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I'm positive Mike left the meter build glitch in for Ms.Fortune just because. She wasn't used as much at the time so it wasn't really thought of as an issue. The way she builds meters on her specials is unlike any other character.
popping in just to write out some ideas and opinions on balance considering recent topics in the thread.
Fortune: a lot of this will seem like reverb from previous posts here so I'll keep it short
-nerf overall metergain and damage, i think comparing bella to fortune in saying her meter build is better in a vacuum is fine, but in practice bella is the character with the maginally weaker pre-hit, even if she does have an amazing post-hit similarly to fortune. Fortune being able to do a 5 way mixup with multiple buttons to cross, strong universal fuzzy options, etc doesnt add up with her incredible frontload in both metergain AND damage, enabling damage engines with DHC's stronger than most other characters can. imo the nerfs to these two points dont have to be some insane gutting of the character, but there are moves like gato, cat scratch fever (qcf pp lvl 1), and rekka that just overall do absurd damage comparative to her meter build. Could also try an approach of just nerfing one but harder, either way i feel something needs to be changed about one of these properties.
-nerf defensive option availability one way or another, her having headroll, fiber, an air ok level 3, an air reversal level 1 (although fairly weak in reversal regards and it shouldnt be touched really) and a dp on the head while in headless is an insane arsenal of defensive tools to use. imo, the best way to go about shifting this would be to remove invuln on fiber while keeping its utility as a mobility tool, and make headroll her primary dp while making it more minus on block (-10/-15 range maybe?) or you could have it be similar to beo chair in that shes keeping it being -2, but making her having to commit to going headoff to defend (not like this is a huge deal, headless is insanely strong anyways as opposed to beo losing a lot of very solid tools without chair)
-give head more cooldown upon being hit, hitting the head in neutral feels much more risky than it should be even when fortune is fullscreen and out of range for a punish, to the point where even trying to punish unwise assist calls by the fortune after poking her head can get you zoom nommed into a full stage two conversion. it just seems really generous to the fortune that for hitting her head she can so soon smack you herself for such a good reward.
Band: I just have one change to maybe see have happen with band.
-Make timpani more minus and overall easier to punish, timpani is such an absurd super, coming from a band player, i just wish this super were a little more minus cuz punishing band on his blocked super should not feel like a game of rps at times.
Annie:
-I'd just like to see an attempt at lowering the dhc scaling on stinger, though id rather not see it be as harsh as the pillar nerf, but maybe a nerf to .550 scaling as opposed to .700? it just feels like pillar was taken cuz the dhc was good but with the overall good corner carry in this game, stinger essentially just replaced pillar in every way as a dhc, creating the same issue people had before. the super enables certain teams to 2 touch easily or even 1 touch, which is absolutely insane..
PW:
-Buff grounded lk buttons to be sub-10f, the fact that PW has an 11f 2lk, and 11f 5lk is absolutely jokes. 5lk while being more combo filler if anything, and makes more sense than 2lk, 2lk being 11f is just goofy and imo should be bumped down as a test of how it would play into the characters kit as a faster low poke
-Bring back faster armor on startup from the annie cycle update that was tested around a year ago, this character is marginally weaker than majority of the cast, and her own gimmick of armored buttons isnt even frame 1 armor (while this was tested, the patch was very short lived and I'd love to see it put in play again as hatred guard feels not worth the tradeoff of half her kit just not being usable in a neutral scenario, this change imo would be fun to give more time in the light of testing.
-maybe mess with buffing assist options? maybe seeing l pinion gain 1 hit of armor, or h pin having a few hits of proj armor similar to eliza boat, could give these assists some merit to running them overall. charge normal assists are also a concept I'd love to see be messed with. it just seems odd to me the whole incentive of running this character is the dhc and insane damage only for her assists to be incredibly mid, so youre putting your comp at a detriment, losing a good chunk of utility in tradeoff with the dhc.
Also I don't agree with a lot of the Fortune nerfs suggested, I think if you want to nerf her, her damage should be reduced that's a given, I think her meter gain is fine, I just think given her damage output it makes it way too much (Though if meter does still have to go down I'd hope that she would still build an amount that could still be considered high I don't want her battery role to just disapppear). I think H fiber is fine as full invuln but I think a fair nerf would be to make it -20 something and pulls down so it's easier to punish if you try to land cancel it. Headroll is honestly fine imo but maybe the tall hitbox the first hit has could be smaller, it's currently at an awkward height. (You can still air reset Fortune and she can't do fiber or headroll, it's decent counterplay though not perfect)
I think a cooler idea would be to give headless fortune no invuln (or delayed invuln) on her supers except level 3 this would give headless an actual defense issue ['cause she forgets how to be invuln since her head isn't attached to her lol] (excluding sneeze though personally because it's situational I think it can stay invuln) and a reason to snap in fortune and lets you do pretty much anything on offense. And make it so more characters can actually take advantage of hitting the head because it's a varying difficulty across the cast. I think block nom is dumb head should stop imo. But overall I wish more characters could manage to hit the head behind them to give headless a little more consequences for poor head placement and make her added damage taken with the head more useful across the cast. (I think in this way you're giving something away in order to do more damage or whatever)
(I still think it'd be cool if head-on did less damage and built the meter and had the defense and headless did the damage doesn't build as much meter and has a much more weakened defense (besides sneeze and level 3 I guess) for the ability to do head stuff so that she has an actual duality to her and stuff to weigh when you choose between forms)
Uh I can't think of anything else rn
I like frame 1 armor for pw but personally I'd like to see full armor on all active frames for less active buttons and 5f armor maximum for the really active armored moves. (This way I get my beta armor back but it's more tuned for balance though personally I still think it was fine as it was and will miss it for the rest of my life)
A crazier idea would be to let PW cancel to the next button anyway if she did armor something which would let her take advantage of her stubby armored moves that don't always hit back (they whiff sometimes and you die anyway) but this would be a very easier parry give or take but it'd be neat and maybe it can be only for her light armor buttons.
Also, because buers scale damage to 50% which means meter is also scaled to 50% since they're linked or something, it'd be pretty sweet if buers got tuned a bit on the meter side to give her slightly more to make up for her pitiful meter gain. Not enough to make her a battery (or maybe idk I still don't know whether we're going for a balanced game or a broken one) but enough that isn't so sad. It'd help her point viability overall instead of being relegated to the 2nd slot because that's just optimal (unfortunately)
I also wish her flight momentum in most cases was just better in general
Painwheel is insanely swattable for a character that can fly.
(Please keep in mind opinions are opinions, I'm not here to fight you.)
I forgot to add that head loops would of course be gone, those are dumb.
The way she builds meters on her specials is unlike any other character.
No, the way she builds meter on her specials isn't any different to the rest of the cast. That's what me, Seen and Fullbleed just showed.
Seen demonstrated that her specials' metergain scale the same way as everyone else in combos, I showed that her metergain in combos & front loaded resets is at the same level as the other high meterbuild characters and Fullbleed confirmed that there is nothing wrong with the code.
Here are more numbers to show that Fortune's metergain is not some crazy outlier like you guys are acting:
Here are the metergain numbers for all rekkas
Fortune's rekkas: 9% each
Eliza's DP rekka: 6% each
Annie divekick rekka: 7.5% each
Annie's Knuckles: 13.9% -> 12.6%
Pea H Bang: 3.6%
All of the rekkas also build the universal 2.5% meter for doing a special (this does not scale with combos, unlike normal metergain). As they're rekkas, they build this 2.5% on each hit while normal specials just build it once.*
Fortune's rekkas behave the same as all the other rekkas in the game. Their base metergain is on the high side for a rekka (though it's not the highest) but it's hardly by much.
Here are some other metergain numbers for specials just to show that Fortune's metergain on specials really isn't an outlier:
- Bella LnL: 18% (13.8% for L)
- Bella Devil Horns: 13.8%
- Bella Kanchou: 13.8% + 3.3% from tumble run
- Bella BButt: 9.5% + 3.3% from tumble run
- Pea L/M Bang: 11.3%
- Val ground Bypass: 10%
etc, there are more but if you want to go in depth, either open the game or the wiki and look at the numbers.
* Exceptions: Annie's Knuckles don't build the 2.5% on the 2nd rekka, idk why. Pea's H Bang builds 1.667% unscaled on the 2nd and 3rd hits instead of the universal 2.5%, I guess because her metergain during zoning is already by far the best meterbuild in the game.
Regardless of her metergain being bugged or not though, if headless' corner damage is nerfed and she gets wider utility nerfs like I discussed then I don't think there is any need to nerf her metergain. As I've said previously, nerfing her primary team contribution of being a battery makes her less unique as a character and less interesting to build around.
-nerf overall metergain and damage, i think comparing bella to fortune in saying her meter build is better in a vacuum is fine, but in practice bella is the character with the maginally weaker pre-hit
I compared Fortune's metergain to Bella (and Eliza, Annie & Beo) because people act like Fortune's metergain is some crazy outlier. The comparison was purely to demonstrate that this idea is false and that not only is Fortune not an outlier, but her metergain 1. isn't the highest and 2. comes with a bigger opponent metergain penalty than almost any other character.
Don't worry, I'm not making some argument for Bella metergain to be nerfed or making some wider point about Bella. I'm just pointing out, the way people talk about Fortune metergain is incorrect.
Band: I just have one change to maybe see have happen with band.
-Make timpani more minus and overall easier to punish, timpani is such an absurd super, coming from a band player, i just wish this super were a little more minus cuz punishing band on his blocked super should not feel like a game of rps at times.
IMO, the issue with Band is he has a bunch of insanely good defensive options that you have to respect AND the easiest parry window in all of fighting games (barring stuff like auto parry). I'm fine with Band having good options you have to respect, but the world's easiest parry window + parry/throw OS is too much, and it makes snapping in Band kind of rigged in the Band player's favor since immediately after snapping you have to bait like 5 of the world's easiest defensive options. Let's look at some numbers from the wiki.
From the wiki:
The parried attack's hit stop and stun get replaced with a standardized 27f parry stop animation (29f for supers).
The parry stop can cancel to another Noise Cancelimmediately or cancel to an attack, block, jump, or dash after 12f (14f for supers).
Parrying a sequence of combo hits increases the active window for Noise Cancels by 2f and allows both high and low inputs to parry any incoming attack.
Big Band gains 41.667% of parried move as meter and 1% flat for parrying multihitting moves and projectiles(with some exceptions).
Parrying projectiles will move Big Band forward while carrying over forward momentum. This effect is lessened if the projectile was created from a super.
The recovery of a successful parry is dash cancelable (after the hitstop)
Technical details
Tapping and holding the direction input gives a 13f window to Noise Cancel an incoming attack, while tapping the direction and returning to neutral increases the window to 17f.
Any Noise Cancel input triggers a 30f cooldown for that parry input.
Now let's compare this to the Street Fighter Third Strike parry window. Here is an excerpt from that game's wiki.:
When inputting a parry attempt against a ground attack, high and low parries have a 10 frame input window as long as the directional input is released quickly. If forward or down direction is held, this input window is reduced to 6 frames. Also, you cannot input another parry (cooldown period) for the next 23 frames.
Some simple math will tell you that Big Band's parry window is way easier than Third Strike's, which is fine. The design document for band that went around when the DLC character polls were happening specifically mention this. However the issue is that the window was then made EASIER again to help Band's zoning matchups. This has had the unintended (in my opinion at least) effect of making parrying so easier that OS/throw needs to be respected at all times, which makes things Band can do that should be whiff punishable, or at least not in his favor, in his favor.
Band has a reversal, armored reversal super that is 2f, and a parry window that is already more gracious than the game it is based on. I think if we can point to one part of band's kit that is overtuned it is the easy parry window. Reducing it back down to something reasonable (you can keep easy parry window on projectiles, who cares) will introduce some more interesting counterplay to band and force Band players to commit to things rather than just always hiding big whiffs behind throw/parry OS.
Band was a pretty well balanced character before this change, imo, because he always was at risk of instant overheads and pressure, so it was OK that timpani was stupid, or doing something like multiple whiffed beat extends in a row. Now that Band defense is incredibly easy his other strong options just become that more annoying. SSJ is an easy solution to a lot of problems but it costs meter and you die on block. Band doing timpani might not be punishable but it's not like he's plus. Easy parry window + throw OS doesn't have this problem, which lets you layer doing really dumb shit spaced correctly behind throw/parry os making the character way harder to deal with than he was ever intended.
Band is a powerful anchor kept in check by bad matchups and I don't think he needs any changes besides this one. In general parries are an incredibly powerful mechanic and need to be kept in check to some extent, because if you make them insanely easy to do than it changes the way you play matchups to be way less fun/interesting.
I've really disliked this change since it got implemented a few years back (again, im fine with ez mode parries on projectiles) and I'm curious to know how other people feel about it.
edit: I can't find the exact values for band's parry window before it was made easier, if someone has them that would be great
edit2: someone reminded me that the parry window is 12 frames if you just HOLD a direction and also blocking has a 1/5th second window to auto parry crossup, so yeah
Make nom's recovery on block not hittable by fortune
90% of the time you can ignore the recovery of head specials just by launching the head at the opponent, which is something you'd wanna do regardless. This would make fortune actually have to wait if the free confirm button gets blocked
Decap attack dmg 300 -> 50
I'm pretty convinced this would be the best way to nerf decap loops, they would still be possible but you'll need 10 reps for 100 extra damage and this wouldn't affect any of her routing, you're pretty much just giving them meter. Also even regular corner bnbs get over 10 decap attacks 'passively' so this change alone should have a significant effect on her corner damage
Ground el gato 1100 -> 1000
Also trying to reduce corner damage. This move is the main way to do damage outside of decap loops so this should also be very impactful. Could go below 1k if damage is still high at this point
Remove cross-up on jlk (don't break iad jlk in the corner tho)
jlp is the cross-up button, but iad jlk should still be able to hit sameside consistently
H fiber more negative
I maintain that being only strike invul is unnecessary but I also don't mind it if it happens. Regardless, it should be a free HCH punish on block for the reward on hit and on whiff
Let me choose whether or not she keeps her head on snaps
This is huge. Forcing head-on outside of point takes away her good tag, dhc combos and a bunch of her assists become useless. Honestly for the character with the weakest team support this almost feels like too big of a nerf
All that being said, people are going waaaaaaay too crazy with this whole fortune thing. Over these 10 years of sg tournaments we've had several strong players running fortune teams but she was always one of the characters with the least representation. Sonic and cloud tried fortune teams before but it didn't stick for either of them, were they just not trying hard enough to win back then? Running a character like fortune in a game like sg always had big drawbacks and this hasn't changed, but now because penpen is winning everything people are acting like the game suddenly turned on its head (as if he wouldn't have won with the beowulf team or literally anything else). The only thing that's really 'out of line' with fortune is her corner damage, so fix that before you decide to cut her legs off entirely.
IMO, the issue with Band is he has a bunch of insanely good defensive options that you have to respect AND the easiest parry window in all of fighting games (barring stuff like auto parry). I'm fine with Band having good options you have to respect, but the world's easiest parry window + parry/throw OS is too much, and it makes snapping in Band kind of rigged in the Band player's favor since immediately after snapping you have to bait like 5 of the world's easiest defensive options.
i agree, bands parry is insane paired with 2 incredible supers, and a dp on top of that, overall is just incredibly strong as a defensive character capable of nuking your healthbar entirely on one good read.
I compared Fortune's metergain to Bella (and Eliza, Annie & Beo) because people act like Fortune's metergain is some crazy outlier. The comparison was purely to demonstrate that this idea is false and that not only is Fortune not an outlier, but her metergain 1. isn't the highest and 2. comes with a bigger opponent metergain penalty than almost any other character.
Don't worry, I'm not making some argument for Bella metergain to be nerfed or making some wider point about Bella. I'm just pointing out, the way people talk about Fortune metergain is incorrect.
Ahhh i see, completely fair, while i do think in the context of how much damage fortune does paired with her absurd metergain, one has to go in one way or another. fortune can already churn damage and create easy two touches (which i think is fine) its just in the context of how strong the character is overall in neutral, post-hit, pressure, meter build, like she does everything well in this context which is why something should definitely get shot about one of her values, imo.
The only thing that's really 'out of line' with fortune is her corner damage, so fix that before you decide to cut her legs off entirely.
i think this is severely understating. she has above average metergain (yes it isnt "out of line" but given her other strengths in every other area, it should be looked at too.) she has insane tools in the neutral, some of the best defensive options in the game, incredible supers, more meter and damage frontload than most characters in the cast thanks to rekka and 5hp absolutely chunking healthbars. Her corner damage isnt the only out of line thing at all.
All that being said, people are going waaaaaaay too crazy with this whole fortune thing. Over these 10 years of sg tournaments we've had several strong players running fortune teams but she was always one of the characters with the least representation.
This argument is poor especially when its by itself. I don't see Zappa that often in +R and Potemkin is among the most popular characters in XRD. I see more Wolf and BB hood players than Zabel in VSAV despite Zabel despite him having no weaknesses except high execution. People pick characters for a variety of reasons and strength does not necessarily equal popularity.
Sonic and cloud tried fortune teams before but it didn't stick for either of them, were they just not trying hard enough to win back then?
Both of them were doing good with fortune teams but IIRC Cloud stopped playing them because he didn't find them fun rather than them being bad and Sonic still seems to be playing the team. I also believe both of those players are of the opinion that Fortune is top tier so I'm not sure why you included this in your argument. Sonic also played Annie, Fukua, and Eliza in tournament at the same time while believing they were weak so I don't think they are picking characters solely because of their strength.
Running a character like fortune in a game like sg always had big drawbacks and this hasn't changed
Fortune is perhaps the character with the least drawbacks in the entire game. Compare her to the other point rushdowns, she doesn't have to three touch people like Filia or suffer from Beowulf's bad mobility. Her high speed allows her to easily get the hit and her high damage and metergain means she almost always gets 2 meter super easily which allows for easy two touches.
Her head breaks so many combos that her headless downside of taking more damage is hardly ever a major downside except if you leave your head fullscreen. The other weakness people bring up is bad assists but headroll exists and Fiber and Dash are both great for AC while this weakness being almost completely null if your just run her point. But she gets the strengths of: Being a puppet character with no resource for your puppet, having a DP that doubles as a movement tool, having an airdash, insane speed, a double jump, great corner damage, great meter gain, The best jab in the game, some of the best buttons in the game, Being the best rushdown in the game, her insane pressure with head in corner, Headroll in general, Nom in general, etc.
but now because penpen is winning everything people are acting like the game suddenly turned on its head (as if he wouldn't have won with the beowulf team or literally anything else). The only thing that's really 'out of line' with fortune is her corner damage-
People don't suddenly think Fortune is overpowered because penpen won. Fortune has been top tier since the game came out and has been dodging major nerfs for the entirety of the games lifespan. This character has been doing well for ages even when people were using about half their kit and cutting out some of their strongest tools by playing exclusively head on.
I don't think anyone is trying to kill this character, they are giving a large amount of nerfs suggestions under the assumption that many of them will be filtered out if these changes make it into the game.
but now because penpen is winning everything people are acting like the game suddenly turned on its head (as if he wouldn't have won with the beowulf team or literally anything else). The only thing that's really 'out of line' with fortune is her corner damage, so fix that before you decide to cut her legs off entirely.
Im the example this should have been used on. I started winning things with squigly and people suddenly started appreciating her strengths more. The issue with this specific phrase though is that Squigly wasn't congesting tournaments to the level fortune had. I apologize for not being modest about it but after observing people referencing this in public discussion I'm just gonna start owning it.
People arent complaining about fortune because Penpen won, the tournament he won had a mirror match grand finals where both players we're playing the exact same way, with other Fortunes/Annies carrying people through the bracket, squigly didn't do that. That was the difference at play and I dont think once in Skullgirls entire competetive history has THAT ever occured.
This is enough to fuel an argument that Fortune nerfs are required to stabilize a more variable meta. The term "healthy" is thrown a lot out here but I don't think anyone has yet to define it. So instead of using this new buzzword I'm going to assume that when people say "healthy" they mean "I see every character multiple times in a bracket and/or I see characters being played in differentiating and expressive ways"
That being said, if fortune still rocks its whatever TO ME. I've always believed and still believe that Fortune/Annie are beatable, I've played sets against Sev and Lawnba and while its WAY HARDER to beat a constructed fortune team, than say, a constructed Beowulf team, there is always a way, always an opening, always a path to victory. It is through this and my journey of self improvement that my philosophy has always been against nerfs if they can be helped, if fortune gets nerfed than I lose my chance to learn how to beat her, I want to be proud to overcome this bullshit meta with the team i've rocked for years. But even with this personal view I must understand where other people come from.
Personal Tangents Over
If top tiers should be nerfed with all my feelings in mind, it should be just enough to get people to stop feeling like they have to pick those characters to win without punishing the people playing those characters out of love or passion. To prevent Combo Breaker grand finals without eliminating representation of the character. A balance of which might be fundamentally impossible.
Anyway the only thing about fortune i don't like fighting is pushblocking at the midrange. She gets to do what eliza players dream of doing. If she goes in for I.ad j.lk, and I pushblock her, she can just i.ad j.lk again and it hits me again, and if i pushblock her again she gets to keep going and I cant contest her because gato.
All that being said, people are going waaaaaaay too crazy with this whole fortune thing. Over these 10 years of sg tournaments we've had several strong players running fortune teams but she was always one of the characters with the least representation. Sonic and cloud tried fortune teams before but it didn't stick for either of them, were they just not trying hard enough to win back then? Running a character like fortune in a game like sg always had big drawbacks and this hasn't changed, but now because penpen is winning everything people are acting like the game suddenly turned on its head (as if he wouldn't have won with the beowulf team or literally anything else). The only thing that's really 'out of line' with fortune is her corner damage, so fix that before you decide to cut her legs off entirely.
Penpen won **one** tournament and is not the reason we're asking for Fortune nerfs. Sonic has won majors with every character they've played which actually includes Fortune! It was a long time ago, but they did win an event over Cloud with Fortune/Parasoul. Cloud doesn't use her because he has more fun getting meme'd by Valentine's bypass whiffing mid combo. The only thing Penpen brought to the table that we didn't know was the max undizzy loop damage she could get. (I hadn't seen it before him so my b if this isn't the case). For the record Penpen winning is something that a lot of us liked since it represented a lot of things we really needed for our competitive scene.
The current meta team is a result of characters who used to play at that level getting toned down AND players trying their hardest to win now. You've played the game as long as we have and should remember the difference in characters power was much different back then compared to how it is now. At the moment she feels like the only character from that era that stayed the same while everyone else got the 2020 treatment. The recent build solidified this when she got no real changes and it made a lot of people feel like their effort is wasted when you can Fortune up instead. This feeling was before Penpen won, and if you read this thread before the patch you'll see it.
People arent complaining about fortune because Penpen won, the tournament he won had a mirror match grand finals where both players we're playing the exact same way, with other Fortunes/Annies carrying people through the bracket, squigly didn't do that. That was the difference at play and I dont think once in Skullgirls entire competetive history has THAT ever occured.
Its happened in the past, we had Fukua and Super Double.
That being said, if fortune still rocks its whatever TO ME. I've always believed and still believe that Fortune/Annie are beatable, I've played sets against Sev and Lawnba and while its WAY HARDER to beat a constructed fortune team, than say, a constructed Beowulf team, there is always a way, always an opening, always a path to victory. It is through this and my journey of self improvement that my philosophy has always been against nerfs if they can be helped, if fortune gets nerfed than I lose my chance to learn how to beat her, I want to be proud to overcome this bullshit meta with the team i've rocked for years. But even with this personal view I must understand where other people come from.
I'm for this too, but only if characters are actually playing at that level. If we had the time to boost some characters last patch instead we'd probably not be having this conversation, that's how I feel at least.
If characters get toned down I too would like to see it done with as little changes as possible. It really would not change Fortune that much if she wasn't getting max damage and max meter every single time she hit you.
with other Fortunes/Annies carrying people through the bracket
This is some disrespectful cap and is wholly unnecessary. Of the 5 people who made it out of pools playing primarily Fortune (penpen, Sonic, Fullbleed, Winnie, Elda) all of them except Sonic & Winnie are long time Fortune players who have made top 8s previously with non-Fortune/Annie teams. Winnie is also a strong player (who, afaik has been maining Fortune since he came back to the scene?) and I don't think any of us are about to say Sonic is getting carried by anything lmao. The other 2 who ran Fortune side teams were Sage and Cloud, and again, I don't think anyone is about to accuse either of them of being carried.
You can talk about Fortune, her strength, her tournament representation, etc without being disrespectful to Fortune players and especially people who worked hard to succeed at our biggest offline of the year. Come on now.
Also, a note on Fortune's representation in major tournaments (ie evos, SGCS majors/minors and major tournaments for other regions across 2021-22):
- There have been 9 unique point Fortune players, this is joint 2nd with Para after Peacock with 11 players running her point.
- Point Fortune teams have made 12 appearances, point Peacock has made 37.
- Fortune is the 3rd most successful non-support character after Peacock and Filia (though Filia's success is inflated somewhat by Sage/Sonic). Using my slapdash scoring system, Pea has 140 points, Filia 92, Fortune 59.
There have been 3 tournaments with 3 Fortunes in top 8 (CB, CEO, Road to CB), there have been 7 tournaments with 3 Peacocks and 3 tournaments with 4 Peacocks.
I agree Fortune is too strong and too prevalent in tournaments as is, this is not me downplaying that (and that's why I suggested the nerfs I did). And I think we're likely to continue seeing high Fortune rep in tournaments if things stay as is since Sonic & PME main her, and Cloud and Sage both run her on side teams. They're all NA top 8 mainstays, add in 1+ of the other strong Fortune players making top 8 and it's pretty packed w/Fortune.
But if we want to talk being over-represented in tournaments to an unhealthy degree, Peacock is the pretty clear character and it's not that close. Maybe it's more obvious with Fortune since she's usually played with Annie and we all have CB fresh in our minds as the most recent major.
Peacock and Fortune players are in the exact same boat with insanely oppressive options with limited counterplay options on almost everything they do. Every single person that plays this game that has a really stupid cheap option and complains about someone else is throwing stones in a glass house. It's silly to say Fortune/Annie carries people when peacock can teleport + assist to win neutral (bonus points if it is beam or brass), put people at the top of the screen and do true 50/50s that are impossible to see. Add this to the fact that you need to constantly be on yomi layer 2 to punish anything she does because of the way bang and george work.
I don't think Peacock players are carried, I just think the character is really dumb.
Either Fortune or Peacock players are both carried, or the point of Skullgirls is to be as cheap as possible and the more egregious stuff gets balanced out/normalized over time.
Double was the meta anchor for a long time and then Annie became a better option so people switched to her. Almost every single person complaining about Annie either used to or still plays Double. The idea that any competitive player isn't being as cheap as possible in the spiritual successor to mvc2 is quite frankly garbage. SG balance discussion has always been really frustrating because it turns into this weird character identity politics thing where people complain about other characters while downplaying their own. It is very silly.
Fortune/Peacock should be nerfed because the game will be better as a result, not because one of them is "too easy" to win with it or whatever. I could not care less what anyone complaining that their own character is super skillful and everyone else's is a fraudulent broke ez win button that carries them thinks is "fair" vs "cheap" because this is a game where we 50/50 each other to death and that train left the station a long time ago. Balance suggestions should be made as ideas to make the game better and I don't know how it always derails into this weird hostile "my character cool, your character dumb" crap. The cat is cheap and you can complain about her, sure. But the interesting thing to me is there really hasn't been a single nerf suggestion in this thread that either myself or the other well known Fortune players didn't suggest years ago, and now people that weren't around back then are talking mess, despite only now reaching the conclusion a lot of Fortune players realized years ago: shes dumb and needs to be toned down.
For like 5 pages this entire thread has been the entire community in agreement that Fortune/Pea/Annie need nerfs, which is true, and then a Fortune player saying "yeah she does but ya'll complain too much", which is also true, and then someone writing a thesis on why cat is too good and needs to be nerfed, which is what Fortune players have already been saying for years.
Like it's been 8 years of this aren't people tired of this same cycle of discussion? Surely we can talk about the game and not have it turn into weird hostility over people being upset someone is using a cheap option in the cheap game, or just complaining 24/7 about the top tier character we already knew was top tier.
idk really what people want for fortune as a collective...reading has been very confusing. Annie...idk where to even start. As I've maintained, i just think install should be more interesting (https://skullheart.com/threads/the-unofficial-official-beta-discussion-thread.11680/post-414196) & pillar made a lvl3 with better effects to compensate. I get the 'new glue' thing but tbh I dont think pillar should be the avenue through which that's the case at all. Install should imho making people commit to more resources. Good damage & mix w/her is fine seeing how her approaches are kinda simplistic as well as crescent being an all-you-can-punish-buffet. Peacock...everyone hates zoners & it's always been that way. ive never played peacock a day in my life but i love love playing against other peacock enjoyers. To a certain degree looking from the outside in, I think allowing other characters to have more flexible/applicable tools for more than a niche situation or two is a better play.
Despite not playing fortune more than a handful of times i do hope that whatever nerfs happen, fiber upper is still usable as a fun movement option, untouched regarding mobility since is her schtick & nerfs dont go overboard. Head off for sure i think should have much more cooldown when head is hit along w/maybe a 'nom' adjustment & that really weird back & forth combo that seems to go on for a while (s/c.lk?). Apart from that i think changes should be tried in small clusters for her/peacock at a time. This stuff on paper is often very different in practice. Maybe polls featuring viable nerfs & people voting on what to try for fortune/peacock?? Then selecting top 3 & trying week to week on how it feels in game going from there? For whatever nerfs just be sure to compensate in other areas.
Moreso i'd be interested in looking at substantial QoLs/positive changes for moves from the rest of the cast or more ways to use meter other than dhcs/occasional counter assaults.
This is some disrespectful cap and is wholly unnecessary. Of the 5 people who made it out of pools playing primarily Fortune (penpen, Sonic, Fullbleed, Winnie, Elda) all of them except Sonic & Winnie are long time Fortune players who have made top 8s previously with non-Fortune/Annie teams. Winnie is also a strong player (who, afaik has been maining Fortune since he came back to the scene?) and I don't think any of us are about to say Sonic is getting carried by anything lmao. The other 2 who ran Fortune side teams were Sage and Cloud, and again, I don't think anyone is about to accuse either of them of being carried.
You can talk about Fortune, her strength, her tournament representation, etc without being disrespectful to Fortune players and especially people who worked hard to succeed at our biggest offline of the year. Come on now.
Oh I'm sorry, should I have used different wording to describe the Top Tier Character, that the very players you've cited want a page of "Uncompensated nerfs" for? Perhaps instead of carried, the better alternative would be Fortune is "Assisting the Competetively Active through her strengths and ease of access far greater than any other character?" Perhaps players like Dhoppler, Shade, Sunset, Fuzzy, Softie, who dropped long time characters FOR Annie to participate in brackets are simply doing it out of genuine love for the character, yes? Perhaps when PME was down a game at heatwave and swapped painwheel for Annie, that was for fun yes?
You yourself are clearly able to seperate the players who aren't being carried by fortune from the ones that are in this very part of your post. Perhaps your also familiar with how many Top Players have been feeling it necessary to win by understanding how to play fortune incase they need to use her in bracket? I bet they are doing the same thing for Parasoul or Painwheel, and most especially Peacock right now.
Please understand that when I say "Other fortune/annie players are being carried through bracket" I am referencing the MANY players who have dropped or modified their teams around Fortune and/or Annie. Both at lower levels of play, where people keep hearing about the Tier 1 strengths of these characters, and at the higher levels, where top players lament feeling like they HAVE to know how to play her. She is carrying people to greater strengths that you just don't get with other characters.
||However, even with ALL this, I still do not want to see her nerfed because I think she is beatable and I think the community overreacts to vocal opinions, but that is just me||
Genuinely, there are people who have played fortune for years, and there was absolutely 0 intention to detract from their skill, their hard work, and their dedication to the character from their individual level of love and understanding. but I assure you that there are more players now who don't care about anything regarding fortune or annie right now other than the fact that they are considered a Top Tier now in a game with a slow update cycle.
Also, a note on Fortune's representation in major tournaments (ie evos, SGCS majors/minors and major tournaments for other regions across 2021-22):
- There have been 9 unique point Fortune players, this is joint 2nd with Para after Peacock with 11 players running her point.
- Point Fortune teams have made 12 appearances, point Peacock has made 37.
- Fortune is the 3rd most successful non-support character after Peacock and Filia (though Filia's success is inflated somewhat by Sage/Sonic). Using my slapdash scoring system, Pea has 140 points, Filia 92, Fortune 59.
There have been 3 tournaments with 3 Fortunes in top 8 (CB, CEO, Road to CB), there have been 7 tournaments with 3 Peacocks and 3 tournaments with 4 Peacocks.
I agree Fortune is too strong and too prevalent in tournaments as is, this is not me downplaying that (and that's why I suggested the nerfs I did). And I think we're likely to continue seeing high Fortune rep in tournaments if things stay as is since Sonic & PME main her, and Cloud and Sage both run her on side teams. They're all NA top 8 mainstays, add in 1+ of the other strong Fortune players making top 8 and it's pretty packed w/Fortune.
A "Slapdash" scoring system which doesn't represent many Outliers and problems with the game or the meta. Problems such as
-Small community with 10 mainstays. Top 8's have little variability because of Top Players consistently making it. JuuseBox made a cohesive argument in looking at shifts between new players making it out of pools and Top 24 to that of Top 8, which was very interesting. Compare the correlation between who makes it out of pools, and what variable spots make it out of Top 24 to top 8. ESPECIALLY in Combo Breaker 2022
-Outliers such as Valentine and Robo, Valentine being considered a strong character but being undermined in the values of this data set, or Robo Fortune being the clear contender for top 1 in many of the variables im observing in this data set.
-Inflation as you put it, for many of these brackets. Just as Sonic and Sage inflated Filias success, where is the attribution to Peacocks inflation by Me and Swift? Which goes into the next point about how much Swift has been falling off, and Sonic and Sage improving
-A time period representing a large shift in the meta, as the understanding as I know it, is that Fortune's rise has been recent and new, despite a longtime agreement that she has always been a strong character
-Experimental Balance Changes that occured during variable points of the year. Mexican Mash (Fight Back I believe) was held on the same day as a different tournament. I won the other tournament while Wing won Mexican Mash. However, on this same day, One build had the reverted peacock nerfs and another bracket did not. That information and variability is not present in this data. The other tournament that was held that day is not present in this data set. It sets the precedent that this data set is omitting information and not accounting for SO, SO MANY variables.
EDIT (It was One More Once, which was not on the data set)
But if we want to talk being over-represented in tournaments to an unhealthy degree, Peacock is the pretty clear character and it's not that close. Maybe it's more obvious with Fortune since she's usually played with Annie and we all have CB fresh in our minds as the most recent major.
Define Unhealthy Please? I looked through the data and the Mainstays in most of the brackets we're Me and Swift. If you analyze swift himself, his placements have dropped way way down when most top players are participants of the tourney. Outliers of his placement were one fightback, and road to combo breaker, which ommitted a bunch of top players who were already heading to combo breaker. Aeroshire contributed to one of the 4 Peacock tournaments and he never even plays anymore, and Dhoppler and Rat Baby dropped off as well.
Bringing up peacock feels spiteful in this retort when your data is showing that she's dropping off, while very clearly fortune and annie have been RISING. This time period also doesn't account for just how recent Fortune has been up. Robo is also omitted from any discussion despite most of her numbers being up and consistent.
Characters in this game can carry people. Solo band carries a bad player far better than solo robo, even Sage can lose characters to getting mashed on a reset point and losing and taking that damage. Characters dont even have to be top 1 to carry. A two year old can do Double left rights and you need a PHD to understand the intricacy's of Umbrella's bubble vortex. Annie can two touch you off of the easiest air dash vortex ever. Fortune can do it at max undizzy or with lights/air grabs. The flexibility of their confirms, their reset points, their meter build, COMBINED with their ease of access to play compared to the higher demanding mechanical characters; if any random Joe player could learn to get 2 hits, and autopilot from it, they are carried so much more for it, simple as.
Peacock and Fortune players are in the exact same boat with insanely oppressive options with limited counterplay options on almost everything they do. Every single person that plays this game that has a really stupid cheap option and complains about someone else is throwing stones in a glass house. It's silly to say Fortune/Annie carries people when peacock can teleport + assist to win neutral (bonus points if it is beam or brass), put people at the top of the screen and do true 50/50s that are impossible to see. Add this to the fact that you need to constantly be on yomi layer 2 to punish anything she does because of the way bang and george work.
PME, Icontrol, Cloud have all been clear examples that Peacock can be beaten. Doing Teleport+Assist against PME is a death sentence because his robo is both versed in beating the zoning matchup, and he punishes Teleport+Beam+Bombs with ALL his characters. It's a terrible character losing option against him. The setup is beatable to such a game-winning degree that its literally a bad option. The slightest bit of proactivity means nothing is gotten from what she tries to do.
Sage knows how to properly counter call with Brass against Peacocks at full screen, he gets in consistently
I don't think Peacock players are carried, I just think the character is really dumb.
Either Fortune or Peacock players are both carried, or the point of Skullgirls is to be as cheap as possible and the more egregious stuff gets balanced out/normalized over time.
Double was the meta anchor for a long time and then Annie became a better option so people switched to her. Almost every single person complaining about Annie either used to or still plays Double.
The idea that any competitive player isn't being as cheap as possible in the spiritual successor to mvc2 is quite frankly garbage. SG balance discussion has always been really frustrating because it turns into this weird character identity politics thing where people complain about other characters while downplaying their own. It is very silly.
I don't think it's gotten this bad. Most topics occur between either 1-3 subjects at a time in this thread and that kind of stuff is up for observation. And lots of people observe. Theres value in that. I think its good that people keep lamenting about what they see in skullheart because it means people are absorbing whats being talked about in here. I know people talk about stuff that pops up here way more indepth in their own spheres. This is good
Fortune/Peacock should be nerfed because the game will be better as a result,
I disagree. I think other characters should be buffed to counter them because the game will be better as a result TO ME.
I say this because it brings up the core problem with ANY discussion, We do not have any element, entity or force that declares one of us objectively correct. That used to be Mike, but we no longer have that. The only guiding lights towards objective clarity come from precedents from previous balance changes or otherwise. Sage literally cited Mike "Back pocketing" fortunes bugged meter gain as a potential nerf if it was needed, but despite her strengths, Fortune really only won Combo Breaker as the big Major. Many characters still have way more tournament wins than her, but in this new wave, i'd put money saying a Fortune is gonna win EVO this year.
not because one of them is "too easy" to win with it or whatever. I could not care less what anyone complaining that their own character is super skillful and everyone else's is a fraudulent broke ez win button that carries them thinks is "fair" vs "cheap" because this is a game where we 50/50 each other to death and that train left the station a long time ago.
Yes but whoever can 50/50 two touch people the easiest is king
Balance suggestions should be made as ideas to make the game better
Again, its a matter of philosophy. There are lots of game changing ideas out there that could make or break the game. Undizzy Changes, Superjump Drift, Incoming choice (Dash in or Hop in) Solo Changes, Assist Mechanics.
Skullgirls was technically a finished product for YEARS, a DEFINITIVELY FINISHED PRODUCT where the understanding was that THINGS ARE NOT GOING TO CHANGE. Now they are, and its hard to build off of this foundation. All the characters from this season pass are breaking so many new precedents, but they are doing so as they join a FINISHED GAME.
I dont have the mind to have a stark stance on huge changes, its a cop out but its easier to fix the game that exists in its core way than to change it for me.
and I don't know how it always derails into this weird hostile "my character cool, your character dumb" crap. The cat is cheap and you can complain about her, sure. But the interesting thing to me is there really hasn't been a single nerf suggestion in this thread that either myself or the other well known Fortune players didn't suggest years ago, and now people that weren't around back then are talking mess, despite only now reaching the conclusion a lot of Fortune players realized years ago: shes dumb and needs to be toned down.
For like 5 pages this entire thread has been the entire community in agreement that Fortune/Pea/Annie need nerfs, which is true, and then a Fortune player saying "yeah she does but ya'll complain too much", which is also true, and then someone writing a thesis on why cat is too good and needs to be nerfed, which is what Fortune players have already been saying for years.
Skullgirls is so weird. Fortune is a top tier but she only had HIGH representation as of late, drastic almost exponential has the shift to her playrate and resources increased through all platforms and spheres. She hasn't changed, the community has, for a lot of different reasons, too much to comprehend almost.
before Combo Breaker, Fortune was the same character but she also hadn't won a major and PME to my understanding was NA's most consistently top performing Fortune player. I think the big shift came from Annie just existing, Fortune gets a lot off of her DP and it's just the new big discovered shell. It's our modern Beo/A-Train discovery, if that makes any sense.
Discussion will continue but the only objective truth that decides which points are right or wrong are which balance changes stick. No one individual has control of it (anymore) and for better or worse, adapting is the only choice left to a player like me.
Like it's been 8 years of this aren't people tired of this same cycle of discussion? Surely we can talk about the game and not have it turn into weird hostility over people being upset someone is using a cheap option in the cheap game, or just complaining 24/7 about the top tier character we already knew was top tier.
I'll never get tired of it, cause, I love this game. At the end of the day as long as we avoid Ad Hominem, no amount of of discussion no matter how heated or deep should be taken hard or personally.
I have a few thoughts so I'm going to separate them with lines in a singular post as not to crowd up the forum
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I agree that the word carried seems disrespectful and doesn't make much sense in this context. Carried could describe such a wide swath of players that its meaning in common parlance seems functionally useless as it could describe People who focus on zoning, people who vortex a lot, people who loop setplay, people who pick meta teams, people who only do well with their mains, people who only play a single team etc.
However, I feel that people are hyperfocusing on that word when it may just have been a slip of the tongue.
People arent complaining about fortune because Penpen won, the tournament he won had a mirror match grand finals where both players we're playing the exact same way, with other Fortunes/Annies carrying people through the bracket, squigly didn't do that. That was the difference at play and I dont think once in Skullgirls entire competetive history has THAT ever occured.
This is enough to fuel an argument that Fortune nerfs are required to stabilize a more variable meta. The term "healthy" is thrown a lot out here but I don't think anyone has yet to define it. So instead of using this new buzzword I'm going to assume that when people say "healthy" they mean "I see every character multiple times in a bracket and/or I see characters being played in differentiating and expressive ways"
I highlighted the word so its easier to see in its proper context but it really didn't seem like the crux of Triv's argument and he never brings it up again. From what I've gathered by looking at Triv's post the word carried seems to be a just be an error. Most of his argument seems to be less "These players are nothing without the character" like carried means and more "Many default to picking this character in competitive settings because of their strength compared to other members of the cast which can stifle the overall diversity of the game." which he might have conflated with the word carried
I am not Triv however so I don't know what exactly he meant to say, I would however advise people to be a bit more charitable to his post as we seem to be focusing on a single word more than his overall argument.
The cat is cheap and you can complain about her, sure. But the interesting thing to me is there really hasn't been a single nerf suggestion in this thread that either myself or the other well known Fortune players didn't suggest years ago, and now people that weren't around back then are talking mess, despite only now reaching the conclusion a lot of Fortune players realized years ago: shes dumb and needs to be toned down.
I would actually like to talk about this comment as its quite interesting to me. This year I took a step back from the SGC and because of that I noticed a lot of things I didn't before, most relevant here being that our community is incredibly insular and that it its incredibly hard to keep up with discourse because of it.
Why is this relevant here? Because many of the suggestions and discussion about Fortune and the cast as a whole happen on private discords, community/clan discords, or are quickly buried by a deluge of other posts when posted publicly. Its hard to keep up with public discourse if you don't dedicate a significant amount of time to SG discourse and its impossible to get the full picture when the discourse happens behind closed doors.
I'm not trying to blame anyone who participates in discourse in private with friends, god knows its easier to have a discussion with people you know well but it means that what might be a point brought up countless times there might be completely unknown outside of that group.
I think that's what happened here because I don't think I saw Fortune players suggest any nerfs during the first Annie beta or during the entire discord beta discussion in general, I(and most people I talked to) only started seeing the suggested nerfs once non-fortune players started talking about nerfs.
there really hasn't been a single nerf suggestion in this thread that either myself or the other well known Fortune players didn't suggest years ago, and now people that weren't around back then are talking mess, despite only now reaching the conclusion a lot of Fortune players realized years ago: shes dumb and needs to be toned down.
This part however I am perplexed at
1. New players are not at fault for not knowing about years of Fortune discourse especially when they are just suggesting changes they feel will make the game better. If a change they made was suggested by a Fortune player before it should be an endorsement of that idea, not a knock to them because someone else had that idea first.
2. If all of the suggestions in the forum were made previously by Fortune players then more of these suggestions should have appeared earlier. We have had several beta cycles with Fortune remaining exactly the same where I saw nobody speak up about Fortune, even things that are now unanimously deemed to be issues like 2lk loops. I only really saw Fortune players making lists of detailed changes and nerfs when everyone decided she was an issue and would have nerfed her with or without Fortune main's suggestions
If I misinterpreted this part I'm sorry but this is how it read to me.
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Finally I would really like to see more people discuss balance changes with the goal of trying to make the game better. Lately I've been seeing a lot of people trying to play balance like a game of chess with the goal of surviving the "wave" of balance discussion with the least amount of nerfs. It can feel very frustrating when you are trying to give suggestions to make the game better while seeing people who clearly know about issues downplay and keep their hand hidden giving out as little information as possible until a nerf is inevitable and then pivoting their stance to poke holes in those new suggestions. It's annoying and makes me not feel like not engaging with you when I can't tell if this is a long held stance on the game or the viewpoint you are adopting because it would result in less nerfs(or more buffs) for your character.
I agree that the word carried seems disrespectful and doesn't make much sense in this context. Carried could describe such a wide swath of players that its meaning in common parlance seems functionally useless as it could describe People who focus on zoning, people who vortex a lot, people who loop setplay, people who pick meta teams, people who only do well with their mains, people who only play a single team etc.
However, I feel that people are hyperfocusing on that word when it may just have been a slip of the tongue.
I highlighted the word so its easier to see in its proper context but it really didn't seem like the crux of Triv's argument and he never brings it up again. From what I've gathered by looking at Triv's post the word carried seems to be a just be an error. Most of his argument seems to be less "These players are nothing without the character" like carried means and more "Many default to picking this character in competitive settings because of their strength compared to other members of the cast which can stifle the overall diversity of the game." which he might have conflated with the word carried
I am not Triv however so I don't know what exactly he meant to say, I would however advise people to be a bit more charitable to his post as we seem to be focusing on a single word more than his overall argument.
The characters are easy to play and for many just doing the simple win conditions better than other characters. People are dropping characters that they consider weak in comparison for Annie/fortune. There are definetely people performing better because of Annie, and I can't really speak for all, but I can definetely say the choices behind "Dropping X character I played for years to play Annie" is not out of love or interest for the character, but out of a competetive sense to win and the feedback of success without having to fully master a character.
Annie's Launcher into J. Medium Punch -> 4 Way is so easy and its so good. Its loopable, you can two touch with it, it doesn't get beat by mashes because the opponent is airborne, and its a free low throw if your opponent is scared to press a button, which they WILL be because they cant mash out of it if its crossup.
Its three buttons, and it can win you the game. Now compare that to the really good eliza vortex
Launcher -> Horus -> Dash behind them -> rising Kara Heavy -> Airdash -> j.Light Kick, J. HP.
A much, much harder input for arguably her most ambiguous vortex, but hey, the button you use to reset was c.hp, it got blocked, and now congrats you have been land cancel punished.
Better yet
The SQRT setup, hailed as the vortex that saved umbrella
Combo that gets you into ravenous -> Launcher -> J.hp -> land cancel wishmaker -> Bobble -> forward lp -> Stomp -> Lbubble
Oh and by the way you might have to delay like 3 different parts of this or space yourself in different positions on the puddle during 2 tight links because everyones hurtbox when they get puddle launched is different and you lose to falling buttons by half the cast
LIKE???? UMBRELLA PLAYERS HAVE TO SOLVE TRIGONOMETRY TO GET A DASHUNDER BUT ANNIE CAN CYCLE HER AERIAL VORTEX WITH HALF OF HER NORMAL BUTTONS.
Players are getting BOOSTED boosted by picking up easier characters nowadays. But thats just the first layer, the second layer is the characters core strength.
This sentiment is vocally observable in many spheres. Sage and Sonic FEEL like they have to play fortune. New players who come in and watch streams join the game and pick up Top Tiers. Notable FGC People like Punk or Axeice come in and get recommended an "Annie team" + "This character I think you'll like."
Double is a great beginner friendly character. And she's THE Unreactable 50/50 character. But she just, doesn't do it like Annie. Theres enough differences between the two and theres definetely a number of reasons Double is better in many situations than Annie but its like, so many people dropped her for Annie, and so many people just don't recommend her anymore. I honestly think its just cause Annie has airdash pressure and thats like, insanely more valuable in the modern day.
But anyway, Double is an EASY Character, but shes not a TOP tier anymore. The intermediate players who play her will hit the ceiling of competetive success much faster than if they play someone like Annie.
You could be the best player in the world but if your playing trio, run into a big band, autopilot your usual reset that uses an assist, and you get hit by reversal SSJ twice, you lost like half your team. It doesn't take that much to mash SSJ and if you blink and get hit by it, it just gets you farther into a match than if a player of the same skill level was playing solo robo. But band has so many weaknesses that are exploited at the higher levels of competetive play that you once again, hit the ceiling of competition way faster than if you did the basic shit with someone like Annie or Fortune.
Skullgirls at times felt like a game where Bottom 1 and Top 1 weren't so far apart but now it just feels like a fucking Desert Bus distance away now.
1. New players are not at fault for not knowing about years of Fortune discourse especially when they are just suggesting changes they feel will make the game better.
This is something I had not considered but its something that is really intelligent to bring up. I will keep this in my mind when citing history in my arguments.
Oh I'm sorry, should I have used different wording to describe the Top Tier Character, that the very players you've cited want a page of "Uncompensated nerfs" for? Perhaps instead of carried, the better alternative would be Fortune is "Assisting the Competetively Active through her strengths and ease of access far greater than any other character?" Perhaps players like Dhoppler, Shade, Sunset, Fuzzy, Softie, who dropped long time characters FOR Annie to participate in brackets are simply doing it out of genuine love for the character, yes? Perhaps when PME was down a game at heatwave and swapped painwheel for Annie, that was for fun yes?
If we are to focus on one point, this is what we need to focus on. We've been in an Annie-dominant meta for over a year with many top players dropping beloved teams in favor of playing an Annie centric team, not because they love Annie but because Annie is just that much stronger.
Double is a great beginner friendly character. And she's THE Unreactable 50/50 character. But she just, doesn't do it like Annie.
Just to add on: Why run double when I can get fullscreen pillar conversion super, install that says anchor annie can skip neutral, the best assist in the game rn, and better damage on average than Double's routes? This character's design needs to be reworked to have some weakness, a reason to pick other characters. She can't have it all.
Since the discussion is circling back to Annie I want to give my opinion on the current balance of the game.
(I am fairly new to the game, I started playing around the official release of Annie. So take that into account when reading what I am about to say)
I agree that Annie is very centralizing in the meta. A lot of the time when I am team building I find it hard to justify playing characters like Painwheel, Double or Fukua over Annie. Annie is just a lot more effective and reliable as a DHC, assist and point character in comparison.
But I don't want her to be nerfed. Personally I think that Annie is as strong as I want characters to be (I admit that I tend to like strong characters and I think that she is very fun to play right now). When I play other mid/anchor characters I feel underwhelmed. I'd rather see the weaker characters in the cast be given QoL changes and buff to be more inline with the characters coming out in the season pass.
I am sorry if this post derails the conversation from nerfing fortune. The only thing I will say about fortune is that I agree she needs to be nerfed but I don't want her nerfs to be to drastic.
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This are a few buff that I would like to at least try out:
Painwheel
I really like pw but she feels very one note to me. She has a really great DHC but apart from that she feels really underwhelming.
First of all I would like her to have some changes as a point:
-More hitstun on j.HK
-A little more range on Buer for better long range conversions
-Make her lights a little faster (maybe not her 2LK but give her a light that is less than 2 digit startup)
-Maybe try out frame 1 armor, I believe that this was already tried out in a previous beta but I would like some kind of buff for her armor.
(I am sure that long time pw players can tell me a whole list of QoL changes I forgot but this are the ones I remembered off the top of my head)
I would also love to see her assist options get buffed:
(I would guess that they made pw assists so dog water to compensate for her Install DHC but in the current two touch meta I think that Hatred Install is not enough of a selling point for a support character like pw)
Make Pinion Assists stronger and more interesting:
-Give L Pinion armor (right now it is just worst LnL, armor would make it feel like a real assists)
-Make M Pinion multihit
-Give H Pinion projectile invul
(This are just my suggestions, maybe buff them in some other way but make them more interesting and worth using)
-Give her charged nails assists please (the game is in use for more neutral assists and this could be a really cool one)
Double
I don't really know much about the top tier double people talk about, I was too late to the top tier double party. So I am not sure what changed from then to now.
I just know that L gun was nerfed and I believe that the community can agree that the nerf was kind of unnecessary so I would like to see it reverted. but I don't think that would be enough for Double to rival Annie.
Maybe buff Double metered options to make her a better anchor in comparison to Annie (plus reworking Annie Install which I agree is a change that needs to happen even if I am against nerfing the rest of Annie's toolkit)
I just want Double to be stronger in general, in order for her to be a viable alternative to Annie.
Eliza
-Give her Crimson Scourge DHC
This buff would make Eliza more of a team player. Right now I only see Eliza on point or anchor but I think Eliza mid could be very cool.
Giving her a combo DHC could make her more appealing as an alternative to Annie. Since now people could find two touch set ups using Crimson Scourge DHC.
This change would also play nicely into Eliza's life mechanic. A big drawback off Eliza's Sekhmet assists is that they take away life when you use them. Crimson Scourge could let Eliza come in while restoring some of her lost HP.
Fukua
I would love to see fukua get some love but I am not sure on how to buff her so I will leave it to someone else to give fukua buff suggestions.
Before I finish this post I would also like to give my opinion about Beam assists (and Brass assists to an extend)
This two assists are clearly a cut above the other neutral assists in the game. I like that nerfs to beam are being tested since it is easily the best assist in the game. But I would like to see the other neutral assists in the game get buffs. I think that the game would be more interesting if there where more assists that could rival beam and brass in neutral.
Having more choice when picking neutral assists would be cool.
I am sorry if this post was all over the place I just wanted to get all my thoughts out in a single post. And remember to take this with a grain of salt, I am relatively new to the game so I am not aware of all the competitive and balance history of the game. I am open to hear what you all have to say about my thoughts on the game.
i know technically annie is the install character even though she needs a rework, but id like to see Painwheel install be a mainstay, but in an orthogonal way integrating what she already has.
I wanna see a pain-meter for damage absorbed, so you can at least see whats stored visually since that's kinda her thing. Lets say 4k worth as threshold. Itd take a bit of work filling, but when it's full you can cash out for install. Or perhaps youd spend 25% pain for air dash...or 33% on a better buer. I just strongly feel there's not really a true motivation to master/use it more than obvious spots or as a dedicated playstyle. This way you're rewarded for riskily using her dedicated hurt-me mechanic in a game where getting damaged 1 time too many is curtains :P I've always wanted to use painwheel but absorbing attacks though novel doesnt FEEL good. I dont even know how much extra damage im putting out/absorbing...would love to tack on a sound/voice effect with a cool visual effect when successfully absorbing. Like baiken in strive. I want it to feel super addicting when you use it properly. Or feel a need to DHC for a super.
There's a lot of cool things you could do with her and others giving their mechanics a more solid gameplay loop by tying them together into an engaging win condition as a reward for pushing the risk/reward play. Eliza with blood, Fukua with Shadows, Beo & better chair integration...that sort of thing. It's silly to say each character doesnt have enough lattitude for different playstyles, but i will definitely say the margin between them is very small & the higher up you get the more you have to relegate yourself to a specific kit. She just feels limited more than normal to me. and just give her normal frame data for lights, it's not that big a deal. Making people play her differently on oki like baiken is perfectly fine. Baiken doesnt have it any easier; then has to worry about throws & weird staggers resulting in big counterhits. PW still grabbable/multi-hittable & results in a counterhit as well. Let her have some cake & ice cream. I absolutely dont mind approaching her differently seeing as she doesnt have a DP & her ground super is easy to bait/avoid.
These are moreso my musings, but i do hope at least a couple see what i'm saying & where i'm going.
edited @Stuff quick edit, feel free to adjust damage values...im not saying keep that the same necessarily but the function of being powered up even a little bit and using a dope part of her kit relegated to dhcs would just be nice and id strongly argue absorbing 4k is same if not more opportunity cost than 2 bars for full install cost. id bet initially itd be tough for people to even fill once. as for spending immediately, idk how itd be implemented but some sort of way to save if you want while using a charged move without damage bonus. thought that was implied but my bad. Um but yeah, w/all the damage you forego to save it i dont think itd be busted at all...but i mean cant really know. just chatting on paper. Oh & magenta health bar idea is good.
@nope.avi for 2 bars that seems pretty elegant. Like not perma-effect but close if you can keep it up until you get hit/dont get a confirm on opponent. In that case, if it doesnt already, would like hatred guarding giving substantially more meter as bonus since 2 bars is a bit awkward unless using directly from round start after accruing 1meter or DHC'ing. And generally as a reward for a tough(er) mechanic in SG to bet on. Would be nice if the timer was like robo or a meter in her portrait because it'd be hard to keep track after a reset or combo or two. Dig that though would love to try genuinely w/increased meter gain from hatred guarding for a fun loop. Perhaps on install you can get an air dash this time around.
p.s. that cool effect if dhc'd into, probably should have the normal hard timer aka catheads treatment.
i know technically annie is the install character even though she needs a rework, but id like to see Painwheel install be a mainstay, but in an orthogonal way integrating what she already has.
Not a PW player but i think it'd be cool if Hatred's timer paused during a combo and refreshed after the combo drops. So if the timer is at 5 seconds, lowers to 2, PW gets a hit, it refreshes to 5 as soon as she drops the combo. This would allow Hatred to also have an avenue as a snowball tool that goes well with resetting, rather than just as a DHC/combo kill tool.
ngl that does seem pretty cool, albeit probably busted but also really damn cool and I really wish her install wasn't just a damage thing (I miss spamming nails in the old days) I do feel like Annie just overtakes pw at anything she can do since she has everything
also regarding the "pain" meter it'd be nice if pw could see her hatred storage via some effect on the health bar (maybe it fills in magenta on the health bar) but oh boy I'm sure working on the hud is a huge pain. I don't count the damage myself but I usually keep in mind if I armored something and I can punish it'll deal a bit more.
I'm not entirely sure it's something to master since you usually spend it immediately, there is the very (idk the word) situational(?) version of armoring projectiles to stack hatred and then when I hit you it does a considerable amount, that's when it can be a little hard to know how much I have stored. There's also currently no way to avoid using damage you have stored (unless you make a route avoiding 5LP 2LP 5MP 2MP 5MK 2HK 2HP 5HP and jHP [which is possible but might end up costing damage in trying to avoid using hatred in order to stack more later.] Not to mention you'd also have to not hit with the armor button you just used which can be hard if you're using the armor to bait and punish something.) Honestly hatred guard itself just feels like a tacked on mechanic I never find myself going out of my way to use it, I just like that I can bait and punish stuff with the armor but the added damage is rarely relevant imo. Though armoring Beo arm or something into 2k from 5HP is pretty neat.
Random but I feel like we need to stop pretending that cat heads dhc getting nerfed wasn't the reason everyone started dropping double.
You could completely revert catheads next and I guarantee you it would make very little difference in her representation. It was partially reverted fairly recently and it didn't make any difference for double's meta relevance
Double isn't being used often because we have been in an Annie centric meta for over a year now where almost everyone feels like they need Annie on their team do do well competitively. As Triv mentioned a few posts above there have been many players dropping long time characters for Annie and one of the main characters I see replaced is Double.
Annie being almost guaranteed to be on almost every "competitive" team while providing a lot of similar utility to double (Better Bomber, Better DP assist, Safe DHC with mixup after [1 bar more on Annie], 1 bar super that allows you to continue a combo after DHC, Same weakness of good low throw with reactable overhead to consider building around) makes Double feel superfluous to put on a team.
(Anecdotal evidence but at CEO 2021 6/8 of the top 8 players had Annie on their team. Turvon and Gelato were the only ones to not have Annie on their team and they are both big fans of Double, Bonanze had an Annie team and a Double team but never played both on the same team. I also cannot think of a single player with a main team consisting of both an Annie and a Double)
The catheads nerf was a nerf from 375 frames to 220 felt like a really good change as it kept the strengths of being a safe DHC while being less annoying to fight against as it reduced the amount of time you spent blocking after the DHC. I'm in favor of buffing Double but I cant help but feel catheads was trivial nerf and one that (IMO) changed the game for the better. I would much rather focus on reverting L gun and giving bomber back its disjoint before buffing catheads as both of those things are buffs while also feeling more fun to fight against than old catheads(Catheads just isnt interactive to fight against and shortening the duration helps alleviate that issue).
I can't help but saying the catheads nerf is why people dropped her is missing the forest for the trees. Instead I think what we should focus on before catheads is Annie, we have been in a Annie centric meta for over a year now with many players dropping longtime characters for her and many players feeling like they are obligated to play Annie in order to do well competitively. I think focusing on Annie changes has the opportunity to both improve Double's representation as well as diversify the meta
This buff would make Eliza more of a team player. Right now I only see Eliza on point or anchor but I think Eliza mid could be very cool.
Giving her a combo DHC could make her more appealing as an alternative to Annie. Since now people could find two touch set ups using Crimson Scourge DHC.
This change would also play nicely into Eliza's life mechanic. A big drawback off Eliza's Sekhmet assists is that they take away life when you use them. Crimson Scourge could let Eliza come in while restoring some of her lost HP.
Eliza does not need this in my opinion. The problems with Eliza's stregnth lies elsewhere.
So i think Eliza needs other changes to help her.
This following below is what i think Eliza needs help on. And i would like to say that this is all just my opinion.
jHP:
Eliza's problems stem from jHP's back hurtbox extending where it loses to mashing even if you cross your opponent up and their inputs reverse. Eliza loses that interaction a lot more than people think. She is essentially punished for being right cause she used her button in the one applicable situation it should be used in as jHP is not a neutral button she can just "throw out". She already has the weakness of hurtbox before hitbox. But it being this gigantic and relatively lingering unless airdash canceled.
cLK:
Another button is cLK. This button is pretty good but the hurtbox extension for range given is not that fair in my opinion. This button loses. To L danger at certain timings. It just feels like the extension of Eliza's hurtbox is a bit too much, so much so that it makes me feel hesitant to use Eliza's tools that are given to her due to the massive amount of risk she can put herself in to use the options given to her.
Here is an example. (yes L danger for some reason wins here. All due to hurtbox punishing Eliza and thats without the cats head hurtbox even being hit. So cLK loses without the tallets part of it even being in range for L danger. And there are more moves that hit Eliza's cLK)
Next up is Throne and Weight of Anubis. These two moves have very niche usecases. So much so that Throne's applicable usecase can essentially forced into (usually) Specific combos. Or Fullscreen. The problem with Throne being used anywhere else is, its long startup, Travel Time, Easy avoidability, and risk of being punished. Using it at midrange your opponent, while they can just do any dashjump and counter hit. Melee is out of the question entirely as the opponent just hitting Eliza and having throne approaching them can result in any disjointed move they have destroy throne as well as giving a counter hit.
Which results in this moves most usable position being fullscreen. The problem with that is. No character in the game besides zoners or characters wanting a resource like Beowulf taunting for example. Would ever get hit as its easily jumpable. Which means in most cases, robo fortune, peacock (and maybe dahlia who knows) would be hit by throne. But the issue is. Robo fortune regurarily jumps it too with TK beam. And peacock on the regular can destroy it with just sHP zoning pattern loop. It has no projectile destruction property. Is too fast for Eliza to follow (for examplewise H crescent with annie). And it hits assists and lenny as well.
Ontop of all that. It gives blue knockdown state which allows the opponent to tech right back up, in which case for example, if you get a confirm with this move vs a zoner, in this case peacock, if you by some means manage to land throne, you have to block all the bombs or you just get hit by peacocks assist. And by the time you recover peacock would tech right back up, and continue zoning. You do not get a reward for hitting this move despite its numerous drawbacks. It needs a full rework in my opinion.
Weight of Anubis: (The command grab)
This move is in a similar position but slightly more usable position as throne, but not by a lot. Scales to 0.55 and does no damage, slow and easily avoided. The reward of this is essentially to try and mix your opponent again, since the scaling makes Eliza feel inclined to reset as soon as possible both to save dizzy and increase damage output. As it does no damage, and reseting multiple times just gives your opponents more opportunities to block / counter. It feels really bad that the reward in majority of cases is to get a tiny amount of damage with the possibility of getting a reset.
Her DP (L Khat Specifically):
L Khat will be the topic here, M khat and H khat can stay the same. But having a relatively small melee DP which loses to fuzzy, IAD crossups and grabs. Your opponent must essentially try to low reset you for L khat to win, or they will fuzzy you / grab. Since Eliza both in corner and midscreen loses these situations for trying to DP and thats if the opponent doesnt even try to block. It feels horrible. Eliza is already a tall character, which extends hurtboxes before hitboxes on most moves. But in my opinion having L Khat lose that much while being a stationary small hixbox is a bit too much. Having it gain Grab invuln as well would help a bit as its already a quite easily avoided DP with numerous flaws.
2HK: (not asking for 2HK buff just explaining what 2HK's weakness is, and that it could help if Throne and Weight of Anubis were to be buffed)
A lot of people keep saying "armor through zoning." And while thats true seeing as 2HK has projectile armor. It still has rough usage vs zoners. Reason being. Strike assists cancel 2HK and puts Eliza back at fullscreen. Such as H LNL, Brass, even H bomber etc. I also hear a lot about 2HK into kara Weight of Anubis or Throne. Both have too long of a startup to reasonably catch a them and even then their assist can hit you out of it. So its too risky to even attempt. And if the argument is "just do 2HK better", when the zoner has all the say in when they call their assist to counter and considering 2HK's travel time they have more than enough time to react. Making 2HK this button that gets Eliza in. Quite awkward. And forces Eliza to soak damage for even attempting to gain distance.
I also hear about "Just H khat the peacock when you are in range". From fullscreen this does not work because of how long of a travel time Eliza has. And a very risky thing to do. Any peacock can interrupt their zoning, call assist if they want to and hold M item and wait for Eliza to be punishable due to how long Eliza has to travel (where they can call assist to counter at any time). And since H khat is extremely minus. That is not hard. And even if you hit Peacock in her zoning pattern with H khat, H george blocks Eliza from follow ups unless she has an assist like Brass where band tanks the hit for her.
2HK's weakness to assists like LNL and Brass would not be a problem if Throne or Weight of Anubis were better vs zoners, but 2HK being the only reasonable distance closing move being this easily stoppable. Makes approaching zoners just that more difficult. Again,I am not asking for 2HK buffs. I'm trying to give an example as to why making Throne and Weight of Anubis better to help, in my opinon the issue of having 2HK as the only reasonable zoner distance closing move.
So Eliza has these presumably "anti zoner" tools (due to them not being applicable much elsewhere) that lose to zoners. Either due to assists covering them so that 2HK loses with Strike assists like H bomber (which is very common), or moves like Throne and Weight of Anubis being too unconvential for practical use against them. Her airdash is bad vs them and she is too tall to squeze through the gaps.
My apologies for any grammar error. If anyone disagrees feel free to say why. This is just my personal opinion!
Random but I feel like we need to stop pretending that cat heads dhc getting nerfed wasn't the reason everyone started dropping double.
I feel like the only people who think that don't play Double very much at all.
If we're gonna talk about reverting her nerfs to be more in line with 2016 levels of power, I feel like the only nerfs that should unconditionally stay are the airthrow no longer hitting assists and current catheads dhc duration.
As cathartic as it would be, I don't want Annie to receive the same treatment that Double got in regards to the nerfs.
Among all the changes I think can be suggested for Umbrella, one major QOL buff would be a change to her Contact Lens input. It being a DP input with overlap along the little hitstop/non reversal Reflector has caused NUMEROUS instances in which players get the wrong version of the super. Players mashing the shotgun reversal get the reflector and as a result get immediately stuffed. People trying to send out a reflector in neutral after pressing forward only end up getting Lens. Even if "Just Half CIrcle" were a solution it still doesn't solve the fact that getting your only reliable reversal (me when throwable uncancellable -70+ flash kick) is a toss up on whether the game wanted to give you your input in correct priority.
Other DP super inputs don't have this overlap, but I'd rather Lens become a quarter circle with different buttons than Retina.
Eliza does not need this in my opinion. The problems with Eliza's stregnth lies elsewhere.
So i think Eliza needs other changes to help her.
This following below is what i think Eliza needs help on. And i would like to say that this is all just my opinion.
jHP:
Eliza's problems stem from jHP's back hurtbox extending where it loses to mashing even if you cross your opponent up and their inputs reverse. Eliza loses that interaction a lot more than people think. She is essentially punished for being right cause she used her button in the one applicable situation it should be used in as jHP is not a neutral button she can just "throw out". She already has the weakness of hurtbox before hitbox. But it being this gigantic and relatively lingering unless airdash canceled. View attachment 16431
cLK:
Another button is cLK. This button is pretty good but the hurtbox extension for range given is not that fair in my opinion. This button loses. To L danger at certain timings. It just feels like the extension of Eliza's hurtbox is a bit too much, so much so that it makes me feel hesitant to use Eliza's tools that are given to her due to the massive amount of risk she can put herself in to use the options given to her. View attachment 16432
Here is an example. (yes L danger for some reason wins here. All due to hurtbox punishing Eliza and thats without the cats head hurtbox even being hit. So cLK loses without the tallets part of it even being in range for L danger. And there are more moves that hit Eliza's cLK)
Next up is Throne and Weight of Anubis. These two moves have very niche usecases. So much so that Throne's applicable usecase can essentially forced into (usually) Specific combos. Or Fullscreen. The problem with Throne being used anywhere else is, its long startup, Travel Time, Easy avoidability, and risk of being punished. Using it at midrange your opponent, while they can just do any dashjump and counter hit. Melee is out of the question entirely as the opponent just hitting Eliza and having throne approaching them can result in any disjointed move they have destroy throne as well as giving a counter hit.
Which results in this moves most usable position being fullscreen. The problem with that is. No character in the game besides zoners or characters wanting a resource like Beowulf taunting for example. Would ever get hit as its easily jumpable. Which means in most cases, robo fortune, peacock (and maybe dahlia who knows) would be hit by throne. But the issue is. Robo fortune regurarily jumps it too with TK beam. And peacock on the regular can destroy it with just sHP zoning pattern loop. It has no projectile destruction property. Is too fast for Eliza to follow (for examplewise H crescent with annie). And it hits assists and lenny as well.
Ontop of all that. It gives blue knockdown state which allows the opponent to tech right back up, in which case for example, if you get a confirm with this move vs a zoner, in this case peacock, if you by some means manage to land throne, you have to block all the bombs or you just get hit by peacocks assist. And by the time you recover peacock would tech right back up, and continue zoning. You do not get a reward for hitting this move despite its numerous drawbacks. It needs a full rework in my opinion.
Weight of Anubis: (The command grab)
This move is in a similar position but slightly more usable position as throne, but not by a lot. Scales to 0.55 and does no damage, slow and easily avoided. The reward of this is essentially to try and mix your opponent again, since the scaling makes Eliza feel inclined to reset as soon as possible both to save dizzy and increase damage output. As it does no damage, and reseting multiple times just gives your opponents more opportunities to block / counter. It feels really bad that the reward in majority of cases is to get a tiny amount of damage with the possibility of getting a reset.
Her DP (L Khat Specifically):
L Khat will be the topic here, M khat and H khat can stay the same. But having a relatively small melee DP which loses to fuzzy, IAD crossups and grabs. Your opponent must essentially try to low reset you for L khat to win, or they will fuzzy you / grab. Since Eliza both in corner and midscreen loses these situations for trying to DP and thats if the opponent doesnt even try to block. It feels horrible. Eliza is already a tall character, which extends hurtboxes before hitboxes on most moves. But in my opinion having L Khat lose that much while being a stationary small hixbox is a bit too much. Having it gain Grab invuln as well would help a bit as its already a quite easily avoided DP with numerous flaws.
2HK: (not asking for 2HK buff just explaining what 2HK's weakness is, and that it could help if Throne and Weight of Anubis were to be buffed)
A lot of people keep saying "armor through zoning." And while thats true seeing as 2HK has projectile armor. It still has rough usage vs zoners. Reason being. Strike assists cancel 2HK and puts Eliza back at fullscreen. Such as H LNL, Brass, even H bomber etc. I also hear a lot about 2HK into kara Weight of Anubis or Throne. Both have too long of a startup to reasonably catch a them and even then their assist can hit you out of it. So its too risky to even attempt. And if the argument is "just do 2HK better", when the zoner has all the say in when they call their assist to counter and considering 2HK's travel time they have more than enough time to react. Making 2HK this button that gets Eliza in. Quite awkward. And forces Eliza to soak damage for even attempting to gain distance.
I also hear about "Just H khat the peacock when you are in range". From fullscreen this does not work because of how long of a travel time Eliza has. And a very risky thing to do. Any peacock can interrupt their zoning, call assist if they want to and hold M item and wait for Eliza to be punishable due to how long Eliza has to travel (where they can call assist to counter at any time). And since H khat is extremely minus. That is not hard. And even if you hit Peacock in her zoning pattern with H khat, H george blocks Eliza from follow ups unless she has an assist like Brass where band tanks the hit for her.
2HK's weakness to assists like LNL and Brass would not be a problem if Throne or Weight of Anubis were better vs zoners, but 2HK being the only reasonable distance closing move being this easily stoppable. Makes approaching zoners just that more difficult. Again,I am not asking for 2HK buffs. I'm trying to give an example as to why making Throne and Weight of Anubis better to help, in my opinon the issue of having 2HK as the only reasonable zoner distance closing move.
So Eliza has these presumably "anti zoner" tools (due to them not being applicable much elsewhere) that lose to zoners. Either due to assists covering them so that 2HK loses with Strike assists like H bomber (which is very common), or moves like Throne and Weight of Anubis being too unconvential for practical use against them. Her airdash is bad vs them and she is too tall to squeze through the gaps.
My apologies for any grammar error. If anyone disagrees feel free to say why. This is just my personal opinion!
Eliza can tag-in, combo & super after.
bite DHC allows super first, then combo after.
Not to mention allow her as mid to DHC into an anchor without missing significant damage on LoS.
It's pretty straightforward & Kiss-Shot makes a good point, though it's been mentioned plenty in the dedicated Eliza thread.
It'd be different if originally there was no way to continue from the last character but she already can; you're allowing people to for once to switch it up & keep her from being almost exclusively relegated to anchor. She's already rare enough these days. If bite oki was strong maybe id concede that but it's not a thing -- no one wants to give up their turn after hkd supers. Do you want blue & green or green & blue? Shakes out as the same thing in the end.
Moving on though, pretty much agree in general. She's one of the few characters outside of assists who has blockstring issues cuz frame data. Even most positive special, L spiral is -2 on block. Sekh frame traps used to be more an SDE thing, but after a couple, a decent opponent will just wait their turn & punish w/pbgc sweep, hit-grab super, or anchor return punish. For slower frame data & assist-style specials its odd to me they're not positive when parasol is throwing out dhcs, egrets and tears w/out problems...Especially one being easily jumpable the other 2 hittable (throne especially). would be actually sick going back to those assists again as something semi-dependable over sekh often draining health. If that were the case, you wouldnt really need a better DP because her actual defensive tools work without being a last ditch effort.
You could completely revert catheads next and I guarantee you it would make very little difference in her representation. It was partially reverted fairly recently and it didn't make any difference for double's meta relevance
I promise you if she got her old cat heads back she would be a staple in the current meta. I count cat heads timer with throws. Previous build it was 3, now its 4. It used to be **8**. Everything about this super boosted Double like crazy. Damage output, safety, mix up potential. They were all 10/10. Now its okay. I don't care if she gets it back or not, but players pretending this super didn't make Double the staple she was are either lying or they simply forgot what it used to be like.
I feel like the only people who think that don't play Double very much at all.
If we're gonna talk about reverting her nerfs to be more in line with 2016 levels of power, I feel like the only nerfs that should unconditionally stay are the airthrow no longer hitting assists and current catheads dhc duration.
As cathartic as it would be, I don't want Annie to receive the same treatment that Double got in regards to the nerfs.
I'm surprised any Double player doesn't think this. No shot! She only got 2 nerfs. One of them impacted her placement as support more than the other.
I promise you if she got her old cat heads back she would be a staple in the current meta. I count cat heads timer with throws. Previous build it was 3, now its 4. It used to be **8**
It's currently 4 and it used to be 7 at least from my testing in the skullgirls endless beta. Unless I'm missing some secret tech that allowed for an extra hit it seems to be 7 airgrabs (Which is what the older footage shows people timing catheads with so im assuming thats the throw you are referring to) and they are retreating by the time of the 8th. Secondly I was completely aware of how many hits it used to be I even included the old and new frames it was active for in my post, my disagreement is not born from a place of ignorance or maliciousness.
Everything about this super boosted Double like crazy. Damage output, safety, mix up potential. They were all 10/10
Just to test this I watched Combo Breaker 2019 Top 8 (Last Pre Annie patch CB) again to see when the post catheads mix occurred.
(Reminder we currently have 4 hits of catheads so anything that takes 5-7 hits would not be able to be done post nerf and I also apologize in advance if I missed any as I skipped through the tourney a bit)
5:58 Took 1 hit to mix, 6:31 AC counter no mix, 18:54 kills within 1 hit, doesn't get the hit on incoming, 39:41 Drops after 3 hits, 47:03 Gets the mixup after 3 hits, 52:59 2 hits of catheads before reversal, 1:06:54 3rd hit scores the mixup, 1:13:39 5 Hits to score the mixup, 1:20:29 No mixup scored after catheads,1:26:29 Kills in one hit from catheads and the incoming character was not hit by catheads, 1:39:30 4th hit secures the mixup ( This one is kinda hard to tell since the heads had to travel quite a bit to reach rabble but my mental count says 4 airgrabs), 1:41:50 The combo gets messed up and sonic hits beo after 1 airgrab this does not secure the kill
The conclusion I draw is there was 1 scenario the whole tournament where the extra catheads pre nerf allowed for a mix-up to hit and most of the kills and mixups happen within the 4 airgrab timer we currently have.
As for DMG in this tournament there was no scenario where catheads killed where it wouldn't have today. However in terms of optimal combos catheads did do the most damage out of (About 600 more than car though it was a lot more janky and often didn't fully hit netting less dmg) and if routed for could get catheads as well as getting the last chain in a combo. I however really love the change as it created a greater separation between the DMG DHC and the Safe DHC and I personally would not consider it to be that major of a damage nerf.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by safety so I'll ignore it for this post because both versions of catheads are still the best safe DHC in the game.
Her head breaks so many combos that her headless downside of taking more damage is hardly ever a major downside except if you leave your head fullscreen.
People really only remember when the head breaks combos uh, most of the time with my team hitting the head it is just free damage, and depending on the situation her health bar just melts.
So since we like to talk about Double here, I'll make the comparison, because I have to change combos with my entire team on Double to do less damage. So, having to be aware of the head to either do more or less damage isn't really asking much, is it?
All that said, I do agree it could act differently to not drop combos in some instances, all I'm saying is that it is in fact a downside; even more a downside than an upside.
As for Painwheel, I for one don't really like change even less when characters on the lower tiers end up nerfed cof cof Eliza
I like the idea of making 5LK her fast unarmored button, it only works as a combo fodder and just because it does more damage than 2LK. So having 5LK be 8F (to keep her weakness of not having a7F button) would be cool.
Random but I feel like we need to stop pretending that cat heads dhc getting nerfed wasn't the reason everyone started dropping double.
I misread this message in my previous post initially. So to make up for my lack of reading comprehension, let me add on to my thoughts.
Are we forgetting that the same patch DHC catheads got nerfed, Annie released onto retail? The character which, like Double, is a glue character with linear pressure but, unlike Double, had pre-patch (DHC) Pillar of Creation. That move alone quite possibly changed the meta so much I guarantee you the same people would still drop Double even if she had old dhc catheads. Even when Pillar of Creation got nerfed people started using dhc Meteor Strike which still allowed you to cash out with big damage, just not as much or as often as pre-patch Pillar of Creation. And unlike old dhc catheads, both dhc supers are less team dependent and more consistent in terms of being damaging dhcs.
To be completely honest I dont think the catheads nerf makes double any worse in any truly meaningful capacity. Its still a safe dhc that nets you several mixup attempts just like it always has, it just doesnt last for an obnoxious amount of time anymore. Catheads dhc is still godlike and catheads on point is still as long as always so you still have access to the hour long lockdown super. To say catheads dhc nerf is the big reason most people dropped her and not VANILLA ANNIE existing is absurd
before Combo Breaker, Fortune was the same character but she also hadn't won a major and PME to my understanding was NA's most consistently top performing Fortune player. I think the big shift came from Annie just existing, Fortune gets a lot off of her DP and it's just the new big discovered shell. It's our modern Beo/A-Train discovery, if that makes any sense.
Yea, you hit the nail on the head actually
Before Annie's release, there was much less Fortune representation all around. Even after she released, people were still trying to optimize which characters could abuse Annie's assists and unnerfed Pillar DHC the best. A shell that came out was Robo + H Knuckle, which was an extremely strong shell and got Knuckle nerfed. DP wasn't that explored yet because Knuckle was just so good, and there were other DP assists already that were good, so it wasn't explored extensively yet. Once Knuckle got nerfed, it brought her other assist options out to the frontline.
One of Fortunes hardest areas to control is the space above her, especially with jLK. She's a character that wants opposing characters below her as much as possible, and that's what teambuilding with her on point should primarily be focused on
Enter Annie DP
Yes, it hits really high up and forward a bit, but it also has a lot of invul compared to other DP assists. Great, dealing with the space above Fortune is much easier with this assist, but what else does it do? Corner carry, and really fucking well, something Fortune doesn't really need help with, but appreciates. Happy birthdays do not deter its corner carry potential.
If it was just that, it would be a solid pick to go with Fortune, but there are other characters with high-hitting assists. But Annie completely centralized herself as the #1 option because of her DHCs and high damage post-DHC. Coupled that with Fortune's ability to feed Annie meter, it was a no brainer to pair them up. Even with nerfed Pillar, it was still among the best DHC options to keep happy birthdays going and very likely kill both characters. I can't really do that with Painwheel, I have to choose one character the majority of the time.
The discorvery of Fortune + Annie DP was only delayed because [Character] + H Knuckle was more obvious, and Penpen was one of the first few to explore that to my knowledge.
The only thing Penpen brought to the table that we didn't know was the max undizzy loop damage she could get. (I hadn't seen it before him so my b if this isn't the case)
We knew about the head loops since like... before 2017 really. But it was back then when max undizzy scaling wasn't a thing still so it wasn't really worth optimizing just yet. Once the scaling nerf hit, it wasn't re-explored until Penpen because it was still an early-reset based game anyway and a lot of the players from the land of the rising sun liked doing full undizzy combos still, which I guess made it more obvious that they'd optimize it first as far as I'm aware?
(I know I certainly had 0 interest in headloops because I can still just 2 touch to kill a character, and 1 touch with the right meter start into Hatred Install anyway)
Fortune has needed nerfs since forever ago, and like what was already said earlier, Fortune players have said as much. But nerfing Fortune because of what Annie is doing with her doesn't sit right with me at all.
I'll still be playing the character like I have been since 2013, and I'll just adapt
Before Annie's release, there was much less Fortune representation all around. Even after she released, people were still trying to optimize which characters could abuse Annie's assists and unnerfed Pillar DHC the best. A shell that came out was Robo + H Knuckle, which was an extremely strong shell and got Knuckle nerfed. DP wasn't that explored yet because Knuckle was just so good, and there were other DP assists already that were good, so it wasn't explored extensively yet. Once Knuckle got nerfed, it brought her other assist options out to the frontline.
One of Fortunes hardest areas to control is the space above her, especially with jLK. She's a character that wants opposing characters below her as much as possible, and that's what teambuilding with her on point should primarily be focused on
Enter Annie DP
Yes, it hits really high up and forward a bit, but it also has a lot of invul compared to other DP assists. Great, dealing with the space above Fortune is much easier with this assist, but what else does it do? Corner carry, and really fucking well, something Fortune doesn't really need help with, but appreciates. Happy birthdays do not deter its corner carry potential.
If it was just that, it would be a solid pick to go with Fortune, but there are other characters with high-hitting assists. But Annie completely centralized herself as the #1 option because of her DHCs and high damage post-DHC. Coupled that with Fortune's ability to feed Annie meter, it was a no brainer to pair them up. Even with nerfed Pillar, it was still among the best DHC options to keep happy birthdays going and very likely kill both characters. I can't really do that with Painwheel, I have to choose one character the majority of the time.
The discorvery of Fortune + Annie DP was only delayed because [Character] + H Knuckle was more obvious, and Penpen was one of the first few to explore that to my knowledge.
We knew about the head loops since like... before 2017 really. But it was back then when max undizzy scaling wasn't a thing still so it wasn't really worth optimizing just yet. Once the scaling nerf hit, it wasn't re-explored until Penpen because it was still an early-reset based game anyway and a lot of the players from the land of the rising sun liked doing full undizzy combos still, which I guess made it more obvious that they'd optimize it first as far as I'm aware?
(I know I certainly had 0 interest in headloops because I can still just 2 touch to kill a character, and 1 touch with the right meter start into Hatred Install anyway)
Fortune has needed nerfs since forever ago, and like what was already said earlier, Fortune players have said as much. But nerfing Fortune because of what Annie is doing with her doesn't sit right with me at all.
I'll still be playing the character like I have been since 2013, and I'll just adapt
This reminds me, I have yet to see any of the new "fortune is op" players showing success without Annie.
I think the difference is more who that DP assist is, Annie is just the most solid stable assist character in the game, the only thing that comes close is Big Band but he actually gets instant overheaded by the entire cast and wide enough to get hit that way in much more places than Annie. idk if that makes sense but there's just way more value in annie being that dp assist dhc combo than anyone else. Which is what I think makes the Annie Fortune shell so devastating.
EDIT: With other team comps, when I kill the point character I'm usually okay with whatever the DP assist is but when it's Annie I know she can do practically anything with not too many downsides and she uses meter better than the other DP characters has a better midscreen conversion tool, has a better install combo (with stinger) has a better install in general and stuff like that mount it as more and more hard to deal with than other comps.
Hopefully I'm coming across clearly? I think Fortune might be nerfed anyway but I think Annie's team value is just much higher than anybody else atm.
I think the difference is more who that DP assist is, Annie is just the most solid stable assist character in the game, the only thing that comes close is Big Band but he actually gets instant overheaded by the entire cast and wide enough to get hit that way in much more places than Annie. idk if that makes sense but there's just way more value in annie being that dp assist dhc combo than anyone else. Which is what I think makes the Annie Fortune shell so devastating.
Hopefully I'm coming across clearly? I think Fortune might be nerfed anyway but I think Annie's team value is just much higher than anybody else atm.
i think that its actually just fortune is broken and with a dp assist she becomes even more of a problem and that the average fortune player loves to downplay how strong she is
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