what i was doing was specifying though, which can be argued to be more effective as a comma.
they are bad at punctuation, especially where to use....
you could still be right but they aren't really 2 completely separate ideas
The word "especially" just feels like an abrupt hiccup in the middle of the sentence; the semicolon adds a good pause.
If you don't want to add the semicolon, I'd change the word "especially" to "like"
"People suck at using punctuations like semicolons, commas, and colons."
It sounds more like a flowing sentence as opposed to "People suck at using punctuations, especially..."
It might just be how I personally read the sentences though