This is true.
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It’s an opportunity.
You really are reaching hard here.
Aganos’ dash is not good, full stop. He has better ways to move forward, and his backdash is near useless, since most characters can whiff their meaty setup and still recover in time to tag him with a heavy. “It works every once in a blue moon to escape X” does not make something good or even particularly useful. I’ve avoided (bad) setups with Hisako’s backdash - Hisako’s backdash is still cheeks. Hitting my 1/20 chance to avoid something with it doesn’t make it not cheeks.
That said, I’d suggest making your peace with it because it’s probably not going anywhere. The addition of a backdash for Glacius implies they believe dashing should be a universal mechanic, and I don’t see them backtracking on that philosophy.
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While that’s true it was also something glacius players asked for( for reasons I don’t quite understand). They even said when they revealed it were not sure why you wanted it but you got it. Its something I deal with well. Just came to my mind after my last set with bass as to why he had one.
In comparison to other backdashes in the game it would be on the bad side, but as I said I’ve seen lots of use in it. It isn’t Aganos or Glay bad but it isn’t good either. It’s fast, but that’s all it has. Which is why it can be good.
No, it isn’t. Check the tapes yourself:
Spinal’s backdash has a lot of use because it is average. I’m not arguing it’s one of the best in the game (it isn’t), but neither is it bad in any meaningful sense of the word. It recovers in 24 frames and leaves him within range of all his best buttons. If you’re worried that it doesn’t take him far, don’t be - most backdashes in KI don’t take their character beyond the opponent’s effective range either.
There are 10.5 characters with backdashes that recover faster than Spinal (warrior Eyedol is faster, mage Eyedol slower). There are 10 characters with backdashes that recover slower, and 5 characters with equivalent recoveries. The characters with backdashes that are better are better by 6 frames at most, with the vast majority of them (8) only being better on recovery by a frame or two. Among the characters with worse backdashes, 5 of them have backdashes that take upwards of 30 frames. There are obviously quirks in this tabulation (Cinder’s backdash takes 30 frames, but is definitely one of the best in the game, instinct TJ has best in class mobility, etc), but it does a good enough job of making my point. Namely, there is a definite tier of crap backdashes in Killer Instinct; Spinal’s is not one of them.
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I would kill for Spinal’s backdash
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If Aganos’ backdash shared the same, or similar, frame data as that of the 1 from Spinal, that would be great.
OP? Personally, I don’t think so.
Yes, it would be OP. It would make him much better on wake up. Too much
But I would kill for it anyway
Not OP in the sense of “OMG Aganos Top 3 now”, but yes, this would probably move the character up and in a direction the devs would prefer not to go. One of the key limiting design features of the character is that he is literally stuck once he gets caught out on defense, and I doubt they want to modify that core facet of him. they want Aganos to get blown up by effective meaty/throw mixups, and they want him to have to make hard reads to get out of such pressure.
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Someone gets it…
The only time I have trouble with Aganos’ dash is when I play a character with a non-garbage dash for a while then come back to Aganos. Yeah, the forward dash is useless and he would be better off without it, but like they said for Glacius at the beginning of Season 3, it wouldn’t make sense to new players if only 1-2 characters didn’t have dashes, along with everything else they have to learn. The backdash is only good for a specific Kan-Ra setup and in a “so bad they would never expect it” sense against command grab characters.
There’s a little bit more nuance here. Certain characters might not have a heavy button with plus frames, which is important against Aganos, because his throw range and st.LK quickly end any offense that is 0 or worse on block. Since Aganos has to wakeup jump to avoid a throw, there’s a bit more value in doing a non-heavy meaty, since any strength of meaty will ignore armor on wakeup jump. Since there’s value in doing a medium, Aganos’ armored throw tech becomes stronger than usual, because it will beat a medium, etc. The rock-paper-scissors game just shifts around a bit.
Having armor necessitates having a bad backdash, and changes the oki game from the standard meaty/throw/OS vs block/tech/backdash to heavy/non-heavy/throw vs block/tech/jump. Giving Aganos a standard backdash would almost be like giving him a meterless DP.
As a side note, if Jago knows this, and does Cl.MK, Aganos can beat it with wakeup F+HP. Actually, this becomes an only-half-bad wakeup option against a smart opponent who switches to low meaties when you don’t have armor.
I use aganos backdash alot after being knocked down or fighting hisako. I could imagine it will be good against thunder as well to stop his command grabs
If you use it alot and get away with it then the hisako players you fight must not be very good. Or just don’t expect it. Also thunder’s throw can catch even the best backdashes.
I tend to agree with Letalis. Hisako can usually flat-out whiff a close heavy HK and then recover in time to sweep Aganos before he comes out of his backdash. With no chunks that’s probably not possible, but if you have no chunks then Hisako isn’t likely to meaty you with anything heavy anyway. She can also meaty light influence and be 100% safe against anything you might want to do after your backdash.
Catching most backdashes is trivial with Hisako. Catching Aganos’ is barely worth mentioning.
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I agree Aganos’s backdash is basically pointless, just there for input error really.
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There is 1 super specific scenario in which its “useful”. If you are fighting Jago and you’re in chip status with a chunk or no chunk (it may work with more) and he has no shadow meter and you know he’s going to do a H DP, you can backdash it and punish with a full combo.
Things to note:
This situation will probably never arise, this is also spacing dependent (it must be at max range of Jago’s H DP), you also only have a few frames to do this (this may even be a 1 frame backdash), and finally Jago can use L DP instead and if you can somehow backdash that, I’m pretty sure you cant punish even with 0 chunks.
I’m not trying to make an argument. This is just a bit of fun I guess, like, in what absurd scenario does Aganos’s backdash become the optimal thing to do?
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His backlash is only good against hisako. I think the last time I used it was when we played a ranked match. Its good on wakeup with no chunks. Downside is everything but if you jump after you’ll have a better chance on having an upper hand
It’s not good against Hisako either :-p She can usually sweep him even if he makes her whiff a heavy meaty.
Hisako or any grappler for that matter has tools to blow up backdashes period. Let alone against aganos.
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