Arbiter: Quirks, Bugs, Decisions or Oversights?

Characters Arbiter
,
1

I hate to be the guy that makes a forum account to complain or question the devs designs, but this being my first post, I guess I am that guy. Kind of.

Allow me to preface this with the fact that I am new to KI, though I have been following it since just before S2 (waiting for the PC release). I am not new to fighting games, and have been playing them with relative competence (pretty much strictly offline; I’ve never had internet good enough to not lag out a match online, and that’s no fun for anyone) for about 15 years. If nothing else, I’m not a TOTAL noob.

So, Arbiter. He’s great. The vast majority of my fighting game life, I have played grapplers almost exclusively (GG May/Potemkin, SFA3 Sodom/Birdie, SF3 Alex, SF4 Hugo) and Arbiter is hands-down the most fun and interesting grappler I’ve experienced. I do, however, have a few minor complaints. Maybe not even complaints, just developmental decisions I either do not understand or do not agree with. For all I know, they could be wholly intentional and I’m missing or misunderstanding key situational data; they could also be simple oversights. I don’t know, that’s why I’m here.

Sorry 'bout the text wall (I’m also one of THOSE).
Without further ado:

  1. Energy Shield. Super important to Arby’s overall gameplay. Keeps him safe from his own grenade (and lets him safely reversal with it) & other fireballs/projectiles, opens up his juggles from sweep>launch (cr.MK x qcf.P), and can sort of function as an invincible reversal of sorts, which is the crux of this bullet point. The activation of Shield is (fully?) invincible on startup, and has a correlated 0-damage hit that awards a knockdown.
    The hitbox is more-or-less stuck to his body, so actually connecting with it in reversal situations obviously isn’t it’s intended function, but provides it with enough potential utility to warrant the cost of meter. The problem is with it’s classification as a strike, as opposed to a projectile. This opens up a very specific counter-strategy that seems wholly unfair to Arbiter: Hisako can Vengeance counter it for a full combo. What even is that? Doubtless there are a plethora of other situations where the status of Shields hitbox as a strike is a boon or a curse, but this is one situation I just cannot make sense out of. It does no damage, and is a barrier of (some kind of) energy. That, at least to me, screams projectile hitbox. Input?

  2. Prophets Bane. This one is actually just a graphical bug, but when the opponent is close enough to the corner and PB connects, there’s this really janky effect on the animation where he’s not actually touching them. It’s hard to explain, and probably already documented, it just looks so Melty Blood.

3) HK Tack-On is breakable. I thought non-Maya projectiles were unbreakable, but the gunshots are totally breakable. Is it because they are bullets (which, like the daggers, are physical objects)? If so, that is perfectly logical (so long as it applies to all cases non-energy projectiles). Or are all projectiles breakable if they qualify as hits in a juggle (which totally could be the case)? It just really hurts watching your mighty match ending bullet burst get broken, and the match isn’t over as a result and dear lawd what do I do now they were dead now they’re not dead now I’m dead!?

EDIT: I figured it out and am so embarassed at my noobiness.

So, in my haste, I skipped over the “first breakable window” of double/linker after the shadow counter. The TRUE breakable gun situation is:

Opener > PB Ender > HK Followup

I think that the PB of the Opener/Ender may be qualifying as a grab (as if from neutral) and is therefore (maybe) unbreakable, making the HK sequence engage the ‘every combo must have at least one breakable window’ rule.
/EDIT

EDIT2: Opener > PB Ender is breakable just like any other O>E, and if you get away it, the HK shots are also breakable.

I guess that about sums it up. Any input would be appreciated, and I look forward to being a part of this wonderful community. I’ve been lurking for a couple of years, and yowza! Y’all are way decent people.

Thanks for your time and consideration,
Mr. Morning

1 Like
2

Welcome mate :slight_smile:
2) yeah that’s weird I’ve seen that.

  1. haven’t been able to replicate please clarify. I cannot see any break windows on hk followup.

many people have projectile invulnerability fromy the first frame on somer shadow moves so they could react to the freeze on your shield and punish accordingly. Due to the priority system and hurtboxes also being hitboxes with the priority system (shadow > special > heavy > medium > light > throw with -1 for aerials) the grounded shadow shield will at least trade ((within reason). This priority system is also why it doesn’t need a huge hitbox for effective reversals, as when an opponent us actually attacking the hurtboxes on their attacks will be hit by the shield.

3

Shadow Counter > combo > PB Ender > HK Followup

Second HK shot is broken consistently in the lab.

The situation I was in when I noticed it also involved a poorly timed grenade explosion before the toss of PB, and I am 90% certain it was actually the first shot that got broken, but I am having a little difficulty recreating the moment in the lab.

EDIT:
I kind of thought how good projectile invincible shadow moves are could have a lot to do with it. Considering this, projectile status could significantly impact its overall usefulness. Definitely more than remembering than Hisako can Vengeance it does. An unfortunate, tiny side-effect that I can live with and file into the ‘quirk’ category, then.

Thanks for the welcome and the helpful input.

1 Like
4

I definitely can’t replicate this. Can you post a video?

5

OH MY GOSH I’M SO SORRY!!!

I figured it out and am so embarassed at my noobiness.

So, in my haste, I skipped over the “first breakable window” of double/linker after the shadow counter. The TRUE breakable gun situation is:

Opener > PB Ender > HK Followup

I think that the PB of the Opener/Ender may be qualifying as a grab (as if from neutral) and is therefore (maybe) unbreakable, making the HK sequence engage the ‘every combo must have at least one breakable window’ rule.

Sorry for wasting y’alls time. Thanks for putting up with my nonsense for a minute! I’ll edit the OP to reflect this.

Also, Infilament - you’re the man. If it weren’t for your KI guide, I don’t think I’d’ve been able to follow along nearly as effectively, and definitely wouldn’t be where I’m at (after 3 weeks or whatever it’s been; I’ve no illusions about how new to this game I truly am). Again, you’re the man.

6

In this case, the PB ender can also be broken by heavies. And yes, the gunshots can also be broken afterwards as well, which I guess gives us some insight into how they programmed this (the gunshots must be some type of special ender).

No problem re: “wasting time”, glad we solved it.

Also, glad you found my guide useful!

7

Yeah, sorry again about the ‘unbreakable’ confusion. I was testing with it set to break only heavies, assuming that it would break at the first available heavy - in these tests, using HK PB for the Ender - and it waits for the bullets before it breaks. Upon toggling the break-when to “All” it breaks the PB with heavies every time, regardless of PB strength. Weird.

It is most certainly breakable all the way through.

8

BUG or Design? I just realised that you can’t shadow counter projectiles with the shield active. I don’t understand the decision if its by design because everyones capable of doing it without shield, and you can’t gain any advantage without shadow countering.

9

That’s actually a pretty weird one. I haven’t checked/noticed, but does blocking projectiles damage the shield?

Granted, in most situations where SC’ing a fireball is a good idea (close-ish pressure situations), you could theoretically press a button through the fireball for a (discounting shield cost) meterless punish, it seems really counter-intuitive to do so (unless all of your habits have been built playing Arby, I guess).

Bug or design? @TheKeits

P.S. Man, I really do hate tagging IG staff, but I just don’t know who else could answer a bug vs. design question with certainty (unless it’s been answered in the past, as happened above).
So, sorry for bothering you, Keits.

10

All my Challanges from Arbieter have disappeared Instead, I now see the general challenges in his category. Because of this I cant get the challenge Achievements for this Character.

11

this one is probably well known. A bug with an ender while on nade. I’m not sure why this happened? Probably ender startup can be interrupted by grenade.

yeah. some kind of animation thing happens a lot with wall splat ender when Arbiter hits the knife into an air and opponents body is floating somewhere near. I kind of like this bug. But higher showed bug is pretty frustrating.

12

It looks like the 'nade popped mid-combo while you didn’t have shield up. It’s a little hard to tell what happened in that scramble without inputs, but it looks like you stuck him with another 'nade at point blank and then went for the throw. That’s not a bug, that’s just how 'nades work. Arby can always be interrupted by his own 'nade if you mistime your safety animations (throw, grab) and don’t have a shield to soak it.

Kind of impressed that you came out of that relatively unscathed. Tusk wasn’t thinking on his toes. Could’ve gone a lot worse.

But yeah, from what I see, that’s just the 'nade functioning as intended. Gotta mind the fuse.

13

Grenades can not interrupt arbiter during ender. And that’s the case. But Tusk got reset during this animation. so he could even punish me for this ender.