Ok ok, here me out. This is my first like post on a forum ever so I'm not sure how to properly format this. Its going to be a little of an essay. So please be patient with me. I just wanted to talk about this because I do get a lot of Fukua is broken. And I agree! Everyone is. Some are better than others though.
I want to preface this whole post by saying everyone's opinion on the character at question obviously widely varies. But I would like to facilitate a little
discussion on the character and where she stands. Also to inform some people of things that I personally think she struggles with. Additionally, things I think are
stupid and should work a little differently. Lastly to put a nice little bow on this preface, everyone in this game is good and viable. However every character
and team combination drastically changes the meta and match-ups. I would like you to keep this in mind, my personal opinion is shes middle of the pack
based on her neutral and damage/self-damage and what she offers to a team.
I will list some personal downsides now and you can of course formulate your own opinions are you read.
-Self damage.
-All throw conversions require a resource or setup so she is meter and health hungry.
-Low damage
-Meh reversals
Small list to be quite honest. I think these 4 things are the corner stone of what keeps her balance but sometimes feels bad to play. And honestly she could live as is, calling back to what I said before about everyone is good and viable. Now I would like to talk specifically about these individual things and later get on to how to solve some of these things without going overboard. Also talk about common misconceptions.
Firstly, self damage and low damage output since they are hand in hand. I think the best character to compare to is, her twin! Of course Filia would be the comparative. They are very similar but also very different. Filia being a rushdown and Fukua being more flexible and less rushdown-y based on toolkit. Filia's only real downside being she has to get in do and real damage and it is moderately low just like Fukua (as far as I know, don't hurt me I am human and not all knowing). With her mixups probably being just as good potentially and sometimes less safe however some of her buttons are safer. Fukua on the other hand damages herself to establish mixes and does low damage. Although some setups are safer comparatively. Not to mention to do decent damage from HCH she uses at least 1-2K of her own health. I don't think either of these characters deserve more damage but based on trends of SG with high damage being very very strong(i.e. Beoband, ValExcella, and FortuneAnnie), Id say the health drain Fukua gets is too punishing for the pace at which she gets it back. If she is supposed to be glass cannon or something similar, she is really lacking a cannon and some better health regain opportunities would offset this. (Eliza players listen, I think you guys needs some help/changes too to make her a bit better but I'm working here for mine please leave me alone.)
So I'd like to draw attention to what gives her, her health back and talk about how things could change as I think this is her main flaw which will roll itself into her issues with meter. She gains health back 4 different ways. Her taunt (heals 20% of her drained health and gives the opponent 4% meter), Armor Command Grab (heals 33% of her drained health), her Lvl 3 (heals 55% of her drained health) and just tagging out (gains back all her red health given time). So there are a couple things I'd like to say but let me re-illustrate the functions of these recovery options that needs to be talked about. All of the shadowed health she has goes into a reserve and can only recover a percentage once by one of these options. If you were to drain half of your health from holding shadows Solo you would be at around 7750 health and you used taunt for whatever reason you get 1550 health back and you cannot recover the missing 6200 health. Taunt is obviously the worst of the options, so lets reassess this with the others. Tagging out isn't an option to you so lets cross that out. Armored command grab is 30 frames of startup and her riskiest of options probably, you could easily get counter-hit for this option and just die for it. Gaining 2557 health at the risk of your whole health bar potentially. Ok finally, Lvl 3 which is the best option but you need to know that this options health regain is based off the combo scaling Fukua is at (Raw lvl 3 recovers 4263, leaving 3487 off the table and full scaling recovers 1878 health, leaving 5872 off the table).
To be quite honest these options and numbers suck if your only going to recover from the shadowed health pool once.
As an additional supplement to this conversation, Fukua requires bar to convert off her throw resets. She also afaik is the only character that can't convert off air throw not even with meter without setup. She gets some semblance of oki but even then it is not the best oki either because how close the opponent is depends on height of the airthrow. Lower to the ground, the more time for oki setup she gets which imo is dumb. I believe she's really meter hungry and that really really eats into her ability to even use Lvl 3 to recover health in the first place if she wants to use all of her reset options. She is definitely not a meter horse like peacock or fortune so this also is a huge downside.
With all of these things in mind, I think I have some suggestions to put into how to make this character better and feel better to play without breaking the bank. Also without reminding all the SG boomers of release Fukua, Ive seen the PTSD and fear. These suggestions are interchangeable of course but also please keep in mind as I said in the beginning of the post, she could honestly live as is, everyone is good and viable. I think these things are QOL enough to be changed, but not every character needs to be the best in the game.
Once more, not all of these but maybe one or some combination of them is what I would like to see. You can suggest or discuss these options at your discretion.
-She gains more opportunities to gain back health.
-The shadow pool remains open and she can recover shadow'd health more than once.
-She gains more health recovery options (regular grab and regular command grab, air throw, BFF) with similar percentages as existing ones.
-She gains a higher health percentage off her existing options.
-Raising options at least +30% each.
-Increase her meter gain
-Shadows not only drain health but gain her meter while doing so.
-Healing off shadows hitting for resets
-Conversion off air throw to continue her offense
-Or consistent good oki off air throw
-Ex-nay the scaling thing for Lvl 3 so she just gets raw 55%
These are my things that I think Fukua would need to feed into her game-plan better and not necessarily break the character. My only real gripe is with her health gain. Of course numbers are always subject to change but I'd like to see these balanced over a fair bit of time. I think these numbers can be so fluid and especially in a versus game where teams can really be busted it needs some time to really let people sink into changes. Honestly I'd like to try all these with different combinations but HVS and FutureClub have enough work on their plate making new characters for this game. So I don't expect anything at all, they do a great job as is.
Ok thanks for reading my text wall/TED talk. Hopefully this was moderately coherent. Writing wasn't my best skill but hopefully I was able to show some people the insights of a Fukua player. I also think that defense at a high level is so good that its hard to really play her at a high level. I'm not the best Fukua there is but there may be reasons why we don't see as many of them. These are just my opinions of course but thanks for reading and I look forward to discussion moving forward.
I want to preface this whole post by saying everyone's opinion on the character at question obviously widely varies. But I would like to facilitate a little
discussion on the character and where she stands. Also to inform some people of things that I personally think she struggles with. Additionally, things I think are
stupid and should work a little differently. Lastly to put a nice little bow on this preface, everyone in this game is good and viable. However every character
and team combination drastically changes the meta and match-ups. I would like you to keep this in mind, my personal opinion is shes middle of the pack
based on her neutral and damage/self-damage and what she offers to a team.
I will list some personal downsides now and you can of course formulate your own opinions are you read.
-Self damage.
-All throw conversions require a resource or setup so she is meter and health hungry.
-Low damage
-Meh reversals
Small list to be quite honest. I think these 4 things are the corner stone of what keeps her balance but sometimes feels bad to play. And honestly she could live as is, calling back to what I said before about everyone is good and viable. Now I would like to talk specifically about these individual things and later get on to how to solve some of these things without going overboard. Also talk about common misconceptions.
Firstly, self damage and low damage output since they are hand in hand. I think the best character to compare to is, her twin! Of course Filia would be the comparative. They are very similar but also very different. Filia being a rushdown and Fukua being more flexible and less rushdown-y based on toolkit. Filia's only real downside being she has to get in do and real damage and it is moderately low just like Fukua (as far as I know, don't hurt me I am human and not all knowing). With her mixups probably being just as good potentially and sometimes less safe however some of her buttons are safer. Fukua on the other hand damages herself to establish mixes and does low damage. Although some setups are safer comparatively. Not to mention to do decent damage from HCH she uses at least 1-2K of her own health. I don't think either of these characters deserve more damage but based on trends of SG with high damage being very very strong(i.e. Beoband, ValExcella, and FortuneAnnie), Id say the health drain Fukua gets is too punishing for the pace at which she gets it back. If she is supposed to be glass cannon or something similar, she is really lacking a cannon and some better health regain opportunities would offset this. (Eliza players listen, I think you guys needs some help/changes too to make her a bit better but I'm working here for mine please leave me alone.)
So I'd like to draw attention to what gives her, her health back and talk about how things could change as I think this is her main flaw which will roll itself into her issues with meter. She gains health back 4 different ways. Her taunt (heals 20% of her drained health and gives the opponent 4% meter), Armor Command Grab (heals 33% of her drained health), her Lvl 3 (heals 55% of her drained health) and just tagging out (gains back all her red health given time). So there are a couple things I'd like to say but let me re-illustrate the functions of these recovery options that needs to be talked about. All of the shadowed health she has goes into a reserve and can only recover a percentage once by one of these options. If you were to drain half of your health from holding shadows Solo you would be at around 7750 health and you used taunt for whatever reason you get 1550 health back and you cannot recover the missing 6200 health. Taunt is obviously the worst of the options, so lets reassess this with the others. Tagging out isn't an option to you so lets cross that out. Armored command grab is 30 frames of startup and her riskiest of options probably, you could easily get counter-hit for this option and just die for it. Gaining 2557 health at the risk of your whole health bar potentially. Ok finally, Lvl 3 which is the best option but you need to know that this options health regain is based off the combo scaling Fukua is at (Raw lvl 3 recovers 4263, leaving 3487 off the table and full scaling recovers 1878 health, leaving 5872 off the table).
To be quite honest these options and numbers suck if your only going to recover from the shadowed health pool once.
As an additional supplement to this conversation, Fukua requires bar to convert off her throw resets. She also afaik is the only character that can't convert off air throw not even with meter without setup. She gets some semblance of oki but even then it is not the best oki either because how close the opponent is depends on height of the airthrow. Lower to the ground, the more time for oki setup she gets which imo is dumb. I believe she's really meter hungry and that really really eats into her ability to even use Lvl 3 to recover health in the first place if she wants to use all of her reset options. She is definitely not a meter horse like peacock or fortune so this also is a huge downside.
With all of these things in mind, I think I have some suggestions to put into how to make this character better and feel better to play without breaking the bank. Also without reminding all the SG boomers of release Fukua, Ive seen the PTSD and fear. These suggestions are interchangeable of course but also please keep in mind as I said in the beginning of the post, she could honestly live as is, everyone is good and viable. I think these things are QOL enough to be changed, but not every character needs to be the best in the game.
Once more, not all of these but maybe one or some combination of them is what I would like to see. You can suggest or discuss these options at your discretion.
-She gains more opportunities to gain back health.
-The shadow pool remains open and she can recover shadow'd health more than once.
-She gains more health recovery options (regular grab and regular command grab, air throw, BFF) with similar percentages as existing ones.
-She gains a higher health percentage off her existing options.
-Raising options at least +30% each.
-Increase her meter gain
-Shadows not only drain health but gain her meter while doing so.
-Healing off shadows hitting for resets
-Conversion off air throw to continue her offense
-Or consistent good oki off air throw
-Ex-nay the scaling thing for Lvl 3 so she just gets raw 55%
These are my things that I think Fukua would need to feed into her game-plan better and not necessarily break the character. My only real gripe is with her health gain. Of course numbers are always subject to change but I'd like to see these balanced over a fair bit of time. I think these numbers can be so fluid and especially in a versus game where teams can really be busted it needs some time to really let people sink into changes. Honestly I'd like to try all these with different combinations but HVS and FutureClub have enough work on their plate making new characters for this game. So I don't expect anything at all, they do a great job as is.
Ok thanks for reading my text wall/TED talk. Hopefully this was moderately coherent. Writing wasn't my best skill but hopefully I was able to show some people the insights of a Fukua player. I also think that defense at a high level is so good that its hard to really play her at a high level. I'm not the best Fukua there is but there may be reasons why we don't see as many of them. These are just my opinions of course but thanks for reading and I look forward to discussion moving forward.
