Kizz's TL;DR Emporium

[Kizzercrate]

Day 1: This game is everything I've been missing ever since I stopped playing Marvel.
Day 1.5: Currently playing my first online matches. I'm flying by the seat of my pants here. Lord DHC, save me!

Now, for the longer stuff:

So I have a huge problem with Main Character Syndrome(TM). For some reason, I have to play the poster child of whatever fighting game it is because their playstyle just happens to fit mine. Filia seems to fill this role as part Magneto, part Millia with just a touch of Zato (yes drill lol). Outside of nailing down a midscreen confirm, I really enjoy her and am doing alright.

The problem is finding someone to go along with her. I'm honor bound to play Big Band as I'm a massive jazz head, but his style is a little more neutral-oriented and laid back than I'm used to. I have huge interest in Painwheel and Valentine, but I just haven't had the time to look into them yet.

The -other- problem, as it is in all new fighting games, is that you have an opponent. And especially in Skullresets, you're gonna get hit. A lot. And die. So the process of learning how to block or throw tech at common points is going to be a long deal.

The -other other- problem is learning the assist game. It was easier going from Marvel 2 > 3 because most of the assists stayed the same and you kinda knew what they all did. This is a completely different animal, though I'm ready to take the challenge.

The -other other other- problem is learning the Happy Birthday combos. But I can put that off until later after learning some neutral, a few decent confirms, and how to not die right off the bat.

But first...wtf can I use for a solid midscreen confirm as Filia? lol

 

[Kizzercrate]

I told myself today that I wasn't going to make the same mistake I make when learning a new fighter--I constantly want to stick myself in training room and hammer out combos and confirms before I go online/offline into real matches.

I firmly believe this is the completely incorrect way to go about things if you are experienced in fighting games in general.

I learned a very wild and painful lesson last night watching one of the locals play Guilty Gear: you don't need actual combos to win. I repeat--you do not need combos to win if your neutral game is solid and you know general fighting game concepts about controlling space and pressuring properly in the corner.

Also, you'll need to know two things about your character(s):

1) their general gameplan (zoning, rushdown, grappling, etc),
2) their best normals

Nothing really about specials or supers, because most people, new and old, experienced and fresh out the box, will find a way to over-rely on specials and have to go back all over again and learn how to use normals to properly control the match.

This works great for learning Filia, I've found. Big Band, however, is a completely different animal, especially since half of his air normals are 100% terrible for anything outside of combos (j.P buttons are...yeah). Honestly, Big Band is the most unique character I've learned on several fronts. And I love it.

 

[fenster]

I firmly believe this is the completely incorrect way to go about things if you are experienced in fighting games in general.

I learned a very wild and painful lesson last night watching one of the locals play Guilty Gear: you don't need actual combos to win. I repeat--you do not need combos to win if your neutral game is solid and you know general fighting game concepts about controlling space and pressuring properly in the corner.

Not really? It won't get you very far. Having fundamentals to not make silly approaches and mistakes is good, but none of that matters when you don't get appropriate damage when opponents hit you harder than you are hitting them. This is especially true for SG which is a combo heavy game. In this kind of game, views on neutral can be very skewed so its really not a good idea to get the wrong idea at first. Neutral IS important, but Neutral does not work if you don't back it up with appropriate damage for whatever respective game it is.

Not to mention, this is a reset heavy game in higher play, which necessitates knowing combos.

You play Big Band, and Big Band can mostly get away without doing big combos for a while which is okay, but your Filia play will suffer if you don't nail down your conversions and basics. You don't need to nail them 100% in every match, since after practicing them in lab you should find casual matches (or ranked ones in QM) and try them for a while. You'll probably mess them up a lot at first, but that's what the casual matches are for i.e. grinding out the stuff in training mode to get them to work in matches.

At the very least, learn a basic sequence of single ground chain->air chain-> ground chain into super. It will help you out far more than grinding out tons of matches against random people where all you get is a Filia jMP or jHP with no conversions and they mash assist or specials and wonder where you're going wrong.

Nothing really about specials or supers, because most people, new and old, experienced and fresh out the box, will find a way to over-rely on specials and have to go back all over again and learn how to use normals to properly control the match.

...This sounds dangerously close to "people just spam fireballs". Special moves are used so much BECAUSE they largely are super important, especially for certain characters. But not every character uses specials that much, in other fighting games and this one too.

To go through Street Fighter, Guile and Ryu absolutely need to control space with Fireballs to balance out their spacing tools and normals, but Dhalsim in comparison needs to use normals for space control because those are far better than his normal fireball. For SG, characters like Filia and Painwheel can be argued for not using as much special moves, which you would be correct on. But Big band's gameplan absolutely requires him to use and know the importance of his special moves. Starting out with normals with Big Band is a really bad idea because you will be missing half of his gameplay. I'd honestly rather you start with just working on Big Band spacing with Cymbals/Ground Throw/jLK before you start trying to figure out when to use some of BB's normals in neutral (like cMK/cMP/cHP).

 

[Kizzercrate]

Not really? It won't get you very far. Having fundamentals to not make silly approaches and mistakes is good, but none of that matters when you don't get appropriate damage when opponents hit you harder than you are hitting them. This is especially true for SG which is a combo heavy game. In this kind of game, views on neutral can be very skewed so its really not a good idea to get the wrong idea at first. Neutral IS important, but Neutral does not work if you don't back it up with appropriate damage for whatever respective game it is.

Not to mention, this is a reset heavy game in higher play, which necessitates knowing combos.

You're right. There's a balance. Neutral and fundamentals get you the hit (or not dead in the case of defense, which mine is sorely lacking), and combos make the opponent afraid of getting hit if you can prove that they'll pay for their mistakes. I've gotten better at showing that over the past seven months of taking fighting games super seriously, but I still have a LONG way to go in that regard.

I'll come back to the reset thing in a bit, 'cause that's a whole other set of questions I have.

You play Big Band, and Big Band can mostly get away without doing big combos for a while which is okay, but your Filia play will suffer if you don't nail down your conversions and basics. You don't need to nail them 100% in every match, since after practicing them in lab you should find casual matches (or ranked ones in QM) and try them for a while. You'll probably mess them up a lot at first, but that's what the casual matches are for i.e. grinding out the stuff in training mode to get them to work in matches.

At the very least, learn a basic sequence of single ground chain->air chain-> ground chain into super. It will help you out far more than grinding out tons of matches against random people where all you get is a Filia jMP or jHP with no conversions and they mash assist or specials and wonder where you're going wrong.

You called it exactly. I've had trouble nailing down Filia combos (ESPECIALLY midscreen) and living off of stray hits into half combos into American resets or I just get blocked and full punished. Part of that is just not having grinded enough or found consistent combo routes for myself, and part is having trouble getting proper timings to force restands, which I found out was a necessity after learning a bit of Eliza and Bella and struggling at the same point of restanding them mid-combo. It's something I've never had to really deal with in a fighting game and I'm getting a lot of drops and frustration because of it.

...This sounds dangerously close to "people just spam fireballs". Special moves are used so much BECAUSE they largely are super important, especially for certain characters. But not every character uses specials that much, in other fighting games and this one too.

Not everyone does, but I do, and that statement was me calling myself out more than anything. I'll usually find a niche set of moves and rely on them every single time to get me into or out of things which 1) makes me predictable, and 2) closes me off to other options I have in the same situation.

To go through Street Fighter, Guile and Ryu absolutely need to control space with Fireballs to balance out their spacing tools and normals, but Dhalsim in comparison needs to use normals for space control because those are far better than his normal fireball. For SG, characters like Filia and Painwheel can be argued for not using as much special moves, which you would be correct on. But Big band's gameplan absolutely requires him to use and know the importance of his special moves. Starting out with normals with Big Band is a really bad idea because you will be missing half of his gameplay. I'd honestly rather you start with just working on Big Band spacing with Cymbals/Ground Throw/jLK before you start trying to figure out when to use some of BB's normals in neutral (like cMK/cMP/cHP).

This is something I'll definitely start working on immediately. So far, all I really use is H Cymbal in neutral and mash ground throw when I get in trouble in the corner. I actually feel ashamed I haven't learned any conversions off of j.LK yet.



Now, about resets: As I watch a lot of streams and footage, I find myself asking a lot, "Why not just finish the combo?" I could be completely wrong on this, but so far from what I've seen, a lot of situations people go for resets during normal combos instead of spending 1 bar (or even 2 to DHC) for a kill and end up paying for it. I understand going for resets when the opponent is high on life or during a heavily-scaled combo (i.e. throw), but I don't understand why a good portion of people don't just spend the resources available to them during crunch time.

 

[fenster]

Now, about resets: As I watch a lot of streams and footage, I find myself asking a lot, "Why not just finish the combo?" I could be completely wrong on this, but so far from what I've seen, a lot of situations people go for resets during normal combos instead of spending 1 bar (or even 2 to DHC) for a kill and end up paying for it. I understand going for resets when the opponent is high on life or during a heavily-scaled combo (i.e. throw), but I don't understand why a good portion of people don't just spend the resources available to them during crunch time.

You'll have to point to me some examples of what you mean, but most of the time I usually see players spend meter appropriately to kill and very rarely do resets to kill when they could've spent meter. There are some other reasons though, like not using SSJ to kill since it loses corner spacing or using up a taunt, stuff like that.

 

[Pickles]

Now, about resets: As I watch a lot of streams and footage, I find myself asking a lot, "Why not just finish the combo?" I could be completely wrong on this, but so far from what I've seen, a lot of situations people go for resets during normal combos instead of spending 1 bar (or even 2 to DHC) for a kill and end up paying for it. I understand going for resets when the opponent is high on life or during a heavily-scaled combo (i.e. throw), but I don't understand why a good portion of people don't just spend the resources available to them during crunch time.

Like fenster said if a player is going for a reset when the opponent is almost dead than it's either a dropped combo turned into a reset (mistake), the player not realizing the health of the opponent (also a mistake), or it's a rare case where spending the meter will put you in a disadvantageous position (but this is NOT common). 99% of the time, if you can kill with a combo do it.
If it takes all 5 bars of your meter but it kills a character, do it. It's VEEEEEEEEERY rare that a good player who is aware of the situation in a match will not spend meter if spending it would have killed.

 

[skull person]

This is something I'll definitely start working on immediately. So far, all I really use is H Cymbal in neutral and mash ground throw when I get in trouble in the corner. I actually feel ashamed I haven't learned any conversions off of j.LK yet.

There's no penalty for jump in starters so just do jLK [3 Hits], land, your basic BnB.

More things:

(I'm just going to sort of talk about Big Band things I see and maybe some of this will be helpful, maybe a lot of it you will know and I'll look dumb. I'm not a Big Band player but I do play against a lot of the top Big Bands where I live.)

Spoiler

cHP is a really big hitbox and only -12 which is safe at a lot of spacings. It's great for beating out general jump ins, dashes into lows, and dashes into jumping buttons and the spacing game without putting yourself at as much of a risk of whiffing your DP.
When you input cHP hold DB so you can cancel it into L Brass which is only -6 and becomes even safer at most reasonable spacing ranges, and -4 if you hit them with the tip of it while sliding.
It does come with some risks itself if you hit the opponent late with the cHP and they are within sLP distance, as some characters do have really fast jabs that can punish L Brass up close with good timing.

cHK also can do the same thing but you can't combo off it if it hits, on block though you can go into L Brass again or L Giant Step which is an 18 frame overhead that you can convert off into full combos. cHK also breaks armor and air armor.

Cymbals is good, don't feel bad about using it a lot. The only time you have to be careful about it is vs characters with Projectiles that can shoot you. (Parasoul especially.)
jLK [1 Hit Only] > Cymbals is also really good because when people go to pushblock you out on the jLK you've already cancelled into Cymbals (You're not attacking them) so their PP input becomes a back dash and they get hit.
If they don't pushblock the first hit of jLK you can fast fall cancel that first hit with jHP and you'll be anywhere from +5 to +10 which set ups a lot of scary things while being next to your opponent, including a fuzzy guard with another instant jLK (> jMK > jHK/Air Super LVL1), tick throws and lows.

If you have assists to make M Brass and M A-Train safe like Hairball you can make some good reads and snag lots of hits on people jumping or hitting buttons since A-Train is unblockable if the opponent has any upwards momentum (jumping), and because M Brass has armor obviously.

Sometimes Big Band just has to throw out some buttons to catch people in dash start up or trying to hit him.
cMP cMP is active for a really long time and does it pretty well, it's -5 on the last hit, -2 for the first one.

You sort of have to make the read on if people will respect your blockstrings.
You have to watch out for people going for PBGC reversals but also keep them going with frame traps and also L Giant step for overheads when possible you think it will work. Calling an assist before L Giant Step to make it safer and to continue pressure is good.

Since Big Band doesn't have a low that he can convert off past the 'Lights' stage (cLK/sLK, cHK is a sweep so it doesn't work) a lot of times he'll have to stagger pressure for a long time and go back to cLK, so assists can be helpful in some of those blockstrings to disguise that.

Big Band is easy to pick up and do things but he does have some big character problems for sure.
Being in the air does eliminate a couple of those defensive things since he can't be hit high/low in the air, so know when to chicken block.

Hope some of these things help with Big Band brain storming, and I hope I didn't make any mistakes either ^^.

"Why not just finish the combo?"

This is just us being new to versus games. :^)
You should pretty much always finish the combo even if you need to spend four bars.

 

[Pickles]

There are better big band players than me but I can add a bit to what Skarmand said if you want bb advice.

Spoiler

c.hk has a longer range than it looks both horizontally and vertically, even though you can't combo off it it's a nice poke and of course hits low

Cymbals is good at midrange but don't use it at point blank it's REALLY easy to get hit out of startup.

Big band is a character that's a lot about making good reads, more than any other character IMO. If you can guess right on an a-train (guessing a jump) or h. brass (guessing something you can armor through) you get a hard knockdown and can play an oki game which bb is really good at.

http://skullheart.com/index.php?threads/big-band-compendium-read-this-for-combos.2853/ is a great one-stop resource to get you started on big band. With the combos, if you're having trouble with c.hk into beat extend you can do c.mp into beat extend instead and it works just as well.

The only sort of combo not mentioned here that I think every big band should know is an OTG-less combo (to preserve your knockdown so you can run oki after a-train/brass, I use:

c.lk s.mk (1 hit)
j.lk j.mk
s.lp s.mk
j.lp j.lk j.mk
c.lk c.mk s.hk
Take the A-Train (H)

but you might be able to find something better.

 

[Kizzercrate]

First of all, I'd just like to say I love you all.

In going back over videos, mainly Combo Breaker's pools and Saturday Night Salt, I think most of the "unnecessary resets" I saw were either drops or trolling. The better players looked like they either knew their meterless combo killed or spent the correct amount of bar to get the kill (or snap or whatever the situation called for).

And I'm slowly digesting all the Big Band info you guys posted here + in the character subforum. I've noticed a marked improvement in my play already (probably also because I'm learning what characters do and the game in general).

As such, I've switched to solo Band until I can do the same for another character (which, try as I might, probably shouldn't be Filia if I want to play at a higher level faster because someone like Eliza, Beowulf, or Peacock actually fits my strengths and playstyle better). I can't really "control" neutral with Filia and my execution is lacking as I can't even properly hit the restands in training mode.

I'll spend a good chunk of time in the afternoon in training mode nailing down more confirms and getting an idea of neutral with Eliza and/or Beo...probably Eliza first 'cause she's super cool.

 

[Kizzercrate]

Been a few days, so I thought I'd update. I did indeed end up picking Eliza, and I'm having a blast. I was playing Band/Eliza for a while until I realized that it's basically trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. Tonight I switched order to Eliza (Foot Dive)/Band (H Brass) and have been getting ridiculously good results. I also just got my first Outtake kill (killed their point and caught Filia slippin' as well and juggled her dead with c.MK c.HP ad infinitum), so I'm pretty stoked.

However, some of these games are not without issue.

First off, I'm going to have to learn more than one combo with each character...still. A better way to say this, perhaps, is learning conversions off of different stray hits I'm bound to land in a match. I can convert from a simple jump in and a low, but what about catching someone with Horus, picking up a Peacock from full screen with Anubis command grab, or pretty much anything Big Band does?

Secondly, I'm now beginning to understand -why- resets are necessary. I've been living off of landing the one Eliza combo I know (from whatever confirm I can pick up) into...well, repeating the combo ad nauseum until Undizzy triggers against solos, or a confirm into level 1 super to kill. I'm assuming an early reset (or two!) helps to slow this effect and net me larger damage overall and better stage position. The task now is to pick one or two easy or common points to reset (one with throw, one with mixup) and get those under my fingers.

Third, Squigly. I'm pretty sure that character is the bane of my existence, especially with Big Band. Getting blown out by that ridiculous jumping full-screen multi-hit serpent attack has left me several levels of frustrated, because I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to approach without armor yet, and she takes that away from me as well (also screw SBO just because lol).

But I'm making progress overall a LOT faster than I thought I would. I just have to study a lot more tape and figure out what I can do and when I can do it. And most importantly, I'm having way too much fun.


P.S. I'm really sad I couldn't go to the SG event they had in Chicago today as it was poor timing for me due to life circumstances. Would've loved to have a chance to get blown up by Duckator or Fenster or Kai or Callisto and pick their brains. I'll make it a point to be at the first post-Evo gathering.

 

[fenster]

P.S. I'm really sad I couldn't go to the SG event they had in Chicago today as it was poor timing for me due to life circumstances. Would've loved to have a chance to get blown up by Duckator or Fenster or Kai or Callisto and pick their brains. I'll make it a point to be at the first post-Evo gathering.

Oh word? You're in Chicago? Yeah don't feel bad, it was literally an event that I heard about the night before it happened. Hopefully the next time they have an SG thing it'll be more advertised so you can see and better fit your schedule in advance.

As for BB vs Squigly, I feel like you have ot play it the same way you have to play a lot of BB MUs in general, where a lot of characters can jump back + do thing and you just simply have to dahs and jump and block to get your way in patiently until they are cornered. Once they are cornered, they usually still try to jump away like before, but now you are in a train/throw/air throw range so you can catch them trying to be too defensive. Early jLKs on the way up on your jump can be good too, but in general don't try to hit Squigly doing jHP cause it's pretty tough for BB to hit unles you have an assist to back you up. Fortunately, Squigly can't escape the super easily so just muscle your way in. Also, imo, don't use cymbals for this MU unless you see Squigly specifically on the ground.

 

[Kizzercrate]

So, I'm alive and well, and I went to my first offline Skullgirls tournament, featuring Duckator and Elda Taluda crushing everyone in their path. For one, it was super hype. For two, I ended up playing Duck in the second round (though "playing" is a bit of a misnomer--it was more like me holding the stick while Valentine went nuts). For three, and perhaps the most important, I didn't have tournament nerves. I'm not sure if that's because I'm more used to being in tourney because of Guilty Gear, the more laid back scene that was present tonight, the fact that I -knew- I didn't know what I was doing, or some mixture of the three, but I had a self-aware moment as I was piloting Eliza through a BnB:

"Isn't this where you're supposed to get nervous?"
"Huh, you're right. Wonder where that idea went. Besides, you stayed up until 5 AM two nights in a row learning this combo--you better not drop it."

Hopefully this is a new page in a more calm, collected, and mentally prepared tournament Kizz.

I'll TL;DR the tournament:

Round 1 was against a solo Big Band: I pretty much just mashed out Eliza's BnB with a throw reset here and there and lots of H Brass and took it rather convincingly.

Round 2: Duckator. I learned two very valuable lessons here: one is that Double's Cere-booty assist (IDK the legit name) is extremely annoying and oppressive and I have to find ways around it. The other is what I call the Sentinel rule: in fast paced games like this and Marvel, instant overheads on the big-bodied characters is not only encouraged, but expected. I even saw a couple of crazy setups that another Val player did to another Big Band player and was like "Man, that looks ugly. I should be prepared for when that happens to me." I was not prepared.

Round 3: I took the first game rather convincingly, he took the second rather convincingly, and the third game came down to my 15% health Eliza killing his Big Band midscreen. His Filia was coming in and was in health range for me to combo into level 3 and kill him; the problem was that I didn't have anything prepared for his incoming and I ended up losing the scramble and the match.

So two things to improve in my gameplay for next time:

1) learning a combo with Sekhmet and becoming comfortable deploying her in neutral situations to bust up my opponent's gameplans

2) learning Beowulf. I could be completely wrong here, but I can have Beo fill sort of the same effect I had with Big Band by using his sliding chair assist. But the important part is that I'd have a character that I feel comfortable with using as something other than just an assist. Beo seems very heavily neutral-based, which is right up my alley. He still has a ridiculous reversal super (Bionic Arm) and he does one thing Big Band doesn't: control the air-to-air game, which is very important to me.

So it's time to hit the lab. And the forums. And the videos. But mostly the lab.

 

[Elda Taluda]

-I went to my first offline Skullgirls tournament-

MORE OF THIS. We need more people to show up to events and gatherings to keep this game going. So ,first let me say thanks for showing up! It means alot! Secondly, if you have SG on steam and ever want to play or ask for advice let me know. I'm always willing to help out if and when I can.

 

[Kizzercrate]

I'll definitely take you up on that offer. Once I get more comfortable and familiar with the game in general, I'll get with you.