Usually, after I finish a song for the first time, I either feel satisfied with the loadout I chose or I feel that it's obvious what I should have done. But Painkiller was a bit of a different story, because it has a couple choices that I'm curious what people think about.

I used Road Rage/Blast Notes/Super Guitar, which is pretty much what I always use for "sightreads." I know that if I actually shoot for a better score that I should use Jackpot, and that's what I'd plan to do, especially because of the song's ending, which is where the dilemma arises.

I'm actually torn about whether Super Guitar or Super Drums is the better choice here. Drums has a solo at the beginning, which is pretty much worthless, but it also has one at the end, which with Jackpot could yield a truckload of points. However, there is also a LONG sustain on Guitar that actually holds through the entire Drum Solo. So on this run, I actually just held the Guitar Sustain and ignored the drum solo completely. Fortunately I ended up getting Gold Stars during that hold. But do you think it would be better to go Super Drums and Jackpot on that solo, as opposed to holding the sustain on Super Guitar and Jackpot?

holding the sustain with Jackpot seems like the best thing. also less chance of missing. and of course you don't have to spend the entire song on the track from which you can only move to the right.
if you're mostly on guitar you can switch to both bass and vocals easily, hitting purple and white notes easier

Yeah, that makes sense...even if technically I could get more points on that final section if I got 100% in the drum solo (which I think I probably could), I also have to consider that there is a really long guitar solo that I'd be giving up the extra points on if I went Super Drums and I find that my blast note/OD pathing is worse when I'm not using Guitar as the home lane, so it's risky and doubtful that the rest of the song would be as lucrative.

But I really love how this game's systems make you think like this. No matter how many times you've played a song, you still have to make so many unique snap judgments on any individual playthrough that it never feels stale.

That's pretty much what I did on my GS run. It's best to completely ignore the drum solo at the end and just use Jackpot for that long chord.

Super Drums is a bad idea, always (unless there is only a drum track). Even if the drums are prominent in a song.

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Originally Posted by siee

Super Drums is a bad idea, always (unless there is only a drum track). Even if the drums are prominent in a song.

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I got gold stars on Always and Kids in the Street using Super Drums

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Originally Posted by www1221

I got gold stars on Always and Kids in the Street using Super Drums

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Yeah, so did I, but that was a while ago and now I'm inclined to agree that it usually would take very special circumstances to make it worthwhile. Unless you're some kind of master savant, the drawbacks inherent to being on the far left lane (especially on a track with keys) would just not be worth the trade generally. Not only is it harder to spot upcoming blast notes/OD lanes when you're on an extreme end, it makes breaking Blitz mode that much more likely because even if I do spot it, I'm more likely to have to rush. As it is now, on Guitar, I can usually spot where I need to go well in advance, and then make more careful intermediate switches to get over there without missing, and at most I have to go two lanes instead of the three or even possible four if I'm staying home on Drums most of the time.

I don't remember Kids in the Street very well, but I remember that I had Gold Stars in Always at some ridiculously early time in the song, probably less than halfway through, so I certainly can't say that being on Super Drums made any kind of huge difference there. (Although, checking again, I am in the top 0.4% on that song according to Facebook, and that was on my only power-up attempt, so maybe I'm wrong about that.)

EDIT: Yeah, I think there are definitely times where changing the Super lane is beneficial. The only way I could come close to Gold Stars on Teen Age Riot was using Super Drums. I'd probably need to use Jackpot toward the end to be able to get it, too.