The Unofficial Official Beta Discussion Thread

[rznant]

Since Beo seems to be in a rough spot right now, can he please have reduced Chair recall? I feel like that change to him could greatly benefit the character right now.

I'm going to be honest: I don't see how this would address any issues Beo players have with the current iteration of his kit. It's currently a 44 frame move, placing Beo into a vulnerable animation, and turning the chair into a projectile that's active until it hits something or someone:

Most Beo players would be using this in situations where they're fullscreen and need their chair back, but are getting walled off by their opponent. There's niche in using it for some mixups, but it's not worth spending the 3 hype when he already has powerful high/low mix and real oki in his kit. Is there something I'm missing here that would help Beo's worse matchups such as going against Fortune and Robo?

[Chair recall won't actually help his issues]

Exactly. Any nerfs to the top 3 characters right now... [continued]

...You're the one who suggested it?

 

[Sajurf]

Since Beo seems to be in a rough spot right now, can he please have reduced Chair recall? I feel like that change to him could greatly benefit the character right now.

This change wouldn't fix any of his issues. The best way to improve his standing in the meta would probably just be nerfing Fortune. In the post Annie world two touches have become much more accessible and are no longer tied to using specific setups such as Beo + A train or running PW.

Fortune in particular when run in tandem are able to two touch almost as easily as Beo and don't spend much resources due to fortunes insane meter gain as well as that team having much more freedom in where they choose to reset. Beo's best reset is routed around his EX Canis major which while great is very linear in terms of resets while fortune has a ton of freedom in choosing her resets, up to and including very meter efficient two touches that reset at max undizzy.

Due to this it seems very hard to recommend people to main Beo as his niche of being the very high dmg two touch character has gone down in value in a meta where much faster chars like miss fortune are able to two touch almost as easily.

TLDR- Beo's fine its just certain characters are able to overshadow him pretty easily now that two touching is a less exclusive thing and not a special gimmick of certain setups. If we intend to move forward and balance the game around fortune+annie power levels he's gonna need a lot more help but if we intend to bring down the power of the top tiers I think he's fine where he is

 

[Mayor of Earth]

L luger can and still does give conversions from air hits, theyre just less rewarding, and addresses an unnecessary redundancy in her kit by making the reward the least attractive. You're saying this when she still has H luger and cHP for AAs, in no way does she need the forced scaling removed; H luger is still hilariously effective and easy to use. If you want to avoid the scaling you try to use cHP.

L luger change as a whole is like the least impactful change she's gotten recently, it can certainly stay

L luger was huge for mid to long range confirms

Since Beo seems to be in a rough spot right now, can he please have reduced Chair recall? I feel like that change to him could greatly benefit the character right now.

They don't need it, But damn do I want chair recall loops as well lol

 

[BellaFeng4Eternity]

This change wouldn't fix any of his issues. The best way to improve his standing in the meta would probably just be nerfing Fortune. In the post Annie world two touches have become much more accessible and are no longer tied to using specific setups such as Beo + A train or running PW.

Fortune in particular when run in tandem are able to two touch almost as easily as Beo and don't spend much resources due to fortunes insane meter gain as well as that team having much more freedom in where they choose to reset. Beo's best reset is routed around his EX Canis major which while great is very linear in terms of resets while fortune has a ton of freedom in choosing her resets, up to and including very meter efficient two touches that reset at max undizzy.

Due to this it seems very hard to recommend people to main Beo as his niche of being the very high dmg two touch character has gone down in value in a meta where much faster chars like miss fortune are able to two touch almost as easily.

TLDR- Beo's fine its just certain characters are able to overshadow him pretty easily now that two touching is a less exclusive thing and not a special gimmick of certain setups. If we intend to move forward and balance the game around fortune+annie power levels he's gonna need a lot more help but if we intend to bring down the power of the top tiers I think he's fine where he is

Now that you mention it, that would be a good idea. I feel like improving Beo's standing would be a great change for the character right now due to the current meta shifting to two-touch meta these days. To be honest, I'm OK with the idea of buffing the rest of the current roster in Season 1 to the same level as the top tiers.

 

[Stuff]

I liked that the L luger nerf made the PW Double matchup less ridiculously in Double's favor and it's nice to actually have time to throw projectiles at her without getting shot into combo and oopsie double was fishing for hits but I guess she wins now.

I just don't get why making Double choose between actually AAing or fishing for hits is such a bad change for Double while she maintains perfect functionality.

Also 12f is normal for a projectile and not all of them as this big with the capability of clipping from behind or being a free conversion in the past, how is that my fault?

I favor the nerf on the grounds that other characters will get toned down but since idk what the plan is idk where I stand but I personally like it when double has to think about what shot she's going to use.

(I still want to know whether we want the game to be crazy or more balanced and to what degree 'cause I can't really make head or tails of what I would want if I don't know what the game is supposed to be and the game being open to interpretation leads to a lot of crossed wires so idk)

 

[Ikkisoad]

I don't understand really, this is the second time I read here that X character would be better if MISS FORTUNE was nerfed like what?
If nerfing a top tier makes a lower tier character better then yeah? I guess?
But what is the direction we are getting at now?
Also, reminder that Peacock only received minor nerfs but is now out of any discussions for nerfs, now it is MF, who is next? At this point might as well just hold that and focus on bringing the season characters in line with the old cast and fixing stuff that is not strictly tied to balance like bella's hurtboxes (e.g. her crumple after daisy) and bypass bug just to name some examples.

 

[Sajurf]

fixing stuff that is not strictly tied to balance like bella's hurtboxes (e.g. her crumple after daisy) and bypass bug just to name some examples.

I would like to start out by saying this is a great idea, I would love to have a QoL patch focused on fixing some jank things in the game like Val's bypass, PW in general, etc

Also, reminder that Peacock only received minor nerfs but is now out of any discussions for nerfs

I would be willing to wager that most people who want Annie and Fortune nerfed would also like to see peacock tweaked. Though I believe most people are rightfully targeting Fortune and Annie as they seem to be omnipresent currently. CB had an Annie Fortune ditto GF and the last 3 majors (CB, FF, CEO) all had an Annie on the winning team.
I might be wrong but I do not recall peacock being nearly as common as either of these chars are in the current meta, even when she ran rampant for 4 years pre-Anni. To my knowledge the CB 2022 was the only time we've seen an exact ditto Grand Finals at a major

don't understand really, this is the second time I read here that X character would be better if MISS FORTUNE was nerfed like what?

My example was comparing two rushdown based characters and saying that currently a very fast rushdown (MF) is able to very consistently two touch and most teams running her have been optimized for that purpose. I said that previously two touching was much harder to obtain and was typically seen as a gimmick of certain chars or teams such as HI PW or in this case Beo train.
I said Beo had the strength of being able to two touch consistently at the cost of his mobility, with often his best choice being to dashblock slowly at an opponent until they got in range.
Currently however MF with the help of Annie is able to two touch almost as consistently while being a much faster character who has access to an airdash, a puppet, and fiber as an excellent mobility option(and also without having to use Grinder or Train).

Due to this I believe that Beowulfs biggest hindrance in the current meta is that he is overshadowed by another point who is much more mobile than him but is also able to two touch easily.
I specified Ms Fortune because of the rushdowns who are commonly used on point (Filia Beo Fortune) Filia has the benefit of much faster movement at the cost of her inability to consistently two touch, instead opting to use her speed in order to score more resets to secure kills. Fortune however gets strong mobility as well as only 1 reset to kill like Beo

TLDR: I think Beo is fine but the current meta allows certain top tier characters to reach his damage output without having to deal with his drawbacks. While comparing MF and Beo is a vacuum might initially seem wack, I believe that when both chars are currently taking an equal amount of resets to kill it is justified to make the comparison.

 

[Façade]

I just don't get why making Double choose between actually AAing or fishing for hits is such a bad change for Double while she maintains perfect functionality.

I don't get why a projectile that you can only meterlessly convert from on air hit and that already scaled your follow up was deemed too rewarding to land, but here we are.

Also 12f is normal for a projectile and not all of them as this big with the capability of clipping from behind or being a free conversion in the past, how is that my fault?
View attachment 16381

12f startup is normal for a grounded projectile, but 37f recovery is the highest amount of recovery frames for a ground projectile in the game. Meaning that contesting L Luger is rather feasible if you have a grounded projectile of your own. Also showing just the projectile hitbox doesn't mean much if the context behind that hitbox is omitted. This screenshot doesn't really show off how big it is compared to other grounded projectiles and, more importantly, it doesn't show off where it's being fired from. One important aspect of L Luger's design is how high the projectile is compared to the majority of other grounded projectiles in the game. Even if you don't have a grounded projectile, the majority of the cast can crouch under that projectile and gain a significant amount of ground on her due to that lengthy recovery. That's TWO forms of counterplay that's near universal across the cast; so yeah, it is your fault.

I personally like it when double has to think about what shot she's going to use.

Just as I explained earlier, L Luger already had adequate amount of counterplay. She already had to think about what shot she was going to use, even before the nerf.

 

[Cattfish]

When we talk about this 2-touch Meta, and how it encroaches on Beowulf's strengths, would a (dramatic, yet universal) change to help mitigate this be removing DHC scaling?

Beowulf players aren't concerned that other characters end up spending 2 bars when meter is so quickly gained.

While this would affect characters like Annie heavily (she still would have beam super otg in the corner) or Fukua (offsetting her low damage with dhc, ouch), this would highlight Beowulf's meterless kill potential immensely while drifting it towards 3 touches. Hatred Install could be an exception, or some other minimum scaling applied to specific supers.

This is especially powerful for Beowulf as other characters aren't able to reset scaling off of a throw reset with DHC, while he gets exemplary reward still from his.

Keep in mind this might revert us back to a focus on safe DHCs (rejoice, Double players outside of Australia).

 

[Nuuance]

They don't need it, But damn do I want chair recall loops as well lol

planned on chiming in end of season1 after all’s said & done but something i think worth considering…

Im sure he can speak for himself but Nezo made finals a couple times solo dolo but each time got bombarded by zoning in a way even commentators were like damn that’s rough. By great players no less, but when it comes to what is ‘needed’ I really think that phrase needs to be reassessed at least in those regards & as a *total* package. Everything’s fine until stuff like that happens. Since most don’t solo it’s not a big issue for most but nonetheless it is an issue.

you could put forth it’s a team game or maybe a skill issue (highly highly doubt that in his case) but solo/lone anchors whether people agree or not, is a part of this game and always make a splash. takes big skill threading the needle like that as expected but what i saw looked unreasonable. Eliza has the same issue if she similarly gets zoned as solo/anchor & effectively can’t get out.

After seeing more of the dialogue maybe it’s better to re-examine the cast after season1’s over then possibly there can be a patch whatever it is, bringing the rest of the cast upto speed if in the cards. I think more than nerf-of-the-week type thing, making moves/options more viable on other characters & whatnot is much more healthy for the meta than focusing on a group of characters like fortune or peacock who are strong (imo) moreso because less used characters have fewer/weaker answers overall. i agree with a lot being said, but worry sometimes itll go too far. the cast is usable & people who play Sg are smart. but additions spread things out & at least make people still feel as good about their character regardless of others strength.

personally, I’d like to see more diverse teams & order if we’re talking about meta. most people playing just play who they like so theres more of a mix but newcomers/people tired of dealing with certain things I don’t see *stick* with lesser used characters as a general trend. Strong point characters (overall) have the best assists As a collective. painwheel…is just kinda hurt on both sides As one example. If things are to be more spread out then they truly gotta be spread out.

anyways something to think about.

 

[Stuff]

My problem with L luger is that you don't have to do H luger when you can just do L luger and get the same result and -4 isn't a big deal if it's blocked. Also I'd like to point out that 37 frames of recovery seems big but you also have to consider that when a projectile travels it's negligible meaning unless you did projectiles at the same time, you can't just throw out a projectile yourself after ducking it and double can react to the start up of projectiles with car or calling her own assist. and if she just shoots again, then at worst she's just in neutral.

The way I see it is, if double wants to control space, she uses L luger, if she wants to hit a croucher, she uses M luger, if she wants to AA she can do H luger. Having to pick options makes things more interesting, Controlling space with a projectile usually doesn't lead to a combo unless you have meter, which is fine (excluding Peacock)

Like I said before though, idk what the game is supposed to be I'm just saying why I personally like it. I think it's kind of silly that L luger not only controls space but also can work as kind of a pseudo DP into conversion from pretty far distances.

But if the game is supposed to be broken, then a reversion would make more sense to me but again idk what the game is supposed to be at this point.

 

[Sajurf]

When we talk about this 2-touch Meta, and how it encroaches on Beowulf's strengths, would a (dramatic, yet universal) change to help mitigate this be removing DHC scaling?

Beowulf players aren't concerned that other characters end up spending 2 bars when meter is so quickly gained.

While this would affect characters like Annie heavily (she still would have beam super otg in the corner) or Fukua (offsetting her low damage with dhc, ouch), this would highlight Beowulf's meterless kill potential immensely while drifting it towards 3 touches. Hatred Install could be an exception, or some other minimum scaling applied to specific supers.

This is especially powerful for Beowulf as other characters aren't able to reset scaling off of a throw reset with DHC, while he gets exemplary reward still from his.

Keep in mind this might revert us back to a focus on safe DHCs (rejoice, Double players outside of Australia).

I’d really love to try this for a while and see how it effects the game as a whole, even if it was set as a launch option like -ireallyfearchange instead of a proper character beta.

 

[BellaFeng4Eternity]

I’d really love to try this for a while and see how it effects the game as a whole, even if it was set as a launch option like -ireallyfearchange instead of a proper character beta.

Yeah. Same here. I feel like this should be a step in the right direction for the game since the current meta in Season 1 is so 2-touch oriented right now and going back to focusing on characters with strong DHC would be good for the game's health.

Anyways, is it me or does Annie feel like she should've been in development for a few more months before release? So far, her stars during Star Power install don't have any hit sound effects and I would like to see this fixed before the end of Season 1.

 

[Ikkisoad]

Nerfing the whole cast and then adding new exceptions doesn't sound like a good idea, this 2 touch "era" started with Annie, but it is not like 2 touches are a new thing. I started playing this game in early 2020 and I already had a 2 touch back then with Val/Excellebella. Painwheel can also give 2 touches for the whole cast and Beo still does it not even needing DHC.

If 2 touching was so strong we would see a lot more Beo and PW, but what is strong is the kit that Annie offers; that's why she is a glue character. Strong DHCs, really strong assists and a strong character.

With that who is sounding out of the curve is Annie, who already had her combo DHC nerfed for that reason.

 

[Hyggend]

Hello, I've made a list of unrelated ideas I'd want to see in future patches, I'm sure a lot of it has been said before but I keep getting told to post on Skullheart :p

• I think the Robo nerfs were extremely cool personally, character specific counterplay that isn't just "I have a projectile that I can shoot while ignoring beam" is pretty cool. My only issue with it is Pw and Bella falling out or combos. I think a pretty ideal solution would be extending their hurtboxes a little bit up in hitstun when standing. It doesn't sound like it'd mess anything else up.

I will now talk about Umbrella.

Spoiler

• I would like, on top of many other Umbrella changes, one small QoL thing. It might just be me being dumb, I should've tested it in training, but it feels to me like Cutie Ptooie takes a while longer than the when Hungern eats the butterfly in the sprite to give back the hunger pip. It feels weird when I'm in a situation where I'm about to or have run out of hunger, want to refill and cancel into an (only projectile) Invulnerable super to be decently safe, I wait for Hungern to eat the bug, cancel the special and look at my hunger bar :(
I think that having to do like a 30f animation and spending a bar to do reflector is enough of a cost to get a pip of hunger back.

• I really wish we could DHC into Umbrella's level 3. Maybe make it give only 1 pip of extra ravenous hunger when DHC'd into so it doesn't immediately start the crazy snowball? I just wish it were a hitgrab honestly.

• Make 5hp projectile invul frame 1 please, the reflection gimmick is cool but it is literally useless. I'd also like to see the invul frames extended for reflector, or for it to start reflecting earlier, I just feel like it's weird that it trades with stuff like Annie beam. It's not a big deal tho, make it work against Peacock and Robo first.

• I think her projectile game in Stuffed should be much stronger. The only thing that's noticeable buffed is Wishmaker and covering the ground while barely threatening from above is really not a big deal. She barely chips while zoning too. Considering we only get to have 2 projectiles out at once and can't stay in overstuffed all the time, I'd like to see them get ridiculous. Something like Ptooie leaving eyes on hit or maybe creating 3 projectiles instead of one. I don't think she should just get that for free, of course, she'd need to lose something (from ravenous probably).

• Please remove the anti air properties Hungern Rush. Her DP right now only has two good things: it's a hitgrab and it builds resources for other characters because it lasts for so long. Other than that, it's strike invuln, has a pretty bad hitbox, lasts 7 years even on whiff (+ assist recovery), scales combos and starts slow. It's a good assist for resource builders, and that's about it. If we could just get a more reliable hitbox I would be extremely happy, it really whiffs on almost everything.

• item drop is messed up

 

[Silktail]

This reads less like old L luger needs to come back and more that double's metered tools could use another look at, which I would be much more agreeable to; there's no denying over the years she's gotten tons of nerfs, and in the current state of the game it seems almost unfair how much she's been knocked down, especially since she's no longer really as dominant as THE glue team player anymore.

I don't think the luger change is still significant enough to warrant reversing, because ultimately its effects are more felt due to her other more significant nerfs instead of it directly

this was clearly the straw that broke the camels back tho

gimmie my friggin camel back back

 

[hamie96]

Nerfing the whole cast and then adding new exceptions doesn't sound like a good idea, this 2 touch "era" started with Annie, but it is not like 2 touches are a new thing. I started playing this game in early 2020 and I already had a 2 touch back then with Val/Excellebella. Painwheel can also give 2 touches for the whole cast and Beo still does it not even needing DHC.

If 2 touching was so strong we would see a lot more Beo and PW, but what is strong is the kit that Annie offers; that's why she is a glue character. Strong DHCs, really strong assists and a strong character.

With Beo, you need specific assists that don't help his mediocre neutral in order to achieve 2 touches. Annie is able to achieve what Beo does with nowhere near the team commitment, offers far better assists, better DHC (why can she DHC pillar and get universal pickup and high damage?), and better team synergy. Annie works with just about any team, Beo/PW require specific shells to work to get around their flaws and abuse their good attributes. Why should someone try to make a Beo team work when you can pick X team + Annie and get the same reward?

Annie, by being designed from the ground up as "jack of all trades", has managed to encroach on so many different character's unique traits that it's frustrating to keep talking about without any sign of future change.

 

[Triviality]

L-Luger was a completely fair move. The nerf only made the reward for using it less effective. Returning it back to its high knockback value would not invalidate her other specials, it would not be the be-all-end-all brainless projectile, it would simply return double to like a little taste of what she was in 2016, which was STILL a fine and healthy character

L-Luger is Dodgable, many characters can approach in the air and be out of L-Lugers range, many characters can approach from the ground or have moves that nullify it.

If you ever got hit by this move, nerf or not, it was 100% your fault. Nerfing the reward on a move like this is just simply not the approach to go, compare why people are disputing this move to the LACK of dispute for catheads


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Robo-Fortune

This character is the sum of her parts. Unlike any other character in the game that have a broken core set that they abuse during games, Robo is littered with incredible tools that all don't at once make someone unhappy or tag her as a bullshit/unfair character.

-Only character you can invest meter in and cash out later with the best alpha counter in the game (Level 3)
-Safe DHC options
-Beams are good on point too
-PME Point Teams that beam you 4 times and then TOD you (NOT HARD)
-Shakyfinger
-Her double jump pressure can put you in verticle character deadzones that some characters just have 0 options against
-She has true 50/50's
-Some of the best super damage in the game
-Mine wins in scrambles
-Only character with an Armored Normal that you can option select from (Beo doesn't count)
-Her Dashes
-THE ONLY CHARACTER PRIOR TO UMBRELLA THAT HAD A SWEEP YOU COULD COMBO FROM, THIS BEATS TUMBLING RUN AND CALLED OUT BRASS MOVES SO EASILY

-Delayed projectiles in the form of missiles, mines that linger, stuff that could fill the screen and get other characters in (or her out)


And off the top of my head the two things she doesnt have are

-Damage on her normals
-infinite blockstrings

She's so good. She's been good. Many robo players lived in a time where she was this good but was considered bottom 3 (2016 era my love)
she just doesn't play like a skullgirls character, and from what i remember watching the development salty streams, this was kind of the point. She's a Robo-Ky Guilty Gear character constructed in skullgirls as what was once one final love letter to GG. When you play her, you have to fundamentally agree that your victory in a match is gonna come a little differently than playing someone like Filia or Double.

She's literally another swiss army knife character, littered with so many different tools that require the players application to make work. She's not a character that gives Top-8 Entry on a silver platter (Annie), and this is why she's getting downplayed probably, but she has consistently seen competetive representation

She's had more competetive representation on teams in
Evo Online (3 ROBO - 3 Annie - 2 Peacock - 0 Fortune)
Skullgirls Championship Edition Finale (3 Robo - 2 Annie - 2 Peacock - 1 Fortune)

That being said this is just a personal rant. As for my thoughts on the H-Beam nerf, I think its whatever? I have been complaining about Eliza being hit by it while she crouch-idles for years now. That was fixed, but inadvertantly ruined a bunch of routes and made a lot of other characters have a lot more tools against it now. Opportunistically saying its a good change is a bit cheesy to me, since none of these "benefits" we're clearly intended, but i'd honestly rather see its hitbox be restored and eliza and dahlia be lowered.

Arguably the impressionability of what has currently been our "Meta" is ridiculous. Literally in April the concept of buffing the width of her beams was on discussion. Beam assist was always as strong as it was but I think seeing it so heavily associated with Annie-Fortune bracket congestion has been the tipper for it finally recieving nerfs.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

"Nerfing X Characters will make Y Characters inadvertantly better"
I don't like this. I genuinely still believe characters should be brought up to the levels of today. I'd rather the characters that are ACTUALLY weak adapted to the understood level of todays power, than others be brought down. Especially when we might still have cases like Squigly where the understood power level of a character becomes higher and accepted over the course of a short period.

What if parasoul's recovery on egret dive could be cut so she could dash inside the egret for armor (Think Maya Shield pheonix wright) so she can beat stuff like Item drop and H-bomb? What if Beo Chair Kick had a Hype-version where it goes farther and works as a projectile shield like dahlia's barrel?

Question for the historians, when was the last time Parasouls egret dive had its recovery changed?

Even before any of this, why arent all the QOL stuff being handled. I have heard painwheel players and Valentine players complaining for years. I have seen tournament sets and combos dropped because of Bypass whiffing, or painwheel facing the wrong direction. This is stuff legitimately bringing down these characters at EVERY level of play.

FFS Val is getting every sprite edited before she gets to consistently hit scalpels into bypass. How is balance discussion of any kind even being handled when characters in the game operate at this level of mechanical inconsistency. It literally happened to Cloud at Combo Breaker


For those that get allergic to big walls of text TL:DR
-Bring back nerfed characters like Double and Bella back to their 2016 level strengths. It will not hurt the state of play
-Robo is a good character all around, Hbeam size nerf should stick to its intentions (Eliza and Dahlia not being hit, the rest staying the same)
-The Meta is super vulnerable right now. The shift to Fortune supremacy was almost instant between something like Combo Breaker, and the last big tourney. Or squigly shooting up tiers, or umbrella
-Buff instead of nerf pls for the love of god
-Can we fix the actual broken characters like Pain and Val before anything else pls

 

[Ikkisoad]

-Bring back nerfed characters like Double and Bella back to their 2016 level strengths. It will not hurt the state of play

Agree with everything but this, Bella and Double are in a good spot IMO.

 

[Cattfish]

Nerfing the whole cast and then adding new exceptions doesn't sound like a good idea, this 2 touch "era" started with Annie, but it is not like 2 touches are a new thing. I started playing this game in early 2020 and I already had a 2 touch back then with Val/Excellebella. Painwheel can also give 2 touches for the whole cast and Beo still does it not even needing DHC.

If 2 touching was so strong we would see a lot more Beo and PW, but what is strong is the kit that Annie offers; that's why she is a glue character. Strong DHCs, really strong assists and a strong character.

With that who is sounding out of the curve is Annie, who already had her combo DHC nerfed for that reason.

For the record, I'm not even particularly for this change. I'm just trying to talk out solutions for a character that can be overshadowed by most of the cast, and totally overshadowed when not behind his limited assist options. Obviously we've played the "tinker with Beo's kit" idea for 6 years now and it hasn't shaped up, so if that's not an option, something like this could be.

I think Beo is very strong vs characters that aren't Robo, Pea, Para, and Val. With that said, even with his strengths, he still has to work around HIMSELF in order to get the reward any reasonable team composition gets. I agree that 2 touch is common across the board and is not limited to Annie, but even with the benefit of saving meter over resource, he's still forced to play around himself in an unideal condition for sg. (I'd rather spend meter than be forced to use salt grinder assist)

Painwheel has exemplary DHC damage with low undizzy, but it A. Doesnt always even out across higher undizzy levels B. Other characters do super, and then get a combo which builds meter for them. Painwheel has to match certain character's DHC damage for more cost in that way. On top of PW's basic character woes.

It's not an endorsement, it's just discussion.

 

[tossle]

this was clearly the straw that broke the camels back tho

gimmie my friggin camel back back

With more things considered I'm ultimately pretty neutral to the luger change. I wouldn't mind if it was reverted, seeing as the impact might be going beyond the original intention for the nerf. As far as Double changes I'd still sooner see her metered tool get another pass over tho

With that said I would also like to see things like bypass fixed asap like triv says

 

[MagicJL]

With Beo, you need specific assists that don't help his mediocre neutral in order to achieve 2 touches. Annie is able to achieve what Beo does with nowhere near the team commitment, offers far better assists, better DHC (why can she DHC pillar and get universal pickup and high damage?), and better team synergy. Annie works with just about any team, Beo/PW require specific shells to work to get around their flaws and abuse their good attributes. Why should someone try to make a Beo team work when you can pick X team + Annie and get the same reward?

Annie, by being designed from the ground up as "jack of all trades", has managed to encroach on so many different character's unique traits that it's frustrating to keep talking about without any sign of future change.

I'm pretty sure Beo can achieve 2 touches with bar, as a lot of the cast can.

Yes he can hit meterless 2 touches and he needs specific assists to do so but why is that a problem? Part of the fun of team games is building around a character strengths and getting the most out of them.

I don't believe getting meterless two touches is the only thing Beowulf does well (decent mixups, decent assist and AC, good supers), so there is plenty of incentive to playing him. Yes, Annie is stronger and but please don't talk like Beo is dead unless he's 2 touching people without meter.

 

[Sajurf]

-Buff instead of nerf pls for the love of god

This might be a hot take seeing but I don't want my characters to become as good as someone like Annie. In fact I think most people are unhappy with the power level that the current top tiers why there are so many calls to nerf them. These characters are outliers to the general power of the cast and shouldn't be used as a metric for balancing the cast.

I personally would be much happier if we used a character like Double (with L luger reverted) as a baseline to balance the cast around as she was once seen as a top 3 character despite not particularly having anything broken (Except old catheads). She was a jack of all trades, master of none that preformed very well in the previous meta by being more consistent than some of the more specialized characters on the cast.

 

[JuuseBox]

Idgaf about L gun change if im being honest. But maybe, we can revert some nerfs from the 2017 patch as compensation. Like giving bomber back its disjoint.

and letting filia jump out of hairball grounded dash cancel

 

[Cattfish]

I'm pretty sure Beo can achieve 2 touches with bar, as a lot of the cast can.

Yes he can hit meterless 2 touches and he needs specific assists to do so but why is that a problem? Part of the fun of team games is building around a character strengths and getting the most out of them.

I don't believe getting meterless two touches is the only thing Beowulf does well (decent mixups, decent assist and AC, good supers), so there is plenty of incentive to playing him. Yes, Annie is stronger and but please don't talk like Beo is dead unless he's 2 touching people without meter.

I would like to encourage a compilation of all
3v3 Beo two-touches
1 hype MAX start, 1 bar start,
No excelle, atrain, salt, ddrop or other weird niche assist that is sacrificing utility for his weird needs
Reasonable reset: tech chase or throw-break undizzy drain is fine

I would wager maybe 4 assists-combinations would let him do that, considering he doesn't build meter at a fast enough rate + despite Arm's buffed min. scaling, late arm + DHC is not ideal. Guessing Bypass and M Shadow, which doesn't necessarily look great for his composition already.

The issue of team building is obviously going to be critical to "why play Beo" incentives. That's why this is such a recurring topic point.

 

[VirtualPi]

I'm just waiting for the Fukua buffs fr

 

[SonicFox]

In terms of Annie I do not believe she is as over the top as people claim her to be -her install being memes.

As she is right now she is a glue character who plays very well with any team because she is consistent in a game where a lot of characters have really silly inconsistencies. It’s why I am all for buffing more characters to Annie level because in terms of playing the game of “Skullgirls” without being a rulebreaker (-install of course), I think she does it the best. Simple as that.

I fully anticipate her install itself to get an entire rework.

Someone has to be the best after the dust settles and personally I’m ok with it being Annie as I don’t think she is actively committing war crimes like the characters above her.

Consider the way some of the top players Annie’s teams are developed. I put Robo behind her because it Robo has the most damaging DHC in the game, which means I get to practically two touch off of a J.HP reset after most of her practical starters. That was the intent of my team.

Switching to Ms Fortune point solidified my rushdown characters to always be a two touch game. I talked about this awhile ago in the thread about seeing a build about having chars with more health, but I got a lot of flack for that, so I figured people were ok with this two touch meta.

And sorry to tell anyone this but as the game is now, by nerfing Annie damage or assist, it still will not change the current two touch meta as it is right now. We need a mechanics and undizzy rework imo.

 

[Sajurf]

I'm pretty sure Beo can achieve 2 touches with bar, as a lot of the cast can.

Yes he can hit meterless 2 touches and he needs specific assists to do so but why is that a problem? Part of the fun of team games is building around a character strengths and getting the most out of them.

I don't believe getting meterless two touches is the only thing Beowulf does well (decent mixups, decent assist and AC, good supers), so there is plenty of incentive to playing him. Yes, Annie is stronger and but please don't talk like Beo is dead unless he's 2 touching people without meter.

Its a problem because Beo is an incredible specialized character, he has a ton of weaknesses and 2 very big strengths being his damage output and his Okizeme game. If you want to make a beo team you have to work around several of his weaknesses, you want a neutral assist to cover for Beowulf's lackluster neutral game and you want a specialized assist like a train or grinder.

-Weaknesses
Beo without a neutral assist arguably has one of the worst neutrals in the game, He gets countercalled incredibly easily by some of the most common assists in the game: Brass, Copter, Beam, Annie DP ETC all cover almost every approach tool Beo has.

Beo's best neutral option a lot of the time (Even with a neutral assist) is to dash block at people slowly until you get into hopdash j.lp range, where if you guess wrong and get pushblocked you don't have a good option to get back in like someone like fortune does.

Many of Beo's blockstrings and pressure end up with him having to double down into the -2 option of blitzer

Beo also has a lot of very bad matchups in Peacock, Para, Robo as well as having a 4-6 matchup vs Fortune who can break his most dmging routes due to head hitstop, fortune rising j.lk can instant overhead him from outside of his hopdash range, can stuff many of his approach options with her 5f jab, is able to ignore most of beos options after a blocked H toss with her 5f jab, can make it a nightmare for him to catch her if she takes the health lead, and can run under him or fiber above him with virtually no risk if he loses the chair.

He becomes a worse character when chair is lost and chair can be easily guarded especially by his previously mentioned bad matchups, one of his best tools for his bad matchups is chair drop which is one use per team

-He makes up for these weaknesses with 3 really big strengths once he gets a hit
1. High Damage
2. The best okizeme game in the game with EX Canis Major
3. High snowball potential

His Okizeme game is unchallenged but typically to route two touches around it you need either a 3 hype start or a specialized assist

Guessing Bypass and M Shadow, which doesn't necessarily look great for his composition already.

I did a little bit of testing for this and the assists I was able to find that were able to two touch routing around oki with a 1 bar start were and no hype were: A train, Grinder, D drop, Excella, M shadow, and Brass(Might have missed one) Out of these M shadow, Brass and Excella spent 2 meter which is already enough for most characters to DHC to Annie and get a two touch that way.

His high dmg is currently being rivaled by much faster characters as I previously mentioned (Fortune can near his dmg on lights via headloops and takes 1 reset to kill as well as having more liberty where the reset happens due to her mobility)

His high snowball potential is great but it typically needs specific assists to work (A train and Grinder are the meterless two touch ones that can also TOD with 3 Bars)

This leads to a character who while strong requires a lot of teambuilding around him without supporting the team which almost always leaves him in the position of perpetual point.

I don't believe getting meterless two touches is the only thing Beowulf does well (decent mixups, decent assist and AC, good supers), so there is plenty of incentive to playing him.

As for his benefits off point he has decent assists but they all have a caveat. Chair moves have a separate cooldown from the assist cooldown and 2hp requires you to lose chair and then swap in another character to use it to its full potential.

His arm super is great as point but as a dhc its rather lacking (Max undizzy fortune into Beo DHC 3807 vs 4148 for Annie beam and 3492 for Annie Arm which is much easier to convert from if used as a DHC, His lv 3 typically isn't enough dmg to net a TOD like band, robo, and double do)

His only benefits he really brings if used off point are his rawtag and his AC which are both pretty good but are hardly enough to justify running him off point.

While his high low mix is great getting blocked + a late pushblock deletes most of the pressure he is able to put of them after leading to him having 1 real shot to get a mixup and make it count.

-Small note here but its worth noting that before the Beo changes he was able to two touch duos roundstart and able to kill off of a throw-> throw two touch (Both vids are on Sev's twitter if you scroll enough to find them or you can mess around on endless beta) with certain teams -

All of this to say that Beo has a lot of weaknesses and his major strength of being able to two touch consistently has been encroached upon after Annie was added, as well as enabling characters to have more freedom in their team composition than beo. The meta fortune team has one of the best dps in the game as well as the best neutral assist in the game while still retaining the ability to two touch for not much resources due to fortunes metergain.

I guess what I'm saying is that Beo has to deal with a lot of weaknesses to two touch while characters who don't share those weaknesses get to do the same thing. I don't mind building around his weaknesses, in fact I love when characters have weaknesses I have to build around as long as the reward feels worth it, which it currently doesn't.

TLDR: Beo has a lot of weaknesses but it felt worth it before because two touches was something a bit more exclusive to him(and also he did more dmg) he has to be the centerpiece to your team to use him effectively and if you are two touching for more than 1 bar a majority of the cast could have done the same thing while getting the hit easier. It just feels bad to build around a character and overcome his shortcoming for dmg that is currently rivaled by faster characters with less weaknesses
Sidenote - Painwheel also suffers from this now that people no longer need HI to two touch by using Annie but I am not as knowledgeable on that character so ill leave that to Rat Baby



Sorry for the rant I just care and have learned a lot about this character so seeing both my favourite Beo players retire and seeing 0 Beos in Top 24 CB has made me think a lot about this character place in the meta.

 

[Mayor of Earth]

I would like to encourage a compilation of all
3v3 Beo two-touches
1 hype MAX start, 1 bar start,
No excelle, atrain, salt, ddrop or other weird niche assist that is sacrificing utility for his weird needs
Reasonable reset: tech chase or throw-break undizzy drain is fine

I would wager maybe 4 assists-combinations would let him do that, considering he doesn't build meter at a fast enough rate + despite Arm's buffed min. scaling, late arm + DHC is not ideal. Guessing Bypass and M Shadow, which doesn't necessarily look great for his composition already.

The issue of team building is obviously going to be critical to "why play Beo" incentives. That's why this is such a recurring topic point.

Beo can build an absurd amount of bar with blitzer loops its justa lost art, This also gives access to two touch with Peacock Dhc on Beo Peacock band with Brass. I agree I'd love to see more beo stuff and have always been one thats hated homogenized styles of play. That being said H-train beo is my bane and when that became meta I was deff having a very hard time in tourney vs rabble and Fuego. So yeah in theory, but beos bad Mus kinda force him a certain way

This might be a hot take seeing but I don't want my characters to become as good as someone like Annie. In fact I think most people are unhappy with the power level that the current top tiers why there are so many calls to nerf them. These characters are outliers to the general power of the cast and shouldn't be used as a metric for balancing the cast.

I personally would be much happier if we used a character like Double (with L luger reverted) as a baseline to balance the cast around as she was once seen as a top 3 character despite not particularly having anything broken (Except old catheads). She was a jack of all trades, master of none that preformed very well in the previous meta by being more consistent than some of the more specialized characters on the cast.

I agree 100% with this statement, You can buff but don't overbuff imo, Double getting gun back would put her back at the top of A teir, Val with Qol changes would probs still just be higher, But rightfully so.


I think Solo's should be balanced around current annie, That character was the ext style character I was talking about, So much so that she was viable solo on launch, Pretty sure you showed us that install super was way more than "meme" also kinda what I was talking about when i said fuck it just give all Solo's V-ism lol

You can not escape shitty tier list

 

[BellaFeng4Eternity]

View attachment 16383
L-Luger was a completely fair move. The nerf only made the reward for using it less effective. Returning it back to its high knockback value would not invalidate her other specials, it would not be the be-all-end-all brainless projectile, it would simply return double to like a little taste of what she was in 2016, which was STILL a fine and healthy character

L-Luger is Dodgable, many characters can approach in the air and be out of L-Lugers range, many characters can approach from the ground or have moves that nullify it.

If you ever got hit by this move, nerf or not, it was 100% your fault. Nerfing the reward on a move like this is just simply not the approach to go, compare why people are disputing this move to the LACK of dispute for catheads


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Robo-Fortune

This character is the sum of her parts. Unlike any other character in the game that have a broken core set that they abuse during games, Robo is littered with incredible tools that all don't at once make someone unhappy or tag her as a bullshit/unfair character.

-Only character you can invest meter in and cash out later with the best alpha counter in the game (Level 3)
-Safe DHC options
-Beams are good on point too
-PME Point Teams that beam you 4 times and then TOD you (NOT HARD)
-Shakyfinger
-Her double jump pressure can put you in verticle character deadzones that some characters just have 0 options against
-She has true 50/50's
-Some of the best super damage in the game
-Mine wins in scrambles
-Only character with an Armored Normal that you can option select from (Beo doesn't count)
-Her Dashes
-THE ONLY CHARACTER PRIOR TO UMBRELLA THAT HAD A SWEEP YOU COULD COMBO FROM, THIS BEATS TUMBLING RUN AND CALLED OUT BRASS MOVES SO EASILY

-Delayed projectiles in the form of missiles, mines that linger, stuff that could fill the screen and get other characters in (or her out)


And off the top of my head the two things she doesnt have are

-Damage on her normals
-infinite blockstrings

She's so good. She's been good. Many robo players lived in a time where she was this good but was considered bottom 3 (2016 era my love)
she just doesn't play like a skullgirls character, and from what i remember watching the development salty streams, this was kind of the point. She's a Robo-Ky Guilty Gear character constructed in skullgirls as what was once one final love letter to GG. When you play her, you have to fundamentally agree that your victory in a match is gonna come a little differently than playing someone like Filia or Double.

She's literally another swiss army knife character, littered with so many different tools that require the players application to make work. She's not a character that gives Top-8 Entry on a silver platter (Annie), and this is why she's getting downplayed probably, but she has consistently seen competetive representation

She's had more competetive representation on teams in
Evo Online (3 ROBO - 3 Annie - 2 Peacock - 0 Fortune)
Skullgirls Championship Edition Finale (3 Robo - 2 Annie - 2 Peacock - 1 Fortune)

That being said this is just a personal rant. As for my thoughts on the H-Beam nerf, I think its whatever? I have been complaining about Eliza being hit by it while she crouch-idles for years now. That was fixed, but inadvertantly ruined a bunch of routes and made a lot of other characters have a lot more tools against it now. Opportunistically saying its a good change is a bit cheesy to me, since none of these "benefits" we're clearly intended, but i'd honestly rather see its hitbox be restored and eliza and dahlia be lowered.

Arguably the impressionability of what has currently been our "Meta" is ridiculous. Literally in April the concept of buffing the width of her beams was on discussion. Beam assist was always as strong as it was but I think seeing it so heavily associated with Annie-Fortune bracket congestion has been the tipper for it finally recieving nerfs.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

"Nerfing X Characters will make Y Characters inadvertantly better"
I don't like this. I genuinely still believe characters should be brought up to the levels of today. I'd rather the characters that are ACTUALLY weak adapted to the understood level of todays power, than others be brought down. Especially when we might still have cases like Squigly where the understood power level of a character becomes higher and accepted over the course of a short period.

What if parasoul's recovery on egret dive could be cut so she could dash inside the egret for armor (Think Maya Shield pheonix wright) so she can beat stuff like Item drop and H-bomb? What if Beo Chair Kick had a Hype-version where it goes farther and works as a projectile shield like dahlia's barrel?

Question for the historians, when was the last time Parasouls egret dive had its recovery changed?

Even before any of this, why arent all the QOL stuff being handled. I have heard painwheel players and Valentine players complaining for years. I have seen tournament sets and combos dropped because of Bypass whiffing, or painwheel facing the wrong direction. This is stuff legitimately bringing down these characters at EVERY level of play.

FFS Val is getting every sprite edited before she gets to consistently hit scalpels into bypass. How is balance discussion of any kind even being handled when characters in the game operate at this level of mechanical inconsistency. It literally happened to Cloud at Combo Breaker


For those that get allergic to big walls of text TL:DR
-Bring back nerfed characters like Double and Bella back to their 2016 level strengths. It will not hurt the state of play
-Robo is a good character all around, Hbeam size nerf should stick to its intentions (Eliza and Dahlia not being hit, the rest staying the same)
-The Meta is super vulnerable right now. The shift to Fortune supremacy was almost instant between something like Combo Breaker, and the last big tourney. Or squigly shooting up tiers, or umbrella
-Buff instead of nerf pls for the love of god
-Can we fix the actual broken characters like Pain and Val before anything else pls

I agree with all of this 100%, Lord Triv.

 

[Makdeo]

View attachment 16383
L-Luger was a completely fair move. The nerf only made the reward for using it less effective. Returning it back to its high knockback value would not invalidate her other specials, it would not be the be-all-end-all brainless projectile, it would simply return double to like a little taste of what she was in 2016, which was STILL a fine and healthy character

L-Luger is Dodgable, many characters can approach in the air and be out of L-Lugers range, many characters can approach from the ground or have moves that nullify it.

If you ever got hit by this move, nerf or not, it was 100% your fault. Nerfing the reward on a move like this is just simply not the approach to go, compare why people are disputing this move to the LACK of dispute for catheads


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Robo-Fortune

This character is the sum of her parts. Unlike any other character in the game that have a broken core set that they abuse during games, Robo is littered with incredible tools that all don't at once make someone unhappy or tag her as a bullshit/unfair character.

-Only character you can invest meter in and cash out later with the best alpha counter in the game (Level 3)
-Safe DHC options
-Beams are good on point too
-PME Point Teams that beam you 4 times and then TOD you (NOT HARD)
-Shakyfinger
-Her double jump pressure can put you in verticle character deadzones that some characters just have 0 options against
-She has true 50/50's
-Some of the best super damage in the game
-Mine wins in scrambles
-Only character with an Armored Normal that you can option select from (Beo doesn't count)
-Her Dashes
-THE ONLY CHARACTER PRIOR TO UMBRELLA THAT HAD A SWEEP YOU COULD COMBO FROM, THIS BEATS TUMBLING RUN AND CALLED OUT BRASS MOVES SO EASILY

-Delayed projectiles in the form of missiles, mines that linger, stuff that could fill the screen and get other characters in (or her out)


And off the top of my head the two things she doesnt have are

-Damage on her normals
-infinite blockstrings

She's so good. She's been good. Many robo players lived in a time where she was this good but was considered bottom 3 (2016 era my love)
she just doesn't play like a skullgirls character, and from what i remember watching the development salty streams, this was kind of the point. She's a Robo-Ky Guilty Gear character constructed in skullgirls as what was once one final love letter to GG. When you play her, you have to fundamentally agree that your victory in a match is gonna come a little differently than playing someone like Filia or Double.

She's literally another swiss army knife character, littered with so many different tools that require the players application to make work. She's not a character that gives Top-8 Entry on a silver platter (Annie), and this is why she's getting downplayed probably, but she has consistently seen competetive representation

She's had more competetive representation on teams in
Evo Online (3 ROBO - 3 Annie - 2 Peacock - 0 Fortune)
Skullgirls Championship Edition Finale (3 Robo - 2 Annie - 2 Peacock - 1 Fortune)

That being said this is just a personal rant. As for my thoughts on the H-Beam nerf, I think its whatever? I have been complaining about Eliza being hit by it while she crouch-idles for years now. That was fixed, but inadvertantly ruined a bunch of routes and made a lot of other characters have a lot more tools against it now. Opportunistically saying its a good change is a bit cheesy to me, since none of these "benefits" we're clearly intended, but i'd honestly rather see its hitbox be restored and eliza and dahlia be lowered.

Arguably the impressionability of what has currently been our "Meta" is ridiculous. Literally in April the concept of buffing the width of her beams was on discussion. Beam assist was always as strong as it was but I think seeing it so heavily associated with Annie-Fortune bracket congestion has been the tipper for it finally recieving nerfs.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

"Nerfing X Characters will make Y Characters inadvertantly better"
I don't like this. I genuinely still believe characters should be brought up to the levels of today. I'd rather the characters that are ACTUALLY weak adapted to the understood level of todays power, than others be brought down. Especially when we might still have cases like Squigly where the understood power level of a character becomes higher and accepted over the course of a short period.

What if parasoul's recovery on egret dive could be cut so she could dash inside the egret for armor (Think Maya Shield pheonix wright) so she can beat stuff like Item drop and H-bomb? What if Beo Chair Kick had a Hype-version where it goes farther and works as a projectile shield like dahlia's barrel?

Question for the historians, when was the last time Parasouls egret dive had its recovery changed?

Even before any of this, why arent all the QOL stuff being handled. I have heard painwheel players and Valentine players complaining for years. I have seen tournament sets and combos dropped because of Bypass whiffing, or painwheel facing the wrong direction. This is stuff legitimately bringing down these characters at EVERY level of play.

FFS Val is getting every sprite edited before she gets to consistently hit scalpels into bypass. How is balance discussion of any kind even being handled when characters in the game operate at this level of mechanical inconsistency. It literally happened to Cloud at Combo Breaker


For those that get allergic to big walls of text TL:DR
-Bring back nerfed characters like Double and Bella back to their 2016 level strengths. It will not hurt the state of play
-Robo is a good character all around, Hbeam size nerf should stick to its intentions (Eliza and Dahlia not being hit, the rest staying the same)
-The Meta is super vulnerable right now. The shift to Fortune supremacy was almost instant between something like Combo Breaker, and the last big tourney. Or squigly shooting up tiers, or umbrella
-Buff instead of nerf pls for the love of god
-Can we fix the actual broken characters like Pain and Val before anything else pls

Truer words have never been typed down in typed down, in the language of the most spoken tongue in history of mankind, in this thread and honestly we should just end any form of discussion here

 

[05mario]

I'm just waiting for the Fukua buffs fr

me too man

Anyway as us fukua players are suffering down in the depths of hell, let me offer some potential changes that could lighten the pain of the being bottom four.

I have a two ideas to help the character but the main one is making health drain an actual mechanic. Right now it doesn't feel like a resource like it should be, but rather an annoyance meant to neuter the character. You expend your health for mediocre damage and have no good way of gaining it back. The health regen she gets was an afterthought at most and a joke at least because the regen you get is insanely restrictive and minimal. My first idea relating to health drain is to allow fukua players more and better ways to play around it. The numbers on regen should increase as well as allowing fukua to regen from other options like bff and her throws. Obviously the none metered options should give less regen but they should be options nonetheless. Also allow her to get more than one regen off the lost shadow health pool.

The other idea I had in relation to health drain would be to slightly increase it and make shadows stronger. I think shadows should get stronger the longer they're held. If they're held longer they give better scaling, do more damage, and increase their range. I personally think they should reach all the way up to fullscreen if held long enough. This will allow them to be used in neutral more frequently and make fukua more of a threat in nuetral in a unique way. Instead of being able to mostly ignoring darts, you would have to be scared of them because they could now convert into something more serious than a couple hundred damage. Buffing the range of clone for holding it longer would also improve her lackluster pressure on block. As of now her prehit mix is arguable the worst in the game requiring a major screwup on the opponents part or an incredible amount of work on fukua's side to get in. Allowing clones to reach fullscreen if held longer would allow fukua to threaten high with a held h clone and have a meterless throw conversion of a held L clone making the opponent actually fear her when she approaches. It would also allow fukua to threaten a better crossup with jhk jl dart. Though if this change was to be implemented I would ask that the health lost from shadows can be regened more than once and allow bff and throws to regen it.

tldr:
Buff health regen
Make shadows stronger the longer you hold them

If y'all have any other ideas for fukua changes/buffs lmk. I desperately need a distraction from the searing pains of the flames of hell.

 

[KhaosMuffins]

Sorry for this essay.

I know I'm not really an active player, so I understand if you think I should flock off, but it's been years of people recognizing that Fortune is a problem without suggesting meaningful nerfs (everyone wants to see her meter gain hit, but it's crazy how so little people talked about looking at j.LK until Liam did it). She absolutely needs to be toned down a bit. The core thing is that she has amazing pressure, neutral, mobility, defense, and damage with no real weaknesses. Her toolkit makes her really good at the first three and are what makes her fun to play. The latter two can be hit without making her /feel/ much worse to play as, I feel.

---------------

Nerf 1: Remove the invulnerability on Fiber Upper, make Head Roll (Cat Strike) fully invulnerable. Let Head-On jump cancel on hit from any number of hits (just like Headless).

Reasoning: Fiber Upper just does a bit too much, being a safe on whiff, full combo on hit anti-air DP. And then she has another safe on block DP in Head Roll. Both are pretty good, and she doesn't need both. Making Head Roll her only DP would give her a one-chance DP ALA Beowulf's chair toss, knocking her defense a bit, but she still has metered options, good buttons for abare, and mobility options with a small air hurtbox to escape pressure and setups easier than most characters. Head Roll should still be minus, yet safe on block since getting a guaranteed punish with the head and body in the same place would be a bit much. And you can easily lab out a combo for that scenario where the head doesn't screw you over... probably.
Might have the side effect of making the Peacock matchup more difficult since she can't Fiber through a projectile, but Peacock is another issue. Fortune will still be fine here anyway.

Nerf 2: Lengthen the cooldown when the opponent hits Fortune's head.

Reasoning: "Just hit the head" has more risk than it probably should when the body is still free to run at you, and the moment you direct your attention to the body, the head is already off cooldown to threaten you again.

Nerf 3: Reduce Fortune's overall damage.

Reasoning: Her pressure is too safe and her mixups too ambiguous to be doing as much damage as she does. Simple as that. Everyone's losing it over the corner head loops, but that's only a part of the problem. Headless doing more damage than head-on makes sense since it's /supposed/ to be the glass cannon form, but both kinda deal a bit too much, especially headless at max undizzy.

Nerf 4: Make it easier to hit the body and the head without it fucking up your combo.

Reasoning: Pretty sure everyone (even Fortune players) agrees with this. Imagining it hasn't happened yet because it's one of those "easier said than done" cases or there just hasn't been time to deal with this.

---------------

Obviously, I have some bias, but I still think Fortune's meter gain is fine. Cerebella and Eliza have higher average meter gain, and they also have some great assists to add to a team unlike Fortune's mediocre-at-best assists, yet nobody complains about them. Let the battery character be the battery character.

Or at least if her meter gain does get tuned down, then we could at least look into giving her more assist options. Cat Slide assist being available regardless of her being head-on or headless would be nice, and Winnie some time ago suggested letting her do all hits of her Rekka as an assist. Whether it be that she only does 2 hits instead of all 3, or she only does 1-2 hits on block, I don't think it's unreasonable to want her to become a better team player if her main team building assets are, "She has an advantageous matchup against the characters the rest of your team hates, and gives you meter in the process." That's a pretty good thing to have, but it's not very interesting.

---------------

Discussion here and on Twitter has been pretty wild since it seems that everyone agrees Peacock and Fortune should be toned down, and the weaker characters should be toned up, but we can't really agree upon what characters make up the gold standard. I don't know where the idea of "Skullgirls is about every character being broken" mindset came from, but the game would be wack if everyone was Peacock/Fortune/Annie?? levels of being very strong with no weaknesses, and there are some characters (Painwheel, Eliza, Beowulf, Val inconsistencies) who clearly need help. Just sucks when a discussion about those weaker characters get constantly co-opted by... the grappler with a strong low/throw/left-right/anti-mash/instant overhead game losing her 2nd good overhead. Surprised more aren't asking for her throws to be better or for better Diamond Drop -> Dynamo conversions since... that's what Bella's about. The Double Luger discussion doesn't even seem to really be about Luger and more about previous changes that just built up. So what does she need? Is she still fine? Fun?

If we actually wanna get anywhere with this balance discussion, we should at least be identifying who the gold-standard characters are, and clearly laying out what the characters below that need help with. And throwing out random "I would like to see this" buffs with 0 reasoning is not clearly laying anything out. For example, I feel the "point-only" characters and Painwheel should be given better assist options from things that are already a part of their kits so we can get more team variety. Giving Beowulf his armored chairless assists even if he has the chair, giving Painwheel an actual lockdown assist by making one of the Pinion Dashes like Hairball, I already talked about Fortune above, I don't know what to do with Valentine.... AND these armored or low-profiling assists could serve as counters to Beam or Brass.

 

[dekillsage]

I am currently on a 4 hour flight and boy do I have time to write an essay for you guys.


Robo Beam assist:


Robo since the 2017 build has been the support character. You pick her for beam assist and for her powerful DHC damage. This let's you build teams that can control neutral and kill in ways you simply can't without her. Her ability to hold a lead and match up spread is great. Her only real problem is she doesn't hit hard so she has to be right way more often than every other character. This is perfect


I don't think the assist should hit any character crouching which is what this recent beta change is trying to fix. This lead to unintended side effects that I personally don't think should stay because they're just ugly and inconsistent and god this game needs so much less of that. Increasing the recovery so she takes longer to leave after being called should stay though, I think.


We need more ways to counter this assist and in the current beta build painwheel can counter call it way easier because the beam won't hit her standing when she jumps on screen as often. I propose we just give characters who have low profile assists (Pinion, Clide, Hairball, Bypass) the ability to do this outright and see how that feels. It would be another way of nerfing beam without actually nerfing it.

Annie:

Without install Annie is how strong a character should be imo. In fact I think Annies previous 6HP, point pillar and hitstop on H knuckle should be given back to her (the other knuckles really don't need the extra scaling either, come on )


Annie is a complete and consistent character and that's what we should aim for in characters. Keep in mind we see her a lot today but the players doing well with her are the same bella/double players that were winning everything before her. She added a new option to the game, but instead of having double alongside her we made Double weaker and even less consistent.


Install needs to either go or change. I don't think anyone likes this super. It's not fun to do, fight, and it's not even consistent either. Stars will hit late or miss or not at all all the time and it just feels very.. party game.

Oh and when it comes to her DP assist, just know that the reason Sonic and I run that assist is because her other good assist got taken away from her. Sonic and I have used a DP assist before Annie's but now we feel forced to have to use it. I think the assist is fine

Cerebella: Not talking about this character anymore so I'll just say even if she got buffed her weaknesses will always come into play for her.


Fortune:

Fortune meta is what we get when players are actually trying their hardest to win. This game is full of bugs, but her bug(meter build is like 2x what it should be) is absolutely absurd combined with her tool kit. She never has to choose between meter and damage. She doesn't care about max undizzy which is a huge problem (Annie is the same I'll talk about this more in the end). She also has a safe on block DP. No character should be like this and we messed up not asking for it to be changed earlier. This is again not an Annie problem, because I can run the two touch game plan with any dp assist + combo dhc.


Before anything three three things NEED to change (imo)


1) Headroll is not a dp anymore. I'm sorry but you're gonna have to bank fiber on me and you're not rpsing me off rekka anymore. This is me being generous


2) Meter build cut in half. That's just removing the meter build bug on some of her moves. She can't just get max damage and build over half a bar in one quick sequence. You're gonna have to Filia up and either burst bait me or three touch me (or play Robo dhc canon so you can cash out)


3) Lower axe kick damage. Two of these get the damage scaling bonus and that's so stupid bro


Peacock:

Lenny needs to be 2 bars. Item drop needs to go away if she gets hit.


Double:

Just say you guys want to get hit by L gun without consequences or something man. Like seriously of all the things in the game she can't get that?!

Also cat heads need to pull in on hit so she can achieve consistency and bombos, level 5 needs to kill, and we should try to figure out how to make M bomber not randomly uncombo.


The meta:

Two touching characters is not new, but it's too easy with Fortune and in the previous build it was too easy with everyone because of how pillar of creation worked. I still believe there are team comps that can still win with hard work, but it's so much harder and a lot of characters who can challenge Fortune are not consistent at all. Even if they were made consistent I think Fortune should be rewarded less and have to work a little harder to win. (Wouldn't even be that much harder tbh). We have a bigger problem to address.


Max undizzy:

This is the topic I really want to be discussed right now. At the moment Fortune, Annie, Band and Eliza can max undizzy loop you in a way that looks very ugly for the game. Gold burst doesn't help because you get put into the same mix up anyways after gold bursting.

Would also like to see the undizzy bar change color when you reach different levels of it (240,340,etc)

End:
I can talk about the rest of the cast but I like characters with a ton of options. If it's too easy it becomes a problem for me. You don't actually have to play all of Ms.Fortune to win with her you just do one high/low mix up and it's easy as hell. Characters with more options needing to do more to win (post hit) vs characters with less options needing to do less to win (again post hit like bella or beo) makes sense to me.

 

[nope.avi]

Peacock:

Lenny needs to be 2 bars. Item drop needs to go away if she gets hit.

Agreed with lenny. Lenny being a 1 bar shield that beats nearly every neutral counter is just so damn sad. Her meter gain in neutral would more than make up for it. Also serves as indirect nerfs to damage, and the ability at roundstart to two touch both point and assist with L bang lenny, and the ability to M bang lenny argus to convert.

I think maybe with item drop, not allowing her to release it during superflash/adding a delay during superflash is a better solution. There's so many instances where item drop can just counter a super by releasing it during the flash. Would also account for her just downback releasing during the flash rather than just certain unfortunate trades.

Max undizzy:

This is the topic I really want to be discussed right now. At the moment Fortune, Annie, Band and Eliza can max undizzy loop you in a way that looks very ugly for the game. Gold burst doesn't help because you get put into the same mix up anyways after gold bursting.

I hate these max undizzy burst/throw loops with a passion. Having a cheap 50/50 with hardly a solution/strong counterplay even with AC, where guessing wrong either means another loop or a character death, just feels wrong, man. Maybe having stage 3 activate immediately on max undizzy could do something to make the loops less effective or not feel like they last forever (namely, fortune's cLK loop and annie doing string -> dp -> string launcher -> 50/50).

 

[SonicFox]

Playing as Ms Fortune and maining her I think she at minimum needs a page of nerfs and nothing to compensate for it.

Heres what I would suggest:

H Fiber is no longer jump cancellable on whiff.

All fibers are strike invulnerable only.

Head Roll loses strike invincibility but becomes Grab invulnerable instead. It also scales to 50%.

J.LK loses it’s crossup hurtbox. It also is normalized to match the animation so that by holding back you dont randomly get unblockabled by her doing an IAD at you.

J.LK no longer hits overhead on the way up.

Damage is drastically reduced universally no question about that.

Head loops are removed.

Hitting the head add’s substantial cooldown to it.

El gato get’s added hurtboxes and damage reduction.

Catstrike loses it’s air invincibility.
————————————-
My biggest issue with playing as her and playing against people is not only how easy it is to two touch, but how willfully ignorant I get to be anywhere on the screen into a free two touch scenario.

There are so many times where I am mashing headroll and it is safe or plus and If they get hit and staggered I actually take away 13k for one bar.

Nerfing her aerial and grounded defensive options now gives her a more well defined weakness and gives more reason to want to use Filia over Fortune on defense, as well as making players have to actually explore her kit more to fully utilize it properly.

I think with these nerfs she would still be a very strong and meta relevant character, but her levels of annoyance and her game-breaking rules significantly get weakened.

I think for how oppressive her toolkit and offense is, it doesn’t make sense for her to have literally every defensive option a person could dream for as well.

 

[KhaosMuffins]

I actually thought I was being meaner in suggesting that Head Roll stay as her one DP, but if Fiber staying as the DP (with or without grab invuln as well) makes more sense, then I won't argue with that. Wouldn't mess up Fiber as an assist as well. But we can definitely agree that she doesn't need 2 meterless strike-invuln options and that her overall damage needs a hit.

 

[BellaFeng4Eternity]

What Sage, Triv, and Sonic said about the current state of SG are completely spot on. There are bugs and characters right now that need to be ironed out or looked at for the sake of the game's health and future.

 

[Cattfish]

Sorry I'm on mobile and don't feel like messing with the Quote Formats.

Flight essay

I'm eager to try low profiling assists vs Beam. That would be a fantastic experiment.

Annie:

Without install Annie is how strong a character should be imo. In fact I think Annies previous 6HP, point pillar and hitstop on H knuckle should be given back to her (the other knuckles really don't need the extra scaling either, come on )


Annie is a complete and consistent character and that's what we should aim for in characters. Keep in mind we see her a lot today but the players doing well with her are the same bella/double players that were winning everything before her. She added a new option to the game, but instead of having double alongside her we made Double weaker and even less consistent.


Oh and when it comes to her DP assist, just know that the reason Sonic and I run that assist is because her other good assist got taken away from her. Sonic and I have used a DP assist before Annie's but now we feel forced to have to use it. I think the assist is fine

I deadass cannot believe I just read Annie buffs out of the gate. I agree that the nerfs to Double have lowered the competition with Annie, but current Annie has overshadowed more than just Double. Making characters catch up individually with their kits to Annie's well-rounded kit is nigh-impossible.

(I agree with point Pillar of Creation should function like it used to, with this said)

Also H Knuckle nerfs don't really justify the concerns with Annie DP assist? It's a godlike assist that could use some miniscule tweaking. Not looking to shoot it, just bring it around to the level of other DPs.

Max undizzy:

This is the topic I really want to be discussed right now. At the moment Fortune, Annie, Band and Eliza can max undizzy loop you in a way that looks very ugly for the game. Gold burst doesn't help because you get put into the same mix up anyways after gold bursting.

Fundamentally I don't know how this can change, or "why" outside of the fact that those characters happen to be able to do 2 long strings which make it look sluggish. I have to guess wrong like 5 times and I'm gaining meter at a decent clip? That's fine. It's just another reset, to me. It sucks when it's a character like Peacock who would happily force you to burst so your undizzy is gone and she's back to her normal gameplan.

 

[AloneLULz]

H Fiber is no longer jump cancellable on whiff.

Assuming you are talking about the follow-up, I don't think making an exception for a single strength of the move is a good solution whatsoever.

All fibers are strike invulnerable only.

This is a change I don't think most people would complain - I just wish there was a solution for the unintended weird interaction where H Giant Step will get you out of Fiber.

Head Roll loses strike invincibility but becomes Grab invulnerable instead. It also scales to 50%.

Picking one of these two changes would be fine, both seem unnecessary - by removing strike invulnerability, you would be increasing the risks on using the move on a guess while keeping reward intact. By forcing scaling, you would retain the same risks, but reduce the rewards for using it as an option. Increasing risk AND reducing reward is exaggerated.

J.LK loses it’s crossup hurtbox. It also is normalized to match the animation so that by holding back you dont randomly get unblockabled by her doing an IAD at you.

I didn't fully understand the second part - can you clarify as to what point are you making with this? Is it only about the crossup as an option? Either way, I think jLP should be her go-to crossup option so removing the corner cases where jLK crosses doesn't seem completely unreasonable.

J.LK no longer hits overhead on the way up.

Idk what to say about this, feels like out of nowhere but I do understand some matchups are easier than they should be because of this. Feels like a change just for the sake of it though.

Damage is drastically reduced universally no question about that.

You already listed multiple points to reduce damage all around (gato damage reduction, head loops gone, head toss forced scaling) - do you feel like you need MORE, and if so, in which area? Normals? Should headless be doing less damage all around after loops removal and a gato damage reduction? Thinking about which point is the one where the character should stay at is a healthy discussion, but "drastically" feels like a gross overstatement.

Head loops are removed.

Yeah, no arguments here. Although I feel the combo is way less practical than people make it seem to be, and it being very prone to character weight messing with you, sure, remove it, I don't think it will be particularly missed.

Hitting the head add’s substantial cooldown to it.

I don't think hitting with a light should add substantial cooldown to it. Might be cool to think something along the lines of button strength resulting in larger cooldowns.

El gato get’s added hurtboxes and damage reduction.

Again, same as head toss - adding risk and reducing rewards. Although I do agree that Gato needs to be looked at, if you double dip on multiple nerfs across the character balance, you might up ending with a way weaker character than you'd expect because all changes would be affecting multiple areas.

Catstrike loses it’s air invincibility.

Uhm... sure, go ahead and take away something it doesn't have to begin with.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All in all most changes seem reasonable but the whole stack of them would knock the character a lot more than needed be.