Aganos vs. Season 3

Characters Aganos
21

You’re assuming that the deflect of Web of Death will ignore the armor of Aganos which we have yet to see how this interacts with armor based moves. Even then the move is a special and whiffing that in front of Aganos will result in at the very least a shockwave sweep.

In the case of Arbiter, only projectiles are able to be casually walked through without fear. Not sure if that’s different for the case that the rock is a physical object vs. a fireball, but even then physical hits hurt and stun Arbiter.

It’s the same scenario vs. Hisako, you want to risk a parry when I jump in knowing full well an anti air is a better option? Sure, eat this full combo/grab. If Arbiter is jumping in, they have to guess the timing of the anti air, which, online, is already difficult.

I like speculation as much as the next guy, but assuming that he’s low tier because of this is a little unnecessary because we don’t have it in our hands. If this is the case, we need to adjust strategy, such as moving forward after a fierce grounded attack that the opponent happened to special cancel which eats a chunk. They can eat a full combo in that point.

Also, Aganos can be offensive but I play him more footsie like. Standing strong covers so much space as it is so we, as Aganos players have to start playing better footsies in neutral because of this change.

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22

I await the day I see an Aganos take on an advancing Tusk, countering with everything he’s got, and Aganos stops him with Standing Close LP, into Linker, and then through four walls of Salt-Inducing tears of pain.

Aganos feeling bad, then will walk over, and put a lovely Orchid on the pile of rocks that stand before him. XD

23

I’m with LeoFerreis in that Tusk probably wouldn’t stand a chance against S2 Aganos. No special cancelable far reaching moves, everything slow, everything one hit? Decently slow movement for 90% of the match? Tall, so he sucks against Aganos’s best buttons? Yeah, I don’t see how he’d have any chance.

There’s also no doubt S3 Aganos is built to use chunks for things other than armor as much as possible. In S2, I don’t think you had almost any reason to use chunks for non-armor. Here are only times I would spend chunks on non-armor:

  1. after a level 4 chunk ender, where I have to offload a chunk so I can move (probably put up a wall)
  2. in a situation where I’m guaranteed to get the chunk back (projectile zoning -> chunk), or in a guaranteed combo involving shadow rocks and a wall
  3. in a matchup so hopeless to keep armor that you might as well make a wall before you lose it

For 90% of situations against 90% of the cast, if I had 1 or 2 chunks I would never use it for anything except armor. It’s way, way too valuable in S2. That will be much less true in S3, and he will be more fun as a result, I think.

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24

There are characters like Arbiter who can easily take out your chunks without any effort and from fullscreen, so yeah, now you want to use them as non armor a lot more often.

S2 Aganos main plan was attacking you with armored moves, trade hits and win due armor. In special situations, you can use walls and projectiles
S3 Aganos main plan is using more often walls and peacemaker, leading to scenarios were he can inflict a lot of damage and use the peacemaker from long range, and in some scenarios, use armor to win against certain normals/specials

25

I think Aganos will be fine. For one, Aganos’ buttons are actually pretty good - his lights are on par with a lot of the cast, and his mediums aren’t bad either. He’ll have to have better timing and spacing in neutral while chunked, but I think most characters are going to have a hard time landing those armor-negating heavies on a competent Aganos. I honestly don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about versus Tusk. Tusk’s buttons are slow as balls from what we’ve seen so far, and I have the distinct feeling that people are vastly overestimating just how good his deflects are. That window is pretty darn tight - it’s not going to be something you can rely on unless you’re using very specific setups.

I do think Arbiter is going to be a hard MU for him in general though. He’s like a demon combination of HIsako (long heavy normals and command grabs), Cinder (pyre bombs that don’t go away on hit) and Maya (fast projectiles that easily strip chunks). I predict that fight is not going to be fun for Aganos.

26

But couldn’t Aganos possibly recover before the next linker or shadow move can actually strip his armor? Or will the follow-up combo ignore armor like the opener did? I just assumed the former. My bad, if that’s the case.

27

the latter. just like now the armor doesnt work in the air. If i recapture aganos all the follow up attacks will ignore his armor even if he is on the ground then.

28

I’m glad that they are making his set up a bit better. I only honestly used them when I’m at four chuncks. Faster chunck ups means better chance at getting walls up and making your oppent fear you as the rock monster corners them.

29

I am looking forward to the fact that they increased the damage on Pulverize and Natural disaster enders. These now hit 25% harder which is a pretty substantial increase. I’m also happy that Shadow Pulverize does much more damage.

30

I’m really glad you brought this up, as it’s something I had completely forgotten about. This helps emphasize the exchange ender to prevent Aganos from getting stuck in a corner as well as helping you realize that you can still do a hard knockdown setup ender in order to not accidentally destroy your own walls that are still standing (as I have done numerous times accidentally after their 1st health-bar is already gone and then realizing that the wall would’ve been better served standing up for pressuring purposes in round 2). This naturally, in turn, gives you more options, since you can now recycle said walls that would, in effect, still be standing, because you now have more reason to use those enders.

31

I think club play/zoning will become much more prevalent - making Aganos king of the mid - full screen game. Also the requirement to use his quick normals a lot to ensure successfully stopping those heavy hits in their tracks.

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32

i figured the same thing

33

So far, in my experience actually playing S3, Tusk is more of a nuisance than anything against Aganos, using his high damage combos, heavy attacks, and mid-move counters or whatever they’re officially called. Even worse, I find the matchup to be among the most boring matchups I’ve ever had. So, while he’s easy to beat (so far, since people are still learning how to use him), generally speaking, I find it to be 1 of the most unfun matchups around.

34

I’ve been playing Aganos in exhibition almost exclusively since S3 came into play, just waitng for the ranked reset to happen, and now that the reset has happened, here’s what I have to say: oh boy is the experience different from one mode to the other…

In exhibition I almost always ran into Tusk - I’m not kidding either. 9 out of 10 fights (and I must’ve played 50 of them) were Tusk. So, I find that, for the most part (as mentioned above) Tusk is pretty easy to beat with Aganos. So, yeah, I made the mistake of thinking “yep, I’m still awesome.”

…and then I went into ranked leagues to requalify…

Oh boy, what was I thinking!? Playing so much exhibition has made me soft! I’m finally getting a variety of characters to fight against for 1, which is great, but man oh man, just as I predicted the grounded heavies are killing me. I’m very quickly discovering that players in ranked (it seems so obvious now) actually know how to use them, unlike those in exhibition. I lost to a Jago with his forward-advancing f+HK (which was already really good against Aganos to begin with, even on block) and a Spinal with his sliding d+HK (which is so slow that it’s laughable). I couldn’t tell you how infuriating it was to lose during my qualifying matches because of that. Even worse, in my final qualifying match, I ended up facing a 4-star top 32 player. :’(

All in all, I went 6-4, which just barely put me into the silver tier (it didn’t place me there until my 9th match), which, for me, is humiliating because I know I’m better than that. The last time I qualified, I never lost a match and was immediately put into gold - but now… I have half a mind to requalify immediately, but I’m not so sure what that would accomplish other than wasting my 1 chance to requalify this month. Now, I have to get 1,000 points just to get out of silver - and I’m only getting ~35 points per win. It’ll take me forever! Last time it took me 2 days! That’s it! I knew they slowed it down, but my God… No wonder people have been complaining about it.

I don’t know what possessed the devs to make grounded heavy attacks ignore armor. IMO, as of right now, it’s way too good - and not just against Aganos.

I’ll be blunt - so far, I’m not liking what I’m seeing with S3. Even the whole flipout after combo-break is messing with my head. The spacing just seems so wrong!

Speaking of which, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I hate how the peacemaker throw (as a projectile) doesn’t knock them away anymore (on hit or block). The stagger it causes on hit is useless IMO (and you don’t even get that on block), because by the time you come out of recovery frames, their stagger has ended - even worse, on hit or block, they’re close to you! I liked it better when it pushed them away from you. If anything, I think they should remove stagger and place a wall bounce in place of it (it would even be somewhat balanced, as it would damage any walls he has in place in the process of using it), because that seems to be where Aganos excels, and Aganos is all about increasing his strengths and not necessarily shoring up his weaknesses - it’s part of what made him interesting. He was an extreme character, both in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Now, I just feel like he’s kind of bland.

…and don’t get me wrong, his buffs are awesome. I love how his chunks, walls, and peacemaker pickup are faster, but they don’t really change much from what I’ve seen thus far. It’s slightly safer when your opponent’s at range and can get you an extra chunk after a shadow payload assault, but otherwise, I don’t think there’s much there.

As far as his new command moves with the peacemaker go, I like that he has them, but I’m still adjusting to having and doing them. Several times already, I’ve had an input error where I’m trying to press d+HP only to have it do the new df+HP command attack instead, which leaves me incredibly vulnerable.

As a matter of fact, another input error I’ve suffered from only since S3 started is when I’m trying to chunk up. For some reason (that I’m still trying to figure out), every once in a while, when I attempt it, a light pulverize comes out instead, again leaving me vulnerable - and without my chunk.

I understand that it’s really just a matter of me having to go through the adjustment period like everyone else, but that doesn’t make it any less miserable for me overall.

It’s kind of weird too. I simultaneously feel better and worse than I used to be prior to S3…

35

Spinal’s slide is lightning fast. You can’t block it on reaction. There’s a reason people love to do slide instinct cancel with Spinal, because it’s a super awesome tool.

Use shadow natural disaster. Works as a hit confirm from almost full screen away (but not quite full screen).

They still get pushed away on block, and it’s still a projectile that goes full screen in like 5 frames and requires a Sadira double jump or Cinder trailblazer to avoid.

It’s because Aganos is a very frustrating character to play against when your character struggles to remove armor. They made this a little easier (though not free) and then buffed him and his fun factor in some other areas. The end result is probably an Aganos with about the same relative strength, but more fun for both him and his opponent. That’s a win, I think.

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36

[quote=“Infilament, post:35, topic:5506”]
Spinal’s slide is lightning fast. You can’t block it on reaction. There’s a reason people love to do slide instinct cancel with Spinal, because it’s a super awesome tool.
[/quote]I’ve NEVER considered it to be lightning fast, but that’s probably because I’ve so often learned to expect it that I find it rather easy to avoid (or I simply let my chunks do the work for me). Maybe it’s because I look at the move as a whole (where the slide itself is slow, from beginning to end, and how it’s easily punishable on block or whiff), and not necessarily how fast it starts. I still don’t like it though, as it now gives Spinal yet 1 more option to use from about half-screen away to get in on Aganos. Combine this with his standing HP and he has an easy 50/50 high/low mixup against Aganos at mid-screen, teleport mixups notwithstanding. Pre-S3, I could wipe the floor with most Spinal players. Post-S3, however, I think the proverbial tables may have turned, and for obvious reasons, I don’t like it.

[quote=“Infilament, post:35, topic:5506”]
Use shadow natural disaster. Works as a hit confirm from almost full screen away (but not quite full screen).

They still get pushed away on block, and it’s still a projectile that goes full screen in like 5 frames and requires a Sadira double jump or Cinder trailblazer to avoid.
[/quote]This was actually useful, so thanks, although I already know how easy/hard it is to avoid for the rest of the cast (sans new characters). For some reason it never really occured to me to follow it up with a shadow natural disaster - I just never did it. I think that was because, with my playstyle, I’d almost never have it available for me to use by the time I’d go into instinct, as I generally have a habit of using it as an anti-air punish or during mid-combo to push them into the corner where I can trap, and destroy, them. This’ll simply require a minor adjustment period to get used to, but now that you’ve put the idea into my head, it’s only a matter of remembering it for when I need it. :wink:

Not in my book, it isn’t. If anything, I think it’s less fun. Granted this is coming from someone who always liked the challenge of playing difficult/underdog characters. I think that’s why I’m not so happy. I’ve kind of lost that feeling because doing certain things with him is no longer as difficult to do. For example, knowing when and where you can put up walls or chunk up. With the changes, there’s so much more leeway for when you can do them, and although that’s a good thing, it kind of takes away the satisfaction of pulling off something that’s hard to figure out - in other words, it removes the challenge factor to a great degree, IMO.

37

Spinal gets this mixup against every character, though. In fact, every character who has a long range overhead has a pretty good high-low mixup from around sweep range, not just Spinal.

I don’t think this is an Aganos-specific problem.

Well, you’re talking about how difficult it is for Aganos to avoid grounded heavy pokes now. You can make that your new challenge.

38

I don’t know that I think the S2 Aganos was “challenging” in the sense that you do. Aganos was challenging in S2 because he has bad defense without chunks and you have to be perfect in the neutral and in your anti-airs. When and when not to chunk was a fairly basic and deterministic formulation near as I am tell - it was basically just a flow chart that you could always rely on once you knew it. Sweep HKD and they have no meter - chunk. Peacekeeper throws until they’re full screen - chunk. Forward throw - chunk. Once you knew that basic formulation you were solid. The challenge was in maintaining the chunks and applying smart pressure. I think S3 added new wrinkles to that challenge, and made the flowchart portion of the character even easier to apply.

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39

It is, because prior to S3, that mixup didn’t work against Aganos because the chunks would just absorb the hit. What it does (and this is good from a balance perspective, of course) is it puts Aganos on the same level as the rest of the cast (but not really, since medium and light attacks still won’t bypass his chunks). Maybe I’m overthinking it, but it still creates new and interesting sitautions. Take Cinder for example - if he were to get in on Aganos and use his chain-combo, he could hit with a LP to remove a chunk and get the quick hit-confirm that it provides only to quickly switch to a HP for the 2nd hit to ignore any other armor Aganos may have and start his combo, as normal. This creates a situation where Aganos will either have to act quickly (which is not exactly his forte’) ir block from the outset, which is practically self-defeating if he has chunks, since it’ll put him into block stun.

40

With regards to dealing with heavy buttons, yes. But I’m saying that Spinal’s high-low mixup doesn’t kill the entire cast, so it won’t kill Aganos. There are still plenty of things that don’t work on Aganos because of his chunks.

The reason I bring it up is because you sounded a little surprised that Spinal has this really nasty mixup from sweep range involving (unsafe) sweep or overhead. It’s just stuff every other character in the game has been dealing with forever, so it’s not really that new and it’s not something that will make or break the Spinal vs Aganos matchup. (Plus it’s not really that nasty)

The question you should be thinking about is whether Aganos has the buttons/neutral/wakeup to handle most characters’ heavy buttons, since that is an Aganos-specific question. If you catch Kan-Ra without sand, Jago can just make his life miserable with repeated fwd+HK. Now he can do the same to Aganos. How can Aganos prevent that from happening in the first place is the question to ask here.