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Valentine Character Guide

ashxu

ashxu

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Valentine Big Band Fukua
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=259748518

I've been playing for quite awhile and I wanted to share my knowledge so I created a Valentine Steam guide because there wasn't one anymore, it goes through most of the tools and basics for Valentine. I'll update it as I learn new things about Valentine so it's not final!

Feel free to discuss/give suggestions/ask questions/give comments or any sort of input. I'd prefer it if you posted it here though rather than on the guide itself.

I wrote it with people who know a bit about fighting games in mind so if you're completely new to fighting games as well as Skullgirls then you may need to do a bit of research on terminology and do the in-game tutorial to get the most out of it.

Shout outs to ClarenceMage, Tomo and Smokey for their help and contributions to the guide.


Changelog (D/M/Y):
24/6/14 - Guide released!
25/6/14 - Added move notation for the burst baits and clarified reset section.
3/7/14 - Added more information about Valentine's Counter super.
4/7/14 - Revised some descriptions for some normal moves.
20/7/14 - Added double snap section.
2/9/14 - Revised normal/super moves sections with some more information and better wording. Also added more match up notes and clarified some resets.
3/9/14 - Added another burst bait combo.
7/10/14 - Added a Synergies section to the Match ups section and also added another Double match up note.
17/10/14 - Added a link to the Valentine hitbox thread on Skullheart in the Other Resources section. Also added Ground/Air throw in the Normal and Special Moves section.
23/10/14 - Added more information on j.HK.
26/11/14 - Added more information on c.LK in both the Normals and Resets section. Also added a section on Endless Beta changes for Valentine.
29/1/15 - Added some combo notes to Vial Hazard and Dead Cross in the normal moves section.
18/4/15 - Changed the guide to reflect the Valentine changes in the Beowulf patch[skullgirls.com].
15/6/15 - Updated combos to ones that take advantage of the new Savage Bypass changes.
 
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Thanks for doing this. We needed a guide.
 
Prototype said:
Thanks for doing this. We needed a guide.
you're welcome

Also I added move notation to the burst baits section and added some more information for the resets.

All of the combos I know are in my muscle memory so I had to watch the videos and transcribe them, heh.
 
Minor note, I have noticed that painwheel is actually pretty problematic for her due to her lack of an anti-air at that height, that may be worth mentioning.
 
Prototype said:
lack of an anti-air at that height,

Use more air-to-airs, Valentine's air-to-air game is brilliant and you should be using that a lot instead of relying on ground-to-air anti-airs. Valentine's best vertical ground-to-air anti-air, s.MP, is very useful against other characters but requires far too much precision vs Painwheel to use reliably. However, if you use more Air-to-airs like j.HK or j.MK in conjunction with your air movement, Painwheel is not that problematic. At worst it's fair for Valentine. Besides, you're using Val+Filia, you already have Updo to smack painwheel out of the air.
 
ClarenceMage said:
.
I actually just had this discussion with some people over in the matchup/tier thread. Learned a lot about the people who frequent that thread but el taluda posted a write up in it that details the match as I often find it playing out and he agrees in leans in painwheel's favor. Jump mk is often just useless against really capable painwheels. I played a bunch at CEO this weekend and I would be put in the dirt if I touched that button. with a real unlfly now that just does not hold up like it might have in the past. But I have never tried using s.mp against airborne opponents but that seems pretty scary to attempt given assists and stuff with how long it recovers. If broken loose ever posts those matches I will try to link me playing them to show what I mean.
 
Added some information about Valentine's Counter super although it's a bit obvious. Long story short it's hard to punish people with the Counter if the move has armor.

Shout outs to Big Band's SSJ.
 
As long as it's countering with prescription and not countervenom, countering things with up to 3 hits of limited armor is fine. Against SSJ you can still do c.mp to break the armor. If you're good at timing only first two hits of c.mp -> c.hp, you can still get your +100 undizzy and 1425 CH damage since armored hits don't count to the combo meter.

Countervenom... yeah you're kinda fucked.
 
You can grab countered armor moves anytime, or you can just load a vial, hit them once and counter again, if you have the meter
 
4 meters for a combo you better win after that lol

I tried c.MP to break SSJ's armor but I only got it once, I'm not sure if it's that reliable...
 
c.mp consistently kills SSJ unless you cancel it too early into c.hp or whatever so it only does 1 hit. However, they can mash out DHC since you still have to get through all the hits of armor. Also after landing countervenom on SSJ/painwheel lvl3/Bella lvl3 you still have time to block after the hit. So they're still punishable and got stuck with the lvl3 poison, but you lose out on most of the damage from the injection.
And currently in beta when countering sekhmet with a vial loaded, you can combo countervenom into a grab and get +30 undizzy (the hit from the grab itself takes off -20 from the +50).

Better yet if they want to know more in-depth about the lvl2 counter, just send them to my "Val's lvl2 super and you" thread.
 
Mike fixed the super counter w/ vial. Breaks armor now.
 
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That fix is currently only in beta now.

also, I looked at the guide and the combo and reset sections use "ADF" as notation for air dash cancel without explaining what it means. What does the F stand for?
I've seen "adc" or "ad" as notation, but I think it's only ash and clarencemage that use "adf" in the val combo thread. Is that like an Aussie thing?
 
You can do specials out of her backdash, just not normals.
 
Fedora_Ninja said:
That fix is currently only in beta now.

also, I looked at the guide and the combo and reset sections use "ADF" as notation for air dash cancel without explaining what it means. What does the F stand for?
I've seen "adc" or "ad" as notation, but I think it's only ash and clarencemage that use "adf" in the val combo thread. Is that like an Aussie thing?

I use "adf" because it's "airdash forward". "adb" would be airdash back, which I use when I write down certain burst bait setups.
 
I've seen multiple different ways to say air dash and I went with ADF due to what ClarenceMage said but I'll make it more clear.
 
Been trying to learn Val (for the ninth time) and got kind of a asinine question.

Val is described as being mostly a rushdown oriented character but, the guide says "her movement is more suited towards defensive play" and while glancing the tier discussion topic, I've seen a lot of observations about Val being more effective when the player goes "lame" with her.
That said, my question is: what's the defensive Val game plan? Bearing in mind she fits the rushdown archetype and IIRC one of her major weaknesses is the lack of good reversals (something that assists can circumvent), I didn't think she could be played effectively in any way besides constant pressure.
Personally, I just can't get the hang of rushdown types so I'm interested in this alternate method.

Apologies in advance for such a vague question.

Thanks. (__)
 
I have not found very much success with the lame val. Also be very cautious in tier discussion there are a lot of people that post things which are not true. Aside from that what i believe they mean is to poke with the assist while covering it with crosses. Let the assist score the actual hit then convert or punish their attempt to punish the assist.
 
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The thing with Valentine is that you DO want to get in however going ham yolo will only end in a bad time. She has good tools in the neutral for asserting your space control however once you do get in on them that's when you can stack on relentless pressure.

If you want some good Valentine footage, look up Duckator's Kumite and watch how he plays. I didn't upload any gameplay footage of myself playing to the guide because my computer is bad and to get some of those videos that are there already I had to do multiple takes.
 
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Balder said:
That said, my question is: what's the defensive Val game plan?

Okay, so what you want to do is a bunch of things

1. Bait/circumvent their DP assist, so that you have no chance of getting knocked out of the air by one
2. Live in the zones where your opponent can't really do shit to you, and most of that involves being close to the cieling, but use your own judgement here since it varies vs person and matchup. If you do that, then you can coax your opponent to overextend, or put themselves in a situation where they can't anti-air you for shit(directly ontop for most characters) or without good timing, or set up an assist crossup with jump, double jump, assist + airdashforward(+j.MK for extra momentum is what I like to do), or whatever other advantageous-for-your-assist situation you can come up with.
3. Pretty much you are trying to whiff punish a lot with Val, but not just "they did an attack, they are going to get hit" but also whiff punishing by taking advantage of their recovery to get yourself into a position that your opponent hates, like slowly pushing them to the corner, or crossing them over when your back is to the wall so that you force them to chase you down another screen length.

Once you DO get in, going ham and doing monster pressure is nice and feels nice, but at some point, you are going to go TOO ham and get bopped by a DP assist, reversal super, or some shit. Playing lame and taking your pressure situations from neutral can limit the risk you take when rushing someone down in their face, and Valentine's GREAT neutral game buttons(With special mentions to j.HK to occupy and deny space like a stop sign, j.MP to screw up pushblocking defense, j.LK as an asshole crossup move that also screws up pushblocking, and j.HP which has a brilliant crossup hitbox+general good move for jumping in with) and movement allows her to play like this, in conjunction with positioning herself around assists.

Besides, Val actually can't really do threatening constant pressure like Filia or Ms Fortune, because her instant airdash is significantly slower (unless you do Backdash Airdash, then it's only just slightly slower), and her c.LK is MINUS on block. Her c.LK c.LK is even on block however, but her fastest normal is 6 frame so you perfectly timed c.LPs from you + anyone with a 5f jab = you get hit. If you want legitimate hamyolo unending airdash pressure of the gods, play Filia or Fortune.

The big thing about Filia and Ms Fortune's constant pressure is that even if you block their low, they're still plus, meaning that s.LP c.LK or c.LP c.LK, or IAD j.HP c.LK is all a way for you to have to deal with even more pressure/forced to block low/be forced to pushblock to get them to gtfo even after you block their frametrap hitconfirm into a low.

Valentine's -4 on block c.LK forces you to commit to an extra button press(extra c.LK, assist) if you want to maintain legitimate pressure without making the bet that your opponent won't press a button because OF COURSE you're going to follow up with something after the c.LK.
 
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Prototype said:
Aside from that what i believe they mean is to poke with the assist while covering it with crosses. Let the assist score the actual hit then convert or punish their attempt to punish the assist.
Thinking a bit more on the matter, I'm starting to see how "Lame Val" theoretically works - get the assist to score/open and capitalize on that. She has arguably the best mobility in the game so it makes sense she can make the best out of those situations. #Slowpoke

ClarenceMage said:
2. Live in the zones where your opponent can't really do shit to you, and most of that involves being close to the ceiling
Can't recall if it's a general agreement but, from what I gathered, it seems that in this game staying airborne is the optimal position. (Which is pretty much what I'm not doing besides playing Whack-a-Mole with Para's j.HP... -_-" )

*frame data*
Not questioning the data but seems strange that Val has Lows with minus on block, while Fortune's and Filia's are plus.
Also explains why whenever I fight Fi/Fo/Fu (dunno if Fukua shares Filia's frame data though), I get beat out of any attempt at retaliation.

If you want legitimate hamyolo unending airdash pressure of the gods, play Filia or Fortune.
Like I said, I really don't work well with rushdown types hence why I'm trying to see if I can make Val work another way. I don't even understand those characters at the most basic level; sounds weird especially with Filia who's meant to be the beginner-friendly character but I simply can't (it is a thing I love about the game, though; how every character plays legitimately different).


Much obliged for the pointers and food for thought. Now to grind her BNB a few more hundred times until I get it consistently.
 
I'm having trouble with the core combo at the 'j.lk j.mp' point. Doing j.lp j,mp j.hk leaves me too low for the j.mp to come out.
Any tips?
 
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Delay the j.lk a bit to give yourself a bit more air time

I admit the combo listed in the guide is a bit odd, if you want to learn Duckator's combos or anyone else's then by all means do so.

Balder said:
Like I said, I really don't work well with rushdown types hence why I'm trying to see if I can make Val work another way. I don't even understand those characters at the most basic level; sounds weird especially with Filia who's meant to be the beginner-friendly character but I simply can't (it is a thing I love about the game, though; how every character plays legitimately different).
Well her entire strength is to get you into the corner or a situation where she can stack on the pressure and just keep throwing mix ups at you so if that's not your type of play style then you may want to pick another character.
 
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ashxu said:
Well her entire strength is to get you into the corner or a situation where she can stack on the pressure and just keep throwing mix ups at you so if that's not your type of play style then you may want to pick another character.
When I got the game back in the vanilla days, I planned on running Val/Bella but quickly noticed Val wasn't for me and swapped her for Parasoul and been running ParaBella ever since (which will evolve to ParaLizBella). Might sound bizarre but one of the reasons I picked Val again was to get accustomed to adcs and rejumps because Eliza seems to heavily rely on those.
SG really is a special case for me. I played a lot of fighting games but never quite left the casual-intermediate limbo, and never stuck to a main in the honest sense of the term until SG. I became very aware of that when I played a set with a PSN friend who got Encore for free during the PSN+ giveaway. I'm not to underestimate so I picked ParaBella and pretty much steam rolled him. So I picked random characters to give him a chance and that's where I saw just how abysmally bad I am with anyone but those two.

Long story short, I feel I should learn a couple more characters, not just to spice things up but also to learn how to fight against them. That said, Val and Double seem the only other ones I might be able to be halfway decent with.

Also, I might try running ValLiza for the sake of getting to learn them both and not depend on Parasoul or Cerebella.
 
Fukua's frame data is very different from filia. Fi's st.mp +8 Fu's is -4. Just to get a scope of the difference. When i try new characters i always play solo online, i know it's bad for me but sg characters seem so deep i feel i won't learn properly unless I'm solo. But with the bait and punish you will need to reset fairly often, her damage is too low not to.
 
Nothing wrong with playing solo to learn a character.

Just impression may be skewed in my opinion because you'll be open to assist abuse more due to you not having one yourself.
 
Balder said:
Been trying to learn Val (for the ninth time) and got kind of a asinine question.

Val is described as being mostly a rushdown oriented character but, the guide says "her movement is more suited towards defensive play" and while glancing the tier discussion topic, I've seen a lot of observations about Val being more effective when the player goes "lame" with her.
That said, my question is: what's the defensive Val game plan? Bearing in mind she fits the rushdown archetype and IIRC one of her major weaknesses is the lack of good reversals (something that assists can circumvent), I didn't think she could be played effectively in any way besides constant pressure.
Personally, I just can't get the hang of rushdown types so I'm interested in this alternate method.

Apologies in advance for such a vague question.

Thanks. (__)
The way I would put it, is:

Val's GOAL is pressure, offensive momentum.

You want to be in, use your + on block normals well, keep them locked down with assists, bait them into doing stupid stuff etc.



Val's METHOD is spacing.

You want to stay at about round start distance and try to coax your opponent into bad positions. Val is adept at always being above her opponents and her normals work especially well from there, allowing her to achieve her GOAL. Basically the general flow of Valentine is:

1. Start at neutral > you excel here, try to stay at arm's reach, in the air and pushing the opponent back, when you find an opening or force the opponent into the corner>
2. Get on top of them > usually by baiting an assist then abusing their lack of options or just by outprioritising them with something like your j.HK. Could also be a crossup j.HP after coaxing them close to you >
3. Pressure into an opening > Val has excellent pressure, but she can't stick to you the same way as Fortune or even Fillia can, so you need to have the immediate goal of mixing your opponent up. A good example is use 2LP for frame advantage then 2LK / throw mixup into full combo. If you are pushed out and didn't lock them down with assist, go back to 1, you excel at neutral so it isn't a huge loss. >
4. YOU REACHED THE GOAL > after getting your first opening you can generally keep your offensive momentum going. Make good use of assists to stay in, counter call your opponents defensive calls and bait out reversal options. Although Valentine isn't quite as oppressive here as some characters can be (unless you are in the corner) she doesn't hate being pushed back into neutral as much as those characters do.


Yes, flowcharts are bad, but this might explain how I see Valentine playing.
 
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Im new to skull girls and well fighting game in general and i was realing your guide for beginner combos and i was wondering what ADF means. also is there less jumpy valentine combos for a new player to use???
 
It means air dash forward, so you use air dash to cancel your current move to do another one.

Also all Valentine combos have jumping in them so you'll have to get used to it. If you don't like my combos then that's fine, you can try Duckator's combos (Which is on the 1-3rd newest page on the combo thread here) if you want but I think they're harder than the ones I listed. Or you could do your own or find someone else's, just be warned that some combos may be worse than others.
 
ClarenceMage said:
whiff punishing by taking advantage of their recovery to get yourself into a position that your opponent hates

QFT
 
Updated the guide a bit. (See change log)

Also added a new burst bait video that's really nice for making some characters behave and not mash, it's also really easy to do.
 
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I remember finding this guide a while ago and jotting down some notes. It's been really helpful and I'd like to thank you for that. While I've come up with combos largely on my own, it's good to know how each move works to better things overall.
 
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Added a synergies section although I don't have much, I don't want to just list assist combos and some stuff isn't character specific but whatever.

Also accidentally found out that you can dodge Double's Car with EKG Flatliner. Kind of a no brainer if you think about it since it has invincibility frames but I guess I/we never really thought about it. You'll probably get hit once by the car but you still get the punish. So if you're in the middle of a move, don't panic and try to time EKG Flatliner correctly.
 
Added a section on the Endless Beta that mainly just explains some of the changes. Nothing too in depth but some people may be interested in what the changes do and how to experiment with them.

Also added info on the c.LK OTG restand.
 
Couple things that could stand to be mentioned:

  • Synergies that allow for vial loads; cHP + Updo/Pillar x Vial, sHKx2 + Bomber/Copter/Excella/ATrain x Vial
  • Cross/Syringe allowing for double-jump links
  • Beta Bypass allowing for double-jump/adc links
  • beta sMK working better as a lockdown assist than before with the hitbox expansion
 
is s.MK actually legit as a lockdown? I suppose I'll have to try it.
 
I guess you can compare it to Squigly's c.hp in terms of momentum, but hitting mid.
 
Updated guide to reflect the Beowulf changes.

If you've been playing the Endless Beta all this time then there's nothing new though.
 
Updated again to add more relevant combos. Guide is still useful and relevant, no big changes anymore so I highly doubt any information will be that obsolete if at all.
 
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