"Juggling"

The most efficient way to deal damage in any of these runs is by knocking the enemy into a corner and chaining together short and powerful combos. Most "juggles" as I will refer to them, go like this: launcher-> 2 attacks -> delay until back on the ground (combo will drop) -> hit of your choice -> launcher -> repeat. For example, I like to do Robo Fortune like this: c.HP-> j.MP -> j.HK -> delay -> c.MP -> c.HP -> repeat. The timing of your hits is important and will differ depending on the size and hitbox of the character you are fighting. When you delay, the enemy will do a random attack, call an assist, or switch out entirely. The idea is to keep them as low to the ground as possible to minimize the window they have to get a move in. Switching out will happen regardless but gives you the opportunity for a Happy Birthday. It is also pretty rare.

RNG and the character you're up against while doing this have a huge influence. Against an actual player, this would be impossible because they would just block, but the Sleepwalk AI will just use a random move, if that move comes out faster than what you start your juggle with, you will get hit, and you'll have trouble keeping a good rhythm. Valentine is generally a very hard character to juggle. She will often just instant air dash over you and out of the corner. One of the worst things that can happen when trying to juggle is losing the corner advantage. Some characters such as Big Band, Eliza, and Double, can be juggled midscreen consistently and into a corner. However, the timing is more precise and the chains may have to be slightly different depending on who you're playing. And some characters, like Big Band and Cerebella, can midscreen juggle almost anyone. Cerebella revolves around juggling anywhere on the screen.  

Knocking characters across the screen as soon as the match starts is the best way to make use of juggling most of the time. Pretty much any hard knockdown move with enough range to hit off the start will do depending on the behavior of your enemy (I'll get to that shortly). Some characters, like Big Band, have many options, A-Train, Brass Knuckles, c.HP, Beat extend into A-train, etc. However, the effectiveness of these right off the bat depends on the character you're up against and what they do. For example, Parasoul will often immediately lead off with a Napalm Shot or two in Arcade Mode. So the best option would be H-Brass Knuckles to tank through the hit and knock her back. However this is riskier against other characters. If a character jumps at the start the move will almost always miss. Furthermore, Cerebella will almost always lead with an armored move which will just tank the hit. It is good to figure out how many and how effective your characters hard knockdown options are beforehand. Anything multi hit (ie. Squigly's and Robo Fortune's lvl 1, Beat Extend) will be the go to in most situations.

Generally speaking, the bigger the character the easier they are to juggle. Double is the easiest because of her size and weight combined with her lack of any threatening moves, and Valentine and Squigly are up there for the hardest. Squigly is incredibly small and notorious for funky hitboxes, and Valentine as mentioned earlier is incredibly slippery. There are a few exceptions to the size correlation however. Beowulf while quite large, can be a bit wonky when juggled by certain characters, multi hit moves can often lead to you sliding across him and ending up behind him facing away from the corner. Ms Fortune while appearing to be quite limber, is easier to juggle than most characters big or small. her lack of dangerous moves and normal hitboxes make juggling rather simple.

This is all based on what I've figured out from my own runs plus taking a look at a few others. I hope someone finds this useful one day :)

And don't be afraid to experiment! There could always be a better way

Anti-AI infinite loops

Since the Beowulf update, there's a reliable way to combo AIs over and over, even on nightmare difficulty. No randomness at all, these "infinites" are 100% reliable. These aren't actual infinites, since they are just short chains into reset, but the AI won't escape it ever. I hope that will let some people attempt nightmare difficulty runs (though you'll face Bloody Marie, and these infinites aren't a thing against her).
Note : They usually won't deal damage as quickly as simply "juggling" the AI, so it's not too relevant for sleepwalk difficulty runs, but you'll definitely need these for nightmare runs.


	The basic idea : when an AI leaves hitstun, they won't do anything for 2 frames. And by anything, I mean they won't move, they won't throw any moves, nor will they attempt to block! So if you reset an AI and hit them 1 or 2 frames after the end of hitstun, you're guaranteed to get a new combo!
	Now, you might be thinking this is too hard to get reliably, but skullgirls is actually filled with ways to do so very easily. The easiest way is to chain or cancel two moves that don't combo into each other. For example, painwheel sLP -> sHK is a frame perfect reset, no particular timing required!


	Here are ideas of loops for different characters :
- Cerebella : sLP (reset) sHP run stop, repeat (if midscreen, do one cLK cMP sHP run stop chain every 2 sLP sHP chain, until you reach the corner)
- Big band (corner) : otg cLPx2 (reset) sHK M brass knuckle, repeat
- Filia (corner) : otg cLPx2 H hairball, repeat
- Ms Fortune (midscreen) : otg sLK sHKx2 (reset) H cat scratchx1 (reset) el gato, repeat
- Ms Fortune (corner) : otg sLK sHP H cat scratchx1 (reset) el gato, repeat
- Peacock (corner) : otg cLP cLK (reset) sHK, repeat
- Valentine (corner) : otg cLP cLK (reset) M savage bypass, repeat (small delay between cLP and cLK against some characters, else cLK whiffs)
- Parasoul (midscreen) : dash otg sMKx2 (reset) bHK L tear toss, repeat
- Parasoul (corner) : sMKx2 L shot, (reset) [sMKx2 (reset) fHP delay L shot], repeat (the tear has to be shot after the last one explodes) (only do sMKx2 L shot once, to set up the first tear shot, then only loop the part in brackets) (buffer after tear shots allows you to consistently frame perfect reset with sMK)
- Squigly (corner) : (reset) cLPx1 cMK sHPx2 uncharged arpeggio (QCF + LK) (buffer after arpeggio allows you to consistently frame perfect reset with cLP)
- Eliza (midscreen) : cLPx1 (reset) cHPx1 L spiral
- Eliza (corner) : sLK (reset) sHPx2 L spiral
- Painwheel (midscreen) : dash sLP (reset) sHP L nail
- Painwheel (corner) : otg cMK (reset) cHP fly 3jMK whiff


	Guaranteed wake up/okizeme :
	You may have noticed most of these loops will only work in the corner. Feel free to look for midscreen ones for your character by yourself, but first, note that you don't necessarily need one. It can be a better idea to do a quick max corner carry combo if your character has one, or use knockdown moves that send them far away to get them close to the corner.

But then how do you get them into the infinite loop reliably from there? Simple :
The AI won't act for 2 frames after leaving hitstun, but also after waking up from a knockdown! Plus, an AI will never tech a red bounce, so if you knock them down after a combo that didn't use otg, you have all the time necessary to chase them. Then use a multi hit move or one with a lot of active frames to hit them on their wakeup, and proceed with the infinite loop of your choice.


Important note about full undizzy damage :
Remember that all your combos will start at 55% damage scaling if undizzy is full. Use combos as short as possible to send them to the corner, and remember that most loops do build a little bit of undizzy over time. If you have a reliable way to open up AIs after a slower reset, be ready to hit them with it if you need to drain some undizzy down and keep maximum damage going.

Name	Autor
"Juggling"	Gerb 8 years ago
Anti-AI infinite loops	dragonos451 8 years ago