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I Have No Defense, and I Must Scream

nuclearpotatosa

nuclearpotatosa

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NuclearPotato
Parasoul Fukua Cerebella
It feels like I'm starting to hit a glass ceiling when it comes to improving myself, and my depression isn't helping me rate myself objectively, so I've decided to open this thread up to get better advice on what to work on, and to chronicle where I'm going in this game. I'll try to update this weekly, with footage of myself in online tournaments, if possible (a bit more convenient then recording myself, since this toaster doesn't do very well in that regard). This is the most recent footage I found of myself (skip to around 34:50 if the video doesn't start there):


I'm still cringing at how I dropped that second round.

Most of the work I'm doing seems to go into Fukua; for whatever reason, I'm having trouble progressing with Parasoul. So many of my problems seem to stem from execution issues; accidentally hot-tagging out is a bit less frequent than it was last year, but still happens way too often for my tastes. My Parasoul frequently gets rocked when I try to switch away from holding back and accidentally do a Tear Toss; for whatever reason, I have trouble returning my dpad to a neutral state. I wonder if it's worth the trouble and cost to switch to stick. I'm looking at adding Robo-Fortune to the team, but haven't started seriously practicing with her yet. The main thing I'm trying to work on right now is Fukua's reset loop, as seen in dekillsage's video here:


I think that's enough to start. More later.
 
Current team: Fukua (H Drill)/Parasoul (Pillar) (position changes depending on how I feel about the match)

Possible Secondaries: Cerebella (H LnL)/Big Band (H Brass)/Robo-Fortune (H BEEM)
 
Something I realized last night while playing on Skullgirls Slapfest was that I lose my groove very easily when playing for an extended amount of time. The reason why is because I've been playing a very set team (the aformentioned Fukua/Parasoul team, with Robo occasionally swapped out for Fukua) and I get stuck in bad patterns. After a lobby switch though, I started using Bella/Band, and felt a lot more invigorated with my playing. With that in mind, I think I'm going to devote the rest of the week to training up Bella and Robo (despite me subbing her into my main team at a few points, I still don't have a great grasp on Robo-Fortune yet), so I can start switching up characters more and keep things fresh.
 
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I cannot play Skullgirls while off my antidepressants ever again. Tonight was horrible, and I cannot let that happen again.
 
If I may: I have salt trouble, too. It is, unfortunately, a fundamentally frustrating genre. It's very easy to feel trapped and helpless. Finding ways to create your own variety may help. This is why I try alternating my teams and playing solo every now and then. By the time I've run out of color palettes I like, I figure one way or another I should probably stop playing for the night.

I hope that'll help.
 
Variety is something I definitely need to work on, and not just in character choices (which are expanding drastically for me; I've started learning Peacock again, and I'm considering picking up Fortune and Valentine as well). A lot of my neutral game feels like it's getting very stale in general; feels like I'm getting stuck in patterns, which I get swiftly punished for. I'll have to watch more match videos this week and work on getting more long sets with people.

Far as the salt's concerned, I played in Monday Night Blockbuster today and felt pretty good afterward, despite going 2-0 in both my matches, so last night was just a case of my depression hitting me pretty hard. I'll still probably give Skullbats a miss until I've got my meds again though.
 
To-do list this week:

Fukua: Keep working on that reset loop; start incorporating L Shadow into blockstrings more. Also need to remember not to throw shadows when the opponent is right in my face.
Robo-Fortune: Uhhhh keep learning Robo-Fortune. In particular, get a full version of one of her combos down so that it's not so much a blow-up if a dude gets in my face.
Parasoul: Get better at using Tear Toss/Detonate. This one in particular is going to take a while.
Cerebella: Optimize the timing on her BnB.
Peacock: Uhhhh also keep learning Peacock. Needs a lot more work than Robo does atm.
 
Depression sucks ass. Forgetting to up one's anti-depression prescription sucks more ass. After taking the week off to deal with that fun shit, I've come back only to get quickly mindfucked, with large amounts of missed inputs not helping matters any.

SO.

First thing to do this week is to bust the rust, and get those inputs back to an acceptable level. For Fukua and Cerebella, that shouldn't be too big a deal, but Parasoul has an additional problem, one that's been around for a while, and has been getting in the way all too much. Because I'm so used to buffering her charge inputs for combos, more often then not, when I end up crossing up my opponent for whatever reason, my attempts to switch the side of the charge result in Napalm Toss coming out, at which point results in death and destruction getting brought down upon the good princess. So that's gonna change, no matter how long it takes.

With any luck, getting back into having regular matches should help keep me from getting mindfucked into a defeatist attitude, so that's not as big of a concern. Not being constantly depressed should do my enthusiasm wonders.
 
Just finished up a decently long QM session. Something I've been noticing quite a bit:

-My Fukua is actually pretty good! Good enough to bring me back from the brink of defeat even, though not consistently.
-My Parasoul, on the other hand, is super inconsistent. Sometimes she can be good enough to bully the hell out of the opponent, but most of the time, she tends to get bodied, hard.

Probably going to focus most of my training this week on ParaBella, with most of Fukua's training devoted to incorporating L Shadow blockstrings into my real play, and getting my L and M Shadow conversions solid.

EDIT: ONE MORE THING.

-My defense in the corner is ass. You could say that about my defense in general, but in the corner, it's really bad, especially with Parasoul. So that's something to focus on too, though I'm not really sure how to practice it. Anyone got any tips on this?
 
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nuclearpotatosa said:
My defense in the corner is ass. You could say that about my defense in general, but in the corner, it's really bad, especially with Parasoul. So that's something to focus on too, though I'm not really sure how to practice it. Anyone got any tips on this?
Learn the right spots to pushblock and know what your options are after a pushblock. The former is character specific; something like Eliza c.LK c.MK, if you pushblock on the c.LK she's not actually going anywhere, the c.MK moves her forward (but this can be good too, since if you see it and you're ready to react, you can guard cancel to punish it). The latter is like, well I don't play Parasoul, but I imagine dash j.LP or dash air grab or dash s.LP or something would all be good options. Whatever you have that's good from that exact spacing. Be careful since a lot of people will call Updo/Beat Extend/etc assists here to keep you in the corner if you get desperate to get out. Don't be afraid to reversal if your opponent is being overly aggressive (esp since Pillar xx Bikes is a true block string in the corner and plus on block (although it's still PBGC punishable obv)).
 
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nuclearpotatosa said:
I've already picked out a couple of bad things I was doing in this set (I'm way too predictable trying to close the distance with Bella, for one), but I'm sure some of you guys can find more holes in my game for me to plug.
You already mentioned this but I will echo it so you know you're on the right track, you get impatient trying to get in with Bella. You're doing a ton of LnL from full screen which is like, this is not really a good option at neutral most of the time. At best it's gonna hit them for like 1500 or whatever it is and if you're a god maybe you can hit confirm to Dynamo, then you're back to neutral. At worst they're going to whiff punish into full combo. It would be better to not commit to a special move and just watch what your opponent is doing so you can try to punish whiffs, dash forward when you see an opening, f.HP their assist, etc.

Your round openers are kinda weird. Like, game 3, you start the game with jump forward air grab. I don't think this was the best option at the time. First off it's a high risk read (you could run into luger, c.HP, jump back j.HP into call assist into full combo, etc) with low reward (hard knockdown with no combo). Furthermore Fuzzy hadn't shown you anything that would make this read a good idea. You're reading jump forward at round start, which he hadn't done yet. Maybe you're thinking ahead and figuring that since he hadn't jumped at you, he would do it now to throw you off? You might be in a few yomi layers too deep. Fuzzy hadn't lost a character in this set and definitely didn't feel threatened so there's no reason to think he would deviate from his game plan.

You try to push buttons while getting hit too much. Game 1 you get knocked down in the corner, Fuzzy neutral jumps while blocking and you wake up with fireball super. You have better reversal options, and even if that was a good reversal it was not going to hit while Double was above you; you need to watch what your opponent is doing. You also try to tech out of the corner then Dynamo, but that put you far enough away that hitstop ran out before the Dynamo made contact. You also got hit with a same side Double j.MK while you were cornered and Fuzzy didn't have a way to cross you up. A lot of these situations you would have been fine if you just blocked. (You did block his hard-to-blockable once though so nice job on that).

In all 3 games Fuzzy gets the first hit because you threw a bad fireball:
-Game 1: You throw a jumping H fireball from within range of Double's j.HP
-Game 2: You throw a grounded M fireball and it trades with Double s.HP
-Game 3: You throw jumping H fireball, double Double jumps over it and hits you with j.HP
Basically the fireball spacing could use work. You don't always have to do a jumping H fireball, you could also neutral jump double jump L fireball, that's a good option if you think they're about to approach. For Double in particular you know what she wants to do is j.HP to get in, so try to bait her into it. You can either try to get it to whiff then whiff punish it, or if you're too close for that option, run under it and trip guard Double when she lands.

You don't call your assist like ever! Granted I am not a huge fan of Cerecopter at neutral and I sort of get annoyed when I get hit by it, but it's the only assist you got and if you never call it you may as well play solo Fukua for the extra damage. You can still like jump back call it and let it act as a wall for you while it's active, which you can use to control how your opponent approaches.
 
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I don't set enough goals for myself, so here we go:

Ultimate goal at the end of the road: Become competitive in SG, instead of getting stomped at every turn.

Current incremental goal: Learn Double BnB's; switch over to piano-style inputs on my FC4 for a theoretical move to stick. Also must get Fukua's j.HK>j.HP pressure down, and get my BFF followups in gear.

Training goals: Try to get in 30 minutes of practice mode, and 2-3 sets with people a day. If people unavailable, then QM a bit, maybe 30 min-1 hour.
 
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Did Get Gr8 today, I'll post that footage for second opinions once it's uploaded (not that the advice from commentary wasn't useful; listening to it helped me adjust during the second match, but it's nice to have second opinions), and going to throw down a couple other goals for my Parasoul:

-I need to find a better BnB for midscreen. The one I'm using right now has a bad tendency to whiff when not in people's faces.
-Speaking of being in people's face, that's something I should probably be doing less of. Commentary noted I was going a little too ham with her, and I payed for it just about every time. With that in mind, I need to get back to using my Napalm Shot a lot more; I'm much worse at it than I was even 5-6 months ago. (I blame my hammy Parasoul on my Fukua main-ing; her whole gameplan rubbed off on my Soul a little too much, methinks).

I'm going to start working with a Parasoul/Double team this week to get the rust off my Parasoul and to get the feel of Double under my hands; I'm starting to get consistent with Double's barrel loops, at the very least. That said, I'll probably stick with the Fukua/Bella team I've been using for the past few months if I enter Skullbats and/or the Chicago monthly that's coming up.
 
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ONE MORE THING

I'm pushing getting my chicken blocking down to the forefront of my to-do list, because Lightning's Parasoul/Fukua team was zoning me the fuck out today, and I had a hell of a time remembering to get my blocks down.

(Also, for some reason I had trouble with my Fukua/Bella gameplan until I switched to the solo versions of them. Weird.)
 
So it's been a while since I posted here, and several things happened in the intern:

1: I finally got a new computer again, and a desktop with a wired connection at that, so I've managed to start playing regularly again. (hurray!)

2: I retired my old pad, and got myself a stick. I think I'll be happier with this in the long run; it's certainly allowed me to play trio on console far easier than when I was relying on macros, but there are still a ton of growing pains with this. Dashing, for instance, is still an issue sometimes, especially to the left. I've got Undizzy coming up this Saturday, so I'll get some opinions on my stick technique there.

3: My current team has for the most part solidified into Parasoul/Double/Cerebella, though as you'll see in the footage I'm posting shortly, I will occasionally drop one or both of those characters depending on the matchup. I was already leaning away from Fukua post-2E+ since I'm not as good at pulling off her new gameplan, but have only touched her once or twice since I started playing with the stick. I'm actually thinking about picking up Filia at some point, but that'll wait until I'm solid with the main team.

And now, the gameplay footage. This is a FT7 I did for Fizzxwizz's kumate last Saturday; I went exclusively with Para/Bella the whole time, since I wasn't too confident with my Double BB combos. Footage starts at around 36:30 in the video:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/123035936
 
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