Call of the sky

Hype beam. You saw the evo finals with Fulgore zoning him out nonstip? Thunder needs a way to get in.

A solution, perhaps; what if COS gave Thunder some kind of lightning shield which would destroy a single projectile on impact? It could be a carbon-copy replacement for the current COS, with or without the dash as needed for balance.

This would let multi-hitting things like Devastation Beam or Riptors flame breath bust the shield with the first ā€˜tickā€™ and then hit Thunder, but could destroy regular fireballs/Sadiraā€™s aerial projectile/scarabs/possibly Aganosā€™ stones or even Ariaā€™sā€¦ whatever that is when it connected with him, using the same properties as Aganosā€™ flick, or maybe Super Armor (where he would take chip damage). Fulgoreā€™s normal laser attack would break, but only the first hit of his S.Plasma Bolt would - the other two would be dangerous as normal.

Because this wouldnā€™t proc against regular attacks, only projectiles, Thunder could only use it to avoid projectiles. This could help him to fight against zoners, where he struggles, without (I think) overbalancing things.

Hmm. Possibly. It needs to help with the Fulgore zoning situation though. Perhaps a sort of Nash V-Skill? A fireball absorber that uses meter to use? It needs to be something that can help him get in on Fulgore. I feel as if thst is very important.

Iā€™ve noticed you care an awful lot about that matchup, but everyoneā€™s going to have bad matchups - Fulgore just happens to be Thunderā€™s bad matchup.

Look at my Aganosā€™ - heā€™s got bad matchups with Fulgore, Sadira, Mayaā€¦

That being said, if anything, I do think the devs need to have a good look at Fulgore - heā€™s a jack of all trades like Jago, but better in a lot of ways. He doesnā€™t really specialize in anything - heā€™s just above average at virtually everything.

Think about it, he can do/has:
auto-triples
a reactor thatā€™s basically auto-shadow
variable projectiles w/lots of mixup potential
special cancels into other specials
multiple teleports
a ā€œsuperā€ move (the hype beam)
gains better movement, dash-in and dash-out speeds
a multi-hitting, invincible start-up DP
can speed up/re-charge his reactor

Sounds a bit OP or too versatile if you ask me.

Bad match-ups are fine. However extremely bad match-ups are not. Thunder has NO way of getting in on a full meter Fulgore at all unless he gets hit by the super. I personally feel that if the hype beam can only be used in instinct but it does 35% damage and 10% potential damage,it would solve this. I donā€™t think this is the right place to discuss this as this a Thunder thread so lets move on. Plus my thoughts on Fulgore would probably be biased anyway. On topic,Thunder just needs a way to get in which CoTS might do or Fulgore needs a nerf on his keepaway.

Might be worth starting up another thread specifically based on the matchup, because Iā€™d be interested in talking about it more.

Thunder section or Fulgore Section?

I honestly believe that Thunder v Fulgore is not as bad as you say. Iā€™m by no means a Thunder main but I do have him at level 50 and spent some quality time learning him and his match-ups. Iā€™ve fought very strong/zone heavy Fulgoreā€™s that happen to have full meter at the time as well, and if the match is played with good patience you only need one or two good punishes to be ahead with Thunder.

Thatā€™s really the idea behind Thunder in my opinion. Heā€™s got very limited mobility and his jump is punishable beyond anyone in the cast. So youā€™ve really gotta sit back, take it in the rear, and take advantage of the opportunities that you WILL receive.

Besides everyone knows that the worse match-up in the game is Aganos v Fulgore :smirk:

Thunder, considering weā€™re discussing how Thunder can deal with the Fulgore matchup.

Good God, I hate that matchup so much. That being said, I recently learned of a good anti-Fulgore strategy with Aganos - itā€™s really easy to do too! Simply put a wall directly behind you and stay there. This discourages a lot of potential setups that Fulgore could use with his teleport, as it IMMEDIATELY corners him. Do this with chunks and his options become even more limited. Otherwise, simply be patient, stay on the defensive, find an opening, and strike where it hurts. Even better, itā€™s also a very good strategy with any character who uses a teleport.

ā€¦that being said, SWD is right - you kind of have to do the same thing with Thunder- be on the defensive, wait for an opening, bide your time, gain some shadow meter, and then strike where it hurts. Donā€™t forget that Thunder has very long reach, CotS, armor on his shadow triplax, and other great properties to almost all of his moves.

IMO though, if you let Fulgore get to full meter in the 1st place, than youā€™re not playing Thunder right or effectively enough.

As for the Aganos strategy,I have a perfectly good counter to that after analyzing. Teleport in front of you instead:) My mixups still work fine. Plus I get a free wall splat ender into a hard knockdown into another mixup which by then,the wall should be destroyed if done right. Thunder cannot be pressured by Fulgore at any point in the game. If he does,full meter Fulgore appears.

Join me in tonightā€™s test stream and weā€™ll see what happens on both accounts (Thunder/Aganos vs. Fulgore). I want to see this for myself.

I canā€™t due to school tommorrow.

Iā€™m sorry, but I canā€™t stay silent on this one.

Yes, patience is needed with a number of Thunderā€™s matchups, but none so extreme as this one. This match not only calls for patience, but precision as well, practically bordering to perfection. The reason being as not only does Fulgore have major advantages in zoning, but higher than average mobility as well. Until Cinder came out, I played Thunder exclusively, and I played lots of Fulgore players in that time. While you may have an opportunity for damage once in a while, Thunderā€™s options to approach are extremely limited and a just as opportunistic Fulgore will expect the opponent to walk you into corner pressure. Fulgore, next to Kan-Ra maybe, has one of the best lame out game plans at his disposal as well, which is what he will defer to at this point.

Between having fast fireballs with little recovery (cancellable at that), and a multi-fireball that can push out faster than Thunder can gain ground, Eye lasers with great range and anti air capability and aerial push back to make failed DPs safe, as well as his precision teleport and his incredibly fast moving and recovering backdash, and at full meter a jump in marks you down to eat one hype beam, Fulgore has the ultimate lame game. Even with patience and timing, and one good opportunity to get in on him, players who are good at breaking can quickly return to their life lead lame game, often at better position than before the combo began. Unless Thunder has meter for his Shadow Sammamish, he has no reliable reversal to get Fulgore off of him for the offensive, so he can chip away, gain reactor speed, teleport back and other mixup tactics.

For Fulgore, he can choose offense mode or defense mode as simple as that and go back and forth in this matchup. If it doesnā€™t sound that impressive in words, then I recommend going back and watching the EVO 2015 Grand Finals with Guttermagic and Rico Suave. That was, without a doubt one of the lamest, most anti-climactic matches I watched that entire event. For whatever hype any player built up before that, it came to a halt during that single match, and serves as an example of just why this matchup is quite lopsided. For all of Aganosā€™ problems with the match against Fulgore, he at least has some tactics to deal with him and his runaway. Given the incredible range of some attacks, his impressive arsenal of Shadow moves, his wall building abilities, Fulgore has no choice but to go on the offensive or else. In the Thunder matchup, he has no reason to respect any of Thunderā€™s tactics. Even Thunderā€™s instinct fails to give Fulgore any real reason to fear Thunder.

To be even more honest, I donā€™t think either version of Call of Sky effectively deals with the problem, and hope Thunder is actually one of the reworked characters theyā€™ve mentioned. For all the help the move gives, the lengthy duration of the moveā€™s animation makes it difficult to set up and not get punished for it or sacrifice better opportunities for it. Neither version, after a lot of play, really alleviated the real problems he had. Heā€™s like Aganos without all the really good tools. I liked Thunder a lot, Iā€™ve maxed him out and got all 220 challenges with him. He remains as the top character in all my stats, but after Cinder came out, I loved the freedom and mobility the character gave me, as well as the setups, the mixups, the offense and defense I never had before, and for all the damage nerf I took in the switch to a new character, the advantages of Cinder heavily outweigh the ones I could think of with Thunder.

Basically Thunder at the moment is like SF4ā€™s Bison. He requires LOTS of patience and thought, setup, precision, and his tools seemed underpowered in comparison to a large majority of the cast. Even with superior damage, he has little chance to use them in this fight.

I have to disagree with you on this one. You can not help Fulgoreā€™s meter gain in this match. Not just because of his instinct, but also because Fulgore has a powerful pressure game, and while it may cost a pip or two at first to get going, once itā€™s going, itā€™s difficult to stop. Fulgoreā€™s meter gain being what it is can be both a strength and a weakness depending on matchup, but in this one, it hardly feels like Fulgore has be too concerned with his meter.

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I already developed a counter to that counter. Since making the Wall behind me WILL change a fulgoreā€™s playstyle and reduce the likelihood of using fierce teleport depending on where I place my wall. Since you are more likely to teleport only under the timer or under the opposite life bar of my Wall. You can try your mix-up but My tumbling Rock will blow through it 99% of the time. There is no way you can avoid this rock AND get your mix-up. You must block, shadow cyber dash, or jump which will ruin :smirk: your mix-up and make you play more Honest.

Also most players forget Fulgore is not invincible during the disappearance and reappearance of his Cyberport. You can Meaty him, the Delay of Online makes his Teleport seem Safe during Ranked but offline itā€™s very punishable. So since you are only teleporting under the timer or the health bar opposite my wall then flicks and rocks will blow up the mix-up, and the Closer the Wall and Me and You are to the Corner :grinning: the less you can do in terms of trickery.

P.S. Fulgore is still a Monster without Teleport mix-ups, He couldnā€™t quite use these Mix-Ups in S1 to this degree at all and I still kicked alot of ā– ā– ā–  with him. So this is only a counter to the counter of his mix-up which Fulgore can still do for almost Free and Aganos needs resources and space to set-up a Wall. So donā€™t get me wrong Fulgore base stat wise destroys Aganos. Chunk Management, Spacing, and Defense/Yomi will get you to High Places in this MU. Mind you those are advanced strats and skills I just mentioned, the casual player will have a hard time.

Very well-thought post, and it matches up to a lot of my personal thoughts about Thunder. He definitely can output a lot of damage, but I feel like he needs help with not only getting in, but STAYING in, considering there are a lot of characters with (I believe) invincible or super fast wakeups (DPs, Eclipse etc) which can take Thunder down, teleports, and zoning abilities to run away or keep Thunder away. Iā€™d like to see some things changed, but I like the way his combos work, so I hope his damage and combo strategy wonā€™t take too big of a hit.

I think I would place Thunderā€™s worst matchups as Kan Ra > Fulgore > Jago > Glacius > Spinal in descending order. Those are definitely my most difficult fights, anyway. I hated to see Guttermagic lose that final match at EVO due to a counterpick, because I felt like he lost more because of the character matchup than because he was actually outplayed. That guy does amazing things with Thunder that I WISH I was capable of.

In my mind, Thunder is a lower tier character, not because he doesnā€™t have the ability to win or compete, but because of the discipline and skill you have to have to really use his full potential.

I could see where Kan-Ra and Fulgore give him trouble, but Jago, Glacius and Spinal arenā€™t really that bad.

Jago may have his zoning tools, but given his only runaway is mostly jumpback, heā€™s not that hard to deal with. Youā€™ll run into novice Jagoā€™s who try to play him like heā€™s SF4 Ryu with the jump back strategy and try to surprise you with random wind kicks and overheads, but no real offensive pressure. Thunder isnā€™t at a big disadvantage in this fight, even with low mobility. Most Jagoā€™s, if they know what theyā€™re really doing, will try to use a strong footsies game with some endokukens to keep you close but not too close, where they can anticipate normals and begin some double roundhouse (forward + HK) pressure strings and frame traps, and will be slightly more defensive when they lack life lead.

Glacius, for all his zoning game is, his low mobility and easily anti aired kicks donā€™t help him that much. Itā€™s the mid screen to close you have to be careful, and the fact that most will always use the ice ball as a failsafe so if they are opened up, you get hit by the ice ball and are knocked out of the combo. For a zoner though, he plays a lot like a rushdown between his unblockable and his shoulder tackle, but keeping them close to you for combo isnā€™t really a challenge, itā€™s finding the ā€œholesā€ in his special move patterns and using them to your advantage.

Spinal, his zoning isnā€™t great at all, but most of the good ones I play tend to really rush after getting skulls and put constant pressure with wild attack patterns. But during teleports heā€™s extremely vulnerable to command grabs, and except for certain specials, Thunderā€™s normals outclass most of Spinalā€™s stuff too. To me, this matchup actually feels in Thunderā€™s favor more than Spinalā€™s. I could list a lot of stuff on all these matchups, but I run the risk of making a wall of text like earlier.

To me, Kan-Ra is a climb uphill, but Iā€™d take him over Fulgore any day. Kan-Ra only has decent mobility with his sandtrap launch and his sandsplash, moving him around, otherwise heā€™s slow and floaty. Thunder also doesnā€™t seem to have much problem destroying the projectiles he leaves behind either. His DP covers ridiculous ground and really tears holes in the projectile screen the mummy leaves behind.

I should have been clear - my list was not specifically ā€œzoning onlyā€ issues, but the list of characters I have the most trouble with as Thunder. Jagoā€™s ever-safe strings and instant DP are a major problem for me specifically, and I think his life gain in Instinct is utter garbage. Heā€™s the cause of the vast majority of my losses, and also enjoys the distinction of being the most used character I run into. JOY!

Glaciusā€™ Hail does cause me a lot of trouble, along with his near-full screen hits. When I get in close, I often struggle against Liquidize->Puddle Punch/Cold Shoulder, but I would say at that point itā€™s a toss up whether I will be able to stay in and take him down. Iā€™m also not great at visually recognizing and breaking a lot of Glaciusā€™ attacks, as I donā€™t fight him too often.

Spinal isnā€™t too much of a problem with zoning specifically, but blends some aspects of Fulgoreā€™s teleport with both zoning and unpredictability. I feel like I win a decent amount of matches against him, but when a Spinal match goes bad, it goes REALLY BAD.

KR and Fulgore are definite struggles, unless Fulgore decides to stay toe to toe and doesnā€™t run away or teleport much. I hope to see some adjustments made to these matchups with Season 3.

TL:DR - I know Iā€™m nowhere near being a pro, probably donā€™t deserve to be in Killer, and have a ton to learn about the game and matchups still, but Thunder has definite matchup problems, some which are inherent and some which are my own struggles. Hopefully Season 3 has some answers.

The mix up is still there without the cross up. A fireball teleport in front into an overhead,low,or grab. I never do raw teleports.(unless in rare cases when I do a teleport into a grab where I am fighting an opponent I know canā€™t counter it) Most people underestimate his fireball mix ups. A fireball into a teleport into an overhead? Low? Grab? People are almost never ready for it.