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Mr Peck's Comical Character Crisis

Mr Peck said:
It's more that once I block brass or a tear explosion, even from fullscreen, I struggle to escape from being locked down by brass + projectiles. there are gaps in the pressure that are big enough for me to call an invincible or armored assist, or one with a fast startup, but nowhere near big enough for me to call something like H beam. It's kinda like how the Peacock mirror can be really hard if one Peacock has no assists and the other one has something like brass.

I guess that's the specific thing I should work on for the time being.
Maybe try PBGC > super jump sometimes to just give yourself some breathing room and possibly get your footing back?
 
H Beam destroys brass and is a natural counter to that assist. But there are things the brass user can do.

Other counters to brass are sweep assists/cilia slide.

When it comes to point counters there are many.
Beam is one of the best counters to brass in the entire game though. For the entire duration of the beam, brass can't be called... And in SG that's like a million years.to protect against this the brass user has to either call brass smarter, like... After beam is recovering.

Or step in front of the beam with their point character and eat the active frames so brass has a chance to startup.
 
Dime said:
H Beam destroys brass and is a natural counter to that assist. But there are things the brass user can do.

Other counters to brass are sweep assists/cilia slide.

When it comes to point counters there are many.
Beam is one of the best counters to brass in the entire game though. For the entire duration of the beam, brass can't be called... And in SG that's like a million years.to protect against this the brass user has to either call brass smarter, like... After beam is recovering.

Or step in front of the beam with their point character and eat the active frames so brass has a chance to startup.
His problem seems to be that he doesn't have the space to call HP Beam to beat out Brass due to the startup, not that the assist can't beat brass.
 
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FWIW I don't think Beam assist destroys brass. When I play with Brass on a team, I've never encountered any difficulties since Beam has fairly long startup that gives you plenty of time to adjust around as the Brass user as long as you aren't calling it at obvious times and aren't playing one of the characters brass isn't effective against (like against Val).
 
I don't play this game anymore, really (doesn't mean I won't ever play it again seriously or anything) so I didn't watch the kumite. But after hearing that peck was having trouble getting his assist out I thought... How the hell does that happen...

So I watched some of the match. First beam assist called got hit brass. I saw "the problem" right off the bat... Well what I would consider the problem anyways:


Pecks a good player so of course he wants to protect his assists, so he I guess has patterns where he doesn't leave his assist hanging and can instead keep them close to protect them... Normally not a bad thought process.


But as I see him calling the assist that first time I realize... He waited to see that "it was safe" to call his assist. He saw the pushblock and then reacted with a jhk and call assist.... As he was coming down from his jump... That the mistake... As he was coming down.

You really want to get beam out as fast as possible in assist wars... So it's a better look to call it out as you are going up... Not as you are about to land (he actually did it at the peak of his jump. If one watches that assist call, you can see that had pecks assist call been...maybe 5 to 10 frames earlier it more than likely would have stuffed brass.

Now... The thing is, this requires peck to "hang" his assist. Instead of him and his assist landing together, his peacock will land behind the beam assist.., and effectively "leave robo out to dry"

But is it really leaving robo out to dry? It would more than likely have beaten brass, so brass isn't the issue.. So that leaves parasoul... Parasoul can't really punish the assist because she's up against peacock who can just drop a level 1 item or whatever she wants basically to parasoul if parasoul tries to punish.

Yes calling the assist is murky this way... It could get stuffed in startup, zek could just call his brass faster... But the thing to realize here is how strong peacock is when she has beam on screen.


Tldr, he just needs to call the assist sooner and stop trying to play "perfect" so to speak. You will wiff assists and some will get hit. But you will notice a certain amount of counterplay you get, and you will probably notice that said counterplay will open up more possibilities for your game.


The best streetfighter players have a bit of that risk in their games to keep people on their toes.


What zek did there is he pushblocked peacock, the natural thing to do after that is to immediately call your anti zoning assist since you just pushed the zoning character into there preferred range.


Anywho like I said, I don't play this anymore really so take it with however many grains of salt as you feel like doing.
 
Dime said:
Call beam earlier in neutral because of the longer startup
I've been watching my replays and I think you're right. I'm calling it the way I used to call bomber and hairball, when I should be taking the extra startup into account and calling it as early as possible in neutral. Obviously there are risks that come with that, but it's a good start.

As for the problem of escaping from projectile+brass pressure, I've been working on chicken blocking brass and punishing it with pillar assist or j.LP. After practicing it in training mode, the round start of my first quickmatch (vs peacock + brass) was: hold back, see brass assist call, chicken block and pillar punish, land and call H item drop and wait to see if they try to punish or teleport, then hit them with argus when they tried to punish brass. Then I got hit in the back of the head with a Beowulf tag five seconds later, but everything up until that point was pretty good. I just gotta keep working on it.
 
Mr Peck said:
I've been watching my replays and I think you're right. I'm calling it the way I used to call bomber and hairball, when I should be taking the extra startup into account and calling it as early as possible in neutral. Obviously there are risks that come with that, but it's a good start.

As for the problem of escaping from projectile+brass pressure, I've been working on chicken blocking brass and punishing it with pillar assist or j.LP. After practicing it in training mode, the round start of my first quickmatch (vs peacock + brass) was: hold back, see brass assist call, chicken block and pillar punish, land and call H item drop and wait to see if they try to punish or teleport, then hit them with argus when they tried to punish brass. Then I got hit in the back of the head with a Beowulf tag five seconds later, but everything up until that point was pretty good. I just gotta keep working on it.


Yeah, just call it earlier. Don't be afraid of using it as a meatshield sometimes... It's gotta be done. The thing about calling it earlier/ closer to the opponent right before you run away is that if brass does hit it, brass gets stopped early instead of going fullscreen and peacock gets a nice punish of her choice on the assist. Something as innocuous as a bomb or item drop, or as much as bang xx argus xx beam for some mighty damage, especially if it's to punish an assist and especially if you dhc into level 2 beam. Can't remember how your team was made and whether or not it has this capability, but keepaway peacock is basically a character that can hang her assists and punish the opponent hard for trying to do anything about it.

But it isn't a free win against brass, brass users can play smart and stop calling it so obviously and use it mostly as a counter call.... But peacock can stop that on reaction by argusing brass before it hits her assist. Of course it takes meter but that's still a damn good punish when peacock can already punish assists well.

And of course don't forget that you can counter call with beam if you want to... You don't HAVE to get out beam first, it does fine as a counter call. Because peacock is who she is, she does well to bait out brass then do like fake teleport and have beam cover it and if you don't want to counter call with beam... Then just counter call with pillar.

It's just my opinion but your team really seems like it should destroy the one zek played. At least from what I've played on SG. I've certainly used peacock plus beam against parasoul plus brass and I... Well let's just say that the matchup didn't bother me at the time.


Of course zeknife is on a completely different level than the parasouls I had to play against but I digress.
 
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something i wanted test because i was curious: if you stand block H brass assist (not land cancel), you recover in time to call h beam and it will hit BB just before he leaves (he takes his hat off and then gets hit). Of course there are lots of factors going on in a match that would affect when you can call assists but just something to note.
 
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Also peck, something theory I just thought of... Won't be a mainline tactic but might get you some counterplay... Is in situations where h beam will be slow... You might be able to protect its startup with peacocks slide.. So a timing of call beam and then slide or some such... If brass comes out, slide beats it, if brass doesn't come out, then beam protects the slide, and the slide can still be canceled into whatever you want.. Like a bomb or item drop.

So yeah, an option coverage pattern for use against brass calls designed to hit your assists startup.

This is just theory though. I don't know if peacocks slide will low profile brass, or if it will win at all so it's something you might want to check out.

I personally use these types of option coverage patterns all day with all teams that I play, it's just just based on what options I'm trying to cover that I vary tactics.
 
Dime said:
. I don't know if peacocks slide will low profile brass, or if it will win at all
Yes, and yes
 
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I haven't had a lot of free time recently but that's starting to change, so I've been trying to improve as much as I can. I almost lost to Sanji in Skullbats top 8 last weekend so I put some training mode time into finding ways to deal with Beowulf's tools. I have lots of ideas for how I want to change my gameplan and approach the matchup in general, but this was just about finding ways to punish people who go nuts with his invincible/armored moves. Here are some things I found:

Beating Arm:
- Alpha counter into Napalm Pillar punishes Beowulf's Arm->Lenny DHC if (and only if) you alpha counter before the second super flash.
- You can call assists after the arm super flash, even from point blank. Your point character still gets hit while your assist is coming in so the assist will just stand there and taunt, but it blocks Beowulf's forward movement and stops him from getting a followup combo on your point character.
- Do air resets on Beowulf so you don't have to worry about arm in the first place. Just watch out for the inevitable Beat Extend alpha counter.

Beating H Chair Toss:
- It's obviously not throw-invincible, so if Beowulf is out of meter you can go for safe throw attempts and cover them with an assist. Just like Eliza, basically.
- Unlike Eliza's 15 frame DP, the startup is SLOW. 25 frames. So not only does this give you safejumps for days (and meaty throws, like I just mentioned), it gives both Peacock and Parasoul safe high/low mixups after a hard knockdown:
- Parasoul can do the burst bait j.HP pseudo-hard knockdown setup into meaty f+HP or c.LK then buffer downback c.MK plus an assist, and if Beowulf goes for chair toss the first move will whiff, c.MK won't come out, and the assist will come in while Parasoul is blocking the chair and counterhit him for a full combo followup.
- Peacock can throw out an L george after a midscreen throw, or charge item > M george after a corner throw, and go for a safe meaty c.MK or IAD j.LP. She gets a free combo from the george/item if Beowulf went for chair toss.

Beating Chairless Sweep
- You can punish this from miles away if you jump over it and start your punish combo with any jump in or an M item drop.
- Napalm Pillar assist's ground hitbox has huge horizontal range. You can block and call Pillar just before the sweep hits you to get a pillar>item>argus>teleport punish from a surprisingly long distance.
- Argus punishes it on block if you want to spend the meter
- The safe anti-chair toss oki setups I listed also work against chairless sweep, as long as Beowulf lets the whole move play out and doesn't cancel it into arm. This is because the long sweep startup combined with the hitstop from any absorbed hits gives you enough time to react and reversal through his sweep.
- Also: sweeps, throws, the usual anti-armor stuff.

Beating Blitzer:
- When you're in the corner and Beowulf air blitzers above you then tries to make it safe by blitzering diagonally downback away from you, it's just close enough that Peacock can punish it with microdash s.LP>c.MK into full combo. Don't even wait for the dash to start moving you forwards, just do f,f+LP so you get a tiny bit of momentum on the s.LP. I ended up in this blitzer situation often enough that it was worth learning this specific punish. Other characters can punish it much more easily, but at first it felt like Peacock didn't have a consistent punish option.

Other:
- Now I have multiple safe Peacock air resets on Beowulf. Ho ho ho.
- Not really Beowulf specific, but H bang (1 hit) + call Robo H beam assist is a good replacement for raw H bang (3 hits). The beam doesn't hit most crouchers but it's safe on block, it still beats armor just as well as H bang, and on hit it lets you charge an H item>argus into teleport for a 1 bar conversion. I need to start building this into my zoning patterns.
 
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Mr Peck said:
Beating Arm:
It looks like you're talking about Arms that Beowulf does while you're resetting him. I also wanna mention though if he does Arm from full screen to counter your zoning, you can Lenny on reaction then block. The hitstop on Arm runs out before it reaches full screen.
 
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Hey Peck. I was messing around with Peacock with H Beam a bit just now. I think I have an easier way to get into the item drop reset / loop the reset.

Basically you do whatever combo into whatever restand into

s.LP s.MP c.MK s.HP + call Robo xx M item (hold),
dash j.MK j.HK

Then either dash to cross under, dash briefly then crouch to go same side, or you can air grab. The short dash for same side isn't necessary, I just think it'll make it harder to react if you go same side since they can't rely on Peacock dashing as a visual cue.

What seems really good about this to me is that once you do the left/right and they get hit with item drop, as long as the item drop hits them while they're in the air (which you want anyways, it removes their ability to raw tag or use ground reversals), you don't have to worry about them crouching and making the beam assist whiff on hit. Also the reset is only two strings so it works no matter how much undizzy you're at, so you can just keep doing it forever until they die.

Tested this on every character, seems to work on everyone (I thought for sure the air grab wouldn't work on Double but it does)
 
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Nooooo I already do this, don't tell everyone my tech before Combo Breaker ;_;

Really though, it'll probably help out other people using Peacock + beam so thanks for posting it! The other great thing about that version of the reset is that once people expect it, there are a bunch of other variations that mess with the timing and catch them off guard.
 
O ok. The last I saw you play was EU Skullbats grand finals against Sanji where it looked like you were still doing call robo + charge item > s.LP s.MK > j.LK j.HK so I thought I'd make a post about it
 
RemiKz said:
His problem seems to be that he doesn't have the space to call HP Beam to beat out Brass due to the startup, not that the assist can't beat brass.
It's almost 3 months later and H beam's long startup is still a huge problem, even though I've heavily adjusted my playstyle to try and account for it. It's fine in some cases but there are too many matchups where it's a huge liability, compared to almost any other zoning assist. If I keep playing point Peacock after Combo Breaker there's a good chance I'll be making some changes so I don't have to use this assist any more. I'm aware that McPeanuts and Mike both think that H beam is fine for Peacock, but I honestly don't think they'd feel that way if they had to try and make it work themselves.

edit: hmmm, maybe it's time to bring this back after Combo Breaker
 
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Combo Breaker is over! I had fun! I ended up in top 16 where I lost 2-3 to Wing, but there's currently a huge skill gap between me and the top 2 or 3 players. Time to work on catching up with them!

Playing my sets and watching other people play, especially 159man, made me realise something. Lots of people in this community equate "this team/assist has to work harder in some neutral situations" with "this team/assist is bad", but I no longer think that's the case. I'm even making that mistake in the post directly above this one! In that example Peacock has to *work hard* to get started against a brass team but if she manages it, she gets a huge reward for doing so. Even when I lost horribly in a long casual set vs Dekillsage's Beo/Fukua/Brass team, it didn't feel like I needed a better anti-brass assist to beat him. Similarly, 159man's Squigly and M A-Train team has a harder time getting started than some teams, but if you watch how he makes it work against top players and see the ridiculous setups he gets, you'd be hard pressed to insist that he should drop A-Train for Beat Extend or Brass.

So if he can do that, I can switch teams to something a bit more weird and choose to sacrifice a bit of easy neutral control to get strong setups instead. I'm much more happy to zone and play patiently than I was 6 months ago, which hopefully showed in my recent matches, so I'm itching to bring back Painwheel and use H pinion assist for zoning and conversions. Previously I wanted s.MK assist so I could rush people down, and then I dropped Painwheel because she couldn't rush down 24/7, but I'm happy to bring her back with a more patient playstyle. Parasoul was only on my team for the DP assist (which I don't need) and because I thought I might end up liking her if I played her more (I didn't) so she's gone again, and I'm keeping Robo anchor but switching her assist to hidden missiles for crazy setups and resets. Also, last month I switched back from Peacock s.HP assist to boxcar because I would rather have more chip damage for zoning than a Robo throw conversion, but H pinion gives her throw conversions anyway so now I have the best of both worlds.

So the full team is: Peacock (boxcar) / Painwheel (H pinion) / Robo Fortune (hidden missiles, aka headdrone salvo). Kinda wacky, but it's going to be strong when I make it work.
 
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Mr Peck said:
So the full team is: Peacock (boxcar) / Painwheel (H pinion) / Robo Fortune (hidden missiles, aka headdrone salvo). Kinda wacky, but it's going to be strong when I make it work.

Can I ask why you're using missiles instead of beam? I'd have thought it would be extremely useful to have beam coverage to do Peacock things.

Also please pick Cable/Sent/Spiral colours kthnx.
 
Missiles are because I'm happy to play without beam, so I'm going to see what setups I can get out of missiles. It feels like there's some really strong stuff just waiting to be discovered. Maybe some chip patterns with repeated tenrai-ha and missiles. Things get really clowny really fast once it gets going, and that's how I like to play. I can always fall back to s.HP or beam if missiles doesn't work, but it's going to work.

I like my lilac Peacock and Terminator Robo too much to change them, but I might use Sentinel Painwheel. I keep switching between the Red, Green, Sentinel and LK+MK (black + light blue) palettes, so I don't know which I'll end up with.
 
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This probably isn't the right place for this, but I don't know where else would make sense.

PSA for people who play against me or watch me play: I'm happy with my team, and I enjoy all three of my characters. Please don't tell me to drop characters from my team, or to replace them with old characters I used to play. I've barely played any sets in the past week, but people still managed to tell me to drop 2 characters (Painwheel and Robo) from my main team and to add 4 other characters to it (Parasoul, Filia, Cerebella, Big Band). I know you're trying to help, but it happens almost every time someone plays against me and it's just annoying :(
 
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But, you should totally drop those 2 characters, and add 4 more to your team. Then, you'll have 5 characters, and that's a good team.
 
I've mostly been improving my execution and learning Painwheel, so I don't have any new exciting tech. The main thing I've figured out is that Robo missile assist is much worse as a combo breaker than I expected; my initial gameplan with Painwheel was to call 3 heads while doing a combo, then go for a mixup while the missiles are in the air. Unfortunately, it feels like most of the cast has the ability to start a combo on Painwheel, get hit by my missiles, then continue the combo after recovering. I haven't found options for everyone, but it's enough characters that it worries me.

So I'm trying to find other uses for the assist. Maybe Painwheel should just call missiles from long range to force the opponent to block, then charge H nails and go in? Maybe she shouldn't go in at all, and she should throw out nails and missiles to force her opponent to come to her? I'm still trying to figure it out.
 
I'm switching team order from Peacock/Painwheel/Robo to Peacock/Robo/Painwheel. Hopefully this doesn't count as not sticking with my team!

This was always the ideal top-heavy team order because you get huge damage from argus>cannon DHCs and the constant threat of LENNY CANNON in neutral, and it gives Robo an assist to help with her zoning. I wasn't running it before now because Robo had a really hard time on incoming, and Painwheel could sometimes struggle to land hits by herself as anchor.

But Robo has better defensive options now: improved s.HP with meterless conversions (using heads, which I will have because I run missile assist), missiles that come out earlier, mine that trades better, a better anti-air L danger hitbox, a much stronger level 3, and an invincible way to DHC out. Anchor Painwheel is improved too: better armor, improved install and faster ground flight to help her open people up without assists.

It feels stronger than the old order, and much more fun too!
 
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Mike_Z said:
----- the line for determining how long Mr. Peck ends up sticking with this team -----
Not sure if this counts as switching my team either, but I'm going back to beam assist. Now that kitten missiles assist feels strong in the beta I can properly get a feel for its playstyle, and I don't enjoy missile + tenrai-ha lockdown anywhere near as much as standard beam/drill/hairball long-range lockdown. It feels sorta like Squigly to me, i.e. run away while charging up a powerful thing that homes in on the opponent regardless of position, instead of what I like about Peacock, which is using projectiles and assists to cover different angles and control space.

I like Peacock+Beam (or Fukua drill or Filia hairball, but probably beam because Robo is fun) so much that I may even drop down to a duo for the extra chip damage. Painwheel is fun, but so is having 1.3x damage so your beam does 978 chip and your M and H bombs each do 325.
 
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I'm experimenting with starting as Painwheel in some matchups, but I can't find a Painwheel>Peacock tag combo for the life of me. Uncharged c.HP combos into OTG Peacock tag but that lets the opponent ground tech into her face, and charged c.HP into tag works fine but I can't find a way to combo into it without using Hatred Install or having an assist on the screen (which means I can't immediately tag out). I'd be happy with a meterless combo that ends in sliding knockdown or fullscreen knockback into a safe Peacock tag, but I can't find any of those either, as ending with ground H buer or air L buer into tag seems to be punishable.

Painwheel loves L george assist so I could try running L george with the plan of somehow starting a combo, putting a bomb on the screen, continuing the combo until Peacock leaves the screen, then charging c.HP while the bomb hits so I can tag. I tried for a few hours but couldn't find anything remotely consistent, so any ideas would be appreciated!

It's a pity that fully charged s.HP > fly and land > fully charged c.HP is shakeable, because otherwise c.LK>c.MK+L george>fully charged s.HP>fly/land>fully charged c.HP>tag would be a valid combo ;_;
 
c.lk c.mk s.hp xx l buer
xx fly 6.j.lk s.hp xx l stingers
dash forward s.mp (call L george) jump forward
j.mk xx fly
3.j.lp j.lk
c.lk c.hp(charged) xx tag
do Peacock stuff

The timing varies a little, but this works on all of the cast. Huffy's combo looks more practical though.
 
Huffy said:
I found this: https://a.pomf.cat/akooyy.mp4

Not sure on what characters it works on but, yeah.
That was one of the things I tried this morning but I was testing on Parasoul at the time, and it clipped her feet so I assumed it didn't work on anyone. I'll go test it on the rest of the cast now, because maybe it works on a decent chunk of them. Thanks!

edit: Triblue's variation works on wider characters. This is great, thanks! It looks like you can basically do Huffy's combo on everyone, but if you need the extra distance you go into s.HP>L nails first and call the george assist while dashing forward.

edit 2: I have 5 variations of the combo that, combined, work on 10 characters. I'll try to find variations for the other 4, and hopefully after that I'll find a way to narrow it down so I don't have to remember so many timings...
 
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Cerebella is a bit hard to get the tag to hit. If she is one of the 4, then I would just take the knockdown instead of trying to get the timing for a tag hit.
 
She's not one of the 4, but I just take the knockdown on her for that reason.
 
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