Skullgirls/Valentine/Strategy
Strategy
- Important Moves
- 5HP - Strong ground poke that can avoid many attacks from the opponent and swipe in with a large disjointed attack to counter. Good damage at the start of combo strings with assists.
- 5HK - Allows Val to end any ground string with a sliding knockdown, giving her plenty of time to set up more offense and/or load more vials.
- j.MP - Multi-hitting, disjointed button that's perfect for putting pressure on the opponent from above and breaking armour. This is the primary tool used by Valentine while approaching.
- j.MK - This move's momentum can be used to go from one side of the screen to the other in the blink of an eye. The disjointed hitbox on its first hit also makes it a good air-to-air and the momentum change when used while jumping back makes it a faster alternative to j.HK.
- j.HP - Strong crossup tool with lots of hitstun.
- j.HK - Large air button that's hard to challenge, is easy to convert from and is a staple of Val's defensive neutral tools.
- Air Dead Cross (j236P) - The various angles that this tool can be thrown at allow Val to control the pace of the match and frustrate her opponents along with fullscreen confirms using air H Bypass.
- Reversals
- EKG (236KK, Air OK)
- Counter (421KK) - massive damage on hit though it will lose to throws and can be whiff punished.
- Level 3 (214PP) - has incredible range and is very fast but cannot be DHC'd out of after the cutscene forcing an early DHC if you want to convert or DHC for further damage.
- Goals
Valentine has a reactive gameplan based around keeping her distance and forcing her opponent to approach her from below and forcing mistakes which she can then capitalise on. Valentine uses her air dead crosses to harass her opponent from a distance and her superb aerial movement to maintain an advantageous position. Once Valentine lands a hit she will want to bring her opponent to the corner as quickly as possible to take advantage of her strong corner pressure and resets as well as using her 5HKx3 knockdown to load vials and set up oki.
- Offense
When Valentine wants to approach her opponent, she can take advantage of strong descending aerial attacks like jLP, jLK, jMP and jHP. jMP in particular gives very good block pressure as it is a multi-hit attack that can be fast falled with jHP. After she has forced the opponent to block Valentine can mix up pressure with 2LK, throw and BDAD overheads. For grounded approaches, most of her long reaching attacks (5MK, 5HP, 5HK, H Dead Cross) will require an assist to convert from but if she has this assist then she gets access to strong mid-range tools.
- Defense
jHK is one of the strongest air-to-airs in the game, when spaced and timed properly. The move has a large disjointed hitbox and remains active for some time, making it great for catching over-eager opponents. jHK has significant recovery on whiff though so in this situation it should be cancelled into either air dead cross or air backdash, double jump. If your opponent is too close for comfort, then you can use super jump jMK to get above them and put some distance between you (if you're already in the air then airdash jMK over their heads also works well). Valentine has multiple metered reversals that each have their own uses which make her difficult to reset, especially in the air. EKG should be your primary grounded reversal but in the air Scalpels can be a good choice as it is pseudo-safe on block and gives a combo on hit, just make sure your opponent's reset isn't too tight. Counter is a very strong reversal tool as well and if you have a vial loaded and you see your opponent call their assist in neutral, counter their assist to deal a massive chunk of damage as well as applying whatever vial you have loaded.
- Meter management
- Valentine needs 1 meter to have access to air Bypass, Scalpels as Bypass is very unsafe on block.
- Once Valentine has 2 meters she can use her counter as a reversal as well as punish assist calls with countervenom if she has a vial loaded.
- When Valentine reaches 5 meters she can revive one of her teammates.
Counterplay
- How to beat this character
- Disjointed Air to Airs like, Fukua's jLP and Squilgy's jLK, will make Valentine think twice while trying to approach from the air.
- Vertical reversals such as Parasoul's Naplam Pillar and Big Band's Beat Extend, can shutdown air approaches from Valentine. DP and anti-air assists are particularly troublesome for Valentine.
- It is important to remember that Valentine's zoning is not the same as Peacock's or Robo Fortune's, she is not going to deal a significant amount of chip damage to you using dead crosses so be patient and don't be let her frustrate you. If you have the life lead, it even might be worth not approaching at all.
- If you see a Valentine super jump or double jump then you can guess that she's likely to throw a dead cross so try to dash past the cross and air throw her in her recovery.
- When you are resetting Valentine, keep an eye on her meter. Chances are, as soon as she hits 2 bars she'll be looking to Counter (or EKG into safe DHC if she has one). If you think she'll counter then you can throw her on wakeup or just wait and punish the recovery. If you think she'll EKG then calling a lockdown assist and neutral jumping is a good way to bait and punish her as EKG has a very poor vertical hitbox and does not hit assists. If you reset her in the air then make sure you keep in mind her air supers. These air supers are not post-flash unreactable however, so you can counter super or DP post-flash to punish her.
