I guess this is mostly direct @
Mike_Z but I wanted other's opinions on this.
I actually really hate the new j.HP. It's nice for restand stuff and a few resets I found here and there, but the trade-off just makes the attack worse. The speed adjustment doesn't really do anything for me because I find that good players can react to it about as well as they could before if I use it as an overhead. The reduced hitstun doesn't even let me combo it into a MK axe kick.
Overall, I think my biggest issue with it is not being able to combo into head spike with it. You seem to not like the fact that you can switch "modes" mid-combo, but why? For me, the biggest advantage to playing head-on Fortune, besides the overall higher damage, was that you can assure that you could transition into the head being in an advantageous position against you and the opponent. It felt natural, it felt like a character that had a moveset that worked as a whole, it felt like good design.
With that being said, we can still do stuff like this
My only problem with this is it just doesn't
feel right doing the TK head spike. It's an unnecessarily more difficult way to do things than just j.HP xx Headspike. Not to say I haven't already practiced this enough to get it reliably in a match, but it's a bigger barrier than needs to be there IMO.
If even this gets removed, there is very little appeal to using head-on at all. I could spend meter for Feral Edge and sneeze off the head, but the damage for that combo route isn't very appealing (not to mention finicky depending on how close to the opponent the super hit), for the meter spent and I might as well already be playing with the head off at that point. This feels like you want us to play one "mode" or the other, instead of using the entire character freely.
That brings me to the ground super change. I don't mind that she lost the otg follow-up when the head is on, and being able to cancel into head-roll is actually kind of neat. My only issue with it is the head follow-up feels flawed. If you haven't used your otg, midscreen it will leave the head over the body of the other character as they get up from a hard knockdown and it leaves you at +1 in the corner. The problem arises when you have used your otg and the follow-up literally becomes your own death, leaving you at a very large frame disadvantage in the corner and midscreen if the opponent techs towards you. Again, this kind of overall feels like a nerf to head-on play and makes headless the more appealing option.
I'm not sure why you felt the need to start making these exact changes to j.HP. I think everyone felt that Fortune was in a good position now with nerfs to:
- Not being able to move the head on a blocked feral edge
- The head receiving more stun when hit
- Not being able to move the head if snapped in
- Blocked headroll now being at a frame disadvantage
- Not being able to cancel headbutt/zoom on block
I don't think anyone really had any concerns with her past this stuff. At this point I'm willing to take the loss of the ground super otg follow-up and keep the damage nerf to j.HP (although I don't think it really needs it), if j.HP was reverted to what it was like before. Fortune just doesn't really feel fun anymore, and I think others can attest to this as well, although I would like to hear their opinion on the matter.
PS: This is probably going to sound silly asking for a headless buff, but I really feel like Sneeze should have an active hitbox on the entire arc upwards. Every other head attack she has kind of serves a similar purpose (horizontal moving hitbox) and making this slightly better would give me a reason to start using it more.
PSS: Sorry for the dime_x length post.