Skrylar's Training Diary

[Skrylar]

So Quickmatch decided to throw this ball of misery in my direction today:

I checked his profile from recent players, almost six thousand hours in-game.

Thanks, QM.

Looking at it in slow motion:

• Managed to successfully absolute guard a lot of the team garbage.
• Managed to absolute guard the crossup team garbage.
• Blocked an "ok" amount of the same while in the corner.
• Ping time was OK

So now the problems seem to be

• Pure reaction speed
• My pushblocking is ineffective on >500hrs players
• Corner escaping

#1 can't be fixed (dyspraxia, medical condition)
#2 I'm not quite sure. Sub 300hrs players it depends on the timing of your pushblock, over 300hrs seem to play out:

• Pushblock during mash: next hit cancels knockback, they end blockstring in your face [no return to neutral].
  
• Pushblock at appropriate time: they use some instant charge move the moment you gain any space, they end in your face [no return to neutral].
• PBGC to Napalm Pillar can work but usually never more than once, since they will start relying on their assists to run the blockstring so they can prevent return to neutral with the point character.

#3 tends to be obnoxiously difficult. There's often a series of assist spams requiring chicken blocks or absolute guards, neither of which actually gain you any space. PBGC-to-napalm-pillar sometimes works, alpha counters never work (not enough time to finish Parasoul's startup frames.)

There are another two which played out the same way, though one involved a Fukua/Parasoul spamming projectiles to instantly push someone to the corner and another was a Peacock/Big Band who relied on garbage to corner press while using BB at an offset to prevent using the Egret bike to counter Peacock. Didn't record those.

 

[Fizzxwizz]

QM doesn't care how many hours each individual has. You want a match, you get one.

Generally the best advice is to make good use of the time that you spend in the game (if you want to improve). There are a lot of people with five thousand less hours than that who are more of a threat imo. Even some people with more hours than his are also worse. I don't know if you plan on using this as a training diary, but recording matches is a great way to level up. Recording quick match though, is kinda effective to a much smaller extent.

Find a guy you want to beat up/get beat up by and fight them for a while. If you're recording make sure to take notes of changes and adaptations throughout the set.

If you want to increase your hour count theres an art gallery in the extras section with some appealing content inside. If you want to unlock literally everything in it in one go you can fight Marie 300% which is guaranteed to take a while.

 

[Stuff]

I just want to say that hours put in does not matter.

A lot of this guy's stuff is severely scaled. You were also rather late on some punishes or didn't notice but that's okay you can learn that in due time a lot of things come from just continuing playing.

Maybe call some cool Parasoul players to give you some tips. Such as, @Skarmand or @fenster. I'm only pinging these two 'cause they seem to be around the forums more often than others but they also happen to be really good parasoul players.

Don't be discouraged and never give up.

 

[Dime]

Lol hours put in matters.

But in general once players get to around 500-750 hours there will be diminishing returns on amount of time played.

And Also as stuff said, it's more about the quality of hours you've put in. If you've 250 hours playing against dekillsage and sonicfox versus some guy that has 500 hours playing quick match, I'd put my money on the guy playing against sage.

Hours played is a decent metric, but it's a very misleading metric.

I've got less than 1200 hours played but that guys play looked kinda not great to me ( but hey it was only one match). It definitely ain't all about hours played. Don't let high hours get you down. It means less than what you might think once past certain levels.

 

[Arcana]

it might be helpful for you to get an assist and pick up another character, (imo Fukua is easy to play and has some decent assists)

you got a lot of stray hits that could have lead to good combos, you should also practice better blockstrings (an assist can help with this)

 

[Skrylar]

If you've 250 hours playing against dekillsage and sonicfox versus some guy that has 500 hours playing quick match, I'd put my money on the guy playing against sage.

I don't think most people have the luxury of cherrypicking a high-tier player for training sessions.

 

[Krackatoa]

PBGC to Napalm Pillar can work but usually never more than once, since they will start relying on their assists to run the blockstring so they can prevent return to neutral with the point character.

PBGC Jump Forward or PBGC s.LP is the name of the game. They're blocking/staying away during the PBGC window. This means there IS time for you to act. PBGC j.LP is my favourite "reversal".

 

[Pickles]

I don't think most people have the luxury of cherrypicking a high-tier player for training sessions.

How convenient then that Dekillsage and Sonicfox have recently started up a biweekly program where you play against them and they help you improve!

http://skullheart.com/index.php?threads/defoxschool.7628/

Also most high level players in this game are more than happy to help out newer players.

 

[Skrylar]

Average day average Beowulf: Spam jumping chair swing or jumping grab attack. Dash-grab whenever you get pushed out.

Pushblock works well, they either get cornered by their own chair spam or they stop and do something else.

Average day average Painwheel: Spam forward jump attacks and armored overhead punches. To date, I have never seen a painwheel player use a different play style or set of combos.
Won two out of twenty matches using or to drop painwheel from the air, but that doesn't end up converting to a combo and the other player switched back to using a team the instant progress was made. I'm 85% certain that trying to dash when landing will actually result in you eating a combo from Painwheel, from hitstun expiring before you finish the dash to convert. sometimes works too, but costs super and doesn't convert. So far nothing but those three result in any form of success, and PBGC->Napalm Pillar kept failing on me (the PBGC wouldn't end up executing at all.)

Escaping and preventing corner reset loops is definitely possible. Actually getting a hit which converts through the rushdown doesn't seem possible right now without the Painwheel's player doing something stupid.

A lot of this guy's stuff is severely scaled. You were also rather late on some punishes or didn't notice but that's okay you can learn that in due time a lot of things come from just continuing playing.

I spectated a few lobby matches today and noticed that, on average, a 3-man player will throw out a sekmet blockbuster sequel even when it only results in a single worth of damage. It seems that the longer someone has played the more they end up valuing combos that just prevent the other person from playing for as long as possible, even if it does the same damage as standard BnB's.

On Singles v. Teams
I think some people prefer singles matches because there are only 196 match-ups to deal with to master the game, but 14 if you only need to be good at one character. The same one character versus a team of 3 has to deal with 2,184 match-ups of characters alone, or 17,472* if you consider the two most popular assist moves for each character.

14 is a much more attainable goal than 17k.

Also, there's a lot of writing about singles matches on the forums; help and tips in specific forms tend to be readily available. Asking anyone about a team gimmick generally results in a non-answer or something very vague.

* (the addition of Robo Fortune will add another 4,368 patterns to memorize in 1v3 play)

Gimmicks of the week (June 30)

• 3-man team using Valentine/Double/Fukua, toss out assists to do chipping damage then spend the entire rest of the match zoning out Parasoul with Valentine's jumps. Couldn't jump in, couldn't napalm shot.
  
• Parasoul/Fukua spamming out interspaced assists and shots; cornered on block during roundstart. Pushblock accomplished nothing, jumping out accomplished nothing (just got pushed back in to the corner upon landing.) Couldn't super counter (he was getting ~5 units of charge per my 1, ended with 1:5 bars of super even though I used zero.) Couldn't Egret Bike (doing anything other than blocking resulted in getting hit, the guy was firing like a metronome.)
• Peacock/Big Band; use big band assists to block egret bike counter to peacock, removing the only counter-pressure that actually worked. Egret shield was worthless (big band), bike was worthless (big band), jump was worthless (projectile knockback upon landing, possibly also big band.)

 

[mcpeanuts]

Average day average Painwheel: Spam forward jump attacks and armored overhead punches. To date, I have never seen a painwheel player use a different play style or set of combos.

If you have trouble beating this I'd recommend playing Painwheel and doing nothing but "spam" her jump normals, and just note what other people do to beat it.

Won two out of twenty matches using or to drop painwheel from the air, but that doesn't end up converting to a combo

Don't do j.HP, do j.LP j.HP. The knockdown from j.HP is comboable if you combo into it rather than using j.HP by itself, and j.LP is a better air to air button than j.HP in general (faster + better hitbox). Air grab is also an option and is pretty good against Painwheel armored j.HP.

I'm 85% certain that trying to dash when landing will actually result in you eating a combo from Painwheel, from hitstun expiring before you finish the dash to convert.

I don't really follow what you're saying here, sorry.

sometimes works too, but costs super and doesn't convert.

It gets you a mixup. After the crumple do like crossup jb.LK or overhead or low or something. If you think they're gonna super on wakeup then just dash up and block.

I spectated a few lobby matches today and noticed that, on average, a 3-man player will throw out a sekmet blockbuster sequel even when it only results in a single worth of damage. It seems that the longer someone has played the more they end up valuing combos that just prevent the other person from playing for as long as possible, even if it does the same damage as standard BnB's.

Damage scaling in this game is not that bad 0_0 especially since DHCs partially reset damage scaling. Eliza's super is one of the most damaging supers in the game too so it's good to DHC into. I seriously doubt trio players are doing this DHC just to be jerks, I'm sure they want the damage.

On Singles v. Teams
I think some people prefer singles matches because there are only 196 match-ups to deal with to master the game, but 14 if you only need to be good at one character. The same one character versus a team of 3 has to deal with 2,184 match-ups of characters alone, or 17,472* if you consider the two most popular assist moves for each character.

14 is a much more attainable goal than 17k.

Also, there's a lot of writing about singles matches on the forums; help and tips in specific forms tend to be readily available. Asking anyone about a team gimmick generally results in a non-answer or something very vague.

* (the addition of Robo Fortune will add another 4,368 patterns to memorize in 1v3 play)

This is actually why I like team games, the huge number of possible matchups keep the game from getting stagnant. Different strokes tho, people are certainly still playing Super Turbo. I don't like the idea that you're supposed to "memorize" matchups tho, this isn't chess. You're supposed to think about what your opponent wants to do and come up with a strategy to counter it.

Gimmicks of the week (June 30)
3-man team using Valentine/Double/Fukua, toss out assists to do chipping damage then spend the entire rest of the match zoning out Parasoul with Valentine's jumps. Couldn't jump in, couldn't napalm shot.

Guessing the assists are Hornet Bomber and H Drill. Try focusing on the assist. From the sound of things the Valentine player is playing lame and isn't in a great position to punish you for attacking the assist character. Just don't overcommit to hitting the assist; do something like a short string into c.HP then jump back j.HP.

Parasoul/Fukua spamming out interspaced assists and shots; cornered on block during roundstart. Pushblock accomplished nothing, jumping out accomplished nothing (just got pushed back in to the corner upon landing.) Couldn't super counter (he was getting ~5 units of charge per my 1, ended with 1:5 bars of super even though I used zero.) Couldn't Egret Bike (doing anything other than blocking resulted in getting hit, the guy was firing like a metronome.)

Again guessing the Fukua assist is H Drill (this is important information, you should include it). This one's sort of hard to visualize, I wish I could have seen the match. How are you getting cornered if he's full screen doing Napalm Shot, I don't really get that. One thing that might help though. The thing with Egret Charge is the bike loses its active hitbox if Parasoul gets hit during the startup of the move. Say you do something like Egret Charge then immediately cancel it into a super. If you get hit during the super, you're not getting hit out of the startup of Egret Charge, you're getting hit out of the startup of your super, so the bike won't stop. I don't know if that alone would have won you the game but it's a good thing to keep in mind.

Also just an observation, you call anything that beats you "spamming", I'd recommend getting out of that mindset.

Peacock/Big Band; use big band assists to block egret bike counter to peacock, removing the only counter-pressure that actually worked. Egret shield was worthless (big band), bike was worthless (big band), jump was worthless (projectile knockback upon landing, possibly also big band.)

This is my team actually and I lost to a solo Parasoul at Combo Breaker so it can certainly be done :) Be sure to realize that Big Band assist alone cannot invalidate all your tools because he can't be out all the time. Watch for the assist and AFTER the assist comes out make your move. Make sure every time you block the assist to hit it, even if you can only get it with a c.LK or something, because hitting the assist at all locks it out for a little while. For general information about fighting Peacock I would recommend watching this guide: http://skullheart.com/index.php?threads/a-guide-on-how-to-fight-against-peacock.7266/

 

[Skrylar]

If you have trouble beating this I'd recommend playing Painwheel and doing nothing but "spam" her jump normals, and just note what other people do to beat it.

I haven't seen people in the beginner or intermediate lobbies actually fight it off yet. The ones who do usually managed to navigate to a position where a bounce shot happened or painwheel whiffed and was rushed in to a series of resets, but not yet a case of negating the pressure and converting to combos.

Guessing the assists are Hornet Bomber and H Drill. Try focusing on the assist.

He stopped sending out assists after doing enough chip damage to ride the clock out for thirty seconds :(

Again guessing the Fukua assist is H Drill (this is important information, you should include it). This one's sort of hard to visualize, I wish I could have seen the match.

They were both shooting projectiles which covered both and possibilities, so I don't think it was the drill. I'm pretty sure I don't have that one on disk, I'll check.

How are you getting cornered if he's full screen doing Napalm Shot, I don't really get that.

He began doing it at roundstart, so he was only having to fire from half screen. I couldn't actually end up doing anything due to the staggered projectiles, and attempts at actually escaping the corner ended up catching stray shots and resetting undizzy.

One thing that might help though. The thing with Egret Charge is the bike loses its active hitbox if Parasoul gets hit during the startup of the move. Say you do something like Egret Charge then immediately cancel it into a super. If you get hit during the super, you're not getting hit out of the startup of Egret Charge, you're getting hit out of the startup of your super, so the bike won't stop. I don't know if that alone would have won you the game but it's a good thing to keep in mind.

I'll have to try that one out. It might have worked on the Peacock/BB, since the super flash might give enough time for the bike to actually do something.

Also just an observation, you call anything that beats you "spamming", I'd recommend getting out of that mindset.[/QUOTE]

And what should repeating the exact same singular input be referred to as? It's not even a combo until they actually link a second action in.

I have a stack of recordings from this week; I tend to only keep / upload the most absurd ones, but I'll poke through them and see if I can find any that are similar.

 

[Pickles]

He stopped sending out assists after doing enough chip damage to ride the clock out for thirty seconds :(

there are 99 seconds in a game, so the things mcpeanuts suggested could still have been applied for the first 69 seconds.

He began doing it at roundstart, so he was only having to fire from half screen. I couldn't actually end up doing anything due to the staggered projectiles, and attempts at actually escaping the corner ended up catching stray shots and resetting undizzy.

if he's staggering shots you should be able to just jump/dash forward and block? eventually he'll have to do something different to stop you from getting close because napalm shot on its own will not do it.

And what should repeating the exact same singular input be referred to as? It's not even a combo until they actually link a second action in.

partially it's that you probably aren't noticing other things he's doing like positioning or using different strengths of moves to cover different areas of the screen, but mostly the reason it's a bad mentality is that using the work "spamming" is implying some sort of "cheapness" and that the reason it's beating you isn't because he's skilled it's because he's just "cheap". Every "spam" pattern has a way to get in you just need to know what it is.

This video might help:

Also the video in the thread peanuts linked about peacock is good stuff too. In particular I think superjumping is the most underused tool to get around zoning, it's really good and every character can do it.

EDIT: also yea you already said you were looking but if you can find match videos that makes it a lot easier to offer more specific advice

 

[mcpeanuts]

Pickles said most of what I was gonna say but I still have a few words to type here

I haven't seen people in the beginner or intermediate lobbies actually fight it off yet. The ones who do usually managed to navigate to a position where a bounce shot happened or painwheel whiffed and was rushed in to a series of resets, but not yet a case of negating the pressure and converting to combos.

Ok the "converting to combos" bit is triggering me, like that plus some stuff you said about Sniper earlier is really jumping out at me. If you make someone have to block, you have won neutral. Your goal should be to win neutral, not necessarily to hit them with the 40 hit combo.

All that said. There's a bunch of ways to beat Painwheel's buttons in such a way that you get a full combo. Her j.MP which is probably her best button is still like 22 startup frames, tons of fast buttons can beat that clean if you space it right (like Parasoul j.LP). If she goes for the armor you can do a multi hit air normal (which Parasoul doesn't have) or air grab (which she does!) There's a lot of stuff.

I stand by my suggestion to learn the character, I really think that's the best way to learn how to beat something. For a long time I was like "man Painwheel is BULLSHIT" then I added her to my team and found, oh, no, she does have weaknesses (I don't play her anymore).

They were both shooting projectiles which covered both and possibilities, so I don't think it was the drill. I'm pretty sure I don't have that one on disk, I'll check.


He began doing it at roundstart, so he was only having to fire from half screen. I couldn't actually end up doing anything due to the staggered projectiles, and attempts at actually escaping the corner ended up catching stray shots and resetting undizzy.

Oh I forgot about this, Parasoul has a hard time dealing with her own projectiles. Pickles' advice is good but there's another trick I wanna mention which is to use c.MK. You can low profile the tear shot to avoid blocking it, then fire back a tear of your own. The projectile assist complicates things a bit but the stuff I said earlier about Big Band should still apply (except that you can't really hit projectile assists with a c.LK).

And what should repeating the exact same singular input be referred to as? It's not even a combo until they actually link a second action in.

idk. "Doing", maybe. "He was doing Tear Shots". That's probably how I would have said it.

I have a stack of recordings from this week; I tend to only keep / upload the most absurd ones, but I'll poke through them and see if I can find any that are similar.

Word, if you post some I can take a look. It's also worth checking out that defoxschool stream that was posted up above; even if you don't wanna play you can learn a lot from watching the stream and listening to what Sage and Fox have to say.

 

[dMags]

If she [painwheel] goes for the armor you can do a multi hit air normal (which Parasoul doesn't have) or air grab (which she does!) There's a lot of stuff.

Parasoul can use j.hk (multi-hit air attack) to beat painwheel's j.hp. You can't really convert off of it air-to-air, but it will stop her from abusing j.hp, although air grab is prob easier since you can convert. However, if you DO use j.hk, you could do something like j.hk xx air napalm toss and fall with j.lp.

 

[mcpeanuts]

Parasoul can use j.hk (multi-hit air attack) to beat painwheel's j.hp. You can't really convert off of it air-to-air, but it will stop her from abusing j.hp, although air grab is prob easier since you can convert. However, if you DO use j.hk, you could do something like j.hk xx air napalm toss and fall with j.lp.

That sounds sick

 

[Dagwood]

never tried that.... But, doing jLK jHP is a good way to beat jHP's armor.

 

[dMags]

that's probably better because you can continue combo-ing after the jHP

 

[Skrylar]

The Vidyas
As promised, the recordings from last week (trimmed down to the "highlights")

Spoiler

v 1000hrs

Same guy on QM who kept changing his suffix and playing Cerebella. Didn't really feel as though those games were unwinnable (as annoying as Cerebella can be, and as much damage as she does, losing to a Cerebella is usually a case of "mind her large hurtbox better.")

v 600hrs

Average painwheel yawn.

Average corner lockdown yawn.

v 500hrs

Continuance of the average corner lockdown / gangrape yawn.

80% 4-bar from a Peacock, nothing else to say here.

v 300hrs

Peacock/BB instant corner shenanigans; punished BB a time or two on that one.

v <100hrs

Eliza/Double instant corner shenanigans; yes I know Sekmet has infinite armor.

Having hitpoints is overrated

The Asides
I seem to enjoy this game less each week that goes on. I was pretty much bullied in to buying it in the first place, so my then-sparring partner really just wanted someone easy to beat because he couldn't hack it in quickmatch. "Training" consisted of "here, lose to me 5:1 while I explain nothing." Usually I'd get in way more often than he would, but he had combos and I didn't, so it didn't matter. Did the tutorials, read a handful of general fighting genre guides, learned the general button order, then he left for other reasons. I'm told the usual line of "it gets better with time." 180 hours in and I'm still not feeling it. It's either lose instantly (boring) or spend all day in training mode (boring.) Sometimes stray wins would come along and a small number of them would feel awesome, which get pushed aside by the twenty losses in a row immediately proceeding that. Or the win was against a noob, which is meaningless.

About two months ago I thought teching a grab out of the corner was some kind of excitement ("oh the combo is broken! you might actually get to play now!"), but, well, two months later the glamour of that is lost. Breaking out and performing a counter just results in eating the counter-counter. I can try to pull off a series of 33% blocks out of the reset to have a chance of pulling off some perfectly timed pushblock-to-guard-cancel-reversal, which statistically results in gaining zero ground and feeling like a complete waste of time. Letting go of the stick and just waiting for the round to end often has the same net result.

Since I've started paying very close attention to the patterns I can pretty much predict the exact tactic a Peacock/BB or anyone with Double is going to do. "Oh look its x and Double, you're going to use Double for an instant corner pushback because the only way to not lose ground is being immediately underneath her when she comes out; standing block = lose ground, jump = lose ground, pushblock = lose ground albeit less, superjump = gain ground but then you'll throw air projectiles to prevent that from mattering, then probably convert that to an 80%." Or "you have a Cerebella, there's a 70% chance she's set to Cerecopter to prevent you from getting approached in case you whiff Silver Cord." Surprisingly, I don't end up eating that many assist combos from neutral. The same can't be said of the "you didn't frame-count this input to expert precision, so you're going to lose the poke-off and end up instantly cornered where you will be unable to escape without sufficient precision to perform open heart surgery using a scalpel held by a pair of chopsticks rubber banded to the end of a ruler."

Looked in to the Get Good streams; they don't take >100hrs players. Seems to pretty much only be for people who don't know what the block button is yet. I'll look in to the other stream that was mentioned here; last time I checked they were skipping days because someone was on vacation though.

 

[Pickles]

ok i'm not gonna go into super in-depth analysis but i'm gonna point out a few things I noticed:

1) This is the biggest thing you need to change: your attitude. When you look at a match and all you see is "average painwheel yawn" or "corner lockdown yawn" then you aren't noticing what you did wrong and trying to change it (which is of course the key to improvement). It's very easy to say "well this guy has hundreds more hours in the game than me so obviously I just can't beat him" but there's a lot of things you can do better that don't require "sufficient precision to perform open heart surgery using a scalpel held by a pair of chopsticks rubber banded to the end of a ruler". Such as:

2) You don't pressure hardly at ALL. I didn't really watch the ones against people way more experienced than you because those probably were very one sided matches just by nature of experience (again, that does not mean you can't learn anything from them). I watched in particular the match against DesChamos, who is someone that by hour count has LESS experience than you but played far better. Your takeaway from the match was "instant corner shenanigans", but you made little to no effort to pressure him at all. Occasionally you would dash up and tap the assist, which was good to lock it out, but then you'd jump way back again and just sit there. When you get knocked down in the corner also, you can ground tech forward to escape the corner. But it's mostly that you need to pressure your opponent in neutral SOMEHOW. Zoning with tear shots is certainly a thing Parasoul can do but you weren't even doing that, you were just jumping away from them and then complaining that your constant running away put you in the corner.

3) Learn a combo. I know you've said you find it boring but everyone does. However, even disregarding any resets, if your opponent can do 5k damage (which is not a lot for a "full combo" in this game) off a hit and you do 2k, that means you have to get twice as many hits as your opponent. You don't have to spend "all day" practicing wild fancy combos and resets, but putting in maybe an hour or two to learn a basic bnb with a handful of reset points will go a long way for you.

The point of resets are that they're supposed to be hard to predict or no one would use them, so being hit in this game will usually result in a lot of damage unless you guess right or reversal or something. But you lose neutral 100% of the time, which is the #1 reason you lose matches, far more than lack of combo damage. And if you take being pushed to the corner as an inevitability then you won't get better. Every time you got cornered you had something you could have done to get out or prevent being there in the first place. Watch your videos again and try to see what you could have done differently. I don't play Parasoul so I don't have much character specific advice but again the main thing I noticed is that you didn't really pressure your opponents at all.

 

[Skrylar]

Her j.MP which is probably her best button is still like 22 startup frames, tons of fast buttons can beat that clean if you space it right (like Parasoul j.LP). If she goes for the armor you can do a multi hit air normal (which Parasoul doesn't have) or air grab (which she does!)

I just tried that in a Painwheel match (using j.LK and j.LP pokes in an attempt to ward off the rushdown-to-GG.) Didn't work, she just armor flashed through it and I ate the combo anyway. Still have to check if her grab box is the right shape to reliably ward off the spam at the angles it keeps coming in, though.

PBGC-to-Napalm Pillar is worthless on Painwheels, they just armor through that too. Did manage to pull off a two-stage reset to corner Painwheel, then got raped for the rest of the round.

People keep saying to use j.HP less, yet its more reliable for denying space / punishing for me so far. j.LK almost always comes out as a Spiral Flare instead of a kick, even when I completely let go of the lever before hitting kick.

 

[skull person]

I just tried that in a Painwheel match (using j.LK and j.LP pokes in an attempt to ward off the rushdown-to-GG.) Didn't work, she just armor flashed through it and I ate the combo anyway. Still have to check if her grab box is the right shape to reliably ward off the spam at the angles it keeps coming in, though.

PBGC-to-Napalm Pillar is worthless on Painwheels, they just armor through that too. Did manage to pull off a two-stage reset to corner Painwheel, then got raped for the rest of the round.

People keep saying to use j.HP less, yet its more reliable for denying space / punishing for me so far. j.LK almost always comes out as a Spiral Flare instead of a kick, even when I completely let go of the lever before hitting kick.

Painwheel's jMP doesn't have any armor, jHP does though.
jLK > jHP from Parasoul will break Painwheels jHP armor really quickly, all the time.
(That is from experience.)
She only has one hit of armor.

The grab hitbox is also really good for this MU. Parasoul has one of the best air grabs with her dash and dash jump speed.

People say to jHP less because hitting someone with jHP out of the air doesn't get you a combo.
The opponent is allowed to tech instantly when they touch the ground unless you use jHP as the second hit of a combo or higher.
That's a lot of the reason why Parasouls use jLP > jHP or jLK > jHP, it's so you can combo off it.

Also if you get Spiral Flare instead of jLK just let go earlier, but that should be obvious.

Ward off the spam at the angles it keeps coming in

Yeah this attitude is a problem! : (

 

[mcpeanuts]

Spoiler

I'll probably get around to watching all of these at some point but I watched this one first cause it's my team.

0:10 - You threw this away in the first second of the match. You need to press Peacock immediately from round start if you wanna beat her. Do not downback and wait to see what she does; this isn't a matchup where you can get away with that sort of thing. Dash forward c.LK or dash jump j.LP or dash jump air grab are all better options.
0:17 - Nice job punishing Big Band, but Napalm Pillar is kind of risky since you could have gotten punished. Punishing Big Band with a normal would have been safer. Your opponent kinda goes deer-in-headlights though so it works out.
0:20 - Probably should have done a special move at the end of this blockstring. You can react to the pushblock and check Peacock with a tear shot or something.
0:23 - You use a Bike when he's a super jump double jump height and Parasoul isn't even visible on the screen. y
0:25 - Don't pushblock Peacock. You want her close to you.
0:29 - j.HP is too slow here. j.LP or air grab might have worked. This is sort of a ballsy challenge no matter what you push though. Be careful when Peacock has the item drop charged.
0:35 - Peacock's H Gun is negative on hit, I think you actually could have punished this. For what it's worth I probably wouldn't have reacted to either because it's such a weird thing for Peacock to end a combo with. That said you immediately get hit by a non-counter hit c.LP, so, no clue what happened there.
0:42 - Again, could have been punished for this. If you're going to Pillar, don't push them away from you before you do it. Maybe this was supposed to be a PBGC, but I would never recommend going for PBGC unless you KNOW what blockstring they're gonna do. Otherwise the thing that happened here can happen, they get pushed far away from you and your reversal misses. Raw Pillar with no pushblock would have worked better.
0:46 - Guessing you were trying to Pillar here, which is a valid course of action, but I don't think you had charge since you did an Egret Charge right before it. I think you should have just blocked. Again pushing buttons when Peacock has the shadow over you is very dangerous.
0:52 - jb.LK might have worked here. j.LP has no shot since you're jumping over a character.
1:06 - Peacocks on quick match will ALWAYS do this if they have the opportunity. Watch the meter.

In general I'd say you played too passively when Peacock did not have Item Drop charged and too aggressively when she did. Keep in mind, the longer Peacock charges item drop before letting it go, the more cooldown it has. I would have also recommended using your ground dash more rather than trying to super jump and Mary Poppins on him. Don't do Pillar when your opponent is nowhere near you, don't do Bike when your opponent is nowhere near the ground.

 

[Lex]

I'd recommend adding that Squigly player to play some more matches as well as anyone else who you encounter who is about your skill level. Everyone who I've asked online has been more than happy to play some matches and everyone has been very friendly so don't worry about people being jerks too much.

As for enjoying the game less and less; make sure you don't just play SG, take a break and play other games/do other stuff. And try other characters in Skullgirls, this will help a lot. This helps stop the game from getting stale, increases your understanding of other characters and may help improve your Parasoul play as well.

In regards to dealing with moves you struggle with (e.g. Painwheel's jumping normals) go into training mode and record the opponent doing that move. Then try all of your moves (or the ones that you think would work) to find something to cope with the move. For instance, when I was struggling with Beowulf's j.hp, I went into training mode, recorded Beo doing j.hp and then tried chickenblocking into punish, Val's cr.mp, j.lp, j.hk, etc until I knew what my options were and whether I could use them on reaction or as a prediction (this part is important). After that, try and play the character you were testing against and focus on incorporating your new knowledge into your gameplay. Even if you still lose, if you found you were punishing that move then you should view that as a big plus. A lot of the ways you will find for coping with one move will be applicable to similar moves.

Hope that helps.

 

[ss1shadow]

Moar offense IMO. You seem to have a reactive playstyle from what I've seen. I think if you were to force your opponent to be the defender as you lay down pressure, you would end up in the corner far less often.

When being defensive, I think it would be good to try throwing out some fast-frame attacks to see if you can interrupt the opponent's pressure. Obviously it will take some practice to figure out when you can do it for which characters and in what situations, but exp is the name of the game :)

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Skrylar]

When you look at a match and all you see [..] Your takeaway from the match was [..] Learn a combo.

Kind of odd to go on the attitude train then turn around and be presumptuous.

Napalm Pillar

Usually those are either

• Supposed to be PBGC's; I can only reliably pull those off against Diamond Dynamos and some specific Valentine blockstrings, though. I haven't found a better way to execute PBGCs than memorizing the raw timing based on what combo is going in to it, which isn't very efficient and requires either screwing it up (like that video) or having to practice the timing for each possible combo.
  
• An attempt to jump and j.HK which the game ends up reading as a napalm pillar instead of a jump.

I can sit for hours in training mode and getting those two moves to separate doesn't get better; not sure how to fix that.

I tried two separate routines: One was to add a point for each success and reduce 3 points for failures, then try to reach 13; the other method of trying to do "N in a row." The first one worked well for , and not at all for separating charge moves from jumps. The second one hasn't been particularly effective for anything.

0:20 - Probably should have done a special move at the end of this blockstring. You can react to the pushblock and check Peacock with a tear shot or something.

It would have to be Motor Brigade; I'm fairly certain Silent Scope wou

0:35 - Peacock's H Gun is negative on hit, I think you actually could have punished this.

My reaction speeds not fast enough for that (~250ms.)

2) You don't pressure hardly at ALL.

Nobody's ever bothered to explain pressure to me. I think I already covered that nobody explains any of these things in person, so I have to use Google. And mostly on Google, you end up on SFIV forums that equate to "git gud at neutral game scrub" in helpfulness. It's eerily easier to get personal training for real world combat than it is to get usable self-study materials for video games. From Masher to Master is probably the closest I've seen so far that offers more than "spend 500 hours in training mode." That PDF is actually nice.

 

[skull person]

An attempt to jump and j.HK which the game ends up reading as a napalm pillar instead of a jump.
I can sit for hours in training mode and getting those two moves to separate doesn't get better; not sure how to fix that.

When you jump there's 4 frames before you leave the floor where you are still grounded (pre-jump)
If you hit jHK during those 4 grounded frames you'll get pillar, so wait until you leave the floor.
Once you're in the air you can't get it any more.

 

[Skrylar]

Painwheel's jMP doesn't have any armor, jHP does though.
jLK > jHP from Parasoul will break Painwheels jHP armor really quickly, all the time.

Doesn't link when I do it (just tried on QM; round came up, did j.LK, armor flashed, hit j.HP, ate a combo instead.)

 

[Skrylar]

Moar offense IMO.

"Be aggressive" isn't really actionable, sorry. There's no aggression slider on my fightstick.

 

[skull person]

Doesn't link when I do it (just tried on QM; round came up, did j.LK, armor flashed, hit j.HP, ate a combo instead.)

Painwheels jHP has 37 frames of start up before it attacks.
Yes if you do jLK jHP very very late after she's charging it's possible to get hit, but at that point you should see her charging long enough to know that you should air throw her instead.

jLP > jLK will also break Painwheels armor faster than jLK > jHP.
jLP just has a tendency to whiff vs some of the heights Painwheel might be flying at.

 

[Lex]

For differentiating Napalm Pillar and jump into j.hk, perhaps you should delay your j.hk more (shouldn't you be doing j.hk mainly on descent anyway? Why do it while rising?).

As far as being more aggressive goes, that usually means that you should try to be up close in your opponents face, forcing them to block your attacks. The way you do this is very character specific so there isn't really a general rule to it (and I don't play Parasoul so I can't really speak about her much). I guess try to do moves that are pretty safe (no, I don't mean learning the frame data for every move you should be able to tell if it is safe or easily punishable mostly). Try and go from low to high as often as you can and mix in some grabs. Try and think up some way of coping with push locking and reversals after you have gotten used to doing mixups.

 

[Pickles]

Nobody's ever bothered to explain pressure to me. I think I already covered that nobody explains any of these things in person, so I have to use Google. And mostly on Google, you end up on SFIV forums that equate to "git gud at neutral game scrub" in helpfulness.

I actually googled "fighting game pressure" on a whim to see what came up, and the first result on wiktionary sums it up pretty well. (I also found this which while not EXACTLY relating to just pressure is still very helpful)

Pressure involves using a sequence of attacks to keep an opponent on the defensive and often involves okizeme and mix up tactics. The purpose of pressure is to keep an enemy from effectively attacking back until they make a mistake

Basically you never did much that I saw to give your opponent any reason to do anything other than go in on you hard. Rather than adjust the "aggression slider on your fightstick", just basically try to use moves to force your opponent to block or play more carefully. Of course there is a balance, if you go hard all the time you'll get punished for it, but right now your play is very much too far on the passive end of the spectrum. If you're gonna back away constantly at least throw more napalm shots to give them a reason to block, then attack them when they approach. It's good that you're not doing the typical new player strategy of "jump forward and wildly press buttons" but you do need to play more offensively.

I think I already covered that nobody explains any of these things in person

Lots of people in this thread have given lots of helpful advice, many of which who actually play parasoul and can give specific strategies/moves for you to use, and your normal response seems to either be "no that doesn't work" (when there's a really good chance these people have more experience than you) or just to ignore it/reply with some snarky comment that implies you don't actually want advice to improve, you just want to complain about "spamming" and how everyone has more hours than you. Not gonna keep commenting here because you don't seem to be taking any advice given.

 

[Zephyrel]

Snark at Pickles if you want but he's right, your attitude towards learning how to get better needs to change, and your perception of other players. Nobody can be just called average unless you REALLY kick their teeth in, I guess. But most actual Skullgirls players, especially those who fight to get better are not average, and all have their own styles, resets and tricks. McPeanuts, on point, too with the match analysis. I don't care for all of the stupid half-assed passive aggressive bull I'm reading down this page in your replies to REALLY GOOD PLAYERS who are trying to HELP YOU.

Learn a combo, for the love of god, I want to see Hit -CONFIRM-
If you want to learn the matchup and things that work against Painwheel, keep in mind every armored normal she has. If you poke it, she can release the normal and hit you out if you aren't quick to throw another poke or an airthrow or get out of the way
J.lp j.lk and airthrow should be your goto air-to-air as a Parasoul player. Airthrows are good against alot of slow air normals.
What "Pressure" is is self-explanatory, goddamn, and you even said something about it in my training diary yesterday, so don't say "I need it explained to me and my hand held waaaah"
Pressure is getting in on your opponent and limiting their ability to move, to do anything, and forcing them to defend, block pokes, mixups, watch out for tick throws (poke, throw), oki, etc.

This seems to be on par with some of my observations lately. Having dynamic tactics is nowhere near as prevalent as instant corner pressure until you hit the top end.

Which by the way, you are wrong about that, instant pressure is ALWAYS RELEVANT AND ESPECIALLY INSTANT CORNER PRESSURE, BECAUSE THAT SAYS "HEY, I CURBSTOMPED YOUR NEUTRAL"
Also, to say that "Dynamic Tactics" aren't a thing, are you kidding me are you implying that every good player just does the same crap ad infinitum, no resets, burst baits, neutral any of that?
Peacock is a prime example of dynamic, tactical, and neutral heavy character as someone with weak reversal options but great tools, confirms, and damage

I'm being brutally honest because you need it and you need to take a second look at everything and all these things players are telling you and listen and figure it out, instead of giving this dumb snark and attitude

 

[ss1shadow]

"Be aggressive" isn't really actionable, sorry. There's no aggression slider on my fightstick.

Ok, what I mean by "Be aggressive" is try to attack the opponent before he/she attacks you. A lot of what I see in the videos is you trying to defend, rarely do I see you jump on the offensive and try to maintain it. It is this oppressive offense that is known as "pressure'.

 

[Skrylar]

Might as well just lock the thread, then. "I listened to what you said, I tried to execute that, and it did not work" is apparently forbidden.

 

[Rizil]

I don't have the analysis breakdown of everyone else in here but I'll try to give my 2 cents from what I've seen.

1) When you attack and your opponents blocking (a blockstring) I see you end it usually with Napalm Pillar. That is a huge no-no. Pillar is very high risk and gives you no benefit in the situation you're in (which is offensive pressure.) Cancel instead into Napalm Shot which is plus on block and allows you to keep up pressure. Also when opponents are blocking try using f.lp f.mp and b.hk, as these are the key mixup tools for Parasoul. Learn them, love them.

2) I notice when you get a Sniper shot hit to get a knockdown, you dash back. Why? You should stay right on top of them because your opponent has to guess what you're gonna do next. Are you gonna do a c.lk? Are you gonna do a f.lp? b.hk? Are you gonna jump over and do a j.b.lk? Are you gonna grab? Are you gonna look for a counter-move and just block it and punish? These are all options that your knocked down opponent has to guess, which puts you at an advantage. Backdashing away pretty much just gives away any advantage you had and puts you back at neutral. Never surrender your advantage, make your opponent guess correctly, make them earn that advantage back.

3) I know from experience Peacock is a pain in the ass (hi peanuts) so try to stay on top of her. She doesn't have many options up close, and a vast majority of Peacock players love qcf.mp (mp Bang!) This move is hit invincible, but not THROW invincible. If a Peacock player likes to throw this out there, next time you get close, throw'em. Parasoul has one of the best throws in the game, but only if you do a back throw and cancel into charge back-f.lk.

4) On the subject of throws, again, Parasoul has one of the best throws in the game, even in the air. If you notice a Painwheel likes to armor charge her jumping moves, throw'em in mid air, dash in on landing, combo. Boom, advantage, you.

5) Back on the subject of Peacock, in a full screen situation, you never called out your egret shield (charge b.f. mk.) This guy will eat up any projectiles Peacock throws your way, and if Peacock is in the middle of hp Bang or something, you can counter with a sniper shot. Boom, instant knockdown. Use this opportunity to dash in and get in her face. Remember, with Peacock, range is her advantage. Get up in that grill and introduce yourself.

6) Assists. When an opponent brings in an assist, just give it a little love tap s.lp. When an assist gets hit they're locked out for a number of seconds. No assist means less bullshit you have to deal with, and that's always a good thing. The only time I would not recommend this is if the point character is right in your face putting pressure (especially if they're in the air), then it's sometimes not worth it. At this point however is when you're in full block now and you're at a disadvantage. This is why assists in this game are do powerful.

7) I notice against bella you fall into the Lock 'n Load and Rush trap, which is she is just super armoring her way into your face. Easy counter to this, Sweep. If a bella comes at you bullrushing full screen or tries to lock 'n load, sweep her off her feet (hah, pun) and dash in on her. It's not ideal, but it's something.

8) Learn to snap out characters if you decide to play solo. Snapping out an opponents character resores 2/3rds of your red health. Snapping an assist resores 1/3rd. Get both, and you get all your red health back (which is godlike against someone like bella or Beowulf who do a lot of throw moves.) At this point we pop party poppers and and start celebrating because Happy Birthday your opponent just gave you a gift.

Think that's all I can think of. I know a lot of these situations are something that you're gonna have to just recognize as you play, and that is no easy task, but it's something that just has to be hammered home with time, practice, and recognition of the situation.

 

[Cadenza]

Someone add skylar and play sets with him and point out things to him during the set. Some people learn better with someone holding their hand so to speak. Not necessary to go that far but it might help

 

[Kyugetsuki]

Might as well just lock the thread, then. "I listened to what you said, I tried to execute that, and it did not work" is apparently forbidden.

It's only been 1 hour since you received the advice to j.lk->j.hp to break armor. It's hard for me to believe it doesn't work when the advice is coming from someone who plays parasoul and knows it works. So if you don't believe it works, emulate it in the training mode. If you're getting hit by it, it means you are reacting to j.hp to do it which also means you're being passive. Just tried it in training mode.

From what you said earlier, your j.lk landed, but j.hp was stuffed which simply means your moves were done too late. I'm pretty sure if you do these moves on reaction to seeing j.hp you will always get stuffed.

 

[Lex]

Btw, about the j.lp j.lk/j.hp, immediately chain into the next attack after inputting j.lp, don't wait for visual confirmation it hit. Because of the way normals chain together in this game, if the j.lp hits it will chain into the next move straight away but if it misses then you won't be stuck in the j.hp animation.

Just an FYI, in case you didn't already know (thought this might be why you aren't getting through Painwheel's armour, sorry if you were already doing this).

Also, @Rizil , isn't it only Parasoul's air throw that is great? I thought her ground throw was considered pretty bad due to its small range?

 

[Rizil]

Also, @Rizil , isn't it only Parasoul's air throw that is great? I thought her ground throw was considered pretty bad due to its small range?

It does have short range but it sets up a lot of combo's and resets. That's why I recommend getting into certain characters faces. There are some you wouldn't want to do this (Bella, Beowulf, hell even squigly in some circumstances) so use with caution, but in the cases of Peacock and Painwheel, yea throw is a really good option.

 

[Skrylar]

Someone add skylar and play sets with him and point out things to him during the set. Some people learn better with someone holding their hand so to speak.

At the outset I was kind of hoping someone would do that. I've been flying solo the entire time; none off the adds in lobbies or QM wanted to take the time so I thought I'd post here.

People posting "all you want to do is complain" and "waaah" has been extremely off-putting.

I appreciate the people like mcpeanuts who were actually polite and specific about what to look in to without the "google it" copout.