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Skullgirls Encore Edition Tiers and Matchups Discussion Thread: The Revengeance

Doom was good at first but the way the meta moved on he's pretty bad.

He'll beat every bad XF3 anchor but will lose to literally ANY decent one. (Vergil, Hawkeye, Strider, Akuma, the list goes on)

Fucking Parasoul's top 3 in this game so I'm happy. WHAT WE DO NEED IS A CONSTRUCTIVE THREAD ON WHAT WE CALL EACH POSSIBLE TEAM COMBINATION.

Val/Filia/Double Team Duckator
Parasoul/Painwheel/Double Team Pali
Squigly/Peacock/Valentine Team What The Fuck Are You Doing?

There's 165 different possible team combinations in this game (counting Big Band, ignoring team order and solo's) so.... good luck with that.
 
In most tournaments it seems like the most common characters are Filia and Double by far. Them having the best assists is probably a big factor, but if either of those and many times both of them are on almost all teams that kind of says they are tops. Assists have to be considered when rating characters. Unless we are doing solo tiers.
 
In most tournaments it seems like the most common characters are Filia and Double by far. Them having the best assists is probably a big factor, but if either of those and many times both of them are on almost all teams that kind of says they are tops. Assists have to be considered when rating characters. Unless we are doing solo tiers.
Was Captain Commando considered a good character because he had a good assist?
 
Was Captain Commando considered a good character because he had a good assist?

He is pretty weak as a point character, but that is mostly because, like much of the cast, he doesn't deal with flyers well. Against not Sentinel or Storm, he was fine. Since he had an amazing assist and was OK provided you got past Sent or Storm, he was really good.
 
In most tournaments it seems like the most common characters are Filia and Double by far. Them having the best assists is probably a big factor, but if either of those and many times both of them are on almost all teams that kind of says they are tops. Assists have to be considered when rating characters. Unless we are doing solo tiers.
I agree, and because of this I think it's more useful to think of tiers in terms of teams rather than individual characters. One could talk about how Double's a mid tier character until the cows come home, but the reality of it is that when you get to top 8 of most tournaments you're gonna be seeing 5 or 6 Doubles. I think most of us agree that while the game has differences in power level for characters, everyone's close enough together that you can compete with anyone. I don't think the same is true for assists. Like say for sake of argument you think the best character in the game is Fortune and the worst character is Bella (I think a lot of people have those characters in those spots anyways, but if not, just pretend like that's a true thing for this example). If you're solo Bella vs solo Fortune (which is also a bad matchup, as I understand it), it's still totally winnable. Now say they have Fortune/Updo/Bomber and you have Bella with like some gimmicky shit like Savage Bypass for your assist. Suddenly it's a lot harder. You're probably looking at a 7-3 at that point.

I don't know if this is beyond the scope of this thread and we need a different thread for it, but it would be neat to have some sort of place to discuss this. It's not realistically possible to rank every possible team in the game (I tried once, I got maybe a third of the way into it before I was like "man ain't nobody got time for this") but we could probably come up with like a top 10 or something.
 
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I don't know if this is beyond the scope of this thread and we need a different thread for it, but it would be neat to have some sort of place to discuss this. It's not realistically possible to rank every possible team in the game (I tried once, I got maybe a third of the way into it before I was like "man ain't nobody got time for this") but we could probably come up with like a top 10 or something.

Maybe instead of coming up with top 10 teams we could come up with each characters best team(s) when they are on point.
For example the best val team could either be team duck (Val/Updo/Bomber) or team Tood(Val/Updo/Copter),
or we can say team duck is best for neutral, and team tood is best for offense.(Not necessarily true but its just an example)
 
Tier list for solos, then top 5 duos and top 5 trios should be fine
 
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Maybe instead of coming up with top 10 teams we could come up with each characters best team(s) when they are on point.
For example the best val team could either be team duck (Val/Updo/Bomber) or team Tood(Val/Updo/Copter),
or we can say team duck is best for neutral, and team tood is best for offense.(Not necessarily true but its just an example)
You know I started to write something up for that just now and I ended up with x/Filia/Double for almost everyone. I mean except for Filia and Double. And Peacock, cause I think she benefits more from Brass Knuckles or Lock n Load than from Hornet Bomber.
 
The best point team in the game for any character is point/Bella/Double or point/Double/Bella the problem is once the point dies the team becomes much less practical still good but not the strongest shell.

But no any character with both bomber lk/mk/hk and copter/lnl is the best team in terms of assist combos.
 
You know I started to write something up for that just now and I ended up with x/Filia/Double for almost everyone. I mean except for Filia and Double. And Peacock, cause I think she benefits more from Brass Knuckles or Lock n Load than from Hornet Bomber.

True. At the same time there's some assist and order combinations people don't use yet. Just yesterday I saw fastturtle I believe use bella/Pillar/Cilia slide. Which might be the best point bella team because it makes bella's strengths better and improves her potential while still being a practical team to play after she dies.

Then there's things like parasoul with french twist. Something no one uses, but considering french twist is both a low and a lock down, and parasoul can do a jumping overhead tear toss overhead it, imo is super strong. Just no one knows.

Peacocks best team probably on her role. If she's a point who's job is to be battery then Peacock/Squiggly/ Brass could potentially be her best team, but probably not.
But if its just based on her ability to zone the entire game and finish off the team by herself, you could argue to just play her duo with LNL, Brass or HK HB.
But now I'm just looking at teams as a whole and not just what benefits the point the most. Kind of a lot of work.
 
Point/Parasol/Double (LK Bomber) is best trio, imo. Strong shell, safe dhc where necessary, good alpha counter, you can mix-up the Parasol assist depending on what you need while still having a DP/lockdown assist. Point/Filia/Double is probably stronger, but you don't have a safe dhc option from point to second.

If you're going to set-up a trio with an assist that does something specifically for the point character (like making Bella Dynamo/Diamond Drop disgusting), I think it's best to try and do that in the second position and ensure that the anchor is an assist that works for both point and second characters.
 
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The best point team in the game for any character is point/Bella/Double or point/Double/Bella the problem is once the point dies the team becomes much less practical still good but not the strongest shell.

But no any character with both bomber lk/mk/hk and copter/lnl is the best team in terms of assist combos.
I'm curious why you think Bella/Double is the best shell in the game. It's good but there's some overlap with having two horizontal assists and no vertical assist, which is part of why I think Filia/Double is the strongest shell.
True. At the same time there's some assist and order combinations people don't use yet. Just yesterday I saw fastturtle I believe use bella/Pillar/Cilia slide. Which might be the best point bella team because it makes bella's strengths better and improves her potential while still being a practical team to play after she dies.

Then there's things like parasoul with french twist. Something no one uses, but considering french twist is both a low and a lock down, and parasoul can do a jumping overhead tear toss overhead it, imo is super strong. Just no one knows.

Peacocks best team probably on her role. If she's a point who's job is to be battery then Peacock/Squiggly/ Brass could potentially be her best team, but probably not.
But if its just based on her ability to zone the entire game and finish off the team by herself, you could argue to just play her duo with LNL, Brass or HK HB.
But now I'm just looking at teams as a whole and not just what benefits the point the most. Kind of a lot of work.
I think that Bella/Cilia Slide/Pillar would be the better team there, since Double gets more from Pillar than Parasoul gets from Cilia Slide. Admittedly you're trading a weaker anchor for a stronger second. But you raise a good point that I hadn't considered, that Cilia Slide is uniquely useful for Bella in ways that Hornet Bomber isn't, so her best team might not necessarily be Bella/Filia/Double.

The thing with the best Peacock on point team is that Brass Knuckles sort of does everything Peacock could need from an assist, but I think three character teams are just better than two character teams, so it becomes real tough to think of who the third is. I've been running Peacock/Big Band/Painwheel when I run Peacock on point... the Painwheel assist does nothing for me, but it gives me the option of an Install DHC if Peacock goes down, which is more than I feel I get from any other character. I'm curious to hear your reasoning on Peacock/Squigly/Big Band. Is it just that Peacock's a good battery and Squigly needs a lot of meter?
 
Great meter build, Brass is useful for both peacock and squigly, a free charge on block and on hit when using brass as squigly, both can convert off the assist and you get pretty safe dhcs depending on the spacing and reaally good damage output.

That's it pretty much. I also think you can get a midscreen dhc into opera if you want it, but I haven't checked and bbs super is weird to dhc out of. Def works where install works though
 
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If I can piggy back that question. How would Peacock/Squigly/ Big BAnd compare to Peacock/Fortune/Big Band. I'm running the latter regardless, I just wanna hear it.
 
Great meter build, Brass is useful for both peacock and squigly, a free charge on block and on hit when using brass as squigly, both can convert off the assist and you get pretty safe dhcs depending on the spacing and reaally good damage output.

That's it pretty much. I also think you can get a midscreen dhc into opera if you want it, but I haven't checked and bbs super is weird to dhc out of. Def works where install works though
Hmm. You know that's all interesting to me. I think I may give Squigly a shot and see if she offers more to my team than Painwheel.
If I can piggy back that question. How would Peacock/Squigly/ Big BAnd compare to Peacock/Fortune/Big Band. I'm running the latter regardless, I just wanna hear it.
They're probably both good teams? But I don't think Fortune can make as good use of Brass Knuckles assist as Squigly can. In the corner she can probably OTG off it but midscreen I think you just take the hard knockdown it gives you and try to set up a mixup.
 
If I can piggy back that question. How would Peacock/Squigly/ Big BAnd compare to Peacock/Fortune/Big Band. I'm running the latter regardless, I just wanna hear it.
That's easy. The second one's way better because it has one more Ms. Fortune than the other.
 
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Car > Install is the best character.
 
Car > Install is the best character.
This is actually something I wanted to talk about too, because in MDE I would have said Double/Painwheel/Filia was a top 10 team, and now I'm not sure anymore. I think the Install DHC got weakened for a couple reasons. One is the obvious one where you have less green bar and can't get the same kind of bonkers damage off it. The other is that the defender gets less meter. It used to be if my Peacock died without getting to do anything, I would always have the next character come in with the meter to DHC immediately to Painwheel. Now that's not always guaranteed. I need to do at least something with Peacock to earn access to my safety net.
 
I don't like Double first, she seems too meter reliant and I don't think Luger does enough during neutral to give her an edge. If you want Car/Install, you probably want a battery first.
 
Filia/Double
Painwheel/Double
Cerebella/Double
Squigly/Double

Any of these are pretty much top shells on a size 3 team.
 
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Filia/Double
Painwheel/Double
Cerebella/Double
Squigly/Double

Any of these are pretty much top shells on a size 3 team.
Nerf Double
 
I don't like Double first, she seems too meter reliant and I don't think Luger does enough during neutral to give her an edge. If you want Car/Install, you probably want a battery first.

I think the Install DHC got weakened for a couple reasons. One is the obvious one where you have less green bar and can't get the same kind of bonkers damage off it. The other is that the defender gets less meter. It used to be if my Peacock died without getting to do anything, I would always have the next character come in with the meter to DHC immediately to Painwheel. Now that's not always guaranteed. I need to do at least something with Peacock to earn access to my safety net.

I don't think it's necessarily limited to a negative feedback and perpetual comeback mechanics (to use sirlin's definitions) but yeah, it does kinda suck for size 3 teams.

When I watch Negus' team in action, I always get the impression that he's focused on the keepaway and extending neutral as long as possible with Double by extending blockstrings with c.MP and getting safeties/freebies from Updo.

I'm never sure if that's just his style or how his team is structured, or both, but Fugazi + Luger goes a longer way with him than anyone else I've seen run it, and he gets a lot of meters from free damage if someone messes up offensively.

I've studied him a lot in comparison to Domo, Krackatoa, Satan, or other more traditional PDubs players, and I believe his play/team is the only one with this much emphasis on defensive capitalization and neutral/footsies.
 
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In most tournaments it seems like the most common characters are Filia and Double by far. Them having the best assists is probably a big factor, but if either of those and many times both of them are on almost all teams that kind of says they are tops. Assists have to be considered when rating characters. Unless we are doing solo tiers.
psylocke.txt

You know I started to write something up for that just now and I ended up with x/Filia/Double for almost everyone. I mean except for Filia and Double. And Peacock, cause I think she benefits more from Brass Knuckles or Lock n Load than from Hornet Bomber.
Now you know why I call that team "Core."

I don't like Double first, she seems too meter reliant and I don't think Luger does enough during neutral to give her an edge. If you want Car/Install, you probably want a battery first.
The beauty of Car Install is that it works both ways. Catheads DHC (Death Heads?) is safe, leads to strong mixups and lockdown, and PW is a fantastic battery. Double's neutral is kind of reliant on j.HP and low/throw or assist mixups, but what makes her a strong anchor is the fact that you usually have excess meter when she appears. Car Install is a way you can safely get Double out and back to the rear position at any time and punishes zoning attempts and keeps people honest and leads to mixup/big damage and is really REALLY safe when Double ends up at the front of the line for whatever reason.
 
The beauty of Car Install is that it works both ways. Catheads DHC (Death Heads?) is safe, leads to strong mixups and lockdown, and PW is a fantastic battery.

Car Install is a way you can safely get Double out and back to the rear position at any time and punishes zoning attempts and keeps people honest and leads to mixup/big damage and is really REALLY safe when Double ends up at the front of the line for whatever reason.

DHC Cat heads is a great safety, DHC Install is a great safety (or advantage), and on three-man teams, Install has the bonus of being one of the few supers where you get your bang for your buck even if you don't use it right away. If you DHC through painwheel's install on to something else, Painwheel comes in with Install active later, and I don't think it ever expires while she's on the bench. Which is kind of funny when you use her raw tag as a ghetto/pre-emptive alpha counter in certain situations.

I think Peacock's bomb is probably the only other super where it does something good for you even if you're only passing through it on the way to your third, and sometimes it's kind of a double-edged sword.
 
Cerebella/Painwheel/Double is probably a really fraudulent good team. Cerebella can have bomber backing her up and use Painwheel's Buer to extend into a combo if she lands Diamond Drop. It also has safe DHC's every which way so you can mash your way through stuff safely if you have the meter.
 
Cerebella/Painwheel/Double is probably a really fraudulent good team. Cerebella can have bomber backing her up and use Painwheel's Buer to extend into a combo if she lands Diamond Drop. It also has safe DHC's every which way so you can mash your way through stuff safely if you have the meter.



I agree on this team. It is really stanking good. Bella neutral gets buffed from pw stinger assist (watch sm use this team, all he does is headbutt with bella and mp stinger covers it on block)


Right now, i think safe dhc are paramount. Its like old sfxt. You constantly safe dhc out when you get a chance and your point heals up red health. Its really really strong. And dhc in at half health or less is always a strong option, on block or hit:


On block you heal red hp which is a good use for 2 meters. On hit you damage their point AND heal red hp... Which can be a huge life switch with no risk at all, unlike going for a reset.


Whoever/painwheel/double seems really good right now.
Im using palis team (parasoul,painwheel,double) and it is exceptionally strong. Its biggest weaknesses being:

Dhcing can sometimes put parasoul at anchor... Which she isnt the best at.
Up/back-opposite corner turtling seems to give the team problems.
Peacock fucks the entire team over.

So theoretically, bella at point or fortune, seems stronger. Cause bella is better against peacock than parasoul (reflect and armor run, glide for some instances) and so is fortune.

Fortune/painwheel/double has the goods to be one of the best teams in the game.
 
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psylocke.txt


Now you know why I call that team "Core."


The beauty of Car Install is that it works both ways. Catheads DHC (Death Heads?) is safe, leads to strong mixups and lockdown, and PW is a fantastic battery. Double's neutral is kind of reliant on j.HP and low/throw or assist mixups, but what makes her a strong anchor is the fact that you usually have excess meter when she appears. Car Install is a way you can safely get Double out and back to the rear position at any time and punishes zoning attempts and keeps people honest and leads to mixup/big damage and is really REALLY safe when Double ends up at the front of the line for whatever reason.

Yeah, I agree with that. What I mean is, I don't like the idea of Battery Double on teams. She's better at second or third.
 
I go and play custom robo for a few hours and come back to all this. To answer your question Peanuts I never said that Bella/Double was the best shell I only wanted to say that this shell will make your point character the strongest they can be but lose the point character and the team falls apart. In terms of best team for each character things get a little bit tricky because some assists have never even been tested. I'll just list my thoughts on what the best team to make the point character strongest would be for each character.

Filia: Coppter/Bomber
Val: Updo/Bomber
Parasoul: PW/Bomber or Coppter/Bomber or Squigly cr.hp/Bomber (I don't know which is best)
Fortune: Coppter/Bomber
Peacock: Bomber/Big Band
Double: Double sucks on point but I guess Pillar/something
Cerebella: Pillar/Cilia Slide
Painwheel: Squigly cr.hp/Bomber (anything and bomber would work thought)

Squigly and the rest I don't know.

Now if you want to know what I think the best positions for each character thats easy.

Point: Val, Parasoul, Peacock, Fortune
Second: Filia, Cerebella, Painwheel, Squigly
Anchor: Double

Big Band and other dlc characters will have to wait and see.
 
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I go and play custom robo for a few hours and come back to all this. To answer your question Peanuts I never said that Bella/Double was the best shell I only wanted to say that this shell will make your point character the strongest they can be but lose the point character and the team falls apart.
...okay. Well in that case would you mind answering why you think "this shell will make your point character the strongest they can be"?
 
...okay. Well in that case would you mind answering why you think "this shell will make your point character the strongest they can be"?

Coppter is the best lock down assist in the game no question and Bomber is invincible and gives you lock down at the same time. There is a lack of air coverage with these assists yes but if you can make them block at all you have a really good chance of getting a hit. This shell may not be the best for a zoning team but with one hit you can win the match if all goes well.
 
The best point team in the game for any character is point/Bella/Double or point/Double/Bella the problem is once the point dies the team becomes much less practical still good but not the strongest shell.

But no any character with both bomber lk/mk/hk and copter/lnl is the best team in terms of assist combos.

Point/Bella/Double doesn't really give you much air control. I don't think its on the same level as Double/Filia.
 
Cerebella/Painwheel/Double is probably a really fraudulent good team. Cerebella can have bomber backing her up and use Painwheel's Buer to extend into a combo if she lands Diamond Drop. It also has safe DHC's every which way so you can mash your way through stuff safely if you have the meter.
This is one of the teams I've been toying with in my never ceasing journey to find a Painwheel team that isn't just straight up worse than my "secondary" teams.

I think it work pretty well, you get Dynamo xx Install into Painwheel pressure with cerecopter, which is, in my opinion, the single strongest position to be with Painwheel.

My goal with that team would be to play Bella until 2 meters then DHC into Painwheel, almost regardless of what position I'm in. It just puts you into such a commanding position.
 
Something else that needs exploring is sing assist with characters that are viable solos.

The theory being that since hose characters are viable solos they can set up heir own offenses and defense while sing just makes it so that the enemy cant run away from them.

So... Theoretical teams and the tactics to use with sing:


Bella command grab mixups (obvious) bella is probably the best character or 2nd best character in the game upclose... With installed characters being better for a limited time... And filia.


Filia plus sing. Filia goes to work in the corner and is near impossible to pushblock... So sing creates corners at midscreen...this is good for corner technicians such as filia.


Fortune head off

Varying methods of running away from fortunes head are some of the main ways of dealing with it. Well with sing, no more running away from the head. Plus fortune is free to lockdown with the head and set up the point.

To me, the fortune plus sing shell is the penultimate shell for sing. sing has the rather obvious weakness of making the point character move closer to you... But having no lockdown at all for staging a high/low or any kind of mixup. Fortune head off kinda bypasses this weakness. Filia is an assist all by herself since she sets up her own high/lows so well. And bella has god tier normals and reversals and command grabs that say f yo attack, f yo priority and f yo block.

Whether any of that is possible^^^ who knows. It will definitely be hard to learn. But the people that play those respective characters at point would be best to figure things out quickest. At this point in order to try out the fortune/sing shell, you'd have to have a master class head off fortune just to attempt it... But you might get some super god tier shit as well.


Anywho, sing assist is the next thing im looking at cause its largely unexplored and has so much theory fighter goodness.
 
I honestly tried center stage assist for a good while but it was a liability if the opponent happened to just be pressing a button at the right time.
 
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I honestly tried center stage assist for a good while but it was a liability if the opponent happened to just be pressing a button at the right time.
Yeah...

Don't you remember when I used to run sing assist Dime?

When it works out it makes it look good, but its just really not consistent at all and the situations in which it actually turns out useful only happen like once every 10 rounds anyway. I think 2HP is my assist of choice for Squigs right now, although Silver Chord is also good.
 
I honestly tried center stage assist for a good while but it was a liability if the opponent happened to just be pressing a button at the right time.


Oh i definitely know it can be a liability. But its use as utility assist is what hasn't really been explored. Utility assists are there for a specific purpose. Sing gives midscreen SnapBack combos and also sets up weirdo crossups and forces upclose pressure.

@Tomo009

Yeah you used it. But was it with the right teams and characters? Was it with the right strategy?

For instance it could be a really good utiliy assist for when the opponent wiffs with an assist or gets their assist hit... Cause most people want to back up when their assist is locked out.

And though that may not be the most powerful strategy, when we look at all the strategies that sing can be used for and moves that it can be used with (i just found out that armoring while calling sing can be quite useful, though not spammable) is when we come up with the assist being good.

Not only does it do those things... (And there is probably a lot more that I'm not thinking about) it also allows corner only strings in the middle of the screen. THAT alone is quite powerful.

So yeah, needs much more experimentation. IT IS NOT a just throw it out there assist, its a setup assist that uses strategy and combos to enforce its strength.

Imho