Overview
An In-Depth Look at the Play-Style and Mechanics of Painwheel (Feat. Elda Taluda and ♥♥♥♥♥ Eyoel)
About Painwheel
About Painwheel
“Painwheel is Designed for players that love heavy rushdown, if people are too afraid to hit buttons, her mix-ups are insane. OFFENSE ALL DAY (with moderation).” – Elda Taluda
“I Mostly Like how Damaging her Combos are, and how slimy her resets can be, I also like how she isn’t a character that anyone can just play.” – ♥♥♥♥♥ Eyoel
Painwheel has the hardest skill cap to learn in the game, but one of the most rewarding as well, she has Projectiles, Command Grabs, Flight and the ability to cancel said flight mode to combo longer for even more damage.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths:
- Flight and Flight Cancel Combos (only character that can)
- Super Armour on some of her hits, soaking up a lot of damage.
- A Level 2 Super that Buffs her Moves.
- A lot of hitstun from her Normals, Allowing for REALLY easy Hit Confirms, and some hit Multiple Times.
- Both her Ground and Air Grabs have a lot of reach, and can combo without the need for an OTG.
- Can Do Combo Set Ups that allow you to NEVER use an OTG.
- Amazing High/Low Mix ups. and Heaps of Ways to deal with Chickenblocking. (Blocking in the Air)
Weaknesses
- A lot of start up on her best Air Normals, and her fast ones (j.lk and j.lp) have little range and are easily beaten and hard to confirm off of.Unless you are good with Reactions with ether her Charged s.MP or s.HP, Solo PW Doesn’t have good options for jump ins.
- 90% of her best resets and combos Rely on Flight Cancels alone, which can be hard to learn and execute and also leaves her susceptible to Reversals or DP Assists. (But if you read your opponent well, there are ways to bait them even after flying)
- Her Flight has more Negative Impacts then Positive ones. anyone that attempts to challenge them in the air may get outclassed due to her best options having too much start up, and her faster options getting beaten. (Her Best Options are her Charged j.HP/ her Air Super and her Air Throw, which is a lot faster then her faster air moves + More Range, and can alter its hitbox by flying in different directions before you throw, Down, Forward, Down/Forward and so on).
About her Flight
About Her Flight
“Her Biggest Asset is Also her Greatest Liability, and thats her Flight” -♥♥♥♥♥ Eyoel.
With Painwheel having No Double Jump and her Dash being terrible, she has no real mobility options OTHER than her Flight, But AS you Fly, you can’t Block ether, Meaning that in a Lot of Match-Ups, Flight Gets you Killed. Its Really Important to Abuse these limitations to your advantage, Flying in Certain Areas and Avoiding Others.
Against Parasol, Don’t Even Bother Flying.
Against Cerebella, Pretty Much the Same because of her Normals But going backwards, you can take advantage of the Cerebellas Possible Over-extension, Fly Back and Sticking out a J.MP or an Assist helps a lot. (And Laming it out).
Against Peacock, Generally its best to stay low to the ground but not so low that the floor bombs hit, and charging j.HP to get through Air Bombs,If you can’t do that, Don’t Fly.
NEVER Fly Above Filia or its a Free Fenrir.
As for Painwheel vs Painwheel…
“Far as PW vs PW match-ups goes, my advice is to not fly, at least in neutral, The Flying Painwheel is at a disadvantage 90% of the time, 2nd Would be to Learn Pw Specific Resets, there are PLENTY of them, And most of them Disgusting. 3rd is if you manage to get 2 meter, can use her Hatred Install be sure to do before the opponent does, PW cannot do much of anything against another PW Chucking Nails from fullscreen (especially if said painwheel tries to fly :3) and its just a good tool overall.” -Elda Taluda
“Pw Matchups are Funny, I Prefer to stay on the ground with a DP Assist, If you don’t have one, its best to be higher than her at all times, and bait out any assist that can cause you problems going in.” -♥♥♥♥♥ Eyoel
So basically, Don’t just fly because you can, otherwise you will get yourself into some terrible situations.
Flight Cancels and Combo Extenders.
Flight Cancels, And Combo Extenders.
“You have to get a good feel for how your Opponent deals with Pressure before going ham on them” -Elda Taluda
Painwheel has the ability to extend combos much like an Air Dash Cancel or a Stance Cancel like Squigly, but by Canceling moves into a flight, then continuing off of the flight, back to the ground, then continuing with another flight cancel. its an advance technique, and if you want to combo well with Painwheel, you will do well to learn how, also learning how to combo and reset is important too. Using her command grabs and her LP Projectile, you will do well to learn all of these tools to learn how to play Painwheel. This combo video done by Krackatoa Showcases ALL of these. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c7RZBpGSG4
How to Better your Painwheel
How to Better your Painwheel
“Painwheel is Definiely a character that, in my opinion, beat me with, i know that you deserve it, I feel that it takes as much work if not more to be great with her than any other character, and that is why i’ve stuck with her even though sometimes i want to drop her.” -♥♥♥♥♥ Eyoel
Painwheel is a character that the more you put into learning her, the better she will be. The First Advice i was given by ♥♥♥♥♥ is that you have to be prepared to lose, a lot. The spacing and when to fly and what areas to fly comes with Match-up Experience, At first, you will most likely lose way more often then you win unless you play against really bad players. So Learn how to do Flight Cancels, Learn how to Fly, and Learn how to play against different opponents and character match ups, and knowing when to do what at what times will come naturally.
And that’s when She Becomes a Terrifying Character.
Thank you to ♥♥♥♥♥ and Elda for assisting me with this In-Depth look. As for Guides as well, i have a few of those as well.
This Video Done by Chainsaw Buffet goes over her basics, its a bit old but the basics haven’t changed.