I mean, even if there is a significant amount of nerfs in a patch, it’s usually consolidated into a few characters. Most characters only received bug fixes and very small adjustemts throughout the last few patches.
The characters that had a “bad patch” (just in terms of size of the nerf list, not their impact, please keep that in mind) in the listed patches were Jago, Arbiter, Fulgore, Thunder, Gargos, post-S3 characters (obviously, that’s basically par the course for new characters) and to a lesser extent Omen and Maya. It sounds hefty, and yes there’s definitely been a lot of adjusting throughout the season. But like I said, the big changes have been confined to about 1/4 of the roster. Over the course of over half a year.
So I just think it’s ridiculous to look at a character that’s gotten 3 bad patches in a row and then use that experience to predict the future of a character that has gotten buffed little by little throughout the season.
Alright, just to throw this out there since people don’t seem to want to let it go. One of the reasons I’m opposed to nerfs in all their forms is that people are invariably way off the mark. And people are way off the mark with Glacius too.
Since the last patch people are off the wall complaining about Glacius’s damage. In response to this the majority view is either “nerf his damage” or “nerf cold shoulder” so he is taking more risks to open me up. But neither of those things changed at all with the last patch and so they can’t be the source of these new complaints. (As an aside, the chief complaint against Glacius used to be his unblockable. That hasn’t changed either but suddenly no one cares…)
So what changed that has led to everyone losing their ■■■■ over Glacius’s damage? It sure wasn’t cold shoulder. I will tell you exactly what happened. They gave his heavy puddle punch true invincible reversal status. This is unbelievably useful for a character that struggles with close range defense. Because it’s not insanely damaging people just shrug it off and focus on Glacius’s damage. But it’s directly related. Glacius used to have to hold on to meter for shadow puddle punch to use as a true reversal. Now he doesn’t. Anyone notice you simply don’t see shadow puddle anymore? Because it’s a waste of meter. What these means is that, much like Thunder when they made his DP a true invincible reversal, Glacius now always has meter to use for in combo damage. So players are using it. It’s rare to score a lockout with Glacius and not have at least one bar of meter and it almost invariably makes sense to spend it on damage - the only exception being the specific matchups @SonicDolphin117 mentioned where shadow shatter is useful. So it’s nearly automatic that you go for the damage. I used to agonize over keeping a bar in reserve for a reversal because is defense was so bad otherwise.
So if all you chuckleheads are worrying about Glacius’s damage you need to be begging for them to nerf heavy puddle punch not cold shoulder. While the cold shoulder knock back seems important it’s an illusion. Any Glacius worth a damn is only doing cold shoulder when you don’t expect it because they want to actually hit you, not get blocked and reset to neutral. Plenty of moves stuff cold shoulder and in lots of matchups it doesn’t leave Glacius in an advantageous position on block anyway.
So now you know. The only nerf worth even asking for is to heavy puddle punch. All of the complaints about Glacius right now come directly from there - not from moves and damage that have not changed significantly since season 1.
Its easy to say that when your character wasn’t one of those. Also, I’d add spinal to that list with his redesign going into s3. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I DO think s3 is all about nerfing what’s strong, and currently glacius appears to be very strong. He’s got good damage, great range, a good instinct, and cold shoulder is very hard to punish (and basically impossible to punish online). Not to mention there are multiple strong tournament players who use him. I honestly think lesser things have been nerfed so far in s3 so I’d be surprised if he kept ALL of his tools at this point.
While I won’t deny what you said, I stand by the fact that Fulgore should’ve only had his vortex removed and everything else left in place. Instead what we got was vortex was left and literally everything else was nerfed. I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if Glacius kept his heavy puddle punch and lost a bunch of other things. Its in line with IG s3 balancing.
This is what I’m talking about. Everything you say here was actually the same or better prior to season 3. Glacius’s instinct got decidedly worse with the changes to armor rules (although everyone ignores that), and the teleport punch is cool but easily countered by anyone willing to spend even a little bit of time learning the matchup. Why does cold shoulder suddenly need to be more punishable? And why would you think that is what is going to change the matchup for you?
Edit: as far as Fulgore it’s just a difference in how you view the character compared to the developers. Nothing to be said about that, but not being what you want is radically different than being useless. If they nerf cold shoulder and reduce Glacius damage but leave heavy puddle punch I will probably not even notice a difference.
Because the top characters have been nerfed, Glacius is NOW a problem. He might not have been before, but he’s clearly one of the best of what’s left. I could make the exact same argument about taking things away from Fulgore that he’s had for a long time. It really doesn’t matter. The fact of that matter is that with the strongest characters weakened, Glacius is one of the better characters now.
I’m not a huge believer in tier lists but I don’t really see any changes that have moved Glacius up in the power rankings. He’s a strong character and has always been strong. But KI has tons of strong characters and being truly competetive with Glacius requires a lot of really difficult setups that most people (including me) are really not capable of.
I think S3 is about buffing the weak too. Humor me and let’s say we ignore the S3 launch patch and start right after it.
Sabrewulf, Spinal, Sadira, Kan-Ra got hit pretty hard by the launch patch. Kim Wu was also easily one of the weakest characters at launch in the game’s history IMO, and Raam had a lot of struggles at the start too. These characters have been getting almost nothing but improvements since S3 began or since their launch.
Meanwhile the opposite happens. The S3 launch patch may have not done enough to normalize characters like Jago or Fulgore, and may have even gone overboard with characters like Thunder. Rash, Gargos, and Eyedol released quite strong. All these characters have generally been getting toned down.
And so it goes.
I play around with a lot of characters, with Maya being one of them. She hasn’t had much fun with patches this season either.
Stop claiming to know how their methods of balancing work. You clearly don’t.
The buffs to liquidize make it better than before hands down IMO.
So therefore he needs to be nerfed? There always needs to be characters at the top, you know.
It might be worth noting that Maya has been getting nerfed hard ever since she was put into the game. The nerfs she got in S3 were nothing compared to what she got in S2 IMO.
No. Its about nerfing what’s stupid. Gargos getting a 20% unbreakable on top of a hard knockdown on top of getting a free minion and set up was stupid.
Omen being able to manual his lightning legs in the corner off a throw with no way to tell them apart was stupid.
Fulgore having a safe multi hit low that he could chain off of his overhead and abuse it was stupid.
Maya getting what she got off her juggles was stupid as was her backdash easily escaping most meaties.
Thunder in general was the candidate for captain brainless as was Jago. All of these characters are still strong ( I know you think Fulgore sucks but lemon hunter beat me in a set post 3.8 and Nicky just won a set with him on bass’ stream against a very good player. So he’s still pretty ■■■■ strong.)
They just now have to be more thoughtful on some things.
That’s not a bad idea, tell you what, I’m going to wait till after the next patch, and if Glacius dodges the nerf hammer I’ll use him. No point in picking up someone new now when more nerfs might be incoming with the patch to fix the bugs Eagle created.
Wow that’s alot of posts. Didn’t think this would hit a soft spot lol. After reading everything I can say I don’t know the Glacius match up as much as I could. But even then my opinion having to work a little too hard to get in with certain chars still stands. The way I see it is Cold shoulder is the new Wind kick. I’m not a fan of half-screen/full-screen moves in fighters not being completely and obviously punishable. I know for new or even players who don’t lab and just like to hop on online wouldn’t know that depending on the Cold shoulder you could punish Glacius. But that knockback just makes it seem safe, especially if your character doesn’t have a fireball or a long ranged sweep of some kind. Hell sometimes even if your character does have a move to reach, the start/active frames of that move won’t make it in time to punish. I like what IG did with Wind kick and Cyber dash alot, Cold just reminds me of those moves before being patched lol.
It wasn’t my intention to start any forum arguements lol. My personal philosophy with game balance (I’m no dev so take with a grain of salt) is yes a character should be fun to play but I also think that char should be fun to play against almost as equally. Fun is subjective of course. I think everyone can agree not being able to play the game gets everyone salty. Kind of like how a lower or mid tier player goes up against a pro and can’t even press a button because the pro is just that good lol. With Glacius I just want it a weeeeeee bit less frustrating to get close with certain chars. No clue how to make it happen. But yeah that’s my two sense lol.
