On Defensive Assists

[IsaVulpes]

Wasn't really sure whether to open a new thread for this or post it in 'General Gameplay Discussion' / 'SG Game Design Discussion', but
a) I think it's too big of a topic for that
b) People don't look at those threads
c) I hate bloated threads
d) Midiman gave me a "go ahead"
So here we go, another foxy Bookthread that nobody will read!

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Blabla Vuples you suck wow why do you even play SG just bait it lol l2p is there anything you don't hate git gud fukua you neutral would suck without dp assist but i'm not gonna tell u why cus your dumb
We got that outta the way? Cool!

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Assists are a rather defining part of SG in all its facets:
They're a crucial tool in the neutral game, on offence and on defence - assisting (ha-ha!) pressure, mixups, defence, keepaway, rushdown, combo damage, in countering other assists.. name something? There's an assist that will help you out.
All SG is under assist control - despite there being one small village of indomitable Solo-players that still hold out against the superiority of a team - and that is *GOOD*! It ensures that characters are able to cover their shortcomings, adds a lot to the neutral game as a whole and makes proper teambuilding that much more important, adding a fun layer of complexity to the game.

Now, that is true as long as Assists do what they sound like doing. Assisting. Hear that word? It means you have a Point character, and there's an assist helping him out.
It does *not* mean there's an air traffic controller at the apex of your team, and its entire job is to make sure the Updo and Bomber Expresses land safely on the runway that is the opponent's face.

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So what is the problem with defensive Assists in particular (- if there is any)?
Let me call it.. "Versatility" (I'm trying really hard here not to write 'Stupidity', someone give me credit for that please!), and take a quick detour to other assists.

Basic Projectile assists [Peacock s.HP, Peacock Bombs, Parasoul Tearshot, Painwheel M.Nail, etc]:
- Are great assists in neutral; putting a pretty safe hitbox on the screen that helps you get in against keepaway, helps you keep rushdown out if you so desire, but usually pay the price of their space control in a lack of net reward for hitting - ie Peacock H.George covers airspace excellently, but even if the opponent jumps into it, you will usually not get a conversion out of it.
- Are meh offensive tools. While there are a bunch of setups to create mixup situations with them and/or make your resets safeish (opponent tries to punch you, gets hit out of their punish from your waddling George), and for example Peacock s.HP and Parasoul Tearshot have a sort-of lockdown component added to them, overall their offensive capabilities are on the lower side - especially if you take into consideration that even if they hit, you often have a hard time picking up a combo (see first point)
- Are terrible defensive tools. This is pretty clear; you take an immense risk for calling a projectile when pressured - a risk that usually goes unrewarded. The main way of using these here is to make your point's reversal safeish (eg Bella can Run>Headbutt + MP.Nail assist to be safe if the Headbutt got blocked)

Basic Lockdown assists [Cerebella Cerecopter, Painwheel c.MP, Squigly DnB, etc]:
- Are average in neutral. The usually high startup coupled with lack of invincibility, the assist staying out for a long time, and the assist appearing in front of you is a risky call to make. When out, they are nice way for your point to create some space to the opponent and have a little breathing room - time to think, as eg an active Cerecopter is not something the opponent wants to run into, and the high amount of active frames shuts down counter assist calls, so they will either take a telegraphed approach (jumping over the Copter) or wait around / land longrange pokes which usually do not net a lot of reward. If you get an opponent to block one of these, your offence just begun
- Are astonishingly great on offence. They make tons of otherwise shaky resets safe, are really easy to convert from - which opens up a lot of new mixup opportunities (eg Parasoul j.d.MK + Lockdown assist call gives her access to a really fast high - usually she would not be able to convert off the stomp, but the lockdown assist keeps them in hitstun for a pickup), allow seemingly endless, 'safe' pressure (keep PBGC in mind! But there are ways around it), stop the opponent from calling assist, .. just .. *terrifying* to face.
- Are pretty bad defensive tools. Again, usually long startups, all of which are non-invinc - calling that when under pressure is just asking for your assist to bleed (which may or may not be useful for Eliza, but she ain't in yet so it's no good). Why pretty bad rather than terrible, despite them usually coming out in a worse spot than projectile assists (in front of the point rather than behind it)? Because they are a *lot* better at the "Reversal + Assistcall to make Reversals safe" business. Point BigBand doing Beat Extend + DnB, Fortune doing Fiber + Copter, whatever. Those are safe - or safeish - reversal options, which you gain by running lockdown assists. By themselves bad on defence, they become sort-of-useful when it comes to helping your point characters DP go unpunished.

Basic DP assists [Filia Updo, Parasoul Pillar, etc]:
- Are good in neutral. DPs completely shut down usually not just a certain approach angle but actually almost all of the vertical space, making them difficult to avoid. Due to not moving forward, they will not help you much when trying to get in against zoning / start an offense, but are an even better way of gaining space than projectile assists - at the cost of being less safe, but with the bonus of easy conversions into full combos due to tremendous amounts of hitstun.
- Are good offensive tools. While clearly no actual lockdown, they are effective in shutting down the opponent's defensive options due to invincibly powering through ie mashed reversals. The easy combo conversions mean a plethora of assist based resets, and due to being single & relatively high damage hits, you actually get a much better reward for landing one than you'd do with a Lockdown assist.
- Are you-know-how-good-they-are on defence. 2frames of vulnerability followed by a lot of frames of NOPE; the reward for landing one being a full combo and when it's blocked the whole power of the assist shines through - blocking the reversal of a point character usually means that you can rip their throat out; blocking a DP assist means that your offence got reversed and you are suddenly in the opponent's face on 15f+ disadvantage. An assist protecting your point's reversal means you are roughly neutral on block, an assist reversal being blocked means you gain immense frame advantage.
{ All of this applies to a certain extend (not invinc but beatable with eg sweeps, moving forward + eating up projectiles so they actually help going in, controlling horizontal rather than vertical space, whatever) to armored punches (eg Bella LnL) as well, which is why I will call this group "Defensive Assists" from now on. They are part of the problem. If there is one. Etc. }

Basic WTF assist [Butt]:
- Someone thought it would be a good idea to take a lockdown assist, make it move forward so it controls space nicely, and then let it be invincible.
So we ended up with an assist where you can take a picture of a stage - midscreen, either corner doesn't matter -, draw any two characters, at any distance from each other, in any team composition, on any height, and it will always be a good idea *for both of them* to call Butt at that very moment.
- Why.

I think my last point makes pretty clear where I am going with this.
- Projectile assist = Are a great help in neutral to control space, be it for getting in or keeping the opponent out. The assist alone is not gonna keep anyone out, you still have to move in properly, once in you are 'left on your own' (lots of Point Character game!), and if things don't go your way you're pretty screwed.
- Lockdown assist = Are not of much help in neutral, but if you get in with your Point, you get rewarded with droplets of yellow liquid running down your enemy's thighs. On defence they can help, but are still reliant on your 'main' character doing its job properly.
- Defensive assists = Are strong in neutral due to absurd space control - will mostly help you keep away, but can also help you get in (most notably done by armored assists ie Bella H.LnL); Are very useful on offence and *killing* on defence, all the while rewarding any hit with full conversions.

Or, to make it even simpler:
- Projectiles get called in neutral, help on offence, don't do anything on defence
- Lockdown helps in neutral, gets called on offence, doesn't do anything on defence
- Defensive assists get called in neutral, get called on offence, get called on defence

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*I AM NOT EVEN SURE WHETHER DEFENSIVE ASSISTS ARE "TOO STRONG"*.
I mean, I'd call it 'likely' that they are, but quite frankly I'm not good enough at the game, nor do I have sufficient amounts of experience in 'Marvel-type Fighters' to give any sort of definitive statement on a topic like that.
What I definitely think though is that they are *TOO BRAINDEAD*. Other assists have a clearcut role in what they do, while DP assists just do *everything*. Armored assists at least have a distinct weakness in being susceptible to armor breakers and tanking damage and being locked out for a short while when doing so (though I don't feel this is enough), invincibility just powers through everything.

Now, assuming this is an issue (I will suspect the entire community to cry in outrage that it's not, but whatever), the question would be how to fix it.
"Nerf them to the ground" doesn't even sound tempting - SG offence is strong enough as-is; flat removing one of the main defensive tools seems out of place to me. In addition, I like having DP assists as a way to gain space, as a way to cover the air for characters who have difficulties doing so, as a reversal option for the ones who can't just shoot their fiber lasers.

My 'first take' would be to do something akin to:
"Remove Invinc from Butt as an assist, Slightly increase damage on Pillar/BeatExtend/Updo/etc but make the opponent invuln after getting hit by them if they were assists, find someone better than me who has an idea for the armor punches";
- Fukua is allowed to have invincibilities differ from point to assist so we got a precedent here, and butt would *STILL* be an exceptionally good lockdown assist;
- DP assists would keep their 'You can call them anywhere' property, but the reward for landing one is lowered so drastically that you can't just win games anymore via jumpblock assistcall - getting a similar treatment to how eg Parasoul j.HP causes a techable blue bounce when not chained into: It's a great neutral tool still that the opponent has to be aware of (or will be painfully made aware of), you can press it in most places and it will usually smack the opponent's face in, but the reward for doing so is not very great and thus to win games you have to do more than just jumparound j.HP.

Okay almost done, you can cock your guns and shoot the "Blabla Vuples you suck go play King of Vampire Killer Street if you don't like LPMK" bullets soon!
If you don't want to do just that, anything that goes against my points, reinforces them, tells me that I'm right but it's good the way it is because X, ideas how to change things, whatever, are wholly appreciated!

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Ending point, bear with me I'm no Marvel expert -much less an MvC2 one- so I'm just attempting a cross to a game I have rather limited knowledge of:
- There are God Tiers in the game which are much better than everyone else
- There are DP assists, who sit on characters who are not the God Tiers
- There are ways of really fucking hurting an assist that was called at a bad spot / properly baited (ie Storm Hailstorm DHC Sentinel)
- Snaps are an excellent way of screwing up team orders etc due to clear difference in assist strength and decently clearcut roles on who does what on a team

Despite all of this, Psylocke is picked very frequently as her assist is viewed as one of the best

Compared to SG:
- Cast is roughly equal
- If anything, the chars who have access to the defensive assists are considered the strongest (most notably Filia)
- ?? You can jab them which locks them out for a bunch of frames.. sometimes. Best counter to invinc assists is to call your own invinc assist a bit later.
- Snapping Filia/DP-Assist turns the enemy team into Parasoul/DP-Assist and there's really no fucking difference

An often voiced notion is "OBVIOUSLY boomboom invinc is seen as strong right now; the game is *still* in kiddie shoes, and the community is overall not very good, and we haven't found out all the magic on how to deal with shit yet, they are a first-order-optimal-strategy and things are gonna change, etc."
But MvC2 has had a shitton of time to evolve, with a good bunch of really damn strong players putting in honest work, and DP assists are still viewed as the prime thing to pick.
While there *are* weaknesses in SG assists that the MvC2 ones didn't have (2f vuln startup!), I do think that this hints strongly to them not moving from the top of the chart anytime soon.

~~~

G'Day.

 

[dama624]

I remember in Beta when some(?) invincible assists had it so the opponent broke out of hitstun soon after getting hit.

I kinda liked that option because it made it harder to convert (but still possible), and it also retained the DP's job as an anti-air.

 

[ClarenceMage]

The damage scaling on DP assist makes it so that if you manage to get a hit with one, you are pretty much required to do frequent resets in the followup combo if you want to kill the character. While this does make it so that you are required to play more game if you hit with a DP assist, you still have to play more game even if you hit with any other non-DP assist - the followup reward for hitting with an invincible assist is identical to hitting with a non-invincible assist.

One solution might be to tweak the proration on DP and non-DP assists. Similar to how anime games have introduced forced prorate on certain moves based on their utility so that, for instance, in Guilty Gear you don't get the same reward when you hit with a 2P into whatever than you do by landing a 5S into whatever, meaning there's incentive to use better starters to kill your opponent harder.

The current proration on assists is that they immediately scale to 50% damage on regular hit, 90% damage on counter hit. One thing that could be done, for instance, is that DP assists like Updo or Pillar could scale the combo to 35% damage on hit, 70% damage on counter hit, while non-invincible assists such as cerecopter would only scale the combo to 60% damage, 90% on counterhit.

Numbers subject to testing and tweaking of course but you see my general idea - because DP assists are so ludicrously versatile and land so consistently, it would make sense to lower their reward based on their ease of use. Cerecopter, while a dominant assist, is more difficult to use since it can't be mashed after pushblocking some pressure or whenever you do something negative, and Cerecopter can still be beat cleanly even after the 2 frames of extra startup since it isn't even invulnerable.

 

[Flotilla]

Why should some assist options being weak negatively reflect on DP assists? The game wasn't balanced around every assist option being viable in every situation.

I also think your suggestion is far too radical when the metagame is evolving towards the smart utilization and careful evasion of DP assists. Drastically neutering their lethality at this point in time just seems nuts, especially after the 50% scaling change was implemented not too long ago.

 

[Dime]

This is a really tough question to answer at the moment. If dp assists do get nerfed hard, then it really opens up
Other assists to be completely stupid such as hairball and copter... And personally Id like to deal with op updo and pillar rather than op copter and hairball. But I do agree that do assists are stupid. I just think that the stupid that would replace them, would be even more stupid.

 

[Zidiane]

Official input from the gameplay mod: threads like these are perfectly acceptable. Discussing a specific topic in-depth is always fine by me. You asked for a change, yeah, but not going "nrf pls cuz I don lik" makes it different.

 

[fenster]

Speaking as a player who has a really tough time against Armored assists in Lock N' Load and Brass Knuckles, I don't think that they are part of the same problem here and don't need to really be examined. You already pointed out several of their weaknesses, so they end up feeling much easier to counter against if you sniff out your opponent's assist calls (which is tougher to do against invincible dp assists). Having those built in downsides helps a lot in making them feel fair so that they are strong enough to be worth using but still something that's very possible to play against. The only matchup to me so far where I feel these weaknesses of armored assists don't come into play is if it's a Peacock team, but that's just how Peacock is than anything else.

 

[blandaid]

Its been 2 years and despite all the character balancing and unearthed tech, SG neutral is at the same spot it was at in month #1. Either play rushdown with a DP assist or keepaway cock with a meatshield. Anything else and you're likely to get steamrolled by someone who is.

Nobody cared when greenbounces came along or when DP assists scaled the followup because they were still the most effective tool in the game by far. Its been clear for a long time that the vulnerable window on assist startup needs to increase if there is to be any significant evolution. At just 2f stuffing an invincible assist in any context is a small miracle.

 

[dekillsage]

I think Valentine being able to double jump -> air dash and still being allowed to call her assists is too strong.

I'm pretty much alright with how the assists are right now. Though I wouldn't mind if hitting an assist locked them out for longer periods of time. Currently you can hit an assist but that doesn't mean anything unless you hit them with a sliding knockdown or something. The lockout isn't long enough and it makes dealing with lk hornet bomber really freaking hard.(this is the dumbest assist in the game imo)

 

[Mr. X]

I do not adhere to belief that there should be a "great at, okay at, weak for" in regards to very general assist classifications. Also, even if pillar and updo are "basically the same", there are still differences among them making one better than the other for what you want I think.

I think at one point Hornet Bomber was a one size fits all and had an amazing super with Cat Heads but as more assist popped up and were explored and with Cat Heads being weakened, people found better fitting assists.

The offensive play is really strong in Skullgirls, the "defensive" assists are at a good position. If they were weakened, I feel any caution needed to approach now would be lost. If "defensive" assists were too strong, the game would be played way more in the mid and long range or doing nothing. Because they are mostly used under pressure, the extra damage and double snap is a large risk vs other assist types that are used at more safe positions.

 

[Dime]

I personally think that any real neutering of assists in sg at this point would be very bad. Dp assists are the best assists in the game. But more lockout as well as making "invincible" dp assists have more vulnerability is a bad idea imho. I mean if i call a dp assist for its invincibility... And it gets stuffed like sometimes happens now... Well thats just plain stupid. Its like overheads randomly being crouch blockable, throws randomly wiffing against a throwable opponent, lows randomly being blockable high. Its just a bad way to balance. Much better is simply nerfing the followup reward for hitting with an invincible assist. Scaled damage more than what it currently is... Or a higher ips stage, or less meter gained, or more meter gained for the opponent or you know something else of the literally near hundreds of ways that dp assists could be nerfed by reward rather than by function. Even lockout isnt that great of an idea.. It only nerfs bad dp calls that get blocked... It doesnt nerf the actual dp hitting. Yes it serves its function to keep people from spamming assists like in sde and vanilla... But was spamming assists ever that bad a thing in the first place? What about spamming jump? Or fireball? Block? Cr.lk? Etc etc etc it should much more be up to the player to stop his opponents spam. Its the REWARD that one gets from a hit dp that should be tweaked. But for whatever reason mike doesnt want to do that.


If lk bomber gets nerfed... Then painwheels that use that assist get nerfed as well... Then we have to go to updo and pillar... Or we have to accept that we have a lockdown assist with no invincibility so we may as well just use cerecopter instead, or if we lose lockdown but not invincibility, may as well use updo or pillar. And those assists stay great. And mk bomber stays great and still locks down in the corner.

Personally i find it harder to play around updo and pillar and even mk bomber than lk bomber... Lk bomber is short range doesnt hit very high in the air at all and easy to make wiff.

Its certainly a really good assist, perhaps even the best overall assist in the game... But i atleast find it easier to play around than the others. Hairball annoys me way more than lk bomber ever has... As an example.


But i guess its whatever, as sg changes, i change with it. I'll just keep using whatever the new cheese is.

 

[dekillsage]

I think at one point Hornet Bomber was a one size fits all and had an amazing super with Cat Heads but as more assist popped up and were explored and with Cat Heads being weakened, people found better fitting assists.

Everyone who used to play double still plays double and the cat heads dhc is the same :l
Hornet bomber L and M are the best assists in this game. I can't think of any assist that challenges those two in overall utility.

 

[Spencer]

@Dime_x

What do you mean? Weakening assist A doesn't buff assist B. Do you just meant you hate dealing with those and would rather DP keep its top spot as assists go simply to avoid having to deal with them?

@ClarenceMage

My sentiments exactly. They are good because they are versatile, one of the best defensive options, and can literally sway the entire match due to ease of confirmation. Updo is a strong enough defensive option that it would still have a place if it prevented you from confirming off of it (not that I'm actually an advocate for that).

 

[Dime]

@Dime_x

What do you mean? Weakening assist A doesn't buff assist B.

Its hard for me to understand how you could think that. Things are only "weak" or "strong" when relating them to other things.


If something that was previously strong becomes weak via direct nerfage, it makes the things that it was better than, stronger via comparison.

There are lots and lots and lots of examples of this.


Like lets take an obviously blown out of proportion example:

You have a fighting game with a SSS tier character, an A tier character, and like 20 d tier characters.


Now lets say that you nerf that SSS to d tier like those other 20 characters bit leave the A tier charcter the same strength... Well now that A tier character becomes the SSS tier character because hes so much better than everyone else now... Even though he wasnt changed.

In other words, the triple s was holding the A tier back. Like current invulnerable assists hold back hairball and copter and others. Which im all for nerfing dp assist slightly, but at the same time i dont really want copter and hairball to stay the same if dp assists get nerfed.

In other words I'd rather deal with op dp assists that i can simply block or make wiff easily and escape from, than lockdown assists that open me up to unscaled high/low mixups AND have dp like properties via being ultra high priority.

 

[Mr. X]

Everyone who used to play double still plays double and the cat heads dhc is the same :l
Hornet bomber L and M are the best assists in this game. I can't think of any assist that challenges those two in overall utility.

Yeah, it's still a solid one size fits all but it's not as good as it once was. I would call it the best with no consideration to what you want to do or team comp.

Cat heads is worse, still good but worse than what it was previously.

 

[Jason]

I don't think invul assists are strong enough to be detrimental to the game. They're a core part of the gameplay and just like MvC2 Psylock and Cyclops and Commando, learning how to deal with them is a skill you just have to learn.

I do think that maybe they're a bit too good in relation to other types of assists, however.

 

[Zidiane]

Its hard for me to understand how you could think that. Things are only "weak" or "strong" when relating them to other things.

I'd rather not have this conversation again. I'll try to stick with just a short example.

If every character lost all of their assists except for Painwheel, who keeps her, I don't know, lp stinger, is that stinger stronger than before? Are opposing characters going to have a harder time dealing with stinger now that there are no other assists? No, because whether or not an assist is good is dependent on how well the opposing character can deal with it. It has nothing to do with other specific assists. They aren't directly tied to one another. You can nerf a character by nerfing the good assist that they needed, but that nerf in no way affects other assists. I'm still going to be capable of dealing with lp stinger the exact same regardless of how strong or weak updo is.

 

[Dime]

@Zidiane
What you say there is completely wrong. There is ALOT of assist on assist play. In fact much of what im doing at any given time is figuring out how my assist will directly interact with my opponents assist... Not just how my assist interacts with my opponents point character.

After that, your painwheel stinger example is flawed. Stinger would be so ridiculously op in that circumstance that painwheel would be picked second or third on EVERY team.

Hmm...my opponent has 2 characters and no assists cause he didnt pick pw. I have 2 characters and a stinger assist cause i DID pick painwheel... Even if i only use the assist as a meatshield it would probably still be powerful, not to mention the assist specific things it has going for it like a stagger that cant be mashed out of and is great for setting up resets and at neutral is the worlds best hitconfirm... Like ever.


Dont take this the wrong way, but maybe the reason why you play solo is because you dont know how to fully make use of the power of assists...

 

[Icky]

@Zidiane

Stinger would be so ridiculously op in that circumstance that painwheel would be picked second or third on EVERY team.

Are we really theory fighting something like this?

 

[Hilary]

Everyone who used to play double still plays double and the cat heads dhc is the same :l
Hornet bomber L and M are the best assists in this game. I can't think of any assist that challenges those two in overall utility.

Lock'n'Load is just slightly beneath it, but definitely honorable mention imo.

Cerecopter is pretty good too.

 

[Spencer]

I think Zidiane covered it, but I'll add my 2 cents before I bow out.

You are speaking in relative terms. We are speaking in absolute terms. Nerfing an assist that does 100 damage down to 50 damage doesn't make the other assists in the game stronger in absolute terms ie they don't do more damage or get more utility. It just makes the one assist weaker (again in absolute terms).

Does this have the effect of making said assist less desirable or weaker relative to other options? Almost definitely, but isn't that the point of this conversation?

 

[Dime]

I think Zidiane covered it, but I'll add my 2 cents before I bow out.

You are speaking in relative terms. We are speaking in absolute terms. Nerfing an assist that does 100 damage down to 50 damage doesn't make the other assists in the game stronger in absolute terms ie they don't do more damage or get more utility. It just makes the one assist weaker (again in absolute terms).

Does this have the effect of making said assist less desirable or weaker relative to other options? Almost definitely, but isn't that the point of this conversation?

Speaking in absolute terms is kinda irrelevant in this context. Though yes i do now see what you are saying. But i still cant fathom why someone would speak "in absolute terms" when pondering whether something should be changed.


As far as the point of this conversation... No i dont think that is really the point... Yet. The jury is still out on whether or not invulnerables even need a nerf.

All ive been saying is that relatively speaking, if dp assists get hard nerfed, then offensive assists like lp shot and copter, and hairball and gdo etc etc etc become much better which absolutely speaking might not be a worry since those assists arent seen that much anyways (except cerecopter) but relatively speaking, imho would be an absolute disaster since offense in sg is already stupid good.


And then you add in the fact that most of those assists are really high priority once they've gotten over there initial startup... The game would be sickly offensive. Which is a bad thing from my perspective.

 

[Colossi]

I think it's not healthy to the game every time a opponent is being pressured and the player try to reset with something that isn't a throw and he meets a bunch of parasite hair and big thighs flippin' like a dolphin with invulnerable startup.

Mashing this is more-frequently-than-it-should safe, because blocking those DP are not rewardable.

 

[Spencer]

The reason we speak in absolute terms is because something like an offensive assist doesn't get harder to deal with or better in any meaningful gameplay context. It only gets better in the sense that they will see more use/be less niche.

So I guess on my view, talking about relative strengths is only good when talking about the popularity of a move while absolute strength is good to talk about how to deal with it.

In some sense, people aren't even talking about the same thing.

For example, you may want DP nerfed to make way for other assists (relative strength).

Someone else may want it nerfed because they feel it is too hard to deal with (absolute strength).

 

[RemiKz]

Blocking any assist in general is never a reward

 

[Zidiane]

Dont take this the wrong way, but maybe the reason why you play solo is because you dont know how to fully make use of the power of assists...

I play the game to have fun, and I have the most fun with solo bella (I have two side teams I play occasionally though). But that doesn't mean I don't know the mechanics of team play. I do nothing but deal with assists first hand all day. Assists are supposed to support your play, not dictate it. If you let your assists dictate your play, then I guess yeah, maybe nerfing assists really does buff other ones. Maybe that's why so many people collapse after losing their assist.

 

[Spencer]

Blocking any assist in general is never a reward

I think this is my major complaint, but I think it only exists with invuln DP. In many cases even blocking or hitting the DP puts you at a disadvantage, leaving you with this itty bitty window to make something happen on assist whiff. Their only real weakness is a potential happy birthday which is a weakness shared with all assists.

Counter DP play feels like 1 part making a smart move and 2 parts your opponent fucking up which just doesn't feel all that rewarding so much as lucky.

 

[fullmetalross]

I do in general think that most of the "defensive" assists seem very strong compared to the others. And largely just because their utility seems far greater than many of the other assists. Now this is just from my experience with the game so perhaps situations arise where that is not true. While too strong is perhaps a little hard to gauge (maybe except for double butt, though of course as someone Im sure will point out, there are ways around it). Right now the way "defensive" assists work does seem to make them the clear best choice for a lot of teams, and perhaps teams that don't run them should at least run 1.

As for solutions, maybe we don't need any? I think the best thing would probably be for the whole community to just get better overall at punishing bad assist calls and taking more advantage of those situations. Even if we exclude double butt from this and make that assist purely a Cerecopter style assist, the rest of the assists seem like maybe the community could do well with learning how to counter call, and bait and punish tactics to deal with them. Then once the community level as a whole is higher it could be talked about changing them (which probably of course isn't possible by then)


As for actual changes that could be made to them and perhaps still keep them somewhat as they are
1. Lower blockstun on all reversal style assists, lower it to the point where it becomes very hard to call one and continue a block string when they are blocked, this makes the momentum shift for calling an assist less strong as long as the opponent is able to block them. It also makes them not quite as strong on offense since they can't as easily be used to fill gaps in pressure. I have no clue how this would play out but it is the first thing that came to mind. Keep the reversal aspect, keep the combo aspect, lose the lockdown.

2. Make the assists function more like spiderman's dp assist does. If it hits a grounded opponent it does a hardknockdown and continuing a combo is trivial. If it hits an airborne opponent they can tech out fairly quickly and it is much harder to pick up. Maybe make this change only to some assists that have less problems. Such as only to updo, since pillar has a dead spot. Hard part about this is each assist would have to be looked into.


Also it occurs to me H Drill for Fukua may be similar to double butt. hard to say right now, its a very strong assist, thats for sure.

 

[DARKNESSxEAGLE]

It's kinda hard not to reply to the comedians (ahahaha plural for ambiguity but we all know what I'm talking about) in this thread but I strongly suggest people do not. Most of us already know these things just go in circles and either lead to useful threads being closed or just derailed into an argument which everyone with an IQ higher than that of a toaster knows the correct solution to.



Anyway, I don't particularly like some extent of assist uses. I'd say I don't mind DP/invul (excluding hornet blammer) assists too much, but cornetto bomber is possibly my least favorite thing in this game right now (from a standpoint of what is 'fun' and what is not). There are other things, such as Val's optimal play style being 'jump around, call DP assist or horned glommer until the opponent does anything that isn't blocking', but out of everything I see in this game, hornet slapper is the most boring.

Reading through the original post and replies I have to agree that a first step to making mindless assists less mindless would be increased lockout. For bug-net bomber though, I'm also all for saying farewell to its invulnerability for the same reasons elucidated in the original post. If someone somewhere is making a tally chart of those in favor of these changes then throw another line in there by all means.

 

[Spencer]

Out of curiosity, why is hornet bomber so bad? As a PW, I get to avoid it in most cases. What makes it rough for everyone else?

 

[KhaosMuffins]

I think it's not healthy to the game every time a opponent is being pressured and the player try to reset with something that isn't a throw and he meets a bunch of parasite hair and big thighs flippin' like a dolphin with invulnerable startup.

Mashing this is more-frequently-than-it-should safe, because blocking those DP are not rewardable.

To counter this, say I go for a reset and the opponent is mashing an invincible assist. Grabbing is the safest option, but if I go for a mixup then I either A) Get blocked and then hit by the assist or B) Hit the opponent before the assist starts up and then I get a Happy Birthday. The opponent is still putting his/herself at a great risk when doing this.

 

[View619]

The risk of a double snap\overall damage vs a bad defensive assist call (i.e. mashing assists without attempting to block properly, leading to the move never coming out) is enough at this point. The assist game is fine imo, it feels like we're at the point where it's really just a matter of figuring out counters\strategies for handling it now (unlike vanilla Hornet Bomber...).

 

[Mike_Z]

To start with, I'm with View there, if you call a defensive assist you are open to getting thrown or blocking wrong, and if you block wrong you get birthday'd.
You are also open to having had your assist baited.
If you stuff an invincible assist down their throat you should get some kind of reward.
My opinion is that most of this is people being bad at baiting assists if you KNOW the opponent is going to call one.
[edit] Also worth noting if you reset someone in the air they are in SJ mode so they can't call assists, even if they are low to the ground.

That said, since I care so much about pleasing everyone who constantly complains*, the simplest thing to try in the Beta would be just to have the DP assists people continue to complain about (Updo, Pillar, Bomber) be changed in ways that make them harder to combo off.
For example, make Updo and Pillar assists knock them very far back at a shallow angle, and either make Bomber only one hit if blocked+lower knockdown or not invincible, but not both.

* please tell me nobody believes that

 

[fullmetalross]

In your opinion @Mike_Z do you feel as if there is any problem with light Bomber Specifically? Since a majority of posters in here seem to think there is. Would you prefer to just leave all assists as is?

I personally think the deadzone on pillar alone is enough to leave it as is. Updo maybe only seems like it should be changed cause it comes attached to fillia who already also has another good/great assist in hairball and is on her own a great character. Even then Obviously the whole community could just play around the assists better.

 

[CaioLugon]

Give them lockout when they hit as well

 

[Luweewu]

Give them lockout when they hit as well

And we're right back where we were a few months ago.

 

[Mike_Z]

Give them lockout when they hit as well

I tried that in the Beta already. It was awful, confusing, and not fun for either side.

 

[Cynical]

Mike_Z probably has me on ignore, but for what little my view is worth (which is absolutely nothing), I'm in the "invuln assists are fine, no need for changes" camp.

Besides, if he changes Updo/Pillar/Bomber, all he's really doing is saying "ok, EVERYBODY RUN BIG BAND WITH BRASS KNUCKLES".

 

[Zidiane]

make Bomber only one hit if blocked+lower knockdown or not invincible, but not both.

You could always try both of them separately.

Mike_Z probably has me on ignore

I don't think Mike has any of us on ignore. The day he puts one of us on ignore he ignores all of us and becomes batman, and he'll be a playboy by day and fight stupidity by night.

 

[Spencer]

It seems almost more like a punishment for hitting with it which is no bueno.

I also don't see any problem with mashed assists. It is annoying to get hit by one occasionally, but see also rapid fire jabs and mashed supers.

I'm actually just more for seeing more assists in the game. I'm jaw-dropping surprised when I see a Filia assist without Updo, Double without butt, Para without pillar and so on.