My friends also forced me to show them Painwheel so I played Painwheel for the very first time without any preparation. Managed to figure out some things and I am half interested in finding out what she is capable of. She still seems like a lot of work to master.
It's good to change things up because I was getting bored with the same old Squigs/Filia. Playing sets of the same match-ups nonstop gets repetitive.
Firstly, I totally agree with the 'changing it up' sentiment. Personally I'd rather play ok as a variety of characters than brilliantly but only as a couple of them. Spice of life etc. etc.
As someone who thought they'd be totally ok playing Painwheel against the Nightmare AI and then had to learn the character very fast, I found a few things out about her (she is technically my main, after all). Basically, and remembering that I'm a noob and this site has lots of other tutorials as well:
- Learn her normals. They're strong, and they tend to have a lot of effects on them (MP is a launcher, for instance). Her aerials are even better. j.HK has a great hitbox, and j.MP and HP do good damage if you can hit them.
- If you're new to the character it's easy to forget Hatred Guard exists, but it's very useful. Mostly because it lets you just soak up an attack without actually taking it, but also for the extra damage. Try dropping it in occasionally. Also, j.HP is her only aerial with Hatred Guard.
- Her specials are useful, but it's probably worth learning
when they're useful 'cause it's not all the time. Buer Reaper in the air tends to catch people, if not the AI, by surprise.
- Just in case you didn't know about it, she has an assist-only attack called Pinion Dash, which is down-down-kick. It's really useful, but it's not very well-advertised.
- Given that the computer doesn't know what to do when you're in the air, Flight can actually make it shut down almost because you're off the ground for extended periods of time. I find even on hard difficulties that Painwheel's Flight is the ideal Peacock counter - just not against humans.
- I don't know much about comboing, but with a bit of practice I can get MK->Buer Reaper M->Death Crawl. Sometimes it resets, but if you're quick enough it combos straight.
Also, j.H Buer Reaper->Buer Thresher.
It's not much, and you've probably spotted most of it already, but if I was going to give advice to someone playing Painwheel first time that's what I'd say.