I do.
It’s pretty simple.
Do. Everything.
Meaning.
Rushdown. Keepaway. Grapple. Zone. Everything. I think that’s one of Val’s strengths is the fact that she is extremely versatile. Yeah, everyone else is better when it comes to their particular specialty, but on the flipside, they’ve got something they suck at that Val can do better.
That’s the general picture of it anyway.
I play a reset-heavy valentine, so my BnBs are typically around 1.5k to 4.5k(I think?) (1.00x) with no meter, which doesnt sound too appealing, until you realize that as a result, I’m sitting on an average of 3 bars per stock. I don’t readily use meter against opponents unless they like to use assists a lot, in which, I punish them left and right, and when I open my opponent up, I snapback to remove red life, which is I believe another important aspect to running solo val. Snapping in opponents simply for the sake of killing red health. Doing so allows you to sit back with life leads at the other side of the screen and force the opponent to come to you, which you can use to create more opponents in your opponents defense. Also, if they tagged out a character, chances are that particular character you were doing a good job of opening up, so you should put the pressure on them since they’re forced to come in on 1 side from a snapback, essentially giving you time to set up and put pressure on them from the get go.
Since I sit on a bunch of meter a lot, I can usually pull level 3s set ups out of my ass doing an insane amount of damage out of nowhere, which is made worse when you tac on HP Poison before the Level 3.
Something else that I think is key is burst baiting. Val has so many tools to bait bursts. So learning set ups where you can trigger IPS intentionally, while making it easy for you to get away is a very useful tool.
More stuff when it comes to Solo Val is getting good reads and solid single hits. Never underestimate the power of just hitting them with shit sometimes, especially when it gives you the life lead. You’d be surprised how many TK 236HKs people just get hit by lol. And a few of these do wonders in giving you life lead.
too many times I’ve just hit people with a single TK 236HK and never followed up. I just kept my distance and made good reads/predicts, hitting either the point or assist. A few of these, and then bam, life lead. now they have to approach. now it’s easier to open them up.
Which kinda brings me into my next point. Learn as many nuances/techs/gimmicks as possible as you’ll need those to throw your opponent off and open up.
There is more, but yeah. When I say, use everything. I mean. Use EVERYTHING. Every mechanic. Every gimmick. Everything you can possibly muster and thnk of. Every. Thing. And don’t be afraid to keepaway and be content with winning with a life lead. It’s a pretty serious play to win playstyle lol.
Without the patience and resolve to do what the situation calls for, it’ll be very hard to win solo val. Be flexible. And switch your playstyle on the fly, based of what the situation is.
And for the love of god dont get locked down in the corner rofl. you have no assist. the closest moves you have to an AA is c.HP, s.HP, and s.HK1. the closet thing you have to a reversal is a snap back. these are all not good options. unless you’re godlike at finding holes in pressure, being locked down in the corner is a terrible position to be in. You have a super jump, double jump, and an angled air dash. You’re using one of the most mobile characters in the game. Jump around like a fucking rabbit on crack if you have to avoid being locked into a corner. you want to lock them into a corner, not get yourself locked in one rofl.
so do what ever you can, even if that means doing an unsafe special such as 236HK to get you into midscreen. Even if you get punished, midscreen combo is preferrable to the corner where you can get looped for much more damage and reset far easier lol
all in all, controlling the whole momentum and flow of the match is the pot of gold you want. if you can aggravate them as well, go for it, means they’ll fuck up more.
its easier to control momentum when you have life lead lol. it’s also easier when you condition your opponents to expect certain things, and then you suddenly do something else, which is why val being versatile is a huge strength.
since val lacks a dp reversal, be wary of jump ins. back dashing and double jumping is a godsend lol. and since val isnt the best when it comes to air to air, be very careful when it comes to challening opponents in air, esp fillia or ms.fortune. don’t worry about parasoul j.hp spam tho, the character is mad easy to deal with lololol.
that’s all that i got to say without adding in unnecessary rambling.
