Hello Ultra-Combo reader
I’m very unpleased with the Shin Hisako balance changes/bugfixes for 3.11 and 3.11.14. I am here to explain what has upset me with what is on paper mostly buffs and bugfixes
[+] Increased the speed of the forward moving Spirit Orb (6+PPP) by 100%.
Ok so is a “BUFF” because the spirit travels faster and Shin Hisako can sustain slightly less chip before trying to force her way in but its in the opponent face for a shorter time and is easier to move past it and take the sting of orb away slightly (Defender has to worry about crossup dash and Hevay slice vs a slow Heavy greed sever compared to scary fast slice vs scary same side dash+H greed sever still;Spirit Orb can drift offscreen quicker to be destroyed). Furthermore 3.9 Orb’s speed was way better for her offense granting her EXCELLENT setplay situations on her basic stuff. Now some stuff is GONE(Like this sweep setup in this hyperlink*) and most setups that stuck around are having worse meaty orb hitboxes (Its tougher to summon orb and threaten set off “spirit shot” and throw, clMK spirit shots are getting windkicked over. the basic whiff slice meaty spirit orb setup is getting backdashed). I haven’t seen/come up with anything new that isn’t worse/the same 3.9 6PPP setup or 5PPP setups using fast 6PPP.
[+]…
- Crouching Light Punch and many hits of her On Ryo Zan rekka series were doing less hitstun on counterhit than on normal hit. This has been corrected.
Briefly explaining the 2LP change, it’s now +3-ish on counterhit when it used to be negative,causing 2LPxx H Rekka to fall out. this along with the hitbox buff to close HP are pretty good changes removing malignant drawbacks on otherwise underwhelming moves. The Rekka changes basically rework how nearly every important rekka counter hit works
- [+] Medium/Heavy 1st rekka gives Shin manual combos (both are >11 which allows shin to basically go for all of the 3.11 H 2nd manuals after
- [+/?] Skipping 3.11 H2nd, the normal hit frame data between heavy and medium got swapped and then slightly buffed. M 2nd rekka can combo into 5MP which is slightly more than what 3.9 H 2nd rekka could do and H 2nd rekka manuals into sweep which is slightly more than what 3.9 M rekka did. Moving the problem strength to heavy from mediums makes “American shadow counter baits” minimally more awkward to “prep the opponent”
- [+] M and H 2nd have buffed to be like around ~+17 and ~+21. These versions of rekka were used mostly catch backdash and special chain into slower special such as M/H spirit slice or Heavy greed sever so turning it into a beast CH
- [-] L 2nd rekka counterhit advantage was nerfed to +11. You can say this is a swap with H 2nd rekka but nerfing the strongest rekka version IN A BUFF PATCH NOTE is a stealth nerf/very whack. L 2nd rekka does a lot in rekka offense, being both the safest 2nd rekka and a move that sets up tick slices still(???) so it’s reasonable to normalize the CH advantage but this is not even talked about in the notes. The people can look up every former flame carpet low crush but if I’m like this thing was better before, People will think i’m making stuff up like a Rubbish vid
- [-] H 3rd rekka lost all manuals on normal hit & counter hit. This is written as a bugfix but 5 years of using H rekka and the KI guide saying to use H rekka then “that’s a feature” and fixing it is a nerf. Its fair to have quality of rekka degrade each version and -10 is not death on block enough to be worse than 2nd rekka (M 2nd is -10). Punishing rekka is cool!!! but CH combos and DPing after an opener into mix is also cool and Shin lost that in the most recent patch. Losing a powerful frame trap option after 2nd rekka saps “fun” from the 2nd rekka offensive situation (minus tick slices but those are dumb) and makes it so nearly all the options shin can tag you with are very mediocre