post hit in general. Idk if it's even possible to get post reset defense up, but I do know that I can see most of vals resets. I'm still getting hit by the straight up 50/50's like low/throw though. My biggest problem with val resets right now are her super dumb jhp crossups and non crossups. I tend to block the jhp crossup and still get hit... So that means that in many instances the crossup isn't actually crossing up. But yet still ends up on on the opposite side of me... I think this is the epitome of dumb and val doesn't deserve it... But that matters not, it's in the game and I have to deal somehow besides the old "don't get hit" adage.

Lack of time however is still a huge factor for me. But I realized that I can get more time playing if I only play during the week when the wifey is at work and the kids are being babysat (which is only 2 days a week and only for around 7 hours a day) still though, that might be enough to stay competitive.


My goal is to get good enough to go even with cm consistently. I know I can do it. I just don't know if I have the TIME to do it.


Having said those things I need to stick with my current team and make the team stronger since I feel this is painwheels best shell. There is no safe place on the screen against this team unless the other person is using painwheel herself.

Val can turtle against this team but when she lands I get free pressure on her. But attacking me isn't he best answer either cause I have BE on my team as well.


A very well made team imho.

So I have to do these things:

Get a decent universal combo with robo fort and practice throw and airthrow conversions.
Get a good corner carry happy birthday combo with BB since AC into L extend while the opponents assist is recovering is the next big thing (hit cm with this a bunch of times, but couldn't really do anything with it besides a small combo into ssj)
Get a good combo with BB in general besides the stupid shit I do nowadays.
Remember to snap in BB if I hit the first character. I do this already but I forego the opportunity in general way more than I should.
Use much more AC in general for pressure that is designed to be pbgc safe (pbgc weakness is it's slow startup and telegraphs itself with the pushblock) whereas AC just comes out. This will make pressure based play of the form of "make an assist make contact and run a mixup" less good in general against me.

I also need to experiment with BE H since it is fully invincible and doesn't lose to throws. Cm actually threw my AC to BE L once though it wasn't his intent I don't think (he was just going for a standard tick throw and I AC'd into the throw) also I have to wait until his multi hit normals are done before I AC to BE since BE L isn't invincible on startup. I don't know if BE H is any good, but I've seen some jap using it well... Has more blockstun as well I think, just have to do it early against air pressure I think. Will need to test either way.
I have a corner carry with painwheel that carries 85% of the screen and leaves me at frame advantage... I need to actually use it though. I only developed it an hour before the second set with cm and I forgot about it in that set. Needs h beam assist though, but cornering the opponent on the first combo you get is more important than resetting imho. WAY more important, however, leaving the opponent where you have them cornered and yourself in a state of frame advantage, while also leaving them no option to tech forward out of the corner, while also having an assist available is the primary concern. When all those things come together is when the corner rape generally ensues. My corner carry gives me all those things except for having an assist available for pressure... Which is disturbing. But, I do still get a powerful position with my opponents back to the corner.
 
Have you tried PW with Beo chair throw? Pretty solid.

Bonus: you get Beo instead of BB.
 
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Spencer said:
Have you tried PW with Beo chair throw? Pretty solid.

Bonus: you get Beo instead of BB.
Yeah dude I've tried it out. It was the team I was trying to make work before this one. Unfortunately I found the assist lacking in certain areas for me:


Slow startup so it can be reactively adjusted to sometimes.
Extremely long cooldown.
Makes beo chairless on incoming.
And by far the worst culprit:

I simply can't get the conversion rate from chair toss that I can from BE L.

My chair toss conversion with pw is something abysmal like 30% and extremely position dependent even then.

Whereas my BE L conversion rate is probably somewhere around 90% or more and from way more varied positions.
 
So quick update, I may actually have a functional robo now. I've finally got a universal combo and now have a much better handle on her offensive neutral. Her defensive neutral is still a big question mark though. It seems that it only really gets as deep as beaming the opponent where I think they will be. There are movement options that I've found that seem pretty nice though. Mostly backdash into up back or up forward jhk into air L beam into come down with a normal or no air L beam into double jump and come down with a normal. Lots of variants on that. I've also stolen @SonicFox5000 robo confirm using st.lp. It's REALLY great. No more cr.lk confirms outside of resets or blockstrings or secondary contact mixups.

So robo is coming along well. Next up is to get BB back up to snuff and optimise a few combos. I'm happy for the most part with my unoptimized BB combos because... You don't need optimisation with BB to do ludicrous damage. But I do need to work on that soundstun starter happy birthday carry combo from AC.
 
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Just wondering, why do you choose to not use c.LK confirms? c.LK unlike s.LP has viable 1 hit confirms and that's extremely useful if you're using it on offense against downback+call BB
 
Yomabuddy said:
Just wondering, why do you choose to not use c.LK confirms? c.LK unlike s.LP has viable 1 hit confirms and that's extremely useful if you're using it on offense against downback+call BB

It's not that I don't use it, it's just that I don't use it as a first confirm in general. I can't confirm cr.lk 1 hit so it may as well not have that purpose for me. Basically I saw how sonic fox was confirming with robo and I tried it out and it is much better in general. The same way vals and even some fortunes (and all peacocks) will use st.lp as a confirm starter over their cr.lk.

You need to use both of course, but for a flowchart offense I just find st.lp to be much better in an overall fashion, for robo. But my robo is still terrible. She's coming together, but she's still not "good"
 
Robo and BB are coming along good. Especially BB but my BB was never terrible to begin with... He's way to simple a character to have troubles picking up or getting the rust off with.

I'm writing this post as a way to ask anyone who lurks this thread in general to give ANY insight on how to improve ones neutral game. Recently I've been finding my neutral lacking. My neutral is still better than most players in oce I feel. But it isn't as good as cm by any means and I'm having troubles versus various players in lag when I convert my neutral into a combo then drop an input and then they pick up off my drop and run a vortex fest against me.


Biggest problem for my neutral is that I'm very predictable with my neutral in general. That is I'm predictable with my buttons and spacings. But much less predictable with my neutral game mixups... Things like will I move forward now or hesitate then move forward. This is standard streetfighter stuff so I'm decent at it. The other part of my neutral that is decent is that I have lots of general counters to general strategies.

My neutral problems are:

1. Not noticing my meter and my opponents meter outside of combo.
2. Not seeing things like pushblock and reacting accordingly.
3.Lack of accuracy in general. I wiff moves a lot that I don't mean to wiff when I go on the offensive, for this reason I try to play a more balanced style of play, calculated offense without relying on being hyper defensive.
4. I tend to panic under blocking pressure. If my opponent can make me block something on the ground I'm pretty free to their subsequent mixups since I can't react to things like pw highs in au lag and since the game got sped up (could react well offline in sde to pw overheads)
5. I find it hard to pressure opponents who's assists I've just locked out since my opponents will just run away.
6. Have a hard time playing against BE L in general. It seems very hard to bait well via making it wiff. And since every one of my oce opponents call it at every obvious moment, it makes offense a chore and non dynamic. I thrive in truly dynamic neutral game scenarios and tend to flounder in neutral scenarios that are oppressive yet predictable.
7. I have a hard time baiting BE in general, when I do bait it, and try to counterattack after blocking, basically all of my opponents attack me with mixups afterwards that don't have true gaps in them. I hypothesize this is because I'm telegraphing my block. Whereas in sages case opponents truly think that the assist might hit since sage may have been attacking just before the assist came out (as I'm writing this though I'm realizing that another very strong possibility is my opponents are calling BE with the thought that it will definitely be blocked and so they are very ready for it to be blocked and run mixups behind it. This is weird to me since I don't call BE to be blocked almost ever... I have character mixups for that sort of thing... Sigh. I call BE when I think it has a realistic chance of hitting.
8. My painwheel still feels fantastic in general, but I'm still having problems with the neutral game strategy of my opponent reactively chicken blocking my j.mp (stupid air lockdown change... Grumble) and when they mix that up with BE calls and high priority fast jumping attacks it leaves me with very few answers as to where to attack exactly. The chicken block is the most annoying though. Makes sense in a fair way I guess. But it means that I have to be a bit more risky in my offense and go in closer to my opponent, this isn't the greatest thing ever because pws up close normals tend to be very lacking in anything other than the "you totally weren't looking for my air to air jmk there and so it worked" kinda way. But that requires completely out thinking the opponent and worse yet, to be powerful it can't be a go to strategy. So that leaves big question marks. I guess the best over all answer is to use BE as an offensive poke that I throw out to get blocked like some of my opponents... Seems super scrubby to me though. But it's just a good tactic so I will have to start to use it. Biggest problem will be my inaccuracy with my offensive pokes in general. If I go offensive with BE and it wiffs that leaves me with a huge hole to fill for a bunch of frames.


So:

My neutral needs to get better
I need better round start options that aren't super defensive, but also aren't super fucking yolo like what everyone else does.
I need better situational awareness.
I need to be able to be more offensive without whiffing my attacks as much.
I need to become more comfortable to offensive pressure of a close proximity (learn better answers than just upback)
I need to find a way to actually practice these things.
 
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So a big update for me. Number one thing is that I dropped robo and put Fukua in her place. The robo assist and she'll was/is fantastic, but my robo wasn't fantastic and I got really tired of the huge scaling that robo assist gave my combo starters in 3v2 matches.


The good news though was that lead to me searching for another character /assist load out and lead me to revisiting Fukua and m shadow in general. This my friends, is the strongest theoretical team for pw in my mind... And that alone isn't THAT worth it.. I still feel like the robo shell team had a better overall neutral. But this new team still has great neutral... By far the second best neutral pw team I've found... But besides that it comes with a HOST of huge benefits that leave the robo team in the dust:


M shadow creates the best reset point for pw that I've ever found. It has a burst bait/airthrow/crossup/ground throw/high/low mixup point and pw can realistically reset with any of those options and best part ever is it isn't a high execution setup nor is it character specific. That's right, the crossunder a and burst bait are universal. So that alone is VERY good. But... That's just the tip with this team:

Pw also gets a pretty good spammy keepaway/stalling pattern with this team in doing m stinger while calling m shadow assist, then fly cancelling the stinger, throwing another stinger then fly cancelling into another stinger with another shadow assist. This pattern covers the ground very well and has aerial coverage as well since m shadow cover the air and pw can also choose to throw an H stinger here. It's certainly not the best keepaway pattern ever, but the real teeth in the pattern is the fly cancel. If other characters try to over power the pattern with their own fireballs/fireball assists, pws flight cancel will bring her above their zoning. It's just a good pattern. Some of my opponents hat I've played against that previously played hyper defensive have now tried to switch to a hyper offensive style to combat this pattern. So that doesn't allow me to really use this pattern that much, but the strength in the pattern is in my opponents perceived forced hand to go offensive... The same way robo forces people to come to her, this pattern forces people either come to me, or try to play keepaway predictably. Either way it's good for pw, at least in my mind.

But as I said before, this isNt all of the good stuff... The truly horrifying stuff is coming up after the next bit:


But first:

The BB to Fukua shadow synergy is way to real. M shadow turns most of BBs unsafe moves safe, and turns them into confirms into full combo with good spacing. This is the most powerful assist for BB that I've found. It also gives nutty M shadow reset points as well, which BB can certainly use.

And finally the truly horrifying stuff:


DAMAGE...

HOLY SHIT THIS TEAM DOES DAMAGE!

Extremely simple shit like doing BB cr.lk,cr.mk,cr.hp xx brass xx ssj xx Fukua level 3 into simple unoptimized Fukua combo does gobs of damage. That combo iirc goes all the way up to 12k for literally no execution, or up around 14k with some execution thrown at it. If you start giving that general combo some situational contingencies like h brass counter hit into taunted ssj xx Fukua level 3 you get insane damage numbers that can nearly kill a 2v2 character dead.... For 3 meters, universal midscreen or corner. And for just 2 meters you can dhc into Fukua BFF super and STILL do nutty damage.

All these things combine to make this team have very few weaknesses and a veritable truckload of strengths.
 
It's been a long time since I've written anything in here, wow.



So there's new blood in the AU sg scene. We are whipping them into shape, so that's cool.

I'm taking major painful losses to CM still.
I know now why I lose, well at least one of the reasons... He option selects his defense. That's good shit. It's very hard to punish his obvious assist calls with things like run in dash throw (which mike z has stated time and time again is the "counter" to someone calling assists... But well... It isn't if they OS the tech throw.


What cm does is great:

He calls assist on the ground, I dash up and try to grab him, he then does a DELAYED TECH because the throw window is so huge. The reason for the delay is so that he can block a cr.lk if I chose to do a cr.lk instead. So with the BE L call this covers cr.lk, and it covers throw. It covers cr.lk because the BE L will hit before I can usually ever even get a cr.mk chain to come out. And i don't have time to tick throw either since my cr.lk always gets blown up.

If I run up and do a fly overhead, it will hit, that's the good news, the bad news is that my jlk will still get stuffed by BE and I'll still get combod :(

So basically that option select beats all these mixups:
Dash throw
Dash Cr.lk xx fly overhead
Dash Cr.lk,cr.mk (2 lows in a row, the second low never gets a chance to come out)
Dash Cr.lk>throw
Dash Cr.lk>nothing

Which of course waters down my upclose "get in" offense. The thing is, when at neutral I generally will do a mixup upon having made contact with the opponent. This is because all things being equal, I probably approached my opponent from an obvious frontal angle so they will most likely block what I'm trying to do. So I tend to tick into mixups.

But this OS stops basically all my tick mixups :(

The good news is that there are many options to beat this, theoretically at least:

Dash call assist backdash
Dash neutral jump block, call assist
Dash cr.lk, charge cr.hp or cr.hk (low profile armor absorbs BE and hits the point for a happy birthday unfortunately is mostly a gimmick since if cm expects it at all he can block the charge attacks for free, if not throw me)
Dash fly overhead xx buer thresher (become invincible to the BE assist when I hit with thresher, but expensive and a guess)


Punishing his assists or counter calling then attacking doesn't work to well because of the hilarious stupidity of a couple of things:

When I call my own assist to counter his and then I try to jmp the assist or simply hit the grounded point... The assists body will take the hits and hang me out to dry... This is very frustrating... VERY.

The other problem I have is that val in particular can just run away by jumping away, landing, then superjumping into an airdash jmk and cross over my head at a height painwheel has a super hard time making contact with. And if that happens then he can just wait out the assist lockdown with airfireballs and then repeat the same strategy again... Which is basically hit me or make me block BE.


So basically I need answers on how to defeat this. I don't currently have a whole lot to beat his neutral game shizzle.


So things I need to do:

Incorporate the stupid OS into my own game.
Find out how to deal with superjumping val runaway/lame play
Fucking learn the double big band combo.... God this character frustrates me to all hell because I can't barrel loop him off of ground hits.

So that's me. Hopefully I can find some answers or make some execution better.
 
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