I really like Arbiter’s carbine mechanic. It forces you to manage your resources and is very fun to use. Great for AA’ing, whiff punishing, and delaying hitstun till a grenade explosion without risk.
But all people seem to use it for is one chance unbreakables. And thus my topic starts.
I feel that players are not encouraged to use the carbine for anything but jump gun loops and getting that last bit of damage to finish off a round. And personally, I don’t feel that’s how the character should be played, since it has other great uses that are just not as good.
So here’s my suggestion:
Remove Arbiter’s ability to chain together as many jump gun shots as he pleases. Make it so that after one jump’s worth of shots (max of 3) he cannot jump again and continue the combo; he has to use a grounded normal or a grenade to continue it. This can be accomplished by potentially adding a height restriction to the jump gun attack, like you guys did with Maya’s mantis, to delay the next shot long enough for the opponent’s hitstun to end.
I feel that this suggestion may quell a lot of the hate regarding Arbiter’s design and would make the character less focused on vortex and more on neutral game, where I feel many of his tools are geared towards. I think that after a nerf like this he could get back his old carbine damage, making the carbine a great whiff punishing and AA tool again.
I always thought why not restrict him to one bullet per jump? I’m not sure how much they intended for his gameplan to revolve around it really. It’s an interesting dilemma for sure. Grounded shots are so negative though, even on hit
While I don’t have any particular issues playing against Arbiter, I do think he has some design issues. Carbine probably has too much flexibility and damage for what is essentially the fastest projectile in the game. The other issue I see with him, is that they made all these balance changes this season in an effort to make players choose enders based on damage, setup, etc., and Arbiter basically gets all of that with one ender and his combat evolved mechanic.
[quote=“Zcythe, post:4, topic:12910, full:true”]…and Arbiter basically gets all of that with one ender and his combat evolved mechanic.
[/quote]
Well…no, not really. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on the forums, arbiter really shouldn’t be exclusively using damage ender. In many cases doing so sacrifices vortex potential in exchange for a damage boost in the short term.
Just because arbiter players use enders sub-optimally, doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t be switching up between them.
On topic, I definitely agree with this idea. Arbiter has a lot of good uses for gunshots but it just seems that none of them measure up to the gun loop.
Everytime Arbiter releases three shots he should have to suffer an animation of a shell/capsule being used up and ejected out of the gun. No matter the order or time of which he shot these bullets.
If he shot 3 plasma bolts in a row he would suffer this animation. If he shot 3 shots within .7secs or 89secs of each other he would suffer the animation aforementioned. It shall be Written in stone, Arbiter will complete a shell casing eject animation after every third shot fired.
This Animation is only long enough that it leaves Arbiter 3 frame slower than the moment of recovery from the hit stun of the bullet. If you shot up close with a third bullet you are negative 3 from the moment your opponent recovers from said shot. I dont know the length of frames the hit stun on his gun is but on block he’ll be negative enough to eat a full punish.
This idea completely stops 1 chance loops of this style, makes people think more carefully on their Carbine usage, and it will open up way more useful strategies with the gun in my opinion. Increasing the idea of footsies which in my opinion is Arbiter’s true calling.
I don’t think this is necessary. This would pretty much make triple shots worse, and most people don’t even use them anyway. Also, only jump gun is plus on block and hit. Crouching and Standing is super punishable on block.
I really don’t think this is a great idea. I, too, wish people would play Arbiter to his full potential, but nerfs won’t necessarily force that. The damage ender nerf, for instance, still left it about 7% or so better than the bounce ender. People who used it exclusively before probably aren’t learning the overhead since the DE still comes out on top damage wise and you get a half decent set up (as opposed to great set ups off of the bounce ender but require some planning/reads/etc).
Nerfing the gun loop, I feel, would just punish those of us who already use the gun in the many ways it can by removing one of those options while those who just use gun loop and damage addition will proceed to just use it for damage.
I don’t see how the change punishes anybody who uses the carbine effectively. You get the old damage back, first off. You can still get 3 shots off before continuing (6 if you time grenade). So it’s not really removing an option. It’s just making that option less viable to encourage people to use it in other ways.
Which is an entirely different point, and only reveals the departure from their design intent. The statement is not that it’s the best or better option, but that they can actually accomplish more than just damage from the ender. Essentially his design has led to many players using him “sub optimally” because on some level they “feel” like they get damage and setup.
That’s the character’s design, though. If you have extra resources, you can use them. But Arbiter doesn’t always have access to those resources, so it’s risk.
The damage nerf wasn’t that bad though. It was approximately 10% before and now it’s approximately 8%. Noticeable, yes. Detrimental, no.
As long as we’re talking adjustments, I wouldn’t trade 2-2.5% extra damage for losing the gun loop which gives me a one chance 30% to finish out a life bar. I just don’t agree with completely eliminating one of his tools, in the gun loop, to get a little bit of damage back. And when I say gun loop, I don’t mean using the gun to start combos. That’s fine and should stay, just like numerous other characters that have unique ways to initiate combos.
And as far as addressing people’s design complaints, people complain about the gun loop AND the vortex. If you wanted to address the vortex, you’d need to do something about the grenade more than the gun damage.
-The gun loop isn’t “completely eliminated,” it’s just going to be limited to three shots.
-One chance 30% is stupid honestly, given that he has 18 shots and the jump shot starts super quick]
-That little bit of damage makes a big difference in the long term, especially on counter hits and whiff punishes
Yes, people complain about the vortex, but that isn’t as “free” or “easy” as the gun loop is.
Maybe I am missing the point. But I’ll leave it be. You’re one of the good guys on here and I’m not interested in derailing the topic.
Whatever happens to Arby, I’ll adjust. I guess I’m just hard headed because I don’t believe in most people’s nerf/buff discussions. There are very few things, almost nothing of which in this game, that are actually broken or lopsided. Too often you just need to put the work in to understand it and adjust your gameplay.
The issue with the gun loop is not that it’s broken or lopsided, it’s that it’s not interesting to watch or be on either side of in a match. Every single other use for the gun–far whiff punishing, blasting through projectiles, anti-airing jumps back, covering an air approach, stifling a ground approach, squeezing just a little more damage out of a combo–is more interesting than the gun loop. A big deal in KI is that unlike many other fighting games, most of the match time is a purely interactive experience, and gun loop is not. You spend a lot of time watching arbiter put shots in you and then there’s a one chance guess for high damage. Booooring.
I’m not saying the gun loop is a problem with the game that needs to be removed, but if it was, I think you would see more varied and more interesting uses for his resources in his matches.
