Cinder lights your anti air button on fire, and your looking at a long time where he can just fly wherever he wants, plant bombs to get ridiculous setups, and put you through a blender where you’re defending for 5- 15 seconds straight.
As if that’s not powerful enough, when he does open you up, instant level 3 or 4 cash out with a 1 chance break. (Eerily similar to a complaint some had with Jago. Combo end > open > instant level 3)
And for the icing on the cake… if he had a bomb on you, or used an ender that allows him to continue the combo, you have so little CV on you, that he can continue into more damage, or ANOTHER round of burning your limbs.
This, plus his above average zoning, is a little much.
Much like Jago used to be, I don’t think he is crazy broken, I just think some adjustments should be made. Take a little from his zoning and PD build.
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bombs don’t chip, and do less damage. They are already VERY good set up tools that open up juggle combos, as well as being utilities in throws and OTG. They don’t need to also be used to cheese out the end of matches.
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Low inferno hits 3 slow times, making it shadow counterable. It’s already unpunishable on block (afaik), and comes out crazy fast, so at least let a good player spend meter to punish it if they get a read on it.
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“fan the flames” mechanic change: instead of resetting the time you’re burning by pressing a button that has been “burnt out”, you just add a decent chunk of extra PD to the current amount. This would mean that FAILURE to take back momentum with a burned button would still be a huge punish for cinder, but SUCESS would more often lead to you removing most of the PD. (Currently, success and a full combo will still leave you with a lot of PD to worry about.)
Insult all you want, but this is my thoughts, and I’m willing to bet cinder will get some change soon. Maybe not even a nerf, but some kind of balance change / rework of a mechanic. In a short while, I’m sure tons of people will be very good with him because valoraxe has shown his potential. But that “potential” is definitely too much.
We’ve seen this same cycle with Sleep and gargos, Thompxson and Jago, Nicky and fulgore, Dayton and tusk. These characters take a LOT of work to get good with, but when a player DOES figure every little trick out, they uncover some issues that need changing.