White Halloween - An Ice Slasher and Skull Barrier Introduction

[ENKER]

Yeah man! I'll put it on my to do list tomorrow after work.

 

[Torizo]

I find that Ice Slasher and Skull Barrier, like most of Mega Man's custom specials, are best used for specific fights. Skull Barrier can be nice for some projectile fights, but where it really shines is against Pac-Man. It really shuts him down - he can't drop or launch hydrants at you safely, and most of his approach game relies on his fruits which suddenly become very unsafe on their own.

Also, I find Ice Slasher is good for characters that have pretty straightforward rushdowns - Ike's side special becomes unsafe for him, and if he's recovering a bit sloppy you can freeze him at the top of his Aether as well. I find it's like choosing which weapon you need to fight a robot master - some of them will be totally useless in one or many fights, but there are some where it turns odds of the match pretty significantly.

 

[ENKER]

I had some time today to do a little testing and so far it seems like IS and HB combo into each other, in either order, as long as they're executed just right. For example, if you jump throw a HB forcing it to take a long time to reach the ground near an opponent you can use IS and they'll hit in comboed synch. This in itself isn't too exciting... But a semi combo I thought was cool was HB>IS>SH Uair!

I think the main strength here in having both HB and IS is that they both travel slow and thus control space for a decent period of time. When used in conjunction, that is two wallish hit boxes controlling space almost simultaneously. Pretty neat, especially against rush down characters I bet!

I will continue exploring this when I have more time, today ended up being super busy! I have a rough draft video in the works, if I find cool enough stuff I'll finish and post it!

 

[Sleek Media]

Interesting...I've been experimenting with HB, and the idea of comboing or creating frame traps with IS sounds great. I'll give it a shot once I get some time to play around in the lab. Before I was thinking the only good HB set was 2323, but if IS is a legit alternative to DW, then maybe we could use Beat and play a nasty offstage game.

 

[Blade Knight]

Thanks for investigating the potential of these two Enker. I had a hunch they could be used in good conjunction, but I'm not good enough about hyper bomb useage.

 

[deepseadiva]

OP has me diggin Skull Barrier.

 

[Pipmonchan]

At first I thought Skull Barrier looked so awesome I had to use it, but after a couple of tries I found it kind of useless. This post motivated me again to try it since I noticed I am having problems with projectile users. Thanks!

 

[GeneralLedge]

My favorite, favorite thing to do with Skull Barrier is the villager MU.

Now, anyone reading that probably thinks I'm an idiot and could list the dozens of ways villager gets a free-be pocket tree. But the difference between Skull Barrier and other reflectors is significant: You can approach and ignore the zone Villager's tree offers him, and he cannot react properly.

Here's what happens: Villager gets a tree up and hides behind it, waiting for you to jump or try to roll past the tree for a grab or whathaveyou. Instead, you pop Skull Barrier and walk right at him. This triggers four probable situations:

1) Villager doesn't know how to react, and stays still expecting a retreat or roll. You can grab him, throw him whichever way you like, and now he's away from his tree.

2) Villager cuts the tree down at a moderate time. The tree is reflected. Problem: Villager's axe stays out long enough to punish with a grab, and the tree itself isn't far behind. Villager KO'd.

3) Villager cuts the tree down late. You get hit by the axe and are thrown away. Problem: the tree is reflected much closer, and hits villager before he can recover from the axe's lag. Villager KO'd.

4) Villager runs for his life.


This isn't to say Villager can't abuse your reflector if you're slow with it. Allowing him the opportunity, even small, to pocket his tree is indeed a bad idea. But holy crap it is satisfying to ignore the gimmick entirely.

Another great thing is Villager's Lloyd being reflected right back at him, so the moment he pops Lloyd, you pop Skull Barrier in response and approach for a grab, or let Lloyd hit him.

I guess what I'm saying is a mobile reflector potentially shuts down a Villager. I'm prepared for much more experienced people to tell me how wrong I am, however.

 

[Sleek Media]

What's a Villager going to do to you from behind a tree anyway? Throw metal blades, crash bombs, or even shields until he either comes out or pockets one. If he pockets it, then you don't even have to worry about avoiding reflecting the tree on your approach anymore.

My favorite thing to do against Villager is to skull barrier the stupid slingshot. If you can get him to self-KO at the ledge, it's immensely satisfying.

 

[LZCXR]

I just played with SB bit and it looks like it can negate arcfire ground damage,
I'm pretty sure by this that it can also negate the similar effect of PK fire but I haven't tried yet
I'll be sincere with you guys, now SB and IC aren't looking as useless as they do
I still prefer DW and PB more

 

[Blade Knight]

Do you mean it can negate Arcfire and PK Fire in that you can walk over them while they're active? If so that's immensely useful for approaching.

 

[iiGGYxD]

For anyone who hasn't had the "pleasure" of playing against a custom villager....skull barrier with standard everything else is the go to setup for this character. You do not want to go into a fight vs villager without skull barrier, trust me Dx

 

[GeneralLedge]

Something really obnoxious I found out the other day while playing customs with friends... Who refused to not use equipment and are not on my friend list anymore...

Skull Barrier follows the same reflection rules as any other reflector, in that if it "takes too much damage" it gets broken. You can imagine my frustration when I threw up a Skull Barrier only to get pelted by a homerun bat for 60% damage and a KO, because it couldn't reflect that much collective damage.

 

[CanadianMegaMan]

Something really obnoxious I found out the other day while playing customs with friends... Who refused to not use equipment and are not on my friend list anymore...

Skull Barrier follows the same reflection rules as any other reflector, in that if it "takes too much damage" it gets broken. You can imagine my frustration when I threw up a Skull Barrier only to get pelted by a homerun bat for 60% damage and a KO, because it couldn't reflect that much collective damage.

I've been doing a lot of testing with skull barrier since release and I thought I should mention that there are some misleading statements in the OP (and the post I quoted) about skull barrier.

I noticed someone already mentioned that the first skull reflects while hovering in front of Mega Man before the barrier revolves, but in the OP it says that certain, more powerful, projectiles (i.e. Samus full charge shot) can't be reflected. This is misleading. The gap between the skulls is large enough for projectiles (like charge shot, or thrown home-run bat) to fit through while the barrier is spinning, just like leaf shield, if you time your reflect such that you reflect the projectile with the first skull, every projectile in the game can be reflected, except fresh Samus charge shot and fresh Lucario aura sphere (Lucario must be 110%+ dmg)

On reaction (down b input occurring after enemy projectile input) I was able to time the first skull to reflect samus charge shot at 1/3 FD length away.
On prediction (preemptive down b input) I was able to jump and time it so I landed with the outmost edge of the first skull touching the very tip of her blaster arm, reflecting the shot immediately upon firing.

 

[Locke 06]

I've been doing a lot of testing with skull barrier since release and I thought I should mention that there are some misleading statements in the OP (and the post I quoted) about skull barrier.

I noticed someone already mentioned that the first skull reflects while hovering in front of Mega Man before the barrier revolves, but in the OP it says that certain, more powerful, projectiles (i.e. Samus full charge shot) can't be reflected. This is false. The gap between the skulls is large enough for projectiles (like charge shot, or thrown home-run bat) to fit through while the barrier is spinning, just like leaf shield, but if you time your reflect such that you reflect the projectile with the first skull, every projectile in the game can be reflected.

On reaction (down b input occurring after enemy projectile input) I was able to time the first skull to reflect samus charge shot at 1/3 FD length away.
On prediction (preemptive down b input) I was able to jump and time it so I landed with the outmost edge of the first skull touching the very tip of her blaster arm, reflecting the shot immediately upon firing.

I'm not sure that the skulls are the only thing that reflect. The only reason I have to believe that is due to DH's gunmen, whose projectile is quite small and very fast. Skulls are the only ones with windboxes, that I'm pretty sure of, and that can sometimes mess up reflecting things like Pacman's fruits (which are heavily affected by windboxes like Pac's hydrant).

 

[ChopperDave]

I'm not sure that the skulls are the only thing that reflect. The only reason I have to believe that is due to DH's gunmen, whose projectile is quite small and very fast. Skulls are the only ones with windboxes, that I'm pretty sure of, and that can sometimes mess up reflecting things like Pacman's fruits (which are heavily affected by windboxes like Pac's hydrant).

Huh, that's interesting. So the windboxes may actually be worse than useless? Greeeeeeat.

I think we can all agree that Skull Barrier is unreliable. It can be used on reaction against most projectiles, but it's kind of a roll of the dice against stuff like Samus's Charge Shot. I generally only use it to cover my approaches against Samus, because that gives me the opportunity to shield in case SkB fails.

 

[Locke 06]

Huh, that's interesting. So the windboxes may actually be worse than useless? Greeeeeeat.

I think we can all agree that Skull Barrier is unreliable.

To clarify, the with windbox makes the fruit drop instead of fly back at pacman. It never doesn't reflect in my experience, which is at least 30 games against my crew mate with skull barrier.

I don't think it's unreliable at all at what it does. The only things I worry about are Samus and Lucario's charged projectiles. Possibly thoron+ and shadow ball when mewtwo comes out.

 

[CanadianMegaMan]

I'm not sure that the skulls are the only thing that reflect. The only reason I have to believe that is due to DH's gunmen, whose projectile is quite small and very fast. Skulls are the only ones with windboxes, that I'm pretty sure of, and that can sometimes mess up reflecting things like Pacman's fruits (which are heavily affected by windboxes like Pac's hydrant).

I found a flaw in my testing against samus charge shot, practice mode lets it reflect the fresh one, in match, the fresh one and the home run bat thrown, both break the reflector like stated. However, non-fresh, full charge, charge shots can be reflected, so keep that in mind.

It's not that unreliable, you just have to pay attention to how often they're firing charge shots at you. > 25% seems to be the threshold for whether or not projectiles will be reflected.

Edit: it seems that Lucarios aura sphere can always be reflected, even when fresh until Lucarios is at 110%, then, fresh shots can't be reflected but non-fresh can.

 

[Sleek Media]

I don't think the charge shot issue is a big deal. Samus/Lucario players just aren't going to lob a charge shot at you if it's possible for you to activate SB. The risk of it being reflected is tremendous, even if they are aware that it has the potential to punch through with bad timing. The fact that you have SB equipped affords you protection.

The main purpose of SB is to give you complete control of the projectile game and force opponents to approach. Villager is the #1 victim, but it also shuts down the neutralB games of characters like Luigi, Pikachu, and Shiek, who are otherwise quite content to spam their fast projectiles and force us to either dance or approach with pellets.

 

[Locke 06]

I don't think the charge shot issue is a big deal. Samus/Lucario players just aren't going to lob a charge shot at you if it's possible for you to activate SB. The risk of it being reflected is tremendous, even if they are aware that it has the potential to punch through with bad timing. The fact that you have SB equipped affords you protection.

The main purpose of SB is to give you complete control of the projectile game and force opponents to approach. Villager is the #1 victim, but it also shuts down the neutralB games of characters like Luigi, Pikachu, and Shiek, who are otherwise quite content to spam their fast projectiles and force us to either dance or approach with pellets.

I haven't found Skull Barrier too effective against Sheik. In my experience, needles startup too quickly to use on reaction, and you're at a very large disadvantage if you limit your options with Skull Barrier up against her quick arsenal of close range moves.

Updated the OP with the "reflector health." I do have one question regarding that, though. If Samus first shoots a super missile (10%) and then shoots a stale charge shot (~24%) does the reflector break/does the charge shot hit?