Aganos anti-air/anti-crossup Idea

Characters Aganos
1

So, I had an idea, but I’m not sure if it would be balanced or not and wanted your input. The basic premise for the idea is to give Aganos an additional anti-air attack of some sort, specifically to prevent those who may be attempting to jump over his head - in other words, an anti-crossup.

Conceptually, it would be simple - it would hit them and cause a soft-knockdown some distance away from Aganos. To be fair, it would be slow, meaning you’d have to anticipate the crossup and can’t be used as part of a combo - it’s strictly used to prevent crossups and do a bit of damage and nothing else. Basically, it would work like the 1st hit of a natural disaster if your opponent was in the air, but without the possibility of a combo opportunity (as with shadow natural disaster) as well as not being as easily punishable (as natural disaster is on block).

Visually, I imagine it as Aganos quickly “taking a knee” and then rising just as quickly hitting anyone above him in the process. Regardless of which accessory you’re using, I think it would look awesome (particularly with the pagoda rooftop accessory).

The interesting aspect of this idea is simply what input would we use if we were to implement such an idea? Would it be a command attack? If so, which input would we use? u+MK perhaps (that way it can’t be foiled by crossups as with b+P/K or f+P/K moves)? That’s the idea I like, but nobody has an u+P/K attack, so that would definitely make it unique, but also a bit out of place with the traditional inputs. I talked to a friend about this idea and he suggested maybe making it a d, u+MK special move, which input-wise, I like especially since it matches the visual I gave above, but if it’s a special move that means it could potentially be used as part of a combo in some way (such as an opener, linker, or ender), and as such, I fear it could be broken balance-wise.

What do you guys think? Is it a good idea? Whether your answer is no or yes, I’d like to hear your reasoning. Also, if there’s any changes with my idea you would suggest, I’d like to hear that too.

So, let’s discuss! :slight_smile:

2

Don’t think it would really fit with him in a balanced manner. Most characters are only going to cross him up once they’ve knocked him down, and most of those type of setups are timed to be meaty. So unless the move had invincibility frames, it’d get stuffed anyway. And if it did have invincibility frames, then it’d probably wind up being one of the most overpowered moves in the game, as it would mean that you basically couldn’t jump in against Aganos - which is really the only way for certain characters to approach him once he has chunks. The ability to jump in ambiguously against a downed Aganos is kind of your reward for getting in on him in the first place, and Aganos already has some of the best and most damaging anti-air combinations in the game. He already punishes normal jumps super hard - him being able to neutralize meaty and ambiguous jumps would be a bit much. It also wouldn’t help him against someone like Sadira, whose air pressure involves shooting projectiles below her. You’d still need to use shadow natural disaster against her.

Absent invincibility frames I think the proposed move would be useless, and if it had those frames I think it’d need to have a ridiculously specific hitbox to not be insanely overpowered. Just don’t know that the super-fine line they would have to walk would be worth the effort in terms of adding to his game. Back+LP kind of already serves the function of neutralizing close jumps that would wind up crossing over.

1 Like
3

Pulverize is already an anti-crossup. It’s not a good one, but if he was given a new move, it would have to be equally as bad.

4

Yeah, I kinda remembered that AFTER I created this thread. :sweat: