Tominator's Ultra Improvement Diary: I Suck Edition

[Tominator]

Hey there. I've been sitting on this game for a little while (just after Eliza release) but had to drop it for a little while for various reasons that shouldn't be a problem anymore. Now I'm back and get to dedicate a lot of time to it, this seems like a great place to help store all my thoughts for my progression as well as *hopefully* get feedback and help from players with more experience/knowledge/skill. So without further ado, lets go!

My Team

My team has always been Parasoul, Cerebella and Peacock. Recently though I've been strongly considering switching Bella for Big Band (more on that in a minute). I've always considered myself as quite a defensive player, not necessarily a turtle, but I like to play safe, be cautious, use pokes and control space etc. I'll go through each character individually with my reasons for using them/thoughts on the character in my team and general stuff I need to work on, then I can update these later as and when I need to.


Parasoul

Parasoul was the character I was originally drawn to, both for her design and my limited knowledge of the game after doing the tutorials taught me that she seemed to fit my playstyle the closest. Solid neutral, great normals, decent zoning capabilities, potential for good pressure and so on. I've always had her on point in my team, though most recently I've wondered about moving her elsewhere. Having her first is good for me because: (in my opinion) she's probably my best character right now, she seems to build meter quite quickly (feel free to correct me on that), she has great neutral so having her first when the round will always start in neutral seems a good idea. On the other hand, the negatives I can see in this are: her bad mobility means I have trouble getting in on particularly Peacock, yet I've noticed Peacock being used on point a lot so my Parasoul will always run into Peacock, and I can't just tag out for obvious reasons, whereas if I have her somewhere else, running into Peacock may not be an issue. Also Parasoul's lvl 1's seem a bit meh, whereas the level one supers of Bella, Peacock and BB all have good uses in more situations (from what I know), so having Para on point means I only really have access to these, when ideally I want her level 3 which seems really good in comparison. Parasoul will definitely be staying in my team because I like her a lot and feel like she suits me, I just need to work out the right place for her.

Things I do well (ish) as Parasoul

• Charge execution - I always play charge characters in fighting games, so this common problem isn't an issue for me.
• Spacing/neutral - While obviously spacing is a massive area to work on, I feel like I can do this acceptably well and there are things that need much more urgent attention to qualify it to be in this section for now. I think I have a pretty good grasp of her normals and their range, as well as which to use when. More matchup experience will help this area out.
• Zoning - I know Parasoul's zoning isn't the best there is, but I think I can use what she has quite well and just generally make it a lot more awkward for the opponent.

Things I need to improve or learn

• Uses for her level 1's - Though I don't think they’re particularly great, I’m sure there will be good uses for her level 1’s in certain situations. I need to learn these situations.
• Learn some more mixups/resets than combo/blockstring…command overhead.
• Learn a solid, consistent BnB I can reliably do from anywhere on anyone.
• Be more careful with napalm pillar when under pressure.
• Improve/practice getting in on good zoning, particularly Peacock.

Peacock

Peacock was the other main character I was drawn to from the start for her heavy zoning and keepaway (plus brilliant character design). I always played her last in my team, though looking back I’m not sure what the reasoning for this is. Strongly considering moving her to point and Parasoul to anchor. Positives of having her on point: negates earlier point about Parasoul coming across bad matchups (though I don’t know how Pea does with matchups to be honest), I have Peacock in safely without having to find a way to DHC her in from Parasoul’s lvl 1’s that I don’t use. Also, it negates Peacock coming in later after one of my other characters dies and having to face the mixups on an incoming character, which I don’t think she copes well with. Negatives of having her on point: round start is basically in the exact position Peacock does not want to be in, so I have to immediately be focusing on keepaway, which I feel limits my options from the beginning. Similarly Parasoul’s normals and options are much stronger from this position. Either way, Peacock is also definitely staying in my team, I just need a good place for her.

Things I do well (ish) as Peacock

• Keepaway - I was born to run away in fighting games.
• Mobility – I don’t just stand at full screen and throw stuff anymore, as I’ve found this gets you killed easier if the opponent can get through your zoning pattern. I move around a lot more with the aim of being hard to pin down and generally just being a nuisance, rather than a static target.
• Careful zoning – My brother has hit me with H. Brass Knuckles enough to teach me to not be careless when I’m zoning, and I feel like I’m now more clever with when I throw stuff and when to just sit there or call an assist first.

Things I need to improve or learn

• A real combo – I can hit confirm well and do a standard punish combo into argus to get them away and restart my keepaway, but this isn’t really good enough when the opportunity really presents itself.
• A little more care with teleport.
• Mixups/crossups/resets – I’ve seen Peacock has some pretty confusing, tricky stuff in this regard. Would be good to get some of that in my own game.

Cerebella

I love Bella for her cool moveset, command grabs and armour (also cause she a naïve little cutie pie). I think she fits in well with the other two because she has a couple of useful assists for that team, it’s nice to have at least one character on my team with some armour usage, as well as that she seems to be quite damaging. Not to mention the threat of her grabs.

Things I do well (ish) as Bella

• Armour – I think I use it appropriately and quite successfully.
• Assists - I think I use her assists at pretty much the right times.
• Getting in - I think I can use her various tools to get in on zoning fairly effectively for the level I’m at, namely reflect, careful gliding, armour etc. As well as mixing them up to not be predictable or baited.

Things I need to improve or learn

• Pressure – As yet, I have no answer to being pushblocked as Bella.
• Get a better combo and get it down – I seem to find Bella’s combos a little awkward in terms of timing for some reason, so I drop them more than I should. This should go away with more practice.
• Command grabs – I’ve had a fair bit of success with command grabs, for example anti-airing quite well with excellebella. This has put me in a position where I think I go for command grabs too often, particularly on defence, and suffer for it.

Big Band

BB has been a fourth character for a while, but I’ve been wondering if I might be better off introducing him into my team in place of Bella. I like them both a lot, so it isn’t an issue of that, I just feel BB might do the same job as Bella in my team (mainly for a great assist to peacock and also Parasoul) as well as curing my Bella problem of going for grabs too much. His combos also feel a little easier to me due to my Bella combo issue so far, plus he deals a lot of damage with quite little effort.

Things I do well (ish) as BB

• Getting the taunt in when I can for additional super damage.
• Quite good at putting the opponent in the corner and keeping them there.
• Decent use of Heavy Brass as a full screen punish when I can, both normally and as an assist.

Things I need to improve or learn

• Parrying – I’ve played a fair bit of Street Fighter: Third Strike (love me some 3S Dudley) and my parrying was pretty good, but it’s been a long time and the moves I’ll be parrying are obviously different in Skullgirls, so this needs a lot of practice.
• More use of his different tools – I very rarely use beat extend and I frequently forget cymbals exist. While this will also come with more time playing the character, not using them is hindering my play.
• A consistent and reliable BnB.

Me

A few things I also need to work on, that aren't related to a specific character.

• Pushblocking – At first when I was new to the game, I never pushblocked. Then once I kept remembering it, I pushblocked *everything*. I’m still trying to find that right balance between pushblocking at the right time and not doing it when I can potentially punish etc.
• Learn all of the in-depth game mechanics – I know what the infinite prevention system is and about undizzy, but I’m sure there are some more rarely-used things that I may not have heard of, noticed or seen before. I need to know what these are so I don’t get blown away if someone uses it on me for the first time. For example, I didn’t know what a double snap was until yesterday…
• Use a double snap if I get the chance, heh.
• Stop getting hit by my brother’s reversal car super as Double, and avoid situations where he can use it to punish me.
• Adapting quicker so I don’t get hit by the same reset multiple times before I realise what’s going on.

Assists

• Peacock – George’s day Out (lk. Bomb) – I love this assist as it’s just so slow and annoying to be on the screen. I’ve looked at the other bombs as assists but I think I prefer this one.
• Parasoul – I always used napalm pillar as my assist as Parasoul, as a default ‘get off me’ invincible DP assist. Recently though, particularly when considering whether to move Peacock to point, I’ve wondered if napalm shot might be a good idea simply to aid more with zoning. I can see the benefits of having both for Peacock, in different situations, though I think pillar would help out my other character more than shot would. As for which shot to pick, I like the idea of light because its slower so more time with more stuff on the screen, though heavy is much faster so that’s an option as it will give the opponent less time to react and should be easier to get the tear to place and stay on screen.
• Cerebella – I mainly use cerecopter now as it has okay range to cover the screen and lasts a while, plus if it connects it has great lockdown giving me chance to do stuff while they’re blocking/being hit. I used lock ‘n’ load for a while, but it just seems like a discount version of BB’s heavy knuckle.
• Big Band – Heavy Brass Knuckles – This just seems like a ridiculously good assist, particularly for Peacock, but also to cover Parasoul (especially when approaching zoners). Armoured, huge hitbox, travels essentially full screen, love it.
  

You're finally at the end!

To anyone who took the time to read through all my ramblings, thanks a lot. I’d greatly appreciate any comments, thoughts, advice or opinions on anything I’ve written (it took way longer than I thought it would, hah). If anyone wants to play me on PC to help out then just hit me up here or on Steam and I’d be really grateful. I’m EU West. Also I’ll try to record some of my matches in the near future and get them up in here as a visual representation of all my various issues. Until next time!

 

[Pickles]

I don't play any of the 3 characters you listed as your main team unfortunately but hopefully I can offer some advice on the points you listed as wanting to work on.

Parasoul:
-Her level 1s are not as damaging as other characters but they offer a lot of utility. Sniper allows you to punish at long range, and the crumple gives you a chance to get a mixup on their wakeup or just close the distance. It's also your most common combo ender because of that crumple. Bikes (I think the real name of the move is "motor brigade") is useful after pillar or as a dhc option because it is difficult to punish, so you can make moves safe with it.
-Parasoul's air grab is very easy to combo off of without spending resources, so resetting with that is very useful. Aside from that, Parasoul's high/low/throw game because of her command overheads is also strong and you can make people guess on landing pretty easily. j.lk as a crossup tool is also good but a lot of experienced players will see it coming.

Peacock:
-With regards to mixups, you can create a lot of 50-50s with item drop in conjunction with moves like j.hp that can cause her to cross over the opponent. Teleporting with a bomb out can also force opponents to guess (similar to dhalsim in SF). There are a lot of good peacock players out there but personally I think mcpeanuts is one of the best to watch for peacock mixups because he's very good at those.

Bella:
-Low/throw with command grabs is your friend, her c.lk is fantastic and once you get into setplay your opponent basically has to keep guessing against relatively safe mixups.

Big Band is a character I do have experience with so I can offer some better advice with him.
Tools: j.lk is your best air normal without question. Because of this Big Band has difficulty in the air vs people above him, so be careful of that. His throws have good range and are easy to combo off of without meter so throw mixups are good. Beat extend is obviously a great reversal but like all reversals can be baited so use with caution, also keep in mind that the lp version while fastest is NOT throw invincible, only hit invincible. Cymbals are mostly used to discourage air approach, using them offensively is harder. One of Big Band's greatest strengths is his ability to get a hard knockdown with brass/a-train, and set up off of that. Generally you will have to choose between high damage combos and getting that hard knockdown because his most damaging combos use up your OTG. This and this are great resources, but keep in mind regarding the first link that it is from release day so a lot of things (like c.mk mixups) people have become accustomed to and they might not work as often. Another thing to keep in mind is that it's not always best to go for taunts, while it does significantly increase his level 1 super damage you are sacrificing positioning and setups which are very valuable to big band since he generally has a harder time getting in vs good players, once you're in you don't want to give up pressure just for extra super damage.

Regarding assists, you seemed to be choosing assists with regard to their helpfulness for peacock. With that in mind, I personally am not a fan of zoning assists with peacock. Peacock already zones very well on her own, her problem points (i.e. the points where you would want an assist to help you) are when the opponent gets close. For this reason I think dp assists such as beat extend (for big band) and napalm pillar (for parasoul) are your best options. For bella obviously her dp is not great, but both lock n load and cerecopter are good for controlling space. Personally for peacock I think lock n load is better though.

EDIT: That said, however, if you choose to run a trio over a duo (which I don't recommend as much with peacock, she benefits a lot from the extra damage a duo gives vs a trio), the main draw of trio is having multiple options for assists. So running 2 DP assists would be redundant. You could try something like peacock/pillar/lock n load or peacock/napalm shot/beat extend depending on team composition.

 

[Tominator]

This is all great stuff, thanks a lot for helping me out! I'll definitely take the time to read those two resources you linked and will go through your information a couple of times too. I see what you're saying about BB's taunt and I'll definitely put more focus into positioning with him. I'll check out some Peacock stuff too. Coming from SF, Dhalsim's fireball, teleport thing was something I definitely wondered about for Peacock, though I'd never thought about crossups and stuff with j.hp and an item drop so I'll look into them.

As for assists, this is clearly an area I've got a lot of options in so I'll do some experimenting. This goes for my team itself too and the order they're in. I'll try to get some games in with some people and just try switching around between the 4 characters and their various assist options, see if it gives me any more clarity on what suits me best/works with the team. I'll get them recorded too so we can all do some further analysis and watch me die horribly!

Thanks again!

 

[skull person]

Allow me to recommend my personal preferred team order for your characters:

Peacock.
Parasoul.
Cerebella.

Or...

Peacock.
Cerebella.
Parasoul.

It looks like from what I can gather you're playing Peacock as your third character: The anchor.
Peacock without an assist (solo Peacock) is very underwhelming compared to the things she can do with an assist.
Having proper zoning assists to compliment Peacocks zoning is what makes her so good.
If you put Peacock first, you can give Peacock a DP assist to call during predictable blockstrings - Pillar, and a delayed armored space control assist to help with zoning patterns. - Lock N Load H
You also get to build your next two characters a lot of meter with bombs in case she dies early.
Lock N Load H is also one of the few assists that still allows Peacock to cross up with her teleport.
[Call assist, wait for it to touch the ground, do a teleport behind them and they will have to block the other way or face getting hit with a very powerful assist hit starter. You can also use the MK teleport to fake them out and teleport in front of them if they start blocking the opposite direction.]

When you play Peacock > Parasoul, you get to play Parasoul - Cerebella as a duo after Peacock dies. I'm pretty fond of this team and I think Lock N Load compliments Parasoul's game pretty well.
If Cerebella ever gets hit or counter called and gets red health as an assist: Parasoul will come in instead of Cerebella in case Peacock dies or Peacock DHC's, so that Cerebella gets to keep her red health and regenerate it as you play as Parasoul.

When you play Peacock > Cerebella, you get to give Cerebella a DP assist, and also give Peacock the ability to convert off Argus Agony into a full combo with Cerebellas Diamonds Are Forever level 3 from full screen. (Peacock is building so much meter you'll have meter to do this even before Peacock dies.)

When you play Peacock as your anchor character, your final come back character, is either:
- On incoming with no assists to help her, close to her opponent where she doesn't want to be, about to block a lot of mix up, as a solo with low damage.
- DHC'd into and your assist is now probably missing a lot of health and won't be able to regenerate that red health because of how much Peacock calls her assists.


Note that Peacock is mainly agreed to be best played on duos right now because of how helpful the damage ratio is for chip damage on bombs, bombs that hit, and Argus Agony damage shredding point and assist health.
If you can convert off Argus Agony with a DHC from full-screen, that's usually a dead character if you can get one reset. (Assuming you're playing a duo).

Lastly,
watch some game play of TJGamer/SwiftFoxDash, a very solid Peacock|LnLH player [Here] and [Here].

Just my 2C that you may or may not find useful.

 

[Tominator]

Hey thanks a lot, I have found it very useful. I think I'll definitely be trying out Peacock as my point, most likely keeping it that way since I was thinking of it anyway. So both people who've replied to this so far have recommended using Peacock in a duo rather than a trio for additional damage reasons. If I was to do this, it would be with Parasoul, as those are the two characters I specifically liked the most and they're still my favourites and best. My only problem there (and feel free to correct me on this) was that I wasn't sure how well they worked together as a duo. The two of them was what I had originally and it felt to me like they needed a third person for assist reasons. I could be wrong or there could be something I'm missing, but I feel like Peacock really benefits from an assist like H LnL or H brass knuckles, and Parasoul can't provide that.

I'll definitely be giving it a go though! In a duo of Peacock/Parasoul, should I be taking pillar as my assist? That seems like the obvious choice, but I do think napalm shot would be helpful for Peacock too.

 

[Tominator]

So I participated in Skullbats EU PC for the first time this week. I was preoccupied a lot, so forgot to record three of my matches, but here's the other four.


Here's some of my own analysis of each game, though I'm sure I've missed all sorts of stuff. Anyone who sees anything I can work on, please let me know!


Match 1

1:10 – Bad choice to super in the corner after a throw, then immediate bad assist call that gets us both hit.

1:30 – I try to attack Sehkmet, bad decision.

3:00 – Why did I tag there?!

4:05 – Bad super read. Would have been a bad decision anyway.


Match 2

2:50 – I throw, do item drop and then just stand there. Should be dropping bombs
or otherwise just doing stuff.


Match 3

1:14 – That was a really late cancel. Waste of meter.

3:08 – Should have been a forward throw to keep the corner.

4:30 – I use a throw as a punish from a blocked super, and miss the item drop/argus afterwards.

4:40 – Peacock dies with around 3/4 red health. I need to get her out much quicker and save some of that.

5:30 – No punish at all? Chalking that one down to nerves/missed input I guess.


Match 4

5:15 – Bad pillar. I connected with a couple of pillars in this match, but that becomes predictable now.

Overall in this match its pretty obvious I don't know how to handle Valentine as Peacock. I realise now I could item drop more to help me out. But otherwise I just need to learn this matchup. I kinda just stand around, unsure what to do quite a lot.

• Other things apparent in all of these matches are I dropped a number of combos and punishes that I don't normally drop. I'm considering this is down to nerves at this being my first Skullbats. More combo practice always required anyway.
• One Peacock thing I've picked up on is I don't use mp Bang enough, but use hp Bang way too much. Also I rarely use s.hp which I know is a useful tool, and more safe.

 

[Muro]

Watched the playlist and wrote down notes a bit earlier, so I can now cheat and post my reply in turbo style:

PEACOCK

- Something that you'll need (and which will come with time as I had the same problem) is the habit to maintain a "denser" projectile cloud. By which I mean less pauses between sending things. Being smart while doing it is important of course, I don't mean throwing things blindly with no effort put into defence, but still making the gaps smaller will make it more efficient.

- More focus on bombs and shadow at the cost of Bang-Bang-Bang. Said B-B-B can be a good pressure tool if the opponent is already fullscreen, under a shadow and/or with two bombs going at him and/or with an assist supporting the keepaway, but by itself it's not that great. Without something supporting it, if the opponent jumps and rushes towards you from the air, the long recovery almost guarantees you'll get hit before you have a chance to block/react.

- On shadows. Here again, this is also something I couldn't get to use for a while, as it takes some time to get used to the habit of pressing buttons while already holding another button. But, once you employ it, you'll notice it becomes a world of a difference. For starters, before considering charged (as in, while holding the button) shadows, you can try to occasionally incorporate very short ones (as I see you sometimes do! keep at it), with doing qcb+tap HP when the opponent is fullscreen, and qcb+tap MP for a quick midscreen drop when the opponent is roughly there. It gets you used to having that tool and eventually you'll want to experiment with it a bit more, including strategically keeping charged shadows.

- Jumpback+j.HP is a good escape tool, but so is jumpback+j.HK, I'd like to see a bit more of those. The latter doesn't additionally "push" you back with shotgun recoil as opposed to j.HP, sure, but the Avery projectile it leaves is tricky to deal with, making it quite discouraging to approach you from the air.

- And on upbacking, using doublejumps and/or backwards airdashes will give you an additional keepaway, as well as making it less predictable what your escape trajectory will be. A single jumpback that is followed by neither a second jump, backwards airdash nor j.HP/j.HK actually worsens your situation, as the opponent can approach you faster than you just jumped away.

- Be careful when argusing the opponent if you have him cornered and are in his face. And by careful I mean "it's not a good idea, unless the argus will kill or it's followed by a good DHC". Even though it hits so you get the damage, argus has a bit of recovery, which often enough to put Peacock in a unfavorable position, where she she is now defending and has to take a guess of "will the opponent go for a low or grab or maybe something else". Isn't a problem when using argus optimally, as in with space behind the opponent to push him away.

- This *could* have been avoided, with a quick enough reaction.
You couldn't block the scalpels as you were already committing to a c.HP. However, since it was a normal, you could cancel it on reaction to the superflash into a special. Here, any teleport to dodge the scalpels altogether, but preferably the (hold P) fire-in-the-hole teleport, as it would keep you in place, while sending a bomb in Val's face.

PARASOUL

- I liked your fullscreen Parasoul zoning with consistent napalm shots, used i.e. in the second match vs Bosco. You successfully kept him in that annoying situation where you basically pushed his hand and made him tag out and make risky decisions. In the end I think that's what won you the match, as I feel the short happy birthday you got right after (which ate quite a bit of his health) was the result of him panicing a bit and making a wrong move, then paying for it dearly.

- I can't be sure if it's something you had a chance to do, but even if not, a possible tip. If you're in a situation where your Parasoul is pressured and bleeding and you really want to tag out into Peacock, but reasonable expect the tag to be punished, AND are sitting on 2 levels of meter, a thing you can do is Bikes*->Lenny. Peacock is in neutral after summoning Lenny which is a great for defending or starting your own offence, and you do have a Lenny right there to make the opponent unsure what to do.
*I'm guessing Sniper shot could in theory be better functionally as the hit stays, but it has longer startup (I think?), whereas the manoeuvre is less about dealing damage and more about spending 2 meters to switch characters in a safe way.

 

[gllt]

@Muro Yes, raw bikes is actually not bad at all as quick DHC fodder on point if you're in a hurry to make something happen. I actually have issues with the cancel window on pillar into bikes sometimes (on block, oops baited) and so I sometimes just do bikes by itself into a DHC and it usually works out much better for me, personally. But I don't know anything about the actual frame data or hitboxes/hurtboxes! I should take care of that..

Raw Sniper DHC is a thing though, like, if you know you're gonna nail someone with shot. (Hi Peacock) into lenny or argus depending on what you want to do. Or maybe both into a full combo?

Also alpha counters. Didn't read up in the thread (sorry I'm very very VERY tired will later) but if you run like, sHP assist, when you alpha counter you can do any -special- out of it. Teleport, MBang, etc or supers. Or special into super. Having a normal assist to alpha counter into is pretty neat. (But if you're using, say, LBomb, if that works out and gets blocked, maybe you can lenny to recover faster? It's already kinda safe anyways? so 2 meters to alpha counter into LBomb Lenny? This is totally crap off the top of my head, I've been up over 24 hours, im so sorry)

Oh and you can be literally punished for argus on hit in the corner by some characters, if I'm not mistaken.. I might be.

upback jHK back-adc jHP is a thing

or jHP back-adc jHP

edit:

glanced over thread, I shouldn't be up still, but thoughts

LShot for Peacock seems good, maybe even better for rushdown than for keepaway, but probably still strong for keepaway. Pillar isn't Updo (I think Updo is a bit better for Peacock as far as DP assists go) but it's probably like, a hair worse at.. worst? IE It's probably still really great to call to get things off her or that are approaching her in the air above/in front of her if you don't have item drop perhaps?

 

[Tominator]

So much information here, thanks a lot guys! Lots to take in, so I'll probably end up reading both of these posts multiple times but some stuff in response. Firstly @Muro this is great stuff, particularly on Peacock. I've picked up on a few of these things, like using j.hk more, I've noticed I use j.hp a lot, but some have slipped my mind so its always great for someone else to notice and remind me. I definitely use bang bang bang too much, I suppose that's become a habit. I guess I need to work more on just filling the screen with as much stuff as possible in a short time, that should hopefully come in time. As for a couple of these other things, they're all useful too, for example I frequently forget the fire-in-the-hole teleport even exists, so I need to start working stuff like that into my game.

Speaking of which, on the subject of tagging, I always totally forget about alpha counters in this game. I think I might need to look into that a little more. So thanks for that @gllt (though you should probably get some sleep). And yeah I did argus in the corner twice, realising immediately both times it was a bad decision. I'll look into all of this stuff. One question would be about LShot, I've considered that quite a lot, but I'm not sure I'm really good enough to make it work at this point, when pillar seems such a great assist.

 

[Fedora_Ninja]

Hi. I don't play peacock or Parasoul, but I can say things on your recorded matches.

around the 4 min mark you had a happy bday situation and 4 meters. it's fine if you don't have full length combos yet, but you coulda lvl3'd there and killed the assist while still dealing damage to the point. During happy bday situations, you should be thinking about the hardest punish possible. Can you corner carry into double snap? What's the simplest way to ensure damage to both characters without risking either character dropping out of the combo?

Which brings up another point:
You don't use meter.
1st match: dies with 4.5 meters
2nd match: Win with 5 meters
3rd match: dies with 4.5 meters

No supers or anything were done. These matches might have gone completely differently if you spent some change.

 

[Tominator]

That's a very good point. I guess I need to put some more thought into when I can spend my meter when I have it, though wisely. As for the happy birthday situation, you're right for sure. I think for a while I should indeed probably just focus on what's the easiest/most damaging thing I can do without risking messing up and wasting a great opportunity. I suppose I always knew I was a bit tight with meter, but I never realised it was this bad. I might have to start a spending spree sometime, when I think I'm safe.

 

[skull person]

You really really like Bang [H]!
It's pretty good vs lower levels of players who don't block while dashing or know the match up but against really strong players usually that's an invitation to jump in.

Because you don't have a proper zoning assist you can't use Bang [H]! along side an assist call to still keep them in place so usually you want to always use bombs instead.

Here is the bomb summon you need to use more:

HK George into LK/MK George

MK George and LK George especially don't help too much vs an opponent jumping at you, and your opponent when will always want to be trying to jump in to avoid M Bang and also to land cancel the recovery of the blockstun from her projectiles.

LK George usually just gets you counter hit by a heavy, but MK can sometimes sneak up even after you get hit and save you from a combo.
You'll notice a lot of times they got a jump in on you because you did LK George first as an anti air which doesn't work very well.

Spoiler

Take a look at this crude drawing.
The angle from HK George to start lines up with LK/MK George to create a really annoying wall that most enemies will have to block.

You have to try and place bombs and shadows to hit the opponent where you think they will try and approach from.
You don't always have to know exactly what they're going to do but you have to close off the space they want to use.

Like I said earlier, H Bang is usually a free invitation for a jump, you want to try and use that when you think the opponent really wants to jump and hits forward to catch them off guard with the projectiles fast speed. (Usually then you combo into Argus if you have a lot of meter).

Also like Muro said, try and use shadow a bit more.
When you hold M Shadow your opponent gets really scared, at any point before you block a hit or get hit you can drop it from the sky and counter hit your opponent with a powerful starter.
It also lets you do cross ups on the go, keep strings safe, punish pokes, cover your retreat, punish air attacks, etc.

And keep posting more stuff to keep track of your improvement!

 

[Tominator]

Hi, thanks Skarmand. I think some of my earliest Peacock problems stem from me autopiloting what I thought went well whenever the first few times I did them was. So the result so far is that I overuse hp Bang and j.hp and always do my bombs in this order: lk, hk. Basically I know I definitely need to shake up that routine a bit more. Firstly I'll be at least using hk bomb first in whatever I'm doing (thanks to the beautifully drawn diagram) and a few other things in general that I need to do more are j.hk, shadows, mp bang when relevant and just being a bit less predictable to jump-ins.

Thanks for all the help guys, keep it coming! I think it might be a good idea for me to keep posting my Skullbats games every week, as then I'll have a consistent gauge to measure my progress on.

 

[Tominator]

Alright so I've been busy this week so I only got my matches from Skullbats uploaded today. Haven't got time to analyse them in depth right now but I'll be back to do that some time soon. As a more general point I feel like I improved on my performance last week, mainly in terms of how my Peacock did in the neutral game. It was far from perfect but I think I mixed it up a bit more and used a few more of the tools recommended to me (and less bang bang bang!).


As usual, feel free to watch and comment as you see fit.

P.S. Match 5 vs Dimitri was the most laggy horrible match I've ever played in. Might be worth skipping that one as it was totally unplayable and there's no way I could learn anything from that since I was just trying to do whatever I could underwater.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Pickles]

2nd video:

2:49 and onwards while para is getting hit, but especially at like 2:51 when you're back on the ground, that would have been a perfect time for M bang into argus

3rd video:

0:51 you start the match by doing dash backwards into...nothing. You had a chance to start zoning there that you didn't take.

1:54 he's doing the same approach, you can m.bang here too. Obviously using a reversal like that is a risk but 1) he wasn't respecting you at all so you should have been confident that it would have worked and 2) you had meter to cancel into lenny or whatever to make it safe even if he did block it.

2:33 you just jump back, unless the opponent is RIGHT in your face (which he wasn't yet) its worth throwing out a j.hp or j.hk just to give him something to deal with if you're retreating like that. (I don't play peacock so maybe empty jump was actually the right call there? correct me if i'm wrong but it seemed like a missed opportunity to throw something out)

Game 4:

you're starting to fall back on h bang more, remember that it's usually better to go for something like s.hp and h item drop instead.

That's as far as I've gotten so far but some general notes:

Don't throw bombs at point blank, it just trades at best and gets you hit at worst. Use standard combo starter stuff at that range, you can try to use a blockstring to push them back but at least do some basic combo stuff, there's more to peacock than just throwing projectiles.

Use m(? again i dont play peacock but i think m is the one that tracks when they're less than half screen away) shadow more to cover yourself. Your zoning at fullscreen and 3/4 screen seems solid but once they get in close you basically run out of steam quickly. Peacock does have tools for close-range effectiveness, use them.

Overall though you've definitely improved, your play looks a lot cleaner than before. Keep it up!

 

[Tominator]

2:33 you just jump back, unless the opponent is RIGHT in your face (which he wasn't yet) its worth throwing out a j.hp or j.hk just to give him something to deal with if you're retreating like that. (I don't play peacock so maybe empty jump was actually the right call there? correct me if i'm wrong but it seemed like a missed opportunity to throw something out)

That's a good spot. I didn't even notice this and had to watch it again to see that. You're most likely right about it though and I imagine j.hk was my best bet.

Use m(? again i dont play peacock but i think m is the one that tracks when they're less than half screen away) shadow more to cover yourself

Yeah that's the right one. That's something I've noticed too. I use hp shadow quite well I think but my lack of the closer ones I think was exposed in my fights against Painwheel this week. I could have done with a m shadow for a bit more protection from her flying through my bomb deadzone.

Thanks for the advice again and I'll keep working on this stuff! I definitely still used h.bang too much and m.bang not enough. I still never use s.hp either so I need to work this into my game. Otherwise I think I've started doing most of the other Peacock stuff that was suggested last week.

 

[Tominator]

Well I've been so busy recently I've not really had the time to train or post, I squeezed in an hour per week for Skullbats, so here's my playlists from the last two weeks. I think lack of training and match practice has led to whatever skills I had being a little rusty, and generally not improved much. At least playing better players than me once per week is something, but with any luck I can be back to work in the near future.

Week 1

Week 2

 

[bigbandpro69]

Sup, I wrote some notes for the first video in those two playlists. I started with W1 but then realised I should start with W2 but I was halfway through W1 anyway so I just finished that off. Anyways here are the notez:

Game 1 - vs. Rex

Spoiler

0:44 - Okay, here I think you should have charged MP shadow (hold qcb mp) as soon as possible, as its a very good defensive tool. You can hold it and release it when they get close and throw bombs at the same time. Anyways if you had blocked the cilia slide it would have been a free combo.

0:53 - Good reaction to the burst.

1:00 - I see you like peacock's j.HP a lot but you should use j.LP for point blank air to airs since that is really fast. You can do stuff like j.lp buffer j.mp into a adc hitconfirm combo, I think.

1:10 - Again I would have charged MP shadow as soon as possible to keep the opponent wary, you can actually cancel it into bombs (or if you can't its really fast)

1:20 - Could have argus'd right here for some nice damage on his point + assist.

1:26 - Dang you got hit by another cilia slide. I guess just start to respect that since it is very punishable on block, unless double spends 2 meters to cancel it into catheads. LK bomb would still probably beat it though.

1:35 - For some reason rex gives you a lucky break from the corner. Failed incoming reset, maybe.

1:40 - Beowulf got hit by j.HP raw, meaning the opponent could have mashed tech and completely avoided getting combo'd. To fix this use j.lp buffer j.hp, chaining into j.hp lets you get a otg.

1:47 - This was a mashed grab or your reactions are great. Not sure. You could have converted off it using charge back, charge forward LK egret cancel or charge back, charge forward HK for egret charge.

1:50 - Side note you can egret cancel Parasoul's level 3 and dash in for a mixup if they block it, but you would have gotten a free OTG on painwheel from that alpha counter if you did.

1:55 - Right here you could have tossed some tears right into the air above you if you used the hold version of tear toss. Basically you can control the trajectory of the tear placement by holding the button to varying lengths of time - pretty short amounts. Absolutely worth learning for effective tear zoning
MK tear toss lets you place tears right above you and I find this works well vs. Painwheel

1:58 - Painwheel j.MP is -9 on block so going for a punish was the right thing to do, use c.LP instead of c.MK for tight punishes at it is your fastest ground normal (7f startup I think)

2:00 - Damn, Rex's parry game 2strong, really nice hatred guard s.LP

2:18 - You probably could have killed here with j.mp j.hp j.hk air combo instead of grab reset, but you killed PW so w/e.

2:28 - Something goes wrong with j.mp j.hp j.hk which sucks. You used up otg before that with b.HK overhead. I do launch -> j.lp j.lk j.mp land j.mk j.hp when I've used OTG as parasoul. Side note j.lp j.lk j.mp is a very strong reset that I will explain a bit later*

2:30 - Good punish on arm super, I think you might have been able to time bikes super to hit on his wakeup for chip damage.

3:00 - I don't think fake teleport is ever a good idea vs. Painwheel on round start. I usually just do j.hk ADC backwards, charge MP shadow, then start throwing stuff

3:09 - Woops, you called assist too close to the corner and got tagged. If Rex knew snap combos you would have lost Parasoul there.

3:20 - That tag could have been punished pretty hard if Rex linked off j.HK

3:45 - Wulf blitzer crosses up on 3rd hit (?)

3:55 - I imagine peacock vs. Beo is pretty tough, I would have charged MP shadow, probably good vs his lengthy air normals.

4:00 - You could have hitconfirmed into a pretty big combo if you did something like s.lpx2 s.mp -> s.mk launch hitconfirm combo (something like s.mk j.mp j.hp ADC j.lp j.mp s.mp s.hk HP shadow dash s.lp s.mp s.hp hp bang argus) - if you don't know this combo already I suggest you learn it, it is high damaging and pretty easy to do.

4:33 - Heck, another cilia slide. I guess you were just reacting wrong to it.

5:03 - Woops I forgot to mention this earlier, but a tactic I use vs. Painwheel is to hold MP shadow and combine it with HK bomb - this breaks her hatred guard (armour) on j.hp and you can also confirm argus off level 2 item drop since it has so much hitstun.

5:08 - That technique would have beaten her j.hp right here.

5:13 - Sweet dashunder.

5:21 - That j.LK was probably confirmable with s.LP

5:33 - Could have ground teched out of the corner here since he used OTG with c.HP

5:45 - I think you could have mashed Parasoul level 3 against arm super and got a free conversion using egret cancel.

5:55 - You hit Rex with s.MP raw meaning he probably dropped stick thinking you wouldn't drop the combo. LP shot -> s.MP link easiness varies from character to character, check that out in training mode w/ advanced frame data on

6:16 - I would have DHC'd into argus here as it would have killed PW and brought in peacock to let parasoul recover red health.

6:24 - Holy shit another raw cilia slide. Rex likes to do this apparently. It's easily punished by blocking + counterhitting or jumping over it -> one of parasoul's big air normals like j.HP -> convert

6:27 - Holy heck Rex drops stick again and you hit him with raw s.MP, again. I would just do s.lp/s.lk instead on characters where LP shot -> s.MP is a 1-3f link.

6:29 - That was the same reset as one I saw a while ago in this set but whatever you have pretty much won at this point.

Wow I thought I would be able to cover all of your games for Skullbats but this takes freaking ages. Also I realised this is W1 and you have already uploaded W2 which is better worth examining, I think.

* j.lp j.lk j.mp is an excellent reset that parasoul players should use, doing this after a launcher gives you options like:
- jump grab
- jump back j.lp burst bait (works with jump grab to make a 50/50 sort of)
- dash under crossup
- late fake dash under crossup (you just dash into them and stay same side)

This reset is also universal if you learn the timing for each weight class, takes a bit of practice

Alright time to check out W2 game 1

Game 1 - vs. Den

Spoiler

0:28 - Oh boy peacock vs Big Band, this is a tricky matchup for Peacock in particular, imo. Charging MP shadow is very important in this matchup since it stops BB from throwing out brass (which is really good at armouring through projectiles)
since blocking it lets you punish with item drop -> conversion (by dashing up -> s.lp into combo)

I will just walk backwards on round start since BB players usually do stuff straight away. I would get MP shadow charged as soon as I could.

0:47 - I think j.lp buffer j.hp might have beaten BB j.LK there and let you convert, as BB j.LK does not have a disjointed hitbox and Parasoul's j.lp does. In any case j.lp buffer j.hp is pretty godly for air to airs.

0:53 - That j.HK could have been punished with a full combo but good pillar anyways

0:55 - BB HP brass was punishable AF there, you

1:05 - That fukua tag in was also very punishable, just dash -> punish since Parasoul's dash is really fast

1:28 - BB could have combo'd both characters there if he chained into a light -> combo

2:04 - Dashing on round start is sort of risky vs. Big Band as he controls such a large amount of space. Walk back blocking would have put him at -6 frames

2:18 - Holding an MP shadow would have dissuaded any kind of brass attempt

2:44 - I would have level 3'd as soon as I saw fukua come out, then cancel it and mix up big band.

2:58 - Can't just throw out moves vs. brass, really. You can sweep it but blocking + punishing gets you more.

3:00 - Good pillar. If you canceled it into bikes you would have killed big band

3:04 - You jump at fukua at point blank with j.HP which is a big no. You should stick to j.LP for point blank air to airs, use j.lp buffer j.hp and convert through otg if it hits

3:14 - I would have pillar'd into level 3 -> cancel -> mixup

3:39 - It looks like Den charges after a forward jump, sucks that your point + assist both got tagged. You don't want to throw projectiles that much in this matchup, I find. You want to charge MP shadow and then carefully throw projectiles from long range, or go for mixups w/ MP shadow covering you
If you have no shadow charged BB can just brass vs. your projectiles for free at close range. It's also worth noting that you can punish blocked MP/HP brass at max range with argus.

3:55 - Same deal with charging after a forward jump, I would just block it and punish. Block more vs Big Band in general, force him to earn his hits.

3:56 - HOLY shit that sucks, try not to call assist in the corner next time

4:04 - That also sucks

4:10 - Wakeup super because why not? I guess the morale here is to block a lot more vs button happy Big Bands and punish them after that.

(jeez BB can look really stupid sometimes)