Fosh can't think of a name, so here.

[Fosh]

Hi! I'm Fosh and I play Skullgirls. This is a thread to document what I do in SG and how I can get better, etc. This might also be a thoughtdump thread at points when I just have ideas related to SG that I want to vomit onto a page somewhere for safekeeping.

Anyway, here are some categories with ideas of what to do in each to start with. That seems like a good starting point. And also some more recent match footage I have recorded against good players if people wanna tell me what I'm doing badly.

Spoiler: General Gameplay:

- I've recently lost the timing for PBGC-ing consistently and I can't figure out how to get it back besides re-grinding in the lab. Annoying.

- When the game grinds back to neutral, I tend to play almost entirely reactively. While this isn't bad, being proactive at neutral is probably better for me as a player in the long run.

- My resets are mostly made up on the fly instead of having a pre-determined idea of what to do ahead of time. This sometimes causes me to falter in my play because I think of two or three or more conflicting ideas at the same time and can't pick one quickly enough to capitalize on the option I actually want. Input errors into dying abounds.

- I focus a loooooootttttttt (like way too much) on making sure I get a pushblock in under an opponent's pressure. Again, not the worst idea but it's super easy to bait it with stagger pressure. This is a part of the game where I should be trying to play reactively instead of trying to guess about what the opponent is going to do.

- My hit-confirms have gotten a lot better but there's still room for improvement with nearly every character. Nothing is ever 100%.

- I still get clipped by ground throws a lot. Need moar better reactions. Same with the command overhead characters.

- Work on weaning my reactions off of auditory queues, there's hardly ever going to be an offline event where the setup will have game audio headsets available.

- My neutral just overall feels super weak, which is why I used to go in immediately to close the gap with Double and try to by pass that all the time lol.

Spoiler: Double:

- React correctly to what happens to wake up L Bomber. On block, if I have the meter pick Catheads over Monster [Or Monster into DHC]. Otherwise, don't do anything.

- s.MK SUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKS for certain situations that I'm already aware of and I need to remember this when I'm playing. Use s.MP instead.

- L Gun is not as good as I think it is. If the opponent is even within half screen and jumping at me, don't shoot. Or if I REALLY REALLY think the opponent is doing something I can hit, H Gun instead (but probably don't do this either).

- Get the reset game out of j.MPHK down more. Getting the spacing for un/crossup s.LP is weird and I need to actually lab that on different weights.

- I CAN DO THE MCPEANUTS J.HPHK THING WITH EXCELLABELLA, PLEASE DO IT. But I haven't really practiced that either so that's another lab thing.

- Double burst baits don't really work on smart players unless it's a throw bait and I know they aren't the type of player to purely react to throw and I should realize that.

- Corner reset game could use some work. I saw a neat crossunder thing that JPN did at the exhibition that I should steal. [s.HK 9j.LKMKHP dash c.LK, iirc]

- Double can super/double jump stuff and I should be more aware of that.

Spoiler: Fukua [WIP]:

- My jab button does not like Fukua. I need to learn the timing on when to press jab in a combo out of j.HK I guess, which seems really weird.

- I don't do M Shadow resets enough and instead go for less good stuff more often than I should.

- Do j.LPHK when approaching instead of j.HK, j.LP is godlike.

- Fireball/Shadow spacing in neutral is ???. I need to figure out what more I can do besides reacting to keep them out.

- More later.

Spoiler: Bella [WIP]:

- Bella is the character where that on-the-fly reset stalling thing happens the most, easily. I need to think further in advance for what I'm doing with her.

- I can usually reaction reflect non-Robo projectiles from more than half screen away which is good! But half the time I still get LP LnL instead so work on reaction DP-ing. Also, read the situation to see if reflect is even a good idea, tipping the fact you can do it only to get blocked is an awful idea.

- Mix command grabs into pressure more, especially if I get them to block j.LK since nearly everyone downbacks after that. She's a grappler character for a reason after all.

- There are more BIG DAMAGE combos against heavies that I could be doing that are super easy. Learn those since they even save OTG.

- More later.

Cool, that's all the thoughtdump I have for now, here's some match videos:

Spoiler: List of Match Video Links [Updated 1/21/16]:

[01/19/2016] Stream vs. WingZero/Cloudking
[01/13/2016] Set vs. Liam
[01/05/2016] Set vs. WingZero
[01/04/2016] Set vs. Hirokuni
[12/22/2015] Set vs. Midiman
[11/20/2015] FT5 vs. Socks

I also do some random lab stuff and post it so that'll go down here in the last bin:

Spoiler: Lab Videos [Updated 1/21/16]:

Car is Minus Six
Bella/H Drill Incoming Study
Punish H Drill/Fireball pls
Double c.LK Burst Bait
Double/H Drill Happy Birthdays
Filia Corner Tech Chase Concept
Corner Meterless Air Throw Conversion for Valentine
Basic Burst Baits for Double
Double's Confirm Timings
Midscreen Diamond Drop Conversion feat. H Drill
Kill With Double Anywhere for 5 Bars

 

[Fosh]

New vids:
Car is Minus Six
Stream Archive [1/19/2016] vs. WingZero/Cloudking

Thoughtdump:

- Upback is way stronger than I ever gave it credit for. Granted, upbacking all the time is still a bad idea, but there was a good chunk of pressure I avoided by just doing it. In sets, I would think "I should probably stop upbacking because they'll notice and go low" a split second too late and get clipped by a low, so maybe that means I can make a good read on when to do it/not do it? It might be a better option than stand blocking against pressure if I'm expecting throw/overhead, but that requires taking in the current situation I'm in and reacting. tl;dr upbacking is okay in moderation, don't crutch on it, and make sure I notice when I'm getting reset low a lot if I think upback solves everything.

- My happy birthday combos as Double are strong now, which is good. There's been about a half dozen situations in the last few days where I land a stray hit on both characters and Double + Drill are able to bring it back to a corner. I guess that time in the lab is paying dividends against poor assist calls.

- My jab and forward button still doesn't agree with Fukua combos for some reason. This is definitely a mental block of mine somewhere and I need to learn to delay my buttons since I'm not hitting the ground nearly as quickly as I think I am in combos.

- When my reactions are super on point, I can confirm with Double c.LKHP into Slide/Drill. Again, time in the lab paying out. Tangentially related, make a mental note when people don't do anything about Double c.HP because that move feels super minus but people rarely call me out on it, lol.

- I should actually react to the opponent's position when I'm using Luger as a spacing tool instead of defaulting to L, 899t34kjfgd9kskl. This is a really REALLY bad habit of mine and I don't think there's much I can do besides force myself to think in a scramble which is hard.

- Excellabella/Flesh Step as an incoming mixup is super fucking rude but it only works against characters who don't have air supers. Stop doing it against Thresher/Gregor/Tympani, basically.

- I still don't use the fucking j.HPHK thing sage and peanuts do off of Excellabella when I'm out of undizzy. PLEASE ACTUALLY LAB THIS OUT, ME.

- I've gotten better about throwing M Shadow resets into the bag of tricks, but they're still not the primary reset when they probably should be.

- The Robo MU is hard, lol. I'm at least glad to hear from Liam that it's as much a challenge for him as it is for me. I really need to pay attention to my meter in the matchup if I can't get in because Gunshot Car DHC BFF is a really easy answer to the MU once I build the second meter. Then Robo can't really do anything and she melts.

- Still can't get that damn PBGC timing back, it's super obnoxious. I could just try mashing it out as much as possible, but that feels dirty. However, if it works, it works and I shouldn't really complain.

- Hard knockdown as Double into sj.HK + Drill is good pressure if I think they're scared to reversal. Especially if I get the timing where I can throw them as a bunch of hitboxes close in around them.

- Bella has a really strong reset game out of c.MK and I don't use it. Use it.

- Bella tag doesn't do anything against strong players because nearly everyone has anti-tag tech at this point.

- Where is the throw tech window in this game, blar. I feel like I read/react to the throw tech sometimes and things just don't happen. Might be a consequence of sloppy inputs [getting LPLKMKMP in some combination instead of throw which invalidates throw input].

- I'm getting better at reacting to hit/block from L Bomber which is good. If they block L Bomber, I shouldn't even bother wasting the meter to use Monster. Sometimes I do Monster DHC Fireball but the Fireball doesn't happen so I need to look at the DHC timing window for those supers.

- Organizing my thoughts about the game is super helpful.

- Speaking out loud about what I'm going to do when I play online is also super helpful since it guides my mind and hands on what do and prevents the lock-up thing from happening frequently. I need to figure out how to trick myself into doing this without needing to speak out loud so when I play offline I don't get locked up.

- The NorCal event is on Saturday and I'm super excited to meet people and play offline again AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. It's been like 6 months since I've played offline with anyone.

 

[mcpeanuts]

- I still don't use the fucking j.HPHK thing sage and peanuts do off of Excellabella when I'm out of undizzy. PLEASE ACTUALLY LAB THIS OUT, ME.

I stopped doing j.HP j.HK actually. I do j.LK (1 hit) j.MP (1 hit) j.HK instead now. I think this might even have been Sage's suggestion. It's less damage but I find it puts them at the height I want more consistently. I don't know if that helps you since you use Excellabella and not Beat Extend. It's neat though since you can always burst bait by doing j.LK j.MP j.HK land jump back j.LK, whereas the other way if you want to burst bait with j.LK you need to have used it somewhere else in the combo.

 

[Fosh]

I stopped doing j.HP j.HK actually. I do j.LK (1 hit) j.MP (1 hit) j.HK instead now. I think this might even have been Sage's suggestion. It's less damage but I find it puts them at the height I want more consistently. I don't know if that helps you since you use Excellabella and not Beat Extend. It's neat though since you can always burst bait by doing j.LK j.MP j.HK land jump back j.LK, whereas the other way if you want to burst bait with j.LK you need to have used it somewhere else in the combo.

Ah, okay. I've been messing with it a little bit and it looks like j.MPx2 HK and j.LKx3 j.HK both work well on not-BB/Double pretty consistently so far, plus it leaves the j.LK burst bait option open too so that's cool. Ends up working out mostly the same but it feels like the heights change a little bit from tiny spacing issues since it's a combo into Slide + Excella and that doesn't stop Double in the same place relative to Bella every time. I don't think I can get them high enough off of Excellabella to get the full 3 hit chain like you do without some real tight spacing further away from Bella and that just seems like it'd get too complicated too fast with different weights, etc.