The Unofficial Official Beta Discussion Thread

[tso]

Sounds like you're talking about ex vatista orbs

 

[Ikkisoad]

I really like most of the changes in this patch, I like the idea of Peacock keeping her gameplan around George but was expecting Lenny to be a lvl 2 because she will still explode assists.

Spoiler: Double and Bella

I do not get the buffs on Double and Bella, two strong characters, bomber already takes you from orbit and pushes you to the ground and not to mention it is a dp assist. And Bella is in a good place, she will explode you if she touches you but can be lamed out but if she does get in she will open you up. I'm all in for elbow being more consistent to convert off of but I'm not sure she needs to keep otg, MGR already uses otg which would be the prefered way to open someone holding down back.

Spoiler: Valentine

I couldn't dream of better Valentine changes, once SGCS is done for me I might pick her back up. I really like that lag vial is being shot cause to me Val/Excelle is one of the most boring shells in the game, along Beo/Train.

Spoiler: Fukua

I still wanted to see Fukua having to use HP (but as red health only) but getting her % of HP restored from Taunt/cmnd grab/ lvl 3 buffed. Her just setting a clone up (L Clone also breaks armor from assists btw which seems so random to me), then playing neutral, with a fireball that doesn't disappear on hit without a single downside is not fun.

Spoiler: Filia

Filia changes are nice, it just makes me question if she will ever have to confirm with gregor instead of always going into sHP (sorry did not test that), cause I as a somewhat new FIlia player still never realise that I should have gonne for a ground confirm instead of going into launcher and that offsets me compared to the good players who can notice that.

Spoiler: Miss Fortune

I dislike the Miss Fortune changes, everyone knew she was getting nerfed but I expected headless to be the way to play Fortune (considering most players avoid headless at all costs and it is kind of the Mf mechanic) but as of now you really will not want to play headless which makes me very sad. Don't get me wrong headless is a pain to play against but seeing someone that plays Fortune just to high/low you and build meter instead of playing headless is not cool.

Also currently Headless is unable to hit with jLK in certain situations, so I'd consider reverting the hitbox nerfs and giving her jLK the same treatment FIlia's does, with an extended collision box.

And I'd ask to rethink and try to go for Headless being way stronger than Headon, so you are trading off defense for a better neutral/offense.

Spoiler: Big Band

I like the parry nerfs, and even with the nerfs the numbers are still really high, getting 10+ frames to get a move that has 0 start up and no recovery and puts everyone in hitstop is really strong, I could still see the frame windows lowered and maybe making low parry have a bigger window so high parry wouldn't be as strong as it is, and if they are going for low parry they are already taking a bigger risk (don't forget that high parry parries low hitting assists).

Spoiler: Eliza

Why is Eliza getting nerfs every patch while stronger characters get buff simutaniously? Eliza is a very strong point and ofc at any time she might get super armor to beat you up, but those nerfs don't feel necessary.

 

[Ikkisoad]

Making her a team player with an incredibly strong assist I think makes sense with her toolkit.

It does because she already does that. She has good assists, BFF is a godly DHC and she can set up multiple tag routes.

She also has a DP (which imo she doesn't deserve it) which is on the best version of drill so its other versions are basically obsolete.

 

[Taterade]

Why is Weight of Anubis still a 37 frame command grab with 0 damage and 55% scaling for the combo from it?

 

[Aristal]

I will give my thoughts on the Eliza changes

I think it has already been mentioned hundred of times but i still find it super weird that a character that has never been considered anything more than a mid-tier getting nerfs everytime she gets buffs, but with that said:

I really like the possibility of using NekBite from Eliza ''normal stance'', its weird that is gated behind a taunt but i overall liked this change.

The part about not being able to Bite a body to get some extra life anymore is really weird to me, you would mostly only do that if you had only Eliza left and are trying to go for the comeback and even then sometimes it would be better to just save the meter for damage, so i dont know why removed such a niche option from her when it was cool to see some extra utility on her kit.

The nerfs on playing ''neutral'' with Sek is whatever for me honestly, i always thought that the playstyle was ass, people really like to complain a lot about it tho so if that needs to get nerfed for her to get some buffs i dont really mind it.

Not being able to backdash on assist hit+point block is a good change, it always felt kinda rule breaking that she was able to do that considering H DP doesnt work like that.

And the part that bothered me the most was the damage nerfs, if you are comboing with Sek you are already not getting any meter and if you want good damage you will probably end up negative on life by the end of the combo, so a damage nerf on that is SUPER weird to me, and it was also a pretty heavy damage nerf, her jLK starter on the corner wich is her common OH startup lost around 800 damage.

Overall i liked the changes, but please dont let the damage nerfs go to retail.

 

[dekillsage]

Let's not give H-Drill assist invul lol

 

[Liam]

I sense a lot of hesitancy to buff Fukua or make her anything other than what she is now, but I don't think she's particularly amazing at the moment. Characters that get up in your face, hit you with a strong pre-hit mix up, then two touch you are more scary than Fukua to me at least, even though her layered resets and pressure are very powerful.

I don't think I'm on board with Drill Invuln, but I thought the old normal throw change (going to a HKD) and things like it aren't that crazy. Slightly better forced scaling on Shadow resets would probably give her a tiny nudge in damage to require less touches, but she should also not be killing you as fast as other characters.

I'm thinking of restoring health drain (at a lower amount), but refunding the health spent on holding a shadow if she it hits a character.

---

I'm working on Umbrella changes, and there are a lot of things I want to do. May be a little bit before the next update, perhaps next week. Thanks for your patience.

 

[Liam]

Actually, few things about Umbrella:

- I'm going to try some pretty big rework style changes, I expect her gameplan to be different.
- I'd like to see more ebb and flow between all of the available states, rather than camping the razors edge of Ravenous the whole match.
- Will probably see changes to make her feel more consistent in all states and a bit more "Skullgirlsy feeling" (looking at giving her a good overhead for example), but removing and nerfing her more frustrating things to deal with.
- Ravenous will probably feel a bit different. It may be "worse", as rising JMP is definitely going, and I want to test her being unable to use bubbles in this state, but Ravenous might be even better than before at just rushing you down aggressively as its primary focus.
- Satiated and Overstuffed will hopefully feel better and easier to play.

 

[Stuff]

I do have a few things to say about the nerfs and the buffs and it's mostly the philosophy behind them as even though I don't think the nerfs or buff put the characters in tough positions or too strong (though imo val with function is pretty broken but this isn't here nor there)

Here's one where I like the philosophy behind it:

If Peacock is hit with a physical attack (non projectile), all active George bombs will begin to blink and count down to an automatic explosion.

While not my ideal nerf on this character (personally I'm just concerned with being able to HIT this character and not die for it) it's something that still helps so I'll take it, personally I'd have H george leave in 15f but that's just me either way I like when things get changed to allow an existing punish to work better.

Tympany Drive

This I'm also a fan of as there was an existing punish just a very small window for it and not everyone could take advantage of, I do think that maybe it's too many nerfs at once but overall I like that I can hit Big Band.

What I'm not a fan of:

Magnetic Trap is no longer unblockable while rising when done as a DHC

I think this is more Annie's fault than anything, and it never seemed to be a problem until she came out, this has existed for years and for my team comp specifically, I felt it was fair because it was not a safe dhc anyway. Now, I do want to say that I don't think it's gonna be worse without it but I was a big fan of being able to get out of pressure on reaction, I've never had an OS with it and it was never safe on block for me. Personally I think it hurts the wrong character but yeah. (Likewise I think Annie has thrown a wrench in a lot of other character's balancing)

Fiber Upper

I still feel strongly that this is the wrong approach to nerfing fiber, it's nerfed yes but I'm not really a fan of creating new option when it's the current options to beat it that suck. I don't like the added wait for fiber jump, I think it's really silly and feels gross. I also don't like making the answer to beating Fiber outright as a throw, I think when you do that, you leave open a new form of rps because now Fortune can opt to jHP on wake up and make you eat 9k on a bad call or mash super which I mean I don't think the battery character will worry about meter.

I really do wish you'd all try just making fiber more minus on block and maybe even make the fiber jump animation a little bigger because she's very thin during that animation and personally I think that's where the real struggle is.

BANG! (M)

I feel similar to this one but I think this one is even way more nerfed, as much as I like m bang being -26 I think it should get a little grace from the furthest poke the vacuum is kind of insane to me but I do like that lenny to m bang is really punishable so I'm a little torn but like I said previously, I don't really like new answers but I take at least the extra minus on block as improving the current answer but the rest I'm not sure how to feel as I've never really felt this was my biggest issue with the character. Personally I think the bombs and items and jHK are the real war criminals but I'm just one guy and I felt like leaving my opinion.

Head

I know why most of these got nerfed but I just can't agree with all the added cooldown, headless feels so pointless now the only changes I liked were the decap attack one because the corner combo was insane and I don't think _anybody_ really wants to keep it and I like that more characters can hit the head more easily. But overall I find it kind of over nerfed as there's negative incentive to try to go for puppet level strats and personally I've never had an issue with the head and outside of the corner combo I've always felt head-on is way harder to deal with but again I'm just one guy with an opinion.

Overall I think some things are receiving too many nerfs in one go and I don't want to have to pick and choose between them. In the buffs category I do have some concerns too but because I don't play any of those characters and haven't had that much time to play against them I don't have much of an opinion (yet) but I am very afraid of the buffs some already strong characters are getting. I also think that lately there's a lot of rhetoric when it comes to balance of discussion and sometimes it really feels like flavor of the day.

Also due to my playstyle I couldn't tell you whether super gold burst is cool or not but I'm a fan of making SG more interactive and a two player game so I'm just gonna say it's cool.

EDIT: Sorry I forgot to mention that I think Fortune is supposed to be evasive and hard to hit so I'm a bit sad to see those parts go even though it's not all of it, I think her more egregious areas are the damage mostly.

 

[FuLLBLeeD]

Why is Weight of Anubis still a 37 frame command grab with 0 damage and 55% scaling for the combo from it?

It's a tracking command grab that can hit anywhere and get you a conversion, which is a pretty big deal regardless of the scaling. Considering how strong the rest of her kit is (and now with the throne buffs) I don't think this move needs to be better. Even though she doesn't get any damage off it she's just going to go straight into a strong setplay game that's super in her favor. MAYBE slightly better start up but that's about it. This character is juiced up enough without giving her buffs she doesn't need.

I think it has already been mentioned hundred of times but i still find it super weird that a character that has never been considered anything more than a mid-tier getting nerfs everytime she gets buffs, but with that said:

I really do not think Eliza is mid tier. Even the most adamant Eliza downplayers have kind of given up on that narrative at this point. While I think the sehkmet nerfs were too much and they should get reverted (Liam already said some would be), I'm really not understanding where the idea of Eliza not being strong is coming from. The evidence that she is very strong and adds a lot to a team continues to pile up. Eliza has a ton of unique stuff no other character in the game has, the best example of which is her ability to reverse timer scam with health steal, making her arguably one of the best anchors in the game.

Speaking on Eliza, I DO think the Sehkmet jump nerfs in neutral are still unnecessary. CH damage to Sehkmet improves the existing counterplay, which was already pretty good. Eliza is spending health to run around like a little rat and call assists, it's not really a risk free action for her.

Actually, few things about Umbrella:

- I'm going to try some pretty big rework style changes, I expect her gameplan to be different.
- I'd like to see more ebb and flow between all of the available states, rather than camping the razors edge of Ravenous the whole match.
- Will probably see changes to make her feel more consistent in all states and a bit more "Skullgirlsy feeling" (looking at giving her a good overhead for example), but removing and nerfing her more frustrating things to deal with.
- Ravenous will probably feel a bit different. It may be "worse", as rising JMP is definitely going, and I want to test her being unable to use bubbles in this state, but Ravenous might be even better than before at just rushing you down aggressively as its primary focus.
- Satiated and Overstuffed will hopefully feel better and easier to play.

These all sound great! I'd like to pose a question to the class though; how do we feel about Umbrella 6hp assist? It feels maybe a TAD good but I'm on the fence. It really does feel like this assist is doing too much for the range it covers sometimes. In addition to just being a giant "fuck off" neutral tool, it's 4 overheads, it staggers, it juggles when it hits you airborne...that's kind of a lot for one assist to do.

 

[nope.avi]

(Holding off on giving my opinion for other characters since I still want more time and to see more results under beta)

Actually, few things about Umbrella:

- I'm going to try some pretty big rework style changes, I expect her gameplan to be different.
- I'd like to see more ebb and flow between all of the available states, rather than camping the razors edge of Ravenous the whole match.
- Will probably see changes to make her feel more consistent in all states and a bit more "Skullgirlsy feeling" (looking at giving her a good overhead for example), but removing and nerfing her more frustrating things to deal with.
- Ravenous will probably feel a bit different. It may be "worse", as rising JMP is definitely going, and I want to test her being unable to use bubbles in this state, but Ravenous might be even better than before at just rushing you down aggressively as its primary focus.
- Satiated and Overstuffed will hopefully feel better and easier to play.

I'm very excited for this. I was complaining since alpha/beta and the "Ravenous Update" that singlehandedly killed Umbrella's reputation for more than a year that the whole "ravenous or bust" design was not good. I feel that even though Umbrella's current strength is probably fine, and that rising jMP and sniper 2MP make sense objectively when the whole idea of managing ravenous is to have god buttons, the feeling of going against it and having to wrangle Umbrella through various forms of non-interaction just makes her incredibly frustrating. Her worst matchups are notably those that don't interact with what she does AND can pressure her effectively while doing so. I'd also hope this means ravenous only conversions are also being spread across the modes, since that's also a notable part of it.

I think consistency across states it great also since it means a lot more diversity in playstyles, rather than after everyone learning that it was Rav or bust just learning how to perfectly manage it the whole match and do the same things in the mode. Also could mean where different modes might be better for different matchups as well, and having to dynamically play around modes to accommodate also sounds fun.

In terms of stuff that probably won't be changed in relation to this rework, can we see some of the input overlap/QOL issues that have been there since the beta solved?
Including:
- 25th frame pb SNS being weird (I remember this being a whole issue so probably not as important)
- Inputs of Contact Lens (shotgun) and Retina being separated:
---My recommendation would be: QCF PP Contact Lens, QCF KK Retina, QCB KK UTW, QCB PP lvl 3
- Tongue Twister -> H Retina out of corner acts weird and requires character specific delays
- jHP -> Salt Grinder acts weird and requires character specific delays (a result of the active frame change)
- Retina having weird camera interactions where if you stay fullscreen, all hits land, but moving forward causes them to bounce out

 

[SonicFox]

In the future just for fun, I would like to see Fukua become like a “Meter-Stealing” Character, where getting hit by fireballs now takes a bit of chars meter, or getting hit by command grab etc would steal some meter as well.

I don’t think there’s a single mechanic like that in the game, and if any character where it would visually make sense for to have it, I believe it’d be her.

That’d be MY personal rework of her though. A character to stop Safe dhcs could be interesting. Just fun food for thought.

 

[JuuseBox]

I’m not the biggest fan of adding back health drain to shadows. I understand wanting to limit the effectiveness of a tool that can create safe mixups, but Item drop is a tool most analogous to shadows and pea only gets the damage scaling. Fukua has both health drain and hard scaling on shadow hits.

I recognize that every character doesn’t need to share the same pros & cons, but it does come off a bit silly.

 

[Taterade]

37 Frames that can be dashed out of forward or back so it doesn't even catch regular ground movement, can be interrupt by assist/projectiles, can be jumped out of, uses OTG before you even do a single bit of damage which also robs more damage. Maybe just let the move do 1000 damage for getting hit by a 37F ground grab?

 

[Liam]

- 25th frame pb SNS being weird (I remember this being a whole issue so probably not as important)

I fixed this, and the fix is scary! Will be going out in the next update so people can tell me if it's fixed for real.

Even scarier: I fixed the bug where pushblock inputs are eaten if you pushblock in between two hits before leaving hitstop of the first hit, which happens all the time with projectiles and assists, so that should make pushblock feel extra reliable. That fix is very scary though, so I would loooove if the lab monsters could come out of hiding to tell me if I broke anything :x

- Inputs of Contact Lens (shotgun) and Retina being separated:
---My recommendation would be: QCF PP Contact Lens, QCF KK Retina, QCB KK UTW, QCB PP lvl 3
- Tongue Twister -> H Retina out of corner acts weird and requires character specific delays
- jHP -> Salt Grinder acts weird and requires character specific delays (a result of the active frame change)
- Retina having weird camera interactions where if you stay fullscreen, all hits land, but moving forward causes them to bounce out

All on my list for consideration.

 

[FuLLBLeeD]

In the future just for fun, I would like to see Fukua become like a “Meter-Stealing” Character, where getting hit by fireballs now takes a bit of chars meter, or getting hit by command grab etc would steal some meter as well.

I don’t think there’s a single mechanic like that in the game, and if any character where it would visually make sense for to have it, I believe it’d be her.

That’d be MY personal rework of her though. A character to stop Safe dhcs could be interesting. Just fun food for thought.

I've posted this before but her stealing a little bit of meter upon successful throws/air throws/command grab/m shadow could be pretty neat. I always thought if one character steals meter it kind of makes the most sense it would be Fukua. I think fireballs and L and H Shadows stealing meter would be a bit much though.

37 Frames that can be dashed out of forward or back so it doesn't even catch regular ground movement, can be interrupt by assist/projectiles, can be jumped out of, uses OTG before you even do a single bit of damage which also robs more damage. Maybe just let the move do 1000 damage for getting hit by a 37F ground grab?

It could definitely get faster, wanting it to do more damage and lead to better starters seems like a bit much. A lot of us lived through the busted sewer grab days where it would beat everything clean and give a full conversion (and wallbounce!!) and don't want to return to them. I'm not saying making it faster is going to do that, but this is definitely a special move that falls under the "easily overtuned and busted" category.

 

[Taterade]

It could definitely get faster, wanting it to do more damage and lead to better starters seems like a bit much. A lot of us lived through the busted sewer grab days where it would beat everything clean and give a full conversion (and wallbounce!!) and don't want to return to them. I'm not saying making it faster is going to do that, but this is definitely a special move that falls under the "easily overtuned and busted" category.

This is 2024 not 2014, why can't you just get a reward for the read from over half a second grab, how fast would it have to be to actually justify a read move that only gets a 55% scaled start that consumes OTG? There are plenty of things to do reads with that get more.

 

[JuuseBox]

Why though? If she’s to be stealing meter you’d need to steal a significant amount that stops dhc.

In that case you’d want fireballs to do it so you can build it up over the match. The amount of meter your one time use specials would need to be to steal an actual significant amount of meter would be absurd

Not to mention it already makes sense with dart animation

 

[FuLLBLeeD]

This is 2024 not 2014, why can't you just get a reward for the read from over half a second grab, how fast would it have to be to actually justify a read move that only gets a 55% scaled start that consumes OTG? There are plenty of things to do reads with that get more.

Why do you feel like just going straight into some of the best setplay in the game off the conversion immediately is not enough? That seems pretty good to me. Why does the reward need to be higher than that, given the rest of her kit?

 

[CaioLugon]

Couldn't play the beta as much as I wanted so I definitely need more time with the changes to feel everything out properly but still

Spoiler: Burst/max UD changes

The 'super gold burst' feels terrible. I've always been more oriented towards big combos and I'm perfectly fine needing a few touches to kill a character, but now I feel like I'm always strongly discouraged to finish a combo even to kill a character since the risk/reward is so incredibly skewed towards the defender. I like the idea of nerfing the burst bait/throw loops but this is REALLY heavy handed, any character that couldn't easily layer mix-ups after the burst bait is very unjustly punished by this change.

Spoiler: Bigband

HUGE fan of the tympani nerfs, this super was absolutely insane and it still is. Parry is still waaay too strong defensively with all the options this charater has and the reward he gets off of them.

That being said tho, I don't think parry should take any chip damage. The only scenarios where that really matters (getting past zoning), parry is already in a great spot and could use more encouraging.

And for the love of god nerf band's jab.

Spoiler: Bella

Love all the jHP changes, love the copter dynamo fix. Would still really appreciate some of the other QoL mentioned before in this thread.

Also lmao @elbow let her keep it bro :)

Spoiler: Fortune

The jump frame fix is awesome and Im 100% with Stuff on having other characters normalized the same way.

I'm very much on board with all the nerfs with the exception of the way jLK has become so inconsistent. This is a issue we've had before and I definitely don't want it to come back.

I don't think the nerfs to the head lockout were too harsh at all. Head "neutral" is literally 0 commitment for insane reward and was always incredibly aggravating to deal with if you weren't one of the 2 characters that can deal with the head consistently. I'd give back some of her damage but it's fine if she gets anything close to her retail corner pressure.

Spoiler: Valentine

I'm really scared of where she could be going in the meta currently. Really hoping we can find a way to mitigate the effectiveness of val+setup assist without touching the rest of her kit too much. Orange vial is definitely not the only culprit.

Loved all the QoL changes!

Spoiler: Peacock

She might ACTUALLY drop from the top 1 spot now??? What a time to be alive.

I'd definitely still like to see assist+teleport get touched tho.

Praying for painwheel

 

[Taterade]

Why do you feel like just going straight into some of the best setplay in the game off the conversion immediately is not enough? That seems pretty good to me. Why does the reward need to be higher than that, given the rest of her kit?

Every character in the game has "some of the best setplay in the game" this is Skullgirls, we have mixups, its not unique. When Band reads A train, get gets damage and mix options, when Umby reads with Tongue Twister she gets damage and setplay options, when Filia reads with drill it deals damage and leads to mixups, just give it some damage already.

 

[Affricate]

Sonic, I love ya, but an invincible multi hit lockdown assist is insane. We may as well revert hornet bomber to vanilla

Considering Anti-projectile tools have been shit in SG since it's nerf, that might not be a bad idea

Really just hoping for Painwheel to get added to the game and for Umbrella to not get deleted

 

[SonicFox]

Oh Black Dahlia QOL change

Can you make crLP into cr.LK more consistent if crLP is slightly spaced? Sometimes the crLK just barely misses and then you explode.

 

[JuuseBox]

Could we maybe perhaps address the delay on L Luger whiff?

If you L Luger and it whiffs there's a delay until you can do it again. Even if you wait past the recovery.

 

[Ramora and Ramnus]

Hello, Liam. Hope you're well.

This post will mostly focus on Fortune. I spent my weekend after the patch came out labbing the damage values for Ms. Fortune's changes. Feel free to have a look at the Spreadsheet attached to see if my numbers and your own align.

I don't have much to say about the System/All changes in the patch notes. Seems quite obvious the intentions behind them, and the notes do explain quite well what was to be achieved. Overall I'm fine with the changes. However, I am concerned for the gold burst for combos starting >=240, as my intuition tells me that this mechanic might hurt certain characters more than it helps them.

Robo-Fortune​

Spoiler: H Beam Assist Chnage to Max 4 Hits

In regards to combo extensions with H Beam for Fortune/Painwheel this feels fine. Both characters are still able to extend their combos and/or call at the end of combos with slight adjustments. An example would be: 2LK 2MP 5HP H.Beam+MM.Rekka > Cat Strike uncombos due to the 4 hits, however, the work around for this is simply H.Beam+LL-Rekka > Cat Strike. This also works for H.Beam+LLK-Rekka. Although not the most damaging route into Headless it's something to rotate into if needed.

Spoiler: H Beam Assist Increased Recovery

I like this change. I switch between using Band and Robo occasionally and also fight Robo players frequently (don't we all?). My experience has been that opportunities to punish the assist call are plentiful to the cast, and that some characters are able to leverage their moment a lot better to get the hit, or to threaten as much. It's a consequence for calling her upclose and despite only having played 63 matches this week, it does come up a lot, especially when scrambles are forced.

Ms. Fortune​

I will preface this section by saying I know you've already mentioned you're aware of the j.LK hitbox complaints, I don't have anything new to add to that conversation. Perhaps increase the hurtbox a tad more? Anyway let's start with the biggest point of contention for me - damage.

Spoiler: Damage Tuning

Headless sHK: 1050 → 950
Head on sHP: 1000 → 975
Airborne El Gato: 900/1000/1100 → 800/950/1000
Grounded El Gato (From Cat Scratch / Headless): 1100 → 975
Final Cat Scratch Hit: 950/1100/1250 → 800/900/1000
Decap Attack: 300 → 100

The Spreadsheet attached shows the values I labbed with the changes above. I only have a gripe with the Decap Attack scaling. As it's way too harsh for the corner combos given that the 2LK loops are effectively extinct now thanks to Decap attack pulldown, among the other Headless nerfs she received.

Spoiler: Head-on Spreadsheet

Spoiler: Headless Spreadsheet

The problem with Decap Attack's value being 100 is that Decap already consumes an unscaled slot in a starter chain and typically follows up as a 4th hit in the chain. This is where the big drop-off in the damage comes from, and I think it's not great for the character overall. Avoiding Decap situations to reach optimal damage isn't always easy and negative edging the head has its own pros and cons to consider with all the moving variables at one given time.

My suggestion would be to increased/reverted the Decap Attack values:
1. Decap Attack: 300-200-100-100-100 etc
2. Decap Attack: 200
3. Decap Attack value reverted

It's common place that Headless might have a Decap attack in a starter chain due to her pressure sequences. Whether that be from a 2LK opener or an IAD j.LK j.MP string, it's more than likely the 2nd, 3rd, and/or 4th hit will involve a Decap Attack. Allowing Decap starters to do an extra 200 damage or so really shouldn't really push the kill threshold much at all even with the early resets back into itself or mixing Decap early into negative edge head routes. If anything, it should incentivise Headless more over Head-on. Reaching 8.4K feels like the good metric instead of 7.7K or 8.1K.

It should be fine for Headless to do high damage, even with Decap Attacks if the risk/reward for it is that if the opponent guessed right, she has a higher price to pay depending on how she went on with her routing. The other nerfs Headless received should help players punish her sloppy play more since she cannot force trades so easily as she could before or checkmate setups. Also not accounting for the inconsistencies with Headless combos relating to falling characters whose hitboxes/point of references will shift past moves like Headbutt, Zoom, Nom, etc during combos.

Spoiler: Decap Attack Gravity/Pulldown Change

When Ms. Fortune's head is struck with a light attack and Decap Attack triggers, it will launch the opponent less high, and has 2F less hitpause on contact, compared to M and H normals.

No more 2LK loops that's for sure. I was apprehensive about losing the bounce that Decap attacks would grant me during day 1 of testing, as I preferred them quite a lot. Despite the gravity pulldown from Decap attack removing this bounce effect I only need to make an adjustment to get a similar setup albeit less powerful in terms of damage to UD ratio - or just different routing now to get the same effect as before. Feels okay to keep for now, but the damage changes really does add to the bitter taste somewhat.

In addition to Decap pulling down, midscreen setups using Decap attack on OTG keep the head closer to the opponent in the sandwich position. I'm unsure if the head being closer to the opponent is better than it being slightly spaced out at the moment. I will have to play around with it more to see how I feel about it later down the track.

I don't have a comment on the hitpause yet.

Spoiler: Lockout Time When Head Is Struck 15F-60F

Increased head lockout time when hit by opponent non-projectile attacks from 15F to 60F.

I like this change as a Headless player because a lot of the time I found myself advising people that they needed to hit her head to punish sloppy positioning and decision making points. The issue that arose from this a lot of the time was that some of the cast didn't have much in the way of following up an attack on the head. For some of the cast, their best option was only being able to chain light attacks.

This change allows some characters enough room to dash in after attacking the head without fear of being DP'd by it. Giving more opportunity to deal damage and force Fortune to advance towards, or route into a launcher to jump cancel and send the head flying away from them making Fortune less strong on her approach without assistance. If Fortune wanted her head of cooldown sooner, she will then have to commit to hitting it for a decap attack and that can be an interaction for some to play around with. Pretty good.

Spoiler: Head Hurtbox Increase With Camera Edge / Corner

When Ms. Fortune's head is near the camera edge or corner, the hurtbox will be wider. This only applies when it's idling, on cooldown, or being hit.

This is good for characters like Big Band who despite having an attack that hits both sides, finds the head to be in a deadzone that they cannot hit in the corner. In conjunction with the 60f cooldown when the head is hit, I think more players can better punish sloppy Headless plays that would otherwise have gone uncontested. Very good.

Spoiler: Cat Strike (Head Bowl)

Increased invincibility by 1F to prevent it from trading.
Increased the window for the head to stagger the opponent, fixing issues where the first hit would connect but the second hit wouldn't stagger.
Lowered the hitbox height for the initial strike to make it easier to evade by jumping.
Forces 75% scaling.

I cannot express how good it feels that Cat Strike stagger actually feels consistent now. At times it used to be frustrating trying to use it alongside an assist as a way to extend a combo into Headless mode, but now it feels much cleaner - especially when using it as a reversal option and it wouldn't stagger.

The damage scaling of 75% on Cat Strike feels fair given that the stagger will leave the opponent primed for Headless to begin her gameplan and if in a CH state it can really hurt.

Spoiler: Fiber Upper Changes

All versions are now only strike invincible when the head is on, and fully vulnerable when the head is off.
Added 2F of extra recovery to M Fiber Upper, and 4F of extra recovery to H Fiber Upper.
Adjusted pushback on block.
On whiff only, Ms. Fortune must wait an additional 2F to jump away from M Fiber, and 4F to jump away from H Fiber.

At first I was a bit on the fence about Headless losing the throw invulnerability on her Fibres, but in all honesty the times where it was relevant for Headless were so niche I barely remember when I planned around the properties of the move in the first place! In my opinion, I see the loss of throw invulnerability as a way to further punish sloppy Headless pressure where she is committed to a long blockstring or extension of her pressure. Which allows for characters with command grab supers to PBGC her and/or strengthen the low/throw game plan against her without being combo'd for it. Makes sense and sounds good for the health of the character.

I don't have much to comment on about the extra frames of recovery nor the additional frames added to lockout jumping away after whiffed M+H Fibres, but I'm sure there will be times where it will be relevant. Perhaps time will tell?

Spoiler: Increase of Feline Allergies Lockout Time.

Increased head lockout time on Feline Allergies from 50F to 85F.

This change ruins core combo routes for both Fortune modes. Head-on's Throw into whiffed Fibre > Feral Edge > Sneeze will not allow the Zoom to come out for the follow up. Rendering it impractical to do. Headless loses some legacy routes as certain setups rely on using the Head shortly after using normal to stall for time to extend the combo with Zoom/Nom/etc.

I understand the point of this change as Sneeze is very powerful, but with all the other changes in place I don't believe making Sneeze's cooldown longer really adds much at all other than pushing Headless into being less powerful and potentially leaving Head-on the most dominant and better mode even after damage nerfs.

Spoiler: Cat Scratch Meter Gain

Adjusted Cat Scratch (QCF+P) metergain for whiffing each strike, when the head is on: 2.5%x3 → 1.5%x3.
Adjusted Cat Scratch (QCF+P) metergain per swipe: 5%/5%/5% → 4%/3%/2%.

The meter gain loss is quite noticeable, especially accounting for resets. This should be a death kneel for common 1 meter round start 2 touch TODs, but since the meter loss is between 20-30% there could still be a 1.5 meter 2 touch TOD out there IMO. But this should stop a lot of the most easy and common ones.

My gripe isn't so much the meter gain, but more so that Head-on's damage really didn't get hit at all when compared to Headless, and that if I was to choose between less damage or less meter gain I would choose less damage as Head-on. Which will lead into my piece about the duality of Fortune's modes with the damage tuning changes.

Closing Thoughts​

My closing thoughts, despite some things feeling heavy handed, I like the direction the patch is going. I view it as laying the foundation to build up on. I want to close this post by speaking about my perspective on Ms. Fortune.

How I view the two modes is that Head-on is the low damage, battery character, with godlike pokes, rushdown pressure, great defence options making her slippery, and sticky pressure due to her long normals to find those clean hits to deal damage. Headless is the high damage, insane pressure, neutral control, and great setplay at the cost of needing to rely on universal defence mechanics or meter for reversals and that if she messes up she pays a high cost for it.

Ideally if Head-on gets a clean hit and wants high damage, then I feel like that should come from transitioning routes into Headless combos and/or setplay. I don't believe this character should be offered as a 'play one mode or the other' I believe she needs to rely on all her tools to be an effective character and not having to watch 75% of Fortune players only play Head-on Rekka > Reset > DHC into Annie et al. Even though this can be done in Headless mode she doesn't start the game in Headless and does need to play the opportunity time and cost game, regardless if if she up-backs Cat Spikes or rushdown > hit confirm > route into Headless and forfeits options to be in Headless mode.

If Headless is getting mauled and cannot establish her wincons or the risks are too high, she can the head back on and play more safer and slippery for less damage. I believe there's a perfect balance with this character and her two modes and it might take some more tinkering to reach it. She still has consistency issues with some bnbs even with the correct positioning as timing is inconsistent and varies greatly on weight and character falling point of reference/centre point(?). Regardless, I'll be here to do what I can. I've played this game since 2013, why would I stop now at this point?

Take care.

Amendment Note:
1. Fixed typo on row 6 column G on Spreadsheet showing a negative value. Uploaded fixed spreadsheet.

2. In hindsight, Head-on did lose a lot damage indirectly due to the removal of dj.LK j.HK j.HGato reset point. Which was her highest damage reset by a metric-tonne. In addition, Headless losing corner damage means that Head-on also loses damage as the Headless transition combos are impacted by the Decap Attack scaling changes. Just forgot about it as I was lost in the numbers.

3. Uploaded Head-on Data picture due to fix of typo in note 1.

 

[Ippolit]

I sense a lot of hesitancy to buff Fukua...

Can she at least build meter of whiffed commandgrab? Would feel like a fix for a quite weird exception.
Although I do understand peoples hesitancy towards buffing her, I don't think it's that major for a character that relies on meter for many conversions.
Even if that were that to change, it just seems odd for her not to be able to.

 

[Stuff]

In the future just for fun, I would like to see Fukua become like a “Meter-Stealing” Character, where getting hit by fireballs now takes a bit of chars meter, or getting hit by command grab etc would steal some meter as well.

I don’t think there’s a single mechanic like that in the game, and if any character where it would visually make sense for to have it, I believe it’d be her.

That’d be MY personal rework of her though. A character to stop Safe dhcs could be interesting. Just fun food for thought.

I would main this character instantly, back when Annie was made Pillar of Creation would delete the opponent's meter and I thought that was so awesome. I LOVE ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES SO MUCH! I doubt it would happen but I'd love to see it

 

[Mirin]

My thoughts on Eliza.

OTG throne: At first i thought it will not matter but i was wrong. I really like this change, makes it lot easier to confirm and a kinda niche (for now) but useful combo tool with assist.

Taunt Crimson Scourge: Its kinda the change i wanted, an easier DHC for Eliza, but that its behind a taunt makes it very situational and not really useful for a lot of teams (like mine Eliza/Dahlia/Para). Its change made for point Eliza but even then it requieres a lot of setup for just a DHC, you have to somehow Taunt in neutral, after a hard kockdown (2x5HK) or in incoming and after that you have to make her second character, with raw tag the middle character or wait a whole rotation after DHC out, witch its to much for just a DHC.
I dont think they will make this change but if they make Nekhbet Breaker just bounce like robo maget with install its a way easier change, and will make this super that nobody uses have a purpose.

M osiris spiral: Isnt much but makes this special actually do something and have a purpose.


Sehkmet
Cant do backflip after the point blocks: Good change it was necesary.

Crimson Scourge not working on dead bodies: Shes expending meter to gain a resource to her, life, i dont see it as a problem. Other characters also can build resources with the dead bodies and more important ones like Squigly can hit the body and get the two charges (or just one, im not sure) or robo can hit the body and get two heads.

Damage nerfs and Jump changes: This doesnt add anything for the counterplay only makes sehkmet worst in combos by making confirms harder and less rewarding overall. Sehkmet its a high risk high reward tool and should remain that way, i dont think nerfing the reward its the way but making her more risky (heavier punishes) its absolutely it.


Suggested Counterplay changes.


Make the Combo starter 2 instead of 3. Its the change sugested by Halibel and i really liked it, you get more rewarded for punishing sehkmet.

​

 

[Liam]

Oh Black Dahlia QOL change
Can you make crLP into cr.LK more consistent if crLP is slightly spaced? Sometimes the crLK just barely misses and then you explode.

I can't do anything about that I think, since cLP just has more range than cLK and the hitbox on cLK can't extend that far past its art. The pushback is already very low on cLP.

If you L Luger and it whiffs there's a delay until you can do it again. Even if you wait past the recovery.

There's an intentional 30F cooldown after making contact with a Luger before it can be fired again from when the move was first implemented.

Can she at least build meter of whiffed commandgrab? Would feel like a fix for a quite weird exception.

That's probably an oversight? Should be easy to fix.

Make the Combo starter 2 instead of 3. Its the change sugested by Halibel and i really liked it, you get more rewarded for punishing sehkmet.

FYI, forced combo starter changes are pretty risky and require navigating some pretty old and complex code that I'd prefer to leave alone, so things like this are impossible for now let's say.

Hello, Liam. Hope you're well.

Really appreciate the detailed breakdown and data here. I'm planning on coming back to this next week since I'm focusing on Umbrella, but this will be helpful for early next week when I'm doing some adjustments to Ms. Fortune's damage. I am planning on bumping up headless damage a bit and looking at some of the cooldowns on head actions / hitstuns already, so I think we're mostly on the same page.

---

As a general update, It's a bit difficult for me to build and push another update right now without releasing a bunch of work in progress buggy Umbrella stuff, but I may try and do it anyway and exclude her from updates so we can get another patch before the weekend.

 

[Mirin]

FYI, forced combo starter changes are pretty risky and require navigating some pretty old and complex code that I'd prefer to leave alone, so things like this are impossible for now let's say.

uh i didnt know, well in that case the changes that makes sehkmet take counter hit damage do a similar effect then.

 

[HBonder]

First and foremost I just want to preface that I'm not the worlds most battle hardened Skullgirls player. I only have around 450 hours in the game. My opinions here come from my limited experience witn the game as a solo Eliza player.


Taunt/Crimson Scourge:

I'm going to be completely transparent here and say that locking supers behind taunts is inherently lame. While I understand why it may be useful for giving characters such as Big Band a higher damaging super for commiting 100+ frames to a taunt, with Eliza it feels like you're jumping through hoops to get an otherwise middling outcome. While I understand that the move is balanced by locking a low commitment conversion tool with upside behind her taunt, I feel like it's really only something very specific team structures that can make the most out of it. Eliza is quite limited when it comes to opportunist to get her taunt off on her own in neutral without the help of other characters. At best you're throwing away damage for a hard knockdown with 5HK, or maybe getting it off during incoming. This is definitely a move thats currently balanced around the possible usages as a DHC instead of practical uses on point.

If I may make a suggestion; I don't believe it would be overly unreasonable to have the point version of Crimson Scourge as a level 2 and repurpose her taunt to give conversions off Nekhbet Breaker. This would give a "fix" to her already clunky air super and provide a comprimise for not entering Sekhmet to regenerate a bit of health.


Throne/M Spiral:

The changes to Throne of Isis and M Spiral have been awesome so far. I think giving these moves a much needed purpose was definitely a great step in the right direction. No real complaints about the changes.


Sekhmet:

Sekhmet damage nerfs seem a bit unwarranted to me, although that may just be from a lack of understanding/game knowledge. Going into Sekhmet is pure risk/reward. Removing some of the upside of an already risky state is a step in the wrong direction and it almost makes more sense to buff the counterplay against her. I think maybe increasing the hitstun (like 2f maybe?) when hitting Sekhmet could maybe lead to more options to get her put with sweep or snap.

On the topic of Sekhmet, I think the extra 2 frames of startup for jump is valid, though the 6f landing lag feels very yikes. I can't really think of any comprimise aside from reverting the changes.

 

[Halibel]

Sekhmet:

Sekhmet damage nerfs seem a bit unwarranted to me, although that may just be from a lack of understanding/game knowledge. Going into Sekhmet is pure risk/reward. Removing some of the upside of an already risky state is a step in the wrong direction and it almost makes more sense to buff the counterplay against her. I think maybe increasing the hitstun (like 2f maybe?) when hitting Sekhmet could maybe lead to more options to get her put with sweep or snap.

On the topic of Sekhmet, I think the extra 2 frames of startup for jump is valid, though the 6f landing lag feels very yikes. I can't really think of any comprimise aside from reverting the changes.

The jump frame increase has impacted a majority of sekhmet routing for combos. Liam has already stated that they are working on fixing that since its a major hit to Eliza's combo routing. The landing frames also impact combos but was mostly impacting bite / cartouche conversions coupled with the jump frame lockout.

I personally just want to see how Liam will address the sekhmet changes, because i do think and other Eliza players agree that going into the direction of increasing landing and jumping frames is the wrong direction to do so, and to instead shift that for a larger reward for hitting Eliza out of said mode, not making it really easy to do so, or making piloting sekhmet feel sluggish and bad. I already went into detail on that on my previous post on page 25 if you want to read it there.

 

[Liam]

 

[nope.avi]

looks awesome, i dont know if this is the right input to go for given that charge moves with medium punch (notably 2mp) will no longer work with this input, or just stuff like 5mp 5hp sns. unless theres like an asterisk im not aware of

 

[SonicFox]

OOO

 

[Liam]

or just stuff like 5mp 5hp sns

You do 7MP 4HP x SNS, same input tricks as Parasoul. You have enough time to build charge from 5MP 4HP alone though.

It's that or 6MP, which means you can't do the overhead after charging back for a bit which is nonviable imo.

EDIT: I'll mess around with DF+MP, that's probably the least intrusive input it can be, although there are no DF inputs in Skullgirls and it irks me to add one >:C

 

[JuuseBox]

There's an intentional 30F cooldown after making contact with a Luger before it can be fired again from when the move was first implemented.

No, that's fine. I'm saying whiffing L luger has a longer lock out than other Lugers on contact. I think it might be something like L Luger existing even when off screen preventing you from shooting. If needed I can post a video

 

[Liam]

I'm saying whiffing L luger has a longer lock out than other Lugers on contact.

In my quick testing, it's an extra four frames before it's fully off screen and vanishes. After vanishing, the 30F cooldown works as expected. If you have other data though it's easiest to field that over in #2e-bugs in the Discord if you don't mind!

 

[SonicFox]

make that overhead like 18fs let her just get IN there

 

[tristePinguino]

Re: Meter Stealing

Give this mechanic to Umbrella. It'd be diegetically appropriate. :P