This is the type of thing I would talk about on the stream tonight, if we manage to make it work, but I’ll say a few things now:
Keep in mind that it’s just the ender that lost 10%, which means your total combo damage won’t be decreased by 10%, but probably closer to like… 7% or so (the ender is a big part of it, but not all of it), and I doubt you will notice the difference at all for level 2 or 3 combos. If a Jago combo does 45% damage, then losing 7% of that is like 42%… the number is lower but I don’t think Jago players will feel cheated. He is still the meter king and still builds level 4 very quickly.
The shadow DP cashout damage being lowered makes a bit of sense. I’m not sure I would have picked 27%, but I think it’s clear they wanted to lower one-chance cashouts, which is okay for me. There will still be lots of good uses for them in real matches (ie, if someone is less than 35% damage and you have two meters).
It will probably change his counter breaker combos a bit though! In fact, it might make lockouts much more interesting. Right now there is no reason not to do HP MP LP around the world (+ get instinct) and do shadow DP cashout. It’s the best use of meter AND the highest damage AND the best use of instinct. Maybe now Jago players will have to choose between the instinct gain and 3 or 4% less damage, or do a combo with shadow laser sword and forgo the instinct gain to get the same damage as before.
All it really does is just make a few “weird” situations (like instinct canceling and seeing someone throw you) different. Now instead of just busting out shadow wind kick, you backdash first and then do shadow wind kick. It means you can’t really “guess” with shadow wind kick during pressure and beat lows AND throws, but do people still really do that all that much? I think this change is kind of just a “okay, shadow wind kick is insane, let’s take away the least important one and still let it crush lows and projectiles”.
I think Jago is still very strong in 3.4. He just lost utility on a move that has an easy workaround, and some damage cashouts. He still has huge neutral damage on DP and all his excellent neutral tools are unchanged.
Me too, but it’s weird. If you ask some Wulf players, they will say he is the worst character in the game and needs massive, massive help. I don’t think this is the case; I think his footsies are almost best-in-game and dive kick helps mobility against zoners. Also, some zoners got worse (Gargos, Arbiter, Eyedol) so I think Wulf is just better by proxy.
I think the 10% buff to shadow eclipse helps quite a bit. Now he’ll need 8 touches to kill you instead of 9, and I don’t think Wulf struggles to hit characters. It adds up over games.
I think a lot of Wulf players are upset over the breaker change, which throws him full screen often. This is something I would encourage them to think about in a future patch, but it’s not a Wulf change, it’s more of a system thing. In the meantime, Wulf players should explore the adjusted matchups and the slightly better damage + flipout opportunities.
I think it promotes awesome Sadira creativity (she was always the “look at my cool combos” character from S1, I’m glad she gets to do more of that). I will be interested to see just what people find with it, but I’m also curious if it will help her win more. I think she might need a small damage buff on web and shadow recluse (see Wulf shadow eclipse) as well, but I can totally understand why the devs didn’t want to give her more damage AND more creativity in the same patch. That judgment is a lot easier to be wrong about than doing one and then giving the other later if it’s needed (that is, if the community hasn’t crucified them for not listening by then, sigh).
This reminds me a lot of a low-hitting Nash medium scythe from SFV. It’s a knockdown and used as a footsies tool and not so much a mixup. Kim doesn’t get a combo off dragon sweep, which is very important for her. It’s also an unreactable move at 14f (ie, it really is a Nash scythe). It kind of forces you to block low by default, and react to overhead… totally possible, but the mere act that you now have to block low more often in footsies means Kim’s strengths are much better. She gets to walk closer to you without you walking away now.
I’m hoping this move can be spaced (kind of like Nash scythe) to be “hard to punish-ish” at -5. I think it’s okay that Kim gives up advantage most of the time, or is punished by a jab combo starter the rest of the time.
Don’t you wish they talked about stuff like this on the MS stream?