@LeoFerreis You and others presented a lot of logical, well-thought out ideas and suggestions that didn’t break the character or attempt to make them OP just because you liked playing them.
Thanks for putting in the time with Aganos in the first place.
/was SO rooting for a Cstyles and Zergkiller in KIWC!
Yes, I’m so happy that peacemaker no longer breaking when Aganos is knocked down. the recycle machininc sound fun also. I’m mostly worried about chances being ignore by heavies though. Will it still strip Aganos of his chance if it does that is going to suck, but if it doesn’t then I’ll be happy with that. Thing of the the second option You’ll keep your armor to retaliate against light/medium attacks.
I always though it would be cool if he just spiked the peacemaker into the ground and it came up as a wall.
And by “always” I mean I’ve thought for awhile that it would be cool if he could turn his peacekee-- peaceMAKER back into a wall.
Wait, so hard punches ignore the chunks. Kan-Ra smiles…
So does the ground heavy normal attacks include things like Jago’s heavy wind kick or his heavy fireball? If so, then Aganos will be having some trouble in season 3.
Heavy wind kick and heavy fireballs are not normals.
These Aganos buffs are super good IMO. I couldn’t imagine fighting this character in neutral with anyone not named Fulgore, Sadira or Maya if they didn’t also change the way armor works. It would be almost impossible for a lot of characters, I think.
The two recycling buffs are exceptionally good, but they also sound incredibly fun and I like giving characters fun tools. Being able to store chunks on the stage is really good. You can use the peacemaker twice, then put a wall up in 40 frames, and pull it back out later fully healed. You can do fun stuff like… stomp, pull out a wall, peacemaker sweep, put the wall back down, stomp again. In instinct, you now have a way to very quickly turn your peacemakers into chunks, if you want (which is very clearly why they had to slow down the peacemaker regen rate).
Giving other characters more meter after they block stuff makes a lot of sense, since so many characters have very few meaningful ways to strip armor without meter. This lets them fight a bit better.
The heavy grounded normals ignore armor thing is big, though. A lot of characters that Aganos beats (Orchid, Sabrewulf, others) have fantastic grounded heavy buttons (Wulf in particular with Overpower) that will give Aganos a hard time. Orchid can now do meaningful throw/overhead mixups that both beat chunks, because her overhead is on a heavy button. It means Aganos will have to play footsies with his crazy good buttons, which I think is more fun than using armor all the time. It devalues chunks as armor, which is actually fine because his other uses of chunks (walls, peacemaker) are super improved. He is probably a little less frustrating to fight against while still maintaining a high fun factor. That’s pretty cool I think.
The other massive change that I don’t think you guys are considering is flipout combo breakers; I think Aganos benefits the most from this system change out of any character in the cast. He was utterly destroyed by combo breakers in the past, because he often didn’t get his chunks and he had to immediately handle meaty pressure. Now, he just flips out to neutral, at a range where he can start swinging with st.MP or stomp, and he doesn’t really care that he didn’t get his chunks. Because he will get hit more often due to the fierce armor change, this is especially good for him.
I want to get my hands on these buffs and tinker with him so badly…
I am contemplating so many setups… I’m so excited as I was when the game launched a couple years ago.
Yeah, it certainly is going to be a whole new ball-game, huh. 
Also, his walls won’t take damage every time his combo is broken. That was something I really hated about combo breakers in Season 2.
The strike invulnerability change to Shadow Ruin was probably intended ONLY so that it beats heavy meaties, but it also makes it a lot better in a way that probably wasn’t even considered. Now that it’s ‘invulnerable’ on startup instead of armored, it can actually be used reliably as a wakeup/reversal when Aganos is low on health. You don’t have to worry that your opponent’s counter hit is going to end your life bar, because the counter hit won’t even connect if Shadow Ruin is still starting up.
AND Glacius’ Instinct armor won’t be so ridiculously good against Aganos anymore because of the armor change!
You will also have a wakeup attack that works against possession now (if she doesn’t have wrath), as since it was an unblockable with a grab reaction it ignored pulverize’s throw invulnerability and ruin’s armour. Of course you could still jump but you run the risk of eating a normal during pre jump frames and getting comboed even with chunks.
If I remember correctly, they said they changed the pre-jump frames to 4 for all the cast. How does affect this to Aganos? If he is jumping faster, the window of time where he can be ground comboed ignoring chunks is smaller. It stays at 4 frames even when chunked?
Hadn’t thought about this, but it may not be as cut and dry as it might seem. Probably depends more on how quickly ruin actually hits than anything. If the strike invulnerable frames are only enough to prevent an active meaty heavy from hitting, but reverts to hyper armor before ruin itself actually lands, then possession might still beat it clean.
You could be entirely correct though - that’s definitely one of the interactions I want to check out first when S3 hits. Not the end of the world either though - if meaty possession doesn’t work, you can always just wrath cancel into a counter on the freeze provided you’re managing it properly. Overall I think the system changes probably tip this one more in Hisako’s favor. She’s one of the few character’s whose heavy buttons can actually contend with Aganos’s at range.
I basically still see Aganos as a struggle character (he’s going to have to legit play footsies with his opponent’s ridiculous heavy buttons all the time, will have to block virtually all overheads on reaction like everyone else, etc), but he’s going to be so much fun because of Recycling that I don’t think it matters.
They found a cool way to devalue chunks as armor, but then also let you get chunks faster (faster frames on back+HP) and then probably spend your chunks on things other than armor more often. Should be more fun for everyone involved.
But he’s going to be a struggle character, and I think his design requires him to be.
Good point actually, at only 7 frames I think it’s too short. Either way as you say it is still quite a one sided interaction as you can react to either freeze with a counter. Aganos is also a character where the removal of low counter catching mods will be largely unimportant as it was almost useless against him anyway. The changes to influence linker versus Aganos will unfortunately likely make two of my favourite tricks against him not work (heavy manuals after medium linkers and a teleporting reset). I agree that the matchup will probably be in her favour in s3.
One thing that I thought of that could be going under the radar is the speeding up of Aganos’ auto doubles. There’s the obvious buff that people don’t have 7 years to break it anymore, but this also means that Aganos is going to be able to get more heavies in during a lockout, which will lead to more damage. So… damage buff hype?
But the doubles are the same speed as Jago’s.
Right, but as of right now on a lockout, Aganos gets at MAXIMUM heavy auto, light linker, light auto before the lockout ends. After the patch, he’s going to get something more along the lines of heavy auto, light linker, heavy auto, light linker, which is going to do more damage.
Are you sure about that? I can often get 2 heavy ADs in before the end of a lockout. Opener, Lockout, H. AD, L. Linker, H. AD, Ender.
Well, okay I digress, it probably depends on when the lockout occurs. If you’ve actually gotten two heavies in then I can see it, but I always just do light auto at the end.
Either way, we’re getting more hits in come S3 