Bust Your Knee Caps - A Painwheel Guide

Put the nail in the kneecap, honey, you're in for the long, elaborate ride.

Introduction: Your Pain(WHEEL) is my Pleasure

I can't believe you're reading this guide. God bless. However, that means that you want to understand Painwheel just that little bit more. That's alright. I can be your senpai. Just know that this is what you're getting yourself into.

EDIT: I kind of dropped Skullgirls, so this guide will never be finished. Sorry! Ask me Carl Clover things instead?!

Welcome to being trash. Painwheel is commonly discussed as one of the harder characters in the game, due to the excessive use of canceling, understanding of property changes from Hatred Guard, lack of meterless reversals and the fact that Squigly exists to name a few. Anyhoo, you may want to lower your expectations for this guide, because I've never written one before and I don't really know what topics to cover. I'm hoping that you know basic combo notation, but if you don't, the standard inputs are discussed like the numpad, where:

7 8 9          L = light             j.(input): jumping attack                
4 5 6          M = medium     c.(input): crouching attack
1 2 3          H = hard           s.(input): standing/neutral attack

And the directions are as if the player is standing on the left side facing right like the start of
a match as Player 1. 5 indicates that no directions are being pressed, while 6 is forwards, 4 backwards and so on and so forth. It's good to know this for fighting games universally. Some players tend to discuss Skullgirls notation as s.lp, f.hp, j.mp, blah blah, blah blah. I'll be referring to them like that. For example, a combo could be written as c.lk, c.mk, s.hp. Good luck!

Painwheel Herself: Commitment Regrets?

Is the title of this section in relation to you, or me? Who knows. However, there are a few things Painwheel does that other characters do not have. Namely, we're going to be talking about Flying and Hatred Guard in this section.

Fly away, you fool!

Flying is enabled by 236 and any kick button. The kick button you use has no impact on the "ugh!" Painwheel makes when she goes up into the air and her back does that woosh woosh woosh thing. I haven't read the story, so I'm sure she has a reason to be angsty about that, but as of the recent update I always use the Valley Girl Painwheel voice so I don't have to hear her be so teen. You should consider using it too. Anyway, flying is cancelled by simultaneously pressing two Punch buttons (like you're doing a super with no directions) OR when you press any attack button. There's a difference here: cancelling it normally without attacking with the two Punch buttons will allow you to block (because you won't be performing an attack unlike cancelling Fly the other way by. . .attacking). You will begin to depend on this very, very fast. Fly is an integral part of the Painwheel's movement, combos, and zoning.

From flying and moving around a little bit, you will notice that:

• Painwheel moves backwards faster than she does forwards
  
• Painwheel's fly lasts for about 7 seconds before falling
  
• Painwheel has an invisible barrier that prohibits how far upwards she can go. Note: if the enemy character jumps, the barrier is raised to accomodate and she is then pulled back down when they fall to the ground.
  
• Painwheel can reuse Fly depending on where she used it. If she uses it on the ground, then she can reinput fly twice in the air, resulting in 3 instances of flight total. If she uses it after jumping and in the air, she can only use it once after that.
  
• If you hold down while flying, you won't actually end up on the ground again, unless you input an attack button.

So yeah, Fly For Fun(tm). JUMPING EXISTS DON'T FORGET TO JUMP OR I'LL START CRYING BECAUSE JUMPING IS STILL AGOOD MECHNAIC ON PAINWHEEL AND IS IRREPLACABLE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

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Golly gee, I'm so mad I'm gonna press this button harder for longer to demonstrate my anger!!!

You may have noticed from your fiddlings with Painwheel that some of her moves generate a lightning-y effect around her when you hold down the key. This is commonly written, in most fighting games, as [(button)], i.e [hp], indicting that you need to hold down this button.



This is important to your neutral game and some of your mixups. This is special to Painwheel, as she generates super armour that absorb a certain amount of hits depending on what kind of button the player uses and sometimes does something different at the end result. While charging, Painwheel cannot be hit out of the start up of her action until the threshold of hits is reached. Once the move is used, however, she's free to be whacked out of it. We can see this the best in her j.hp.



In the first image, Hatred Guard's super armour is preventing Painwheel from being whacked out the air as easily. However, you'll quickly find that after j.hp fully executes and the attack is being performed, you can be swatted out of the air like the fly you are. I never realized what position Painwheel was getting in to do that attack. Ew.

Anyway, here's the table for how many hits you can take while charging an attack. Note that some attacks cannot be charged, which will be covered in the normals section. And, uh, I forgot to write this, but you still take full damage, honey.

Button	Absorbable Hits
Light	1
Medium	2
Strong	3

In addition, I feel as if I should quote this. I haven't seen any significance in this mechanic. Maybe it's a really subtle change that allows Painwheel players to be the comeback queen faster. I'm not too sure, but I don't really understand this that well. I fiddled with it in practice mode, and it seems like I did ~1000 more damage after the CPU whacked me around a little bit with a charged hard punch, but . . I dunno. I might quote from Shoryuken more often, because there are things that are probably important that I don't really notice enough to note.

Originally posted by http://wiki.shoryuken.com/Skullgirls/Painwheel#Signature_Techniques:

Painwheel surrounds herself with a red lightning effect as she charges her Hatred Guard attacks. Like with armour, the held start up frames of a Hatred Guard can absorb an incoming attack as recoverable damage. Painwheel stores the recoverable damage for up to 33% of the opponent's total team health. Painwheel applies 33% of her stored damage when connecting with a light Hatred Guard attack, 50% with medium attacks, 66% with heavy attacks, and 120% with her Buer Overdrive level 3 Blockbuster.

Normals: With Every Wheel, There's A Way

Ugh. The section with the most pictures. I'm not going to cover all of them. Please don't make me. I don't talk about frame advantages and. . . whatever. I'm just gonna say "this move shouldn't be used in blockstrings, this move hits high when you charge it, blah blah blah"

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Lights

Low Light Kick. You'll be super surprised by how far this reaches. It's a really good poke tool for when someone has whiffed a move and you want to get in their and poke their shins to death. It's far better than the standing light kick with superior range and a negligible damage difference. It takes longer to start up than standing light punch and has no hatred guard, so maybe you'd prefer to use that instead of low light kick. However, know that low light kick will hit low and mix up your blocking enemy, so there's no harm in not doing it if you have momentum.

Mediums

Standing Medium Punch. It's a nice tool to use against jump ins, because it has hatred guard, meaning that enemies that try and throw themselves at you with their aggressive 2-hit-or-less attack will be popped back into the air for you to whack them. It's a good tool to use in combos, because your other knockup will sometimes miss. I don't tend to use this to bait out a reversal because there are other options to do that, and I as a player tend to be surprised if I suddenly start charging something and it connects and I didn't expect it, causing me to miss a combo opportunity because I didn't know it would . . work.

Crouching Medium Punch. Now THIS is what I like to use as a reversal bait. It has 4 hits and hatred guard, which basically means 4 opportunities to catch out your opponent, Commonly used as a Painwheel assist because it will lock down your opponent.


This is probably Painwheel's grossest attack to look at. There are spikes literally coming out of everywhere. Ew!?
Anyway, if you don't want to use Standing Medium Punch as your ground anti air, then you can use this. It does more hits, has hatred guard, and pushes them away further. The hitbox is massive. You're going to get frustrated when you use this compared to Crouching Medium Kick in combos, but you'll soon learn to appreciate this attack. In addition, it's really, really hard to combo this into anything mid screen. Don't be discouraged, just use Standing Medium Punch if you're struggling.


Hits low, hits fast, hits really conveniently. It's a prime combo tool. You'll be using Crouching Light Kick for poking, and you can (the majority of the time) follow that up with this and bam! You're golden. You can do whatever. Combo their life bar. Kill them. Die. It has no Hatred Guard, so try not to use this outside of a combo, but it hits low so shove it in ya mixups.


Jumping Medium Punch. This is a gem. Painwheel's ability to control the air is amazing, and this is one of the tools she can use to control a large amount of space. It's great for combos, it deals 4 hits and will leave the opponent higher in the air than you when you do it, giving you options on how you want them to land. You can throw yourself at the enemy with this, and if they have a similar armour mechanic to you you can usually hit through it with this and you can usually combo from it afterwards because of its glorious hitstun. Just jump in with it, who cares? Good players are gonna punish you for it, but it'll allow you to get a better game sense: one that this guide cannot teach you.

Jumping Medium Kick. I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS OH MY GOSH I LOVE THIS THIS IS SO GOOD!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAH! Okay, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but it's such a nice attack. It's fast and it hits high. You know what that means? You're gonna use it in all your mixups. I don't care. You're just gonna stop whatever you're doing, fly up a little, and kick them. It will reset the combo which reduces your damage scaling, and you'll force the enemy to be more active in how they block you because that's how many times you're gonna use this. Yeah. It's gonna be great. It's also a wonderful combo tool.

The Heavies

Standing Heavy Punch. Pow! Right in the kisser. This move here is a great combo tool because it has a nice horizontal and vertical range for you to catch people off of. The hitstun is great because it gives you a bit of give for messing up. The long recovery time is easily cancelled by flight, which you should be doing anyway. You'll quickly gain a muscle memory to fly every time you s.hp from enough time playing Painwheel. When charged, this move will cause your enemy to be staggered, so it's good for baiting out a reversal so you can pop them in the face for easy damage.

Crouching Heavy Punch. The true beauty of this comes from how it's charged. People will quickly realize when fighting you that you will do highs when you're in the air, and lows when you're on the ground. Charging a c.hp changes the otherwise neutrally blocked skill into a high , meaning that you must incorporate it into your blockstrings to catch the opponent off guard. It has ground bounce properties when the enemy is in the air regardless of charge, and will cause a crumple state if used on the ground. This basically just means you have like 2 seconds to do something if it hits. Have fuuun!



Standing Heavy Kick. Also kind of disturbing to look at. This move has a long recovery, and it's kind of dependent on if you're close enough to get all 3 hits off. It doesn't have Hatred Guard, and absolutely should not be used outside of combos because it's not good as an anti air and you don't get special benefits from using it outside of combos that you couldn't achieve with Standing Medium Punch. However, there are reset opportunities with this attack and it's another way of getting your opponent in the air. It's not as bad as I'm making it out to be, trust.


Crouching Heavy Kick is a classic 'sweep' attack, meaning that any armour will be interupted by it. However, uncharged it's REALLY hard to combo off of. This is probably because it's really fast and, as mentioned before, is a sweep. Therefore, if you want any hope out of comboing with it, you'll need to charge it. This brings your enemy closer to you and allows you to combo with ease with different properties.


Forward Heavy Kick (x4). This technically is a special attack, but I don't think it's important enough to put in that section. Most people use this as a "you're too far away so here's my best attempt at doing damage to you" tactic. It doesn't have hatred guard and knocks up on the last hit. It's kind of. . . unsatisfying. . . I haven't really found a great application for it. . .

I'm reusing this image. Long hair, don't care! Anyhoo, this is Jumping Heavy Punch. It's the only air move to have hatred guard, which changes its properties to give it 2 more hits. This is such a nice attack, cancel the hatred guard with fly to prevent being hit out of the air.

Normals Cont: Word Limits Suck

We were talking about Jump Heavy Punch and Steam was like "no, stop with the words, cretin!". Super rude. Anyway, yeah, we use this for air mobility because it's the only air attack with Hatred Guard and it propells you forwards. People will whack you out of the air, and Big Bands will eat you alive because they'll know exactly what you're gonna do. It's whatever -- Painwheels continue to do it. Use this in combos to extend your hits, and give yourself additional damage. It's great to use after a Light Buer Reaper, as it gives you a lot of chances to hit the opponent again, while also garnering hit stun.



Jump Heavy Kick. I can't tell you how many hits this does, because it depends on where the opponent is. Let's settle for 6? Anyway, it's fast, it hits high, and it may mess up your combos if you don't know what you're doing, but its massive hitbox allows knocked down enemies to be standing upright again for you to combo properly. You'll begin to use this along with j.mk to reset and cross up your opponent.

THINGS TO ADD

Hi! This Painwheel guide is obviously not done. We have resets, combos, specials, blockbusters and matchups to talk about. I'm just publishing this now, because I believe as of the finished Normals section, there's enough to learn from while the guide is still developing. If you have any comments or suggestions, I'm all ears. Smooches! <3

Specials: Painwheel's Back, Back Again

Buer Reaper

It's been a while, my dear Painwheels. Worry not: mother is here. Buer Reaper is the deliciousness of your combos. Painwheel will scream, "Raaah! I'm doing so much damage! Hwaaa!" as she boops her body into her foes until they shout, "Painwheel! No more. Your delicious curves are too much!" which is why we're going to use it a lot.

Mmm. Standing Light Buer Reaper. How ...... quaint. It'll hit anyone who isn't blocking. That's the thing, though. If they block this you're buggered, so don't use it unless you have an assist up your sleeve that can fix your mess up. Light Buer Reaper is used to combo because you are at a frame advantage during hitstun, which you can fly out of. Do you know what this means, Painwheel player? You can continue your combo. We'll discuss this further in the combo section, but this move is special and you should keep it close.


I didn't reuse the image, I swear. Look! There's a gap between her weird cylinder things! It's Medium Buer Reaper! This is the "I can't catch you with Light Buer Reaper, so I'll use Medium Buer Reaper instead and hope I can fly over and hit you." The animation is the same, but the hit is much more satisfying and sends your foe hurtling away at LIGHT SPEED. You can only combo off of this if you use it in the corner, so don't expect anything then some final hits in when you send your foe off to the other side of the stage. Also. Remember when I said we hate Squigly?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ YEAH, SCREW YOU LAB ZERO~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hard Buer Reaper! Who uses this? Not that many people! Including me! Yay! This wonderful supposed anti-air is whatever I guess. It's mostly a combo tool, because as I said, you're using Standing Medium Punch to counter jump ins, AREN'T YOU? Also, you end up in the air after using it. You don't have that many options unless you cancel with fly, because you're so close to the ground. You'll end up using one of your OTG counter thingymabobbers and that's no good, is it?







[/previewimg]nnnnnnIguesswecantalkabouttheairversionsofthesebutIdon'treallywanttonnnnnnnnnnnnnnn OKAY YOU KNOW WHAT? These are for big girl Painwheels. Painwheels that can appreciate these. They're dumb. So I'm skipping Air Buers entirely. because whatever I have to say won't be useful. We'll talk about these more in the combo section, but here? In neutral game? No! No.

[fhqwhgads]

I suck with Painwheel thank

[Sprinting Shotgun]

Very helpful guide, but I think you're underselling her Forward Heavy Kick. If you're too far to land a launcher, this move is a good choice and can easily combo into Buer Reaper for some quick damage. The reach means it can also be used to stop ground-bound foes from advancing.

[Buniバニ]

I love Painwheel. She has such a high skill floor, but has such a satisfying skill cap

[2whoa4u]

Not enough drinks

[Bocage]

Is Painwheel good? Yes. Is she hard? Yes.

[Sunriser]

looking forward to it. But I guess i'll start learning an easier char first

[SwagAndWatch]

The guide is very good so far. looking foward for the combos. great job