Since the input for Spinal’s Shadow Skull Summon is Down, Down + LP/MP/HP, what about a new shadow move for Power Devour with a similar input?
Shadow Power Devour
The input would be Back, Back + LP/MP/HP
The move has to be held back in order for it to work properly, but of course it being a shadow move it has a time limit.
With it, you can block anything (except for throws of course) but instead of gaining skulls, what if you can gain a small but great piece of Instinct Meter per attack absorbed?!
But, Shadow Attacks aren’t supposed to gain meter. It also seems counter-intuitive to have a Shadow move - something you spend meter to do - to get more meter. Spinal doesn’t spend a skull to do Power Devour to gain more skulls. That doesn’t make sense. Now, if it’s Instinct we’re talking about, then yeah it could work. Maybe.
Cool idea. Have you played KI2 classic? Spinal had another special in that game that was a close to mid range meter drain attack from his shield. It did a little bit of HP dmg iirc but mostly it drained super meter. Having that move back as a Shadow Power Devour like you suggest but having it drain Instinct would be awesome. Spend Shadow to steal Instinct.
I honestly can’t even play Killer Instinct 2 since it’s not as easy as the current Killer Instinct game (my own opinion) but that’s actually a great point!
Sweet Jebus. While this is all good and cool, no thanks for a character who can already get you opened from several different places. And giving him instinct from a shadow move doesn’t sound very good since everyone would probably get used to that and just throw.
Either way, Spinal can already cause enough chaos.
@Twinerva Sacrilege! There can never be enough Spinal-Chaos, lol. J/k.
But I feel you on trying to replay the classic KIs @TheSkullAddict. If I weren’t an older fan who played it religiously back in its heyday I don’t think I would know much about the classics. This new KI just took everything that I loved about the old KIs and not only updated it with modern fg staples but it streamlined everything so well that classics just feel clunkier and unnecessarily complicated system wise.
But the Power Drain move was not nearly as broken as Spinal’s Season 1-2 era curses because it wasn’t a constant poison effect, it was a move you had to land that had barely better range than doing searing skull without skulls. Also it had pushback so you couldn’t just trap them in it. Sounds odd at first for a “Drain” move but it sucked out power while basically tossing the unnecessary body away, lol. So it was also a way to get someone off you which Spinal could also use in some situations. Would love to see it back as normal special (maybe a B-F+P command?) for Shadow and then a Shadow version for Instinct. @developers, #makeSpinalbrokenagain. Alright that last bit is a bad joke but you get the idea, lol.
I like the idea, but I don’t know that it could be a traditional shadow move as we think of them, given that they all have a sort of pause/start up animation. Not sure how easily that would work with catching normals or how fluid it would look.
What if they cut the shadow/start up animation and Spinal’s shield and the color emanating off of it switches from green to purple? Then while you’re holding the move down, his shadow met slowly drains, but any hits from the opponent costs them Instinct meter that Spinal gains?
Of course, the amount of instinct gained/lost would likely need to be on the lower end, but that could still be a huge weapon against anyone with Instinct or who popped Instinct. Yikes, that might be too good now that I think about it, even if it were done as a sort of one time catch counter deal.
Would it work better if the trade off were potential damage / potential health gained?