Maybe this should be under the dog’s character page, but if we’re giving direct feedback, especially following the Season 3 rebalance and prior to Season 3’s release, I figured this page would be the more relevant and recognizeable place to put this.
Now, I respect the utility of feral cancels, but it’s hard to argue that his instinct, as it stands right now, is still missing an excitement factor.
Please give him something else. Maybe give him a new special move opener/linker that hits harder to slightly offset the loss of his damage increase? Or maybe give players the ability to manually tie bats to the end of his wall splat ender (up to four depending on the level of the ender when you cash out)? Something along those lines?
I don’t know what the solution is, but I do hope that you guys look in to it and make some adjustments to him. I used to enjoy playing him, but as other, more exciting characters have come out, I feel like he’s technically sound from a utilitarian perspective, but just not all that fun and exciting a few years later.
I like that he got a new special move, even if it could stand to be a little flashier, but with his instinct as it is now, I still can’t help but feel like he needs more from a non-utility (call it “excitment” factor, if you must) standpoint.
My problem with his instinct is that it’s very anti-noob because it’s very hard for a new player to understand what happened after you activated instinct.
With most of the cast if you are a new player, activate instinct and mash buttons you’ll know what changed. There is no way to fail to notice that Jago now throws two fireballs, Glacius has armor, Aganos has a huge ■■■ club and so on. Maybe Orchid and Sadira are both the second harder to tell because you need to do a command but since this command causes a “projectile” to appear it’s not that hard.
But with Sabre you press HP+HK and he blinks white for a moment. What?!?!
The path between even knowing what it did and actually becoming proficient in using feral cancel is a harsh one.
I agree completely. Now that’s not to say that feral cancel in and of itself is a bad thing. I don’t think anyone, yourself included, would make that argument. It’s a good move from a utility perspective, even if, as you said, it’s not noob friendly.
Which is why the damage increase was so great. Not only was it fun to get this speedy rush down character powered up, but it was something that anyone, noob to master, could see when attacking. You knew you were doing more damage.
So to me, they took the fun, easily recognizable part out, left the mid/upper tier complex, utilitarian part in, and didn’t bother replacing the removed part with anything fun or recognizable.
For a long time Sabrewulf fan that used to love kinda hulking out and going berserk on opponents when Sabrewulf popped instinct, it’s just another in a series of substance over style, utility over fun approaches to this character that has really killed my hype for him and it’s a shame because he used to be my favorite in the old KIs and early in season one.
Can’t we have style and substance? Fun and utility? I want to like him, I really do. I love IGs character designs. So none of this comes from a place of anger. I just hope they work on him a bit more before season 3 comes out.
I’d almost prefer not having the instinct cancels and just keeping the damage buff. I mean, with his muscles getting so huge giving him an instinct damage bonus was more sensible.
Since they nerfed the Feral Cancels and general ender damage, wouldn’t it make sense to give him a bit of a damage bonus? I mean, if they gave him back the 10% or even just 5% percent damage it would still be considerably less damage than he’d get without instinct. He doesn’t need to do 60-70% 11 hit combos anymore, obviously. I think it would be a nice way to keep the character accessible if he kept some instinct damage.
Yeah, I’m right there with you, or even giving him the ability to tack on extra damage in certain situations while in instinct. I mentioned fire bats above, and being able to tack them on combo enders manually, but I’m by no means married to that idea or the use of fire bats in general.
I’m mainly just trying to think of a way that his instinct could be more fun and compelling for players of all skill levels.
I agree with most of what has been said. New players are going to have no idea what his instinct does and why it’s good. Why not give him a shadow Jago type ability where he can spend all of his instinct to do a difficult to land command throw of sorts and shred his opponent to pieces. That would give him a noob friendly awesome factor while still making it better for him to use feral cancels at high level play much like shago’s instinct and shadow linking. Just a thought.
Couldn’t agree more. That’s a perfect idea and it’s exactly what I’m getting at here. Something for everyone. I’d also probably add “compelling” in there as well. While feral cancels can be really fun and useful in high level play, lower level players are basically left with chip damage, which doesn’t exactly scream compelling. I get that it’s useful, but again, I’m not just looking at utility and how useful their moves are when I’m selecting a character. I’d like to have some fun as well and sorry to be blunt about it, but his instinct is now less fun as a result of the lost damage buff.
I really hope that they find something fun and compelling to replace it with, whether it’s a go-for-broke throw like you’re suggesting, a situational damage buff like the manual bats on enders I was suggesting above, or a not so go-for-broke special move that can be accessed during instinct only or something else entirely.
Fc is good but is it really good enough to warrant removing his damage bonus,when he already had his damage nerfed more than anybody? I think not. It’s like they don’t know what to do with sabrewulf in their system. They obviously have a thing against awesome random cross up characters and so they are trying to make sabrewulf fit their system.
I don’t mind what they have him doing in season 3, but I still think there’s enough room to have it both ways without breaking him. Give him something fun and easily accessible to all skill levels that allows him to do a little more damage, but in specific situations in his instinct while keeping the more utilitarian, more skillful option of FCs.
Exactly, I am a casual player that has followed the game for a long time now. Always is his name connected to nerfs and I have now no idea what his current selling point is. At a pro level he might be a monster but at my level other factors are taken into account (not just damage output)…so yeah, nice idea, imo.
His instinct needs that passive effect. Otherwise, Sabre will only be useful for top players. You gain nothing if you aren’t high level player. Chip damage is not enough.