Hate (fighting) a character? Maybe try him/her out!

I think everyone on these forums have seen the numerous character complaints. People are saying that X character is “braindead” or “cheap” or “good at everything.” That the character takes much less effort to play than my character. That the character can win any match by spamming one supposedly amazing tactic.

The natural response to these comments is “git gud” or “practice.” Here’s my response:

Have you ever tried playing that character you hate?

No, I’m serious.

I’m not even suggesting you main or even pocket the character. Just take the character online for maybe 3 days and see how he/she feels, what is strong about him/her, what is working, what isn’t working. Then after you feel like you understand the character at a basic level, go ahead and drop him/her.

Now why would you waste 3 days of playing the game practicing a character that you despise? Wouldn’t you rather keep training your character that you are specializing in? You’ll probably learn more by doing that, right?

Wrong.

Me personally, I feel that the character knowledge you can gain from playing a character is very valuable. You will likely find that the character has gaps in their offense. That one tactic they have isn’t as strong as you originally thought. That the character gets pressured easily. That there is a counter pick for the character you never knew about. So many things you could learn to help you fight against the character can be learned in a very short amount of time.

Maybe you’ll actually find the character extremely enjoyable to play, but that’s just a potential bonus.

Just a personal note here. Like many other forum members here, I have seen so many knee jerk, uneducated complaints about characters. I’m not going to give specific examples for the sake of not offending anyone or challenging their opinions. But 90% of the time when I read them I think, “If you ever actually played the character, you wouldn’t be making this complaint. Heck, you might end up saying the opposite.”

I just hope people who read this try out my strategy. I’m just trying to give helpful advice, and I don’t think I’m asking for much.

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Wlel training mode is available mode…whether or not the masses use it…that’s a good question. Hell the combo-breaker training is available…how much you wanna bet that’s rarely used?

I despise fulgore. I played fulgore. I had to wash my hands from the controller after.

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Lol. Tell us how you really feel dul :smile:

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If I did I’d be banned like MarsDarkShinobi

I have played more than 200 games with each character. I tried to understand them.

There are characters I dont like to fight against, but thats only me and my personal preferences.

IMO the balance among the cast its very good, and people should stop downplaying their characters and try to see the big picture. Of course there are things that should change, but not rework a character because you dont like it

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I feel like I made it to the promise land. But then I realized that I didn’t want to do it this way. I felt evil. I’ll never cloud my heart like that again. Fulgore is to god tier lmao

Regardless of what I said before this is a great discussion and I think you’re right.

This is exactly what I did during S1. I hated Orchid’s guts but after playing with her for a bit found out that she was a lot of fun to play as.

I need to do this with Riptor and Wulf. I don’t usually like Back Forward characters but their mix ups and pressure give me fits.

I had to do this in order to understand some of how to counter Hisako’s season 2 gameplan. Not much changed in the transition to season 3, but yeah, I for a while, I played as her to understand both her strengths and weaknesses. She was probably the most frustrating matchup in season 2 for me to take on.[quote=“SonicDolphin117, post:1, topic:13500”]
Just a personal note here. Like many other forum members here, I have seen so many knee jerk, uneducated complaints about characters. I’m not going to give specific examples for the sake of not offending anyone or challenging their opinions. But 90% of the time when I read them I think, “If you ever actually played the character, you wouldn’t be making this complaint. Heck, you might end up saying the opposite.”
[/quote]

Unless it’s about Eyedol…cause that j.HP.

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Heh. Eyedol’s got a bit more wrong with him than just jump+hp…

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I’ve done this with several characters that tend to give me problems. Saberwulf is a notable one because I didn’t understand his flipout and would get flat out murdered by it…now it’s a non-issue. Also Thunder’s Sammamish->MK long distance jump…I have a better understanding of it now.

Hisako though, yeah I still can’t read her combos well enough to break them consistently…

I play ever character in every fighting game I own. I’m level 50 with every character in KI and I can honestly say the only character I hate now and have ever hated is Thunder. I hated him in the original too, his design, story, gameplay, challenge to fight against… it’s all one big bore to me. That being said, I’m still level 50 with him, and can comfortable jump in and use him anytime. So aside from Thunder, I feel positive about every character in this KI.

SFV is a whole other story… Aside from Ibuki and Juri, I simply don’t care for anyone in that game. It’s to slow and all the characters feel too vanilla. Ibuki and Juri are the only charters that have interesting tech, a multitude of tools, and a play style that intrigues me.

BlazBlue and Guilty Gear have always been flawless IMO and I have no gripes with any of the characters.

Injustice, MK9, and MKX I like all the character design and stories, but the gamplay is too slow and clunky for me to get any enjoyment out of playing them. MK4 - MKVSDC were all craptastic games that turned me off to the MK franchise, so that probably doesn’t help my opinion on NetherRealm games either.

Tekken, I like about 70% of the characters in TTT2, but there are too many goofy and clone characters for me to love or like them all.

Soul Calibur, the only character I can really recall hating is Dampierre … mostly through bad design. like FANG in SFV Dampierre doesn’t dress, behave, talk, or fight like a rational character in his position would. It’s like they’ve thrown a bunch of random elements together, or purposely went out of their way to make a character that doesn’t fit within the games universe at all.

King Of Fighters, has had a lot of cheap boss characters I’ve hated fighting against, but I feel pretty positive about the playable cast. Design and story wise there are duds here and there, but I never felt like there was a character that didn’t fit or interact well with other characters in battle.

Dead Or Alive, Akira is the only character that frustrates me to play as, since most of his combo strings are 2-hits that leave the opponent in hit stun. I can’t jump in and start playing as him unless I run through his full move set and combo tutorials first.

Virtua Fighter… never liked the series until VF5. Up until then the characters where all to slow and the floaty jumps just felt stupid and out of place. I haven’t played VF5 in awhile, but aside from Akira I can’t recall anyone I dislike.

MVC2 was phenomenal… I still play it and play every character. MVC3 was and still is a broken over the top mess with sever balance issues. I haven’t touched MVC3 in years and have no desired to ever play it again.

Arcane Hearts and Persona 4 Arena are both fun to play, but there are a lot of characters that are dull or just plain stupid looking IMO. Nitro Plus Blasterz did a lot better in design (although all the characters came from Manga series). Everyone in NPB has a distinct style, lots of tech, and is fun to use.

Darkstalkers… The only character I never liked is Q-Bee, and mainly for design and color choices. I still don’t mind her game play wise.

Samurai Showdown… There are a lot of characters I hate using, mostly the larger slow ones like Earthquake and Kusaregedo. There are a few balance issues with the game overall, some characters don’t stand a chance agaisn’t others at all. I never paid much attention to the story, but design wise I thought everyone looked well and fit good in that universe. The Sen games wern’t very good, but I’d still like to see another Samurai Showdown game… or at the least additional Samurai Showdown characters as possible KOFXIV DLC.

And that’s all I can think of at the moment… :stuck_out_tongue:

I used to hate hisako, until she was put on the free rotation and I learned Ive been trying to break her rekkas when I thought they were auto-doubles.

This is part of why my profile card says “Try a Different Character”: Not because of the insult or to try to insinuate salt, but because it’s my personal motto.
I pride myself in having the entire cast up to Lvl50, so I have a basic understanding of what works and what doesn’t (though with many characters in definitely still learning). I find the best way to fight against a character is to use them yourself and find their weaknesses. Then you just need the matchup knowledge to find out how the character you’re using can exploit them.

Yeeeah, I have to agree with this thread, but since I haven’t had the funds to pick up season 3 (and the fact I find it the least appealing season character wise, though I’m semi interested in the bosses and Mira) I have real trouble fighting Gargos, Eyedol and to a lesser extent, Tusk.

I was fortunate to have a 2 hour lobby against a friend playing Tusk which helped me pick up some ideas of how to fight and interrupt him, which was incredibly useful, however I’ve not had such luxury with the aforementioned other two.

I’ve been almost perfected before by full screen Gargos players spamming the same portal punch over and over and find it difficult to pressure him back, though since I haven’t really seen a Gargos online since shortly after he was released I can’t really adapt to how he may have changed, and even on higher difficulty levels, the cpu doesn’t really play like a real player would.

Eyedol seemingly just powers through any attempt to counter him with j. hp and I’m beginning to wonder if my hitbox is suddenly the size of the whole screen when fighting him, though on lower level Eyedols or ones that aren’t abusing j.hp I’ve managed to get in and get some reasonable damage out, it still always feels like a losing battle though.

I considered picking up Gargos when he was on the free rotation but at the time I was more concerned with levelling whoever I was using at the time, I figured I’d have picked up season 3 by the end of the summer, but haven’t been able to justifiably drum up the funds, so there’s that.

I just brought Eyedol to level 50 for just this reason. I hated playing against him, so I wanted to learn his weaknesses and patterns. More than anything, I learned that those adjustment waves can’t come soon enough ;p

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You’re right.

Played Gargos to see his tools and setups to give me a better idea of how to fight him using Jago.

In the end, it’s not a match Jago can win. It’s brutal because I know the setups and how they do it but it’s just something Jago doesn’t have an answer for.

All the worse when he has his minions out and uses portal punches.