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The Unofficial Official Beta Discussion Thread

Major edit: I'd be down to make lower ratios more fun because I currently don't have a lot of fun against them as a trio. I'm not so sure there's time to make big changes like that though.
 
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Solo's always experiencing downs would be very... cool...

As for Duo's I think their strength comes from they fact that they two touch the opponent, but its rather difficult to two touch them. At least at round start, I bet you can do it with enough resources. At the very least I think the assist should heal red health faster if possible.
 
I think solo’s experiencing downs might be an indirect buff to solos. I think changing your strategy against solo’s is key. You can’t keep fighting them like any other team.

They really do have weak neutral, so electing for a gameplan where you go for a reset cashout into snap is very viable against them, as well as setplaying them to death!
 
I want to start the discussion again about assist cooldowns... >.> Playing this game for 7+ years I have always found it odd how you can call assist every second. I know its a risk the other opponent takes at times and that the assist could die or get snapped in with low health, but there are some assists in this game that make punishing both the point and assist really hard/frustrating. I'm also someone who calls H beam assist at all times to skip neutral, so this change would affect me too. It does feel like some characters get a lot off assist calls, like for example, running band as an assist, any assist he has. Characters hiding inside that huge hurtbox midscreen, being unable to get punished due to band moving forward or literally standing on top of them just feels like another unspoken tactic in this game (just is just one example).
H beam skipping neutral constantly, annie dp being called every 0.1 second. I know thats the thing with skullgirls, but im wondering how others feel about assist calls in this game especially when they create huge walls of hitboxes/hurtboxes.

I'd really like to see bigger assist cooldowns once you hit an assist, and would like it if the risks were bigger when calling assist..I think this game is cool the way it works, with some assists it just feels like it moreso removes interactive gameplay instead of letting you adapt to them and it ends up boiling down to respecting it at all times instead of letting you play around it to punish your opponent for making these choices. Not all of course. Assists like napalm pillar, l bomber, h fiber and h drill feel very interactive to play against. very easy to play around against, very easy to adapt to, very easy to punish both point and assist when they mess up. It's just very interactive. But other assist just don't do this, so much reward for so little risk, or the reward you get from them is way, way higher than the risk when you compare it with other assists (like the ones i mentioned)
But also, having to add more nerfs to assist could hurt the more interactive assists too. so yeah im a bit confused as to what I want and how to feel about this.

How do others feel about this? Would you want more assist cooldowns? Do you think it should stay like this, or should it get changed? Or should some assists just get tweaked by themselves?
 
If assist cooldown gets looked at I'd also like for tag out animations to be standardized since it means some assists technically have less cooldown than others. The other thing is that because assists have varying frame data some assist equivalents stay on the screen longer than others due to having a higher recovery on that move

Personally I don't mind the cooldowns I just think they aren't very well standardized, I do kind of worry in the case that a certain character gets more cooldown which is great for the one assist it has but sucks for any other use of an assist on that same character and making individual cases to have to flag particular assists would probably be a huge pain. (I'm assuming, I don't know how programming works then again we do have assist specific properties on some assists so maybe the distinction is already made clear?)

What I would personally want is the ability to more easily happy birthday characters of different sizes and weights more easily without weird complications like "x character + big band" type carries that are often hard and kind of kills the rewarding aspect of hitting both characters since sometimes they just drop and there's not much you can do about it. When I do hit both characters I want to go in knowing at the end my opponent will truly be punished for a bad call.

Overall I'm just not sure how to avoid bias for certain assists and having assists that are overlooked creeping up and then those are the best assists and should nerfed or whatever. Not saying that it shouldn't be tried but I am a little concerned about stuff like that.
 
@Nezo dope solo master & dope player. 2 cents then leave the beta thread to you guys.

im assuming he brought up the downs thing because it's already been coded in & making solos brute force downs regardless of opponents team makeup would be easier...*shrugs*

anyways, no healing & lack of insane damage would be a pretty big nerf if anything. and tbh it'd make matches way easier against them. Most notable losses i remember from the health snaps & insane wingzero reset setups. Idk what kinda sauce would pick up the slack but there would need to be something else to give incentive to play as it's already low enough from many im sure just feeling like teams are more fun regardless. Solo's cant alpha counter bursts (or at all) and overall just are kinda...bare bones. always have been mechanically & gameplay-wise.

whether implemented or not i'd go out on a limb to say 1f invuln snaps would be dope/motivating factor as a more proactive anti-team solo mechanic & make the lockouts more prominent because they're pretty short tbh. Gives all solos a standardized solid no-damage defensive option too like robo. Can hold buttons through superflash for normal property wall bounce option taking away like 40 undizzy, allowing around a lvl1 worth of damage from an extra string w/more creative combo routes for meter. replace alpha counter with snap, keep it simple. dont get damage or health, but get a breather.

duo damage i like. Apart from that, significantly better meter gain making up for lower overall damage & keep ability to snap heal (albeit 1/2 red health instead of 2/3). Open match with burst animation & skullheart explosion for spectacle at beginning of round with a cute little visual aura & sassy voice line -- solos are supposed to be like a boss character anyways. Give it some flavor like they've gotten corrupted with the skullheart. hopefully solos get something cool in the future worth it mechanically like a strive style roman cancel since annie wont...but who knows. This would cover the bill for lack of team creativity. Just something allowing liberal cancels *for meter* as a solo. Not having assists or raw tags is the rub, but there's no reason solo's shouldnt be as fun mechanically speaking. RCs in general are hardly a GG/BB exclusive mechanic. I already posted that idea, but still, i think it's superrr sick & would make solos something people *want* to go out of their way to play. Imagine the Evo moments...

In summary I like the idea of segmenting solos with downs, I just think they should be more engaging past lack of mechanics regardless of implementation. Give more meter making up for loss of raw damage & let them decide to use it defensively or offensively. choice-based play is fun play.

 
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Something else I was also wondering about was why Blue Bursts are Alpha Counter-able and hoping we could try a build where that wasn't the case. Getting a hard read on a burst just for them to be able to punish you for it instead just doesn't make that much sense to me. Then again, being a Solo player and not being able to AC myself, maybe there's some counter argument I'm missing? Would just love to talk about it and get other perspectives at the very least.
 
The way I see it is you spend meter to call out a burst bait that isn't truly safe but if your opponent has a burst bait that also safe jumps an alpha counter or baits it somehow then you spent a bar to try not to die but are still going be punished.

So in a way the counter play has some counter play to it, there's some risk/reward going on, the only thing is that some assists can be much better at alpha-countering than others which irks me a bit but that's just an additional pros v cons when picking a character on a team.

I think originally burst ac was a bug but it ended up staying though I can't remember why though I personally think it's an interesting addition.
 
Something else I was also wondering about was why Blue Bursts are Alpha Counter-able and hoping we could try a build where that wasn't the case. Getting a hard read on a burst just for them to be able to punish you for it instead just doesn't make that much sense to me. Then again, being a Solo player and not being able to AC myself, maybe there's some counter argument I'm missing? Would just love to talk about it and get other perspectives at the very least.
This was brought up during the first couple weeks of the Annie beta in maincord beta discussion, people argued about it for a couple of days but Liam came out and said that it was staying but I think he tightened up the window to be able to burst AC, so I think that the chances of that changing again are pretty low.
 
The multiplayer refactor is really cool -- I no longer experience infinite "connecting to room" issues that were previously solved by visiting lobbies and then trying again!

One tiny piece of extremely pedantic feedback:
* I enter quick match and get matched against an opponent, the preview modal pops up on screen
* I decline the offered match for whatever reason
* A "Disconnected from opponent" message appears, and after a second or so exits the screen
* I can then press MK to return to the Versus menu

I would love if I could press MK to immediately jump back to the Versus menu without waiting for the "Disconnected from opponent" message to be cleared from the screen. Perhaps this isn't possible because behind-the-scenes there's some synchronous connection clean-up that's happening?

My favourite unsung part of Skullgirls is that the menu UX is very snappy and generally has really short or instant transitions between the different menus -- if there's a way to also extend that to declining matches, that'd be super cool! Many thanks for the multiplayer refactor, I didn't expect the team would be able to spare the time to take a shot at stabilising this aspect of the game, it's really slick and I'm very appreciative of it!
 
This is going to sound odd, But can valentine get a bold moves cancel on block hit or whiff, Just make it her backdash. Would make her neutral alot better and make her alot more fun to play in general, Perhaps way too good, Would also make cmp a safer anti-air tool amidst the rest of her tool kit. If its too strong only make it apply-able to her heavy normals and maybe even a cooldown
 
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Haven't heard much talk about this, how do people feel about Headless 2LK loops? It honestly leaves a pretty sour taste in my mouth and I hope that's not staying. I don't even care what else you do or don't do to Fortune but please don't let her keep this.
 
Haven't heard much talk about this, how do people feel about Headless 2LK loops? It honestly leaves a pretty sour taste in my mouth and I hope that's not staying. I don't even care what else you do or don't do to Fortune but please don't let her keep this.
I agree it gives fortune way to much extra dmg... but they do look cool.
 
I went into some details on cLK loops here:
My thoughts on them are that they're strong but not broken just from a balance perspective and I'm still at the stage where I find them cool personally. But I wouldn't argue against removing them as I can see why people might find them particularly tiresome to get hit by and/or feel like they go against the game's systems. Also a decent way of targeting headless' corner damage.

So long as, if they're removed, it's done in such a way that it doesn't completely break the rest of her combos. Which I imagine is pretty hard to implement cus game systems are complicated lol.
 
I went into some details on cLK loops here:
My thoughts on them are that they're strong but not broken just from a balance perspective and I'm still at the stage where I find them cool personally. But I wouldn't argue against removing them as I can see why people might find them particularly tiresome to get hit by and/or feel like they go against the game's systems. Also a decent way of targeting headless' corner damage.

So long as, if they're removed, it's done in such a way that it doesn't completely break the rest of her combos. Which I imagine is pretty hard to implement cus game systems are complicated lol.
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
 
Don't nerf solos, I can't believe that's a topic that was brought up at all

As it is, solos already struggle in the current meta. There's a very clear reason why most team comps at the moment are trios, and to a slightly lesser extent duos. That's because solos have to work incredibly hard to win neutral against a team that has assists.

Stop trying to focus on not being able to 2-touch solos, like you can vs teams. You're focusing on the wrong thing. As Sonic already said, focus on winning neutral, and setplaying the solo to death, snapping when needed if you're not confident on the next reset and immediately backing off with the goal of winning neutral again in mind. They already don't have safe DHCs or alpha counters available to them during reset scenarios.

People ask me all the time why I stay on a trio ratio vs a solo. That's because it's just factually easier to play a team vs a solo. Plain and simple. When I see players switch from a trio to a solo just to fight the solo, and then the solo player wins anyway, I'm never surprised. You are essentially putting on the table that you're more confident at winning neutral without your assists now against the player who's already used to not having assists available to help them.

If you ask yourself why you play a team instead of playing solo, it's usually because it's "more fun," right? That tends to stem from just having more options available to you, as the player, to take full advantage of all the system mechanics in the game. But you want the whole cake and eat it too, so you want to 2-touch solos on top of all that. Are you serious?

I'm tired of hearing this discourse for years on end when the answer is never to buff the duo and trio teams just to combat the only advantage solos have left; Their health, and their damage (damage can be argued since the way teams are being optimized these days, they're doing more damage anyway)

If anything, I would buff solos instead. You're out of your mind if you think it's the other way around.
 
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Posts like this are unproductive and contribute nothing. Knock it off.
 
Im just gonna go ahead and do the umbrella complaining here, just about stuff she's gonna need to compete with everyone. Right now I do think she's a strong character. Her tick throws are nuts, she has insane damage, and she takes advantage of being small rlly well. I do have several problems w her and i'll just go down different modes to keep stuff organized.

Overstuffed:
this mode sucks so bad lol
•you can't convert meterlessly off of tongue twister with puddle bc slide is too slow

•slide here is more minus than starving slide on block and this is like one of her main neutral tools (i think it needs a hit of armor but thats just me)

•her dp in this mode sucks so bad (if ur gonna give full invuln back to any versions of her dp please make it this one its not even a hit grab)

•bubble super takes less hunger away than in other modes (why)

all of this combined with how slow your buttons and movement are make this mode feel miserable to play in. I get that this is the combo mode but ppl are Going to be in this mode in neutral sometimes and i feel like as long as shes not starving she shouldn't be punished that hard for being caught in this mode, especially considering passive hunger loss in neutral sucks and ppl are gonna rush you down hard in this mode bc ur so slow. granted satiated and ravenous do need to be the more neutral focused ones but i do think its dumb that she gets killed so hard for playing in a diff way than "me get ravenous". I think devs were afraid of making this mode good and in turn they made it od terrible

Satiated:
honestly not seeing too many issues.
•if i could request One change its to make slide +6 on hit instead of +5. that extra frame wouldn't make the hugest difference but hey u know 6f 2lp. not really necessary tho i really like where satiated is.
I wish satiated could compete with ravenous so you wouldnt feel the NEED to get ravenous but i get it.

Ravenous:
this mode is fucking cracked.
please dont change anything abt this mode im so serious. ravenous umbrella is mad good.

Starving:
idk its starving lol just don't be here

General Stuff:
•I would like 5mk (2 hits) > wish maker to be more consistent. its the only way to consistently combo into wish maker without otg on everyone in the cast which is very strong. The problem with it however is that the link is really tight. i personally have gotten pretty good at it but it'll still just drop sometimes.
• please make jhk>5mp more consistent. dropping that feels awful and mad random. the fact that you have to delay jhk at different times for everyone is just really cringe and i would prefer consistency. maybe i'll just hold that and learn the timing but if its possible that would be nice.

I think thats all my complaints abt umbrella tbh. i feel like shes still being explored so not a lot of ppl know whats going on yet but I do feel like w enough development and fixing a few of these issues shes gonna turn out to be a really good character. (except against robo lol). open for discussion on anything here!
 
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Im just gonna go ahead and do the umbrella complaining here, just about stuff she's gonna need to compete with everyone. Right now I do think she's a strong character. Her tick throws are nuts, she has insane damage, and she takes advantage of being small rlly well. I do have several problems w her and i'll just go down different modes to keep stuff organized.
Changing satiated and overstuffed to be a bit less awful isn't really the issue that's preventing umbrella from being able to "compete with everyone" (provided this only being an issue because of how few people are willing to give this character a chance anymore, i doubt she can't already). If we're sticking with the design of "ravenous or bust" which I've already complained about, and ravenous is already fine, these changes won't affect her power.

Umbrella's problems mostly stem from her tools being confused from their design:
6LP being an antiair button thats too slow to antiair on reaction
5HP being a reflect with no proj invuln | Retina Reflector being easy to avoid for zoners despite being an obvious anti zoning super.
Tongue Twister failing to be an anti-zoning tool despite being advertised as such, whose projectile destruction has only helped me often against Annie Crescent Cut.
Wish Maker being used to control space only to disappear on hit even with its short range and long startup.
Hungern Rush being a slow (can't punish raw car invulning through it) throwable flashkick whose only redeeming quality is occasionally punishing safejump upbacks.
Bobble Jump being too slow to setup and stuffable mid animation counters its usage as a mobility tool.

More personal things include the Contact Lens input (i have gotten normal retina too many times on reversal and vice versa on DHC)

These come together to make a character that has trouble (though isn't defenseless, trust me this character is not weak, let alone a free win here) defending herself on mixup/wakeup and from fullscreen, yet with such godlike footsies and frame data that nearly invalidate certain matchups. Umbrella requires you to be far more crafty than most players consider to be worth, which is likely why most players keep downplaying how good she is either due to a lack of experience or understanding with the character.
 
Changing satiated and overstuffed to be a bit less awful isn't really the issue that's preventing umbrella from being able to "compete with everyone" (provided this only being an issue because of how few people are willing to give this character a chance anymore, i doubt she can't already). If we're sticking with the design of "ravenous or bust" which I've already complained about, and ravenous is already fine, these changes won't affect her power.

Umbrella's problems mostly stem from her tools being confused from their design:
6LP being an antiair button thats too slow to antiair on reaction
5HP being a reflect with no proj invuln | Retina Reflector being easy to avoid for zoners despite being an obvious anti zoning super.
Tongue Twister failing to be an anti-zoning tool despite being advertised as such, whose projectile destruction has only helped me often against Annie Crescent Cut.
Wish Maker being used to control space only to disappear on hit even with its short range and long startup.
Hungern Rush being a slow (can't punish raw car invulning through it) throwable flashkick whose only redeeming quality is occasionally punishing safejump upbacks.
Bobble Jump being too slow to setup and stuffable mid animation counters its usage as a mobility tool.

More personal things include the Contact Lens input (i have gotten normal retina too many times on reversal and vice versa on DHC)

These come together to make a character that has trouble (though isn't defenseless, trust me this character is not weak, let alone a free win here) defending herself on mixup/wakeup and from fullscreen, yet with such godlike footsies and frame data that nearly invalidate certain matchups. Umbrella requires you to be far more crafty than most players consider to be worth, which is likely why most players keep downplaying how good she is either due to a lack of experience or understanding with the character.
I do agree w all of this as well. I almost brought up 6lp but i thought that was just a me thing rather than iy being a problem w the character. im glad im not the only one w that issue. also idk if u can rlly do anything abt reyina just being bad against zoners tbh. like idk what else they would do to it to make it better at stopping zoners from just jumping over. idk like i said earlier i really just thought a lot of the issues ur stating were just me problems but im glad other umbrellas think so. (i think they took away throw invuln from rush so that u use cmk more but thats still really dumb)
 
I do agree w all of this as well. I almost brought up 6lp but i thought that was just a me thing rather than iy being a problem w the character. im glad im not the only one w that issue. also idk if u can rlly do anything abt reyina just being bad against zoners tbh. like idk what else they would do to it to make it better at stopping zoners from just jumping over. idk like i said earlier i really just thought a lot of the issues ur stating were just me problems but im glad other umbrellas think so. (i think they took away throw invuln from rush so that u use cmk more but thats still really dumb)
to add one more thing to this i think bobble jump should have a hit box
 
It feels like the devs were really non-committal with Umbrella’s defensive tools because they were afraid of making her overpowered, but that ended up giving her a lot of moves that really only do half of what they feel like they should.

I have a few ideas for Umbrella that I’ve mentioned in the past (still crossing my fingers for eating projectiles during TT and Slurp), but I think one idea that could solve some issues is making Overstuffed a really good defensive mode.

Give Overstuffed Umbrella some of her older perks, like bubbles that go through other projectiles, to increase her defensive viability in the state. It’d also be nice for Stuffed Rush to have full invulnerability, and maybe for all versions of the move to have full invuln in exchange for the weird unblockable on rising perk.

Maybe if you’re feeling crazy, you could give stuffed Brella some armor on certain options like slurp n’ slide, or even some unique counter hit mechanism where hitting Hungern during certain moves causes him to throw up a bunch of bubbles? I’m just spitballing ideas here. Umbrella’s interesting, but I feel like she needs a little more focus and a bit of adjustment in certain areas.
 
It feels like the devs were really non-committal with Umbrella’s defensive tools because they were afraid of making her overpowered, but that ended up giving her a lot of moves that really only do half of what they feel like they should.

I have a few ideas for Umbrella that I’ve mentioned in the past (still crossing my fingers for eating projectiles during TT and Slurp), but I think one idea that could solve some issues is making Overstuffed a really good defensive mode.

Give Overstuffed Umbrella some of her older perks, like bubbles that go through other projectiles, to increase her defensive viability in the state. It’d also be nice for Stuffed Rush to have full invulnerability, and maybe for all versions of the move to have full invuln in exchange for the weird unblockable on rising perk.

Maybe if you’re feeling crazy, you could give stuffed Brella some armor on certain options like slurp n’ slide, or even some unique counter hit mechanism where hitting Hungern during certain moves causes him to throw up a bunch of bubbles? I’m just spitballing ideas here. Umbrella’s interesting, but I feel like she needs a little more focus and a bit of adjustment in certain areas.
Im just gonna go ahead and do the umbrella complaining here, just about stuff she's gonna need to compete with everyone. Right now I do think she's a strong character. Her tick throws are nuts, she has insane damage, and she takes advantage of being small rlly well. I do have several problems w her and i'll just go down different modes to keep stuff organized.

Overstuffed:
this mode sucks so bad lol
•you can't convert meterlessly off of tongue twister with puddle bc slide is too slow

•slide here is more minus than starving slide on block and this is like one of her main neutral tools (i think it needs a hit of armor but thats just me)

•her dp in this mode sucks so bad (if ur gonna give full invuln back to any versions of her dp please make it this one its not even a hit grab)

•bubble super takes less hunger away than in other modes (why)

all of this combined with how slow your buttons and movement are make this mode feel miserable to play in. I get that this is the combo mode but ppl are Going to be in this mode in neutral sometimes and i feel like as long as shes not starving she shouldn't be punished that hard for being caught in this mode, especially considering passive hunger loss in neutral sucks and ppl are gonna rush you down hard in this mode bc ur so slow. granted satiated and ravenous do need to be the more neutral focused ones but i do think its dumb that she gets killed so hard for playing in a diff way than "me get ravenous". I think devs were afraid of making this mode good and in turn they made it od terrible

Satiated:
honestly not seeing too many issues.
•if i could request One change its to make slide +6 on hit instead of +5. that extra frame wouldn't make the hugest difference but hey u know 6f 2lp. not really necessary tho i really like where satiated is.
I wish satiated could compete with ravenous so you wouldnt feel the NEED to get ravenous but i get it.

Ravenous:
this mode is fucking cracked.
please dont change anything abt this mode im so serious. ravenous umbrella is mad good.

Starving:
idk its starving lol just don't be here

General Stuff:
•I would like 5mk (2 hits) > wish maker to be more consistent. its the only way to consistently combo into wish maker without otg on everyone in the cast which is very strong. The problem with it however is that the link is really tight. i personally have gotten pretty good at it but it'll still just drop sometimes.
• please make jhk>5mp more consistent. dropping that feels awful and mad random. the fact that you have to delay jhk at different times for everyone is just really cringe and i would prefer consistency. maybe i'll just hold that and learn the timing but if its possible that would be nice.

I think thats all my complaints abt umbrella tbh. i feel like shes still being explored so not a lot of ppl know whats going on yet but I do feel like w enough development and fixing a few of these issues shes gonna turn out to be a really good character. (except against robo lol). open for discussion on anything here!

"Overstuffed is bad"
It was literally written that the whole point of umbrella is to get into rav to be an actual character, the other modes are to cash out/be punished for bad implementation of your gameplan of getting into ravenous

its by design, us agreeing might not matter if the character performs as intended

That being said arguments should be made to balance team to make umbrella more of her Gameplayinspiration blurb as opposed to what she is now

Bruiser type as overstuffed
mix fast as rav
 
"Overstuffed is bad"
It was literally written that the whole point of umbrella is to get into rav to be an actual character, the other modes are to cash out/be punished for bad implementation of your gameplan of getting into ravenous

its by design, us agreeing might not matter if the character performs as intended

That being said arguments should be made to balance team to make umbrella more of her Gameplayinspiration blurb as opposed to what she is now

Bruiser type as overstuffed
mix fast as rav
That’s a fair take, and I don’t disagree that the basis of Umbrella’s design should be centered around attaining and maintaining Ravenous.

In fact, in my original post in the Umbrella post release discussion, I brought up how Hungern eating projectiles could be balanced by not allowing Hungern to eat them when his bar is full, which would further incentivize you to be at lower hunger levels against Zoners.

I guess I just also thought it’d be cool and thematically appropriate to make Overstuffed reversal-themed, but that’s not really my priority. I just think Umbrella could use some better defense overall, and right now her defensive tools need a bit of fine tuning.
 
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Don't nerf solos, I can't believe that's a topic that was brought up at all

As it is, solos already struggle in the current meta. There's a very clear reason why most team comps at the moment are trios, and to a slightly lesser extent duos. That's because solos have to work incredibly hard to win neutral against a team that has assists.

Stop trying to focus on not being able to 2-touch solos, like you can vs teams. You're focusing on the wrong thing. As Sonic already said, focus on winning neutral, and setplaying the solo to death, snapping when needed if you're not confident on the next reset and immediately backing off with the goal of winning neutral again in mind. They already don't have safe DHCs or alpha counters available to them during reset scenarios.

People ask me all the time why I stay on a trio ratio vs a solo. That's because it's just factually easier to play a team vs a solo. Plain and simple. When I see players switch from a trio to a solo just to fight the solo, and then the solo player wins anyway, I'm never surprised. You are essentially putting on the table that you're more confident at winning neutral without your assists now against the player who's already used to not having assists available to help them.

If you ask yourself why you play a team instead of playing solo, it's usually because it's "more fun," right? That tends to stem from just having more options available to you, as the player, to take full advantage of all the system mechanics in the game. But you want the whole cake and eat it too, so you want to 2-touch solos on top of all that. Are you serious?

I'm tired of hearing this discourse for years on end when the answer is never to buff the duo and trio teams just to combat the only advantage solos have left; Their health, and their damage (damage can be argued since the way teams are being optimized these days, they're doing more damage anyway)

If anything, I would buff solos instead. You're out of your mind if you think it's the other way around.
I don't think anyone is asking for straight nerfs to solos, I think they really just need an overhaul. I feel that terrible neutral balanced by obscene damage is too polarizing and I'd like to see both extremes adjusted. I think just give them some kind of neutral tool (I don't have any good ideas for what though), then you can tone down damage in exchange for that. To me, the problem with solos isn't even a matter of balance, it's a matter of fun versus frustration.
 
An idea I had a while back was to give solos more undizzy to work with instead of a straight damage buff, would give them something more unique instead of a "oh yeah they do 40% more damage btw". Idk how it would shake things up but it would be fun to see solo players do their stuff.
 
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Disclaimer that this post was written by a Fortune and Robo Fortune player. I'm not going to downplay that Fortune doesn't have unbelievable amounts of corner carry and happy birthday potential. It owns so hard. Everyone is missing out.


I was curious how people felt about Annie DP, specifically with how high it shoots the opponent in the air. This makes the speedy running characters able to get the easiest pickup off with great corner carry. If the DP carried them more horizontally with less vertical, the screen might keep scrolling and prevent the pickups that characters like Fortune and Robo had. It had unbelievable amounts of mileage this past tournament, which obviously isn't the only metric, but it was truly glaring.

I can't speak for characters (Big Band kara 5mk brass) who might be affected by this change, just that it's something I was curious about hearing opinions. Some people might think it's just another Updo. I dunno. Not calling for a change, just conjecture.
 
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Honestly the only parts of Annie H DP I think are ridiculous are:

-The screen carry (really easy happy birthdays for some characters) [Beat Extend can give these {HBDs} as well in a different way]
-The blockstun (I'm not sure if it's higher than most DPs but it **feels** like there's more blockstun maybe it just has more hitstop?) [surprisingly even though beat extend can be multihit I don't feel entirely locked]
-Annie herself is a little hard to hit with the opponent due to being the only DP assist that's in the air for a while so sometimes counter calling her can be awkward. [I know updo is also a DP that has her up too but I think filia is on the ground much sooner for a punish]

Other than that it is very similar to updo but those 3 things are what make it insanely better than updo ever was, and after playing with it and fighting against it more, I'd even go as far as saying that it's definitely as good as or better than Beat Extend. Overall I feel like the assist is in general awkward to punish but I think if the blockstun and punish awkwardness was less so, it'd be a little more contestable than it currently is.
 
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I don't think anyone is asking for straight nerfs to solos, I think they really just need an overhaul. I feel that terrible neutral balanced by obscene damage is too polarizing and I'd like to see both extremes adjusted. I think just give them some kind of neutral tool (I don't have any good ideas for what though), then you can tone down damage in exchange for that. To me, the problem with solos isn't even a matter of balance, it's a matter of fun versus frustration.
If they need neutral help maybe a universal parry for solo's that gave meter or health back could be dec, Give BB Both idk
 
Im just gonna go ahead and do the umbrella complaining here, just about stuff she's gonna need to compete with everyone. Right now I do think she's a strong character. Her tick throws are nuts, she has insane damage, and she takes advantage of being small rlly well. I do have several problems w her and i'll just go down different modes to keep stuff organized.

Overstuffed:
this mode sucks so bad lol
•you can't convert meterlessly off of tongue twister with puddle bc slide is too slow

•slide here is more minus than starving slide on block and this is like one of her main neutral tools (i think it needs a hit of armor but thats just me)

•her dp in this mode sucks so bad (if ur gonna give full invuln back to any versions of her dp please make it this one its not even a hit grab)

•bubble super takes less hunger away than in other modes (why)

all of this combined with how slow your buttons and movement are make this mode feel miserable to play in. I get that this is the combo mode but ppl are Going to be in this mode in neutral sometimes and i feel like as long as shes not starving she shouldn't be punished that hard for being caught in this mode, especially considering passive hunger loss in neutral sucks and ppl are gonna rush you down hard in this mode bc ur so slow. granted satiated and ravenous do need to be the more neutral focused ones but i do think its dumb that she gets killed so hard for playing in a diff way than "me get ravenous". I think devs were afraid of making this mode good and in turn they made it od terrible

Satiated:
honestly not seeing too many issues.
•if i could request One change its to make slide +6 on hit instead of +5. that extra frame wouldn't make the hugest difference but hey u know 6f 2lp. not really necessary tho i really like where satiated is.
I wish satiated could compete with ravenous so you wouldnt feel the NEED to get ravenous but i get it.

Ravenous:
this mode is fucking cracked.
please dont change anything abt this mode im so serious. ravenous umbrella is mad good.

Starving:
idk its starving lol just don't be here

General Stuff:
•I would like 5mk (2 hits) > wish maker to be more consistent. its the only way to consistently combo into wish maker without otg on everyone in the cast which is very strong. The problem with it however is that the link is really tight. i personally have gotten pretty good at it but it'll still just drop sometimes.
• please make jhk>5mp more consistent. dropping that feels awful and mad random. the fact that you have to delay jhk at different times for everyone is just really cringe and i would prefer consistency. maybe i'll just hold that and learn the timing but if its possible that would be nice.

I think thats all my complaints abt umbrella tbh. i feel like shes still being explored so not a lot of ppl know whats going on yet but I do feel like w enough development and fixing a few of these issues shes gonna turn out to be a really good character. (except against robo lol). open for discussion on anything here!
You can't buff everything else without first toning down how insane rav is tbh, I asked for certain modes to be better for certain Mu, Believe I even asked for armor in overstuffed way back when too, As she is... she's fine if not extremely filtered and linear, If you want to see result, Id assume most umbras will just use Nope footage as reference for MU, The better your neutral the more results youll have. Very few characters can out neutral her being only robo, Fukua and Val and even than its still smells when shes in rav tbh. Hell I even wanted her level 3 to be a level 5 when in starving and to do a bit of extra damage as a reverse cashout but perhaps Im too mad for wanting to see a character with interesting gameplay. As is its Rav into either Sq rt/scramble and she usually wins scrambles, I could see headless giving her issues if the heads behind but I dont play that character. For Rav nerfs, Make j.mp not restand so you cant get iad jump back j.mp slurp conversion* Guacced Interaction btw*, Slightly decrease the hitbox on 2mp and make 2mk hit mid---If umbrellas complain make cmk overhead or low with a puddle. Ive got alot of suggestions on how she could be changed to be a more well rounded character, That Idea MAchi dropped about slurp eating projectiles is nice, It would be even nicer if it actually fed hungering and made her go into overstuffed faster or whatever, Idk She cool just boring rn Imo and could be much more complete, Rav filter designed really hurt her popularity and ease of access I guess. Tldr; Different Umbrella states should have diff MU Spreads not just Rav I win.
 
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Hell I even wanted her level 3 to be a level 5 when in starving and to do a bit of extra damage as a reverse cashout but perhaps Im too mad for wanting to see a character with interesting gameplay.

Feeding Time is already underused for kills for players that aren't me.
As is its Rav into either Sq rt/scramble and she usually wins scrambles, I could see headless giving her issues if the heads behind but I dont play that character.
Headless is annoying but if i can create enough space i can stomp on the head to force her to approach
For Rav nerfs, Make j.mp not restand so you cant get iad jump back j.mp slurp conversion* Guacced Interaction btw*,

It is part of Umbrella's design philosophy for her to have big buttons but bad movement. I used my buttons here in a specific way that allows me to get this conversion, as well as managed my hunger well enough to allow this conversion in the first place.
Also, if it does KD, beside being an unnecessary change, it only makes the conversion more likely, just with the caveat that it immediately uses OTG. Punishing me for properly spacing and taking advantage of my buttons just seems cheap. The recovery on jMP, especially on whiff, leaves it very open to being punished.

Slightly decrease the hitbox on 2mp and make 2mk hit mid---If umbrellas complain make cmk overhead or low with a puddle.
2MP is large but I feel like the whole "bad movement big buttons" philosophy should show in the matchup. You should learn to respect that at midrange Umbrella can just sorta poke you. The only egregious part is looping 2MP slurp on pushblock, which even then can be dp'd and pbgc'd out of.

A 14 frame low/throw crush overhead is not what people would want to fight. My only suggestion for making cMK less egregious is to not allow it to just beat meaty throw (frame 1 throw invuln). Making it mid also inadvertently causes more ravenous funneling, since she has a smaller and smaller selection of lows to choose from.

Ive got alot of suggestions on how she could be changed to be a more well rounded character, That Idea MAchi dropped about slurp eating projectiles is nice, It would be even nicer if it actually fed hungering and made her go into overstuffed faster or whatever, Idk She cool just boring rn Imo and could be much more complete, Rav filter designed really hurt her popularity and ease of access I guess.
Slurp eating projectiles/proj invuln would make any double gun, para shot, annie crescent, and other fireball have braindead answers whose only response would be a cancel into super, which, if umbrella has any meter, they additionally need to have a dhc prepared as well. When balancing around zoner matchups specifically, keep in mind what any anti-projectile changes does to other matchups.

I hated the Rav or Bust design philosophy since the day of that update, but given that it was foretold from the alpha announcement point, I really just can't imagine a fix for it that doesn't either severely hurt the character, her design, or make her unjustifiably good. I've played with it long enough that it makes sense in practical usage but as a design for a character i just don't like it. Its unnecessarily taxing for most players to learn what is essentially constantly managing an install timer rather than just having a character with multiple creative facets. However, even changes like giving every Overstuffed punch normal a hit of armor wouldn't be enough encouragement to leave Ravenous for me, so I really just don't know. I'd rather Ravenous not get nerfed, given how many people already have trouble maintaining it, and I wouldn't imagine players would be drawn to her main selling point if it was toned down for what a select few players are capable of doing with it.
 
I hated the Rav or Bust design philosophy since the day of that update, but given that it was foretold from the alpha announcement point, I really just can't imagine a fix for it that doesn't either severely hurt the character, her design, or make her unjustifiably good. I've played with it long enough that it makes sense in practical usage but as a design for a character i just don't like it. Its unnecessarily taxing for most players to learn what is essentially constantly managing an install timer rather than just having a character with multiple creative facets. However, even changes like giving every Overstuffed punch normal a hit of armor wouldn't be enough encouragement to leave Ravenous for me, so I really just don't know. I'd rather Ravenous not get nerfed, given how many people already have trouble maintaining it, and I wouldn't imagine players would be drawn to her main selling point if it was toned down for what a select few players are capable of doing with it.
It's almost as if the funneling was a bad design to begin with, Make the other modes slightly better, Make overstuffed the long range slow armored mode, rav should be fast with slightly smaller normal and with a decent approach option that would go away when reaching overstuffed. That was the slurp buff I asked for. Given time nope. more individuals will see how much fun playing this character is/ against and its just kinda meh to me, Increasing the viability of other modes can only help the characters design and viability in the eyes of the common folk. I understand nobody is doing what your doing, but they will, Most of these cat girl meta people are Honers not Innovates like most of Nap, So you gotta give the world time to catch up. Im even wondering if making Rav the op option was due to time constraints, cause even though the character is complete and good, She doesn't "feel" that way
 
Oh, Small change I think would be super fun and interesting for Valentine, Give her another super thats a shadowclone, Works like Sougenmu or alpha 2 custom combos, Probs for 2 bar or even 3. Idk just think its fun and would create some very interesting stuff, She is a ninja....Perhaps too strong? Id play her if she had this tbh, Im sure Valentines would love this as well, Might also increase the pick rate. Sorry for double posting
 
I hated the Rav or Bust design philosophy since the day of that update, but given that it was foretold from the alpha announcement point, I really just can't imagine a fix for it that doesn't either severely hurt the character, her design, or make her unjustifiably good. I've played with it long enough that it makes sense in practical usage but as a design for a character i just don't like it. Its unnecessarily taxing for most players to learn what is essentially constantly managing an install timer rather than just having a character with multiple creative facets. However, even changes like giving every Overstuffed punch normal a hit of armor wouldn't be enough encouragement to leave Ravenous for me, so I really just don't know. I'd rather Ravenous not get nerfed, given how many people already have trouble maintaining it, and I wouldn't imagine players would be drawn to her main selling point if it was toned down for what a select few players are capable of doing with it.
would you say having to constantly stay in red makes TT/throw/grinder obsolete since you're flushing rav down the toilet for gratifying damage, but after a reset you risk playing yellow neutral?
 
Feeding Time is already underused for kills for players that aren't me.
People tend to spend bar before they reach three, especially in the point position


Headless is annoying but if i can create enough space i can stomp on the head to force her to approach
Thats literally the universal counterplay but people are too afraid to contest or miss the head cand get nommed for it


It is part of Umbrella's design philosophy for her to have big buttons but bad movement. I used my buttons here in a specific way that allows me to get this conversion, as well as managed my hunger well enough to allow this conversion in the first place.
Also, if it does KD, beside being an unnecessary change, it only makes the conversion more likely, just with the caveat that it immediately uses OTG. Punishing me for properly spacing and taking advantage of my buttons just seems cheap. The recovery on jMP, especially on whiff, leaves it very open to being punished.
Imagine if filia was only able to get her dashes by either
a. Getting a hit without them
b. Backdashing and doing ringlet spike zoning without getting hit until she got them

Umbrella worked to get into rav and now she's able to punish characters that "jumpforward button without thought". to me, that is fucking GOOD
2MP is large but I feel like the whole "bad movement big buttons" philosophy should show in the matchup. You should learn to respect that at midrange Umbrella can just sorta poke you. The only egregious part is looping 2MP slurp on pushblock, which even then can be dp'd and pbgc'd out of.
You should learn to respect that at midrange
People wont

Dont worry about looping pushblock. Val can loop airdash j.mp pressure on pushblock
Fortune can loop airdash pressure
Band can just frighten you into not pressing anything with delay buttons. Ending a blockstring in a c.hp that gets pushblocked and then ebrakes back in

A 14 frame low/throw crush overhead is not what people would want to fight. My only suggestion for making cMK less egregious is to not allow it to just beat meaty throw (frame 1 throw invuln). Making it mid also inadvertently causes more ravenous funneling, since she has a smaller and smaller selection of lows to choose from.
Mashing a NORMAL to beat a THROW option is still ultimately a risk. If your opponent is doing this to you, instead of thinking "I should be grabbing her" you should be thinking "Why am I not collecting my FREE COUNTERHIT COMBO MID RESET" and dont you dare say that you know this move exists and your gonna reset with a low, because thats just not being knowledgeable about the matchup



Slurp eating projectiles/proj invuln would make any double gun, para shot, annie crescent, and other fireball have braindead answers whose only response would be a cancel into super, which, if umbrella has any meter, they additionally need to have a dhc prepared as well. When balancing around zoner matchups specifically, keep in mind what any anti-projectile changes does to other matchups.

satiated bobble into poke slide hits so many characters at the long range its ridiculous. Like, even fuzzysnugs got hit by it. I didn't even know she could LOW PROFILE PEACOCKS CANNONBALL SHOT until playing Nope. She's a character that rewards mechanical skill currently and she doesn't need more tools.

People saw her do tongue twister at full screen in her trailer. People wanna be babies and beat the zoner matchup with a single button or special. Umbrella can beat zoners with her kit and skill, that should be the standard
I hated the Rav or Bust design philosophy since the day of that update, but given that it was foretold from the alpha announcement point, I really just can't imagine a fix for it that doesn't either severely hurt the character, her design, or make her unjustifiably good. I've played with it long enough that it makes sense in practical usage but as a design for a character i just don't like it. Its unnecessarily taxing for most players to learn what is essentially constantly managing an install timer rather than just having a character with multiple creative facets. However, even changes like giving every Overstuffed punch normal a hit of armor wouldn't be enough encouragement to leave Ravenous for me, so I really just don't know. I'd rather Ravenous not get nerfed, given how many people already have trouble maintaining it, and I wouldn't imagine players would be drawn to her main selling point if it was toned down for what a select few players are capable of doing with it.
Umbrella's current design is very reminiscent of Pheonix Wright from UMVC3. She literally transforms from like, Bottom-Mid to arguably the most broken character in the game by being in rav. But you have to cycle your resources. I tried learning her and there we're many situations where I did a reset, it whiffed, and then I was starving and had to scramble at the close range to get my ravenous back.

She's hard but rewarding, IDK how to make the other modes or make her the flexible character but people want, But I think right now, those changes should come when her tiny playerbase reaches the level of mastery that most other characters players have. That or when people finally understand her strengths because boy is she still undiscovered
 
would you say having to constantly stay in red makes TT/throw/grinder obsolete since you're flushing rav down the toilet for gratifying damage, but after a reset you risk playing yellow neutral?
no, because not only can you route such that you get back to rav quick (i've seen mid combo routes but I'm skeptical of their practicality), but you shouldn't be doing those in the first place (full chomps) unless you expect to kill or swap out.


I didn't even know she could LOW PROFILE PEACOCKS CANNONBALL SHOT until playing Nope. She's a character that rewards mechanical skill currently and she doesn't need more tools.
People saw her do tongue twister at full screen in her trailer. People wanna be babies and beat the zoner matchup with a single button or special. Umbrella can beat zoners with her kit and skill, that should be the standard


While I agree that she can manage the matchups more than people let on, I would like it if her anti-zoning tools actually worked. Like, I don't want Retina to just murder Peacock on the spot, but I'd like it if she couldn't just lenny or call an assist and just negate it entirely. While I can low profile a 5HP, I can't low profile 3 H bangs (or reflect it, since it just cancels the second and gets me clipped by the third) nor make enough distance for it to matter. Even if I do low profile a 5HP, any ground bomb just whiff punishes me as I do so. While I can reflect a bomb or 5HP occasionally, I just get clipped by every other projectile due to a lack of proj invuln. None of this even mentions how neither Retina nor any reflects save me from getting clipped by item drop.

I'd also like it if Retina actually did something to stop Robo besides just encouraging her to superjump jHK away from the shield, or momentarily stop a beam from just hitting me. Her tools that would work on paper to not make these matchups so demanding on my end would be nice if they actually worked in practice.
 
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I know the discussion about Bella jHP already went on for a while but I had an idea that I wanted to share.

I like how jHP works right now, it's a oppressive space control tool with crazy return in the corner and a great call out for throws.
But the loss of a strong overhead option does hurt Bella's pressure quite a lot, especially when MGR is not super cancellable on whiff and j2MP has poor return on hit and is minus on block.

So what about making so J2MP doesn't knock down on grounded it? it could leave Bella ~+10 to link into either 2LP or 2LK, while it wouldn't change the interaction on block it would greatly increase the reward on hit, staying true to Bella's design of a committal but rewarding gameplan.
 
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I don't mind the loss of a stronger overhead option if her command throws were more worth it. I feel MGR could use some love but perhaps we can try giving Bella universal conversions off Ddrop → Dynamo. Probably into pummel horse or such. You'd Ddrop for the fast, throw invul conversion but it requires meter but you'd also have the slower, no invul and more punishable, MGR for meterless combos (Though it is almost impossible to follow up on Painwheel with the otherwise universal conversion to this day, please help).

There are other small things that could help out Bella I feel. Small ones include being able to OTG Titan Knuckle robo in the corner, maybe actually be able to titan knuckle BBand after raw Ddrop and Pummel Horse leaving the foe a tad closer so c.mp/s.mp don't randomly whiff on some characters and c.mk won't randomly miss characters in the corner.

The bigger thing I'd personally like but it might be a bit tricky to implement, is to reduce just how much weight affects Bella's combos. In the corner alone, if I want optimal damage and I start a combo by using OTG (off throw, MGR etc) I have to remember a different combo for each weight class (Light, Medium and Heavy). But if I start a combo while retaining OTG (such as off c.lk) I still have 3 different combo routes I have to retain to memory. Medium/heavys are the same thankfully, but my optimal light combo doesn't really work consistently on Annie and Squigly (and maybe Umbrella), but that may just be a hitbox thing because j.hp has a deadzone. I just want consistency on this character's combo routes!