We all know Gargos’s minions are incredibly strong. But IMO they are incredibly frustrating to play against.
My main gripe with his minions are that they hit you out of combos, so he can keep doing unsafe things and not get punished for it. My main suggestion would be that once you’ve opened a combo on Gargos the minions can no longer hit you out of it. A good way to counter balance this would be that once Gargos is being combod the player also can’t hit the minions so they become invincible but can still move around like they do normally.
This would keep it so you have to destroy them in neutral, and would make it so Gargos can’t just keep going ham when he has them out not getting punished for things because minions are there constantly to save him.
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Knocking the other player out of combos is kind of part of what they’re supposed to do.
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I’ll take a pass on that one. I’m not saying they’re easy to deal with, but there are enough ways around the Minions that I don’t think stripping them of half their functionality is really necessary.
It’s been mentioned by Keits that they aren’t supposed to build meter, and that’s gonna get fixed. If they aren’t building meter, Gargos can’t set up a practically self-sustaining minion engine, and so the insanity of 2-goon pressure should lessen considerably. At least you’ll be able to get a reprieve upon killing them, and then [insert blahblahblah worst defense]. Hopefully that makes a meaningful enough difference that their functionality won’t have to be touched.
When trying to retaliate during a 2-goon dogpile, try and stick to jabxx (or whatever your fastest cancellable move is) and projectile invincibility. When you get into a combo, end it fast with HKD ender to buy a second to reposition or bop a minion. Remember that the minions have a cooldown, and that breakers count as a hit towards them (like Aganos’ walls).
In the meantime, though, I understand where you’re coming from.
But then how are they supposed to keep him safe? That’s kinda their job.
What? They are projectiles, they SHOULD be building meter. Izzik builds with his super kill attack roughly 70-80% of a bar. With just normal hits it takes 13 hits to build one bar.
I didn’t catch any specifics, it’s on his Twitter from a few days ago (a week? when he was talking about Eyedol nerfs). I don’t know if it’s just the regular hits or specials he was talking about, nor do I recall if he mentioned state relativity (hit or block). Considering how long it takes for a minion to charge its special, and that it has to be triggered manually with a correlated vulnerable animation, I’d like to think those would keep their meter gain, but even then 70% of a bar seems a bit high.
If their regular attacks didn’t build bar, and their specials built less bar (like maybe 25-30% for Izzik), I think that’d be a dandy adjustment.
Well in combos in battery ender steals only 20% regardless of level. Raw battery ender is 40%. So other then that izzik is the best way to build meter (the standard level 4 battery ender in combos). Problem is that battery ender requires a bar for gargos (izzik) and can only be done every 12 seconds. Unless gargos grabs him and hit him.
Yeah, I do hope they do something about the battery ender. I get that they have to be careful with the values because it’s not just building Gargos’ bar, but denying the opponents as well. But ender level not affecting the battery ender (and it being more valuable in neutral) really sucks. It makes bounce ender>H Grab>drain into the better option while locking it into a chokepoint, and even if you get the counterbreak your meter situation won’t be any better without trying it again at the expense of counterbreak damage.
So, hopefully that all gets sorted out in the upcoming balance patch (which I would assume is around DE launch?).
Dunno, your guess is as good as mine.
I really think minions should just have like 8-10 seconds before another minion of the same kind that was just destroyed can be summoned again.
This would be indicated through a bar with Issac and Dretchs faces on it above the shadow meter, when you can’t summon them due to the cool down the minion that can’t be summoned is greyed out until it’s available for use again.
This would force gargos to not depend on vicious minion cycle to obtain victory and force gargos to deal with his weakness after a minion is removed. This promotes more varied and thought out play from a gargos player and allows opponents an actual chance to comeback on the character unlike gargos in his current form.
Ps: Eating the minion does not count towards a minion being destroyed by the opposition and therefore won’t cause the cooldown timer to go into effect. This incourages Gargos players to eat near death minions (currently they are never eaten).
Then they can’t require shadow meter then to summon.
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No they are definitely still good enough to warrant the shadow meter cost. Besides meter builds insanely fast in ki, too fast honestly. I feel this is a fair change that keeps minions strong while making there be an actual reward for killing a minion. This change also forces gargos out of the currently braindead minion cycle.
But if they require shadow meter AND a timer…doesn’t sound very good. Gargos is an average meter builder without izzik to do it.
The minions functions are all in tact, they would still be oppressive as hell when on the screen and worth summoning asap just like they are now. You just have to be a better gargos player and not be massively encourageed to rely on minions to win, as current gargos is.
But then what about his defenses? They are already terrible and on top of hardly anything is safe from point blank range.
You have to deal with a weakness like the majority of the cast (you have plenty of other strengths in the meantime) in that time for your failures of letting the minion die. Gargos + minions = 0 weaknesses honestly and its pretty dumb that he gets to be that way currently the rest of the match once the minion cycle starts.
Isn’t that the point? Minions cover his weaknesses?
The thing is, though, with a cooldown like that, not only does it not allow Gargos to RELY on the minion cycle, it would often gatekeep the possibility of a cycle altogether. Eliminating the meter gain of the minions reduces his ability to replenish them, reducing the overall consistency of minion pressure once they are out without artificially gatekeeping the possibility. They do still cost a bar (a proj. invincible move, a shadow counter) after all.
As to forcing Gargos to deal with his weakness, he is already forced to deal with that weakness from match start to when he has both meter and a safe opportunity to summon. Upon summoning one minion, he’ll still have to find a safe opportunity to summon the second before he can attempt to overcome his weakness (and do so while the first is still alive, preferably also safe). In practice, this will often mean waiting to summon minions and dealing with his weakness until he’s got 2 bars stocked as it is.
EDIT: I always miss a whole conversation typing one reply. Damn compulsive text walls.
All asynchronous projectiles in KI can interrupt a combo - if you are hitting Glacius with hail sitting over his head, then you have to respect it.
Minions are very strong, no doubt about it. But they also have their weaknesses. And a minion that can’t interrupt a combo is considerably weaker, like almost ridiculously weaker to be honest. If I can safely combo Gargos with Izzik sitting behind me, then I am 100% free to run my standard combo game, hard knockdown Gargos, drop a jab to hit the minion, and still get to Gargos in time to run set play. So long as I open Gargos up fast enough, then I can again just run my standard offense without regard for the minion and do the same thing.
Minions are dangerous. They have to be though, or else they’d be useless. And being able to interrupt combos is a huge part of their utility - you take that away, and you’d need to do something else with them to make up for that.
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Yeah for a time not the majority of the match, currently it’s worth taking the hit to summon a minion since he goes from being a fair/normal character to an isanely oppressive one. Currently killing a minion against gargos is barely rewarding since gargos will more than likely have gained a meter to replace said minion, right now imo it’s poorly designed favoring a linear style of gameplay and thoughtlessness.
In ki meter building is ridiculous, he will definitely still have meter for another minion after the “minions build no meter” balance change. Also I’d extremely argue currently 90% of the time summoning a minion unsafely is worth taking the hit due to combo breakers, his free break instinct and minions acting as combo breakers.