3.4 Patch Notes

A few more thoughts:

  • I’m gonna main Riptor so hard now…what, I already covered the manuals change? Oh, fine.
  • I guess I’ll judge Jago’s ender damage nerfs when I get a chance to take them for a test ride, but it sounds like he’ll be missing out on ~10% of his former damage on average. I think a phrase like “doesn’t struggle at all” trying to open opponents up has to be taken relative to something, and I think Jago does have a harder time opening up a dedicated downbacker than probably most characters in the game. I worry that there’ll be less reason now to do tiger fury ender when fireball ender is already so appealing, but maybe that’s offset by 2-meter cashout ender being worse. I’d also worry that lifegain fireball juggles in instinct are now correct, with damage cashout now being worse, but I don’t know. Still, far better for Jago’s damage to be toned down than for something drastic to happen to the properties of any of his moves. I think I’ll be fine with this.
  • Losing throw invulnerability on shadow wind kick is…weird. Like, it’s hard to really envision what scenario IG is trying to crack down upon with this change. Seems like a downer of a change that doesn’t get anything obvious done, but it’s nothing to get hung up on.
  • I kinda expected more substantial Wulf changes. The flipout thing seems like a bit of a berf. I get the sense from labbing up this character that more damage would help, but maybe I just don’t know how to find his damage, and they did just nerf damage among the top tier.
  • Sadira changes look scary on paper. Jump-canceled flipouts off of juggle combos sounds like a more painful pseudo-recap. I don’t know the character too well, but this seems strong.
  • What’s the range on Kim Wu’s new dragon sweep? So you can cancel into it off any button a la Shago’s axe kick, and it provides a low threat to complement light dragon dance? Geez…light dance hits from midscreen and is safe and dragon-cancellable for advantage, and sweep might not even be realistically punishable. It’s too early to say, but this could be better than Wulf’s jumping slash/hamstring mixup in a bunch of ways. (You have other mixups to worry about against Wulf, mind.) Seems really strong.

lol, one way of taking my mind off Jago nerfs.

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The extra damage is pitiful even after a successful dp (14% total IF you land all 8 hits). Can’t hit right above his head ever.

I concluded he has one of the worst dps’ in the game. Next to tusk’s. I hate it. That and it’s weaker at 10% damage for all 3 hits. Which you might not even get depending on the range or what ever scenario comes up.

These notes are just right.

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Not gonna lie, those Jago nerfs really hurt my spirit.

:broken_heart:

Prepare to be thrown. No more windkicks for jago. :slight_smile:

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…or Jago can jump, and not waste meter on throw evasion that’ll get stuffed by a meaty.

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Nothing particularly great for me here. Basically, my matchups got worse or slightly closer to even, check.

Lots of people did shadow windkick on wakeup. Tons at every level.

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That doesn’t really mean anything.

I think it may be because characters with ranged command grabs that out range throws would sometimes be hit at a range where the Jago knows a DP won’t hit, but knows a windkick attempt may be a good read so they do that. It seems to be a way of discouraging tactics like random wake up EX Windkick against grappler pressure. Especially with Instinct Wake up ex Windkick while not the “best” option against suspected grapple attempts was very strong.

Did I hear on the stream that this is going live tonight some time?

Means more throws for moi o wakeup without getting shadow windkicked to the face.

its live now

Just finished reading through everything on my phone while sitting in a Wendy’s after class. Here’s what I liked:

  • Thunder berf to light Sammamish.
  • Aganos buff to marching stomp.
  • Cinder pyrobomb buff.
  • Kim Wu firecrackers buffs (her interchange made me gasp aloud and Gainesville a few stares).
  • Gargos minion berf on combo knockdown.
  • Raam kryll charge buffs.
  • All of Eyedol’s changes.

Ah, I haven’t gotten any updates yet.

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? :frowning:

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Nash doesn’t have a low hitting scythe in SF5.

Maybe a better comparison is a low rush punch, that’s a pretty classic “stop walking away” move.

This actually puts his changes into a better perspective than I was imagining. Thanks for that.

Time to work harder in critical choices during the match.

Yes, my point was “if Nash’s medium scythe hit low, it would be like this”.

Yeah, that might be a bit better. Rush punches tend to have maaaaassive range though, medium scythe is kind of a “play footsies with me” range and only that. If you have fast walk speed, you’ll be able to walk out of range of dragon sweep, which is an important distinction.

I dunno the exact range or pushback on block of the new move yet, though, so it’s hard to get too specific with it.