It’s weird after all this time not seeing Fulgore right at the top
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Despite his constant nerfs, Fulgore has remained one of the best characters in the game, and that hasn’t changed.
I agree pretty much entirely with this list, although I disagree with Infil that any one character “dominating” is better than another. While it’s more obvious when Sabrewulf or Sagat are doing it because the life bars just melt away, I think there’s this misconception that just because something is more difficult makes it less unbalanced. That’s where you get into the Akuma problem - just because a character is “fun” for an incredibly vocal 25% of the fans and requires precise play doesn’t mean that that character should get an exception to the nerf bat. At high levels people ARE that precise, so especially in tournaments we’re confronted by the same endless tick-tick-tick combos that mean one character spends seven out of ten seconds in hitstun. If the character is popular, it takes way longer to get fixed, if it’s fixed at all. If the character is “unpopular”, i.e. Kan Ra or R. Mika, it’s out as soon as they possibly can do it.
That being said, this is still the most balanced fighting game I’ve ever seen and I commend the staff on it. The fact that they finally got Fulgore and Jago means that I think they’re committed to people playing this in ten years and they’ll eventually bring the seven or eight outliers into the fold.
I certainly hope so. As a Sadira main, I do feel that my girl needs a bit more help, considering all that I have to do to get a little bit of damage.
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Eh, no matter what you do, there will always be a “best” character in the game, and I agree pretty strongly that it isn’t great for that character (whoever they may be) to be exceptionally onerous to deal with. Kan-Ra as the best character in the game (or Sadira before him, b/c what made her the best was pretty degenerate) is a bad look for the game. Jago as the best in the game? Pretty ok (because his toolset is easily understood, and requires significant effort/skill to be unlocked). Fulgore, Mira or Aria as best characters? Pretty solid.
High level doesn’t equal perfect play, in any game. A character that is quite good being prone to death via small mistakes is a pretty time-tested way to enforce balance on a potent toolset, and for good reason I think. And I don’t think the most recent recipients of the nerf bat were far enough ahead of the pack that they needed to be normalized. I don’t think Jago was any sort of outlier (I think medium windkick didn’t need to be nerfed, and I like his frame trappy button options), I don’t think Fulgore needed to be hit again (heck, that medium laser change just turns his pip cancel to blade dash into a legit frame trap 
) , and I wouldn’t touch Mira or Aria at this point.
Characters are strong in FG’s. I’d rather the strongest be locked behind a decent skill wall than just let it default to someone with a simple but crazy-effective or annoying toolbox.
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I would hope if there is a future patch (who knows at this point, but probably because of the Steam version?) that they would do relatively few nerfs across the cast and instead just give quality of life buffs to some characters (Shago, Sadira etc). I would actually even put Fulgore in that list - his nerfs over the last few patches haven’t really lowered his status in the tier list, so a few quality of life things for him isn’t going to vault him back to 100% dominating the game either.
I do think Aria and Mira need slight adjustments but I wouldn’t neuter their gameplan at all. Like, I wouldn’t change cooldown on assist for Aria, or her vortex, or any of that stuff. But yeah, maybe this is the final patch of the game (and if it is, then it’s in a perfectly fine spot).
There will always be a “best in the game”, a developer’s only hope is to make it so that answering that question is very hard, playing the best in the game is difficult, or many of the other characters who aren’t the best in the game don’t get run over.
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There’s confirmed to be one more patch. Maybe a 4.0 patch as well though that one I’m unsure of.
Pretty much. The cool thing about KI is that I genuinely think they’ve generally achieved all three of these “mitigating” factors! The tiers in general are very compressed, there’s almost always been good discussions to be had about a “true” best character, and the probable best characters require a solid amount of work/skill to unlock.
About the only changes I’d countenance making to Aria would be a normalization of those medium AD’s and maybe a reduction of her air-to-air capabilities (her jump kick buttons are pretty insane). For Mira, I don’t actually think any nerfs are warranted. You could probably change her meter build a bit so that she doesn’t always have bar for shadow bats, but overall I think the character is strong in interesting and compelling ways.
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I’m inclined to agree. The only thing I’ve ever wanted on aria since s2 is her j.mk to be nerfed so she’s at least forced to block after landing. Very few characters can actually challenge her in the air(only cinder Maya arbiter and omen come to mind on characters who can do it consistently).
Far as Mira I don’t have 0 issues with her. She’s very strong yes. But it’s not really due to anything degenerate. If I lose to Mira it legit feels like I just got outplayed.
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I like the shadow bats idea. And we’ll have to agree to disagree on the skill barrier thing, but you’ve actually played at those high levels so that probably breaks the tie! I just know that the skill barrier will always be broken eventually, and then what? I think the best case scenario was the original Starcraft, where Terran was originally considered the weakest race, but once APMs improved and tech like vulture kiting was mastered they were made fun to watch AND viable. Your Hisako is another good example of that. But if a character is 5/5 with most of the cast BEFORE the skill barrier is broken, they’ll be annoying as hell when it finally goes. Here I’ll always default to how badly I was embarrassed by hosting a party for the original KIWC and everyone losing interest almost immediately due to Rico’s (and to a lesser extent Rebelo’s) Shago. Hardcores may love to watch shoto vs. shoto execution fests on the training stage, but good luck growing the base with that.
Don’t understand you guys @Infilament and @STORM179 saying it’s good for the game that Mira is thaaaaat strong.
What was the last tournament? Defend the north? Bass and Nicky GF, both playing Mira.
That was the worst Final I ever saw for KI. No excitement, no hype.
Mira being strong is good for the game because she is relatively difficult to use and making a mistake with her is costly. She has no strike reversal which means if you catch her, you can kill her (and often she will have blood health on her, which means the situation is tense to watch and play). Her high damage means she can capitalize on opponent mistakes in a hurry. Like all top tier characters, she has one or two very strong moves (bats and box dash HK) that see a lot of use, but that doesn’t automatically mean everything is bad.
You can compare this to other top tiers (both in past versions of KI and other games) where they either put you to sleep with very little chance of getting in or they rush you down with no risk and no realistic hope of you stopping it. I don’t think Mira falls in either category.
If you have to pick a top tier character, I think you can do a lot worse than Mira. That said, I do think if there is a future patch, the devs should adjust her eeeever so slightly without changing her gameplan. Like… maybe change her meter build a bit. They shouldn’t nerf damage or anything about her blood health system or how her air dashes work or anything like that. But if they don’t change her, there is still lots to learn on fighting her (shadow countering on reaction to any non-bats special move, finding the gap between normal xx bats, developing OSes for handling reversal mist, etc).
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It is cute when the Ultimate-level CPU shadow counters her medium and heavy punch normals, since they hit twice.
I think Mira’s defense risk/reward ratio is off. Mira doesn’t have to hold anything if she doesn’t want to. Excellent back dash and especially mist form help her avoiding any situation or mix up.
Of course, other characters have a DP that can even lead to full combos in some situations, but messing up a DP will cost a big amount of life or at least some resources. High risk, high reward.
Mira on the other hand can mist away in any situation and even turn that defensive option into an offensive, making the attacker guess on her wakeup (like Thunder in instinct, only every single time). Low risk, high reward.
That combined with her excellent offense, excellent movement and even great options to pin her opponent down with bats is just too much IMO.
She also has an advantage in the combo and counter breaker game. When she combos you, she doesn’t only deal insane damage, but she ALSO heals herself and has great oki, so you REALLY wanna break her. If you fall for the counter break, you are dead. It messes with the risk/reward system.
Her offense is also great. Bats and shadow bats are hard to avoid and it’s very hard to AA her because of air dash and air mist.
I know all her fancy stuff comes with a price and that’s what’s keeping me from calling her brain dead but I think the price is too low.
If I would have to balance her I would increase the life cost of mist form a lot while also increasing her heal on the bites. That way it’s really gonna hurt if she messes up or you make the read.
Mist does 40 points of blood damage (about 11%), which is basically like getting hit with a DP every time you use it. I don’t consider this “low risk”; for even having the right to attempt an escape, you pay the price of getting hit with a DP up front. And you might still get hit on the way down, especially if someone baits your mist. Yes, she has backdash but I know Jago has OSes to handle both mist and backdash, and I’m sure most other characters do too. She is a slippery character, but she pays for it.
I think you are overstating the reward of DP. Not counting Jago and Glacius, most characters do about 10% with their DPs (and some, like Omen and Cinder, way less). There is no “high reward” for landing a DP in terms of straight damage. Meanwhile, correct DP punishes should start with 18-20% unbreakable damage, almost level 3 ender, and a free 1-in-3 manual if you want to do one chance and just take 30% (and losing the breaker game here is at least 60%).
I think DPs are high risk, medium (or low) reward.
If she heals herself, she can’t do massive damage; she really has to choose between the two. Bite linkers heal blood damage but do 0 damage and increase the scaling of your combo, so it’s actually pretty tough times for her. She can avoid this problem a bit by doing her hard-hitting stuff early, then heal later, but it makes her more predictable, and if you break her hard-hitting stuff then she never gets to heal.
But yes, if you get counter broken you are honestly and truly dead. I like that though. I like the counter breaker system and the mind games it imposes. People should counter break more and be ready to punish counter breakers with more than throw.
They’ve already done this (launch Mira only took 20 points of damage on mist, not 40, and bite linkers got a 150% increase), I don’t think they need to do it again. I also don’t think it would solve any of your issues with the character unless they raised mist to an unhealthy level of blood damage (30% or some nonsense). I mean… mist isn’t good enough for it to hurt more than 11%, I don’t think. It’s anti-airable on reaction if you’re ready for it, and repeated use of mist is what part of what made some top players think Mira was trash tier (even typing that phrase hurts my head).
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Just for giggles, i labbed this a little bit. A Mira combo starting with her cross-up J. HK with heavy AD’s and heavy bite linkers will net her about 1/3 of a life bar regeneration and only 13-14% damage before the ender. And it only gets to LV 3 to boot.
If she went for a Shadow Embrace ender, she’d knock her life gain to about 2/3 of a bar for 23% damage on the opponent.
If she went for a Shadow Reaping ender, the life gain would be still at about 1/3 of a bar for 36% damage on the opponent.
When we’re talking about Mira, if i got hit with only 36% damage, i’d call myself lucky.
My internet situation is iffy right now for streaming video, so I still haven’t watched DTN. That said, I’ve seen high level Mira mirrors before, and I think it’s a decently interesting MU. The character can’t lock herself down, and single mistakes lead to truly wild swings in fortunes. I dunno, I think that’s pretty hype.
As for why Mira is a good top tier, I’ll say that Infil probably covered it all. But for me, I think she’s good because of the way in which she applies pressure. Whatever else you say about Mira, she’s not going to hit you repeatedly with a low damage vortex that incurs literally zero risk on herself ala Fulgore or Aria booster shenanigans. If Mira hits me, I at least have the knowledge that I could mostly see the mixup, even if I couldn’t quite block it. Aria’s booster vortex and Fulgore’s meaty fireball->teleport mixups just aren’t fun, either to watch or to play against (ditto Wulf S2 feral cancels, Sadira S1/2 web mixups, or anything involving Kan-Ra in S2). I don’t think that’s true of Mira on knockdown, and to be honest I think a lot of her current strength is more the result of people being unfamiliar with the MU than the character just being an unstoppable monster. Huge portions of her offense are shadow counterable - we’re just not used to smartly exercising that option yet. And at least a Mira player is likely looking to capitalize on damage at some point, so either they’re going to toss in something reactable at some point, bait a counter breaker, or otherwise do something after I get opened up that actually lets me play the game.
I think mist is actually pretty slippery if Mira just wants to get away, but at the same time, she’s more or less hitting herself with a DP to do it, and I think that creates another Intersting dynamic where both players have to then decide whether or not the Mira is going to play for lifegain at that point or just go for broke and make their decisions accordingly. I love that her reversal forces an actual decision-making point beyond “my pressure is now ended”, and I think that’s good game design. I don’t think she’s anywhere near as crazy as Thunder with a stocked crow’s dash; if she wants to get offensive after mist she’s pretty stuffable with a bit of lab work.
As for the risk of counter breaking, I think it goes both ways (and in both cases is hype and interesting). Because she usually has at least some silver life built up, Mira also tends to die if she gets counter broken. I’m good with that.
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Basically these seem like healthy nerfs if nerfs were to be made in a future patch, and I wouldn’t want them to go much further:
Aria:
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Slight increase to landing recovery on j.mk, not enough to make her easily punishable but enough that if you make her whiff it you have a chance to move in on her
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Normalize MP auto because that move is dumb
Mira:
- Reduce meter gain on light bats
Rash:
- Reexamine damage output on his enders; his wallsplat ender is probably the best ender in the game, doing about as much as a normal damage ender with incredible corner carry
Any other changes I would hope would be minor buffs to a small handful of other characters.
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Just don’t touch Glacius or Kim Wu. Please.
Mist form is not a good wake up. Most characters have a reactionary punish for it. I fought mitonson earlier and punished his mist each time. I use to kill draman since he over used Mist. Mist is not something that is low risk for Mira. That idea needs to go away now. Bass doesn’t mist vs me often and neither does Nicky because they know I’ll blow that ■■■■ up.
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